Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame | Page 2

her observation of the inmates of the box opposite to them. She talked about them, too, in a tone not too well modulated, criticising the beautifully dressed little woman, her hair, her eyes, her Greek nose and mouth, and, more than all, her indifferent expression and her manner of leaning upon the edge of her box and staring at the stage as if she did not care for, and indeed scarcely saw, what was going on upon it.
"That is the way with your American beauties," she said. "They have no respect for things. Their people spoil them--their men especially. They consider themselves privileged to act as their whims direct. They have not the gentle timidity of Frenchwomen. What French girl would have the sang froid to sit in one of the best boxes of the Nouvelle Op��ra and regard, with an actual air of ennui, such a performance as this? She does not hear a word that is sung."
"And we--do we hear?" bantered M. Renard.
"Pouf!" cried Madame. "We! We are world-dried and weather-beaten. We have not a worm-eaten emotion between us. I am seventy, and you, who are thirty-five, are the elder of the two. Bah I At that girl's age I had the heart of a dove."
"But that is long ago," murmured M. Renard, as if to himself. It was quite human that he should slightly resent being classed with an unamiable grenadier of seventy.
"Yes!" with considerable asperity. "Fifty years!" Then, with harsh voice and withered face melted suddenly into softness quite na?ve, "Mon Dieu!" she said, "Fifty years since Ars��ne whispered into my ear at my first opera, that he saw tears in my eyes!"
It was at this instant that there appeared in the Villefort box a new figure,--that of a dark, slight young man of graceful movements,--in fact, a young man of intensely striking appearance. M. Villefort rose to receive him with serious courtesy, but the pretty American was not so gracious. Not until he had seated himself at her side and spoken to her did she turn her head and permit her eyes simply to rest upon his face.
M. Renard smiled again.
"Enter," he remarked in a low tone,--"enter M. Ralph Edmondstone, the cousin of Madame."
His companion asked no questions, but he proceeded, returning to his light and airy tone:--
"M. Ralph Edmondstone is a genius," he said. "He is an artist, he is a poet, he is also a writer of subtile prose. His sonnets to Euphrasie--in the day of Euphrasie--awakened the admiration of the sternest critics: they were so tender, so full of purest fire! Some of the same critics also could scarcely choose between these and his songs to Agl? in her day, or Camille in hers. He is a young man of fine fancies, and possesses the amiable quality of being invariably passionately in earnest. As he was serious in his sentiments yesterday, so he will be to-morrow, so he is to-day."
"To-day!" echoed Madame de Castro. "Nonsense!"
Madame Villefort did not seem to talk much. It was M. Ralph Edmondstone who conversed, and that, too, with so much of the charm of animation that it was pleasurable even to be a mere looker-on.
One involuntarily strained one's ears to catch a sentence,--he was so eagerly absorbed, so full of rapid, gracefully unconscious and unconventional gesture.
"I wonder what he is saying?" Madame de Castro was once betrayed into exclaiming.
"Something metaphysical, about a poem, or a passage of music, or a picture,--or perhaps his soul," returned M. Renard. "His soul is his strong point,--he pets it and wonders at it. He puts it through its paces. And yet, singularly enough, he is never ridiculous--only fanciful and na?ve. It is his soul which so fascinates women."
Whether this last was true of other women or not, Madame Villefort scarcely appeared fascinated. As she listened, her eyes still rested upon his eager mobile face, but with a peculiar expression,--an expression of critical attention, and yet one which somehow detracted from her look of youth, as if she weighed his words as they fell from his lips and classified them, without any touch of the enthusiasm which stirred within himself.
Suddenly she rose from her seat ana addressed her husband, who immediately rose also. Then she spoke to M. Edmondstone, and without more ado, the three left the box,--the young beauty, a little oddly, rather followed than accompanied by her companions,--at the recognition of which circumstance Madame de Castro uttered a series of sharp ejaculations of disapproval.
"Bah! Bah!" she cried. "She is too young for such airs!--as if she were Madame l'Imp��ratrice herself! Take me to my carriage. I am tired also."
Crossing the pavement with M. Renard, they passed the carriage of the Villeforts. Before its open door stood M. Villefort and Edmondstone, and the younger man, with bared head, bent forward speaking