Cunning Victorine! She had all sorts of motives in this proposition. She thought it would be well to show Willan Blaycke to Pierre. "He may discover that there are other men beside himself in the world," she mused; and, "It would please me much to go riding up to the door for Annette to see with the same brave rider she did so admire;" and, "There are many ways to bring a man near one in riding through the woods." All these and many more similar musings lay hid behind the innocent look she lifted to Willan's face as she suggested the ride.
It was only the third morning of Willan's stay at the inn; but the time had been put to very good use. Already it had become natural to him to come and go with Victorine,--to stay where she was, to seek her if she were missing. Already he had learned the way up the outside staircase to the platform where she kept her flowers and sometimes sat. He was living in a dream,--going the way of all men, head-long, blindfold, into a life of which he knew and could know nothing.
"Indeed, and that is what I should like best of all things," he replied to Victorine. "Will thy aunt let thee go?"
"Why not?" asked Victorine, opening her eyes wide in astonishment. "I ride all over the parish on my pony alone."
"Stupid of me!" ejaculated Willan, inwardly: "as if these people could know any scruples about etiquette!"
"These people," as Willan contemptuously called them, stood at the door of the inn, and watched him riding away with Victorine with hardly disguised exultation. Not till the riders were fairly out of sight did Victor venture to turn his face toward Jeanne's. Then, bursting into a loud laugh, he clapped Jeanne on the shoulder, and said: "We'll see thee grandmother of thy husband's grandchildren yet, Jeanne. Ha! ha!"
Jeanne flushed. She was not without a sense of shame. Her love for Victorine made her sensitive to the stain on her birth.
"Thinkest thou it could ever be known?" she asked anxiously.
"Never," replied her father,--"never; 'tis as safe as if we were all dead. And for that, the living are safer than the dead, if there be tight enough lock on their mouths."
"He doth seem to be as much in love as one need," said Jeanne.