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The Vicomte sighed and glanced towards Phyllis. "In happier circumstances!" he murmured, and then catching the Marquise's eye, he was silent. The band played English music, and the chef sent them up a wonderful omelette.
One of the wheels had come off on the road, and although the Marquise's men had contrived to replace it and to rudely secure it by an improvised pin, they had been compelled to proceed at a walk for some fifteen miles of the journey, which accounted for the lateness of their arrival at Soignies.
"Take her away, Guyot," he said, shortly, and the sturdy soldier obeyed him with a roughness that took no account of either birth or sex. When the Marquise's last scream had died away in the distance, Charlot turned once more to Suzanne, and it seemed that he sought to compose his features into an expression of gentleness beyond their rugged limitations.
He could afford to be philosophical: it wasn't HIS vertical inverted triple-expansion direct-acting propeller. "Smile and be more careful ze next time," he went on. "The marquise's reputation is international for what is charitably called her eccentricity." "In America they put people in jail for that kind of eccentricity!" exclaimed Florence.
In the evening, if there were visitors, a fire was lit in the library; otherwise the family again sat about the Marquise's lamp till the footman came in at ten with tisane and biscuits de Reims; after which every one bade the dowager good night and scattered down the corridors to chill distances marked by tapers floating in cups of oil.
"I should like to see it on your brow," said Camors. "Your slightest wishes are commands," replied Charlotte, in a voice harmonious and grave, but not untouched with irony. In the midst of the jewelry which encumbered the salon was a full marquise's coronet set in precious stones and pearls.
I may tell you at once that he was positively delighted with the plan, and then and there gave me one hundred francs out of his own meagre purse for my preliminary expenses. The next morning we began work. I had begged M. le Marquis to find the means of bringing me a few scraps of the late M. le Comte de Naquet's Madame la Marquise's first husband handwriting. This, fortunately, he was able to do.
During this time the marquise's young son, whom we saw at his mother's deathbed, had reached the age of twenty, and being rich in his father's possessions which his uncle had restored to him and also by his mother's inheritance, which he had shared with his sister, had married a girl of good family, named Mademoiselle de Moissac, who was both rich and beautiful.
The maintenance of the establishment, the servants, and the ever increasing train of milliners and dressmakers would be enough to satisfy Madame la Marquise's ambitions. But for Sylvie, half-fairy, half-angel as she is, there must be poetry and moonlight, flowers, and romance, and music, and tender nothings, marriage does not consort with these delights.
When at length they emerged, it was to learn from that functionary that Madame la Marquise's carriage had been obliged to yield its place at the door, but was at the moment in the act of regaining it. Madame de Malrive cut the explanation short. "I shall walk home. The carriage this evening at eight." As the footman turned away, she raised her eyes for the first time to Durham's.
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