He hung his head.
“With Madame Léon! No! With whom, then?” As he remained silent, she added, quickly, “You do not tell me that he is alone?”
Jean burst out with “Mademoiselle—” and stopped helplessly.
“Well?”
“Mademoiselle will comprehend that when monsieur says he will go—”
She looked at him from head to foot, and said in a low voice, perfectly modulated, yet which cut like a whip:
“I have always maintained that you, Jean Charpentier, were untrustworthy, and now I am absolutely convinced of it. It was your duty not to let Monsieur Raoul out of your sight, and you have suffered him to go alone to the river—to the river! It is a case of gross neglect, and I shall consult with Monsieur de Beaudrillart about your dismissal.”
The boy stood staring at her, open-mouthed, water beginning to gather in his round eyes. He, whose family for generations past had lived and died at Poissy; he, whose pride was to continue in the service, and whom the other lads regarded with envy—he to be condemned as untrustworthy, and threatened with dismissal! And he had done his best. It was not his fault if he could not carry out the impossible. All this was slowly heaving in his mind, when a second unwelcome personage came along the path.
She was a young lady of some four or five and twenty, tall, fair, and almost childlike in the soft lines of her face. Her hair was reddish-brown, the colour which painters love; her eyes clear, hazel, frank, steady, and true; her mouth firm, but a little large; her throat delicately white. She looked healthy, and carried a hat in her hand, as if she courted sun and air, and she was walking quickly; but on seeing Mlle. Claire, hesitated, fearful of interrupting. The next moment another impulse brought her to her side, and she, too, cried eagerly to Jean:
“But where is Monsieur Raoul?”