in the path which he had taken, so I thought that she might be going to show him your letter.”
“Absurd!”
“Very likely, Madame, and you must know best. It was only my guess.”
“Why, she hates him.”
“I do, Madame, with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, and hope to be forgiven for saying my Catechism backwards like a witch; but what a lady may do is not for me to say. Only they seemed very good friends, and I think that Mrs. Lygon went after him, when she had read your letter, which, as I said, made her angry. When we are angry, Madame, it stands to reason that we like to make a confidence to somebody.”
“But not to people we hate,” urged Bertha.
“But I have heard, Madame, that the easiest time to make up a quarrel with one person is when we are just beginning a quarrel with another.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” said Mrs. Urquhart, impatiently. “Mrs. Lygon can have no friendship with that person, and she goes back to England directly.”
“No, Madame, I think not.”
“But I tell you that it is so. Mr. Urquhart advised her to do so, and I wrote her the same.”
“Everybody does not always take advice, Madame, more’s the pity! Mrs. Lygon is not going back to England, quite the contrary.”
“How do you know?”
“I have no right to know anybody’s secrets except my own, Madame, but if things are told me I can’t help hearing them, and it has come to my knowledge that Mrs. Lygon has taken a lodging in Versailles, Madame.”
“It cannot be.”
“Well, Madame, perhaps not,” said Henderson, wilfully miscomprehending, “and perhaps Mr. Adair has taken it for her, which would be more becoming than a lady’s having to search about in a foreign town for a place for herself.”
“How did you hear this, Henderson? through Silvain, I suppose?”
“If it was through him, Madame, it is not the less true. He is not in the habit of speaking the thing which is not the truth, Madame.”
“And did he tell you where Mrs. Lygon had taken a lodging?”
“No, he did not, Madame,” said Henderson, who was quite above the ambition of deserving the kind of praise she had just assigned to her lover.
“Find out for me, then, Henderson, as quickly as you possibly can,” said Bertha. “I shall not wear that dress again,” she added, in order to prevent any further petulance from her domineering menial.
“Oh, Madame!” said Henderson, with a curtsey of real gratitude. And, indeed, it was a dress which her mistress had no business to give away, but, when one pays black mail, the best way is to pay it as handsomely and cheerfully as if it were a subscription to a charity, and going to be advertised.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
About the appointed hour, Ernest Adair presented himself at the house of his friend, M. Silvain. The latter was superintending the closing of the neat little shop, and he expressed much pleasure at the punctuality of Adair, and con- |ducted him into a small room, well known to the latter, and in the rear of the establishment. This apartment was Silvain’s pride and joy, and in the hope that it would one day be honoured by becoming the home of Madame Silvain, née Henderson, the affectionate perfumer had done his best to adorn it, and render it worthy such a distinction. The alcove, in which was M. Silvain’s bed, was shut off with pretty rose-coloured curtains, festooned with divers carefully chosen flowers which, in the mind of the enamoured owner, symbolised love, truth, and beauty, though it must be revealed that he had hopelessly failed in an attempt to make Mademoiselle’s matter-of-fact nature recognise the poetical value of the device. An elegant clock, of curious contrivance, showed the figure of Pleasure, who was trying to conceal the Hours with her scanty drapery, whence one hour, that of the time then passing, always peeped forth, and M. Silvain’s whispered hope that his exertions to make all Mademoiselle’s hours those of pleasure, had been more fortunate than his floral poetry; and had elicited a small slap on the cheek, and a request from his mistress that he would not talk such ridiculous nonsense. A variety of highly-coloured prints, selected with due regard to the extreme propriety of the British character, hung upon the walls, and there were two or three charming little mirrors, with china Cupids and nymphs inviting the beholder to look into the glass they surrounded. Need it be said that the eternal artificial flowers, in vases, were there under their crystal covers, or that a lamp, with a shade covered with the most unobjectionable diablerie, stood upon a gilded bracket? The apartment would not hold much furniture, but what there was had been chosen with taste. The small carpet was of English manufacture, and rather vulgar and flaring, but the homage was in its parentage, not its beauty, as M. Silvain had also explained to Matilde. Altogether the room was as dainty as the lover could make it, and its contiguity to the perfumery in the shop filled it with a composite and delectable aroma, and completed its bower-like character.
The appearance of the only occupant of the pretty room was scarcely in keeping with its attractions. This was a coarsely built man, with a face reddened, it might be, by constant exposure to sun and wind, and whose ear-rings were not seen to much advantage amid the mass of long, black hair that tangled around his head. The expression of his features was not exactly ferocious, but it was stern and forbidding, and a smile which disclosed an array of formidably strong white teeth did not extend itself to his keen dark eyes. His hands were red and muscular, and a coloured shirt, secured at the throat by a ribbon and ring, was surmounted by no collar, and showed a powerful bull neck, one that might have belonged to a gladiator of the old days. The guest’s figure was broad, and, as far as could be seen, for he did not rise from his