“Giving Denise two whole sticks of candy.”
As Lucie gazed at him, she gradually acquired an expression that a dog has for a kind master. For the first time in her life she found it easier to give up her own will than to persist in it. This feeling was but a gleam, but it was not evanescent.
It was one of the happiest visits Lucie had ever paid in Bienville, for Sophie seemed a little more like her old self, and Captain Ravenel, too, was more cheerful. The story of the stand that Colonel Duquesne had taken about Madame Ravenel had leaked out mysteriously, and there was no danger of any further impertinence being offered Sophie Ravenel. The retired and blameless and self-sacrificing life the Ravenels led was beginning to be known. The ultra-virtuous still hounded Madame Ravenel over their tea-cups in the winter and their ices in the summer; but, although no one had invaded the retirement of the Ravenels so far, a number of people had begun the practice of speaking to them as they passed, and they were no longer avoided.
They even reached the point of courage to go sometimes and sit on the terrace, where the band played, and where the people sat at little tables, eating and drinking. One afternoon, shortly after Lucie had left, they were actually invited to sit at the same table with the Verneys. The Ravenels walked on the terrace, evidently looking for a table, but there was not a vacant one. There were, however, two unoccupied seats where Monsieur and Madame Verney and Paul sat, drinking eau sucré. The Ravenels were about to leave, when Madame Verney whispered something to her husband. Monsieur Verney at first shook his head, but Madame Verney persisted. That dream of her Paul marrying the beautiful, charming heiress into which Lucie Bernard was certain to develop had haunted the good woman’s brain, and she urged her husband, in a whisper, to invite the Ravenels to take the two vacant seats. Monsieur Verney, like a good, obedient husband, could not hold out long against his wife; and when the Ravenels passed, not dreaming that any one in Bienville would share a table with them, Monsieur Verney rose, and said politely:
“If you are looking for a place, Monsieur, there are two chairs vacant here—we shall be most happy if you will occupy them.”
Ravenel stopped, amazed, and the color poured into Sophie Ravenel’s beautiful, pale face, and in an instant more they were seated with the Verneys, the first social recognition they had had since that day when Delorme’s blow drove Sophie into Ravenel’s arms. After thanking Monsieur and Madame Verney, the Ravenels gave their modest order, and then, according to the polite manner of the French, they began to talk together.
Captain Ravenel at once recognized Paul, and made the boy’s heart leap with delight.
“And this young gentleman I recollect well, as having been most polite and attentive to Madame Ravenel once, when she fell ill in the park.”
The Verneys had known nothing of Paul’s share in that scene, and did not identify him at all with that memorable occasion which was known all over Bienville, when Sophie Ravenel had been so cruelly insulted. So Monsieur and Madame Verney beamed with delight while Captain Ravenel gravely thanked Paul.