"Yes," replied the child, "it's the day after Saturday, and I always have my best pudding for dinner. What's your best pudding, Mr. Val?"
But Mr. Val was spared answering this embarrassing question by the advent of Sarah, who bore down upon them, her cap-strings flying, and whisked Marianne off, in a whirlwind of yellow hair and white petticoats, before he could even protest. She waved one little hand to him as she tripped away, holding on to her flowers with the other, and Trim barking at her heels; then the terrace door closed upon them, and Vladimir was left alone.
Mechanically he stooped and picked up one of the stray blossoms that had fallen from Mimi's lap; he turned it idly in his fingers, looking at it with unseeing eyes, while his busy brain went on thinking, planning, scheming.
Was he wrong after all? Had she escaped him; nay, had she ever been here at all? Why had she gone away? When would she come back? How could he piece out his welcome a little longer at the Folly? Was he altogether wrong in his suspicions? Had the woman tricked him again; fighting him with his own weapons, had she out-matched him and escaped?
And thus, as he stood lost in his self-questionings—a sombre, dark figure in the glowing beauty and sunlight of the fair May morning, twisting the drooping flower round and round in his fingers, and the song of the birds echoing ceaselessly in his ears—a sudden light broke over the gloom of his countenance, a half-formed exclamation rose to his lips; he dropped the flower suddenly, and took a step forward.
"No, I am not wrong," he said, in answer to himself. "Let Adèle Lamien beware, or I may turn her own arms against her." Then he turned abruptly and walked towards the house; and only the sunshine, and the birds, and Mimi's faded blossoms remained.
CHAPTER VI.
"'TIS A SIREN."
And so the long golden morning hours rolled on, and the garden remained untenanted. The sweet spring flowers—than which none are more beautiful and fragrant, because so redolent of promise—wasted their perfume on the gentle breezes that swayed their yielding blossoms; the birds' song grew hushed and lapsed into silence as the repose of noontide settled down upon them.