Roland laughed. He had covered his delinquency in leaving his sister, and was full of an adventure to relate to Nevil, a story promising well for him.
CHAPTER VII.
AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH
Renée was downcast. Had she not coquetted? The dear young Englishman had reduced her to defend herself, the which fair ladies, like besieged garrisons, cannot always do successfully without an attack at times, which, when the pursuer is ardent, is followed by a retreat, which is a provocation; and these things are coquettry. Her still fresh convent-conscience accused her of it pitilessly. She could not forgive her brother, and yet she dared not reproach him, for that would have inculpated Nevil. She stepped on to the Piazzetta thoughtfully. Her father was at Florian’s, perusing letters from France. “We are to have the marquis here in a week, my child,” he said. Renée nodded. Involuntarily she looked at Nevil. He caught the look, with a lover’s quick sense of misfortune in it.
She heard her brother reply to him: “Who? the Marquis de Rouaillout? It is a jolly gaillard of fifty who spoils no fun.”
“You mistake his age, Roland,” she said.
“Forty-nine, then, my sister.”
“He is not that.”
“He looks it.”
“You have been absent.”
“Probably, my arithmetical sister, he has employed the interval to grow younger. They say it is the way with green gentlemen of a certain age. They advance and they retire. They perform the first steps of a quadrille ceremoniously, and we admire them.”