As Walter Carmac had been in youth so was his nephew now. Rupert Fosdyke had often been described as "the best-looking man in London society." The tribute came from the opposite sex. Men, for the most part, disliked him because of his egregious vanity. But he was no carpet knight. He played polo regularly at Ranelagh, was a keen fox hunter, and had ridden his own horses in steeplechases at Warwick, Leamington, and other county fixtures. He was a prominent "first nighter" in theatrical circles, and knew a great many musical comedy celebrities by abbreviated versions of their assumed Christian names. This latter weakness had brought him into court as a principal in a somewhat notorious breach of promise case, and his uncle and he had quarreled irrevocably on that occasion.
Rupert regarded the older man as a philanthropic "muff," and dared to tell him so, though such candor was likely to prove expensive. His own income was ten thousand dollars a year, provided by trustees of his mother's estate. He contrived only to exist on this sum, and would not have been guilty of the folly of alienating a millionaire uncle, who had no heir, but for the onerous conditions laid down for his future career. He was to abandon the "fast set," take Raymond's place as Carmac's secretary, and marry.
Rupert laughed derisively. "Goodby!" he said. "Try again when I'm forty."
After that the two remained at arm's length. And now the nephew was following his uncle's body to the grave, and gazing with curiously introspective eyes at the tiny panorama unfolded by the quaint old village as the leading carriage moved slowly onward.
Singularly enough, he was a prominent figure in Pont Aven that day. Not only was he discussed by the multitude, but he was not wholly ignored by a gray-haired man and a girl dressed in quiet tweed, who had walked to the summit of the lofty spur that separates Nizon from the Bois d'Amour, and were watching the long procession climbing the Concarneau road.
Ingersoll had returned from Concarneau early that morning. Yvonne, troubled in spirit because of certain hints dropped by Mrs. Carmac, had written to her father an urgent request to come home.
"Yvonne," said Ingersoll, breaking a long silence, "why is Mrs. Carmac burying her husband here?"
"She has not told me, Dad, but I am beginning to fear that she means to remain in Pont Aven."
The girl's voice was low and unemotional; but her father was not deceived by its studious monotone. He looked down at the village in which they had passed so many peaceful years, at the cluster of sardine boats,—among them the Hirondelle, laid up near the quay,—at the tortuous river, thrusting its silvery bends ever toward the open sea, at the favorite paths over the gorse-clad shores, leading on the one hand to the Château du Hénan and on the other to the Menhirs and the hamlet of Rosbras. Those riverside walks abounded in beauty spots. He had painted them all, in many lights and in most seasons. They held a perennial charm. He could have sketched each secluded dell from memory with almost photographic accuracy, and hardly made an error in the type of the surrounding foliage, whether of lordly and treacherous elms, or close-knit firs, or blossom-covered apple trees.