my uncle, you come inopportunely, messieurs,” she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. “He is closely — oh, so very closely — engaged.”
“We will wait, mademoiselle,” said M. de Vilmorin, bowing gallantly over the hand she extended to him. “Indeed, who would haste to the uncle that may tarry a moment with the niece?”
“M. l’abbe,” she teased him, “when you are in orders I shall take you for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding.”
“But no curiosity,” said Andre–Louis. “You haven’t thought of that.”
“I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre.”
“Well you may,” laughed Philippe. “For no one ever knows.” And then, his glance straying across the terrace settled upon a carriage that was drawn up before the door of the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was often to be seen in the streets of a great city, but rarely in the country. It was a beautifully sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut, with a varnish upon it like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes exquisitely painted on the panels of the door. It was built to carry two persons, with a box in front for the coachman, and a stand behind for the footman. This stand was empty, but the footman paced before the door, and as he emerged now from behind the vehicle into the range of M. de Vilmorin’s vision, he displayed the resplendent blue-and-gold livery of the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.
“Why!” he exclaimed. “Is it M. de La Tour d’Azyr who is with your uncle?”
“It is, monsieur,” said she, a world of mystery in voice and eyes, of which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.
“Ah, pardon!” he bowed low, hat in hand. “Serviteur, mademoiselle,” and he turned to depart towards the house.
“Shall I come with you, Philippe?” Andre–Louis called after him.
“It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer it,” said M. de Vilmorin, with a glance at mademoiselle. “Nor do I think it would serve. If you will wait . . . ”
M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment’s blank pause, laughed ripplingly. “Now where is he going in such a hurry?”
“To see M. de La Tour d’Azyr as well as your uncle, I should say.”
“But he cannot. They cannot see him. Did I not say that they are very closely engaged? You don’t ask me why, Andre.” There was an arch mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation or amusement, or perhaps both. Andre–Louis could not determine it.
“Since obviously you are all eagerness to tell, why should I ask?” quoth he.
“If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh, yes, I will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that is my due.”
“I hope I shall never fail in that.”
“Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely concerned in the visit of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. I am the object of this visit.” And she looked at him with sparkling eyes and lips parted in laughter.
“The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I am a dolt, if you please; for it is not obvious to me.”
“Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage.”
“Good God!” said Andre–Louis, and stared at her, chapfallen.
She drew back from him a little with a frown and an upward tilt of her chin. “It surprises you?”
“It disgusts me,” said he, bluntly. “In fact, I don’t believe it. You are amusing yourself with me.”
For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts. “I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle this morning from M. de La Tour d’Azyr, announcing the visit and its object. I will not say that it did not surprise us a little . . . ”
“Oh, I see,” cried Andre–Louis, in relief. “I understand. For a moment I had almost feared . . . ” He broke off, looked at her, and shrugged.
“Why do you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted upon me. That I should permit the court-ship of me to be conducted like that of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in proper form, at my uncle’s hands.”
“Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to Versailles?”
“What else?”
“There is your own.”
She laughed. “I am a dutiful niece . . . when it suits me.”
“And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts this monstrous proposal?”
“Monstrous!” She bridled. “And why monstrous, if you please?”
“For a score of reasons,” he answered irritably.
“Give me one,” she challenged him.
“He is twice your age.”
“Hardly so much,” said she.
“He is forty-five, at least.”
“But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome — so much you will admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady.”
“God made you that, Aline.”
“Come, that’s better. Sometimes you can almost be polite.” And she moved along the terrace, Andre–Louis pacing beside her.
“I can be more than that to show reason why you should not let this beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has made.”
She frowned, and her lips tightened. “You are speaking of my future husband,” she reproved him.
His lips tightened too; his pale face grew paler.
“And is it so? It is settled, then? Your uncle is to agree? You are to be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man you do not know. I had dreamed of better things for you, Aline.”
“Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr?”
He made a gesture of exasperation. “Are men and women nothing more than names? Do the souls of them count for nothing? Is there no joy in life, no happiness, that wealth and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles are to be its only aims? I had set you high — so high, Aline — a thing scarce earthly. There is joy in your heart, intelligence in your mind; and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks and shams to claim the core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender all for a parcel of make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr.”
“You are indelicate,” said she, and though she frowned her eyes laughed. “And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to more than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip.”
He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his pale cheeks.
“You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!” he cried. “Ah, well, I forgive you out of my relief.”
“Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre I have permitted my uncle to consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look of the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting to be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and I think, when all is considered, that I shall probably — very probably — decide to do so.”
He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the life seemed to go out of his own countenance.
“God