With a puzzled frown he leaned his head against the cold glass. “We belong,” he mused, “to utterly discrepant generations. I am so irredeemably slow and old-fashioned; she is so intensely modern!” He gave his shoulders a shake of dissatisfaction at these shortcomings of his. Then he began to pace moodily back and forth before the huge fireplace. “Oh yes,” he reflected, sadly, “I suppose I will always be saying and doing things she will instinctively dislike and resent, and if she really is of a jealous disposition—” He stopped, pulled fiercely at his mustache, and resumed his pacings and his futile cogitations until his brain grew tired.
Truly this night’s unfortunate events had suddenly disclosed to him an altogether undreamed-of horizon line, and it was difficult to see what lay concealed beyond it. Assuredly Laurence, had she but known it, would have done better to put her hand in the fire, than to shake even by the lightest possible touch the splendid monument of love and trust Basil had built up for her with so great a joy and so great a faith.
Weary, both morally and physically, he at last went back and gazed out into the garden again. Strangely enough, the image of the “Gamin,” in her diaphanous white dress, with her sparkling blond hair aureoling her little head, suddenly appeared before him with startling reality. Her blue eyes seemed to gaze deep into his, and somehow she was no longer the playmate of other days, the merry child who had run and danced with the wind along the terrace at Plenhöel, who had struggled with the window-fastenings, and climbed to the box of the drag bringing Laurence that fateful morning, but a being wholly different; a sorrowing woman developed to her uttermost possibilities in a few hours, a woman possessed of the wisdom of all the ages, a friend in all the potency of the word—a counselor—more, even more than that—some one to look up to and gain endurance and patience from. Involuntarily he drew closer to frosted pane, and, looking out upon the softly gleaming moonshine by which he had symbolized her that evening, it seemed to him that her spirit was dowering the night with all its enshrined loveliness and shrouded mystery. Well! There would never again be the same ease and comradeship between them as before Laurence had committed the folly of naming her as a rival; but did this foolish act break the sweetness of the past, or perchance lend a new enchantment to the power of a personality Basil had not been clearly conscious of until this moment? He drew away from the window, determined to cut short such a train of thought now and for all time. He must be thoroughly out of sorts himself, he argued, and Laurence had been silly to speak as she had done—not quite as distinguished in manner as he had fancied her to be! The women of his class, of course, were perfectly capable of fierce jealousies, yet they were bred and born to keep such feelings to themselves. It was part of their métier as great ladies. Still, his wife was now one of them; she would be taught by example the unspoken etiquette of their decorous world. Besides, he was not the sort to give her cause for jealousy; also he would, as far as he was able, avoid meeting Marguerite. Yes! Yes! Everything would turn out all right—and in the morning—the morning— He glanced at his watch by the last leaping flames of the crumbled logs—surely it must have stopped—or else hurried on without rhyme or reason, for it pointed at six o’clock. Guiltily he stole back to the window and stared at the garden below. All was so very still there—the sapphire-and-silver winter night as yet undisturbed—but as he bent closer he saw that ever so cold and faint a pallor was stealthily clouding its depth, its serenity, and with a quick, impatient sigh he sought his own room.
CHAPTER VII
The sea, the wind, the call of birds,
The leaves that whisper, brooks that run,
No song is ever void of words,
To hearts that beat as one.
Sir Robert and Lady Seton were passing through Paris on their way to join the Phyllis in Mediterranean waters. They intended to cruise along the African coast, putting in a few days at Algiers, a week or so in Alexandria, and then go on to the Bosphorus, which possessed the charm of mirroring on its gracious bosom the minaretted city where a first cousin of “Uncle Bob” was representing his country at the Padishah’s Court.
The middle-aged couple were for the time being at the Meurice, occupying a suite of rooms replete with every comfort, and were at that very minute enjoying a thoroughly English breakfast in their sunny private dining-room. No such kickshaws for Uncle Bob as foamy chocolate and golden-coated rolls light as muslin, but soles fried in torment, with an accompaniment of oysters, truffles, mussels, and a seasoning of white wine; a portentous steak, humpbacked and juicy—as every self-respecting beefsteak should be—an omelette rouged into the semblance of a modern beauty by its filling of tomatoes, not to mention several other odorous trifles in the shape of grilled sardines and deviled kidneys.
Lady Seton was already armored from head to foot in well-cut serviceable tweeds, similar in texture and color to those which adorned her lord’s portly form. She believed in frilly dressing-gowns and coquettish morning coiffures no more than did Sir Robert in over-dainty breakfasts. Solidity, in costly disguise, was what they both preferred.
Ensconced behind the pages of the London Times, Sir Robert was seated squarely before his well-filled plate, and while perusing the news of two days before with the greatest interest, methodically carried his fork to his mouth, and back again for fresh supplies. His wife, without sparing herself a bite, was getting through a pile of letters just arrived, leaning each one in turn against the toast-rack as she read, while “Lady Hamilton”—a sadly obese toy spaniel, and her mistress’s darling pet—sat gravely on a cushioned chair beside her, gloating with all her large, moist eyes over a near-by dish of cake.
“The Prime Minister,” Sir Robert remarked, in an aggrieved tone, “has put his veto upon the interference of Great Britain in—” He glanced round the edge of the paper, noticed his wife’s total inattention, murmured to himself something concerning feminine frivolity, followed by a grumbled conjecture as to whether the Premier realized that he was a public servant, or imagined himself the autocrat of all the Englands, and finally relapsed into ominous silence.