Henry remembered utterances of his wife's, in former years, that had implied anything but approval of the guiding hand exercised by Zella's mother, he did not think fit to recall them now.
"Will Louis like your attacking his relations like this?" he demanded gloomily.
"Louis will know nothing whatever about it, dear. If I choose to go over to Paris on business, nothing could be more natural than that I should pay a little call on the Baronne de Kervoyou, since she is a connection of Zella's, however distant. If Louis ever comes to hear of it, he will probably be gratified at our having paid the old thing a little attention," retorted Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with more spirit than conviction in her tones.
"Then, you don't mean to let her know that we are coming?" said Henry, the full extent of his wife's Machiavellian diplomacy gradually dawning upon him, and reducing him to acute depression.
"Certainly not. We might go over for two nights, Henry, and stay quietly at some little hotel, and I will send the Baronne a diplomatic note saying that, as we are passing through Paris, I thought I would come and call on her."
"I think, Marianne," said Henry slowly, goaded into more opposition to his wife's schemes than he generally displayed, by a sense of being involved in international complications, " I think you had far better content yourself with writing again to Louis, and the old woman, too, if you like. Or else leave the whole thing alone."
The eagerness with which this last suggestion was made was obvious, but Marianne, with great tact and sweetness, told her husband that in these matters gentlemen did not always quite understand, and Henry knew better than to dispute the aphorism.
The diplomatic note was accordingly written, and posted five days before the Lloyd-Evanses left home, in order to insure its arriving when they did, since Mrs. Lloyd-Evans knew that the postal arrangements in all countries except England are defective and never to be relied upon.
In consequence of this foresight, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans found awaiting her at the hotel a courteous letter from the Baronne, written in admirable English, and assuring her of the pleasure she would confer by a visit to the Rue des Ècoles at any hour most convenient to herself on the following day. There was also a bouquet of pink roses, accompanied by a card inscribed in Stéphanie's most pointed handwriting and violet ink, with an elaborate little message of welcome from the Baronne de Kervoyou and her daughter, provoking from Mrs. Lloyd-Evans the astute comment:
"Dear me, Henry, this is very foreign and artful. I wonder if they imagined that I shouldn't see through it."
Henry, wrapped in deepest gloom and reflecting that all foreign cooking was bad, made no reply, and was monosyllabic throughout the evening, until his wife suddenly exclaimed:
"I see what it is, Henry. You are depressed. I can always read your mind like an open book, dear—you know I can."
Henry looked much alarmed.
"But, Henry dear, there is really no reason for depression. I think a little tact, and at the same time plain-speaking, will put things before the old lady in quite a new light. She is a foreigner, after all, and has probably
Evans indulgently. "But I feel certain I shall be able to manage her, and, through her, Louis."
"You do not wish me to come with you, I suppose?" "No, dear. This is a woman's mission." Mrs. Lloyd-Evans accordingly set forth on her woman's mission that next afternoon, leaving a profoundly dejected never thought much about Henry to pace through the spring brightness of the Bois, and heartily wish himself back again in his own turnip-fields.
Having a rooted distrust of French cabmen, who are well known to ply their trade principally with a view to decoying and robbing unwary Englishwomen, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans elected to walk to the Rue des Ècoles, and, having several times taken a wrong turning, found herself at the Baronne de Kervoyou's appartement well after five o'clock.
Having rehearsed to Henry on the previous evening her determination to open the campaign with a perfectly self-possessed bow and the almost idiomatically French greeting, " Bon jour.. Baronne, est-ce que vous allez bien?" it slightly disconcerted poor Mrs. Lloyd-Evans to be received by the Baronne and her daughter with a most English-sounding "How do you do?" and extended hand, and "It is a good many years since we last met," from the Baronne. The occasion of their last meeting having been the wedding of Louis de Kervoyou and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's poor dear Esmee, she thought that the reference might well have been omitted, but replied by instantly banishing the conventional smile of greeting from her features, and saying,
"Ah yes, indeed!" in a subdued voice.
The conversation proceeded in English, smoothly guided by the unperturbed Baronne, who was dispensing excellent coffee and indifferent tea from the small silver equipage in front of her.
The Baronne trusted Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had had a good crossing?
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had, on the contrary, been extremely ill.
The Baronne and Stéphanie regretted simultaneously.
And Mr. Lloyd-Evans? He was well? They had hoped to have the pleasure of seeing him to-day.
Oh yes, he was very well, but a short visit, on business only—the Baronne would understand.
The Baronne understood perfectly.
Moreover, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had thought that for a little conversation, such as she would wish to hold with the Baronne, a gentleman would perhaps have been—
The Baronne again said " Perfectly " and waited.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans belonged to the numerous class of persons that hold no conversation of any but the most surface description without first insisting upon a formal tête-à-tête.
She looked at Stéphanie.
The Baronne, through her spectacles, deliberately intercepted the look.
"It was perhaps of our little Zella that you desired news?" she inquired blandly.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans laughed in a manner judiciously designed to convey a mingling of superior amusement and slight annoyance.
"As to news of my niece, I naturally get that direct," she declared lightly; " but I should not be sorry to have a little chat with you, since we are on the subject."
The Baronne raised her eyebrows and looked full at Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with a pleasant but expectant expression.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans paused, anticipating a question.
The Baronne, quite unembarrassed, remained silent, obviously waiting for the little chat to begin.
Stéphanie, who was as usual bent over her old-fashioned embroidery frame, raised her head in surprise at the sudden silence which had fallen upon the room.
She found the visitor's eyes fixed upon her with a meaning expression that the bewildered Stéphanie was quite at a loss to interpret.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans did not lack determination, and, moreover, saw no more objection to requesting her hostess's thirty-five-year-old daughter to leave her mother's drawing-room, than she would have to dismissing her own Muriel to the nursery when her presence became inconvenient.
The astounded Stéphanie heard the guest's low, voluble tones saying to her with amiable
