“What do you suppose has become of Captain Castaigne? He promised to join us at four o’clock,” one of the girls inquired carelessly.
Before her question could be answered a wheeled chair appeared at one side of the garden with a young man seated in it. His face and figure suggested a semi-invalid, but his costume revealed extreme care and elegance. Moreover, his expression was radiant.
“Mes amis, you are more than welcome,” he cried, speaking a rather absurd mixture of French and English. Then turning to the little old man at the back of his chair he urged him to hurry, until the chair, its driver and rider, fairly rollicked over the uneven lawn.
There Captain Castaigne gravely shook hands with his guests, Nona Davis and Barbara Meade, who had just come to the chateau from the little “Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door.” Afterwards he smiled at his friend Lieutenant Robert Hume, who was at present a visitor in his house.
“Mother will be here in a moment,” he explained. “She has asked me to beg her adored American girl friends to wait a few moments until she is able to be with them. The truth is, Madame la Comtesse is at present engaged in making petit gateaux—little cakes, I believe you say. She would not trust the peasant Emma with so delicate a commission. But where is Mademoiselle Paybodé? Surely she has not forgotten her promise!”
Captain Castaigne’s face had suddenly changed; he seemed to be both annoyed and disappointed. So as usual Barbara spoke impulsively without thinking beforehand.
“Oh, Eugenia is so tiresome!” she began with a little stamp of her foot. “Nona and I thought all along up until the very last minute that she was coming with us this afternoon. Then she insisted that she had a slight headache and had best rest and read so it would not grow worse. The truth is, I don’t believe she wanted to come. Besides, she had the audacity to announce that she thought we would have a better time without her.”
Then Barbara ceased her confession, conscious that Nona was frowning upon her and that it was scarcely good manners to have spoken so freely. When would she ever get over her dreadful western candor?
“I am sure Barbara is mistaken in at least a portion of her tirade,” Nona interrupted. “Eugenia did have a headache or else she could not have failed to wish to spend the afternoon with Madame Castaigne. Really, I don’t think Eugenia is very well, although she will not admit it. But since we came back to the farmhouse she has never been just the same. She does not do half such hard nursing as she once did and yet she is often tired and unlike herself. I expect——” Then Nona stopped talking and laughed, for she had discovered Barbara smiling upon her with wicked satisfaction. Having broken into the conversation to stem the flood of Barbara’s tactlessness, she had now plunged in even deeper than her friend.
There was no one, however, to save her from the results of her stupidity, for Henri Castaigne had flushed and looked miserably uncomfortable as soon as she spoke.