| | 179

CHAPTER XVI.

"You will come and have supper with me to-night, Armand?" said Madame Lissac.

He had taken her to her carriage after the performance at the theatre was over. Zoé Laurent had just made her début in a new opera, and the house had rung with her triumphs. Armand had been in the stalls part of the time, in Madame Aurélie's box the other. She gave him the invitation as he stood beside her carriage, and he was hesitating whether to accept it or not.

"Zoé has promised to come," she added presently. "Not that she is any inducement, of course."

"Yes; I will come," answered Armand suddenly; and he sprang into the carriage by her side.

Someone passing caught a glimpse of his face as the lamps shone on it for a moment. It was André Brizeaux. A sudden colour came to his brow; he drew back, and watched the carriage as it rolled rapidly away.

"It is well she does not know," he said to himself bitterly. "He is always with that woman now."

The young Provençal had found friends at last. His wonderful voice had done that for him, and Adrienne learnt it in a grateful letter that he wrote | | 180 her, explaining the course of study on which he was to enter, present expenses being defrayed by Monsieur Pierreclos, who declared his generosity was a profitable investment. The future would prove that. Adrienne had answered the letter briefly and kindly, and made no allusion to her husband's mandate on the night of her reception.

Life was very wearisome to her now. A perpetual round of gaiety demanded as perpetual an attention. Her husband seemed to avoid her as much as possible, and when he accompanied her to the receptions of the great world, he invariably made some excuse and left her. Other men would have consoled her readily enough; but to her the language of compliment seemed an insult, and she turned away with coldness and contempt from her crowd of courtiers. The faithfulness of a great love is the only safeguard a woman needs to keep her cold and pure, be the fire of temptation ever so strong. And this safeguard Adrienne still possessed. What her husband did--where he went--she was far from imagining. She did not seek his confidence as of old, but it pained her that he should so completely avoid her, and she made one or two timid attempts to win him back to her side once more. They were all in vain.

"You do not seem so enchanted with your wife as you were a short time ago," laughed Madame Aurélie to him.

And he answered her impatiently

"Goodness is tiresome."

| | 181

To-night at the supper-table he seemed to throw off the gloom that so often was with him now. The little Laurent came in, looking divine, in pale blue satin, with dark red roses at her breast, and Lamboi, who had a sort of general invitation to the house, happened to drop in also. They made a very lively quartette, and, what with the quantity of champagne he drank, and the charms of the little actress, Armand de Valtour began to forget his troubles, and once more sparkled out into his old, brilliant, light-hearted self.

Zoé leaned toward him confidingly; her artless graces were to-night irresistible.

"Ah, mademoiselle, if I were but young once more!" sighed Armand, looking up at the brilliant little face with its piquante, mischievous expression, and saucy, radiant eyes.

"Mais pourquoi, monsieur?" she demurred. "To be young--bah! that is to be foolish--unstable. You are of the best years for a man--at least, I think so."

"What a compliment! If I only dared believe you!"

"Mais, oui. I mean it. I hate young men--imbéciles who throw one bouquets and wait at the stage-door, and think that because a woman is an actress she will fall like a ripe plum into the hands of the first fool who asks her. Ah, monsieur, you are so different--you have been so kind--so generous--so true a friend!"

| | 182

"Pardieu!" thought Armand, "the little one is discriminating." Aloud he said, "Nay, mademoiselle, I have not merited such gratitude. You have yourself to thank for your success."

She shook her head--the soft, loose golden curls fell into a prettier tangle than ever over her brow.

"No, monsieur--you. I shall always think so, say what you please!"

Their voices had dropped to a lower and more confidential key.

Madame Aurélie and Lamboi rose quietly from the supper-table and went to the other end of the room.

"You see," pursued the little Laurent, "of other men I might have felt afraid--uncertain; but you--ah, you are so good, and I feel you are my friend, and so safe a friend, too, for you are--married. Therefore, all you have done for me is disinterested."

A hot flame of colour swept over Armand de Valtour's face.

"Women were made to plague the souls of men," he thought. "What does she mean? Is she playing with me?"

"Disinterested!" he said aloud. "Yes, of course, mademoiselle. I would gladly serve you--so, I think, would any man who once looked upon your face."

She smiled softly at him--her eyes looked lovelier than ever under the shade of their long lashes.

"My face!" she said, with pretty contempt. "Bah | | 183 that is nothing. There are many better. I thought it was for--myself--perhaps, that you had cared to serve me!"

Armand looked at her doubtfully. He could not quite understand what she meant.

"We will not speak of serving," he said at last; "your triumphs are a more pleasant topic of conversation. Are you not happy now?"

"Happy," she said, and looked at him again, and then let her eyes drop, and a sigh parted her lips. "Is any woman that, monsieur, who is young and unprotected, and lives always before the world, and dares trust no man's love--no woman's friendship?"

"No; she is not acting," thought Armand to himself. "Poor little thing, how I have misjudged her!"

He turned and looked her full in the eyes. His own wore the mournful expression he so well knew how to call up.

"I cannot tell," he said. "Women are so strange. So little contents some; while others--"

He paused.

"I am sorry you are not happy," he added more softly. "You are so young, so beautiful. Your life should be full of triumphs, delights, pleasures. But perhaps you judge men too harshly. May there not be one whose love you might trust?"

She coloured softly; she did not look at him. He watched her intently, marvelling whether it was of | | 184 him she thought; quite ready to believe it if she told him so.

Zoé Laurent never suffered herself to be swept away by any tide of impulse. She was remembering now all she had heard of this man, and wondering whether it would be worth her while to delude him. But he saw only the colour wavering in her face, the stormy swell of her bosom, the tremulous quiver of her lovely mouth, saw and interpreted these signs to his own wishes.

For a full hour or more they sat and talked thus, in low whispers, with soft insinuations and broken-off sentences and looks that meant just what each chose to think. Then Madame Lissac declared she must dismiss her guests, and Armand received gracious permission from the little actress to see her home in her hired brougham. She had not yet arrived at that stage in her profession when she could set up one for herself.

Lamboi stood lighting his cigar in the street, and watched the little carriage roll away.

"Does she mean to fool him as she has done me?" he muttered. "Petite diablesse!"

Day after day saw no difference in the terms on which Armand de Valtour and his wife now lived. The estrangement between them only widened.

Adrienne was very unhappy. She bore a brave face to the world. No one suspected the secret misery of her life, and fashion and society left her | | 185 unharmed, nay, almost ignorant of their laxities and intrigues. The women marvelled at her. But seeing they had no rival to fear, they enhanced her popularity by loud-sounding praises. She did all that was required of her. Everyone called her perfect, and put her slight coldness and hauteur of manner down to her English nationality.

The Marquise de Savigny laughed at and teased her for it.

"Is it not cold up in those regions, chérie?" she would say. "Have you no desire to sun yourself in the plains and valleys where the rest of us run riot?"

"I prefer my own altitude," answered Adrienne.

"You are not happy," said Madame Odylle, with a sharp glance, "though I am sure you ought to be. You have not a care or worry in the world, and really Armand makes a very good husband. Quite wonderfully so."

"Yes," answered her friend quickly. "I do not complain."

"You might just as well burst into a thousand furies as go about with that martyred sadness in your eyes," exclaimed Odylle impatiently. "You never laugh or seem to enjoy yourself one bit. I should like to shake you sometimes."

Adrienne smiled.

"It would not do me much good if you did," she answered. "I am not a flighty, excitable thing like | | 186 yourself. I am happy enough; perhaps just as happy in my way as you are in yours."

"No; you are not," contradicted Odylle flatly. "I understand you better than to be deceived so easily."

A hot flush rose to the brow of the young Countess.

"We will not discuss my affairs, please," she said haughtily. "They concern only myself."

The little Marquise stared at her.

"You need not put on grande dame airs for me," she said, a little huffily. "Certainly I will not speak of your affairs or yourself if you do not wish it, but"--her voice trembled a little, she was good-natured and warm-hearted, and she really loved Adrienne--"but I thought you looked upon me as a friend. I am not happy myself, but I should be indeed sorry to shut myself out from all sympathy, as you do."

"Ah, my dear! forgive me," cried Adrienne, with sudden penitence. "I did not mean to be unkind; only there are some things one cannot speak of to anybody."

"Are there?" said the little Parisienne. "I did not know that. We have no secrets nowadays. Our own lovers, our husbands' infidelities, our amusements, occupations, caprices, extravagances--all these we talk of openly enough. Society has ceased to be shocked at anything but what is in glaringly bad taste; it knows everything, only it satisfies us with the pleasant little fiction that it doesn't."

Adrienne sighed wearily.

| | 187

"I wish I were back at Valtours," she said. "I am sick of fashionable life."

"You always were so odd," said Mme. de Savigny, looking at her with momentary wonder in her large dark eyes. "What can you find to do in that dreadful little dull place. I should go mad with melancholy if I had a month of it."

"The life suits me better than this," answered Adrienne.

"Does nothing amuse you?" persisted the little Marquise. "No balls, no fêtes, no triumphs; not the adoration of men, the envy of half the women of Paris, an always full purse, and anything in the shape of toilets that you fancy or desire? You are not a bit coquette, I know; but surely it must please you to have yourself admired, talked about, wondered at? Besides, you are clever, too, and you always have political men, and literary men, and artistic men by your side. You really are hard to please."

"I suppose I am. None of these things certainly please me--at least, only for a very short time."

"I don't believe you are a woman at all," laughed the little Marquise merrily. "There is not another one I know who would not give her soul almost to be as you are. And you are not one bit elated, and you don't even look happy. By the way, that young singer you introduced at your reception is going to Italy to study. But of course, you know; he was your protegé. I met him the other day. I stopped to speak to him. How handsome he is! He has | | 188 given up his peasant's dress now. He looks more civilised, but less picturesque certainly. Pierreclos says he will be one of the most famous tenors ever heard. Are you not glad? Why, how pale you are! What have I said now?"

Adrienne had listened with eloquent dim eyes. She was so glad, so glad--and yet was it not her impulsive interference in his behalf that had first caused this estrangement between her husband and herself?

She turned away as her friend ceased.

"I know it all," she said; "yes, I am very glad. I hope he will one day be as great as he deserves."

Madame Odylle looked at her musingly.

"Has she a carte tendre of Provence?" she thought; "does this young genius interest her so much? No, it cannot be; she is in love with that faithless husband still. I wonder when her eyes will really be opened?"

She little guessed how soon!