Eight Strokes of the Clock | Page 2

Then she closed the window.
Outside, in the park, the huntsmen's horns were sounding the reveille.
The hounds burst into frantic baying. It was the opening day of the hunt
that morning at the Château de la Marèze, where, every year, in the first
week in September, the Comte d'Aigleroche, a mighty hunter before the
Lord, and his countess were accustomed to invite a few personal
friends and the neighbouring landowners.
Hortense slowly finished dressing, put on a riding-habit, which
revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat,
which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her
writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a
farewell letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult
letter to word; and, after beginning it several times, she ended by giving
up the idea.
"I will write to him later," she said to herself, "when his anger has
cooled down."
And she went downstairs to the dining-room.
Enormous logs were blazing in the hearth of the lofty room. The walls

were hung with trophies of rifles and shotguns. The guests were
flocking in from every side, shaking hands with the Comte
d'Aigleroche, one of those typical country squires, heavily and
powerfully built, who lives only for hunting and shooting. He was
standing before the fire, with a large glass of old brandy in his hand,
drinking the health of each new arrival.
Hortense kissed him absently:
"What, uncle! You who are usually so sober!"
"Pooh!" he said. "A man may surely indulge himself a little once a
year!..."
"Aunt will give you a scolding!"
"Your aunt has one of her sick headaches and is not coming down.
Besides," he added, gruffly, "it is not her business ... and still less is it
yours, my dear child."
Prince Rénine came up to Hortense. He was a young man, very smartly
dressed, with a narrow and rather pale face, whose eyes held by turns
the gentlest and the harshest, the most friendly and the most satirical
expression. He bowed to her, kissed her hand and said:
"May I remind you of your kind promise, dear madame?"
"My promise?"
"Yes, we agreed that we should repeat our delightful excursion of
yesterday and try to go over that old boarded-up place the look of
which made us so curious. It seems to be known as the Domaine de
Halingre."
She answered a little curtly:
"I'm extremely sorry, monsieur, but it would be rather far and I'm
feeling a little done up. I shall go for a canter in the park and come
indoors again."

There was a pause. Then Serge Rénine said, smiling, with his eyes
fixed on hers and in a voice which she alone could hear:
"I am sure that you'll keep your promise and that you'll let me come
with you. It would be better."
"For whom? For you, you mean?"
"For you, too, I assure you."
She coloured slightly, but did not reply, shook hands with a few people
around her and left the room.
A groom was holding the horse at the foot of the steps. She mounted
and set off towards the woods beyond the park.
It was a cool, still morning. Through the leaves, which barely quivered,
the sky showed crystalline blue. Hortense rode at a walk down winding
avenues which in half an hour brought her to a country-side of ravines
and bluffs intersected by the high-road.
She stopped. There was not a sound. Rossigny must have stopped his
engine and concealed the car in the thickets around the If cross-roads.
She was five hundred yards at most from that circular space. After
hesitating for a few seconds, she dismounted, tied her horse carelessly,
so that he could release himself by the least effort and return to the
house, shrouded her face in the long brown veil that hung over her
shoulders and walked on.
As she expected, she saw Rossigny directly she reached the first turn in
the road. He ran up to her and drew her into the coppice!
"Quick, quick! Oh, I was so afraid that you would be late ... or even
change your mind! And here you are! It seems too good to be true!"
She smiled:
"You appear to be quite happy to do an idiotic thing!"

"I should think I am happy! And so will you be, I swear you will! Your
life will be one long fairy-tale. You shall have every luxury, and all the
money you can wish for."
"I want neither money nor luxuries."
"What then?"
"Happiness."
"You can safely leave your happiness to me."
She replied, jestingly:
"I rather doubt the quality of the happiness which you would give me."
"Wait! You'll see! You'll see!"
They had