Vivienne smiled at the remembrance. “It seems but yesterday,” she said dreamily, “that we landed in Dieppe, and the people ran across from the shops to our train, bringing us soups and milk and coffee. You cannot imagine, Mr. Armour, how very strange and yet familiar it appeared to me—the French faces and language. It was as if I had been asleep all my life and had just waked up.”
“Go on, dear Vivienne; the journey to Paris.”
“I don’t know why it is,” said Vivienne, with an apologetic smile bestowed on Mr. Armour, “but Judy never wearies of tales of France.”
“It is because I hope to go there some day,” said Judy triumphantly; “to visit every place that you have been in. You need not stare at me, Stanton; I am going. Proceed, dear Vivienne, describe to him the lovely scenery on the way to Paris and quaint old Orléans.”
“Did you send me to Orléans because my father’s ancestor, Guillaume Delavigne, had come from there?” said Vivienne to Mr. Armour.
“Partly; also on account of the good Protestant school in the town, where the facilities for studying French would be better than in Paris where there are so many English people.”
She looked gratefully at him. He had thought somewhat of her pleasure. It had not been all business and sternness with him as she had at first imagined. She talked on disjointedly for some time and replied to Judy’s abrupt questions; then she got up with a quiet, “Now we must say good-night.”
“Ah! not yet, not yet,” pleaded the girl; “you have not come to the château of the Lacy d’Entrevilles.”
Vivienne stood firm. “Some other time,” she said smiling. “Let us go now,” and Judy, grumbling a little, prepared to obey her, though she cast her eyes about the room as if seeking an excuse to remain.
“Stanton,” she said amiably, “come up and have afternoon tea with us to-morrow, will you?”