Tintajeux Manoir with its weather-bleached walls, its courtly, faded drawing-room, its half lights, its rose scents, had already laid hold of Geoffrey’s imagination. The Seigneur with his antiquated Greek accent, his wise, subtly ironical old face, reciting Sophocles under this late sky, had for him a personal interest. If only the one jarring note need not be struck! If the capricious heiress were but a full-fledged graduate, a resident M.A. say, within the distant walls of St. Margaret’s Hall, or of Girton!
Scarcely had the thought crossed Geff Arbuthnot’s mind when he heard a door behind him open and close. Turning quickly, he saw, to his pleasure, a child dressed in a white and red cotton frock, confined by a bright-coloured ribbon round the slim waist, and who advanced to him—a pair of brown, beautifully-carved small hands, outheld.
‘You are ten minutes late, Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot.’ The faintest un-English accent was traceable in her voice. ‘But you are welcome, a thousand times over, to Tintajeux.’
Now Geff was a veritable child lover, and if this young person had only been two years younger than she looked, he would, likelier than not, have finished several of his life’s best chances by lifting her in his arms and kissing her on the spot. With a little princess of thirteen or fourteen one must be on one’s guard—for the first five minutes, at least, of acquaintance.
He took her offered hands and held them, enjoying the arch vivacity of that upturned face, brimful of sunshine as a water lily’s cup; a face good as it was sweet.
‘Poor Cambridge B.A. Poor abashed big coach!’ thought Marjorie Bartrand. ‘The worthy man must be used to cold receptions, I should say, on his wife’s account. Now, let me set him at his ease.’
Crossing to one of the Trianon baskets she softly signed to Geoffrey to follow.
‘Do you see that “Bon Espoir,” Mr. Arbuthnot?’ A hawk moth hovered, at the moment, with poised vibrating wings above the mass of roses. ‘In Spain we have a superstition about the “Bon Espoir” when he enters a house. If he is powdered with black we say, Bad luck! If he is powdered with gold, Good! Ah,’ clapping her hands, ‘and our “Bon Espoir” is gold! We are to be lucky, sir, you and I, in our dealings. Now I shall tell you another Spanish saying. “To begin a friendship with a gift is a happy omen.” Take this rose from me.’