“What has become of him?”
“He is in command of the four soldiers of the Prince of Monaco, and having not a sou to lose he looks on while other men ruin themselves. The occupation diverts him. And yet I had administered his estate well. But he cared nothing for the land. No one cares for the land any more.”
“Not you?”
“Oh, I! I have walked these woods so long that I know every tree of them. I used to walk here so much with my daughter when she was a little girl.”
The memory of his daughter visibly obsessed him. Was it that he wished to remind me of her brilliant marriage? Hardly: because he seemed, as I have said, so utterly free from snobbery.
We found ourselves in the dwelling rooms, and he pointed to a portrait.
“When she used to run the country with me she was not so pale and thin.”
I recognised her pallor, a bloodlessness which the artist’s palette had not flattered. In the sumptuous ball dress in which she was tricked out her bare arms and shoulders seemed to embarrass her. One felt that they were cold, and almost looked to see the goose flesh. To this impression of discomfort the eyes added an impression of timidity, almost of fear. For a moment I thought that it was a sort of ecstasy which held her thus rigid—had I indeed not seen her almost shivering, listening to the air from Amadis? Examining the portrait more closely I attributed the expression to fear—excessive modesty or secret wretchedness, a mystery now unfathomable, one which the artist had either penetrated or unconsciously revealed. She reminded one of those portraits of Spanish Infantas whose youth seems stifled by etiquette and tight lacing. Presently I discovered another resemblance.
By way of showing some degree of sympathy, I asked:
“You lost her so early: of what malady did she die?”