"Is she up in the air about Peridot?" inquired Tollemache. "Before he went away he told me she wouldn't speak to him; but he shouldn't have taken it so seriously."
Madame shook her head and kept tight lips,—an ominous sign. Yvonne strove at once to change this ticklish topic.
"Didn't Captain Popple say something about bringing Peridot here tomorrow?" she said. "If he comes, he and Madeleine will soon bury the hatchet, especially when they know that Mrs. Carmac means to present Peridot with a fully equipped vague [sardine boat]."
"Good!" cried Tollemache. "Mère Pitou and I will foot it together at the wedding. I'm stuck on Breton weddings. There's no nonsense about them. Everybody enjoys life to the limit."
He had answered in English; but Madame evidently gathered the drift of his words, because she laughed dryly, and herself turned the talk to the day's outing. Yvonne, finding her father's eye on her, was just able to repress a sigh. Mère Pitou knew of her friend's folly, and, if she knew, there must have been gossip in the village. There was a chance, the barest chance, that Peridot's arrival might still scandalous tongues, if only Madeleine could be persuaded to receive him graciously and fix an early date for their marriage. The girl had already ruined any prospects she might have possessed of being elected Queen for the next Feast of the Gorse Flowers. The Pont Aven maid who aspires to this must display not only a pretty face but a spotless escutcheon. It might be that Madeleine would see this for herself. If not, she must be told.
Next morning, then, Yvonne called at Madeleine's cottage in order to make a later appointment. Madame Brissac, who admitted her, was in tears.
"Madeleine is gone!" she explained. "She went to Quimperlé by the early train. Nothing I could say would prevail on her. I've never seen her so determined about anything."
Yvonne, sick with apprehension at first, found a crumb of solace in the aunt's statement, which apparently limited the girl's flight to a town not far removed from Pont Aven.
"But why has she gone to Quimperlé?" she faltered.