“Yes; a pinched old maid in a black dress. None will marry her for her acres. It will be a pré salé with a vengeance. I caught a glimpse of her as we came out of harbour. I did not see the other, who is young—her niece, I understand. There she is, coming on deck now—the heiress, I mean. She will not look her best after a night at sea.”
And, with a jerk of the head, he indicated a black-clad form on the deck of the Persévérance. It happened to be Mademoiselle Brun, who, as a matter of fact, looked no different after a night at sea to what she had looked in the drawing-room of the Baroness de Mélide. She was too old or too tough to take her colour from her environments. She was standing with her back towards the quay, talking to the steward, and did not, therefore, see the colonel until the clank of his spurred heel on the deck made her turn sharply.
“You, mademoiselle!” exclaimed the colonel, on seeing her face as he stood, képi in hand, staring at her in astonishment.
“Yes; I am the ogre chosen by Fate to watch over Denise Lange,” she answered, holding out her withered hand.
“But this is indeed a pleasure,” said the colonel, with his ready smile. “I came by a mere accident to offer my services, as any Frenchman would, to ladies arriving at such a place as Bastia, as a friend, moreover, of Mattei Perucca, and never expected to see a face I knew. It is years, mademoiselle, since we met—since before the war—before Solferino.”
“Yes,” said Mademoiselle Brun; “since before Solferino.”
And she glanced suspiciously at him, as if she had something to hide. A chance word often is the “open sesame” to that cupboard where we keep our cherished skeleton. Colonel Gilbert saw the quick glance, and misconstrued it.
“I wrote a letter some time ago,” he said, “to Mademoiselle Lange, making her an offer for her property, little dreaming that I had so old a friend as yourself at hand, as one may say, to introduce us to each other.”
“No,” said Mademoiselle Brun.
“And I was surprised to receive a refusal.”