When the party met in the drawing-room before the midday breakfast, everything seemed arranged for the best, and Marcantonio rubbed his hands with delight, and made numerous hospitable gestures as he walked round the three lambs of his fold. Batiscombe rose and bowed low to Madame de Charleroi. She nodded pleasantly as to an old acquaintance, and gave him her hand. He turned a little pale under the sunburnt bronze of his face.
"I am glad to see you," said she. "I thought you had probably been shipwrecked in that boat of yours. It was in all the papers, you know."
"The sea would not be so ill-bred as to swallow me up before I had had the honour of making my homage to you, madame," said Batiscombe with a bow and a smile.
It is so easy to say pretty things in French, and as every one does it no one ever knows the genuine from the spurious. Diana was well used to Batiscombe's ways, and she laughed a little. But somehow Leonora did not like the speech. The English part of her revolted against a generality of gallant language, though her Russian blood made it quite possible for her to accept such things as genuine when addressed to herself.
Breakfast was announced.
"Mon Dieu," exclaimed Marcantonio, smiling at everybody, "it is the most charming quartette imaginable. But there arises a terrible question of precedence. I must evidently give my arm to my wife or to my sister. It is very grave. Mesdames, I pray you, select."
"Of course," said Leonora, "Diana is the guest. It is to her that you must give your arm; and Monsieur Batiscombe must console himself as he can."
Everybody smiled politely, as people do over the inanities of a very cheerful and hospitable host.
"Thank you," said Batiscombe in English, as he and Leonora followed the other couple into the breakfast-room at a little distance.
It became the duty of Batiscombe and the two ladies to make Marcantonio believe that they were all enjoying themselves and each other immensely; their duty it was—the sacred and unavoidable duty of society towards its entertainers. Batiscombe found the situation very unpleasant. Diana wished the week well over, and bore her part with the unfaltering serenity and cheerfulness that well-bred sovereigns exhibit when they are obliged to do some of the thousand disagreeable things that make up most of their lives. Leonora was beginning to be quite sure she could never like Diana. How could she like a woman who assumed airs of superiority? Diana was not in the least like the young ladies whom she knew in Rome, and whom, she promised herself, she would rule with a rod of iron now that she was married. And Marcantonio smiled and said all the pleasantest things he could imagine; and they were many, for pleasantness was his strong point. Batiscombe seconded him to the best of his ability, and every now and then reflected for an instant on the extraordinary position in which he found himself.