It was therefore agreed that the stricter proprieties should be laid aside a little, and Mademoiselle de Quernais be allowed to accept the escort of Monsieur le Marquis de Varenac on her walks.
Morice was quite ready to accept the task of acting cavalier to such a dainty little lady. As I have said, he was one to live in the present.
For those two days life was bounded only by a pair of black eyes, which looked deeper and deeper into his heart every moment.
Past and future were banished. He was dreaming, and the dream was sweet.
He put the moment of awakening from him with the resolution of an epicure.
As for Cécile, the English cousin continued to be the hero come to save her country. And the black eyes caught the trick of dreaming with wonderful rapidity.
If Madame de Quernais noticed, she stifled old-fashioned self-reprovings with the thought that the days were evil, and that her little Cécile needed a stronger and closer protector than herself or Jéhan, who was too bound up in his work to think much or seriously even of the welfare of a dearly-loved sister.
And the Marquis de Varenac would be in every way a suitable protector.
Her dear Marie's boy! Of course that was a link already between them.
Thus Morice Conyers, instead of riding to Varenac to welcome Steenie Berrington and Jack Denningham, sat on a rocky ledge with a slim, little grey-clad figure beside him, listening to her chatter of Jéhan and la Rouerie, of the Terror and her dear Brittany.