Is it Captain Norroy's hand that restrains her? I asked myself, as I pondered over this result of my observations. Yet, if so, it seems very odd that no one except me should have discovered their attachment for one another. From all that I have seen and heard I should have thought that a young couple in society would never have managed to become spoons to any serious degree without giving rise to some amount of suspicion as to the true state of affairs between them. How ever can these two have contrived to deceive the lynx eyes of gossip-loving servants, and to hoodwink the worldly and wide-awake Lady Mervyn, whose heart is set on securing a brilliant match for her favourite daughter?
Lord Clement's behaviour towards Kitty after his arrival at Cannes seemed to me that of a man who felt himself to be on trial—was nervous lest she should think him over eager in his addresses, and objected to getting himself talked about with a girl who perhaps would not marry him after all. His first proceeding was to get introduced to Mrs. Rollin, who had till then been a stranger to him. The introduction was easily effected, and after that he had no lack of opportunities of meeting the object of his affections; for Mrs. Rollin responded cordially to his advances, inviting him to join in all the excursions to neighbouring lions which she and Kitty made, and letting it be apparent that he was most welcome whenever he chose to pay them a visit, and to accompany them anywhere.
I have no doubt that this civility of hers resulted, in the first instance, from something said by Lady Mervyn as to his admiration for Kitty, and the desirability of encouraging him as much as possible. But though this may have been the original motive of the empressement with which Mrs. Rollin received him, there was no fear of her not welcoming him for his own sake when once she had made acquaintance with him and discovered what he was like. For she was a person who held that the most important matter in life was to stand well in the world's opinion, and consequently she was quite charmed with his scrupulous regard for convenances and extreme horror of doing anything that could shock Mrs. Grundy.
"There's nothing of more consequence," Mrs. Rollin would declare, "than to keep up appearances, because, provided one does that, one is quite safe to be thought perfect. And that's what every one wishes to be thought, or, if they don't, they ought to. I call it quite wicked of any one to pretend that it doesn't matter what the world's opinion about them is. Depend upon it, that whatever the whole world thinks can't be wrong; and that if a person is generally condemned or praised, there's always some good reason for the blame or the approval."
Keeping up appearances in the eyes of the world was, therefore, her standard of perfection; and she strove zealously never to fall short of that standard, and always to fulfil its requirements punctiliously. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to deduce from this that she was such an abject slave of the world's opinion as to let herself be governed by it in things which it did not see. On the contrary, she drew a line between her public and private actions, and did not allow it to interfere at all with the latter. If she had tastes and inclinations to which it objected, she did not, on that account, sacrifice them, if it was possible that they could be indulged in secret. How she would act, under such circumstances, was illustrated by her behaviour regarding French novels. These she preferred to any other kind of reading, and greedily devoured as many as she could lay hold of. But as she knew that the world sometimes thinks fit to frown at an indiscriminate study of these books (who shall say whether that disapprobation is real or feigned?), therefore she was careful not to reveal her partiality for them. Yet she did not rush to the opposite extreme and disclaim any acquaintance whatsoever with that class of literature. She had no idea of hiding her light under a bushel, and not being duly credited with as many accomplishments as she possessed, and therefore liked to have it known that she understood a foreign language well enough to read and enjoy works written in it. So what she did was, to profess to read French novels solely with the laudable object of keeping up her French; while, at the same time, she was most cautious in talking about them in public, and never betrayed the slightest knowledge of the contents of any that were not fairly decorous and proper.
But I knew better than that. It was a matter in which her maid could not be deceived as easily as the rest of the world.
Bohemianism being an open setting-at-defiance of the world's opinion, was quite detestable to her, with all that savoured thereof; and the very correct Lord Clement was, of course, a man after her own heart. There was, however, a wide difference between the respective ways in which he and she regarded Mrs. Grundy. For while the gentleman had a genuine esteem for that great social authority, and paid her homage in all sincerity, Mrs. Rollin did it only in appearance, and was moved thereto chiefly by fear.
The room in which I slept was immediately over Mrs. Rollin's sitting-room; and by sitting at the open window in my room I could hear—when the weather was calm—most things that were said by people on the balcony beneath. Thus I overheard an interesting conversation as to plans which took place after we had been at Cannes for about as long a time as my two ladies intended to stay there. Where to go next, was the question they were debating. And as Lord Clement happened to call just then, Mrs. Rollin appealed to him to assist them with his advice in the matter.
His manner of complying with this request was eminently characteristic of him. Kitty's society was the object of his keenest desires at that moment, and he was averse to the idea of any movement that would involve his being separated from her. Under these circumstances, and considering the amount of encouragement he had received—especially from the young lady's chaperone—some men would have taken it for granted that their companionship was acceptable, and that it was a matter of course for them to accompany the two ladies to their next destination. Not so, however, would Lord Clement behave. Thus openly to attach himself to them as a travelling companion would inevitably give rise to gossip; and to do anything likely to be talked about as unusual was quite contrary to his ideas of propriety. Though the real object of his visit to the Mediterranean might have been Kitty, yet the ostensible reason had been yachting; and this pretext he had no intention of renouncing by leaving his vessel. In taking part in the discussion as to what our future movements were to be, he gave no indication of being personally interested in the matter in any way, and assumed the air of a strictly impartial adviser. At the same time, however, his opinion as to the desirability of places was in such remarkably exact proportion to their availability from the sea, that I listened with much amusement, and thought that the disinterestedness of his counsels might very fairly be doubted.
Various localities had been suggested and talked over without any determination being arrived at, when Kitty observed, "Now I've quite a new place to propose; and that's Corsica. I saw it looking just like a purple cloud resting on the sea the other day, and I have a great fancy to go and see it close. For one thing, there's no railway there yet; and I should like, for once in my life, to feel that I was in a land through which locomotives have never puffed. It would be an absolutely new sensation to me, and one which the present rate of civilisation will soon render unattainable, I expect; so I vote we experience it while we can. Besides, I'm sure it would be a good place for sketching. What do you say, Aunt Georgina? Don't you think it'll be pleasant to get away from this cockney old Riviera, and go a little bit out of the regular beaten track where every one goes?"