The girl’s eyes floated in a little backwater of tears. Crescents of hot colour showed under them on her cheek-bones.
“Monsieur will make a jest of me,” she said, in a rather drowned whisper.
“I will make a Madonna of you, Nicette, if you will pose yourself as I wish.”
Her lips quivered. She looked down, twiddling her wet thumbs.
“I am established at the chateau, Nicette. I am a friend of M. de St Denys, who would have me dispose of my time to my best entertainment.”
“And that monsieur seeks of the poor lodge-keeper?”
“Truly, for I am an artist above all things.”
This cold fellow had a coaxing way with him. After not so long an interval he was busily at work, with the girl seated to his satisfaction. The sweet coolness of the dairy received, through a wide-flung window, the scent of innumerable flowers that thronged the little garden without. To look thereon was like gazing on the blazing square of a stage from the sequestered gloom of an auditorium. There was an orchestra, moreover, all made up of queer Æolian harmonics.
“What is that voice, Nicette, that never ceases to moan and quarrel?”
“It tells the wind, monsieur.”