Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom she had encountered on pier or digue, kursaal or beach, in the frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply. The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather, and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of damask roses upon her cheeks.
"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room; but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of her father. It was M. Lenoble, who rose to welcome her.
"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.
"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very shortly."
"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up, do you know, M. Lenoble?"
"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all that with my own hands. He looked like an ambassador from all the Russias."