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CHAPTER XV.

IT was their first real difference.

Armand de Valtour, knowing himself in the wrong, avoided as much as possible all discussion with her during the next week. Their life was an incessant round of gaiety, amusement, pleasure. With so many of its hours lived en évidence to the great world, it was easy enough to keep apart. Adrienne saw her husband's desire for her society lessening, his love growing colder and more fitful, but she kept silence from all complaint. The world thought her too serious for her years, and put it down to English coldness, and admired and courted her just the same.

It was the night of her reception--the grandest and the greatest of any she had yet given. All the sumptuous apartments of the Hôtel Valtours were thrown open; lights glittered and were reflected in costly mirrors and polished floors; the fragrance of flowers was everywhere, and the brilliant assemblage passing to and fro were like figures in a pageant. Amidst it all the young hostess stood, her lovely face, her sweet, grave courtesy, her perfect manners the admiration of all.

"You are a fortunate man, mon ami," said Mme. Lissac to Armand de Valtour, as she stood by his | | 167 side for a moment. It had been his wish that she should be invited here, and Adrienne had sent her a card, greatly as she disliked her.

"In what respect?" he asked, glancing down at the face beside him. His own looked gloomy enough.

"To have so charming a wife," was the answer. "There, again, your taste and judgment have proved faultless!"

"She is too good for me," he muttered below his breath. He could not but see how different she was to most of the women around. How the innate purity and beauty of her nature looked out through those clear eyes that no ignoble thought or feeling had ever dimmed with shame.

The innocence of Adrienne's love was yet untarnished. How long would it remain so?

Madame Lissac laughed. "Too good for you! That is a humiliating confession. I thought no woman was good enough, you were so long making up your mind as to which of my sex you would honour. But I do not know if you have made a wise choice even now."

"What do you mean?" asked Armand de Valtour sharply.

"Mean? Well, she is too saint-like for the wickedness of the world. She loves you--that one can see easily enough! but are you the kind of man to keep her love? Are you not afraid she may find you out?"

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"My past has nothing to do with her," answered Armand de Valtour fiercely. "For the future--she is happy enough. I shall not disturb her illusions."

"The world may," said Mme. Lissac, opening her large crimson fan and slowly waving it to and fro.

"She will not listen to it," he answered carelessly. "You do not understand her. She is unlike all other women. She will shut her eyes and dream. That is enough for her."

"Are you quite sure?" said Madame Lissac meaningly. "She is not stupid--she is very much in love, certainly, but that we know never lasts. What,--when her eyes open?"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Why speculate as to the future?" he said. "For all you know I have reformed. She is a woman worth some sacrifice, as even you must acknowledge."

She flashed a sudden glance at him. "Certainly the world has seen many droll things," she said coolly. "But an English wife to reform a French husband--pardieu! that would be something to awaken one's faith in the age of miracles!"

Armand de Valtour smiled. "Yes, it sounds absurd, does it not? We do not believe in the superior power of good over evil, nous autres."

"You may," answered Madame Lissac meaningly.

"For myself, I confess I am a sceptic in most things--certainly in the reforming powers of marriage."

"You think I am beyond even that?" he said, with a faint sneer.

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"Mon ami, I have known you too long to believe anything can change your nature. It is too unstable, as you well know. I can believe you loved your wife madly--for a month. I can also believe that by this time you are ready to love someone else's wife just as madly. Am I right?"

He frowned impatiently. "What a vacillating fool you make me out," he said. "I know this, that no one else's wife is to be compared to mine, and I am not likely to pay myself the bad compliment of letting the world see that I think so."

A gleam of angry defiance shot through Mme. Lissac's dark eyes. But she laughed gaily.

"Mais, oui! that was well said," she answered. "I think you are wise to appreciate her. But let us change the subject. Have you seen Zoé lately? Does she not improve? What a charming Grand Duchess she made in that piece of Offenbach's!"

"Yes," said Armand eagerly. "I saw her the first night of its performance. What spirit--what effrontery the little thing has; and yet, off the stage, she is so sweet--so modest."

"Yes; she is a good child," said Madame Lissac, "I am glad to have been able to bring her into a better position. She will do well now, I doubt not. For once, mon ami, you did keep a promise."

"Have I ever failed in keeping one to you?" he said, with a tender glance that did him infinite credit, but did not deceive her for a single moment.

She laughed a little bitterly.

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"Perhaps," she said. "But I have no desire to refresh your memory. Come, our conversation has lasted long enough. There comes the Marquise de Savigny and her horrid old husband. Go and speak to them."

She moved away as she spoke, and Armand de Valtour went forward to greet the new arrivals and endure being buttonholed by the Marquis, who thought himself an authority on politics, and wanted to discuss the affairs of the Chambres with him.

Madame Odylle made her way to Adrienne.

"How brilliant you look to-night," she said. "And you play the hostess admirably; everyone says so. Is not this better than your country idyls?"

"Better!" said Adrienne contemptuously. Then she smiled. "Do not let us begin our old arguments," she said. "You know what our wordy battles resulted in of old. By the way, I have a surprise for you all to-night. I am going to introduce a Provençal musician. It will be a novelty to my guests to hear the instrument he plays; afterwards he will sing. He has a beautiful voice. I have asked Messieurs Pierreclos and Littré to hear him. I want them to get him an engagement in Paris. He has been well taught, and has genius, I think."

"Is he handsome?" asked the Marquise. "How charming to be the protectress of genius and win the gratitude of ambitious, impassionate youth. Mais, | | 171 c'est un beau rôle. I do not think I should mind playing it myself."

"Ah, there he is," broke in Adrienne abruptly. "I must go and speak to him. I have told almost everyone here about him, so that they will not be surprised at his peasant's dress. I will ask him to play now."

She left her friend and crossed over to where the young Provençal stood. With his pale, handsome face, his brilliant eyes, his picturesque dress, he made a striking picture in that salon of fashionable men and women. As he moved to the platform whither Adrienne had bade him carry his instrument, every eye was upon him, everyone settled themselves in their seats prepared for a novelty in the way of music to which they were quite unaccustomed.

He was not nervous or discomposed in any way. Amidst the silence of expectation, the intense gaze bent upon him from all eyes, he stood there and played as he had played in that past summertime beneath the shade of his father's home.

Adrienne listened with beating heart to the wild, plaintive notes; every one of them seemed a reproach to her. At her husband she never looked; of her guests she never thought; all her mind was absorbed in the music that brought back that scene when she had gone to the Tours de Champs for the first time and listened to her husband's gay speeches and flattering promises to André Brizeaux.

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"Had he deceived others in the same way?" she wondered.

When André ceased playing there was a perfect enthusiasm of applause and excitement among the audience.

"Bravo! Bravo! Bis! Bis! Magnifique Cest un prodige," resounded everywhere. "Mais, c'est incroyable! Un paysan faire la musique comme ça!"

Adrienne looked delighted.

"You must hear him sing," she said, and turned with gracious smiles to the two influential men of music on whose fiat hung the future of the young Provençal.

There was some more instrumental music, but it neither interested nor roused the pleasure-loving crowd as that odd, wild, fantastic performance of the tambourinier had done. Then some one stepped forward and placed a song on the piano, and André came before them once again. He sang Schumann's "Adieu," which Mdlle. de Valtour had taught him a year before.

There was an intense stillness. He had no music. He only stood there while the scents of the flower-covered platform reached him like a breath of summer, and the lights and dresses and forms seemed to fade away, leaving before him only one face.

To that he sang--of that he thought; and clear and sweet and sad the beautiful tones floated over the air, the simple pathetic words bearing the signifi- | | 173 cance of their own meaning to many a heart among the listening crowd.

There were tears in many eyes as he ceased, and Adrienne's heart beat high, and her colour came and went. She never looked at him; she remembered only how much depended on his success. Of that he never thought.

Softly as a sigh the last note died away in the silence, and the tempest of applause that followed seemed almost desecration. The musical director, seated by Adrienne, bent low to the beautiful young Countess.

"Your judgment was right, madame," he said; "there are both genius and promise in him; the voice is exquisite. It is rare to hear so perfect a tenor."

"Then I may introduce him to you?" asked Adrienne eagerly.

"I shall be only too delighted."

The hours that followed were like a sense of intoxication to André Brizeaux. Great ladies praised him with soft flatteries; men of note and fame in the musical world surrounded him; and no one there seemed to think of his position, or insult him by attempts at patronage. For well they knew that he had a key to success which would render such patronage superfluous in time to come.

He bore himself with strange modesty--shy, yet full of grace--as yet scarcely conscious of the triumph he had achieved.

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Armand de Valtour had been a silent and somewhat sullen spectator of this scene. It displeased him that his wife should have taken him so completely at his word--that she should have triumphed where he had failed. But he could not betray his feelings in so public an assemblage, and he was obliged to go up to André Brizeaux and murmur his praises in conjunction with others.

The young Provençal listened gravely and without any word. He paid little heed to Armand de Valtour's praise. It was not to him that he was indebted, and he felt glad of it. All the time that the words of flattery and wonder were in his ears, he only seemed to see that beautiful fair face of Adrienne's, and feel the warmth and gladness of her smile stealing like the glow of sunlight over the frozen misery and despair of his life.

He sat among the artistes in the supper-room set apart for them, and marvelled a little at the light way in which they spoke of the sacredness of art, of the contempt in which they seemed to hold it, if it brought less of remuneration to their pockets than fame to their lives. He was so ignorant as yet, and this first success seemed so brilliant a thing, and of money he never thought.

He stood and watched the gay throngs moving about the rooms, the dancers gliding through those mazy circles, the lovely faces, the gleaming jewels--the whole brilliance and beauty of such a scene as he had never looked at in his life before.

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Adrienne did not dream he could see her from time to time as the crowd parted and gave way. Grave, sweet, beautiful as a dream, looking to his eyes like a being of another sphere, who had lost her way amidst the maze of the great world.

Once only she had come to him. "You are to call on Mons. Pierreclos to-morrow," she said. "I think your future is assured now."

"Madame, how can I thank you?" he murmured, bowing low before the beautiful woman who, to him was indeed a sovereign.

"By your success answering my expectations," she said, with that smile like sunlight on her lovely face.

"It shall, if it lies in mortal power," he answered earnestly, and he registered that vow in his heart.

"André," said Armand de Valtour, coming up to him some time later, "I am going to lead the cotillon. I want a surprise for my guests. Will you play us the farandole?"

The young man looked slightly annoyed. He had been dreaming of being a great artiste. He was brought down to the level of a peasant's piping. True, his performance as a tambourinier was as wonderful in its way as his singing, but he did not think that now. However, he could not well refuse his host, so he retired to fetch his instrument.

In a few moments all was bustle and excitement, laughter, and explanation. Armand de Valtour led | | 176 the figure. Adrienne even joined in it. She had looked surprised when André Brizeaux, tambourine in hand, appeared in the salon. Armand bent to her once, a sneer on his lips.

"Your prodigy was too elated--it is well to teach him his proper place," he said.

Adrienne was silent, but all enjoyment of the dance was over, and the bright music that led them on through salon after salon, a moving mass of brilliant figures, was robbed of half its charm. Yet the farandole was voted the success of the evening.

After it the guests began to take their leave. When the great rooms were at last empty, Armand de Valtour turned to his wife.

"Another time when you see fit to introduce débuants to my guests," he said coldly, "I beg you will select them from a different sphere of life. I object to my farm labourers being treated in my house as my equals."

Adrienne flushed crimson from brow to chin.

"I think you told me to act as I pleased in this matter," she said. "It is scarcely fair to reproach me when I have only been endeavouring to repair your own faults of neglect and injustice."

"I do not hold myself responsible for the mad caprices of youth," answered her husband. "You have chosen to play the part of benefactress to-night in a way I disapprove of. For the future André Brizeaux is not to be admitted to my house on any pretence whatever."

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"Armand!" cried his wife, in utter amazement. "What are you saying? You cannot mean it?"

"I do not wish you to make any scene," he answered coldly. "It is enough what I have said. You have done all that is necessary to insure his success. Soit! You shall not bring him again under my roof to humiliate me, as you thought to do to-night."

"Armand! how can you so misjudge me? I had no such intention."

"Words are easy, and in women mean just as much--or as little--as we choose to believe," answered Armand de Valtour, turning away. "I have said all that is necessary. See that my wishes are respected for the future."

Adrienne stood there quite still, quite cold, quite silent. But her heart swelled with bitterness; her face took a strange, unyouthful hardness in its sweet, grave lines. Never before had her husband spoken to her like this--never before had she felt that the freedom of her actions, the generous instincts of her nature, could be thwarted and controlled by a tyranny so senseless, yet so strong.

But he was her husband; she owed him obedience. It never occurred to her for one single moment to take her own course and withstand him.

What he bade her do she must do. Of that there could be no question. A chill, cold as the mistral, passed over her. Had she misjudged Armand after all? Was it her ideal of himself that she had wor- | | 178 shipped all this time? She shuddered, and put the thought away.

"He was annoyed--angered, perhaps. I should have asked his permission first," she said, as she went slowly and wearily away to her sleeping room. Her heart was heavy within her. She had thought to atone for his neglect--to do some good to the poor, young enthusiast, who had been deluded by vain promises and was ignorant as a child, and almost as helpless, in this great city. She had thought to do this, and saw only a barrier raised in the way of her unselfish desires--an added substance to that cold, grey shadow that day by day crept nearer to her heart, and set itself between her husband and herself.

She sank on her knees by the bed in her room; a great fear and a great terror seized her.

"My God!" she cried, "if I have been blind, keep me so still. Do not let me waken to find falsehood and treachery in him!"

It was such a prayer as only a woman would breathe--a woman whose love would be faithful unto death!