Nicolette’s sweet young voice rose to the accompaniment of the soft-toned spinet. She sang, hardly knowing that she did so, certainly not noticing Micheline’s rapt little face of admiration, or that the tall window was open and allowed the rasping voice of Rixende to penetrate so far.
Micheline heard it, and tiptoed as far as the window. Rixende had jumped to her feet. She stood in the middle of the terrace, with all her laces and ribbons billowing around her and her hands held up to her ears:
“Oh! that stupid song!” she cried, “that monotonous, silly refrain gets on my nerves. Bertrand, take me away where I cannot hear it, or I vow that I shall scream.”
Micheline stepped out through the window, from a safe distance she gazed in utter bewilderment at Rixende whom she had hitherto admired so whole-heartedly and who at this moment looked like an angry little vixen. Bertrand, on the other hand, tried to make a joke of the whole thing.
“The sooner you accustom your sweet ears to that song,” he said with a laugh, “the sooner will you become a true Queen of Provence.”
“But I have no desire to become a Queen of Provence,” Rixende retorted dryly, “I hate this dull, dreary country——”
“Rixende!” Bertrand protested, suddenly sobered by an utterance which appeared to him nothing short of blasphemy.
“Eh! what,” she retorted tartly, “you do not suppose, my dear Bertrand, that I find this place very entertaining? Or did you really see me with your mind’s eye finding delectation in rushing round orange trees in the company of a lot of perspiring louts?”
“No,” Bertrand replied gently, “I can only picture you in my mind’s eye as the exquisite fairy that you are. But I must confess that I also see you as the Queen ruling over these lands that are the birthright of our race.”
“Very prettily said,” Rixende riposted with a sarcastic curl of her red lips, “you were always a master of florid diction, my dear. But let me assure you that I much prefer to queen it over a Paris salon than over a half-empty barrack like this old château.”