Yet he had some curious quality of charm. How easy, in spite of his defection, it had been to take him back into favour. It was true that she had caused him to feel anything but thoroughly reinstated.... And now she was going to return his wife's visit.—Heigho, what an odd world!
Madame de Vigerie had not seen Horatia, having been out when the bride had called, but Armand had described her. Evidently she was beautiful. But that, in the Vicomtesse's experience, did not count for very much, and certainly her own lack of beauty had never troubled her. Laurence de Vigerie was a finished type of the belle laide, dowered with the attraction which, once it has subjugated, can never lose its hold by the mere passage of time. Her power came from other sources than her complexion or her hair. Passing through life as she did, always a little amused, apparently rather cold, and inclined to experiment, elusive in her relations, absolutely without petty jealousy and very nearly without malice, she had given no cause for scandal, and had driven more men distracted than she cared, sometimes, to remember.
(2)
Horatia put down her embroidery and rose. She was dreading this interview. She was sure that she should not like Madame de Vigerie, and she would probably have to see a good deal of her.
Beneath the four upright ostrich plumes which topped her lemon-yellow bonnet, beneath its wide brim lined with Adelaide-blue crepe, Horatia saw the irregular features of the woman who might have been in her place. And Laurence de Vigerie beheld the chosen bride, the woman preferred before her, serious, rather pale, with a crown of red-gold hair and a simple muslin gown. "She is but a child" was her first thought (instantly corrected), and Horatia's, that the Vicomtesse was not beautiful, not even pretty, as she had expected. Among her gifts Madame de Vigerie possessed the double power of making the banalities of ordinary intercourse sound interesting, and of getting them over quickly, for in the course of a few minutes they had been left behind, and the two were conversing on more interesting themes.
"You read a great deal, Madame, do you not?"
"I used to," answered Horatia rather wistfully. "I have always been fond of reading French," she added.
"Yes, indeed," said Madame de Vigerie, "it is easy to see that your knowledge of our tongue is profound. Perhaps if you are not well provided with French books, you would allow me to send you over a few, I daresay the library at Kerfontaine is not very up to date. I know that mine is not, and I have to bring books from Paris. Let me lend you the new book of Hugo's which everyone is devouring, Notre Dame de Paris."
Horatia thanked her warmly, and the visitor went on to admire the garden and the fountain, "which I always envy so much," she said.
Horatia, too, looked out of the window at the little figure.