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And now we were nearing the gate, with its gray-stone pillars, on one of which, that from which the marble ball had rolled, to hide in the grass beneath, perchance, until the end of all, I had seen the joyous figure of Walter La Vigne so lightly poised on the occasion of my last exodus from Beauseincourt.
And who are you, who make yourself responsible for payment?" "I am a poor servant out of service." The ruffian smiled incredulously. "Ah!" said he, ironically, "a poor servant out of service! Come, throw back your hood. You have red hair; you often play at dice; your name is Julio; you live near the bridge De la Vigne with the Signor Simon Turchi. Is not that true? You were trying to deceive me."
"You did it anyhow. And in the second place you got me out of a villainous bad temper and turned an ugly goblin into a very happy butterfly. I'm downright ashamed of myself for being so horrid about Rose de Vigne. She isn't at all a bad sort though she is so impossibly beautiful. Your brother is going to dance with her now. See! There they go!"
There was more life in her face at that moment than he had ever seen before. She was as one suddenly awakened. "What is true, Miss de Vigne?" he questioned. "That you care for her," she answered, "that she cares for you." His look remained full upon her. "In a friendly sense, yes," he said. "In no other sense?" she insisted.
The fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the dining-room window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the drifting pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had left for the day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vigne and her husband moving toward their ultimate colonial threshold had taken a small house. She was alone. As usual.
It was natural enough for Angèle La Vigne to avoid Laurent's father. What puzzled her was to see her own barefooted father creeping after the miller, his red wool night-cap pulled over dejected brows. These good men had been unable to meet without quarreling since the match between Laurent and Angèle was broken off, on account of a pig which Father La Vigne would not add to her dower.
But now but now the glamour is all gone. I would give anything oh, anything in the world if only he would marry Rose de Vigne instead!" Her voice failed and with it her strength. She covered her face and wept hopelessly, tragically. Scott stood motionless by her side. His brows were drawn as the brows of a man in pain, but the eyes below them had the brightness of unwavering resolution.
Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or firm negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace of superior aloofness in a devotion to Vigne.
If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying Vigne." She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the loosening of her veil.
It led into a conservatory, and thence to the garden. The apartment itself was given up entirely to weapons or instruments of sport. Guns, fishing-rods, hunting-stocks, golf-clubs, tennis-rackets, were stored in various racks and stands. A smell of stale cigar-smoke pervaded it. Colonel de Vigne was wont to retire hither at night in preference to the less cosy and intimate smoking-room.
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