Mrs. Vivian and her daughter rose from their chairs as they came; they had evidently rapidly exchanged observations, and had decided that it would facilitate their interview with Gordon Wright to receive him standing. He made his way to them through the crowd, blushing deeply, as he always did when excited; then he stood there bare-headed, shaking hands with each of them, with a fixed smile, and with nothing, apparently, to say. Bernard watched Angela's face; she was giving his companion a beautiful smile. Mrs. Vivian was delicately cordial.
"I was sure it was you," said Gordon at last. "We were just talking of you."
"Did Mr. Longueville deny it was we?" asked Mrs. Vivian, archly; "after we had supposed that we had made an impression on him!"
"I knew you were in Paris--we were in the act of talking of you,"
Gordon went on. "I am very glad to see you."
Bernard had shaken hands with Angela, looking at her intently; and in her eyes, as his own met them, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of mockery. At whom was she mocking--at Gordon, or at himself? Bernard was uncomfortable enough not to care to be mocked; but he felt even more sorry that Gordon should be.
"We also knew you were coming--Mr. Longueville had told us," said Mrs. Vivian; "and we have been expecting the pleasure of seeing Blanche. Dear little Blanche!"
"Dear little Blanche will immediately come and see you,"
Gordon replied.
"Immediately, we hope," said Mrs. Vivian. "We shall be so very glad."
Bernard perceived that she wished to say something soothing and sympathetic to poor Gordon; having it, as he supposed, on her conscience that, after having once encouraged him to regard himself as indispensable (in the capacity of son-in-law) to her happiness, she should now present to him the spectacle of a felicity which had established itself without his aid. "We were so very much interested in your marriage," she went on.
"We thought it so--so delightful."
Gordon fixed his eyes on the ground for a moment.
"I owe it partly to you," he answered. "You had done so much for Blanche.
You had so cultivated her mind and polished her manners that her attractions were doubled, and I fell an easy victim to them."
He uttered these words with an exaggerated solemnity, the result of which was to produce, for a moment, an almost embarrassing silence.
Bernard was rapidly becoming more and more impatient of his own embarrassment, and now he exclaimed, in a loud and jovial voice--"Blanche makes victims by the dozen! I was a victim last winter; we are all victims!"
"Dear little Blanche!" Mrs. Vivian murmured again.
Angela had said nothing; she had simply stood there, making no attempt to address herself to Gordon, and yet with no affectation of reserve or of indifference. Now she seemed to feel the impulse to speak to him.
"When Blanche comes to see us, you must be sure to come with her," she said, with a friendly smile.
Gordon looked at her, but he said nothing.
"We were so sorry to hear she is out of health," Angela went on.
Still Gordon was silent, with his eyes fixed on her expressive and charming face.
"It is not serious," he murmured at last.
"She used to be so well--so bright," said Angela, who also appeared to have the desire to say something kind and comfortable.
Gordon made no response to this; he only looked at her.
"I hope you are well, Miss Vivian," he broke out at last.
"Very well, thank you."
"Do you live in Paris?"
"We have pitched our tent here for the present."
"Do you like it?"
"I find it no worse than other places."
Gordon appeared to desire to talk with her; but he could think of nothing to say. Talking with her was a pretext for looking at her; and Bernard, who thought she had never been so handsome as at that particular moment, smiling at her troubled ex-lover, could easily conceive that his friend should desire to prolong this privilege.
"Have you been sitting here long?" Gordon asked, thinking of something at last.
"Half an hour. We came out to walk, and my mother felt tired.
It is time we should turn homeward," Angela added.
"Yes, I am tired, my daughter. We must take a voiture, if Mr. Longueville will be so good as to find us one," said Mrs. Vivian.
