“It is well timed,” she said. “Monsieur has received my letter? And will Friday suit our so generous cavalier to depart?”
Ned bowed with his never-failing gravity.
“Yes,” he said simply.
The lady clasped her hands.
“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, with a quite melodramatic fervour, “it is the passing of the cloud. After all the tempest-tossing, to see the shore in sight!”—and she hastily lifted her skirts from contact with a roadside puddle.
“Monsieur,” said a little voice almost at Ned’s ear, “do you know what is a corolle and what a nectaire?”
In some mood of impudence or mischief Pamela was come to give her company unbidden. She would pretend not to see the warning gestures of la gouvernante. She held in her hand the parts of a dismembered flower, and she looked up at the young man as she stepped, light as his own sudden thoughts, at his side. She felt a little warmth, a little pity towards him. He was going far away, and to serve her. That she knew. It was in the nature of a tiny confidence between them. Her glance was appealing as a child’s, asking not to be left.
And as for Ned, the sight of this sweet face close to him so inflamed his heart that his formal speech took fire.
“I know when I look at you,” he said; “they are mademoiselle’s cheek and mouth classified.”
In the near prospect of his banishment he spoke out reckless of consequences. Perhaps the unexpected answer took the girl herself by surprise. She hung her head and fell back a little.