In a nice sheltered corner I discovered one of those essentially French buildings called a “pavilion,” a delightful little toy house of three rooms. Another private arrangement made me the tenant of this place. Madame Villeray smiled. “I bet you,” she said to me in her very best English, “one of these ladies is in her fascinating first youth.” The good lady little knows what a hopeless love affair mine is. I must see Stella sometimes—I ask, and hope for, no more. Never have I felt how lonely my life is, as I feel it now.
Third Extract.
London, March 1.—Stella and her mother have set forth on their journey to St. Germain this morning, without allowing me, as I had hoped and planned, to be their escort.
Mrs. Eyrecourt set up the old objection of the claims of propriety. If that were the only obstacle in my way, I should have set it aside by following them to France. Where is the impropriety of my seeing Stella, as her friend and brother—especially when I don’t live in the same house with her, and when she has her mother, on one side, and Madame Villeray, on the other, to take care of her?
No! the influence that keeps me away from St. Germain is the influence of Stella herself.
“I will write to you often,” she said; “but I beg you, for my sake, not to accompany us to France.” Her look and tone reduced me to obedience. Stupid as I am I think (after what passed between me and her mother) I can guess what she meant.
“Am I never to see you again?” I asked.
“Do you think I am hard and ungrateful?” she answered. “Do you doubt that I shall be glad, more than glad, to see you, when—?”
She turned away from me and said no more.
It was time to take leave. We were under her mother’s superintendence; we shook hands and that was all.