M. Marge shook his head and Madame, pouring the morning chocolate, murmured something in Basque.
“She says she is sorry to lose our wedding present.”
“Oh dear, I feel terribly responsible,” mourned Cynthia. “If I only hadn’t asked you to bring it out and show me.”
“It is my own fault.” The old man became firmly cheerful. “Mais non, Mademoiselle, I am a careless old man. I should not have left the clock on the verandah. But the Basque are honest peepul. We do not steal and we are too far from the town for gypsies or tramps. I cannot figure it out.”
Cynthia painted that morning with a wretched feeling of responsibility. “I could get them a new clock,” she told herself, “but it wouldn’t be the same.” She had chosen a spot down the main road, where two small stone, white-washed houses, overgrown with rambling roses, were as theatrically picturesque as a scene from the Follies. But the sketch was not very satisfactory. “It’s not my kind of thing,” she fretted. “It’s fun to do, but I’d rather paint people. Wonder where my little friend of yesterday is. She must live in one of those houses. ...”
A team of oxen plodded slowly down the dusty road, brilliantly golden beneath the shadow of the blue dyed sheepskin that lay atop their heavy yoke, their eyes hidden behind a heavy fringe of bright colored net. Their driver walked ahead, his makhila over his shoulder rested on the yoke to guide the animals.
Cynthia listened to the soft jangle of bells till it died in the distance, then decided she was hungry; that was what must be wrong with her sketch, and packed up her materials. The Marges never ate lunch. Cynthia had discovered that a continental breakfast did not sustain one very well from eight A.M. till five in the afternoon, and after two days of semi-starvation had persuaded Madame to give her a cold meal at noon. Today there was sliced duckling and a pleasant salad set on the red checked table cloth beneath the sun spangled arbor.
She finished her raspberries, with the thick pat of rich sour cream and the crust of warm bread and idly watched M. Marge talking to someone beyond the beehives. It looked like the old man in the Yturbe household, Thomasina’s grandfather. Cynthia wondered at that, for she knew the two men were not close friends. “I wish I could get that child to paint,” she thought idly, remembering the small eager face of the day before.
M. Marge came slowly and alone up the stone flagged walk and sat down on the step beside Cynthia’s luncheon table.
“There must be gypsies here,” he stated, “For Thomasina has been stolen.”