She turned her head a little to glance at him. "You had no idea what it was like after we had gone to London. My ignorance of the world was so profound that I felt ill at ease in it. I hoped I had an attractive face, but I only discovered that I was pretty from the remarks of the people in the street I overheard. I spent my life by the side of my mother's couch. I never went out except attended by my father or by Aglae. My only amusement was to play a game of chess now and then with an old doctor, also a refugee, who looked after my mother, or listen to the conversation of the people who came to see us. Amongst them there were all the prominent men and women of the old régime. Refugees. They seldom spoke the truth to each other, and yet they were no more stupid than the rest of the world. Nobody could be more good-natured and better company, more frivolous or more inconsiderate. I have seen women of the highest rank work ten hours a day to get bread for their children, but they also slandered one another, told falsehoods about their conduct and their work, and quarrelled among themselves in the style of washerwomen. Morals were even looser than in the times before the Revolution. Manners were forgotten. Every transgression was excused in those who were regarded as good royalists. I don't mean this to apply to the great body of the refugees. Some of them led irreproachable lives. Round our Princes there were some most absurd intrigues. I didn't know much of all this, but I remember my poor father's helpless indignations and my own appalled disgust at the things I could not help hearing and seeing."
She turned her head to look at Cosmo. "I am telling you all this to give you some idea of the air I had to breathe," she said in a changed tone. "I don't think it contaminated me. I felt its odiousness; but all this seemed without remedy. I didn't even suffer much from it. What I suffered most from was our domestic anxieties; my mother's fears lest the small resources we had to live on should fail us altogether. Our daily crust of bread seemed to depend on political events in Europe, and they were going against us. Battles, negotiations, everything. A blight seemed to have fallen on the royalist cause. My mother didn't conceal her distress. What touched me more still was the careworn, silent anxiety of my poor father."
She paused, looking at Cosmo intently, meeting his eyes fixed on her face. "I was getting on for sixteen," she continued. "No one ever paid the slightest attention to me. The only genuine passion in my heart was filial love. . . . But is it any good in going on? And then I can't tell what you may have heard already."
"All I have heard," said Cosmo in a tone of profound respect, "is that Adèle de Montevesso's life has been irreproachable."
"I remember the time when all the world was doing its best to make it impossible. Would it shock you very much if I told you that I don't care at all about its good opinion now? There was a time when it would put the worst construction possible on my distress, on my bewilderment, on my very innocence."
"Why should the world do that to you?" asked Cosmo.
"Why? But I see you know nothing. I met my husband first at a select concert that was given by the music-master of the late Queen of France. My mother was feeling a little better and insisted on my going out a little. Those were small fashionable affairs. I had a good voice myself, and that evening I sang with Madame Seppio. An English gentleman—his name doesn't matter—presented M. de Montevesso to me as a friend of his just returned from India and anxious to be introduced to the best society. What with my usual shyness and the unattractive appearance of the man, I don't think I received his attentions very well. There was really no reason I should notice him particularly. It wasn't difficult to see that he had not the manners of a man of the world. Where could he have acquired them? He had left his village at seventeen, he enlisted in the Irish Regiment which served in France, then he deserted, perhaps. I only know that some years afterwards he was a captain in the service of Russia. From there he made his way to India. I believe the governor-general used him as a sort of unofficial agent amongst native princes, but he got into some scrape with the company. By what steps he managed to get on to the back of an elephant and command the army of a native prince I really don't know. And even if I had known then it would not have made him more interesting in my eyes. I was relieved when he made me a deep bow with his hand on his heart and went away. He left a most fugitive impression, but the very next morning he sent his English friend to ask my parents for my hand. That friend was a nobleman, a man of honour, and the offers he was empowered to make were so generous that my parents thought they must tell me of them. I was so astonished that at first I couldn't speak. I simply went away and shut myself up in my room. They were not people to press me for an answer. The poor worried dears thought that I wouldn't even consent to contemplate this marriage; while I, shut up in my room—I was afraid, remembering the way they had spoken to me of that offer, that they would reject it without consulting me any further. I sent word by Aglae that I would give my answer next day and that I begged to be left to myself. Then I escaped from the house, followed by Aglae, who was never so frightened in her life, and went to see the wife of that friend of my present husband. I begged her to send at once for General de Montevesso—at that time he called himself General. The King of Sardinia had given him this rank in acknowledgment of some service that his great wealth had enabled him to render to the Court of Turin. That lady of course had many scruples about doing something so highly unconventional, but at last, overcome by the exaltation of my feelings, she consented."
"She did that?" murmured Cosmo. "What an extraordinary thing!"
"Yes. She did that, instead of taking me home. People will do extraordinary things to please a man of fabulous wealth. She sent out two or three messengers to look for him all over the town. They were some time in finding him. I waited. I was perfectly calm. I was calmer than I am now, telling you my story. I was possessed by the spirit of self-sacrifice. I had no misgivings. I remember even how cold I was in that small drawing room with a big coal fire. He arrived out of breath. He was splendidly dressed and behaved very ceremoniously. I felt his emotion without sharing it. I, who used to blush violently at the smallest provocation, didn't feel the slightest embarrassment in addressing that big stiff man so much older than myself. I could not appreciate what a fatal mistake I was committing by telling him that I didn't care for him in the least and probably never should; but that if he would secure my parents' future comfort my gratitude would be so great that I could marry him, without reluctance and be his loyal friend and wife for life. He stood there stiff and ominous and told me that he didn't flatter himself with the possibility of inspiring any deeper feeling.
"We stood there facing each other for a bit. I felt nothing but an inward glow of satisfaction at having, as I thought, acted honourably. As to him I think he was simply made dumb with rage. At last he bowed with his hands on his heart and said that he would not even ask now for the favour of kissing my hand. I appreciated his delicacy at that moment. It would have been an immense trial to my shyness. I think now that he was simply afraid of putting my hand to his lips lest he should lose his self-control and bite it. He told me later, in one of those moments when people don't care what they say, that at that moment he positively hated me, not the sight of me, you understand, but my aristocratic insolence."