“I want to go to Europe next summer and take Virgie,” she said.
“May I express the wish that you will honor Châtillon-sur-Loir with a visit?”
“I should like to see something of real French life ever so much,” said Mrs. Manning; “and Virgie would be delighted to look you up.”
“Then we shall live in the hope of seeing you,” said Eugene sweetly, and with a side glance at the curé, who, in blissful unconsciousness of the fact that visitors were being invited under his humble roof, was taking his soup with some noise, and in a state of utter beatification.
As course after course was served, Eugene, who six months before would have been enchanted by the display of riches about him, became more and more unhappy. He preserved his composure, but it was at the expense of his nerves. Mrs. Manning’s voice often sounded distant and hollow in his ears; and once or twice he roused himself with a start, to find that a servant stood at his elbow vainly striving to attract his attention.
What was the matter with him? He was surrounded with things in which he took delight; and in this fine house with these rich people he should feel perfectly at home, yet his dull and inappreciative eye wandered carelessly over the costly dinner-service and the display of exquisite flowers. The servants moving noiselessly about wearied him; and the lights, soft as they were, made his eyes smart with unshed tears; while Mrs. Manning’s satin dress, dainty as it was, had less beauty in his sight than the plain white cotton gown of the sergeant’s wife.
She was thinking about him now, that kind woman in the cottage by the Fens. Probably she was just drawing her chair up to the fire in the cosey parlor, and was taking from her workbasket one of the fine new garments that she was making for him.
Perhaps she was murmuring softly to her husband, “How I miss that boy!”
“What will she do when I am gone?” thought Eugene in sudden terror. Something seemed to gripe his heart, and he could have cried out in his distress; yet he controlled himself, and replied in a quiet, clear voice to a question that Mrs. Manning was asking him.
“Yes, madam, I will thank you for some preserved ginger. I am fond of it, and it is some time since I have eaten of it.”