Bertrand threw a rapid, comprehensive glance over the old pile that held all his family pride, all the glorious traditions of his forbears. There was majesty even in its ruins: whole chapters of the history of France had been unfolded within its walls.
“I find the half-empty barrack beautiful,” he murmured with a quick, sharp sigh.
“Of course it is beautiful, Bertrand,” Rixende rejoined, with that quick transition from petulance to coquetry which seemed one of her chief characteristics. “It is beautiful to me, because it is dear to you.”
She clasped her two tiny hands around his arm and turned her gentian-blue eyes up to him. He looked down at the dainty face, rendered still more exquisite by the flush which still lingered on her cheeks. She looked so frail, so fairy-like, such a perfect embodiment of all that was most delicate, most appealing in womanhood; she was one of those women who have the secret of rousing every instinct of protection and chivalry in a man, and command love and devotion where a more self-reliant, more powerful personality fails even to attract. A look of infinite tenderness came into Bertrand’s face as he gazed on the lovely upturned face, and into those blue eyes wherein a few tears were slowly gathering. He felt suddenly brutish and coarse beside this ethereal being, whose finger-tips he was not worthy to touch. He felt that there was nothing which he could do, no act of worship or of self-abnegation, that would in any way repay her marvellous condescension in stepping out of her kingdom amongst the clouds, in order to come down to his level.
And she, quick to notice the varying moods expressed in his face, felt that she had gone yet another step in her entire conquest of him. She gave a little sigh of content, threw him one more ravishing look, then said lightly:
“Let us wander away together, Bertrand, shall we? We seem never to have any time all to ourselves.”
Bertrand, wholly subjugated, captured Rixende’s little hand, and drawing it under his arm, led her away in the direction of the wood. Micheline continued to gaze after them, a puzzled frown between her brows. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had joined in the short sparring match between the two lovers, but Micheline, whom infirmity had rendered keenly observant, was quick to note the look of anxiety which her mother cast in the direction where Rixende’s dainty gown was just disappearing among the trees.
“That girl will never be happy here——” she murmured as if to herself.
Old Madame who still sat erect and stiff at the head of the table broke in sharply:
“Once she is married to Bertrand,” she said, “Rixende will have to realise that she represents a great name, and that her little bourgeois ideas of pleasure and pomp are sadly out of key in this place where her husband’s ancestors have been the equal of kings.”