She felt, however, that
there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise
so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he
meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic
standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at
first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's
faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a
new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a
depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good
and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom
she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the
frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of
unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that
Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the
genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed
her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a
nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the
cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.
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