“There is no sun in England,” he said; “I was there once for a week, and never saw him. All the orchards are in Normandy. And your people do not like the French. They say that they do, but it is not true. Why should we go to London when there is Paris? You have forgotten already that your father was an Englishman, mignonne; why should we go there to remember it?”
He was unconscious of that self which prompted his answer, nor would she think of it on such a day.
“I shall never forget my father,” she said; “sometimes I try to think of all the men I know, and wonder which of them he must have been like. I was only five years old when he went to America. I cannot tell you why, yet I seem to remember him, though I have forgotten his face.”
“I understand that,” he exclaimed, though with no suggestion of sympathy in his voice; “there are many men that I can remember, though I could not draw them upon paper for you to save my life. Old Giraud, for instance, who writes to me from Paris this morning. I had forgotten Giraud. He writes of news that might have been good, but is very bad. There was the devil to pay in Spain. A word to the King of Prussia put an end to it. That is like those Prussians. They bark until you show the whip, and then they run to kennel. But it is our misfortune—”
She looked at him quickly.
“Your misfortune!”
He put his arm about her, and touched her ear with his lips.
“I am thinking of the army always,” he said earnestly; “it is the heart, the life of France. You will learn to think of it as I do by-and-by; it will be all in all to us. When I speak of a misfortune it is for your sake as well as for my own. Nothing can give me my chance but war. And my chance means fortune and honour for us both. But, of course, I do not wish it—yet, Beatrix.”
His mood became for the moment that mood of tenderness and of abandon to the impulse of love which had led him to make her his wife. It was a very real impulse in the instants of its recurrence; and when it betrayed him in look and voice, and she became conscious of it, the bond of the marriage vow seemed written anew, so that the twain were as one in heart and soul and affection. Strong in this assurance of devotion deep-rooted below the common interests of the daily life, Beatrix had no eyes to see those other things of self and will which might have been the omen of a new day when assurance should be less strong. She gave herself up in thought to him, yielding all to the sweet impulses of love unmeasured. She was his wife. Without him, life had no message for her.
“I know that you do not wish it, dearest,” she said earnestly, lifting her lips to his; “your honour is my honour. What fortune could I have which is not yours?”