The fisherman spat, an unprecedented thing. "Gars!" he growled. "Taken leave of my senses, have I? I'd like to see you if your girl had bolted with the first well dressed dandy who made eyes at her. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tatar, they say. Scratch Monsieur Tollemache and you might find—Peridot!"
With that he left them, swaggering off among the throng of peasants as though he had not a care in the world. Yvonne's troubled glance followed him. Here was a new Peridot, a man out of whose life was fled the light-hearted gaiety and spirit of good-fellowship that had made him so popular in the village. No sooner, it would seem, was one cloud dispelled than another gathered. Yvonne shuddered with foreboding; for in those gray-green eyes she had seen the lurid light of a volcano.
During some days peace reigned in that small circle of a small community with which this chronicle has dealt so intimately. Mrs. Carmac did not hurry her departure. She promised Yvonne that on arriving in London she would consult Bennett as to her exact position. She neither affirmed nor denied that Walter Carmac had renewed his American citizenship. Ingersoll, when the girl brought a faithful record of the discussion between her mother and herself, drew the only reasonable inference,—that no steps had been taken in that direction. The knowledge was disheartening. Not without cause did he say to Tollemache that he had fathomed his wife's nature to the depths. Were it possible for her to end her days in real communion with the husband and child she had forsaken deliberately, she would gladly have renounced wealth and social position. As it was, she meant to cling fiercely to the bulk of her possessions, thinking that thereby she would have a stronger hold on Yvonne, since she hoped to draw the girl nearer by the lure that money alone could spread so enticingly.
Undoubtedly she had it in mind to provide ample revenues for the Fosdyke family, with guarantees of large interests in the estate at her death, and thus close the only source that threatened discredit and loss. But this was the half-measure that so often spells disaster. Its outcome lay in the lap of the gods, and the gods were frowning on her.
Meanwhile she lingered on in Pont Aven. The equable climate suited her health, she said. She dreaded the formalities with regard to the succession, and wanted to leave all such disagreeable details to the lawyers. Until Madeleine Demoret's affair was settled she wished to remain within call of Paris. These were excuses. They deceived none, Yvonne least of any. The girl's affection never wavered for an instant when the interests of father and mother were at war. Her father could not be at ease until the woman who had broken his life was far from the village, and the daughter was on pins and needles of anxiety that the mother should depart.
Raymond—suddenly reverted to type, become once more the discreet, unobtrusive secretary—reported that Madeleine and Fosdyke seemed to have quarreled. He had visited the girl, and found her uncommunicative and rebellious. Fosdyke had gone to England. He supplied Madeleine's address, and Yvonne wrote, in friendly and sympathetic strain, asking for news of her welfare. By this time Ingersoll had advised the cessation of any effort to persuade her to return. It was not in human nature to expect the girl to endure the slights that would inevitably attend her reappearance. To her Pont Aven must henceforth be a sealed Paradise. If ever she saw the place again, she would tread its familiar ways a stranger and unregarded.
At last came a letter from Madeleine herself. Its tone was honest, and very much to the point. She had imagined that Rupert Fosdyke meant marriage. When she was disillusioned she spurned him, and had obtained a situation as a nurse, her country speech and Breton costume being passports to ready employment. It was better so. Paris takes a more lenient view of certain aspects of life than Pont Aven.