The blood rushed to the girl’s face and she sprang to her feet. “How dare you say such a thing, Étienne? It is for your mother and my father to arrange a matter like that. Besides,”—she burst into a sob,—“I—I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to go to a convent either. Why do you come here troubling me with such dreadful things, Étienne? I hate you for it.”
He caught her hands and looked down closely into her dark eyes. “No you don’t; you love me for it.”
“I do not! I do not!” she cried, passionately. “I detest you. Monster, beast! Monster, beast! Hear me, I say it again and again. I hate you, hate you, hate you!” And having wrested one hand from his grasp, she gave him a stinging blow on the ear.
He loosed his grasp of her and pushed her from him. “You shall pay me for that,” he said, his breath coming quickly, as he sprang to his feet.
Alaine, frightened at what she had done, shrank from him. “I—I never did so before, did I, Étienne? I—I was so surprised, you see.” She made a faint attempt to smile, but there was no response from her cousin. She remembered vaguely that she had once or twice before seen him thus angry, and she also remembered that her aunt had told her that Étienne was very vindictive. “It would not be proper for me to say that I would marry you, Étienne,” she said, wistfully. “You know we must not think of such things; Michelle says we must not, and Mother Angelique says that it is very wrong. It really would not be proper for me to tell you that I would marry you.”
“You shall tell no one else,” he said, fiercely, “and you will have to do it soon or——”
“Or what?” She crept closer to him and laid her hand on his arm.
He looked down at her, the resentment in his face fading into something like compassion. “Listen, Alaine; your father will not come back to-day; one cannot say that he ever will. He has announced himself a Huguenot, and has disappeared, we know not where.”
Alaine fixed her great eyes on him. Suddenly she dropped her childish coaxing tone. “Are you telling me the truth, Étienne? I am—yes, I am nearly a woman. A girl of fifteen has a right to decide for herself as you say. Tell me, are you merely teasing me, or is this the truth?”
“It is the truth, and at any moment this place may be given over to the dragonnades. Will you stay? If you do not come to us your case will be pitiable, indeed. I have not said anything as yet to my mother, for you know her state of health, but you will be safe with us, Alaine.”