"I do not know what you will say to my idea," began Horatia, standing in the midst of the rusty accoutrements. "I thought—but, of course, you will say if you do not like it—that all this armour could be cleaned, and cleared out and arranged along the corridors. There is not very much of it."
"And then?"
"Then ... if it were possible, this big room might be partitioned into two, or even into three, for nurseries. But perhaps you would rather not...."
It was a delightful subject for discussion, and Horatia was quite ready to discuss, even to give way altogether if he did not approve of her scheme, for she thought it might seem to him rather revolutionary.
"Mais, mon Dieu, for what do you take me?" asked her husband, laughing. "Do you think that I care where these rusty old pots are put? Turn them out anywhere you like, mon amie. It was not necessary to bring me up here to ask that!"
"But the partitioning——"
"Of course. It is an excellent idea. Do just as you like." And he turned to go.
"But, Armand, I thought you would advise me about that. You see, if the day nursery were at this side, where the sun ..."
The faintest shade of impatience appeared on the young man's face. "My angel," he said, "I am no expert on nurseries. You want a married woman—and a mason. Get Thiébault's people down from Paris to do it properly, if you like; or there is a good man at Rennes. I give you carte blanche, only you must not expect me to arrange it for you. Will you forgive me now—the gamekeeper is coming in a few minutes."
And Armand's thought was, as he ran down the stairs, that of all people he would least have expected Horatia Grenville to turn into a Martha of domesticity. No doubt it was a good thing for the prospects of his heir, but what if he were going to be pursued by entreaties for advice about this and that detail! He was not in the least disappointed in his marriage. He was a Frenchman; marriage was an affair of arrangement, not of rapture. He had been luckier than most, for he had had the rapture too. He possessed a beautiful wife, approved of by his family, who might be trusted never to put him in the always ludicrous position of the betrayed husband. He would also have an heir. If, now, his wife would but consent to settle down, after their brief idyll of passion, into the dignified mistress of his household, and would not make uncomfortable claims upon him, he need never regret having lost his head over her in Berkshire. Her perceptions must be much less acute than he had imagined if she could not see that the bonds of matrimony in her adoptive country held in a different fashion from those of her own. However, no doubt everything would right itself in time; if would be a good thing when the boy was born.