“And Maître Barraud.”
“Not he. He only thought of his case, and of triumphing over Maître Miron. When they were all congratulating you afterwards, do you know what I saw?”
“What?”
Her voice sank. “He yawned.”
Léon’s vanity felt a momentary mortification. Then he laughed.
“Forgive him,” he said. “The situation was not so novel to him as to us.”
They were sitting together by this time, within easy reach of Raoul, on a small, thick bough of a tree which jutted out from the bank. The river ran by, swift and silvery, though Nathalie kept her eyes persistently turned from it; the poplars rustled, above them were fathomless depths of white and blue. The château itself lay behind and out of sight, yet at this moment both were thinking of it; of its grey stones, which somehow seemed to be built into the very lives of the De Beaudrillarts; of those who had fought for it, sinned for it. Not one of them had shielded it to more purpose from dishonour than the young wife who had met so much contempt within its walls, whose picture had been refused a place among the old ancestors.
Nathalie broke the silence.
“Have you read the bishop’s letter!”
“To you?”