The recollection of them, however, was not strong enough to check either her thoughts or their utterance. Later on perhaps, in after years, she might in her musings return to that terrace and the speculations they indulged in, and the fairy palaces they built, with an envy of the ignorance and the high thoughts of youth. To-day she was all alert to grasp the future in her hands. One can imagine her looking much as she looked in those portraits of her childhood.
"News of the great world," she cried. "I shall bring it back. We will talk it over in Roquebrune and correct our guesses. For I shall know."
As a fact, they never did talk over her news, but that she could not foresee. She went on her way with a smile upon her face: all confidence and courage, and expectation, a brilliant image of youth. Giraud, as he watched her the proud poise of her head, the light springing step, the thing of beauty and gentleness which she was, breathed a prayer that no harm might come to her, and no grief ever sadden her face.
The next morning she went away, and the schoolmaster lost his one glimpse of the outer world. But he lived upon the recollections of it, and took again to his long walks on the Corniche road. The time hung heavily upon his hands. He hungered for news, and no news came, and when in the month of December he noticed that the shutters were opened in the Villa Pontignard, and that there was a stir of servants about the house, he felt that the shutters were being opened after a long dark time from his one window on the outside world. He frequented the little station from that moment. No "Rapide" passed from France on its way to Italy during his leisure hours but he was there to watch its passengers. Mrs. Mardale came first, and a fortnight afterwards Pamela descended from a carriage with her maid.
Giraud watched her with a thrill of longing. It was not merely his friend who had returned, but his instructor, with new and wonderful knowledge added to the old.
Then came his first chilling moment of disillusion. It was quite evident that she saw him as she was stepping on to the platform. Her eyes went straight to his--and yet she turned away without the slightest sign of recognition and busied herself about her luggage. The world had spoilt her. That was his first thought, but he came to a truer understanding afterwards. And indeed that thought had barely become definite in his mind, when she turned again, and, holding out her hand, came to him with a smile.
"You are well?" she said.
"Yes," said he.
And they walked up the long flight of steps to Roquebrune, talking banalities. She gave him none of the news for which he longed, and they spoke not at all of the career which together they had mapped out for him. All their long talks upon the terrace, their plans and their speculations seemed in an instant to Giraud to have become part of a pleasant, very foolish, and very distant past. He was aware of the vast gulf between them. With a girl's inimitable quickness to adapt herself to new surroundings, she had acquired in the few months of her absence the ease, the polish, and the armour of a woman of the world. He was still the village schoolmaster, the peasant tortured with vain aspirations, feeding upon vain dreams; and in this moment he saw himself very clearly. Her silence upon their plan helped him to see himself thus. Had she still believed in that imagined career, surely she would have spoken of it. In a word, he was still looking at the world through her eyes.
"You must come up to the villa," she said. "I shall look forward to your coming."