"Your hair is very charming," he was saying as she came to the above conclusion; "it seems to love being yours—as what would not? The hair of many women looks as though it were trying hard—oh, so hard!—to get away from them; but yours clings and—what is the word?—tendrils round your head as if it loved you."
"Ordinary curly hair," she answered in French.
"But no—black hair is usually dry and like something burnt, or of an oiliness to disgust. Is it not so, Félicité—is her hair not adorable?"
"Oui, oui, Victor; oui, mon homme. But we must go, for Lady Brigit will be wishing to rise. Théo, too, awaits her downstairs."
The big man, who was crouching on the floor playing with the dog, rose hastily. "Good God!" he cried in English words, but obviously in the innocent French sense, "I quite forgot that unhappy child! Come, Félicité; come Papillon, m'ami—let us disturb Belle-Ange no longer."
As if he had long been struggling with their reluctance to go, he shepherded them out of the room, singing as he went downstairs, "Salut, demeure chaste et pure."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The parrot, whose name was Guillaume le Conquérant, was a magnificent, fluffy, grey bird picked out with green. His eye was knowing, and swift and deep his infrequent but never-to-be-forgotten bite.
"He is studying you—dear," explained Joyselle, as he stood before the huge gilt cage with Brigit shortly after her appearance downstairs that morning. "It is a severe test that everyone who comes here has to undergo. He is writing his memoirs, too."