"Indeed! Come into the drawing-room and rest. Jean will bring something to eat and drink immediately."
She led the way into the room, gave Harry a comfortable chair, and sat opposite to him, folding her plump hands on her lap, and heaving a sigh of satisfaction and relief. The servant soon reappeared with a tray, and when Madame de Vaudrey had seen Harry supplied with drink and food that pleased him, she dismissed her man, read the letter Mynheer Grootz had enclosed with his gift, and began to talk.
"You are English? That is interesting. My dear husband's mother was English, so that my daughter has a little—a very little, of course—English blood in her. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that you came when you did. That is also another debt I owe to Mynheer Grootz. He writes very amiable things of you. I was at my wits' end, Monsieur Rochestair; I will tell you about it.—Do you like that wine?"
"Thank you, it is excellent."
"I am so glad! You speak French very well for an Englishman. My daughter wishes to learn English. She takes after her father, not after me. I wonder where she is?"
Harry followed her glance to the door; he too had wondered what had become of the tall girl who had shown so much decisiveness of character at an awkward moment. But she did not appear.
"Well," continued the amiable hostess, "let me tell you all about it."
Mynheer Grootz's recommendation was clearly a passport to her favour. She leant back in her high chair, and in her clear, well-modulated voice told Harry what he was, it must be confessed, curious to hear. It was three years since her husband, the Comte de Vaudrey, died. He was a student, not a man of affairs; and his fortune suffered through his lack of business-like qualities. The estate, a small one, purchased by his father when as a Huguenot he fled from France at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was now much encumbered. Monsieur de Vaudrey had bought the best perspective glasses and other expensive scientific instruments, had spent large sums on rare books and specimens, and had so embarrassed himself that he had to apply to the Amsterdam bankers, who advanced him money on a mortgage of the estate. Not long afterwards he died.
"It is only a year ago," continued Madame de Vaudrey, "that we learnt that we were to have a neighbour. The estate adjoining our own had been in the market for many years, and we heard that it had at last been purchased by a Monsieur de Polignac, a Frenchman, and a Huguenot like ourselves. We were rejoiced at the news; a neighbour of our own race and faith would be so charming, we thought. And so indeed he was, at first. I thought his visits to his estate too few; he was so often at the Hague; when he came to see us he was so debonair, so gracious, that I liked him well. With my daughter, quite the contrary. It was prejudice, I told her; but from the first she looked on him coldly. Then all at once he became a more frequent visitor, and I saw—yes, a mother's eyes are keen—that he had pretensions to my daughter's hand. I did not oppose him; he was rich, noble, a Huguenot; but Adèle—certes, Monsieur Rochestair, no maiden could ever have given less encouragement. The first time he was refused he smiled—he does not look well when he smiles, think you?—and said that he would still hope. But though I thought the match a good one, I would not persuade my daughter: she is all I have, Monsieur, and so young. He went away; then a few days ago I am astonished to see him reappear in company with Captain Aglionby, who is visiting him. Now first I begin really to dislike Monsieur de Polignac."
"Did you know Captain Aglionby before, then?" asked Harry in surprise.