Trevor looked a little bit annoyed—he hardly liked to own that while the young lady had remembered his, hers had completely escaped his memory.
“We did hear it, we must have heard it,” he said. “I think Miss Casalis mentioned it when I was telling our courier where the coachman was to drive to. But, I suppose it was the stupidity of my English ears—I did not catch it clearly.”
Geneviève smiled sweetly, as if in condonation of the offence, but in her heart she was wishing, oh! so earnestly, that she had not prevented “Miladi Fawcett” from accompanying her home to the Rue de la Croix blanche, that Sunday evening, to see her safely in her mother’s care. What would it have mattered that the house was small and shabby, and that Madame Casalis herself had to open the door, if, as would almost surely have been the case, the familiar name of Fawcett had caught her mother’s ears, and led to a mutual recognition! What pleasant results might not have followed! Geneviève felt exceedingly provoked with herself, and Mrs. Methvyn, unconsciously, added to her vexation.
What a pity,” she too exclaimed. “If Caroline and Lady Frederica had met, it would probably have been arranged for Geneviève to have travelled some part of the way here with your party, Trevor, for I know Madame Casalis was very anxious at that time to hear of a suitable escort. And you would have seen something of Paris, my dear, as you wished so much,” she added, turning to Geneviève, “instead of having to hurry through with Monsieur Rouet.”—“Geneviève came under the care of a pasteur who had to attend some meeting in London,” she went on to explain to Mr. Fawcett.
“And had to travel second-class all the way, and saw nothing of Paris,” added Geneviève in her own mind (though not for worlds would she have said it aloud), feeling too disgusted with herself even to smile. Her one day in Paris had been a Sunday, which the Reverend Joseph Rouet, faithful to his charge, had caused her to spend among the Protestant brethren at Passy, attending two services in a stuffy meeting-house,—Geneviève, whose soul had long ago soared far beyond the homeliness of the Casalis’ narrow little circle at Hivèritz, whose imagination had pictured drives in the Bois de Boulogne, shopping in the Boulevards, nay (‘comble de bonheur,’ hardly to be thought of but with bated breath), even a visit to the theatre itself, as blissful possibilities of a few days in Paris!
“It was really a chapter of cross-purposes,” continued Mrs. Methvyn. “I wonder your mother did not remember the name Fawcett, when you told her of your accident, Geneviève?”
“Perhaps I did not rightly pronounce it,” said the girl. “And mamma was much occupied in her thoughts just then, I remember.”
She happened to catch Cicely’s eye as she spoke, and blushed vividly. A slight look of perplexity crossed Miss Methvyn’s face.
“I hope Geneviève is not afraid of me,” she thought to herself. “What was there to make her look so uncomfortable just now! I am so anxious to be kind to her and win her confidence, but I fear I seem cold and distant to her, poor girl!”
But no more was said on the subject of Geneviève’s former meeting with the Fawcetts.