“You may sit down.” Then she added, quite seriously, “I am going away to-morrow.”
Paul’s boyish heart gave a jump. He was secretly very much afraid of Lucie, and disapproved of her—but she was so fascinating, and life at Bienville would seem so different after she went away. He stammered:
“I am sorry, Mademoiselle.”
“But I shall come back,” said Lucie in a sprightly tone. “You see, it is so very easy to frighten grandmama. All I have to do is to stop eating for two days, and it really isn’t so bad at all.”
Paul Verney, although not a greedy youngster like Toni, thought that to go without eating for two days was a very severe test of affection, but it was like everything else about Lucie, dashing and daring, and quite out of the common. He replied timidly:
“I hope, Mademoiselle, you won’t make yourself ill. It always makes me ill to go without my dinner even.”
“I suppose,” said Lucie, “that is when your mama punishes you—isn’t it?”
Paul blushed more deeply than ever. He wished to appear a man, and here was Lucie reminding him that he was, after all, only a little boy. Then Lucie asked him:
“What do you mean to be when you grow up?”
“A soldier, Mademoiselle,” said Paul, straightening himself up involuntarily. “I am going to the cavalry school at St. Cyr. I shall ride a fine horse like the officers here in Bienville. I told papa and mama my last birthday, and they are quite willing.”