g
stranger; but after Acton's arrival the young theologian said nothing.
He sat in his chair with his two hands clasped, fixing upon his hostess
a grave, fascinated stare. The Baroness talked to Robert Acton, but, as
she talked, she turned and smiled at Mr. Brand, who never took his
eyes off her. The two men walked away together; they were going to Mr.
Wentworth's. Mr. Brand still said nothing; but after they had passed
into Mr. Wentworth's garden he stopped and looked back for some time at
the little white house. Then, looking at his companion, with his head
bent a little to one side and his eyes somewhat contracted, "Now
I suppose that 's what is called conversation," he said; "real
conversation."

"It 's what I call a very clever woman," said Acton, laughing.

"It is most interesting," Mr. Brand continued. "I only wish she would
speak French; it would seem more in keeping. It must be quite the
style that we have heard about, that we have read about--the style of
conversation of Madame de Stael, of Madame Recamier."

Acton also looked at Madame Munster's residence among its hollyhocks and
apple-trees. "What I should like to know," he said, smiling, "is just
what has brought Madame Recamier to live in that place!"

CHAPTER V

Mr. Wentworth, with his cane and his gloves in his hand, went every
afternoon to call upon his niece. A couple of hours later she came over
to the great house to tea. She had let the proposal that she should
regularly dine there fall to the ground; she was in the enjoyment of
whatever satisfaction was to be derived from the spectacle of an
old negress in a crimson turban shelling peas under the apple-trees.
Charlotte, who had provided the ancient negress, thought it must be
a strange household, Eugenia having told her that Augustine managed
everything, the ancient negress included--Augustine who was naturally
devoid of all acquaintance with the expurgatory English tongue. By far
the most immoral sentiment which I shall have occasion to attribute to
Charlotte Wentworth was a certain emotion of disappointment at finding
that, in spite of these irregular conditions, the domestic arrangements
at the small house were apparently not--from Eugenia's peculiar point of
view--strikingly offensive. The Baroness found it amusing to go to tea;
she dressed as if for dinner. The tea-table offered an anomalous and
picturesque repast; and on leaving it they all sat and talked in the
large piazza, o