François had heard the voice, and witnessed the attentions many times before, and they had never meant anything more than the sort of thing which according to him, in the wisdom of his sapient youth, was “all right.” The love of a few weeks; at most, a few months. Nothing in short that from his point of view could affect the artist seriously, or jeopardize his position. Why then should he feel uneasy? Except of course, that this was a different matter. Anne’s was not the usual case; he could imagine no one further from the type of woman who with sang-froid watches the departing cavalier.
The idea was preposterous, ludicrous to entertain side by side with the idea of Anne Page. If Anne fell in love—heavens! if Anne fell in love!
His brain almost ceased working at the bare notion.
“René would be done for,” he reflected incoherently. “I know his idiocy where women are concerned. And if a woman like Anne Page falls in love, there’ll be the devil to pay! He’d have to marry her. A woman years older than himself. And then exactions, tears, jealousy of him, of his work. Oh awful! Horrible!”
His rage at the bare possibility of such an event extended at moments to Anne. “I know these gentle women!” he told himself vindictively. “They’re worse than any of them, when it comes to a love affair. Tenacious, determined, implacable——”
And then Anne would enter the drawing-room to welcome him, or come across the grass. Anne with her sweet gay smile, and her gentle dignity, and his anger died.
It was all right, of course. What a fool he had been! The idea had never occurred to either of them, and all he had to do was to keep his preposterous notions to himself.
Moreover, September had arrived, and the time for the return of the whole party to Paris was approaching. René certainly seemed in no hurry to depart. But that was comprehensible.
He was working hard, and as François allowed, never had he worked better. There was a tenderness and grace in his landscapes which was new to them, inspired he said by the gracious beauty of Shakespeare’s county.
But he had finished the picture upon which lately all his efforts had been concentrated, and François was already urging that it was time to go.