What M. Allonby had had the complaisance to observe, Madame Bontemps blandly stated in reply, put an entirely different complexion on the whole matter. She deeply regretted having, even in thought, wronged Madame or M. Isidore, whom she embraced as a son—he made a grimace over his Figaro outside at this remark—she deplored the inconvenience suffered by Madame Allonby, and she should for the rest of her life cherish the memory of M. Allonby as that of a valued, a beloved, an inestimable, friend of the whole of her family.
M. Bontemps corroborated these assertions with tears of a noble and profound emotion; Mlle. Geneviève (just then at the climax of an explanatory and embarrassing interview with Mrs. Allonby) was promptly summoned from the depths of the back premises at the very moment when M. le Vicomte Isidore Augustin René Joseph Marie de Beauregard de Vieuxbois was making a dramatic entrance from the front hall; and all was joy, reconciliation, effusion, tears, transport, intoxication.
"It was all that little cat, Dorris," Ermengarde confided afterwards to those fellow-conspirators, the ex-Anarchist and the woman of mystery; "so that what she got this morning was perhaps not altogether wasted. Only I wish she hadn't had it quite so hot."
"My conscience pricks me about de Vieuxbois' people," Arthur confessed, when gratuitous champagne unexpectedly crowned the banquet in the evening, and the visitors were asked by Madame Bontemps to drink to the betrothal of M. Isidore and Mlle. Geneviève. "They won't thank me for this afternoon's work. Just fancy a man in de Vieuxbois' position falling in love with a girl like Mlle. Bontemps, and taking a post as general utility person in a small hotel for her sake. Romantic young ass! The girl showed her sense in refusing him. His mother is distracted. The whole family have been at him about it! But the little chap would have her—Madame la Vicomtesse!"
And when next day pack-mules waited by the place of Dorris's execution, laden with Ermengarde's belongings, and she herself stood by the lemon-laden trees and took a last view of the magnificent sweep of sea below, and the splendid amphitheatre of encircling mountains above, grasping a huge presentation bunch of roses, carnations, and heliotrope, with a last lingering bough of mimosa bloom and one of lemon flower, and receiving the farewells of the visitors, the salutations of the family and the betrothed pair, and dazzling smiles from the well-tipped Heinrich, waiters and chambermaids at windows, Ermengarde's heart rose in her throat; she squeezed the thin man's hand to agony point; kissed Mrs. Dinwiddie, Lady Seaton, and Miss Boundrish's mother; nodded to the young lady's father, Major Norris and Bertie Trevor, turned and fled through the lemon-orchard path so that Arthur could not overtake her till she came out upon the rock-hewn road far below, where she was discovered gazing over the clean red roofs and dark-leaved groves of Mentone out to sea, and unobtrusively restoring a handkerchief to its pocket.
"It—it really was such a very lovely place—such a unique charm about it," she said in apology.
"Tell you what, old lady, we'll come again next year if the boom keeps up," Arthur replied, lighting his pipe in the shelter of a rocky scarp. "But I bar squabbles first."
Before them the slender tower of St. Michel, just topping the mountain spur that hides the Old Town, gleamed white on a clear blue sea; it had rained during the night, and some cloud-wreaths still floated round the craggy summits, leaving light veinings of snow on the amethystine peaks; cheery voices and sounds rose from the saw-mill niched in the bottom of a little gorge across the torrent; the plane avenue was alive with passing wheels and steps and people of every sort and kind, but all gay as if they had never known a care; the sea had richer and deeper hues, the sun a warmer gold, the soaring mountains a more majestic outline, vegetation a more varied luxuriance and colouring; and Ermengarde, listening to Arthur's familiar, intermittent growl, and imparting pleasant secrets to him, was lighter of heart than ever before. The full magic and splendour of the azure shore was at last upon her, and the exhilaration and the pure joy of living went to her head, sparkled in her eyes, glowed in her cheeks, and thrilled her to the very finger-tips.
And yet she was at heart, if not a sadder, at least a wiser, and hoped to be a better, woman than before those joyous adventures on the Côte d'Azur.
THE END