"Martha," said the Comte, surrendering his offspring, "never buy your bonnets at Herbault's. But you don't, I suppose."
"Certainly not, Sir," responded Mrs. Kemblet, in some indignation. "I makes them myself, Sir, not liking the French style, saving your presence.... Here he is, Mrs. Carry."
And, able then to ponder Armand's cryptic utterance, she stood staring after him as he left the nursery, and thought, "Poor young gentleman, it's pitiful! Well, wild oats, as the saying is, always come home to roost." Nevertheless, from that day she had softer thoughts of "the Count."
(3)
All these agitations had, as may well be imagined, reverberated nowhere more loudly than in the apartments of Victorine, Duchesse Douairière de la Roche-Guyon. During the crisis she had performed the customary miracle known as "rising to the occasion"; to her had come the terrified Armand, the distressed Emmanuel, and from the top of the house she had directed, as from a quarter-deck, the various manoeuvres which were to guide the family ship once more into smooth water. Now, a veteran admiral, she a little took her ease, though not relaxing her vigilance, for, to change the metaphor, there was something savouring of a mutiny below decks, and the mutineer was the English wife.
The Dowager had been far too much occupied of late to pay attention to that curious soul of hers, which seemed to crave for ghostly nourishment only when her body had received too much of material, and Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon, paying a call upon her this December morning, had not found her desirous of spiritual intercourse. He sat there now by her bedside, his fingers tapping gently on the box of Limoges enamel which enshrined her false teeth—but this he did not know—his thin, refined prelate's face a little flushed from the heat of the room after the cold outside, while the Marquis, leaning rather gloomily against the mantelpiece listened, like his cousin, to the venerable lady's denunciation of her favourite grandson.
"Not," said the Duchesse, with a fine liberality of view, "that I pronounce judgment upon his affair with Madame de Vigerie—that is more in your province, Prosper—but that I cannot conceive his not taking sufficient precautions to prevent the slightest whisper of it coming to Horatia's ears at this time. All Englishwomen are prudes, and he ought to have known what the effect would be. Heaven knows we do not want another secluded wife in the family ... No, Emmanuel, you know I do not blame you in the least ... That she will scarcely speak to Armand is natural, but it is not natural that she should refuse to take the slightest interest in the child. (Prosper, do leave off tapping your fingers like that!) As you know, it was never my wish that she should nurse it, but though events have made that impossible, I should at least desire——Ah, here is Armand himself. Good-morning, grandson!"
"Good-morning, bonne maman," said the young man, saluting her extended claw. "Good-morning, Prosper. I suppose you are sitting on my case as usual?"
"Do not be flippant, Armand," said the Duchesse with majesty. "You ought to be on your knees thanking the saints that the child is as healthy as it is, and that your wife is not in her grave."
Armand sat down with an air of resignation, and looked across the bed at Prosper.