‘I do believe I should have liked to have been a poor woman and have married such a man as Millet or Corot,’ she thought to herself now as she walked along the alley of bay that ran parallel with the sea. Then she laughed at the idea of herself, living in a cottage in a French wood, without any lace, without any diamonds, without any toilettes, looking for a dusty footsore artist coming home through the trees to his pot au feu. Somehow the artist in her fancy had the features of Othmar,—of Othmar, who was a prince of the Bourses and could no more escape the world than she could!
It scarcely surprised her when she saw him in person, as though her thoughts had compelled him to come thither. He was alone, in a little boat, which drifted slowly past the sea-terrace of La Jacquemerille; his hands rested idly on the oars, and his eyes were looking upward at the house.
She leaned down through one of the openings of the wall of clipt bay, and thrust her rose satin hood over the water:
‘Is it you, Othmar?’ she said to him. ‘What are you doing on the sea at eight o’clock? How astonished you look! Do you wonder what I am doing in the open air? They are all asleep comfortably, though they think I am courting death. Row to the stairs; you can breakfast with me.’
He hesitated, looking up at her with his head uncovered and his eyes dazzled by the delicate face that was peering forth from the framework of close-sheared bay boughs.
‘Come!’ said Madame Napraxine. Her voice could be very imperious, and was so now.
He obeyed in silence, passed to the landing-place a hundred yards farther down, and in five minutes’ time approached her under the arched roof of the bay charmille.
‘But you were only back from the ball an hour or less!’ he said, as he bowed before her.
‘I was not inclined to go to bed; the morning is fine. You are up betimes, too. When did you leave Millo?’
‘I left when you did,’ said Othmar, with significance in the brevity of the reply.