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The children are alone at Chilton with their English gouvernante, and the prim Frenchwoman, who takes infinite pains to perfect Henriette's unlikeness to a human child. They are alone, and their father is hanging about the Court." "At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you must be mistaken." "Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority."
For her part, such thoughts had never for a moment presented themselves to Henriette's mind.
Dear Natalie, I ceased to write some days ago; these memories were too bitter for me. Still, I owe you an account of the events which followed this catastrophe; they need few words. When a life is made up of action and movement it is soon told, but when it passes in the higher regions of the soul its story becomes diffuse. Henriette's letter put the star of hope before my eyes.
He had been a friend of Henriette's before her marriage; he had even been in love with her at one time. And now he came sometimes to the house once or twice when George was away! What did that mean? George wondered. He brooded over it all day, but dared not drop any hint to Henriette.
As for Delaherche, he passed through the adjoining chamber, where Gilberte with her tranquil, pretty face was slumbering still as soundly as a child, neither the sound of conversation nor even Henriette's sobs having availed to make her change her position.
Next the safe in which lay not only the famous gold service used only at the very swellest functions, said to have cost one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for the gold alone, to say nothing of the exquisite workmanship, but it made me gnash my teeth in impotent rage to see it Henriette's own jewel-box containing a hundred thousand dollars worth of her own gems and some thirty thousand dollars in cash, was rifled of its contents and disposed of similarly to the silver in the gaping maw of that damned automobile tonneau.
They were alone in Henriette's kitchen; the faithful woman was at market. Mademoiselle was warming herself before the fire. Ombreval stood by the window. He had spent the time of her absence in the care of his clothes, and he had contrived to dress himself with some semblance of his old-time elegance which enhanced his good looks and high-born air.
Still, after the second week, the fever subsided and the young man's general condition was improved, so long as he could be content to rest quiet in his bed. Then Jean's and Henriette's relations began to be established on a more systematic basis. Fixed habits commenced to prevail; it seemed to them that they had never lived otherwise that they were to go on living forever in that way.
Henriette sprang forward white and trembling, and clutched Hadria's arm excitedly. "Ah! you could not! you could not! Think of your mother and father, if you will not think of your husband and children. You terrify me!" Hadria was moved with pity at Henriette's white quivering face. "Don't trouble," she said, more gently. "There is no thunderbolt about to fall in our discreet circle."
Henriette's paper was neatly expressed, and its sentiments were admirable. She maintained a perfect balance between the bigotry of the past and the violence of the present. Her phrases seemed to rock, like a pair of scales, from excess to excess, on either side. She came to rest in the exact middle.
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