The Comte protested that he was desolated, at the same time managing to convey to the girl beside him, without either speech or look, that, for obvious reasons, he was nothing of the sort. But Miss Grenville, with a heightened colour, walked on in silence between them. She had no taste for exaggerated compliments; that foolish utterance about Paradise would not have been at all in good taste for an Englishman. But, of course, M. de la Roche-Guyon was a foreigner.
She had yet to learn that M. de la Roche-Guyon, born and partially educated as he had been in England, had a much less incomplete knowledge of English usage than he found convenient, at times, to publish abroad.
(2)
Armand-Maurice de la Roche-Guyon achieved, in the Rectory drawing-room, the impression which he never failed to make in any society. Man or woman, you wanted instinctively to be friends with him; he had so engaging an air of expecting it. And Horatia noticed afresh how intensely he was alive, and how little he tried to conceal the fact. She thought of the wooden, controlled visages of some of her male acquaintances, and contrasted them with his changing, vivid face, in which every feature, from the clear eyebrows to the rather mocking mouth, could express any shade of feeling from derision to adoration. Such foreign accent as he retained lent a charm to his fluent English, which, though apt to desert him at moments of crisis, carried him gallantly in ordinary conversation, and only required occasional help from a gesture or a French word. But, as he explained, he had been born in England, and therefore the English "th," the shibboleth of his countrymen, troubled him but little.
"M. l'Abbé Dubayet, who taught my daughter, never learnt our language properly, though he had been in England for a quarter of a century," remarked the Rector, commenting on his visitor's proficiency.
"So much the better for Mademoiselle, who speaks, I will wager, like a Tourangelle," responded the young Frenchman, with a little bow in Horatia's direction.
"Yes, she does speak well," said the Rector.
"Her friends complain, I believe, that they cannot follow her on that account," murmured Tristram.
"What nonsense!" exclaimed Horatia. "Do not think to flatter me into talking French with M. de la Roche-Guyon. I shall ask him the inevitable question in English: How do you like England, Monsieur?"
"Mais, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the guest, "how am I to reply to that? If you mean the country, Mademoiselle, it is not new to me; if you mean John Bull, it would not be polite of me to tell you how much he sometimes amuses me; if you mean the English ladies, you would think what I should say too polite, and you would not believe me."