“Dear monsieur, forgive me. It is all my fault. Come let us sit down under our own tree of the morning study and I will explain. I perceive that this Gaspard prefers Annette’s society to yours or mine, and I begin to wonder. I forget that Annette will so soon be grown up; when I do realize I see that it is quite possible that they should be fianced, but Annette who has always confided in me suddenly tells me nothing, so I come to you.”
“You admit it would be a very good arrangement. Annette will have a respectable dot; Gaspard will inherit this place. We are old, my wife and I. We wish to see Annette well settled. I tell you this in confidence, because of my old friendship for your grandfather and of your friendship for Annette. Nothing can be positively settled until Madame Guerin returns, but then—we know her wishes upon this subject and so you may guess how it will turn out.”
Lucie lost no time in telling Odette what she had found out. “You are the wisest creature, Odette,” she said. “I should never in the world have thought of this by myself. I don’t see how you know so much. I am with Annette much more than you and yet I didn’t suspect.”
Odette smiled a little demure smile. She was much more sedate in these days than she had been in the city. Probably she worked off her surplus energy in the fields. “One sees some things, hears some things, guesses the rest,” she replied.
“Well, your eyes must be sharper than mine. I confess I go about dreaming sometimes, and that I suppose you do not. I look about at things, you at people.”
“And things too.”
That night as Lucie was making ready for bed she heard Annette stirring in the next room. The night was calm and bright. The nightingales were singing their hearts out. All sorts of sweet odors were borne in through the windows; the scent of lilac blooms, of apple blossoms, of young green leaves, of newly worked earth. Lucie tapped at Annette’s door and at the invitation to enter she went in. Annette, in her dressing gown, was kneeling by the open window. Lucie knelt beside her. Neither girl spoke for a time, then Lucie murmured: “How unspeakably peaceful and lovely. Does it seem possible that not so many miles away there are terrible things going on?”
“That is what troubles one,” returned Annette. “In a few days there will be another for us to be anxious about.”
“You mean Gaspard? I know. Your grandfather told me. Do you then care so much for him, Annette?”
“He is my cousin.”