"I am very fond of it," she said, "and I wish I knew something of its history, for I believe that an ancestor of my husband's brought it from Italy, but I have never been able to find out for certain."
Madame de Vigerie gave her a bright and friendly glance. "I can tell you all about it," she was beginning, when the door opened and Armand came in.
He greeted her with composure. "Do not let me deprive my wife of the information which you were about to give her, Vicomtesse," he said. "Unless, indeed, it be some fashionable detail of which I am better left ignorant."
Madame de Vigerie's eyes, as they rested on him, held a little sprite of mockery which he knew very well. "We were discussing Art," she said gravely. "Since you permit it, Monsieur, I will continue. Madame la Comtesse is doubtless aware that her fountain is a copy of Verrochio's famous boy and dolphin at Florence. But you, Monsieur, have not told her how, in the Italian wars of Louis XII, Raoul de Kerfontaine, your grandfather heaven knows how many times removed on the mother's side, being desirous of bringing a fairing to his lady, decided on this not very portable mark of his affection; how it took so long to copy and to convey, that when he got back to Brittany the lady was married to another. So he set it up in his own garden and, I daresay, used often to wander round it in the moonlight, poor gentleman, thinking sad thoughts."
"Vicomtesse," said Armand laughing, "you have made that up!"
"Fi donc, Monsieur!" retorted the guest. "You do not know the history of your own family!"
"He is scandalously ignorant," agreed Horatia. "But, Madame, if I may ask, how do you know it so well?"
"Because," replied Madame de Vigerie, "by an odd chance, the lady of M. de Kerfontaine's blighted affections happened to be an ancestress of my husband's. I can show you the tale in a book at St. Clair—not of course that St. Clair in its present state existed then.... And so M. le Comte has never shown you, Madame, the inscription which the poor Raoul had carved on the base of the statue?"
"Never. But if you, Madame, would remedy his negligence?"
"Willingly," responded the Vicomtesse. "I am never so happy as when I am imparting information."