Cavigni turned away his face for a moment, and then said with a studied air, 'Whom then are we to compliment, madam? for it would be absurd to compliment a woman of refined understanding; SHE is above all praise.' As he finished the sentence he gave Emily a sly look, and the smile, that had lurked in his eye, stole forth.She perfectly understood it, and blushed for Madame Cheron, who replied, 'You are perfectly right, signor, no woman of understanding can endure compliment.'
'I have heard Signor Montoni say,' rejoined Cavigni, 'that he never knew but one woman who deserved it.'
'Well!' exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of unutterable complacency, 'and who could she be?'
'O!' replied Cavigni, 'it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit to deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it.Most women reverse the case entirely.' He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than before for her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.
'Well, signor!' said Madame Cheron, 'I protest you are a Frenchman; Inever heard a foreigner say any thing half so gallant as that!'
'True, madam,' said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with a low bow, 'but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost, but for the ingenuity that discovered the application.'
Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on her account.'O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,' said her aunt, 'I protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to me.' The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk.'Pray, who is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?' asked Madame Cheron, with an air of chagrin, 'I have not seen him once.'
'He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Riviere,'
replied Cavigni, 'which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment, or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you, madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say.But, Iknow not how it is--your conversation is so fascinating--that it can charm even memory, I think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend's apology before.'
'The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,'
said Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni's neglect, than flattered by Cavigni's compliment.Her manner, at this moment, and Cavigni's late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in Emily's mind, which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to confirm it, appeared preposterous.She thought she perceived, that Montoni was paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only accepted them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect on his part.--That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second husband was ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but that Montoni, with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should make a choice of Madame Cheron--appeared most wonderful.Her thoughts, however, did not dwell long on the subject;nearer interests pressed upon them; Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing with a gay and beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind.As she passed along the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing and half hoping that he might appear in the crowd; and the disappointment she felt on not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped more than she had feared.
Montoni soon after joined the party.He muttered over some short speech about regret for having been so long detained elsewhere, when he knew he should have the pleasure of seeing Madame Cheron here; and she, receiving the apology with the air of a pettish girl, addressed herself entirely to Cavigni, who looked archly at Montoni, as if he would have said, 'I will not triumph over you too much; I will have the goodness to bear my honours meekly; but look sharp, Signor, or Ishall certainly run away with your prize.'
The supper was served in different pavilions in the gardens, as well as in one large saloon of the chateau, and with more of taste, than either of splendour, or even of plenty.Madame Cheron and her party supped with Madame Clairval in the saloon, and Emily, with difficulty, disguised her emotion, when she saw Valancourt placed at the same table with herself.There, Madame Cheron having surveyed him with high displeasure, said to some person who sat next to her, 'Pray, who IS that young man?' 'It is the Chevalier Valancourt,' was the answer.'Yes, I am not ignorant of his name, but who is this Chevalier Valancourt that thus intrudes himself at this table?' The attention of the person, who whom she spoke, was called off before she received a second reply.The table, at which they sat, was very long, and, Valancourt being seated, with his partner, near the bottom, and Emily near the top, the distance between them may account for his not immediately perceiving her.She avoided looking to that end of the table, but whenever her eyes happened to glance towards it, she observed him conversing with his beautiful companion, and the observation did not contribute to restore her peace, any more than the accounts she heard of the fortune and accomplishments of this same lady.
Madame Cheron, to whom these remarks were sometimes addressed, because they supported topics for trivial conversation, seemed indefatigable in her attempts to depreciate Valancourt, towards whom she felt all the petty resentment of a narrow pride.'I admire the lady,' said she, 'but I must condemn her choice of a partner.' 'Oh, the Chevalier Valancourt is one of the most accomplished young men we have,' replied the lady, to whom this remark was addressed: 'it is whispered, that Mademoiselle D'Emery, and her large fortune, are to be his.'