The diamonds, the codicil, the survival of their ancestor and his resurrection had become so many trifles to which they paid no further attention. For them the adventure came to an end with the reading of the letter and the improvised meal. And even so it was amazing enough!
"And so amusing!" said Dorothy, who kept laughing. "I assure you that I have never been so amused—never."
Her four cousins, as she called them, hung on her lips and never took their eyes off her, amused and astonished by everything she said. At first sight they had understood her and she had understood them, without the five of them having to pass through the usual stages of becoming intimate, through which people who are thrown together for the first time generally have to pass. To them she was grace, beauty, spirit and freshness. She represented the charming country from which their ancestors had long ago departed; they found in her at once a sister of whom they were proud and a woman they burned to win.
Already rivals, each of them strove to appear at his best.
Errington, Webster, and Dario organized contests, feats of strength, exhibitions of balancing; they ran races. The only prize they asked for was that Dorothy, queen of the tourney, should regard them with favor with those beautiful eyes, of which they felt the profound seduction, and which appeared to them the most beautiful eyes they had ever seen.
But the winner of the tournament was Dorothy herself. Directly she took part in it, all that the others could do was to sit down, look on, and wonder. A fragment of wall, of which the top had crumbled so thin that it was nearly a sharp edge, served her as a tight-rope. She climbed trees and let herself drop from branch to branch. Springing upon the big horse of Dario she forced him through the paces of a circus horse. Then, seizing the bridle of the pony, she did a turn on the two of them, lying down, standing up, or astride.
She performed all these feats with a modest grace, full of reserve, without a trace of coquetry. The young men were no less enthusiastic than amazed. The acrobat delighted them. But the young girl inspired them with a respect from which not one of them dreamt of departing. Who was she? They called her princess, laughing; but their laughter was full of deference. Really they did not understand it.
It was not till three in the afternoon that they decided to carry the adventure to its end. They all started to do so in the spirit of picnickers. Maître Delarue, to whose head the good wine of Anjou had mounted in some quantity, with his broad bow unknotted and his tall hat on the back of his head, led the way on his donkey, chanting couplets about the resurrection of Marquis Lazarus. Dario, of Genoa, imitated a mandolin accompaniment. Errington and Webster held over Dorothy's head, to keep the sun off it, an umbrella made of ferns and wild flowers.
They went round the hillock, which was composed of the débris of the old château, behind the clock and along a beautiful avenue of trees centuries old, which ended in a circular glade in the middle of which rose a magnificent oak.