"He will jump at the chance, naturally," she said to herself—"and then, perhaps, he will marry Daisy Van der Horn!"
She was still a very young woman, you see, for all her four years of deep education in the world of books!
She put the letter back in her basket below the flowers she had picked, and prepared to return to the château. To arrange various combinations of color in vases was her peculiar joy—and her flower decorations were her special care. She was just entering the great towered gate of Héronac where resided the concierge, when she heard the whir of a motor approaching in the distance, and she hurriedly slipped inside old Berthe's parlor. She disliked dust and strangers, who, fortunately, very seldom came upon this unbeaten track.
She was watching from the window until they should have passed—it could not be her guests, it was quite an hour too soon, when the motor whizzed round the bend and stopped short at the gate! It was a big open one, and the occupants wore goggles over their eyes; but she recognized Lord Fordyce's figure, as he got out followed by a very tall young man, who called out cheerily:
"Yes—this must be the brigand's stronghold, Henry; let's thunder at the bell."
Then for a moment her knees gave way beneath her, and she sank into Berthe's carved oaken chair. For the voice was the voice of Michael Arranstoun—and when he pulled the goggles off, she could see, as she peered through the window, his sunburnt face and bold blue eyes.
CHAPTER IX
O stende had begun to bore Michael Arranstoun intolerably—he had lamed his best pony and Miss Daisy Van der Horn was getting on his nerves. At Ostende she, to use one of her own expressions, "was not the only pebble on the beach." His nerves had had a good deal of exercise among that exceedingly pleasure-loving, frolicsome crew.