Suddenly Hermione turned round, as if conscious that he was there. When

she did so he understood in the very depths of him why such a man as

Delarey attracted, must attract, such a woman as Hermione. That which she

had in the soul Delarey seemed to express in the body--sympathy,

enthusiasm, swiftness, courage. He was like a statue of her feelings, but

a statue endowed with life. And the fact that her physique was a sort of

contradiction of her inner self must make more powerful the charm of a

Delarey for her. As Hermione looked round at him, turning her tall figure

rather slowly in the chair, Artois made up his mind that she had been

captured by the physique of this man. He could not be surprised, but he

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still felt angry.

Hermione introduced Delarey to him eagerly, not attempting to hide her

anxiety for the two men to make friends at once. Her desire was so

transparent and so warm that for a moment Artois felt touched, and

inclined to trample upon his evil mood and leave no trace of it. He was

also secretly too human to remain wholly unmoved by Delarey's reception

of him. Delarey had a rare charm of manner whose source was a happy, but

not foolishly shy, modesty, which made him eager to please, and convinced

that in order to do so he must bestir himself and make an effort. But in

this effort there was no labor. It was like the spurt of a willing horse,

a fine racing pace of the nature that woke pleasure and admiration in

those who watched it.

Artois felt at once that Delarey had no hostility towards him, but was

ready to admire and rejoice in him as Hermione's greatest friend. He was

met more than half-way. Yet when he was beside Delarey, almost touching

him, the stubborn sensation of furtive dislike within Artois increased,

and he consciously determined not to yield to the charm of this younger

man who was going to interfere in his life. Artois did not speak much

English, but fortunately Delarey talked French fairly well, not with

great fluency like Hermione, but enough to take a modest share in

conversation, which was apparently all the share that he desired. Artois

believed that he was no great talker. His eyes were more eager than was

his tongue, and seemed to betoken a vivacity of spirit which he could

not, perhaps, show forth in words. The conversation at first was mainly

between Hermione and Artois, with an occasional word from

Delarey--generally interrogative--and was confined to generalities. But

this could not continue long. Hermione was an enthusiastic talker and

seldom discussed banalities. From every circle where she found herself

the inane was speedily banished; pale topics--the spectres that haunt the

dull and are cherished by them--were whipped away to limbo, and some

subject full-blooded, alive with either serious or comical possibilities,

was very soon upon the carpet. By chance Artois happened to speak of two

people in Paris, common friends of his and of Hermione's, who had been

very intimate, but who had now quarrelled, and every one said,

irrevocably. The question arose whose fault was it. Artois, who knew the

facts of the case, and whose judgment was usually cool and well-balanced,

said it was the woman's.




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