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Turning from Philip, he said to Detricand with malicious triumph: "It will disconcert your pious mind to know I have yet one kinsman who counts it no shame to inherit Bercy. Monsieur le comte, I give you here the honour to know Captain Philip d'Avranche." Something of Detricand's old buoyant self came back to him. His face flushed with sudden desire to laugh, then it paled in dumb astonishment.
She flashed a look at her mother, regarded him again, and then answered: "Yes, Philip sir." D'Avranche wanted to laugh, but the face of the child was sensitive and serious, and he only smiled. "Say 'Yes, Philip', won't you?" he asked. "Yes, Philip," came the reply obediently. After a moment of speech with Madame Landresse, Philip stooped to say good-bye to the child. "Good-bye, Guida."
So this man, Philip d'Avranche, was to be set against him even in the heritage of his family, as for one hour in a Jersey kitchen they had been bitter opposites. For the heritage of the Houses of Vaufontaine and Bercy he cared little he had deeper ambitions; but this adventuring sailor roused in him again the private grudge he had once begged him to remember.
You should have been hanged." "Monsieur d'Avranche!" said Guida reproachfully, turning round from the fire. Detricand's answer came biting and dry. "You are an officer of your King, as was I. You should know that hanging the invaders of Jersey would have been butchery. We were soldiers of France; we had the distinction of being prisoners of war, monsieur." This shot went home.
You make its intent this, you make it that, but nothing can alter the law, and what has been done in its name for generations. Is it so, that if Philip d'Avranche trespass on my land, or my hearth, I may cry Haro, haro! and you will take heed?
I would rather have died than " She stopped short. No, not even to this man who knew all could she speak her whole mind; but sometimes the thought came to her with horrifying acuteness: was it possible that she ought to have sunk her own disillusions, misery, and contempt of Philip d'Avranche, for the child's sake?
When she saw the wild impulse in his face to thrust her aside, she added: "It is only the shameless coward that strikes the dead. You had a wife Guida d'Avranche, but Guida d'Avranche is dead. There only lives the mother of this child, Guida Landresse de Landresse." She looked at him with scorn, almost with hatred. Had he touched her but she would rather pity than loathe!
There was the creaking and screaming of the carronade-slides, the rattling of the carriages of the long twelve-pounders amidships as they were shotted and run out again, the thud of the carpenters' hammers as the shot-holes were plugged good sounds in the ears of a fighter " "Of a d'Avranche of a d'Avranche!" interposed the Prince.
She had heard strange tales of how Philip had become Prince Philip d'Avranche, and husband of the Comtesse Chantavoine, and afterwards Duc de Bercy. Also she had heard how Philip, just before he became the Duc de Bercy, had fought his ship against a French vessel off Ushant, and, though she had heavier armament than his own, had destroyed her. For this he had been made an admiral.
Philip d'Avranche looked up towards her once more, and returned her smile. Then he addressed the awed crowd. He did not spare his language; he unconsciously used an oath or two. He ordered them off to their homes. Leaving a half-dozen sailors on guard till the town corps should arrive, d'Avranche prepared to march, and turned to Delagarde.
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