Mrs. Winter, to whom the suggestion was made by her cook (cousin to the cook at Stellamare), snapped at it eagerly. She had been out walking with Dick, and they had both seen the beautiful dark Storm-cloud chaperoned by the white cows, among the olives.
Nathalie became femme de chambre in the apartment of Mrs. Winter. She was so charmed with her mistress, and with certain hats and blouses that Rose bestowed upon her, that she did not much miss the flirtations. But, being a good Catholic, and having been confirmed by the curé of Roquebrune, her conscience asked itself whether it could be right to live in a household not only Protestant, but the abode of a priest who spread heresy. It occurred to her that she would go and put this question to the curé, her spiritual father; and she was not deterred from her resolve by the fact that Achille Gonzales had finished his military service and returned to visit his family. Achille's father was the Maire of Roquebrune, a peasant landowner of wealth whose pride was in his son and in their Spanish ancestry, which dated back to the days of Saracen fighting on the coast.
Achille was a great match; and the white cows had nibbled mint and clover from his hands before he went away with his regiment to Algeria. His father was about to make over to him some land adjoining the curé's garden, and the young man was there planting orange trees on fine days.
Nathalie chose a fine afternoon to ask Mrs. Winter if she might go to Roquebrune.
The curé, who was broad-minded, set her heart at rest about the possible iniquity of her service. He said that different religions were all paths leading up a steep hill, in the same direction, only some were more roundabout than others. Nathalie need not after all have taken the trouble to climb the mule track in the afternoon sun; yet she was not sorry she had come. Seldom had she looked so beautiful as when her aunt was giving her orange-syrup with water after her talk with the curé, the oranges being a present to the house from Achille Gonzales. On the table in the little kitchen stood a silver photograph frame which Luciola was going to clean, as the salt air had tarnished its brightness. In the frame was a photograph of Prince Giovanni Della Robbia as a boy of eighteen; but so little had eleven years changed Vanno, that Nathalie recognized the picture at once.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "surely that is the handsome, tall young gentleman who walks over often to look at the Villa Mirasole, near our laiterie: the brother of the prince who is coming soon to live there."
"Why, yes, it is he," replied her aunt. "He is a friend of our curé's, and was once his pupil. He is the Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, a very noble, good young man."
"I am not sure he is so very good," retorted Nathalie, pleased to know something which her aunt perhaps did not know, about a person of importance.
Luciola's tiny body quivered with indignation. "Not good! How dare you say such a thing of our curé's Prince? What can you have to tell of a great noble in his position—you—a little no-one-at-all?"
The Storm-cloud lowered. "There are those as important as your Prince who do not think me a 'little no-one-at-all.' The grand folk who come to Cap Martin to call upon our lady the Empress Eugenie tell each other about me; English dukes and duchesses they are, and Spanish grandees, and high nobility from all over the world, who visit the Cap to do her reverence. They make one excuse or another to have a look at your 'little no-one-at-all.' And a famous American artist has sketched me, in the olive woods. He would not let me run home even for five minutes to change into my best dress, nor would he permit that I put away my milk cans: that was my one regret! As for your Prince, he passed, taking a short cut to the villa, while I posed. Do you think he went on without looking? No; he stopped and spoke with the artist."