“You do me good, on the contrary. I have a slight headache, it is true, but it is soothing to talk with you.”
“Truly?”
“Yes, truly.”
“Well, then, let me propose, in my turn, a drive in my carriage. The weather is fine to-day. Come and take the air with us. It will do you good, and afford us great pleasure.”
I felt quite disposed on my part to accept the sympathy manifested by Mme. de Kergy, and at once accepted her invitation. I took a seat in her calèche, and, after an hour's drive with her and her daughter, I had not only recovered from the nervous agitation of the morning, but we had become fully acquainted, and for the first time in Paris I ceased to feel myself a stranger.
“What a pity you are going away so soon!” exclaimed Diana.
“Yes, indeed,” said her mother; “for it seems to me you would find some resources at my house you have not found elsewhere, and we might reveal Paris under a different—perhaps I may say under a more favorable—aspect than it generally appears to strangers, even in the fashionable world, which is, I imagine, nearly the same everywhere.”
I made no reply, for the regret she expressed awoke a similar feeling in my heart, and aroused all the recollections of the evening before. [pg 033] I once more felt for an instant an ardent desire to take refuge in a different sphere. I longed more earnestly than ever to escape from that in which some vague peril seemed to threaten me. We were, it is true, to leave Paris, but for what a motive!... What a pitiful aspect the life Lorenzo wished to escape from took in comparison with the one so different which Mme. de Kergy had just given me a glimpse of!... The thought of this contrast embittered the joy I felt in view of our departure.
We agreed, however, as we separated, to meet every day during this last week, and Mme. de Kergy promised to take me, before my departure, through various parts of the unknown world of charity in Paris, whose existence she had revealed to me, that I might, at least, have a less imperfect idea of it before leaving France.
On my return I found Lando as well as Lorenzo in the drawing-room, and learned that, as the weather was fine, they had decided we should dine at some café I do not now remember, in the Champs Elysées, and afterwards, instead of returning home, we should take seats under the trees, and quietly listen in the open air to the music of one of the famous orchestras. The hotel the Marquise de Villanera stopped at was on the way; we could call for her, and she would remain with us the rest of the evening.