The conversation became general, animated, merry, just what was to be expected at their happy age. Soon after the train stopped; they had arrived at Brussels.
Jean Perliez jumped lightly on to the platform. Mlle. Frahender adjusted her hat, after having carefully folded up her bonnet, and Maurice helped Marguerite to count the pieces of luggage. Just as Esperance was getting out to help her old companion, she had a feeling of reaction, her face grew pale with fright at an impression she could not define: two long arms were stretched towards her. And she recalled the hallucination or vision she had seen in her own mirror at home, on the day when she had tried to interrogate destiny.
Count Albert Styvens was standing on the platform before her, holding out his arms, his hands open. Totally dazed without understanding herself why it should be so, the young girl closed her eyes. She felt herself lifted, and set down upon the ground. Although the movement had been one of perfect respect, she felt angry with this man for having imposed his will upon her. When she looked at him he was already speaking to Mlle. Frahender, whom he recollected having seen in Esperance's room at the Vaudeville.
"Will you not both take my mother's carriage?" he asked.
His voice, slow, correct, a little distant, fell on the ear of the young actress.
"But," Jean objected quickly, "I have engaged the landau from the
Grand Hotel."
"Very well, we three can go in that," said the Count, as he guided the old lady and the young one towards a perfectly appointed coupé, drawn by two magnificent sorrels.
Esperance, who had been brimful of joy, not ten minutes before, at finding herself in Brussels, now felt a cloud upon her spirits. The manner, almost the authority, of this tall, young man of distinction, but of no beauty, of no magnetism, depressed her. She did not wish to have him take it upon himself to conduct her small affairs, and she stepped into the Countess Styvens's beautiful carriage with the feeling that she was leaving her liberty behind.
Albert Styvens got into the hotel landau with the two other young men. They knew the Count very slightly, and regarded him with some curiosity. Although but twenty-seven, he had a reputation for austerity most unusual for one of his age.
As the carriage drew up at the hotel, all three young men jumped lightly out to be ready to help the girl. Mlle. Frahender was received on the Count's arm. At the same instant Esperance had bounded out of the other door, pleased to have escaped the obligation of thanking the Legation Secretary.