‘The silence has been long, François,’ she said, and smiled.
He still held her hand, and gazed at her curiously. She was not so changed as he, and if the years had thinned, they had not lined her face. At thirty-three, he even found her more attractive than at twenty. There was that about her which compelled interest, and gave an odd charm to the simplest speech.
‘Henriette, you have much to pardon me, and your indulgence will have to go still further than you dream. Ah, how vividly a forgotten past may bear down upon a man at the first sight of a familiar place! All my life down here had clean gone from my mind. This queer old house, your father, you, even Adèle, have been for me years past, not even a memory, much less a link with all that is gone. It is incredible how completely a man may forget. No regret, no remembrance pursued me in Paris, and the instant I crossed the bridge it all surged back on me, not as remembered days, but as the actual present. Verily, we are droll rascals, Henriette, and mercilessly tyrannised by experience.’
He had dropped her hand now, and was leaning against a pillar, staring across at Beaufort. Mademoiselle’s brows twitched sharply, but she uttered no word of reproach, partly from pride, and partly from surprise.
‘It will be good news for Gabrielle, and for me, if such a change decided you to remain here now,’ she said.
‘Gabrielle?’ he interrogated softly.
‘Your child, François!’
Oh, this he understood as a reproach, though it touched him but slightly. He made a step forward, still questioning her with movement of brow and eyelid.
‘Tiens! It is true. Is it credible I could forget I had a child? Oh! I know what you must think of me, Henriette; and the worst of it is, you cannot think badly enough of me;’ he said, laughing drearily.
‘It would be a poor satisfaction for me to think badly of you, François. I am not your judge. It is enough for me that you have come back—at last.’