“Go say your prayers there, Péron,” he said abruptly; “we ought to pray here.”
“Why?” asked the child. “Is this a church? It does not look like one.”
“Nay,” replied Jacques, crossing himself, “but a good lady died here who is now, I doubt not, an angel in Paradise.”
“Was she a saint?” inquired Péron, in an awed tone, for Père Antoine had trained him well.
“Ay, as near one as a woman may be,” said the clockmaker bluntly. “I know no better, nor will you ever see her equal. Say your prayer, child, and look well at the room, for we must go on, but I would have you see this place; and here, I think, M. de Nançay comes not—nor the others.”
When the prayer was said, Jacques took the child to the window and pointed out at the garden.
“You see yonder the terrace by the fountain,” he said, “I will take you down to a door which opens from this tower, and you must go there and wait for me. I can see you from above as I work, and will come to you presently. It is a dizzy place up by the clock and I would not take you.”
With this instruction, he took Péron back the way they had come, first locking up the room and putting the key in his breast. At the foot of the stairs they found a door which let the boy out into the garden, and he ran off along the terrace, happy to breathe the free air again and see the flowers; for the strange apartment and the command to tell his beads for the sake of a dead woman had shaken his sensitive nerves, and he was not recovered from his treatment at the hands of little Mademoiselle de Nançay. Péron resented it with all the strength of his proud heart, and so angry was he that the unusual conduct of Jacques in the locked room was of less consequence. He did not find time to wonder at it,—he could only think of the insulting tone and words of the little girl, especially interesting to him because she was so near his own age. He neither understood nor appreciated class distinctions; the child Renée had been educated in arrogance beyond her years, and recognized differences in birth and station; Péron, on the other hand, had only the teachings of Père Antoine, who had sought to instil into the boy’s mind the humility of the Christian, seeing plainly enough the pride which filled the childish heart and was likely to work mischief enough without any prompting.
Péron walked along the terraces now to the fountain indicated by Jacques, and here he stopped, standing with his back to the château and looking at the flowers, the velvety grass, the birds picking on the slopes. The splash of the fountain made pleasant music in his ears, and he was just beginning to feel at his ease when a slight sound above made him look up at the terrace behind. There, leaning on the parapet and watching him curiously, was his little tormentor. Renée was alone, having eluded the vigilance of her governess, and her arms were resting on the stone balustrade while she leaned over so much that her chin rested on them and her golden curls hung over her face, shading it and framing it, while her great dark eyes were fixed on the boy. It was a charming picture, since both children were beautiful in their different ways and both possessed marked characteristics. At the sight of her, Péron’s anger returned with full force, and he turned his back on her, his fists clenched and his face growing very red. She was not a boy, and he could not chastise her as he had once unmercifully beaten a youngster who ventured to stone M. de Turenne.
There is nothing more effective in reducing arrogance than silent contempt. Péron’s manifest scorn had an immediate effect on the little spoiled beauty of the château. She had been accustomed to adulation, servility, humility; honest anger was new and interesting. She was not troubled with any grown-up reserve, and there was, too, a secret relenting. She was not an ill-natured child, only a spoiled one, and under all lurked a tender heart. She could not forget her unkind criticism of the stranger’s poor clothes; she had reasoned it all out and come to a conclusion. He was the clockmaker’s son and doubtless he was poor. Renée had a vague idea of poverty, but she knew that it was a state which deserved commiseration; her old nurse had taught her not to despise it, but Mademoiselle Lucien’s subsequent teachings had not been wise; and Renée had no mother. Her rudeness to the clockmaker’s boy troubled her, and she was as quick to act on a good impulse as on a bad one. Péron’s squarely turned back did not disturb her, for she felt herself a great lady and able to bestow her favors where she chose. Yet she was rather at loss what to say and how to begin; above all, she saw a party of horsemen coming up the road, and knew that her father would very soon cut short her adventure. She received no encouragement from the boy, however, and when she spoke at last it was in a rather uncertain voice.