Seemingly that
threat had prevailed where entreaties had been scorned.
I followed Anatole from the half-light of the hall in which I had
been pacing into the salon overlooking the terraces and the river,
where Roxalanne awaited me. She was standing at the farther end of
the room by one of the long windows, which was open, for, although
we were already in the first week of October, the air of Languedoc
was as warm and balmy as that of Paris or Picardy is in summer.
I advanced to the centre of the chamber, and there I paused and
waited until it should please her to acknowledge my presence and
turn to face me. I was no fledgling. I had seen much, I had learnt
much and been in many places, and my bearing was wont to convey it.
Never in my life had I been gauche, for which I thank my parents,
and if years ago - long years ago - a certain timidity had marked my
first introductions to the Louvre and the Luxembourg, that timidity
was something from which I had long since parted company. And yet
it seemed to me, as I stood in that pretty, sunlit room awaiting the
pleasure of that child, scarce out of her teens, that some of the
awkwardness I had escaped in earlier years, some of the timidity of
long ago, came to me then. I shifted the weight of my body from one
leg to the other; I fingered the table by which I stood; I pulled at
the hat I held; my colour came and went; I looked at her furtively
from under bent brows, and I thanked God that her back being towards
me she might not see the clown I must have seemed.
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