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Thus they talked until the guests began to arrive, and for Madame de Chantonnay the time no doubt seemed short enough. For no one appreciated Albert with such a delicacy of touch as the Abbe Touvent. The Marquis de Gemosac and Juliette were the last to arrive. The Marquis looked worn and considerably aged. He excused himself with a hundred gestures of despair for being late.
My conviction as to that grows as one knows him better." "But you are not prepared to allow the young people to force you to take a leap in the dark," suggested Madame de Chantonnay. "And that poor Juliette must consume her soul in patience; but she is sensible, as you justly say. Yes, my dear Marquis, she is charming."
His hermitage contained other appliances save those for study and devotion. His retired life was, in fact, that of a voluptuary. His brother, Chantonnay, reproached him with the sumptuousness and disorder of his establishment. He lived in "good and joyous cheer." He professed to be thoroughly satisfied with the course things had taken, knowing that God was above all, and would take care of all.
"Bon Dieu! my old friend, what do you expect?" replied Madame de Chantonnay to a rather incoherent statement made to her one May afternoon by the Marquis de Gemosac. "It is the month of May," she further explained, indicating with a gesture of her dimpled hand the roses abloom all around them.
Madame de Chantonnay approved in one gesture of her stout hand of these principles and of the Marquis de Gemosac's masterly demonstration of them. "And Monsieur de Bourbon did he accept these conditions?" "He seemed to, Madame. He seemed content to do so," replied the Marquis, tapping his snuff-box and avoiding the lady's eye. "And Juliette?" inquired Madame, with a sidelong glance.
Pierre Lawrence had supplied the one ingredient necessary to leaven the talk of these dreamers into action. Even the notary found himself compelled to contribute when Albert de Chantonnay asked him outright for a subscription. And the priests, ably led by the Abbe Touvent, acted after the manner of the sons of Levi since olden times.
The world, it would seem, does not want virtue or solid worth. It prefers appearance to either. Albert de Chantonnay would, for instance, have carried twice the weight in Royalist councils if his neck had been thicker. He nodded to the Abbe.
And he was, as Madame de Chantonnay had frequently told him, more than half a Frenchman in the quickness of his intuitions. He picked a flower for his buttonhole from the garden of the "Black Sailor," and set forth the morning after his interview with Captain Clubbe toward the rectory. It was a cool July morning, with the sun half obscured by a fog-bank driven in from the sea.
And Madame de Chantonnay, who liked Dormer Colville with whom she admitted she always felt herself in sympathy smiled graciously in response to his gallant bow. For she, too, was a materialist who loved the sunshine and the cuisine; more especially the cuisine. Moreover, Colville never persuaded the Marquis de Gemosac to come to England.
His movements were dainty, like those of an old maid of the last generation. He hissed through his teeth as if he were working very hard. It served to stimulate a healthy excitement in the Thursday evening of Madame de Chantonnay. "Oh, I am not uneasy," said that lady, as she watched him. She had dined well and her digestion had outlived those charms to which she made such frequent reference.
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