"I shall get out of nobody's way," roared the General. "But you had better get out of mine, little ape of a Chouan, or—"

The whip quivered in the air; another moment would have brought it down on Angelot's bare hand. He cried out, "Take care!" and in that moment snatched the whip and threw it over the horse's head. It fell into a mass of blackberry briars which made a red and green thicket under the bank just here. The lane turned slightly and was very narrow at this place, with a stony slope upwards. It was a little more than usual like the dry bed of a torrent. Only under the right-hand bank there was a yard of standing-room, where it was possible to draw aside while the crowd of horned beasts rushed past. The thunder of their hoofs was drawing near. The Prefect, fifty yards behind, called out advice to his angry colleague, which fell on deaf ears. Angelot was pelted with some choice specimens of a soldier's vocabulary, as he seized the bridle and tried to pull the horse to the side of the road. But the rider's violent resistance made this impossible. The horse plunged: the General, swearing furiously, did his best to throw Angelot down under its feet. For a minute the young fellow did his best to save the obstinate man in spite of himself, but then he was obliged to let the bridle go, and stepped to the shelter of the bank, while man and horse filled up the roadway with prancing and swearing.

"Give me back my whip, you—" the various epithets which followed were new to Angelot's country ears, but their tone made them serious.

Still, there was something so ridiculous in the General's fury that Angelot could scarcely help laughing in his face as he called out in answer, "When the cows are gone, monsieur, if you ask me civilly! I had to take it, or you would have struck me, and that was out of the question."

Even as he spoke, the cattle were coming. The lane was filled with a solid mass of padding feet, panting hides, low heads, and long fierce horns. An old bull of unfriendly aspect led the way, and one or two younger bulls came pushing and lowing among the quieter cows. Behind the large horned creatures came a few goats and sheep; then a dog, sharply barking, and a woman, shouting and flourishing her stick. But in this narrow space she had no control over the herd, which poured along like water in a stream's bed, irresistible, unresisted. They knew their own way home from pasture to the yards at La Mariniere. This was their own road, worn hollow by no trampling but theirs and that of their ancestors. Anything or anybody they happened to meet always drew aside to let them pass, and they were not as a rule ill-tempered.

General Ratoneau thought he could ride through them, and spurred his restless horse, fresh from Monsieur Joseph's corn, straight at the wedged heads and shoulders of the advancing herd. The horse plunged, shied, tried to bolt; and there were a few moments of inextricable confusion. Angelot shouted to the woman in charge of the cows; she screamed to the dog, which dived among them, barking. Frightened, they scrambled and crushed together so that Angelot was pressed up by their broad sides against the bank, and only lifted himself out of their way by climbing to the trunk of a tree. The sun was setting; the dazzling light, in a sky all gold and red and purple, lay right across the lane: the General's uniform, his horse's smart trappings, flashed and swayed above the brown mass for a moment or two as it pushed down the slope. Then the horse fell, either slipping on a stone or pushed over by the cattle, but fortunately not under their feet. He and his master rolled over together into the briars on the farther side of the lane, and there lay struggling till the beasts had crowded by, hurrying on past the rest of the party, drawn prudently aside in the shelter of the bank.

As soon as they were gone, the Prefect and the gendarmes rode up to help Angelot, who had already pulled the General out of the briars, unhurt, except by scratches. The horse had at once struggled to its feet, and stood trembling in the road.

It was impossible for any one but the sufferer to take such an adventure seriously. Two of the gendarmes were convulsed with laughter; it was only Simon whose native cleverness and keen sense of his own advantage kept his face grave and sympathising, as he handed the General his hat and the other objects which his tumble had sent flying. The Prefect was smiling as he asked anxiously whether any bones were broken. Angelot trembled with hardly restrained laughter. It had seized him with an overpowering force, when he saw the General's fat figure rise in the air with a most undignified jerk, then being deposited in the thicket with a fine pair of riding boots and shining spurs uppermost. This was so exactly the accident that suited the man's swaggering airs of superiority, Angelot felt that he could almost forgive him his insolent words and looks, could almost bear the incomprehensible language of five minutes ago, the threatened stroke with the whip—ah, by the by, here lay the precious whip, with its silver handle, safely deposited in the bushes out of the cows' way. Angelot magnanimously picked it up and presented it to the General with a bow. He grunted a word meant for thanks, but the eyes that met Angelot's flashed with a dark fury that startled the careless boy and came back to his mind afterwards.

"Whose beasts were those?" the General asked hoarsely.

"They were my father's beasts, monsieur," Angelot answered. "They did not realize, unfortunately—" He broke off under a warning look from the Prefect, who went on with the sentence for him—"No one would regret such a tiresome accident more than your father, I am sure."

"I was going to say so," Angelot murmured softly. "Now if they had been my uncle's cattle—"

The General turned his back and mounted his horse. "The owner does not signify," he growled. "He cannot be punished. But it was either foolishness or malice that brought us along such a road."

"Come, come, General, that was my fault, after all!" the Prefect said pleasantly. "And you must acknowledge that our young friend did his best to save you. We all knew this country and its ways better than you did—it is a pity, but there is no more to be said."

The General seemed to be of the same opinion, for he rode off without a word. Angelot, looking after him, thought that one of these days there might be a good deal more to be said.

But now the Prefect was asking a last direction as to the road, and wishing Angelot good-night, for the sun was actually setting. His last words were: "Adieu, my friend! Be prudent—and make my best compliments to your parents. No doubt we shall meet soon at Lancilly."

"And perhaps without Monsieur le General!" said Angelot, smiling.

"Possibly! We are not inseparable," the Prefect replied, and waved his hand kindly as he rode away.

"How was it that I did not strike that reptile? he tried to strike me," Angelot reflected as he walked down the quiet lane. "Well! the Prefect and my father would have been vexed, and he had his little punishment. Some day we shall meet independently, and then we shall see, Monsieur Ratoneau, we shall see! But what a somersault the creature made! If the bushes had not broken his fall, he would have been hurt, or killed, perhaps."

He laughed at the remembrance of the scene, and thought how he would describe it to his mother. Then he became grave, remembering all that had gone before. The Prefect was a friend, and a gentleman, neither of which the General could ever be. But it was a serious thought that the Prefect was at present by far the most dangerous person of the two. Uncle Joseph's life and liberty were in his hands, at his mercy. Angelot frowned and whistled as he strode along. How did the Prefect find out all that? Why, of course, those men of his were not mere gendarmes; they were police spies. Especially that one with the villanous face who was lurking round the woods!

"We are all in their hands; they are the devil's own regiment," Angelot said to himself. "How can Monsieur de Mauves bring himself to do such work among his old friends, in his old country! It is inconceivable."

Another rough lane brought Angelot into the rough road that led past the Manor of La Mariniere to the church and village lying beneath it, and so on into the valley and across the bridge to Lancilly.

The home of his family was one of those large homesteads, half farm, half castle, which are entirely Angevin in character; and it had not yet crumbled down into picturesque decay. Its white walls, once capable of defence, covered a large space on the eastern slope of the valley; it was much shaded all about by oak, beech, and fir trees, and a tall row of poplars bordered the road between its gateway and the church spire.

The high white arch of the gateway, where a gate had once been, opened on a paved road crossing the lower end of a farmyard, and up to the right were lines of low buildings where the cows, General Ratoneau's enemies, were now being safely housed for the night, and a dove-cote tower, round which a few late pigeons were flapping. To the left another archway led into a square garden with lines of tall box hedges, where flowers and vegetables grew all together wildly, and straight on, through yet a third gate, Angelot came into a stone court in front of the house, white, tall, and very ancient, with a quaint porch opening straight upon its wide staircase, which seemed a continuation of the broad outside steps where Madame de la Mariniere was now giving her chickens their evening meal.

In spite of the large cap and apron that smothered her, it was plain to see where Angelot got his singular beauty. His little mother, once upon a time, had been the loveliest girl in Brittany. Her small, fine, delicate features, clear dark skin, beautiful velvet eyes and cloud of dusky hair that curled naturally,—all this still remained, though youth and freshness and early happiness were gone. Her cheeks were thin, her eyes and mouth were sad, and yet there was hardly a grey hair in that soft mass which she covered and hid so puritanically. She had been married as almost a child, and was still under forty. Her family, very old but very poor, had married her to Urbain de la Mariniere, quite without consulting any wishes of hers. He was well off and well connected, though his old name had never belonged exactly to the grande noblesse. The Pontvieux were too anxious to dispose of their daughter to consider his free opinions, which, after all, were the fashion in France before 1789, though never in Brittany. And probably Madame de la Mariniere's life was saved by her marriage, for she was and remained just as ardently Catholic and Royalist as her relations who died one by one upon the scaffold.

She lived at La Mariniere through the Revolution, in outward obedience to a husband whose opinions she detested, and most of whose actions she cordially disapproved, though it was impossible not to love him personally. Gratitude, too, there might very well have been; for Urbain's popularity had not only guarded his wife and son; it had enabled her to keep the old Cure of the village safe at La Mariniere till some little liberty was restored to the Church and he was able to return to his post without danger. When madame used hard words of the Empire—and she was frank in her judgments—monsieur would point to the Cure with a smile. And the old man, come back from mass to breakfast at the manor, and resting in the chimney corner, would say, "Not so bad—not so bad!" rubbing his thin hands gently.

"Little mother!" Angelot said, and stepped up into the porch among the chickens.

His eyes, quick to read her face, saw a shadow on it, and he wondered who had done wrong, himself or his father.

"Enfin, te voila!" said Madame de la Mariniere. "Have you brought us any game? Ah, I am glad—" as he showed her his well-filled bag. "Your father came home two hours ago; he expected to find you here; he wanted you to do some service or other for these cousins."

"I am sorry," said Angelot. "I could not leave Uncle Joseph. I have a hundred things to tell you. Some rather serious, and some will make you die of laughing, as they did me."

"Mon Dieu! I should be glad to laugh," said his mother.

Angelot had taken the basket from her hand, and was throwing the chickens their last grain. She stood on the highest step, with a little sigh which might have been of fatigue or of disgust, and her eyes, as she gazed across the valley, were half angry, half melancholy. The sun had gone down behind the opposite hills, and the broad front of the Chateau de Lancilly, in full view of La Mariniere, looked grey and cold against the woods, even in the warm twilight of that rosy evening.

"Strange, that it should be inhabited again!" Angelot had emptied the basket, and stood beside his mother; the chickens bustled and scrambled about the foot of the steps.

"Yes, and as I hear, by all the perfections," said Madame de la Mariniere. "Herve de Sainfoy is more friendly than ever—and well he may be—his wife is supremely pretty and agreeable, his younger girls are most amiable, and as for Helene, nothing so enchantingly beautiful has ever set foot in Anjou. Take care, my poor Ange, I beseech you."

Angelot laughed. "Then I suppose my father's next duty will be to find a husband for her. I hear she is difficult—or her parents for her, perhaps."

"Who told you so?"

"Monsieur de Mauves."

"What? the Prefect?"

"Yes. He sent his respectful compliments to you. I have been spending the day at Les Chouettes with him and the new General. He—oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!"

Angelot burst into a violent fit of laughing, and leaned, almost helpless, against a pillar of the porch.

"Are you mad?" said his mother.

"Ah—" he struggled to say—"if only you had seen the cows—our cows—and the General in the air—oh!"

A faint smile dawned in the depths of her eyes. "You have certainly lost your senses," she said, and slipped her hand into his arm. "Come down into the garden: I like it in the twilight—and that pile of stones over there will not weigh upon our eyes; the trees hide it. Come, my Ange: tell me all your news, serious and laughable. I am glad you were helping your uncle; but I do not like you to be away all day."

"I could not help it, mother," Angelot said. "Yes; I have indeed a great deal to tell you."

They strolled down together into the garden, where the vivid after-glow flushed all the flowers with rose. His mother leaned upon his arm, and they paced along by the tall box hedges. The serious part of the story was long, and interested her far more than the General's comic adventure, at which Angelot could only make her smile, though the telling of it sent him off into another fit of laughter.

"Poor Monsieur de Mauves, to go about with such a strange animal!" she said. "As for you, my child, you grow more childish every day. When will you be a man? Now be serious, for I hear your father coming."



CHAPTER VI

HOW LA BELLE HELENE TOOK AN EVENING WALK

Monsieur Urbain de la Mariniere was always amiable and indulgent. He did not reproach his son for his long absence or ask him to give any account of himself; not, that is, till he had talked to his heart's content, all through the evening meal, of the coming of the Sainfoys, their adventures by the way, their impressions on arrival.

He was glad, on the whole, that he had not organised any public reception. Herve had decided against it, fearing some jarring notes which might prejudice his wife against the place and the country. As it was, she was fairly well pleased. A few old people in the village had come out of their doors to wave a welcome as the carriages passed; groups of children had thrown flowers; the servants, some sent on from Paris, others hired by Urbain in the neighbourhood, had stood in lines at the entrance. Urbain himself had met them at the door. The Sainfoys, very tired, of course, after their many hours of rough driving, were delighted to find themselves at last within the old walls, deserted twenty years ago. Only the son, now fighting in Spain, had been born at Lancilly; the three girls were children of emigration, of a foreign land.

The excellent Urbain had indeed some charitable work to pride himself upon. Even he himself hardly knew how it had all been managed: the keeping of the chateau and its archives, the recovery of alienated lands, so that the spending of money in repairing and beautifying was all that was needed to set Lancilly in its place again as one of the chief country houses of Anjou, a centre of society. Urbain had worked for his cousin all these twenty years, quietly and perseveringly. To look at his happy face now, it would seem that he had gained his heart's desire, and that his cousin's gratitude would suffice him for the rest of his life. His eyes were wet as he looked at his wife and said: "There was only one thing lacking—I knew it would be so. If only you and Joseph had gone with me to welcome them! I never felt so insignificant as when I went out alone from that doorway to help my cousins out of the coach. And I saw her look round—Adelaide—she was surprised, I know, to find me alone."

"Did she ask for me—or for Joseph?" said Madame de la Mariniere, in her dry little voice.

"Not at the moment—no—afterwards, of course. She has charming manners. And she looks so young. It is really hard to believe that she has a son of twenty-two. My dear old Herve looks much older. His hair is grey. He has quite left off powder; nearly everybody has, I suppose. I wish you had been there! But you will go to-morrow, will you not?"

"Whenever you please," said Madame de la Mariniere. "In my opinion, allow me to say, it was much better that I should not be there to-day. You had done everything; all the credit was yours. Madame de Sainfoy, tired and nervous, no doubt,—what could she have done with an unsympathetic old distant cousin, except wish heartily for her absence? No, no, I did not love Adelaide twenty years ago. I thought her worldly and ambitious then—what should I think her now! I will be civil for your sake, of course,—but my dear Urbain, what have I to do with emigrants who have changed their flag, and have come back false to their old convictions? No—my place is not at Lancilly. Nor is Joseph's—and I hardly believe we should be welcome there."

"My dear, all this is politics!" cried Monsieur Urbain, flourishing his hands in the air. "It is agreed, it is our convention, yours and mine, that we never mention politics. It must be the same between you and our cousins. What does it matter, after all? You live under the Empire, you obey the laws as much as they do. Why should any of us spoil society by waving our private opinions. It is not philosophical, really it is not."

"I did not suppose it was," she said. "I leave philosophy to you, my dear friend."

She shrugged her shoulders and looked at Angelot, who was sitting in silence, watching his father with the rather puzzled and qualified admiration that he usually felt for him. This admiration was not unmixed with fear, for Urbain, so sweet and so clever, could be very stern; it was an iron will that had carried him through the past twenty years. Or rather, perhaps, a will of the finest steel, a character that had a marvellous faculty for bending without being broken.

"And you—" said Monsieur Urbain to his son—"you had a long day's sport with the uncle. Did you get a good bag?"

Angelot told him. "But that was only by myself till breakfast time," he said. "Since then I have been helping my uncle in other ways. I am afraid you wanted me, monsieur, but it was an important matter, and I could not leave him."

"Ah! Well, the other was not a very important matter—at least, I found another messenger who did as well. It was to ride to Sonnay, to tell the coiffeur there to come to Lancilly early to-morrow. Madame de Sainfoy's favourite maid was ill, and stayed behind in Paris. No one else can dress her hair. It was she herself who remembered the old hairdresser at Sonnay, a true artist of the old kind. I had a strong impression that he—well, that he died unfortunately in those unhappy days—you understand—but she thought he had even then a son growing up to succeed him, and it seemed worth while to send to enquire."

Angelot smiled; his mother frowned. "I am glad you were not here!" she murmured under her breath.

Later on they were sitting in the curious, gloomy old room which did duty for salon and library at La Mariniere. Nothing here of the simple, cheerful, though old-time grace of Les Chouettes. Louis Quatorze chairs, with old worked seats, stood in a solemn row on the smooth stone floor; the walls were hung with ancient tapestry, utterly out of date and out of fashion now. A large bookcase rose from the floor to the dark painted beams of the ceiling, at one end of the room. It contained many books which Madame de la Mariniere would gladly have burnt on the broad hearth, under her beautiful white stone chimney-piece—itself out of date, old and monstrous in the eyes of the Empire. But Madame de la Mariniere was obliged to live with her husband's literary admirations, as well as with his political opinions, so Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, with many earlier and healthier geniuses, such as Montaigne, looked down in handsomely gilt bindings from the upper shelves. High up they were: there was a concession. In the lower shelves lived Bousset, and other Catholic writers; the modern spirit in religion being represented by Chateaubriand's five volumes of Le Gene du Christianisme and two volumes of Les Martyrs. Corneille and Racine, among poets, had the honour of accessibility. When Monsieur Urbain wanted one of his own books, he had to fetch a little ladder from a cupboard in the hall. Angelot, from a child, was forbidden to use that ladder. The prohibition was hardly necessary. Angelot seldom opened a book at all, or read for more than five minutes at a time. He followed his uncle in this, as in so much else. The moors, the woods, the riverside, were monsieur Joseph's library: as to literal books, he had none but a few volumes on sport and on military history.

In this old room Madame de la Mariniere would sit all the evening long, working at her tapestry frame; Urbain would read, sometimes aloud; Angelot would draw, or make flies and fishing tackle. On this special evening the little lady sat down to her frame—she was making new seats in cross-stitch for the old chairs against the wall. Two candles, which lighted the room very dimly, and a tall glass full of late roses, stood on a solid oak table close to her chair.

She made a charming picture as she sat there, seemingly absorbed in her work, yet glancing up every instant to listen to the talk of the two men. Angelot was giving his father an account of the day's adventures, and Monsieur Urbain was as much annoyed as his easy-going temper would allow.

"Is he not mad and bad, that brother of mine!" he cried. "But what was it all about? What were they plotting and planning, these foolish men? Why could he not have two more places laid at table and entertain the whole party together? That would have been the clever thing to do. The Prefect has nothing special against any of those gentlemen—or had not, before this. What were they plotting, Angelot?"

Angelot knew nothing about that. He thought their consciences were bad, from the readiness with which they scuttled off into the woods. And from things they said as they went, he thought they and the imperial officers were best apart. The Messieurs d'Ombre especially, from their talk, would have been dangerous companions at table. Pistols, prisons, a general insurrection and so forth.

"My poor brother will be punished enough," said Urbain, "if he has to spend his time in Purgatory with these d'Ombres."

He glanced at his wife, who did not like such allusions as this; but she bent over her frame and said nothing.

"Go on, tell me all," he said to his son.

Angelot told him the whole story. He was an emotional person, with a strong sense of humour. The Prefect's generosity brought tears into his eyes; the General's adventure made him laugh heartily, but he was soon grave again.

"I have not seen General Ratoneau," he said. "But I have heard that he is a very revengeful man, and I am sorry you should have offended him, my boy."

"He offended me!" said Angelot, laughing. "I tried to save him; he swore at me and would not be saved. Then he tried to strike me and I would not be struck. And it was I who pulled him out of the bushes, and a clumsy lump he was, too. I assure you, father, the debt is on his side, not mine. One of these days he shall pay it, if I live."

"Nonsense! forget all about it as soon as you can," said his father. "As to his language, that was natural to a soldier. Another time, leave a soldier to fight his own battles, even with a herd of cows. To run between a soldier and his enemy is like interfering between husband and wife, or putting your hand between the bark and the tree. Never do it again."

"You do not practise what you preach," said Madame de la Mariniere, while Angelot looked a little crestfallen. "I wonder who has run between more adversaries than yourself, in the last few years!"

"My dear friend, I never yet differed with an imperial officer, or presumed to know better than my superiors, even on Angevin country subjects," said her husband, smiling.

"Ah!" she sighed. Her brows wrinkled up a little, and there was a touch of scorn in the pretty lines of her mouth. "Ah! Ange and I will never reach your philosopher's level," she said.

"I wish—I wish—" Monsieur Urbain muttered, pacing up and down, "that Joseph would grow a little wiser as he grows older. The Prefect is excellent—if it were only the Prefect—but the fellows who were with him—yes, it would be disagreeable to feel that there was a string round Joseph's neck and that the police held the end of it. A secret meeting to-day—at Joseph's house—and Joseph's and Angelot's the only names known!"

"Ange was not at the meeting!" cried Madame de la Mariniere.

"I know—but who will believe that?"

Angelot was a little impressed. He had very seldom seen his father, so hopeful, so even-tempered, with a cloud of anxiety on his face. The very rarity of such uneasiness made it catching. A sort of apprehensive chill seemed to creep from the corners of the dark old room, steal along by the shuttered windows, hover about the gaping cavern of the hearth. It became an air, breathing through the room in the motionless September night, so that the candle-flames on madame's table bent and flickered suddenly.

Then the dogs out in the yard began to bark.

"They are barking at the moon," said Monsieur Urbain. "No, at somebody passing by."

"Somebody is coming in, father," said Angelot, "I hear footsteps in the court—they are on the steps—in the porch. Shall I see who it is?"

"Do, my boy."

The mother turned pale, half rose, as if to stop him. "Not the police!" were the words on her lips; but her husband's calmness reassured her.

Angelot went out into the hall, and reached the house-door just as somebody outside began to knock upon it. He opened it, and saw two figures standing in the half-darkness: for the moon was not yet very high, and while she bathed all the valley in golden light, making Lancilly's walls and windows shine with a fairy beauty, the house at La Mariniere still cast a broad shadow. The figures were of a man and a woman, strangers to Angelot; he, standing in the dark doorway, was equally strange to them and only dimly visible. The stranger lifted his hand courteously to his hat, and there was a touch of hesitation in his very musical voice, as if—which was the fact—he did not know to whom he was speaking.

"Madame de la Mariniere is at home? She receives this evening?"

"Certainly, monsieur," said Angelot. "One moment, and I will fetch a light—madame—" and he bowed low to the stranger's companion.

"What? Are you Angelot? Shake hands: there is light enough for that," said the visitor with sudden friendliness. "Let me present you to my daughter Helene—your cousin, in fact."

The slender, silent girl who stood by Monsieur de Sainfoy might have been pretty or ugly—there was no light to show—but Angelot seemed to know by instinct at once all that he was to discover afterwards. He bowed again, and kissed Helene's glove, and felt a most unreasonable dizziness, a wildfire rushing through his young veins; all this for the first time in his boyish life and from no greater apparent cause than the sweetness of her voice when she said, "Bonjour, mon cousin!"

Then, before he could turn round, his father was there, carrying one of the heavy candlesticks, and all the porch was full of light and of cheerful voices.

"I am triumphant," cried the Comte de Sainfoy. "My wife said I could not find my way. I felt sure I had not forgotten boyish days so completely, and Helene was ready to trust herself to me, and glad to wait upon madame her cousin."

"She is most welcome—you are both most welcome," the beaming master of the house assured him. "Come in, dear neighbours, I beg. What happiness! What an end to all this weary time! If a few things in life were different, I could say I had nothing left to wish for."

"A few things? Can we supply them, dear Urbain?" said the Comte, affectionately.

"No, Herve, no. They do not concern you, my beloved friend. On your side all is perfection. But alas! you are not everybody, or everywhere. Never mind! This is a joy, an honour, indeed, to make one forget one's troubles."

Angelot had taken the candlestick from his father as they crossed the hall. He carried it in before the party and set it down in its place, then stepped back into the shadow while Monsieur Urbain brought them in, and his mother, still pale, and a little shy or stiff in manner, went forward to receive them.

"After twenty years!" The Comte de Sainfoy bowed low over the small hand that lay in his, thin, delicate, if not so white and soft as a court lady's hand. His lips touched it lightly; he straightened himself, and looked smiling into her face. He had always admired Anne de Pontvieux. He might himself have thought of marrying her, in those last days of old France, from which so great a gulf now parted them, if her family had been richer and more before the world. As a young man, he had been surprised at Urbain's good fortune, and slightly envious of it.

"Utterly unchanged, belle cousine!" he said. "What does he mean, that discontented man, by finding his lot anything short of perfection! Here you have lived, you and he, in that quietest place that exists in the very heart of the storm. Both of you have kept your youth, your freshness, while as for me, wanderings and anxieties have turned me as grey as a badger."

"Your wife is still young and beautiful, I hear," said Madame de la Mariniere. "And your hair, cousin, is the only thing that proves you more than twenty. At any rate, you have not lost a young man's genius for paying compliments."

"My compliments are simple truth, as they always were, even before I lived in more plain-spoken countries than this," said the Comte. "And now let me ask your kindness for this little eldest girl of mine—the eldest child that I have here—you know Georges is with the army."

"I know," said Madame de la Mariniere.

Her look had softened, though it was still grave and a little distant. It was with a manner perfectly courteous, but not in the least affectionate, that she drew Helene towards her and kissed her on the cheek. "She is more like you than her mother," she said. "I am charmed to make your acquaintance, my dear."

Words, words! Angelot knew his mother, and knew that whatever pretty speeches politeness might claim, she did not, and never could rejoice in the return of the cousins to Lancilly. But it amused and astonished him to notice the Comte's manner to his mother. Did it please her? he wondered. Gratitude to his father was right and necessary, but did she care for these airs of past and present devotion to herself, on the part of a man who had outraged all her notions of loyalty? It began to dawn on Angelot that he knew little of the world and its ways.

Standing in the background, he watched those four, and a more interesting five minutes he had never yet known. These were shadows become real: politics, family and national, turned into persons.

There stood his father beside the man to whose advantage he had devoted his life; whom he had loved as that kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother, almost with the adoration of a faithful dog, ever since the boys of the castle and of the old manor played together about the woods of La Mariniere and Lancilly.

They were a contrast, those two. Urbain was short and broad, with quick eyes, a clever brow, a strong, good-tempered mouth and chin. He was ugly, and far from distinguished: Joseph had carried off the good looks and left the brains for him. Herve de Sainfoy was tall, slight, elegant; his face was handsome, fair, and sleepy, the lower part weak and irresolute. A beard, if fashion had allowed it, would have become him well. His expression was amiable, his smile charming, with a shade of conscious superiority.

But Angelot understood, when he remembered it, the Prefect's remark that the Emperor found Monsieur de Sainfoy "a little half-hearted."

However, from that evening, Angelot ceased to think of Monsieur de Sainfoy as the unknown cousin, his father's friend, the master of Lancilly; he was Helene's father, and thus to be, next to herself, the most important personage in poor Angelot's world. For it is not to be imagined that those few minutes, or even one of them, were spent in noting the contrast between the cousins, or in considering the Comte's manner to Madame de la Mariniere, and hers to him. There in the light of the candles, curtseying to the unknown cousin with a simple reverence, accepting her kiss with a faint smile of pleasure, stood the loveliest woman that young Angelot had ever seen, ever dreamed of—if his dreams had been occupied with such matters at all! Helene was taller than French women generally; taller than his mother, very nearly as tall as himself. She was like a lily, he thought; one of those white lilies that grew in the broad border under the box hedge, and with which his mother decked the Virgin's altar, not listening at all to the poor old Cure when he complained that the scent made his head ache. Helene had thrown off the hooded cloak that covered her white gown; the lovely masses of fair hair seemed almost too heavy for her small, bent head.

"No wonder they wanted a coiffeur! Oh, why was I not here to fetch him!" thought Angelot.

The beauty of whiteness of skin and perfect regularity of feature is sometimes a little cold; but Helene was flushed with her walk in the warm night, her lips were scarlet; and if her grey eyes were strangely sad and wistful, they were also so beautiful in size, shape, and expression that Angelot felt he could gaze for ever and desire no change.

He started and blushed when his own name roused him from staring breathlessly at Mademoiselle Helene, who since the lights came had given him one or two curious, half-veiled glances.

"And now let me congratulate you on this fine young man," said Monsieur de Sainfoy in his pleasant voice. "The age of my Georges, is he not? Yes, I remember his christening. His first name was Ange—I thought it a little confiding, you know, but no doubt it is justified. I forgot the rest—and I do not know why you have turned him into Angelot?"

Madame de la Mariniere smiled; this was a way to her heart.

"Yes, it is justified," she said proudly. "Ange-Marie-Joseph-Urbain is his name. As to the nickname, it is something literary. I refer you to his father."

"It is a name to keep him true to his province," said Monsieur Urbain. "Read Ronsard, my friend. It was the name he gave to Henry, Duc d'Anjou. But I must fetch the book, and read you the pretty pastoral."

"My dear friend, you must excuse me. I am perfectly satisfied. A very good name, Angelot! But to read or listen to that ancient poetry before the flood—"

They all laughed. "What a wonderful man he is!" said the Comte to Madame Urbain. "As poetical as he is practical."

It all seemed pleasant trifling, then and for the rest of the evening. The young countryman of Ronsard's naming was rather silent and shy, and the Comte's daughter had not much to say; the elders talked for the whole party. This, they thought, was quite as it should be.

But the boy who had said that morning, "Young girls are hardly companions for me," and had talked lightly of his father's finding a husband for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy, lay down that night with a girl's face reigning in his dreams; and went so far as to tell himself that it was for good or evil, for time and for eternity.



CHAPTER VII

THE SLEEP OF MADEMOISELLE MOINEAU

"We must make the best of it," said Madame de Sainfoy. "To be practical is the great thing. I know you agree with me."

She had a dazzling smile, utterly without sweetness. Madame de la Mariniere said it was like the flashing of sunbeams on ice; but it had a much more warming and inspiring effect on Urbain.

"It is one of the few consolations in life," he said, "to meet with supreme good sense like yours."

They were standing together in one of the deep windows of the Chateau de Lancilly; a window which looked out to the garden front towards the valley and La Mariniere. A deep dry moat surrounded the great house on all sides; here, as on the other front, where there were wings and a courtyard, it was approached by a stiff avenue, a terrace, and a bridge. But this ancient and gloomy state of things could not be allowed to continue. An army of peasants was hard at work filling up the moat, laying out winding paths in the park, making preparations for the "English garden" of a thousand meaningless twists leading to nowhere, which was the Empire's idea of beauty. Monsieur and Madame de Sainfoy would have no rest till their stately old chateau was framed in this kind of landscape gardening, utterly out of character with it. It was only Monsieur Urbain's experience which had saved trees from being cut down in full leaf, to let in points of view, and had delayed the planting in hot September weather of a whole forest of shrubs on the sloping bank, where the moat had once been.

The interior of the house, too, was undergoing a great reformation. Madame de Sainfoy had sent down a quantity of modern furniture from Paris, the arrangement of which had caused the worthy Urbain a good deal of perplexity. He had prided himself on preserving many ancient splendours of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, not from any love for these relics of a former society, but because good taste and sentiment alike showed him how entirely they belonged to these old rooms and halls, where the ponderous, carved chimney-pieces rose from floor to painted ceiling, blazoned with arms which not even the Revolution had cut away. But Madame de Sainfoy's idea was to sweep everything off: the tapestries, which she considered grotesque and hideous, from the walls; the rows of solemn old chairs and sofas, the large screens and heavy oak tables, the iron dogs from the fireplace, on which so many winter logs had flamed and died down into a heap of grey ashes. All must go, and the old saloon must be made into a modern drawing-room of the Empire.

Madame de la Mariniere, being old-fashioned and prejudiced, resented these changes, which seemed to her both monstrous and ungrateful. She was angry with her husband for the angelic patience with which he bore them, throwing himself with undimmed enthusiasm into the carrying out of every wish, every new-fangled fancy, that Herve and Adelaide de Sainfoy had brought from Paris with them. If he was disappointed at the bundling off into garret and cellar of so much of Lancilly's old and hardly-kept glory, he only showed it by a shrug and a smile.

"If one does not know, one must be content to learn," he said. "A modern fish wants a modern shell, my dear Anne. I may have been foolish to forget it. The atmosphere that you enjoy gives Adelaide the blues. Come, I will quote Scripture. 'New wine must be put into new bottles.'"

"Then, on the whole, it was a pity Lancilly was not burnt down," said his wife.

"Ah, Lancilly! Lancilly will see a few more fashions yet," he said.

And now he stood, quite happy and serene, in the cold sunshine of Adelaide's smile, and together they watched the earthworks rising outside, and he agreed with her as to the necessity of being modern in everything, of marching with one's time, regretting nothing, using the present and making the best of it. She was utterly materialist and baldly practical. Her manners were frank and simple, she had suffered, she had studied the world and knew it, and used it without a scruple for her own advantage. The time and the court of Napoleon knew such women well: they had the fearless dignity of high rank, holding their own, in spite of all the Emperor's vulgarity; and the losses and struggles of their lives had given them a hard eye for the main chance, scarcely to be matched by any bourgeois shopkeeper. And with all this they had a real admiration for military glory. Success, in fact, was their God and their King.

Far down below in the park, within sight of the windows, Monsieur de Sainfoy was strolling about, watching the workmen, and talking to them with the pleasant grace which always made him popular. With him was young Angelot, who had walked across with his father on that and several other mornings. It seemed as if Uncle Joseph and Les Chouettes had lost a little of their attraction, since Lancilly was inhabited. Angelot brought his gun, and Cousin Herve, when he had time and energy, took his, and they had an hour or two's sport round about the woods and marshes and meadows of Lancilly. Once or twice Monsieur de Sainfoy brought the young man in to breakfast; his father was often there, in attendance on the Comtesse and her alterations. She took very little notice of Angelot, beyond a smile when he kissed her hand. He was of no particular use, and did not interest her; she was not fond of his mother, and thought him like her; it was not worth while to be kind to him for the sake of his father, whose devotion did not depend, she knew, on any such attentions.

Angelot was rather awed by her coldness, though he said nothing about it, even to his mother. And after all, he did not go to Lancilly to be entertained by Madame de Sainfoy. He went for the sake of a look, a possible word, or even a distant sight of the girl whose lovely face and sad eyes troubled him sleeping and waking, whose presence drew him with strong cords across the valley and made the smallest excuse a good reason for following his father to Lancilly. But he never spoke to Helene, except formally and in public, till that day when he lingered about with his cousin in the park, watching the men as they dug the paths for the English garden, while Madame de Sainfoy and Monsieur Urbain talked good sense high up in the window.

Presently two figures approached the new garden, crossing the park from the old avenue, and Monsieur de Sainfoy went to meet them with an air of cordial welcome.

"Who are those people?" said the Comtesse, putting up her eyeglass.

"It is my brother Joseph and his little daughter," Urbain answered. "He has his gun, I see, as usual. I suppose he was shooting in this direction."

"Does he take the child out shooting with him? He is certainly very eccentric."

Urbain shrugged his shoulders. "Poor dear Joseph! A little, perhaps. Yes, he is unlike other people. To tell you the truth, I am only too glad when his odd fancies spend themselves on the management of Henriette."

"Or mis-management! He will ruin the child. He brought her here the other day, and she appeared to me quite savage."

"Really, madame! Poor Henriette! She is a sociable child and clever, too. My wife and Angelot are very fond of her. I think she must have been shy in your presence."

"Oh, not at all. She talked to Herve like a grown-up woman. I was amused. When I say 'savage,' I mean that she had evidently been in no society, and had not the faintest idea how a young person of her age is expected to behave. She was far more at her ease than Helene, for instance."

"Ah, dear madame! there is something pleasing, is there not, in such a frank trust in human nature! The child is very like her father."

"Those manners may be pretty in a child of six," said Madame de Sainfoy, "but they are quite out of place in a girl of her age—how old is she?"

"I don't exactly know. Twelve or thirteen, I think."

"Then there is still some hope for her. She may be polished into shape. I shall suggest to your brother that she come here every day to take lessons with Sophie and Lucie. I dare say she is very ignorant."

"I am afraid she is. What a charming idea! How like your kindness! My brother will certainly accept your offer with enthusiasm. I shall insist upon it."

"He will, if he is a wise man," said Madame de Sainfoy. They both laughed: evidently the wisdom of Monsieur Joseph was not proverbial in the family. "Mademoiselle Moineau is an excellent governess, though she is growing old," she went on. "I have known her make civilised women out of the most unpromising material. I shall tell your brother that I consider it settled. It will be good for Sophie and Lucie, too, to have the stimulus of a companion."

"You are not afraid that—You know my brother's very strong opinions?"

"Do you think a child of twelve is likely to make converts?" she said, with an amused smile. "No, cousin. The influence will be the other way, but your brother will not be foolish enough, I hope, to consider that a danger."

Urbain shook his head gently: he would answer for nothing. He murmured, "A charming plan! The best thing that could happen to the child."

"A pity, too," said Madame de Sainfoy, looking out of the window, "that she should grow up without any young companions but your son. Where are they going now?"

"I don't know," said Urbain.

For a moment they watched silently, while Angelot and Henriette left the others in the garden, and walked away together, turning towards the chateau, and then disappearing behind a clump of trees.

"I know," said the Comtesse. "I told Herve something of this plan of mine, and he approved highly: he has an old family affection for your brother. He is sending the young people to find Sophie and Lucie; they are out walking in the wood with Mademoiselle—Helene is reading Italian in her own room."

She seemed to add this as an after-thought, and the faintest smile curled Monsieur Urbain's lips as he heard her. "No danger, dear Comtesse," he felt inclined to say. "My boy's heart is in the woods and fields—and he is discreet, too. You might even trust him for five minutes with that beautiful, silent girl of yours."

Had Madame de Sainfoy made some miscalculation as to her daughter's hours of study? or was it Helene's own mistake? or had the sunshine and the waving woods, the barking of dogs, the chattering of workmen, all the flood of new life outside old Lancilly, made it impossible to sit reading in a chilly, thick-walled room and tempted the girl irresistibly to break her mother's strict rules. However it may have happened—when Angelot and Riette, laughing and talking, entered the wood beyond the chateau, not only square Sophie and tall Lucie and their fat little governess, but Mademoiselle Helene herself, were found wandering along the soft path, through the glimmering maze of green flicked with gold.

Sophie and Lucie were good-natured girls, enchanted to see the new little cousin. They admired her dark eyes, the delicate smallness of her frame, a contrast with their own more solid fairness. In their family, Helene had taken all the beauty; there was not much left for them, but they were honest girls and knew how to admire. Riette on her side, untroubled with any shyness or self-consciousness, quite innocent of the facts that her dress was old-fashioned and her education more than defective, was delighted to improve her acquaintance with the new cousins. She could tell them a thousand things they did not know. To begin with, Lancilly itself, the woods, the walled gardens and courts, even the staircases and galleries of the house—all was more familiar to her than to them. She and Angelot had found Lancilly a splendid playground, ever since she was old enough to walk so far; they had spent many happy hours there in digging out rabbits, catching rats, birds-nesting, playing cache-cache, and other charming employments. She enlarged on these in the astonished ears of Sophie and Lucie, walking between them with linked arms, pulling them on with a dancing step, while they listened, fascinated, to the gay little spirit who led them where she pleased. It did not seem so certain, to look at the three young girls, that Madame de Sainfoy was right as to influence. But no political talk, no party secrets, escaped from the loyal lips of Riette. A word of warning from Angelot—a word which her father would not have dreamed of saying—had closed her mouth on subjects such as these. She could be friendly with her cousins, yet true to her father's friends.

"Let us go to the great garden," she said. "Have you seen the sundial, and the fish-ponds? You don't know the way? Ah, my dear children, but what discoveries you are going to make!"

"Sophie—Lucie—where are you going? Come back, come back!" cried Mademoiselle Moineau, who was pacing slowly behind with Angelot and Helene.

But Sophie and Lucie could not stop if they wished it; an impetuous little whirlwind was carrying them along.

"To the garden—to the garden!" they called out as they fled. Mademoiselle Moineau was distracted. She was fat, she was no longer young; she could not race after the rebellious children; and even if she could, it was impossible to leave Helene and Angelot alone in the wood.

"Where are they going?" she said helplessly to the young man.

He explained amiably that they were perfectly safe with his little cousin, who knew every corner of the place, and while Mademoiselle Moineau groaned, and begged that he would show her the way to the garden, he ventured a look and smile at Helene. A sudden brightness came into her face, and she laughed softly. "Henriette might be your little sister," she said. "You are all alike, I think—at least monsieur your uncle, and madame your mother, and Henriette, and you—"

"Yes—I've often thought Uncle Joseph ought to be my mother's brother, not my father's," said Angelot.

He dared not trust himself to look very hard at Helene. He kept his lightness of tone and manner, the friendly ease which was natural to him, though his pulses were beating hard from her nearness, and though her gentle air of intimacy gave him almost a pang of passionate joy. How sweet she was, how simple, when for a moment she forgot the mysterious sadness which seemed sometimes to veil her whole nature! Angelot knew that she liked and trusted him, the strange young country cousin who looked younger than he was. She thought him a friendly boy, perhaps. Her eyes, when she looked at him, seemed to smile divinely; they were no longer doubtful and questioning, as at first. He longed to kneel down on the pine-needles and kiss the hem of her gown; he longed, he, the careless sportsman, the philosopher's son, to lay his life at her feet, to do what she pleased with. But Mademoiselle Moineau was there.

They walked on in the vast old precincts of Lancilly, following the children. It was all deep shade, with occasional patches of sunshine; great forest trees, wide-spreading, stretched their arms across sandy tracks, once roads, that wandered away at the back of the chateau: through the leaves they could see mountains of grey moss-stained roof and the peaked top of the old colombier. All the yards and buildings were now between them and the house itself. Along by a crumbling wall, once white, and roofed with tiles, they came to the broken-down gate of the garden. It was not much better than a wilderness; yet there were loaded fruit-trees, peaches, plums, figs, vines weighed down with masses of small sweet grapes, against the ancient trellis of the wall. Everywhere a forest of weeds; the once regular paths covered with burnt grass and stones and rubbish; the fountain choked and dry.

Mademoiselle Moineau groaned many times as she hobbled along; the walking was rough, the way seemed endless, and the garden, when they reached it, a sun-baked desert. Angelot guided them to the very middle, where the old sundial was, and while he showed it to Helene, the little governess sat down on a stone bench that encircled a large mulberry tree, the only shady place in the garden. They could hear the children's voices not far off. Helene sat down near Mademoiselle Moineau. Angelot went away and came back with a leaf filled with fruit, to which Helene helped herself with a smile. As he was going to hand it to Mademoiselle Moineau, she put out a hand to stop him.

"She is asleep," she whispered.

It was true. The warmth, the fatigue, the sudden rest and silence, had been too much for the little lady, who was growing old. Her eyes were shut, her hands were folded, her chin had sunk upon her chest; and even as Angelot stared in unbelieving joy, a distinct snore set Helene suddenly laughing.

"I must wake her," she said softly. "We must go, we must find the children."

"Oh no, no!" he murmured. "Let the poor thing rest—see how tired she is! The children are safe—you can hear them. Do not be so cruel to her—and to me."

"I cruel?" said Helene; and she added half to herself—"No—other people are cruel—not I."

Angelot did not understand her. She looked up at him rather dreamily, as he stood before her. Perhaps the gulf of impossibility between them kept her, brought up and strictly sheltered as she had been, from realising the meaning of the young man's face. It was very grave; Angelot had never before felt so utterly in earnest. His eyes were no longer sleepy, for all the strength of his nature, the new passion that possessed him, was shining in them. It was a beautiful, daring face, so attractive that Helene gazed for a speechless moment or two before she understood that the beauty and life and daring were all for her. Then the pale girl flushed a little and dropped her eyes. She had had compliments enough in Paris, had been told of her loveliness, but never with silent speech such as this. This conquest, though only of a young cousin, had something different, something new. Helene, hopeless and tired at nineteen, confessed to herself that this Angelot was adorable. With a sort of desperation she gave herself up to the moment's enjoyment, and said no more about waking Mademoiselle Moineau, who snored on peacefully, or about finding the children. She allowed Angelot to sit down on her other side, and listened to him with a sweet surprise as he murmured in her ear—"Who is cruel, then, tell me! No, you are not, you are an angel—but who are you thinking of?"

"No one in particular, I suppose," the girl answered. "Life itself is cruel—cruel and sad. You do not find it so?"

"Life seems to me the most glorious happiness—at this moment, certainly."

"Ah, you must not say those things. Let us wake Mademoiselle Moineau."

"No," Angelot said. "Not till you have told me why you find life sad."

"Because I do not see anything bright in it. Books tell one that youth is so happy, so gay—and as for me, ever since I was a child, I have had nothing but weariness. All that travelling about, that banishment from one's own country—ill tempers, discontent, narrow ways, hard lessons—straps and backboards because I was not strong—loneliness, not a friend of my own age—and then this horrible Paris—and things that might have happened there, if my father had not saved me—" She stopped, with a little catch in her breath, and Angelot understood, remembering the Prefect's talk at Les Chouettes, a few days before.

This was the girl they talked of sacrificing in a political marriage.

"But now that you are here—now that you have come home, you will be happy?" he said, and his voice shook a little.

"Perhaps—I hope so. Oh, you must not take me too much in earnest," Helene said, and there was an almost imploring look in her eyes. She added quickly—"I hope I shall often see madame your mother. What a beautiful face she has—and I am sure she is good and happy."

This was a fine subject for Angelot. He talked of his mother, her religion, her charity, her heroism, while Helene listened and asked childish questions about the life at La Mariniere, to which her evening visit had attracted her strangely. And the minutes flew on, and these two cousins forgot the outside world and all its considerations in each other's eyes, and the shadows lengthened, till at last the children's voices began to come nearer. Mademoiselle Moineau snored on, it is true, but the enchanting time was coming to an end.

"Remember," Angelot said, "nothing sad or cruel can happen to you any more. You are in your own country; your own people will take care of you and love you—we are relations, remember—my father and mother and my uncle and Riette—and I, Helene!"

He ended in the lowest whisper, and suddenly his slight brown hands closed on hers, and his dark face bent over her.

"Never—never be sad again! I adore you—my sweet, my beautiful—"

Very softly their lips met. Helene, entirely carried out of herself, let him hold her for a moment in his arms, then started up with flaming cheeks in consternation, and began to hurry towards the gate.

At the same moment the three young girls came down the path towards the sun-dial, and Mademoiselle Moineau, waking with a violent start, got up and hobbled stiffly forward into the sunshine.

"Where are you, my children?" she cried. "Sophie, Lucie, it is quite time to go back to your lessons—see, your sister is gone already. Say good-by to your cousins, my dears—"



"We may all go back to the chateau together, madame, may we not?" said Angelot with dancing eyes, and he hurried the children on, all chattering of the wonderful corners and treasures that Henriette had shown them.

But Mademoiselle Helene flew before like the wind, and was not to be overtaken.

In the meanwhile, Madame de Sainfoy consulted Cousin Urbain about her new silk hangings for the large drawing-room, and also as to a list of names for a dinner, at which the chief guests were to be the Baron de Mauves, the Prefect of the Department, and Monsieur le General Ratoneau, commanding the troops in that western district.

"And I suppose it is necessary to invite all these excellent cousins?" Madame de Sainfoy asked her husband that evening, when the cousins were gone.

"Entirely necessary, my dear Adelaide!"



CHAPTER VIII

HOW MONSIEUR JOSEPH MET WITH MANY ANNOYANCES

Dark clouds were hanging over Les Chouettes. In the afternoon there had been a thunderstorm, with heavy rain which had refreshed the burnt slopes and filled the stream that wound through the meadows under the lines of poplars and willows, and set great orange slugs crawling among the wet grass. The storm had passed, but the air was heavy, electric, and still. The sun had set gloriously, wildly, like a great fire behind the woods, and now all the eastern sky was flaming red, as if from a still more tremendous fire somewhere beyond the moors and hills.

Two men were sitting on a bench under Monsieur Joseph's south wall; himself and white-haired Joubard, the farmer; before them was a table with bottles and glasses. Joubard had been trying a wine that rivalled his own. Monsieur Joseph had entertained him very kindly, as his way was; but the shadow of the evening rested on Monsieur Joseph's face. He was melancholy and abstracted; he frowned; he even ground his teeth with restrained irritation. Joubard too looked grave. He had brought a warning which had been lightly taken, he thought; yet looking sideways at Monsieur Joseph, he could not help seeing that something, possibly his words, was weighing on the little gentleman. There were plenty of other things to talk about; the farm, the vintage, the war in Spain, the chances of Martin's return, the works at Lancilly. Monsieur Joseph and Joubard were both talkers; they were capable of chattering for hours about nothing; but this evening conversation flagged, at least on Monsieur Joseph's side. Perhaps it was the weather.

At last the old man was ready to go. He stood up, staring hard at Monsieur Joseph in the twilight.

"Monsieur forgives me?" he said. "Perhaps I should have said nothing; the police have their ways. They may ask questions without malice. And yet one feels the difference between an honest man and a spy. Well, I could have laughed, if I did not hate the fellow. As if the talk of a few honest gentlemen could hurt the State!"

"Some day I hope it will," said Monsieur Joseph, coolly. "When the rising comes, Joubard, you will be on the right side—if only to avenge your sons, my good man!"

Joubard opened his eyes wider, hesitated, pushed his fingers through his bushy hair.

"Me, monsieur! The rising! But, monsieur, I never said I was a Chouan! I am afraid of some of them, though not of you, monsieur. They are people who can be dangerous. A rising, you said! Then—"

"Don't talk of it now," said Monsieur Joseph, impatiently.

As he spoke, little Henriette came round the corner of the house with some blue feathers in her hand. Tobie had been out shooting, making havoc among the wild birds, large and small, and sparing the squirrels, with regret, to please his master. Owls, kites, rooks, magpies, jays, thrushes, finches; those that were eatable went into pies, and the prettiest feathers were dressed and made into plumes for Mademoiselle Henriette. She was fond of adorning her straw bonnet with jay's feathers, which, as her uncle Urbain remarked, gave her the appearance of one of Monsieur de Chateaubriand's squaws. "See, papa, what Tobie has brought me," she cried. "Good evening, Maitre Joubard! How are your chickens? and when will the vintage begin?"

Joubard would gladly have entered on a lengthy gossip with Mademoiselle Henriette, but Monsieur Joseph, with a shortness very unlike him, brought the interview to an end.

"You must not keep Maitre Joubard now," he said. "It is late, and he must get back to the farm. Bonsoir, Joubard."

The farmer waved his large hat. "Bonsoir, la compagnie!" and with a smile departed.

As he passed the stables, Tobie, still carrying his gun, slipped out and joined him.

"Anything wrong with the master, Tobie?" said the old man, curiously. "His tongue has an edge to it this evening; he is not like himself."

"I think I know," said Tobie, and they strolled together up the lane.

"Go to bed, my child," said Monsieur Joseph to his little daughter. "It is too damp now for you to be out-of-doors. Yes, very pretty feathers. Good night, mon petit chou!"

Riette flung herself upon him and hugged him like a young bear.

"Ah," he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak, "and is this the way to behave to one's respected father? Do you suppose, now, that Mesdemoiselles de Sainfoy crush their parents to death like this?"

"I dare say not," said Riette, with another hug and a shower of kisses. "But their parents are grand people. They have not a little bijou of a papa like mine. And as for their mamma, she is a cardboard sort of woman."

"All that does not matter. Manners should be the same, whether people are tall or short, great or humble. You know nothing about it, my poor Riette."

"Nor do you!"

"It is becoming plain to me that you must be sent to learn manners."

"Where?"

"Go to bed at once. I must think about it. There, child—enough—I am tired this evening."

"Ah, you have had so many visitors to-day, and that old Joubard is a chatterbox."

"And he is not the only one in the world. Go—do you hear me?"

The child went. He heard her light feet scampering upstairs, clattering merrily about on the boards overhead. He sat very still. The glow in the east deepened, spreading a lurid glory over the dark velvety stillness of the woods. Crickets sang and curlews cried in the meadow, and the long ghostly hoot of an owl trembled through the motionless air. Joseph de la Mariniere leaned his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his hands, and gazed up thus into the wild autumnal sky.

"What would become of her!" he said to himself.

He was not long alone. Angelot and his dog came lightly up through the shadows, and while the dog strayed off to join his favourites among the dark guards who lay round the house, the young man sat down beside his uncle.

Though with a mind full of his own matters, Angelot was sympathetic enough to feel and to wonder at the little uncle's depression. After a word or two on indifferent things—the storm, the marvellous sky—he said to him, "Has anything happened to worry you?"

Monsieur Joseph did not answer at once, and this was very unlike him.

"It is the thunder, perhaps?" said Angelot, cheerfully. "A tree was struck near us. My mother is spending the evening in church."

"And your father?"

"He is at Lancilly, playing boston."

"Why are you not with him?"

"Why should I be? I—I prefer a talk with my dear uncle."

"Ah! you ask if anything worries me, Angelot. Three or four things. First—I had a visit this morning from Cesar d'Ombre. He had his breakfast in peace this time, poor fellow."

Angelot smiled, rather absently. "What had he to say?"

"Nothing special. The time is not quite ripe—I think they realised that the other day."

"I hope so," murmured Angelot.

"Hope what you please," said his uncle, with sudden irritation. "The time will come in spite of you all, remember. I, for one, shall not long be able to endure this abominable system of spying."

"What do you mean?" said Angelot, staring at him.

"This is what I mean. The instant d'Ombre was gone—while he was here, in fact—that fellow, the Prefect's jackal, was prowling round the stables and asking questions of Tobie. Some silly excuse—pretended he had lost a strap the other day. Asked which of my friends was here—asked if they often came, if they were generally expected. Suggested that Les Chouettes was well provided with hiding-places, as well for arms as for men. I don't think he made much out of Tobie; he is as solid as an old oak, with a spark of wit in the middle of his thick head. From his own account, he very nearly kicked him off the premises."

"What? that man Simon? I don't like him either, but was it not a little dangerous to treat him so? He is more than a gendarme, I think; he is an agent de police."

"I don't care what he is, nor does Tobie. He had better come to me with his impertinent questions. And I am angry with De Mauves. I suppose the rascal would not prowl about here without his orders. Of course it was he who found out everything the other day. I did not notice or know him at the time, but the servants tell me he is, as you say, a well-known police spy. Well, after what De Mauves said to you, I should have expected him to leave me in peace. I would rather have one thing or the other—be arrested or let alone. I say, this spying system is ungentlemanly, ungenerous, and utterly contemptible and abominable."

Monsieur Joseph rapped hard on the table, then took a pinch of snuff with much energy, folded his arms, and looked fiercely into Angelot's downcast face.

"I can hardly think the Prefect sent him," the young man said.

"Why should he act without his master's orders? In any case I shall have it out with De Mauves. Well, well, other annoyances followed, and I had half forgotten the rascal, your father being here, and the rain coming in at the roof and running down the stairs, when behold Joubard, to tell me the story over again!"

"What story?"

"Mille tonnerres! Angelot, you are very dull to-day. Why, the Simon story, of course. The fellow paid Joubard a visit on his way to us, it seems, and asked a thousand questions about me and my concerns—what visitors of mine passed La Joubardiere on their way here, and so forth. He tried to make it all appear friendly gossip, so as to put Joubard off his guard, though knowing very well that the old man knew who he was."

"Does Joubard think the Prefect sent him?"

"I did not consult Joubard on that point," said Monsieur Joseph with dignity. "That is between De Mauves and myself."

"Oh, my little uncle," Angelot said with a low laugh, "you are a very gem among conspirators."

"None of you take me in earnest, I know," said Monsieur Joseph, and he smiled for the first time. "Your father scolds me, Joubard does not half believe in me, Riette takes liberties with me, you laugh at me. It is only that scoundrel of a Prefect who thinks me worth watching."

"I don't believe he does," said Angelot.

"Then pray tell me, what brought that police rascal here to-day?"

"Some devilry of his own. Don't you know, Uncle Joseph, these fellows gain credit, and money too, by hunting out cases of disloyalty to the Empire. It is dirty work; officials like the Prefect do not always care to soil their hands with it. I have heard my father tell of cases where whole families were put in prison, just on the evidence of some police spy who wormed himself into their confidence and informed against them."

Monsieur Joseph sat in silence for a minute.

"Peste! France is not fit to live in," he said. "To change the subject—your excellent father proposed to-day that I should send Riette every morning to Lancilly, to learn lessons with Mesdemoiselles de Sainfoy. It seems that Madame de Sainfoy herself proposed this obliging plan. The governess, it seems, is a jewel of the first water. Is that the lady I saw with the children the other day?"

"Yes; Mademoiselle Moineau."

Angelot's breath came a little short; his heart seemed to beat unreasonably in his throat. How could he express with sufficient restraint his opinion of that sleepy old angel, Mademoiselle Moineau!

He felt himself colouring crimson; but it was growing dark, the gorgeous sunset had faded, the clouds hung blacker and heavier as the oppressive night closed in.

"No doubt a charming lady and a very good woman," said Monsieur Joseph, with his usual politeness, "but she has not the air of a genius. In any case, even if I saw any advantage for Riette in the plan, which I do not, I am too selfish to consent to it. Well, well, I have other reasons; I will tell them to your mother one of these days. I am sorry Madame de Sainfoy should have thought of it, as it seems ungracious to refuse. But I was miserable enough without Riette last year, when she spent those weeks at the Convent at Sonnay. By the by, the good nuns did not find her so ignorant. She knows her religion, she can dance and sing, she can make clothes for the poor, she understands the animals, and has read a little history. Pray what more does a girl want?"

"Nothing, I dare say," said Angelot, dreamily. "I did not think you would like it."

"I do not like it," said Monsieur Joseph. "Your father was astonished when I told him so. We did not discuss it long; the storm interrupted us. But how could I let my child be brought up in a household devoted to the Empire! It is unreasonable."

Angelot started suddenly to his feet.

"Are you going? It will rain again soon," said Monsieur Joseph.

"No, I am not going yet," said Angelot.

He marched up and down two or three times in front of the bench.

"Uncle Joseph," he burst out, "I have something to say to you. I came here to-night on purpose to consult you. You can help me, I think, if anybody can."

"What, what? Are they sending you into the army?" Monsieur Joseph was all interest, all affection. His own annoyances were forgotten. He started up too, standing in his most inspired attitude, with a sweet smile on his face. "Declare yourself, my boy!" he said. "Yes, I will stand by you. You cannot fight for that bloodthirsty wretch. Escape, dearest, if there is nothing else for it. Go and join the Princes. Your mother will agree with me. I will lend you money for the journey."

"Ah, a thousand thanks, Uncle Joseph!" cried the young man. "But no, it is not that at all." He lowered his voice suddenly. "I want to marry," he said.

"To marry! Angelot! You! In heaven's name, why?"

"Because I am in love."

"What a reason!"

Monsieur Joseph sat down again.

"This is serious," he said. "Sit down beside me on the bench, and tell me all about it. It sounds like madness, and I always thought you were a reasonable boy."

"It is madness in one way, I suppose," said Angelot. "And yet stranger things have happened. In fact, of course, nothing else could happen."

Monsieur Joseph frowned and stared. His quick brain was running round the neighbourhood and finding nobody; then it made an excursion at lightning speed into the wilds of Brittany, where Angelot had sometimes visited his mother's relations; but there again, as far as he knew, no likely match was to be found. He was sure that Urbain and Anne had not yet taken any steps to find a wife for Angelot; he also thought it was a subject on which they were likely to disagree. And now the young rascal had hit on somebody for himself. Might Heaven forbid that he had followed modern theories and was ready to marry some woman of a rank inferior to his own—some good-for-nothing who had attracted the handsome, simple-hearted boy!

"No! He would not dare to tell me that," Monsieur Joseph said to himself, and added aloud, "Who is the lady?"

There was a touch of severity in his tone; a foretaste, even from the dear little uncle, of what was to be expected.

"But, dear uncle," Angelot said slowly, "it could only be one person."

"No—no, impossible!" said Monsieur Joseph, half to himself. "Angelot, my boy—not—not there?" and he waved his hand in the direction of Lancilly.

Angelot nodded. "You have seen her," he murmured; "you ought not to be surprised. You have never seen any one half so beautiful."

Monsieur Joseph laughed outright. "Have I always lived at Les Chouettes?" he said. "However, she is a pretty girl, fair, graceful, distinguished. Riette had more to tell me about the younger ones; that was only natural. Of course I have only exchanged a compliment with Mademoiselle Helene. She looked to me cold and rather haughty—or melancholy, perhaps. When have you spoken to her, Angelot? or is it merely the sight of her which has given you this wild idea?"

"Yes, she is melancholy," Angelot said, "but not cold or haughty at all. She is sad; it is because she is alone, and her mother is hard and stern, though her father is kind, and she has had no peace in life from all their worldly ways. They wanted to marry her to people she detested—her mother did, at least—"

"Yes, yes, I have heard something of that," said Monsieur Joseph. "They expect a great deal from her. She is to make an advantageous marriage—it is necessary for her family. It will happen one of these days; it must. My dear little Angelot, you know nothing of the world—how can you possibly imagine—Besides, I do not care for the Sainfoys." Monsieur Joseph sighed. "I would rather you went to Brittany for a wife, and so would your mother."

"But you will help me, Uncle Joseph?" said Angelot.

"Help you! How can I? Anyhow, you must tell me more. How did you find out all this? When did those people give you an opportunity of speaking to her? From their own point of view, they are certainly very imprudent. But I suppose they think you harmless."

It is unpleasant to be thought harmless. Angelot blushed angrily.

"They may find themselves mistaken," he muttered. "I will tell you, Uncle Joseph;" and he went on to give a slight sketch of what had happened.

It seemed necessary to convince his uncle that he was not talking nonsense, that the fates had really allowed him a few minutes' talk with Helene. He could only give half an explanation, after all; the old mulberry tree had been the only witness of what was too sacred to be told. He said that Mademoiselle Moineau's fortunate nap had given them time to understand each other.

"And this is the fine governess to whom they expect me to confide my Riette!" said Monsieur Joseph, laughing; but he became serious again directly. "And in this interview under the tree, my poor Angelot," he said very gravely, "you made up your mind to propose yourself as a husband for Mademoiselle Helene?"

"It sounds solemn, Uncle Joseph, when you say it. But yes, I suppose you are right," said Angelot.

"It is solemn. Most solemn and serious. Something more than a flirtation, an amourette. For life, as I understand you. A real marriage a l'Anglais," said Monsieur Joseph.

For answer, Angelot raved a little. His uncle listened indulgently, with a charming smile, to all the pretty lunacies of the young man's first love, poured into an ear and a heart that would never betray or misunderstand him.

"And did you tell Mademoiselle Helene all this? Did you ask her what she thought of you?" Monsieur Joseph said at last.

"She knows enough, and so do I," said Angelot.

It seemed like sacrilege to say more; but as his uncle waited, he added hastily—"She is sad, and I can make her happy. But I cannot live without her—voila! Now will you help me?"

"It does not occur to you, then, that you are astonishingly presumptuous?"

"No."

"Diable, my Angelot! It would occur to my cousins De Sainfoy!"

"We are not so poor. As to family, we have not a title, it is true, but we are their cousins—and look at my mother's descent! They can show nothing like it. And then see what they owe to my father. Without him, what would have become of Lancilly? They can make imperialist marriages for their two other daughters. You must help me, dear little uncle!"

"Do you suppose they would listen to me, an old Chouan? Where are your wits, my poor boy? All flown in pursuit of Mademoiselle Helene!"

"Not they, no; they are too stupid to appreciate you. But speak to my father and mother for me. They love and honour you; they will listen. Tell them all for me; ask them to arrange it all. I will do anything they wish, live anywhere. Only let them give me Helene."

Monsieur Joseph whistled, and took another large pinch of snuff. It was almost too dark now to see each other's face, and the heavy clouds, with a distant rolling of thunder, hung low over Les Chouettes.

Suddenly a child's voice from a window above broke the silence.

"Ah, forgive me, papa and Angelot, but I have heard all, every word you have been saying. It was so interesting, I could not shut the window and go to sleep. Well, little papa, what do you say to Angelot? Tell him you will help him, we will both help him, to the last drop of our blood."

Angelot sprang from his seat with an exclamation, to look up at the window. A small, white-clad figure stood there, a round dark head against the dim light of the room. The voice had something pathetic as well as comical.

"Mille tonnerres!" shouted Monsieur Joseph, very angry. "Go to bed this instant, little imp, or I shall come upstairs with a birch rod. You will gain nothing by your dishonourable listening. I shall send you to Mademoiselle Moineau to-morrow, to learn lessons all day long."

"Ah, papa, if you do, I can talk to Helene about Angelot," said Henriette, and she hastily shut the window.

The two men looked at each other and laughed.

"Good night, dear uncle," said Angelot, gently. "I leave my cause in your hands—and Riette's!"

"You are mad—we are all mad together. Go home and expect nothing," said Monsieur Joseph.



CHAPTER IX

HOW COMMON SENSE FOUGHT AND TRIUMPHED

General Ratoneau found himself a hero at Madame de Sainfoy's dinner party, and was gratified. A new-comer, he had hardly yet made his way into provincial society, except by favour of the Prefect. Even the old families who regarded the Prefect as partly one of themselves, and for his birth and manners forgave his opinions, found a difficulty in swallowing the General. The idea that he was unwelcome, when it penetrated Ratoneau's brain, added to the insolence of his bearing. To teach these ignorant provincial nobles a lesson, to show these poor and proud people, returned from emigration, that they need not imagine the France of 1811 to be the same country as the France of 1788, to make them feel that they were subjects of the Emperor Napoleon and inferior to his officers—all this seemed to General Ratoneau part of his mission in Anjou. And at the same time it was the wish of his heart to be received as a friend and an equal by the very people he pretended to despise.

Lancilly enchanted him. Though the stately halls and staircases were bare, the great rooms half-furnished and dark—for Madame de Sainfoy had not yet carried out her plans of decoration—though there were few servants, no great display of splendid plate, no extravagance in the dinner itself, no magnificence in the ladies' dresses, for at this time simplicity was the fashion—yet everything pleased him, because of the perfections of his hostess. Madame de Sainfoy laid herself out to flatter him, to put him in a good humour with himself. Rather to the disgust of various old neighbours who had not dined at Lancilly for more than twenty years, she placed the Prefect and the General on her right and left at dinner, and while the Prefect made himself agreeable to an old lady on his right, whose satin gown was faded and her ancient lace in rags, she devoted all her powers of talk to the General.

In a way she admired the man. His extraordinary likeness to his master attracted her, for she was a hearty worshipper of Napoleon. She talked of Paris, the Empress, the Court; she talked of her son and his campaigns, asking the General's opinion and advice, but cleverly leading him off when he began to brag of his own doings; so cleverly that he had no idea of her tactics. He was a little dazzled. She was a very handsome woman; her commanding fairness, her wonderful smile, the movements of her lovely hands and arms, the almost confidential charm of her manner; she was worthy to be an Empress herself, Ratoneau thought, and his admiration went on growing. He began to talk to her of his most private affairs and wishes, and she listened more and more graciously.

It was a large party; many of the old provincial families were represented there. All the company talked and laughed in the gayest manner, though now and then eyes would light on the hostess' left-hand neighbour with a kind of disgusted fascination, and somebody would be silent for a minute or two, or murmur a private remark in a neighbour's ear. One lady, an old friend and plain of speech, turned thus to Urbain de la Mariniere:—

"Why does Adelaide exert herself to entertain that creature?"

"Because, madame," he answered, smiling, "Adelaide is the most sensible and practical woman of our acquaintance."

"Mon Dieu! But what does she expect to get by it?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

Angelot, the youngest man present, had been allowed to take his cousin Helene in to dinner. Two minutes of happiness; for the arrangement of the table separated them by its whole length. But it had been enough to bring a smile and a tinge of lovely colour to Helene's face, and to give her the rare feeling that happiness, after all, was a possibility. Then she found herself next to a person who, after Angelot, seemed to her the most delightful she had ever met; who asked her friendly questions, told her stories, watched her, in the intervals of his talk with others, with eyes full of admiration and a deep amusement which she did not understand, but which set her heart beating oddly and pleasantly, as she asked herself if Angelot could possibly have said anything to this dear uncle of his.