“Did I start?” he asked, looking back at her rather vaguely. “If so, it was because I fancied—not for the first time—that I heard someone laugh in there!...”
He pointed to the covert of pine-scrub, larch, yellow-berried mountain-ash, and tall brake-fern that edged the forest road, and went climbing with them still when the slower oaks and beeches were outstripped and left behind. It was Henriette’s turn to shiver now. Hector was so strange—so very strange—she told herself, at times!...
Another man, much less handsome, not half so sweet-tempered, amiable, devoted, and clever, would have made a pleasanter companion upon these wild, rugged mountain-roads.... His blue eyes would have had a provoking challenge always, for those of his friend.... Cynical jests, sharp witticisms, would have alternated with daring compliments, bold hints, and subtle allusions, upon his projecting, fleshy lips. Yet de Moulny, a year or so back, had been a submissive, humble lover. In those days he had yielded to and been ruled by the will of Henriette. In these days, delicacy and shyness no longer characterized his wooing. He demanded, exacted, extorted favors that others had obtained by service and suit, and sighs.... She said to herself, as a mysterious smile hovered about the exquisite lips, and the long, dark lashes swept the cheeks that no sun, however ardent, might kiss to russet, that Alain was no fool! He had found out that what women liked best in a man was hardihood, and assurance touched with brutality. He had learned the secret of success with the sex.
Now, Hector....
When a Henriette begins to compare her lover, to his disadvantage, with other men, she has already wearied of him. His day is over and past.
Thenceafter, nearer and ever nearer, draws the fatal crisis. No fresh turning in the beaten road they travel together, but may lead to a definite parting of the ways.
LVII
So the company of adventurers traveled through the new, strange, lovely country, feasting and making merry, spending the Marshal’s money royally; and of such queer warp is the cloth of Human Nature woven, the grotesque homage of Köhler and von Steyregg ceased to be quite intolerable in the estimation of Dunoisse.
When the inns and posting-houses began to display the arms of the von Widinitz, the coroneted casque argent, with its panache surmounted by the heron, overt, sable, Köhler, being nimbler of the pair, leaped out of the brown landau, climbed the steps of the green chariot, and offered homage to the pretender to the feudal dignities.
“Now your Serene Highness is upon your own territory,” said he, and would have grabbed Dunoisse’s hand to kiss, but that its owner put it in his pocket. Von Steyregg was standing up in the vehicle that followed, waving a huge, dingy silk handkerchief, and shedding tears of loyal enthusiasm from both eyes.