“You are not in a dream; at least, if you are, I am in it too; and I vote we stay in dream-land, for it is monstrous pleasant,” said Adrian. “Now listen to that music, Nance; does it not uplift your soul?”
She turned and looked vaguely at the performers on the stage. The opera was one of Rossini’s; the scene now represented was a harvest festival; the stage was full of motion and brilliant colour; the gay, light, uplifting music rose to the very roof of the magnificent opera house.
“It is almost too much,” said Nance, with something like a sob in her throat. She looked suddenly so white and weary that Rowton insisted on her returning to the hotel without seeing the piece out.
The next day, to her astonishment, he proposed that they should leave Paris and go on to the Riviera.
“We will go to Nice,” he said; “it is gay enough there, and we shall have warmth and sunshine; we will visit Monte Carlo, too. Oh! I don’t gamble, you need not fear anything of that sort, but for all that we will have one exciting evening at the roulette tables.”
“I am sorry,” said Nance. “I am interested in Paris now that I am here, and I should like to see more of it. M. D’Escourt said, too, that he would call, and he promised to arrange to take us to Versailles; don’t you remember, Adrian?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Rowton; “but that fact can scarcely influence my movements.” He spoke with the faintest sneer. “I want to get on, Nance. Paris is all very well; it satisfies me in one sense, and yet in another it does not.”
“Do you know Paris? Have you been often here?”
“Yes; I spent two years in this gay capital; the liveliest and yet the most wretched time of my life.”
“I heard you mention a certain date last night,” said Nancy in a low voice, which slightly trembled. “You mentioned the year 18⸺. It so happened that I am interested in that date. It was just then the cloud came which changed father’s life and mine.”