The affair of the crocodile had by no means diminished the esteem in which Mrs. Allonby held M. Isidore; nor, to judge from an incident she witnessed from her window on the morning after the Carnival, had it lessened the regard of the Bontemps family—to whom he was vaguely supposed to be related, having been heard to address Madame as "Ma tante"—for that gallant and gay little champion of distressed damsels.
As she often did, Ermengarde had slipped that morning into a dressing-gown, wound the thick plaits of her hair round her throat, and gone to her open window to watch the sun rise and drink the fresh morning air.
It was an hour of magical beauty; the deep quiet of dawn lay on mountain, sea, and sleeping town; no one was yet stirring in house or grounds. The sea was a dark peacock green as deep in tone as the blue of the bird's neck, paling to the shore, but on the horizon a firm dark line against a band of glowing orange sky, above which floated crimson cloudlets over pale green. Great masses of shadow were slowly leaving the gorges; the olives gradually brightened and took clear form on the western slopes. Not a sound or a breath stirred the deep peace of the windless dawn; flower-scents rose from gardens and lemon-trees set with blossom and fruit; the sea scarcely heaved in its sleep. Ermengarde leant on the balcony, lost in the beauty and calm, and wondered at the depth of magnificent velvety green beneath the orange sky. Some labourers came into the gardens and turned the hose over the thirsty flower-beds with a pleasant showering sound.
Suddenly a figure on the railed platform on the brink of the steep stood out against the dark blue shadow of the gorge; then another and another, and voices—quick, emphatic, French-Italian voices—rang out in the stillness; the gardeners looked up at the group, and made unintelligible comments. The tall form of Madame Bontemps, her iron-grey hair glossy in morning light, appeared, followed by the slight compact figure of M. Isidore full of eager gesture. M. Bontemps lounged after them; the three voices grew in urgency and rapid interchange to one common shout; the gestures increased to frenzy. M. Bontemps seemed about to hurl M. Isidore, who had suddenly become rigid and stood with folded arms glaring at him, over the barrier; Madame intervened, with an action that threatened annihilation to both but injured neither.
Then M. Bontemps rushed into the house, and quickly emerged again, leading by the hand Mlle. Geneviève, reluctant, downcast, who instantly turned her back on all three, and looked down the gorge in gloomy silence, while the others declaimed, singly and in unison, with gestures of entreaty, to the massive and glossy coils of her back hair. At last she turned sharply and faced them with a fierce energy, that almost precipitated them backwards down the ridge and drove them to the balustrade, where the risen sun touched their faces with ruddy gold. Mlle. Geneviève then wept bitterly; her father placed his hand despairingly on his heart and groaned; her mother stormed; M. Isidore covered his face with his hands, with a movement of such despair as suggested the advisability of putting an end to his sufferings by springing down the steep.
Instead of this, with an alarming suddenness that drove Mlle. Bontemps back to the other side, he threw out his arms and sprang forwards, directing what sounded like a torrent of abuse upon Mlle. Geneviève, who shrank and quailed beneath it, and then lifted her hands appealingly to Heaven with renewed weeping. A general engagement—to witness which the gardeners left the hose to its own discretion, with the unexpected result of very nearly drenching the whole of the combatants—then took place with such energy and apparent fury that Ermengarde, terror-stricken and in default of police, was about to cry "Au secours!" when M. Isidore suddenly hurled himself weeping upon the ample bosom of Madame Bontemps, who tenderly embraced and kissed him; after which Monsieur fall upon his neck in such wise that the two men represented an inverted V, when they kissed on both cheeks and parted.
Then Mlle. Geneviève, with downcast eyes and reluctant step, led by her mother and encouraged by her father, allowed M. Isidore to take both her hands and respectfully salute her on both cheeks, and sudden calm fell upon the quartette, now in full sunshine.
After this, as if nothing had happened, they strolled, casually chatting, about the little platform, M. Bontemps yawning and resuming his interrupted cigarette, and Madame leaning over the railing; that looked across the chasm towards the garden, and composedly issuing commands to the gardeners before returning to the house. Thither she was accompanied by her daughter, now restored to cheerfulness and executing a graceful pas seul to that mad Carnival tune of the day before, as she went, while Ermengarde, unconscious of her deficient toilet, remained petrified at her balcony, staring blankly at the sunny sea and the hill-crest topped by the convent, every olive, pine and cypress on which was now clear and distinct in a flood of brilliant sunshine.
But Mrs. Allonby was not the only witness of this family drama. The voices of the actors, penetrating through the open window of Miss Boundrish, had roused the amiable girl from her slumbers, and caused her, with much irritation and reluctance, conquered by curiosity, to spring from her downy nest, classically dressed in the first thing that came handy, and view the platform scene from her window with appropriate mental comment.
A vivid imagination, capable of forging missing links in a chain of evidence at a moment's notice, and then presenting them as veritable parts of the original, enabled her to produce a version entirely her own of what actually occurred. And not content with constructing a consistent romance out of the pantomime enacted in the morning, she insisted upon imparting the whole of it in the afternoon to a few friends in the garden, in a voice that must have been heard all over the grounds, if not by the whole house.