"Is there a Madame Ingersoll?"
Now, Peridot was sober as a judge that day, and his Breton wits worked quickly. He did not fail to recall his friend's distress on hearing the name of the Stella's owner, nor his avowed desire to escape recognition. True, Monsieur Ingersoll had not gone to Paris; but Barbe had told him of the journey to Concarneau, and everyone in Pont Aven knew of Yvonne's close attendance on Madame Carmac. Moreover, did not Monsieur Ingersoll show terrible anger because of an unhappy reference to the likeness between his daughter and the American lady, and had not Peridot himself promised to lie like a gendarme if any questions were asked? Now was his chance to serve a generous patron. This little fox of a man, with beady eyes and cruel mouth, had come there to pry! Very well—he should go away stuffed with information!
All this required but a fraction of a second to flash across a lively French brain.
"Monsieur Ingersoll is a widower, Monsieur." Peridot was merely stepping back in order to jump farther.
"Ah, yes. I have heard that. His wife died before he came to Pont Aven, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, Monsieur. Poor lady! I knew her well! Her last words to me were, 'Peridot, you were born with a caul, and will never be drowned; so promise me that when my husband and little Yvonne go to sea you will always be with them.' You see, she went off in a consumption, and——"
"Pardon!" interrupted Raymond, sorely chagrined by the immense significance of the fisherman's words, supposing he had followed their meaning correctly. "Will you be good enough to speak more slowly? What were you born with?"
"Une coiffe d'enfant, Monsieur."
Raymond knew neither the word nor the curious superstition attached to it; but he caught the one thing of vital interest. "So Madame Ingersoll lived in Pont Aven?" he went on, and his rancorous tone betrayed venom and disappointment.
Peridot, convinced now that he was doing the artist a good turn, gave full play to his imagination.