“But who is the handsome girl with the long brown hair—” he began again persistently.
Madame turned to him with a smile.
“Ah! She will not be buried in the tomb-like château any longer,” she said archly. “Mees Eden is a ward of old M. Bayre’s, and she is going to be married to a gentleman of the island—of this island, I mean.”
Southerley gave a groan. But Repton drew himself up.
“Tell me his name that I may go and shoot him,” he said valiantly. “The islands are all very well, but if you’ll forgive my saying so, Madame, the lady is too handsome for so confined a sphere: we have already decided that she must come to England—in fact, that she must marry one of us.”
Madame burst out laughing.
“Ah, you are not the only young gentleman to feel like that about Mees Eden,” she said. “But M. Bayre he has French ideas about his ward, and he chooses to marry her to a staid, middle-aged man like himself rather than to a hot-headed young fellow about whom he could not feel so sure.”
“But that bright-eyed girl would never let herself be handed over like a parcel of currants to a man she didn’t care about—a middle-aged man too!” cried Repton.
“Ah! I cannot say, but I think it is so,” said Madame. “Although Mees Eden is the daughter of an Englishman, a very old friend of M. Bayre’s, her mother was a French lady, and she has been brought up at a school in France. I think she will do as French girls do: they have spirit, but they are obedient; and why should she not do as her mother did before her?”
“She must be so dull at Creux,” said Southerley, thoughtfully, “that I suppose she would do anything for a change.”