"Peste!" cried the impassioned lover, with darkening brows. "Zese dampt duties," he added in English, with a little shrug and a sunny smile, to the still pale and terrified Mrs. Allonby. "Our poor lesson! Madame excuses? Yes? A rivederla!" and with a bow and smile he was gone, and Ermengarde began to breathe more freely.
She looked at the monastery sitting on the wooded hill, at the velvety blue above it, the peacock blue below, at the violet-veined mountain peaks around; she watched great bees and hawk-moths plunging into the petals of stocks, and butterflies fluttering above the heads of people reading and basking in the blue and golden morning, drawing long breaths and wondering why everything seemed vaguely to accuse her. She turned to the towered village throned and shadowy beneath the eastern peak, and that, too, seemed to despise her. She felt unworthy of the very flower scents. Yet she had done nothing, and had meant so well. Could any reasonable being have foreseen this? Who, stroking the soft fur of some gamesome fireside pet, could expect the growl and clawing of a full-sized tiger?
Oh, for a good, full-flavoured, suffocating mouthful of London fog, for firelight dancing on china and polished surface in the murky noonday at home, instead of this perpetual, unnatural, homeless glare!
She went into the house, and, remembering something she wanted at the office, turned aside to the ever-open door, and found Mlle. Geneviève on duty at the desk.
But what had come to the young woman that she should receive her gentle address with scowling brow and eyes of smouldering flame, and, instead of replying, should turn her back upon her, and, calling something down a speaking-tube, walk slowly through the opposite door into private regions?
Ermengarde waited, uncertain for a moment whether to give up the trifling matter on which she had come, or to ring sharply for attendance. She was about to turn away, too full of inward disquiet to mind a small discourtesy, when the opposite door opened, disclosing the majestic presence of Madame Bontemps, to whom she listlessly made her request.
Silently then a drawer was opened, stamps and postcards silently handed out, money received and change returned, in dread and ominous stillness. Then was fulminated this bolt from the blue; she was informed in a dry and level voice, and with much regret, that her room would be required for another guest at the expiration of the week.
"But what do you mean?" cried Ermengarde. "People can't be allowed to take my room. Besides, I don't intend to give it up."
"Pardon me. Madame is mistaken. The room is already reserved for the date indicated, and there is no other in the house suitable to the requirements of Madame."
"Why, you are positively turning me out," she cried, incredulous with amazement.