"But how am I to get home, dear cousin?" she queried, darting a glance on him from under the fringe of her dark lashes that would have tantalized a saint.
"An you will grant me leave," he said simply, "I will carry you."
"Carry me?" she exclaimed. "Why, it is six kilomètres to the château!"
"If it were twenty I could carry you thither," he interposed with that quaint smile which was wont to lighten his stern face like sunshine on a troubled sea.
Strangely enough and quite unaccountably, Fernande felt a quick blush rising to her cheeks under the look which accompanied that smile.
"Why," he added simply, "you weigh less than a bird."
"Less than one of the pigeons of St. Front, perhaps," she retorted gaily.
"They were of stone," quoth he dryly.
"Ah! you know the legend, too?"