She was laughing, looking happier and more animated than I had seen her since I came to Valmy. I realised sharply how lovely she had been before time and tragedy had drained the life from her face.
On the thought, she turned and saw myself and Philippe by the door, and the gaiety vanished. The boredom and annoyance that shut down over it were humiliatingly plain to see. I could have slapped her for it, but then realised that Philippe had probably not noticed. He was advancing solemnly and politely on Florimond, who surged to his feet with noises indicating quite sufficient delighted pleasure to counter Héloïse's obvious irritation.
"Philippe! This is delightful! How are you?"
"I am very well, thank you, m'sieur."
"H'm, yes." He tapped the boy's cheek. "A little more colour there, perhaps, and then you'll do. Country air, that's the thing, and the Valmy air suits you, by the look of it!" He didn't actually say "better than Paris", but the words were there, implicit, and Philippe didn't reply. It wasn't easy to avoid mistakes just then with him. Florimond registered this one, I could see, but he merely added amiably: "Mind you, I don't wonder that Valmy's good for you! When one is lucky enough to have a beautiful young lady as one's constant companion, one must expect to flourish!"
The perfect politeness of Philippe's smile indicated how completely this gallant sally went over his head. It had perforce, since they were speaking French, to go over mine too. I looked as non-committal as I could and avoided Florimond's eye.
Héloïse de Valmy said from the sofa: "Don't waste your gallantries, Carlo. Miss Martin's French improves hourly, so I'm told, but I don't think she's reached the compliment stage yet." Then, in English: "Miss Martin, let me introduce Monsieur Florimond. You will have heard of him, I don't doubt."
I said composedly as I shook hands: "Even in my English orphanage we had heard of Monsieur Florimond. You reached us perhaps some six years late, monsieur, but you did reach us." I smiled, remembering my own cheap ready-made. "Believe it or not."
He didn't pretend to misunderstand me. He made a largely gallant gesture with the book which was, I saw, The Tale of Genji and said: "You, mademoiselle, would adorn anything you wore."
I laughed. "Even this?"
"Even that," he said, unperturbed, a twinkle in the blue eyes.
"The size of that compliment," I said, "strikes me dumb, monsieur,"
Madame de Valmy said, sounding amused now, and more naturally friendly than I had yet heard her: "It's Monsieur Florimond's constant sorrow that only the old and faded can afford to be dressed by him, while the young and lovely buy dresses prȇtes à porter-there's a phrase… (my English is slipping in the excitement of talking to you, Carlo)-what's the phrase you have for 'ready-made'?"
"'Off the peg?'" I suggested.
“Yes, that's it. You buy your dresses off the peg, and still show us up."
"Your English is slipping, Madame," I said. "You're getting your pronouns all wrong."
As she lifted her eyebrows Florimond said delightedly: "There, chère madame, a real compliment! A compliment of the right kind! So neat you did not see it coming, and so subtil that you still do not see it when it has come."
She laughed. "My dear Carlo, compliments even now aren't quite so rare that I don't recognise them, believe me. Thank you, Miss Martin, that was sweet of you." Her eyes as she smiled at me were friendly, almost warm, and for the first time since I had met her I saw charm in her-not the easy charm of the vivid personality, but the real and irresistible charm that reaches out half-way to meet you, assuring you that you are wanted and liked. And heaven knew I needed that assurance… I was very ready to meet any gesture, however slight, with the response of affection. Perhaps at last…
But even as I smiled back at her it happened again. The warmth drained away as if wine had seeped from a crack and left the glass empty, a cool and misted shell, reflecting nothing.
She turned away to pick up her embroidery.
I stood with the smile stiffening on my lips, feeling, even more sharply than before, the sense of having been rebuffed for some reason that I couldn't understand. A moment ago I could have sworn the woman liked me, but now… in the last fleeting glance before the cool eyes dropped to her embroidery I thought I saw the same queerly apprehensive quality that I had noticed on my first day at Valmy.
I dismissed the idea straight away. I no longer imagined that Madame de Valmy feared her husband; on the contrary. Without any overt demonstration it was obvious that the two were very close: their personalities shared a boundary as light and shadow do: they marched. It was probable (I thought pityingly and only half-comprehendingly) that Héloïse de Valmy's keep-your-distance chilliness was only a by-product of the sort of Samurai self-control that she must have learned to practise elsewhere. With the inability of youth to imagine any temperament other than my own, I felt that life must be a good deal easier for Léon de Valmy himself than for his wife…
And her attitude to me-to Philippe as well-must only be part of the general shut-down… It would take time for the reserve to melt, the door to open. That look of hers wasn't apprehension: it was a kind of waiting, an appraisal, no more. It would take time. Perhaps she was still only wondering, as I was, why Léon de Valmy thought she'd made "a very great mistake…”
She was setting a stitch with delicate care. There was a lamp at her elbow. The light shone softly on the thin white hand. The needle threaded the canvas with moving sparks. She didn't look up. "Come and sit by me, Philippe, on this footstool. You may stay ten minutes… no, Miss Martin, don't slip away. Sit down and entertain Monsieur Florimond for me."
The mask was on again. She sat, composed and elegant as ever over her needlework. She even managed to appear faintly interested as she put Philippe through the usual catechism about his day's activities, and listened to his polite, painstaking replies.
Beside me Florimond said: "Won't you sit here?"
I turned gratefully towards him, to find him watching me with those mild eyes that nevertheless seemed to miss nothing. He may have noticed the ebb-and-flow of invitation and rebuff that had left me silent and stranded; at any rate he now appeared to lay himself out to amuse me. His repertoire of gently scandalous stories was extremely entertaining and probably at least half true, and-as I knew his Paris better than he realised-I was soon enjoying myself immensely. He flirted a very little, too-oh, so expertly!-and looked slightly disconcerted and then delighted when he found that his gallantries amused instead of confusing me. He would have been even more disconcerted if he'd known that, in a queer sort of way, he was reminding me of Daddy: I hadn't heard this sort of clever, over-sophisticated chatter since I'd last been allowed in to one of Daddy's drink- and-verses jamborees nine years before. I may be forgiven if I enjoyed every moment of the oddly nostalgic rubbish that we talked.
Or would have done, if every now and again I hadn't seen Héloïse de Valmy's cool eyes watching me with that indefinable expression which might have been appraisal, or wariness, or-if it weren't fantastic-fear.