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'Purely for talk, you see, not for show! said Madame de Netteville to Robert, with a little smiling nod round her circle as they stood waiting for the commencement of dinner. 'I shall hardly do my part, he said with a little sigh. 'I have just come from a very different scene. She looted at him with inquiring eyes. 'A terrible accident in the East End, he said briefly. 'We won't talk of it.
What a specimen! A boy and girl match, I suppose. What else could have induced that poor wretch to cut his throat in such fashion? He, of all men. And Eugénie de Netteville stood thinking not, apparently, of the puritanical wife; the dangerous softness which over-spread the face could have had no connection with Catherine. Madame de Netteville's instinct was just.
'Dear me! said Lady Aubrey, with meditative scorn, fanning herself lightly the while, her thin but extraordinarily graceful head and neck thrown out against the golden brocade of the cushion behind her. 'Oh! what so many of them feel in Renan's case, of course, said Madame de Netteville, 'is that every book he writes now gives a fresh opening to the enemy to blaspheme.
She rose, her expression hard and bright as usual. 'May one Christian pronounce for all? she said, with a scornful affectation of meekness. 'Mrs. Elsmere, please find some chair more comfortable than that ottoman; and Mr. Ansdale, will you come and be introduced to Lady Aubrey? After her guests had gone Madame de Netteville came back to the fire flushed and frowning.
At the same time, though Elsmere was, in truth, more interested in her friends than in her, he could not possibly be insensible to the consideration shown for him in her drawing-room. Madame de Netteville allowed herself plenty of jests with her intimates as to the young reformer's social simplicity, his dreams, his optimisms.
For Robert's sake she tried for a time to put aside her first impression and to bear Madame de Netteville's evenings little dreaming, poor thing, all the time that Madame de Netteville thought her presence at the famous 'Fridays' an incubus only to be put up with because the husband was becoming socially an indispensable. But after two or three Fridays Catherine's endurance failed her.
And on Elsmere's side it was strengthened when, one evening, in a corner of her inner drawing-room, Madame de Netteville suddenly, but very quietly, told him the story of her life her English youth, her elderly French husband, the death of her only child, and her flight as a young widow to England during the war of 1870.
Lady Aubrey also pushed away a cigarette case which lay beside her hand. Everybody there had the air more or less of an habitué of the house; and when the conversation began again, the Elsmeres found it very hard, in spite of certain perfunctory efforts on the part of Madame de Netteville, to take any share in it.
And on Elsmere's side it was strengthened when, one evening, in a corner of her inner drawing-room, Madame de Netteville suddenly, but very quietly, told him the story of her life her English youth, her elderly French husband, the death of her only child, and her flight as a young widow to England during the war of 1870.
The twinkle in his eye was irresistible. The men, understanding his reference to the avidity with which certain English aristocratic scandals had been lately seized upon by the French papers, laughed out so did Lady Aubrey. Madame de Netteville contented herself with a smile. 'They profess to be shocked, too, by Renan's last book, said the editor from the other side of the room.
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