"It is quite time enough for you to be gallant, Jean, when you can do so without the danger of reopening your wound!" she said sweetly. "Have you not been told often enough that you are not to stoop down like that? Father Anton is much better able than you to pick it up!"
"Yes, yes," said Father Anton hurriedly, reaching for the paper and tucking it into the breast of his soutane. "Yes, you—you must be careful of yourself, Jean."
"Nonsense!" declared Jean. "I am perfectly recovered!" He stared at the three in turn again for a moment. "But—but perhaps I am intruding—de trop?"
"Not at all!" Myrna answered composedly. "It is a matter that concerns only father and Monsieur le Curé; and they"—she glanced brightly at her father—"I am sure, will be only too glad to get away to father's den where they can discuss it by themselves."
"Yes—er—yes, of course," coughed Henry Bliss. "It's—er—good to see you out again, Jean, my boy." Then jocularly, in an attempt to disguise his self-consciousness: "Come along, Father Anton"—he caught the other's arm, and led the curé out of the room—"there are perhaps others who prefer to be by themselves."
A slightly puzzled expression on his face, Jean watched them out of sight across the hall; then turned inquiringly to Myrna.
Myrna's shoulders lifted daintily.
"If it isn't one thing, it's another," she said, as though the subject bored her. "There has always been something or other ever since father started that fund of his; and the curé trots to father with everything. This time, it seems that one of Father Anton's protégées has run away from him; and, as you saw, the curé is beside himself." Again the shoulders lifted "But you, Jean"—infusing a sudden note of perturbed anxiety into her voice—"are you sure you were wise in coming out to-night? What brought you?"
And then Jean threw back his head, and laughed, and closed the door—and caught her in his arms.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried, holding her close to him, and trying to kiss the suddenly averted face. "Do you ask what brought me? Well, then, I will tell you! Did you not say that you would come this afternoon, and did you not promise that we would settle about our marriage? And you did not come, and all the afternoon I was waiting, and now"—his face fell a little, as she slipped away from him—"and now that I am here you run away from me."