“Yes.”
There was another sigh as if of relief on both sides, and the two girls kissed again and parted.
It was a brisk quarter of an hour’s walk to the Van Heldres’, which lay at the end of the main street up the valley down which the little river ran; and on entering the door, with a longing upon her to go at once to her room and sit down and cry, Madelaine uttered a sigh full of misery, for she saw that it was impossible.
As she approached the great stone porch leading into the broad hall, which was one of the most attractive-looking places in the house, filled as it was with curiosities and other objects brought by the various captains from the Mediterranean, and embracing cabinets from Constantinople with rugs and pipes, little terra-cotta figures from Sardinia, and pictures and pieces of statuary from Rome, Naples, and Trieste, she was saluted with—
“Ah, my dear, I’m so glad you’ve come back. Where’s papa?”
“I have not seen him, mamma.”
“Busy, I suppose. How he does work!” Then suddenly, “By the way, that Mr Pradelle. I don’t like him, my dear.”
“Neither do I, mamma.”
“That’s right, my dear; I’m very glad to hear you say so; but surely Louie Vine is not going to be beguiled by him?”
“Oh no.”