Suddenly, just as I was composing myself, at a turning in the green walk, among a wilderness of flowers lighted up by a hot ray of sunlight, I saw Juliette--Juliette and her husband.The pretty little girl held her mother by the hand, and it was easy to see that the lady had quickened her pace somewhat at the child's ambiguous phrase.Taken aback by the sight of a total stranger, who bowed with a tolerably awkward air, she looked at me with a coolly courteous expression and an adorable pout, in which I, who knew her secret, could read the full extent of her disappointment.I sought, but sought in vain, to remember any of the elegant phrases so laboriously prepared.
This momentary hesitation gave the lady's husband time to come forward.Thoughts by the myriad flitted through my brain.To give myself a countenance, I got out a few sufficiently feeble inquiries, asking whether the persons present were really M.le Comte and Mme.la Comtesse de Montpersan.These imbecilities gave me time to form my own conclusions at a glance, and, with a perspicacity rare at that age, to analyze the husband and wife whose solitude was about to be so rudely disturbed.
The husband seemed to be a specimen of a certain type of nobleman, the fairest ornaments of the provinces of our day.He wore big shoes with stout soles to them.I put the shoes first advisedly, for they made an even deeper impression upon me than a seedy black coat, a pair of threadbare trousers, a flabby cravat, or a crumpled shirt collar.There was a touch of the magistrate in the man, a good deal more of the Councillor of the Prefecture, all the self-importance of the mayor of the arrondissement, the local autocrat, and the soured temper of the unsuccessful candidate who has never been returned since the year 1816.As to countenance--a wizened, wrinkled, sunburned face, and long, sleek locks of scanty gray hair; as to character--an incredible mixture of homely sense and sheer silliness; of a rich man's overbearing ways, and a total lack of manners; just the kind of husband who is almost entirely led by his wife, yet imagines himself to be the master; apt to domineer in trifles, and to let more important things slip past unheeded--there you have the man!
But the Countess! Ah, how sharp and startling the contrast between husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a flat, graceful figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty was she, that you would have feared to break some bone if you so much as touched her.She wore a white muslin dress, a rose-colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons in the pretty cap on her head; her chemisette was moulded so deliciously by her shoulders and the loveliest rounded contours, that the sight of her awakened an irresistible desire of possession in the depths of the heart.Her eyes were bright and dark and expressive, her movements graceful, her foot charming.An experienced man of pleasure would not have given her more than thirty years, her forehead was so girlish.She had all the most transient delicate detail of youth in her face.In character she seemed to me to resemble the Comtesse de Lignolles and the Marquise de B----, two feminine types always fresh in the memory of any young man who has read Louvet's romance.
In a moment I saw how things stood, and took a diplomatic course that would have done credit to an old ambassador.For once, and perhaps for the only time in my life, I used tact, and knew in what the special skill of courtiers and men of the world consists.
I have had so many battles to fight since those heedless days, that they have left me no time to distil all the least actions of daily life, and to do everything so that it falls in with those rules of etiquette and good taste which wither the most generous emotions.
"M.le Comte," I said with an air of mystery, "I should like a few words with you," and I fell back a pace or two.
He followed my example.Juliette left us together, going away unconcernedly, like a wife who knew that she can learn her husband's secrets as soon as she chooses to know them.
I told the Count briefly of the death of my traveling companion.
The effect produced by my news convinced me that his affection for his young collaborator was cordial enough, and this emboldened me to make reply as I did.
