The hour or so from eleven to half-past twelve was a relief. Then the old woman regularly went to sleep—her only sleep in the twenty-four hours—and Urania came to fetch Cornélie for a drive or a walk along the Promenade or to sit in the Jardin Public. And it was the only moment when Cornélie more or less appreciated her new-found luxury and took pleasure in the gratification of her vanity. The passers-by turned round to stare at the two young and pretty women in their exquisite serge frocks, with their fashionable headgear withdrawn in the twilight of their sunshades, and admired the Princess di Forte-Braccio’s glossy victoria, irreproachable liveries and spanking greys.
Gilio maintained a reserved and respectful attitude towards Cornélie. He was polite but kept a courteous distance when he joined the two ladies for a moment in the gardens or on the Jetée. After the night in the pergola, after the sudden flash of his angry knife, she was afraid of him, afraid also because she had lost much of her courage and haughtiness. But she could not answer him more coldly than she did, because she was grateful to him as well as to Urania for the care shown her during the first few days, for their tact in not at once surrendering her to Mrs. Uxeley and in keeping her with them until she had recovered some of her strength.
In the freedom of those mornings, when she felt herself released from the old woman—vain, selfish, insignificant, ridiculous—who was as the caricature of her life, she felt that in Urania’s friendship she was finding herself again, she became conscious of being at Nice, she contemplated the garish bustle around her with clearer eyes and she lost the unreality of the first days. At such times it was as though she saw herself again for the first time, in her light serge walking-dress, sitting in the garden, her gloved fingers playing with the tassels of her sunshade. She could hardly believe in herself, but she saw herself. Deep down within herself, hidden even from Urania, she concealed her longing, her home-sickness, her stifling discontent. She sometimes felt ready to burst into sobs. But she listened to Urania and joined in her laughter and talk and looked up with a smile at Gilio, who stood in front of her, mincing to and fro on the tips of his shoes and swinging his walking-stick behind his back. Sometimes, suddenly—as a vision whirling through the crowd—she saw Duco, the studio, the happiness of the past fading away for one brief moment. Then with her finger-tips she felt his letter of that morning, between the strips of gathered lace in front of her bolero, and just crushed the hard envelope against her breast, as something belonging to him that was caressing her.
And it was not to be denied: she saw herself and Nice around her; she became sensible of new life: it was not unreal, even though it was not actual to her soul; it was a sorrowful comedy, in which she—dismally, feebly, listlessly—played her part.
CHAPTER XLV
It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there was no possibility of the least alteration: everything was done in accordance with a fixed law. The reading of the newspaper; her hour and a half to herself; then lunch. After lunch, the drive, the Jetée, the visits; every day, those visits and afternoon teas. Once in a way, a dinner-party; and in the evening generally a dance, a reception or a theatre. She made new acquaintances by the score and forgot them again at once and no longer remembered, when she saw them again, whether she knew them or not. As a rule people were fairly pleasant to her in that cosmopolitan set, because they knew that she was an intimate friend of the Princess Urania’s. But, like Urania herself, she was sometimes conscious, from the feminine bearers of the old Italian names and titles which sometimes glittered in that set, of an overwhelming pride and contempt. The men always asked to be introduced to her; but, whenever she asked to be introduced to their ladies, her only reward was a nod of vague surprise. She herself minded very little, but she felt sorry for Urania. For she saw at once, at Urania’s own parties, that they hardly looked upon her as the hostess, that they surrounded and made much of Gilio, but accorded to his wife no more than the civility which was her due as Princess di Forte-Braccio, without ever forgetting that she was once Miss Hope. And for Urania this contempt was more difficult to put up with than for herself. For she accepted her rôle as the companion. She always kept an eye on Mrs. Uxeley, constantly joined her for a minute in the course of the evening, fetched a fan which Mrs. Uxeley had left in the next room or did her this or that trifling service. Then she would sit down, against the wall alone in the busily humming drawing-room, and gaze indifferently before her. She sat, always very smartly dressed, in an attitude of graceful indifference and weary boredom, tapping her little foot or unfolding her fan. She took no notice of anybody. Sometimes a couple of men would come up to her and she spoke to them, or danced with one of them, indifferently, as though conferring a favour. Once, when Gilio was talking to her, she sitting and he standing, and the Duchess di Luca and Countess Costi both came up to him and, standing, began to chaff him profusely, without honouring her with a word or a glance, she first stared at the ladies between her mocking lids, eyeing them from head to foot, and then rose slowly, took Gilio’s arm and, with a glance which darted sharp as a needle from her narrowed eyes, said:
“I beg your pardon, but you must excuse me if I rob you of the Prince di Forte-Braccio, because I have to finish a private conversation.”
And with the pressure of her arm she made Gilio move on a few steps, then at once sat down again, made him sit down beside her and began to whisper with him very confidentially, while she left the duchess and countess standing two yards away, open-mouthed with stupefaction at her rudeness, and furthermore spread her train wide between herself and the two ladies and waved her fan to and fro, as though to preserve a distance. She could do this sort of thing so calmly, so tactfully and haughtily, that Gilio was tickled to death and sat and giggled with delight:
“I wish that Urania knew how to behave like that!” he said, pleased as a child at the diversion which she had afforded him.
“Urania is too nice to do anything so odious,” she replied.