Denise did not need to ask which was the mayor's house, for a board, with the word “Mairie” painted upon it (appropriately enough a movable board), was affixed to a house nearly opposite to the church. As they walked towards it, a stone, thrown from the far corner of the Place, under the trees, narrowly missed Denise, and rolled at her feet. Mademoiselle Brun walked on, but Denise swung round on her heel. There was no one to be seen, so she had to follow Mademoiselle Brun, after all, in silence. She was rather pale, but it was anger that lighted her eyes, and not fear.
Almost immediately a volley of stones followed, and a laugh rang out from beneath the trees. And, strange to say, it was the laugh that at last frightened Denise, and not the stones; for it was a cruel laugh—the laugh of a brutal fool, such as one may still hear in a few European countries when boys are torturing dumb animals.
“Let us hurry,” said Denise, hastily. “Let us get to the Mairie.”
“Where we shall find the biggest scoundrel of them all, no doubt,” added mademoiselle, who was alert and cool.
But before they reached the Mairie the stones had ceased, and they both turned at the sound of a horse's feet. It was Colonel Gilbert riding hastily into the Place. He saw the stones lying there and the two women standing alone in the sunlight. He looked towards the trees, and then round at the closed houses. With a shrug of the shoulders, he rode towards Denise and dismounted.
“Mademoiselle”, he said, “they have been frightening you.”
“Yes”, she answered. “They are not men, but brutes.”
The colonel, who was always gentle in manner, made a deprecatory gesture with the great riding-whip that he invariably carried.
“You must remember”, he said, “that they are but half civilized. You know their history—they have been conquered by all the greedy nations in succession, and they have never known peace from the time that history began until a hundred years ago. They are barbarians, mademoiselle, and barbarians always distrust a new-comer.”
“But why do they hate me?”