Horatia jumped. "O!" she exclaimed. Her eyes opened wide at him, and she could find no more to say.
"At least," went on the Comte, with entire tranquillity, "that is what you will probably be told sooner or later. And, after all, it is better that I should tell you myself."
Horatia was dumb. The yellowing paint of the panel behind Armand's head, with its impossible combinations of the flowers of every season, seemed to intensify the feeling of unreality.
"Did you ... did you...?"
"No, I did not. And I doubt if she would have had me in any case.—No, mon amie, your expression flatters me too much. But think, if I had! However, Providence sent me over to England in time..." His glance set Horatia's heart beating.
"Think, my angel," went on Armand, ticking off the links on his fingers, "think, if the King had not published the Ordonnances, there would not have been a revolution; if there had not been a revolution, His Majesty would not have fled to England; if he had not fled to England my father would not have accompanied him thither; if my father had not accompanied him I should not have gone over to see my father; if I had not gone over to see him..."
"O, did it need a revolution to bring us together!" cried Horatia, half laughing, half serious, for indeed effect and cause did not seem at that moment disproportionate.
"Or think," continued Armand, "that if my brother Emmanuel had not got to know that good Hungerford—what is it you call him, Tristan?—at the Embassy Ball..."
He went on developing his theme, but for a couple of seconds Horatia did not hear him. It passed over her, swift as the wind, that she had never so much as given a thought to Tristram since she left England—not so much as one thought.
"... So you see," she heard Armand concluding, "that it was very much an affair of chance, was it not?"