CHAPTER XVII
‘HYLAS, THE MOCKING SHEPHERD’
She reached home eager to tell them all about her visit.
Her father and Jacques were playing at spillikins and her mother was spinning.
‘She is a marvellous personage,’ she cried out, ‘her sanctity is almost corporeal and subject to sense. And she has the most fragrant humility, she talked of herself as though there were no more froward and wicked creature on the earth than she!’
‘Maybe there is not!’ said Jacques, and Monsieur Troqueville chuckled delightedly. Madeleine flushed and her lips grew tight.
‘Do not be foolish, Jacques. The whole world acknowledges her to be an exceeding pious and holy woman,’ said Madame Troqueville, with a warning glance at Jacques, which seemed to say: ‘In the name of Heaven, forbear! This new vision of the child’s is tenfold less harmful and fantastical than the other.’
Madeleine watched Jacques grimacing triumphantly at her father as he deftly extricated spillikin after spillikin. He was entirely absorbed in the idiotic game. How could one be serious and holy with such a frivolous companion?
‘Pray tell us more of Mère Agnès, my sweet. What were her opening words?’ said Madame Troqueville, trying to win Madeleine back to good humour, but Madeleine’s only answer was a cold shrug.
For one thing, without her permission they were playing with her spillikins. She had a good mind to snatch them away from them! And how dare Jacques be so at home in her house? He said he was in love with her, did he? Yet her entry into the room did not for one moment distract his attention from spillikins.