"Diantre! for a cabriolet! Why, they only gave me the tariff and a miserable piece of ten sous as my pour-boire, for a heavy calèche! When I fetched them from the château this morning, I knew how it would be—Monsieur le Marquis is so miserly, so exigeant!"
"I would not be his wife for any thing," said the fille-de-chambre, as she came tripping down stairs, and passed between the two postilions; "an old curmudgeon, to go on in that way with such a wife. Voyez-vous, Pierre, elle est si belle, si douce! c'est une ange! She wants to know who the young Englishman is; qu'en sais-tu, Jean-Marie?"
"He gave us three francs a post; that's all I know."
"Then we have two angels in the house instead of one."
I hate to be long at my toilette at any time; but to delay much in such a matter while travelling is folly. Yet, how shall one get over the interminable plains of France, and pass through those ever succeeding simooms of dust which beset the high-roads of the "fair country," without contracting a certain dinginess of look that makes one intolerable? Fellow-traveller, never take much luggage with thee, if thou hast thy senses rightly awakened; leave those real "impediments" of locomotion behind; take with thee two suits at the most; adapt them to the climate and the land thou intendest to traverse; and, remember, never cease to dress like a gentleman. Take with thee plenty of white cravattes and white waistcoats; they will always make thee look clean when thy ablutions are performed, despite of whatever else may be thy habiliments; carry with thee some varnished boots; encourage the laundresses to the utmost of thy power, and thou wilt always be a suitably dressed man. By the time I had done my toilette there was a tap at the door, and in another minute I was in the salle-à-manger.
The Marquis made me a profound salutation, which I endeavoured to return as well as a stiff Englishman, with a poker up his back, extending right through the spinal column into his head, could be supposed to do. To the Lady I was conscious of stooping infinitely lower; and I even flattered myself that the empressement which I wished to put into my reverence was not unperceived by her. The little fluttering oscillation of the head and form, with which a French lady acknowledges a civility, came forth on her part with exquisite grace. Her husband might be fifty: he was a tall, harsh-looking man; a gentleman certainly, but still not one of the right kind; there was a sort of roué expression about his eyes that inspired distrust, if not repulsion; his features seemed little accustomed to a smile; the tone of his voice was dissonant, and he spoke sharply and quickly. But his wife—his gentle, angelic wife—was the type of what a woman should be. She surpassed not in height that best standard of female proportion, which we give, gentle reader, at some five feet and two inches. She was most delicately formed: her face, of the broad rather than the long oval shape, tapered down to a most exquisitely formed chin; while the arch expression of her mouth and eyes, tempered as it was with an indefinable expression of true feminine softness, gave animation and vivid intelligence to the whole. Who can define the tones of a woman's voice? and that woman one of the most refined and high-bred of her sex? There was a richness and smoothness, and yet such an exquisite softness in it, as entranced the hearer, and could keep him listening to its flow of music for hours together. I am persuaded of it, and the more I think of it the more vividly does it recur to my mind. 'Twas only a single glance—that first glance as I moved upwards from bowing towards a hand which I could willingly have kissed. There was the tale of a whole life conveyed in it; there was the narration of much inward suffering—of thwarted hopes, of disappointed desires—of a longing for deliverance from a weight of oppression—of a praying for a friend and an avenger. And yet there was the timidity of the woman, the observance of conventional forms, the respect of herself, the dread of her master, all tending to keep down the indication of those feelings. And again there came the still-enduring hope of amendment or of remedy. All was in that glance. I felt it in a moment; and the fascination—that mysterious communication of sentiment which runs through the soul as the electric current of its vitality—was completed.
How is it that one instant of time should work those effects in the human mind which are so lasting in their results! Ye unseen powers, spirits or angels, that preside over our actions, and guide us to or from harm, is it that ye communicate some portion of your own ethereal essence to our duller substance at such moments, and give us perceptive faculties which otherwise we never had enjoyed? Or is it that the soul has some secret way of imparting its feelings to another without the intervention of material things, otherwise than to let the immortal spark flash from one being to the other? And oh, ye sceptics, ye dull leaden-hearted mortals! doubt not of the language of the eyes—that common theme of mawkish lovers—but though common, not the less true and certain. Interrogate the looks of a young child—remember even the all-expressive yet mute eyes of a faithful dog; and give me the bright eloquent glance of woman in the pride and bloom of life—'tis sweeter than all sounds, more universal than all languages.
"I am afraid, Monsieur le Marquis, that I shall be interfering with your arrangements?"
"Ah, mon Dieu! you give us great pleasure. Madame and myself had just been regretting that we should have to pass the evening in this miserable hole of a town. 'Pas de spectacle; c'est embêtant à ne pas en finir.'"
"And Monsieur is likely to be with us to-morrow, mon ami; for my femme-de-chambre tells me that he is going to Mont Dor. Do you know, Monsieur, that just as we were coming into Moulins, we remarked your odd-looking cabriolet de poste. My husband detests them; on the contrary, I like those carriages, for they tell me of happy—I mean to say, of former times. He wanted to wager with me that it was some old-fashioned sulky fellow that had got into it; but, as we passed, I looked out at the window, satisfied myself of the contrary, and told him so. Will you be pleased to take that chair by my side, and as we go on with our dinner we can talk about Mont Dor."