“I can imagine it, Barth,” he answered, with a sudden wave of liking for the loyal little Englishman before him. “Both St. Jacques and I would gladly have offered up our ankles at the shrine of Sainte Anne, for such a chance as yours.”
“What kind of a chance do you mean?”
“Chance to be coddled by Miss Howard, of course.”
Barth slid the string of his glasses over his head, put on his glasses and looked steadily up at Brock.
“It was a chance,” he assented gravely. “Chance and the handiwork of the Good Sainte Anne. It might have meant a good deal to me. Instead, I threw it all away by my own dulness; and now, instead of having the advantage of a three-weeks’ acquaintance, I have to start at the very beginning once more. If, as you are hinting, you and Mr. St. Jacques and I are on a strife to win the regard of Miss Howard, you and Mr. St. Jacques have already distanced me in the race.”
Brock laughed; but his eyes had grown surprisingly gentle. In all his easy-going life, a life when friends and their confidences had been his for the asking, few things had touched him as did this direct, simple expression of trust on the part of Mr. Cecil Barth. Contrary to his custom, he met confidence with confidence.
“You’re a good fellow, Barth,” he said heartily. “I am a little out of the running, myself. I’d like to wish you success, if I could; but St. Jacques is the older friend.” Then, relenting, he recurred to the object of his call. “Now see here, Barth,” he added; “you needn’t feel obliged to go to market. There may be some joke in the matter. Miss Howard laughed, when she was talking about it. Don’t go, if you don’t wish to. They can take Tommy.”
“Oh, but I’d like to go,” Barth interposed hurriedly, as he looked at his watch. “It is past ten now, Mr. Brock. May I ask you to excuse me?” And, without waiting for a final word from Brock, he turned and went dashing down the staircase at a speed which boded little good for an invalid ankle.
Ten o’clock, that sunny morning, found Champlain Market the centre of an eager, jostling, basket-laden throng. As a rule, the Lady sought her purchases at the market just outside the Saint John Gate. To-day, however, she had elected to go to the Lower Town, and, true to an old engagement, Nancy had elected to go with her. It was a novel experience for the girl, and she wandered up and down at the heels of the Lady, now staring at the stout old habitant women who, since early dawn, had sat wedged into their packed carts, knitting away as comfortably as if they had been surrounded by sofa pillows rather than by pumpkins; at the round-faced, bundled-up children who guarded the stalls of belated flowers, of blue-yarn socks and of baskets of every size; at the groups of men, gathered here and there in the throng, offering to their possible customers the choice between squealing pigs and squawking fowls which one and all seemed to be resenting the liberties taken with their breast-bones. Back of the old stone market building, the carts were drawn up in long lines; and the board platforms between were heaped with cabbages and paved with crates. At the north, the little gray spire of Notre Dame des Victoires guarded the square where, for over two hundred years, it had done honor to the name of Our Lady and to the memory of successive victories won, by her protecting care, over invading foes. Above it all, the black-faced cannon poked its sullen nose over the wall of the King’s Bastion where, a scarlet patch against the sky, there fluttered the threefold cross of the Union Jack.
And still Brock failed to appear.