The Reverberator by Henry James Page B

them. Francie, in this connection, had no theories, no impulses of her own; and now she was all at once happy and freshly glad and in love and sceptical and frightened and indifferent. Her lover had talked to her but little about his kinsfolk, and she had noticed this circumstance the more because of a remark dropped by Charles Waterlow to the effect that he and his father were great friends: the word seemed to her odd inthat application. She knew Gaston saw that gentleman, and the exalted ladies Mr. Probert’s daughters, very often, and she therefore took for granted that they knew he saw her. But the most he had done was to say they would come and see her like a shot if once they should believe they could trust her. She had wished to know what he meant by their trusting her, and he had explained that it would appear to them too good to be true—that she should be kind to
him
: something exactly of that sort was what they dreamed of for him. But they had dreamed before and been disappointed, and now they were on their guard. From the moment they should feel they were on solid ground they would join hands and dance round her. Francie’s answer to this fanciful statement was that she didn’t know what the young man was talking about, and he indulged in no attempt on that occasion to render his meaning more clear; the consequence of which was that he felt he made a poor appearance. His uneasiness had not passed away, for many things in truth were dark to him. He could not see his father fraternising with Mr. Dosson, he could not see Margaret and Jane recognising an alliance in which Delia was one of the allies. He had answered for them because that was the only thing to do; and this only just failed to be criminally reckless. What saved it was the hope he founded upon Mme. de Brécourt and the sense of how well he could answer to the others for Francie. He considered that Susan had, in her first judgment of this young lady, committed herself; she had really comprehended her, and her subsequent protest when she found what was in his heart had been a retractation which he would make her in turn retract. The girl had been revealed to her, and she would come round. Asimple interview with Francie would suffice for this result: he promised himself that at the end of half an hour she should be an enthusiastic convert. At the end of an hour she would believe that she herself had invented the match—had discovered the damsel. He would pack her off to the others as the author of the project; she would take it all upon herself, would represent her brother even as a little tepid.
She
would show nothing of that sort, but boast of her wisdom and energy; and she would enjoy the comedy so that she would forget she had opposed him even for a moment. Gaston Probert was a very honourable young man, but his programme involved a good many fibs.

VII
    IT MAY AS WELL BE SAID AT ONCE THAT IT WAS eventually carried out, and that in the course of a fortnight old Mr. Probert and his daughters alighted successively at the Hôtel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham. Francie’s visit with her intended to Mme. de Brécourt bore exactly the fruit the young man had foreseen and was followed the very next day by a call from this lady. She took Francie out with her in her carriage and kept her the whole afternoon, driving her over half Paris, chattering with her, kissing her, delighting in her, telling her they were already sisters, paying her compliments which made the girl envy her art of beautiful expression. After she had carried her home the countess rushed off to her father’s, reflecting with pleasure that at that hour she should probably find her sister Marguerite there. Mme. de Cliché was with the old man in fact (she had three days in the week for coming to the Cours la Reine); she sat near him in the firelight, telling him presumably her troubles; for Maxime de Cliché was not quite the pearl that they originally had supposed. Mme. de Brécourt