She partook largely as
a refuge from depression, and yet the opportunity to partake was just
a mark of the sinister symptoms that depressed her. The affair was
in short a combat, in which the baser element triumphed, between her
refusal to be bought off and her consent to be clothed and fed. It was
not at any rate to be gainsaid that there was comfort for her in the
developments of France; comfort so great as to leave Maisie free to take
with her all the security for granted and brush all the danger aside.
That was the way to carry out in detail Sir Claude's injunction to be
"nice"; that was the way, as well, to look, with her, in a survey of the
pleasures of life abroad, straight over the head of any doubt.
They shrank at last, all doubts, as the weather cleared up: it had an
immense effect on them and became quite as lovely as Sir Claude had
engaged. This seemed to have put him so into the secret of things, and
the joy of the world so waylaid the steps of his friends, that little by
little the spirit of hope filled the air and finally took possession of
the scene. To drive on the long cliff was splendid, but it was perhaps
better still to creep in the shade--for the sun was strong--along the
many-coloured and many-odoured port and through the streets in which, to
English eyes, everything that was the same was a mystery and everything
that was different a joke. Best of all was to continue the creep up the
long Grand' Rue to the gate of the _haute ville_ and, passing beneath
it, mount to the quaint and crooked rampart, with its rows of trees,
its quiet corners and friendly benches where brown old women in such
white-frilled caps and such long gold earrings sat and knitted or
snoozed, its little yellow-faced houses that looked like the homes of
misers or of priests and its dark chateau where small soldiers lounged
on the bridge that stretched across an empty moat and military washing
hung from the windows of towers.
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