Before sitting down the priest had helped himself to a glass of sherry; and, after taking a mouthful or two, set it on the mantelshelf, within convenient reach. It would have been brandy were there any on the table; but, for the time satisfied with the wine, he sits sipping it, his eyes now and then directed towards the door. This is shut, Mrs Morgan having closed it after her as she went out.
There is a certain restlessness in his glances, as though he were impatient for the door to be reopened, and some one to enter.
And so is he, though Mrs Morgan herself is not the some one—but her daughter. Gregoire Rogier has been a fast fellow in his youth—before assuming the cassock a very mauvais sujet. Even now in the maturer age, and despite his vows of celibacy, he has a partiality for the sex, and a keen eye to female beauty. The fresh, youthful charms of the farmer’s daughter have many a time made it water, more than the now stale attractions of Olympe, née Renault. She is not the only disciple of his flock he delights in drawing to the confessional.
But there is a vast difference between the mistress of Glyngog and the maiden of Abergann. Unlike are they as Lucrezia Borgia to that other Lucretia—victim of Tarquin fils. And the priest knows he must deal with them in a very different manner. He cannot himself have Mary Morgan for a wife—he does not wish to—but it may serve his purpose equally well were she to become the wife of Richard Dempsey. Hence his giving support to the pretensions of the poacher—not all unselfish.
Eagerly watching the door, he at length sees it pushed open; and by a woman, but not the one he is wishing for. Only Mrs Morgan re-entering to speak apologies for delay in serving supper. It will be on the table in a trice.
Without paying much attention to what she says, or giving thought to her excuses, he asks in a drawl of assumed indifference,—
“Where is Ma’mselle Marie? Not on the sick list, I hope?”
“Oh no, your reverence. She was never in better health in her life, I’m happy to say.”
“Attending to culinary matters, I presume? Bothering herself—on my account, too! Really, madame, I wish you wouldn’t take so much trouble when I come to pay you these little visits—calls of duty. Above all, that ma’mselle should be scorching her fair cheeks before a kitchen fire.”
“She’s not—nothing of the kind, Father Rogier.”