Mère Pitou never alluded to Mrs. Carmac by name. To a Frenchwoman the word presented no difficulty; but, owing to some whim, Yvonne's "aunt" was "the American lady," and was never promoted to greater intimacy of description in the old woman's speech.
"The vessel is ordered in Concarneau," said Yvonne. "With complete equipment it is to cost five thousand francs. Mrs. Carmac has also given another five thousand francs to the notary to be invested for Peridot; who is well aware of both gifts, but has neither called nor written to express his thanks."
"The worm!" cried Madame. "Peridot, indeed! He ought to be christened Asticot!"
As an asticot is a maggot, it was well that none but Yvonne had overheard Mère Pitou's biting comment, or the fisherman's new nickname might have stuck, its point being specially appreciable in a fishing community.
The weather that night was peculiarly calm and mild, even for Southern Brittany. Shortly after midnight Ingersoll, who had been watching Yvonne and Tollemache dancing the gavotte, in which the girl was an adept, and her lover a sufficiently skilful partner to show off her graceful steps to the utmost advantage, suddenly decided to smoke a cigar in the open air.
He quitted the studio by a French window, and strolled into the garden, which stretched some little way up the steep slope of the hill, and through a narrow strip toward the road on one side of the cottage. Owing to the feast, Pont Aven was by no means asleep; but the streets were empty, as the people were either entertaining or being entertained. In a house near the church a girl was singing the "Adeste fideles" in a high, pure treble. Those in her company, men, women, and children, burst into the harmonious chorus, "Venite, adoremus; venite adoremus in Bethlehem." As the appeal swelled and then died away, and the girl's voice took up the solo, Ingersoll remembered the verse, "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God," and his eyes grew dim with unshed tears.
The hymn ceased. From some more distant gathering came the strumming of a banjo in the latest Boulevard refrain. Ingersoll smiled at that. Not often might any man hear twenty centuries summed up so concisely. He was about to reënter the cottage when a woman, hatless, but with head and face veiled in a shawl of black lace, appeared indistinctly in the roadway. He knew instantly that it was his wife. Only two women in Pont Aven walked with such ease and elegance, and they were Yvonne and her mother.
A second later he heard the familiar creak of the garden gate. So she was coming in! He was utterly at a loss to account for this amazing intrusion. He had counted implicitly on his wife's sense of good breeding and fairness restraining her from any frenzied effort to undo the havoc of the past, and a spasm of anger shook him now because of this threatened invasion of his small domain. At any rate she should not have the hysterical satisfaction of placing him in a false position before Mère Pitou and her guests, to say nothing of Yvonne and Tollemache.
He retreated into the deep shadow of a lofty retaining wall, whence he could see without being seen. If, as he expected, there was a commotion among the dancers when the unexpected visitor was announced, he would escape by way of the open hillside, and remain away during some hours. Then, in the morning, Yvonne and he would end an intolerable state of things by leaving Pont Aven for some unknown refuge until Lorry told them that the coast was clear.