After dismounting from his steed and tying him to the branches of an oak, thus conforming to the time-honored custom of lovers, the cavalier struck his foot upon the ground three or four times to start the circulation in his legs, and then drew from his pocket a very pretty Breguet watch.
"Ten minutes past eight," said he; "I am late and yet I am early. It looks as if the clocks at La Fauconnerie were not very well regulated." He walked up and down with a quick step whistling with a vengeance:
"Quand je quittai la Normandie
J'attends—j'attends—"
a refrain which the occasion brought to his mind. When this pastime was exhausted he had recourse to another, the nature of which proved that if the expected beauty had not punctuality for a virtue, she was not one of those little exacting creatures always ready to faint or whose delicate nerves make them intolerant of their lovers' imperfections. Plunging his hand into one of the pockets in his redingote, the waiting cavalier drew out a sealskin case filled with Havana cigars, and, lighting one, began to smoke, while continuing his promenade.
But at the end of a few moments this palliative, like the first, had exhausted its effect.
"Twenty-five minutes past eight!" exclaimed Marillac, as he looked at his watch a second time; "I should like to know what this little miniature rose takes me for? It was hardly worth the trouble of over- straining this poor horse, who looks as wet as if he had come out of the river. It is enough to give him inflammation of the lungs. If Bergenheim were to see him sweating and panting like this in this bleak wind, he would give me a sound blowing-up. Upon my word, it is becoming comical! There are no more young girls! I shall see her appear presently as spruce and conceited as if she had been playing the finest trick in the world. It will do for once; but if we sojourn in these quarters some time yet, she must be educated and taught to say, 'If you please' and 'Thanks.' Ah! ha! she has no idea what sort of man she is dealing with! Half past eight! If she is not here in five minutes I shall go to La Fauconnerie and raise a terrible uproar. I will break every bit of crockery there is in the 'Femme-sans-Tete' with blows from my whip. What can I do to kill time?" He raised his head quickly, as he felt himself suddenly almost smothered under a shower of dust. This was a fatal movement for him, for his eyes received part of the libation destined for his hair. He closed them with a disagreeable sensation, after seeing Mademoiselle Reine Gobillot's fresh, chubby face, her figure prim beyond measure in a lilac-and-green plaid gingham dress, and carrying a basket on her arm, a necessary burden to maidens of a certain class who play truant.
"What sort of breeding is this?" exclaimed Marillac, rubbing his eyes; "you have made me dance attendance for an hour and now you have blinded me. I do not like this at all, you understand."
"How you scold me, just for a little pinch of dust!" replied Reine, turning as red as a cherry as she threw the remainder of the handful which she had taken from a mole-heap close by them.
"It is because it smarts like the devil," replied the artist, in a milder tone, for he realized the ridiculousness of his anger; "since you have hurt me, try at least to ease the pain; they say that to blow in the eye will cure it."
"No. I'll do nothing of the kind—I don't like to be spoken to harshly."