"I hate to stay anywhere under false appearances," she said, "and I always feel such a hypocrite kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament! I feel as if I would choke if I stay there over five minutes."
I felt shocked, and I suppose I looked it.
"Don't look at me as if I were possessed of the devil," she said, still laughing, though there was a touch of sadness, it struck me, in her voice and face. "I mean to be converted by-and-by, and mend my ways; but meantime let me have my fun, and, above all, don't preach to me!"
"I don't feel the least inclined," I replied.
"I suppose you think I'm gone beyond it. Well, you can pray for me. I'm not gone beyond the reach of that!"
This was the only serious conversation, if it deserves the name, that we had during the first week of her visit. She enjoyed herself thoroughly, throwing all the zest of her earnest nature into everything. The people and their odd French ways, the shops and their exquisite wares, the opera, the gay Bois with the brilliant throng of fashion that crowded round the lake every day at the hour of promenade—the novelty of the scene and the place altogether enchanted her, and there was something quite refreshing in the spirit of enjoyment she threw into it all.
One evening, after a long day of sight-seeing, we were invited by a friend of hers to dine at the table d'hôte of the Louvre. It was the grande nouveauté just then, and Mary was consequently wild to see it. We went, and during dinner the admiration excited by her beauty was so glaringly expressed by the persistent stare of every eye within range of her at the table that my mother was provoked at having brought her and exposed her to such an ordeal. But Mary herself was blissfully unconscious of the effect she was producing; indeed, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say she was unconscious of the cause. Certainly, no woman ever had less internal perception or outward complacency in her beauty than she had. This indifference amounted to a fault, for it pervaded her habits of dress, which were very untidy, and betokened a total disregard of personal appearance. The old fault that had been one of Mother Benedicta's standing grievances was as strong as ever, and it was all I could do to get her to put on her clothes straight, and to tie her bonnet under her chin instead of under her ear, when she came out with us.
But to return to the Louvre. It had been settled that after dinner we should walk across to the Palais Royal, and let Mary see the diamond shops illuminated, and all the other wonderful shops; but during dinner she overheard some one saying that the Emperor and Empress were to be at the Grand Opera that night. Her first impulse was to take a box and go there. But my mother objected that it was Saturday, the opera was never over before midnight, and consequently we could not be home and in bed before one o'clock on Sunday morning.
With evident disappointment, but, as usual, with the sweetest good temper, Mary gave way. Her friend then proposed that, before going to the Palais Royal, we should walk on to the Rue Lepelletier, and see the Emperor and Empress going in to the Opera. There was no difficulty in the way of this amendment, so it was adopted.
On coming out of the Louvre, however, we found, to our surprise and discomfiture, that the weather had been plotting against our little programme. The ground, which was frozen dry and hard when we drove down from the Champs Elysées less than two hours before, had become like polished glass under a heavy fall of sleet; the horses were already slipping about in a very uncomfortable way, and there was a decided disinclination on the part of pedestrians to trust themselves to cabs. Fate had decreed that Mary was not to see the Emperor on any terms that night. It would have been absurdly imprudent to venture on the macadam of the boulevards, and increase the risk of driving at all by waiting till the streets were so slippery that no horse could keep his footing on them. There was nothing for it but to go straight home, which we did, the horse snailing at a foot-pace all the way.