"Why do you bring that young gentleman into it?" he asked her. "How can he go with us? Hasn't he got his duties to do here, my dear? What would Gabrielle say if she heard it? Wouldn't she be put out, don't you think?"
The round, dark face assumed an air almost of cunning. It was evident that she knew just what Gabrielle would say, but was unmoved nevertheless.
"What does 'engaged' mean in England? When _he_ and I were in Paris, a lot of them came to the studio. They would be engaged for a little while, and then there would be others. Jeannette Arrn had three lovers while I was there--Henri Courtans was the last. Was she engaged to him?"
It was very earnestly put, and it embarrassed him. What a life the child had lived; what an education had been hers! And now he feared that the inevitable had come to be. Thrown into the society of the big-limbed boy, she had immediately fallen in love with him. This should have been looked for, and it would have been if he had realised a little earlier the nature of her birthright and its consequences. She was born in a land where passion is often uncurbed and the blood runs hot in the veins. Religion had done nothing for her; those who would educate her must begin at the very beginning. He himself felt totally unfit for the task. And she had refused already to live with the Silvesters, at any rate in England.
"Has Harry Lassett spoken to you about going to Paris?" he asked upon an impulse. She shook her head.
"I wish he would. I wish he would ask me to go away from her."
"Don't you think it would be very unkind to Gabrielle to go with him even if there were no other reason?"
No further question could be asked or answered, for Gabrielle entered the room at the moment, and immediately the child hid herself in the bedclothes and would not speak another word.
"You'll stay to dinner?" she asked, as they went down to the drawing-room together a little later on. It was very warm and snug there, and the deep red shades upon the lamps appeared to him particularly English. They had few such suggestions of home in his country.
"Why," he rejoined, "if it will not be putting you out."
"We have some pea soup and a sole. My father is Popish enough to eat little meat, but that is for his stomach's sake--as Timothy was to drink wine. Of course, the baby cannot eat anything at all. Did you think very badly of her, I wonder? Is she really as ill as the doctors make out?"