She looked round her. A painter’s easel was leaning against the wall of the grotto, under a large shelf heaped with drawing materials, measures, and boxes of colors. There was on it also a pile of old clothes. Hanging across the grotto was a hammock. At the back of the grotto two large stones formed a fireplace [[266]]and a pipe rose into a crevice in the cliff like the flue of a chimney.
“Does he live here?” asked Aurelie.
“Often, especially in the summer. For the rest of the year he lives at the village of Juvains, where I found him. But he comes here every day. Like your dead grandfather, he is an old eccentric, very cultivated, very artistic, though he does paint very bad pictures. He lives alone, a little after the manner of a hermit, hunts, cuts down and saws up his trees, watches over his shepherds, and feeds all the poor of the countryside, which belongs to him for six miles round. And he’s been waiting for you for fifteen years, Aurelie.”
“Or at least waiting for me to be of age.”
“Yes; by reason of an agreement with his friend d’Asteux. I questioned him about it. But he did not wish to discuss it with any one but you. I had to tell him the whole story of your life and what had happened during the last few months. Then, as I promised to bring you, he lent me the key of the door in the wall. He is immensely delighted that he is going to see you.”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
The absence of the Marquess de Talencay surprised Ralph greatly, though he had no reason for attaching much importance to it. But, since he did not wish to make the girl anxious, he gave full play to his wit and humor during this first meal they took together, in [[267]]such curious circumstances and at so odd a place. Always careful not to ruffle her by a display of too great tenderness, he was conscious that she felt quite safe with him. She must be quite aware that this was no longer the enemy from whom she had fled, but a friend who only wished her well. So many times already had he saved her. So many times had she been surprised at having hope only in him, at seeing her own life dependent wholly on this unknown, and her happiness rise or decline according to his will.
She murmured: “I should love to thank you; but I do not know how. I owe too much to pay the debt.”
He said to her: “Smile, lady with the green eyes, and look at me.”
She looked at him and smiled.