With the words on his lips, he pricked his ears to a murmuring sound that came subdued through the closed lattice. He rose and, instinctively reverential, tip-toed to the window. Ned followed him.
Across the sunny green, her eyes turned to the ground, her hands clasped to her mouth, her whole manner significant of a wrapt introspection, passed M. de St Denys’ little pale lodge-keeper; and, as she went on her way, men bowed as at the passing of the Host; children caught at their mothers’ skirts and looked from covert, wonder-eyed; the fashionable ladies scuttled from their berline and knelt in the dust, and snatched at and kissed the hem of the dévote’s garment. She paid no heed, but glided on decorously, and vanished from Ned’s field of observation.
“She is a poet,” repeated that young man calmly.
The student crossed himself.
“She is a priestess, monsieur,” said he. “She reads in the breviary of her white soul such mysteries as man has never guessed at.”
“That I can quite understand; and it will be an auspicious day for Méricourt when they start to build a commemorative chapel.”
“It is even now discussed. Already they have the sacred tree fenced in, and the ground about it consecrated. Already the spot is an object of pilgrimage to the pious.”
“As once to the Club of Nature’s Gentry—the ravishing club, oh, my poor Boppard! Alas, the whirligig of time! But, one thing I should like to know: to what did Mademoiselle Legrand look for a livelihood when her master ran away?”
“Doubtless to God, monsieur. And now, the faithful shower gifts at her feet.”