It was what she had been hoping for. “To the sea, then?” she suggested. “I have not been there yet, though you can see it from the upper windows, and hear it too, when there is wind. Let us go there together.”
“Soit!” said he, and went off in search of the lady of the house.
In the salon, meanwhile, Marthe entertained the aides-de-camp.
“No, you must kiss my left hand to-day, Monsieur de Céligny,” she said, laughing, and put her right behind her back. “I keep the other exclusively now for our General.”
She had a flame-coloured ribbon in her hair, and her eyes danced as always. Yes, she was worth all that Mirabel unpleasantness! But Roland had already seen her since his return.
“Mademoiselle,” he said with some audacity, “if I am to follow M. le Duc’s example in salutation to Mme de Trélan, after the hand comes . . . the cheek. But there, too, I would be content with the left!”
“That also,” said Marthe with dignity, “is reserved for someone else!” And she provokingly held it up to her brother, who kissed her on both.
“Did I hear you singing Sur le Seuil just now, ma petite?” he enquired. “That was why you never heard us riding up. You were making such a to-do among those low notes, for Death battering on the gate, that he really might have been battering for all you heard.”
But, presently, with a little wise smile, Artamène drifted out of the salon. He went into the garden and climbed up into an apple tree which he knew of, where he could lie at his ease in a fork and try some of the small green apples. “Maman and I,” he thought, “are de trop in this establishment. M. le Marquis—his pardon, M. le Duc—and his resuscitated spouse (who is worthy of him) in the arbour, Roland and Marthe in the salon . . . Je me fais hermite.”
But his departure had not greatly facilitated matters, for presently Mme de la Vergne came in and carried off Marthe on some business concerned with the nourishment of the gentlemen who had descended on her, and a moment or two later, when Roland stood irresolute and alone by the window, he perceived his leader coming in search of his hostess.