Livette jumped down from her horse; and at the breeze made by her skirt a cloud of great flies and enormous mosquitoes rose and flew buzzing about her. Blanchet’s snow-white rump looked as if it were covered with a net of purple silk, there was such a labyrinth of little streams of blood crossing and recrossing one another. Another instant, and gadflies and mosquitoes settled down again upon the bleeding surface and dotted it with a myriad of black spots; but Blanchet, albeit somewhat cross, was used to that annoyance.
Livette fastened him to one of the rings in the wall, and sat down upon the stone bench, waiting until Renaud had finished his séden.
The wheel turned and turned, striking its dull blow with perfect regularity at every turn.
“That was a pretty song, Renaud,” said Livette suddenly, answering her thoughts without intention; “that was a pretty song you were singing just now.”
“I learned it,” said Renaud, “from a boatman, a friend of my father, with whom I went up the Rhône as far as Lyon—and then came down again——”
“And is all that country very beautiful up there?” said she.
“Yes,” he answered, “it is beautiful.”
And he said nothing more.
“You don’t look as if you meant what you say, Renaud. Pray, didn’t you like the city of Lyon we hear so much about?”
There was a long silence, broken only by the monotonous rhythm of the wheel.