"You understand, old man!" he cried fondly. "You'd go for Henry or anyone—or hold her for me"—And then the passion died out of him, as the dog licked his hand. "But we have been brutes once too often, Binko, and now we'll have to pay the price. She belongs to Henry, who's behaved like a gentleman—not to us any more."
So he rang for his valet and went to his bath quietly, and thus ended the storm of that day.
And Henry Fordyce in London was awaiting the arrival of his well-beloved, who, with the Princess and Mr. Cloudwater, was due to be at the Ritz Hotel that evening, when they would dine all together and spend a time of delight.
And far away in Brittany, the Père Anselme read in his book of meditations:
It is when the sky is clearest that the heaviest bolt falls—it would be well for all good Christians to be on the alert.
And chancing to look from his cottage window, he perceived that a heavy rain cloud had gathered over the Château of Héronac.
CHAPTER XIV
I n the morning before they left Héronac, Sabine's elderly maid, Simone, came to her with the face she always wore when her speech might contain any reference to the past. She had been with Sabine ever since the week after her marriage, and was a widow and a Parisian, with a kind and motherly heart.