It was worth so much that M. Claghorn had no intention of refusing. "And Adolphe?" he asked.
"Will remain at St. Cyr. Fear nothing, my friend. I shall do nothing in that matter without consulting you."
"You are always kind. It shall be as you wish." And then, after some further indifferent conversation, the Marquise was by M. Claghorn handed to her carriage for a promenade in the Bois; while the philosopher, after that act of courtesy, left her to visit La Duchesne, a fashionable seeress, who prophesied as to the course of stocks.
CHAPTER II.
TWO PAGANS DISCUSS FISH, PARIS AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM.
It was midsummer. The Marquise was in Brittany, Monsieur in Germany; or, as Madame de Fleury patriotically expressed it, among the barbarians, he having penetrated into barbaric wilds in order to reclaim his daughter, whose education, for the past two years, had been progressing under barbaric auspices.
There is, not far from Heidelberg, and in that part of the country of the barbarians known as the Odenwald, a quaint village called Forellenbach; and hard by the village, which is clustered against a steep hill-side, there dashes in cascades that foam and roar, a stream, from the dark pools whereof are drawn trout, which, by the excellent host of the Red-Ox are served hot, in a sauce compounded of white wine and butter; and these things render the place forever memorable to him who loves fish or scenery, or both.
Monsieur Claghorn and his daughter were seated in the garden of the Red-Ox. They had arrived at the inn in a carriage, being on their way to Heidelberg. From Natalie's school they had journeyed by rail to Bad Homburg; and from that resort, having despatched the girl's maid ahead by train, they had commenced a mode of travel which Natalie secretly hoped would not end as soon as had been originally anticipated; for the trip thus far had been the most delightful experience of her life.
There were reasons for this delight besides the joy derived from driving in pleasant weather, over smooth roads, through curious villages, beside winding rivers whose vineclad hills echoed the raftsman's song; beneath the trees of many a forest, passing often the ruins of some grim keep, which silently told to the girl its story of the time that, being past, was a time of romance when life was more beautiful, more innocent, less sordid than now. Not that Natalie knew much of the unpleasing features of modern life, or of any life (else had her self-made pictures of other days borne a different aspect), still the past had its attraction for her, as it has for all that love to dream; and from her Baedeker she had derived just enough information to form the basis of many a tender scene that had never taken place, in days that never were or could have been. Her dreams were not wholly of the past, but of the future as well; all impossible and as charming as innocence and imagination could paint them. School was behind her, her face toward France, a home fireside, liberty and happiness for all time to come. No vision of the days in which she had not lived could be more alluring than the visions of the days in which she was to live, nor more delusive.