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But no, the concierge has not seen any one. Silence and consternation. Sidonie is standing at the window on the left, Risler at the one on the right. From there they can see the little garden, where the darkness is gathering, and the black smoke which the chimney emits beneath the lowering clouds.
Frantz felt as if he were living in a horrible dream. The rapid journey, the sudden change of scene and climate, the ceaseless flow of Sigismond's words, the new idea that he had to form of Risler and Sidonie the same Sidonie he had loved so dearly all these things bewildered him and almost drove him mad. It was late. Night was falling.
He tried to speak to her, to renew the blissful moment, but she avoided him, always placing some one between them. Then he wrote to her. He carried his notes himself to a hollow in a rock near a clear spring called "The Phantom," which was in the outskirts of the park, sheltered by a thatched roof. Sidonie thought that a charming episode.
Besides, I prefer you to go to bed, Sidonie. It doesn't improve your temper to lose your beauty sleep." "Many thanks, madame. Good night." "Good night." The maid moved off toward the main staircase, while her mistress turned deliberately through the salons toward the library.
Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a few unmeaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued her tremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany critical situations at the theatre. In very truth, the situation at that moment was decidedly strained. But Risler's good-humor banished all constraint.
As for his cousin, the intimate good-fellowship of an education in common and mutual confidence existed between them, but nothing more, at least on his side. With Sidonie, on the contrary, he was exceedingly embarrassed and shy, and at the same time desirous of producing an effect a totally different man, in short.
This is the worst possible method of effecting a reconciliation; and Sidonie at once bursts forth: "I tell you that that woman, with all her calm airs, is proud and spiteful. In the first place, she detests me, I know that.
He never had taken so much notice of the refined features, the aristocratic pallor of her complexion; and when he left her that evening, deeply touched by the warmth she had displayed in defending Sidonie, by all the charming feminine excuses she put forward for her friend's silence and neglect, Frantz Risler reflected, with a feeling of selfish and ingenuous pleasure, that the child had loved him once, and that perhaps she loved him still, and kept for him in the bottom of her heart that warm, sheltered spot to which we turn as to the sanctuary when life has wounded us.
"How well they acted their love-scene!" continued the lover. And, as he uttered that suggestive phrase, he bent fondly toward a little face surrounded by a white woollen hood, from which the hair escaped in rebellious curls. Sidonie sighed: "Oh! yes, the love-scene. The actress wore beautiful diamonds." There was a moment's silence. Poor Frantz had much difficulty in explaining himself.
"Come, come, little one, you know perfectly well that you can use Madame Chorche's coupe. She always says it is at our disposal." "How many times must I tell you that I don't choose to be under any obligation to that woman?" "O Sidonie" "Oh! yes, I know, it's all understood. Madame Fromont is the good Lord himself. Every one is forbidden to touch her.
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