"Your face shows it, Yvonne," was the answer; though the quiet cynicism was softened by a wistful smile.
"Honestly we were lively as crickets during the second half of our tramp. But, where I am concerned, something that occurred during the last few minutes undid all the good. Tell me, Dear, what sort of man is Mr. Fosdyke?"
In the conditions few questions could have been more surprising. Her nephew's name was the last Mrs. Carmac expected to hear on Yvonne's lips, since the girl seldom alluded to him, and had shown by her manner that the handsome Rupert made slight appeal, if any.
"Why do you ask?" she said.
"You have heard me speak of Madeleine Demoret, a village girl, one of my greatest friends?"
"Yes."
"Well, Mr. Fosdyke has made her acquaintance,—through me, as it happens,—and now he is meeting her constantly. They are together at this moment."
"Isn't that what one rather expects in village girls?" Mrs. Carmac, borne down by her own ills, could spare scant sympathy for any flighty maiden who had fallen victim to the fascinations of her good-looking relative.
"It may be so elsewhere, but not in Brittany," persisted Yvonne, who was keen-witted enough to understand how differently she and a woman of her mother's world might view Madeleine's folly. "Here such behavior is unforgivable. A girl may not walk out with the man to whom she is engaged, far less with a stranger. I—I hardly know how to act. You cannot imagine how completely her friends and neighbors will condemn poor Madeleine if it is spread abroad that she was seen in Mr. Fosdyke's company. As for Peridot, if he knew, he would kill him!"