He knew she would hazard herself lightly enough wherever her heart called her; but that, with the precious freight of her child’s future weighing her down, she should commit herself so blindly to his hand stirred in him the depths of tenderness.  Indeed, had the actual course of events been less auspiciously regular, Madame de Malrive’s confidence would have gone far toward unsettling his own; but with the process of law going on unimpeded, and the other side making no sign of open or covert resistance, the fresh air of good faith gradually swept through the inmost recesses of his distrust.

It was expected that the decision in the suit would be reached by mid-September; and it was arranged that Durham and his family should remain in England till a decent interval after the conclusion of the proceedings.  Early in the month, however, it became necessary for Durham to go to France to confer with a business associate who was in Paris for a few days, and on the point of sailing for Cherbourg.  The most zealous observance of appearances could hardly forbid Durham’s return for such a purpose; but it had been agreed between himself and Madame de Malrive—­who had once more been left alone by Madame de Treymes’ return to her family—­that, so close to the fruition of their wishes, they would propitiate fate by a scrupulous adherence to usage, and communicate only, during his hasty visit, by a daily interchange of notes.

The ingenuity of Madame de Malrive’s tenderness found, however, the day after his arrival, a means of tempering their privation.  “Christiane,” she wrote, “is passing through Paris on her way from Trouville, and has promised to see you for me if you will call on her today.  She thinks there is no reason why you should not go to the Hotel de Malrive, as you will find her there alone, the family having gone to Auvergne.  She is really our friend and understands us.”

In obedience to this request—­though perhaps inwardly regretting that it should have been made—­Durham that afternoon presented himself at the proud old house beyond the Seine.  More than ever, in the semi-abandonment of the morte saison, with reduced service, and shutters closed to the silence of the high-walled court, did it strike the American as the incorruptible custodian of old prejudices and strange social survivals.  The thought of what he must represent to the almost human consciousness which such old houses seem to possess, made him feel like a barbarian desecrating the silence of a temple of the earlier faith.  Not that there was anything venerable in the attestations of the Hotel de Malrive, except in so far as, to a sensitive imagination, every concrete embodiment of a past order of things testifies to real convictions once suffered for.  Durham, at any rate, always alive in practical issues to the view of the other side, had enough sympathy left over to spend it sometimes, whimsically, on such perceptions of difference.  Today, especially, the assurance of success—­the sense of entering like a victorious beleaguerer receiving the keys of the stronghold—­disposed him to a sentimental perception of what the other side might have to say for itself, in the language of old portraits, old relics, old usages dumbly outraged by his mere presence.