She had assumed a mysterious mien and now led the way into the house. Nicolette followed her, ready to fall in with anything that would take her away from here. The two girls went across the terrace together, and the last words which struck Nicolette’s ears before they went into the house came from Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar.
“The wench is quite pretty,” she was saying languidly, “in a milkmaid fashion, of course. You never told me, Bertrand, that you had a rustic beauty in these parts. She represents your calf-love, I presume.”
Nicolette actually felt hot tears rising to her eyes, but she succeeded in swallowing them, whilst Micheline exclaimed with naïve enthusiasm:
“Isn’t Rixende beautiful? How can you wonder, Nicolette, that Bertrand loves her so?”
Fortunately Nicolette was not called upon to make a reply. She had followed Micheline through the tall French window in the drawing-room and in very truth she was entirely dumb with surprise. The room was transformed in a manner which she would not have thought possible. It is true that she had not been inside the château for many months, but even so, it seemed as if a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and changed the faded curtains into gorgeous brocades, the tattered carpets into delicate Aubussons, the broken-down chairs with protruding stuffing into luxurious fauteuils, covered in elegant tapestries. There were flowers in cut-glass bowls, books laid negligently on the tables; an open escritoire displayed a silver-mounted inkstand, whilst like a crowning ornament to this beautifully furnished room, a spinet in inlaid rosewood case stood in the corner beside the farthest window, with a pile of music upon it.
Micheline had come to a halt in the centre of the room watching with glee the look of utter surprise and bewilderment on her friend’s face, and when Nicolette stood there, dumb, looking about her as she would on a dream picture, Micheline clapped her hands with joy.
“Nicolette,” she cried, “do sing something, then you will know that it is all real.”
And Nicolette sat down at the spinet and her fingers wandered for awhile idly over the keys. Surely it must all be a dream. A spook had gone by and transformed the dear old château into an ogre’s palace: it had cast a spell over poor, trusting Micheline, and set up old Madame as a presiding genius over this new world which was so unlike, so pathetically unlike the old; whilst through this ogre’s palace there flitted a naughty, mischief making sprite, with blue eyes and golden curls, a sprite all adorned with lace and ribbons and exquisite to behold, who held dainty, jewelled fingers right over Bertrand’s eyes so that he could no longer see.
Gradually the dream-mood took stronger and yet stronger hold of Nicolette’s spirit: and she was hardly conscious of what her fingers were doing. Instinctively they had wandered and wandered over the keys, playing a few bars of one melody and then of another, the player’s mind scarcely following them. But now they settled down to the one air that is always the dearest of all to every heart in Provence: “lou Roussignou!”
“Lou Roussignou che volà, volà!”