‘Then you cannot have breakfasted either. You will breakfast with me; I was just going back to the house.’
It was precisely the sort of coup de scène which would amuse her; her husband and Geraldine lounging downstairs, late, cross, and easily ruffled, to find her alone with their neighbour from S. Pharamond. It was one of those amusing little incidents which Providence, who, she was sure, was kind to her, was always sending her to relieve the monotony of human life.
‘What were you doing under the sea wall?’ she pursued. ‘Is it your habit, too, never to go to bed? You must have been rowing some time. We are two sea leagues at least from your place. What did you think of Cri-Cri’s ball? That new figure with the coloured hoops was pretty; but the Duc leads a cotillon better than anyone.’
‘Admirable pre-eminence!’ said Othmar. ‘I saw you with the coloured hoops. You made them look as if Ariel had just brought them from Titania. But I do not think the charm was in the hoops themselves.’
‘If you had cared to lead a cotillon, Othmar, you might have been a happier man.’
‘That I do not doubt; the frivolous faculty is a very happy one.’
‘At all events, though you despise it, you are indulgent to it. You gave us superb presents at your own fête. Come in to breakfast. I would not admit it if Platon were here, but it is cold.’
‘And surely it is not very wise to be in the cold after a ball?’
‘That is what they all said, so I came. I have not much sympathy with children, but I do understand why they like to do a thing for no other reason than that they are told not to do it. My physicians pretend that morning air is as bad as damp shoes, but I believe they say that to be agreeable to their patients who turn night into day. It is not only Molière’s doctors who are charlatans. I imagine it is the perpetual affectation of sympathy which doctors are compelled to put on which makes them hypocrites. Come into the house.’
He went on in silence beside her along the bay path. He could not easily talk of trifles with her; she had filled all his life for two whole years; he loved her as he had loved no other woman. When he had returned home from the Millo ball, he had bathed and swam in the little bay of S. Pharamond, and then had rowed himself along the coast in that vague irresistible desire to pass near where she dwelt which every true lover feels.