He took the candlestick from her hands, gravely led the way to her chamber door, and at the threshold restored the light with an excess of polite posturing not without its whimsicality. As she took the candlestick she looked in his face with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, giving her a vivacity not hitherto betrayed.
Guessing but half the occasion of her smiles, he cried abruptly, and not without confusion: “Ah! you were the amused observer of my farce in wading across from the shore. Peste!”
“Indeed and I was!” said she, smiling all the more brightly at the scene recalled. “Good night!”
And, more of a rogue than Count Victor had thought her, she disappeared into her chamber, leaving him to find his way back to his own.
CHAPTER XV — A RAY OF LIGHT
For the remainder of the night Count Victor's sleep was delicious or disturbed by dreams in which the gloomy habitation of that strange Highland country was lit with lamps—the brightest a woman's eyes. Sometimes she was Cecile, dancing—all abandoned, a child of dalliance, a nymph irresolute—to the music of a flageolet; sometimes another whose radiance fascinated, whose presence yet had terror, for (in the manner of dreams that at their maddest have some far-compassing and tremendous philosophy such as in the waking world is found in poems) she was more than herself, she was the other also, at least sharing the secrets of that great sisterhood of immaculate and despoiled, and, looking in his face, compelled to see his utter unworthiness.
He rose early and walked in the narrow garden, still sodden with rain, though a bold, warm sun shone high to the east. For ordinary he was not changeable, but an Olivia in Doom made a difference: those mouldering walls contained her; she looked out on the sea from those high peering windows; that bower would sometimes shelter her; those alien breezes flowing continually round Doom were privileged to kiss her hair. Positively there seems no great reason, after all, why he should be so precipitate in his removal to the town! Indeed (he told himself with the smile of his subconscious self at the subterfuge) there was a risk of miscarriage for his mission among tattling aubergistes, lawyers, and merchants. He was positively vexed when he encountered Mungo, and that functionary informed him that, though he was early afoot, the Baron was earlier still, and off to the burgh to arrange for his new lodgings. This precipitancy seemed unpleasantly like haste to be rid of him.
“Ah,” said he to the little servant, “your master is so good, so kind, so attentive. Yet I do not wonder, for your Highland hospitality is renowned. I have heard much of it from the dear exiles—Glengarry par exemple, when he desired to borrow the cost of a litre or the price of the diligence to Dun-querque in the season when new-come Scots were reaching there in a humour to be fleeced by a compatriot with three languages at command and the boast of connections with Versailles.”
Mungo quite comprehended.