“Tush, boy! do not start on that humiliating subject again. What do you take me for? I tell you Rixende shall be entertained in a style that will not cause you to blush. Besides,” she added with a shrug of her aristocratic shoulders, “Sybille insists that Rixende shall see her future home before she will acquiesce in the formal fiançailles. So put a good face on it, my boy, and above all, trust to me. I tell you that Rixende’s visit here will be a triumph for us all.”
Grandmama was so sure, so emphatic, above all so dominating, that Bertrand gratefully followed her lead. After all, he loved his ancestral home, despite its shortcomings. He was proud of it, too. Think of that old Peyron-Bompar, who did not even know who his grandfather was, being brought in contact with traditions that had their origin in Carlovingian times. That the tapestries on the walls were tattered and faded, the curtains bleached to a drab, colourless tone, the carpets in holes, the masonry tumbling to ruins, was but a glorious evidence of the antiquity of this historic château. Bertrand was proud of it. He longed to show it to Rixende, and to stand with her in the great ancestral hall, where hung the portraits of his glorious forbears. Rambaud de Ventadour, the friend of the Grand Monarque, Guilhem de Ventadour, the follower of St. Louis, and Rixende, surnamed Riande—because she was always laughing, and whose beauty had rivalled that of Montespan.
Even to-night he paid a visit to those beloved portraits. He seemed to want to steep himself in tradition, and the grandeur and chivalry which was his richest inheritance. The great hall looked vast and silent in the gloom, like the graveyard of glorious dead. The darkness was mysterious, and filled him with a delicious awe: through the tall windows the moonlight came peeping in, spectral and wan, and Bertrand would have been neither surprised nor frightened if, lured by that weird light, the ghosts of his forbears were to step out of the lifeless canvases and march in solemn procession before him, bidding him remember that he was one of them, one of the imperishable race of the Ventadours, and that his chief aim in life must be to restore the name and family to their former glory.
Grandmama was quite right when she said that the time had now come when the individual must cease to count, and everything be done for the restoration of the family to its former importance. He himself must be prepared to sacrifice his noblest impulses to the common cause. Thank God! his heart was not in conflict with his duty. He loved Rixende, the very woman whom it was his duty to marry, and this urgent call back to Versailles had been thrice welcome, since it would take him back to his beloved one’s side, at least one month before he had hoped to return. A pang of remorse shot through his heart, however, when he thought of the mas: of Jaume Deydier, who had been a kind friend to his mother in the hour of her distress, and of Nicolette, the quaint, chubby child, who was wont to worship him so. Quite unaccountably his memory flew back to that late afternoon five years ago, when, troubled and perplexed, very much as he was now, he had suddenly thought of Nicolette, and felt a strange, indefinable yearning for her, just as he did now.
And almost unconsciously he found himself presently wandering through the woods. The evening air was warm and fragrant and so clear, so clear in the moonlight that every tiny twig and delicate leaf of olive and mimosa cast a sharp, trenchant shadow as if carved with a knife.
Poor little Nicolette! She had been a pretty child, and her admiration for him, Bertrand, had been one of the nicest traits in her character. He had not seen her since that moment, five years ago, when she stood leaning against the gate with the riotous vine as a background to her brown curls, and the lingering twilight defining her arms and the white shift which she wore. He supposed that she must have grown, and, in truth, she must have altered a good deal, during her stay at the convent school in Avignon. No doubt, too, her manners would have improved; she had been rather tomboyish and very childish in her ideas. Poor little Nicolette! No doubt she would feel hurt that he had not been over to the mas, but it had been difficult, very difficult; and he really meant to go on the morrow with Micheline, if this urgent despatch had not come for him to return to duty at once. Poor little Nicolette!
Then all at once he saw her. Absorbed in thought he had wandered on and on without realising that he had gone so far. And now he found himself down in the Valley of the Lèze, picking his way on the rough stones left high and dry during the summer in the river bed. And there in front of him was the pool with the overhanging carob tree, and beside it stood Nicolette. He recognised her at once, even though the light of the moon only touched her head and neck and the white fichu which she wore about her shoulders. She seemed very different from the child whom he remembered, for she looked tall and slender, and her brown curls did not tumble all about her face as they were wont to do; some of them did still fall over her forehead and ears, and their delicate tendrils glistened like chestnuts in the mysterious light, but the others were hidden under the quaint head-dress, the small, round knob of muslin which she wore over the crown of her head like most Provençal maidens.
Whether she had expected him or not, Bertrand could not say. At sight of him she gave a little cry of delight and ran forward to greet him.
“Bertrand,” she exclaimed, “I knew that you would come.”
In the olden days, she used, when she saw him, to run to him and throw her arms round his neck. She also would have said “Tan-tan” in the olden days. This time, however, she put out her hand, and it also seemed quite natural for Bertrand to stoop and kiss it, as if she were a lady. She, however, withdrew her hand very quickly, though not before he had perceived that it was very soft and very warm, and quivered in his grasp just like a little bird.