"... curled his mustache airily, and allowed his glance to rove boldly over the display of youthful femininity"
Eva May palpitated upon a commodious window-seat. Here was a realization of her brightest dreams. So Comte Robert Montpelier Ravillon de Brissac must have looked as he sprang lightly from his curveting steed and met the Lady Angélique in the Park of Flambéron. In her agitation she tucked a caramel in each cheek and forgot that they were there.
"Young ladies, you may be excused."
Miss Emmeline Ryder had arrived.
The girls departed, and a buzz of excited conversation floated back from the hall; but Evangeline Marie went silently to her room, sore smitten.
If Miss Lucilla Ryder had been selected by the Fates to meet Monsieur Albert de Puys, the chances are that some riding-school other than Manlay's would have been patronized by the Ryder school, for Miss Lucilla was a shrewd judge of men and things; but, as luck would have it, Miss Lucilla was suffering from neuralgia, and Miss Emmeline, gentle, vague, confiding, was sent down to conduct the interview.
Monsieur de Puys, clever in his own fashion, was deferential and diplomatic.
Miss Emmeline quite overlooked his beaux yeux and the havoc they might work in girlish hearts. She made arrangements for the lessons, settled the details, and reported to Miss Lucilla that everything was satisfactory and that the envoy was "a very pleasant person."
So the girls rode, and the teachers chaperoned, and the fathers paid, and on the surface all went well.
Belinda was elected, more often than any of her fellow-teachers, to take the girls to the riding-school; and, on the whole, she liked the task, for it gave her a quiet hour with a book while the young equestriennes tore up the tanbark or were out and away in the Park. She merely represented the conventions, and her position was more or less of a sinecure. Occasionally she watched the girls who took their lessons indoors, and she conceived a violent dislike for one of the masters—a Frenchman with an all-conquering manner and an impertinent smile; but she never thought of taking the manner and smile seriously. If it occurred to her that the swaggering Frenchman devoted himself to Eva May more persistently than to any of the other pupils, she set the thing down to Gallic spirit and admired the instructor's bravery.