"I've never wanted
for opportunities to see my brother. We've many things to think of
at home, and great responsibilities and occupations, and our home's
not an impossible place. We've plenty of reasons," Sarah continued
a little piercingly, "for everything we do"--and in short she
wouldn't give herself the least little scrap away. But she added as
one who was always bland and who could afford a concession: "I've
come because--well, because we do come."
"Ah then fortunately!"--Madame de Vionnet breathed it to the air.
Five minutes later they were on their feet for her to take leave,
standing together in an affability that had succeeded in surviving
a further exchange of remarks; only with the emphasised appearance
on Waymarsh's part of a tendency to revert, in a ruminating manner
and as with an instinctive or a precautionary lightening of his
tread, to an open window and his point of vantage. The glazed and
gilded room, all red damask, ormolu, mirrors, clocks, looked south,
and the shutters were bowed upon the summer morning; but the
Tuileries garden and what was beyond it, over which the whole place
hung, were things visible through gaps; so that the far-spreading
presence of Paris came up in coolness, dimness and invitation, in
the twinkle of gilt-tipped palings, the crunch of gravel, the click
of hoofs, the crack of whips, things that suggested some parade of
the circus.
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