Soon they reached the high-road, and here their paths separated. Trevor hesitated a moment after saying good-bye.
“Will you come out another walk some day, soon?” he said. “I should like to tell you something that I have not been free to tell you yet, and I should like to tell it you myself. I could explain to you why I have been bothered and irritable lately; and—and when you know it, everything will be all right—at least, I think so, and hope so. You have promised to be my friend always, haven’t you, Geneviève?”
“Yes, always,” she replied, blushing up shyly into his face.
“That’s right. Then good-bye again,” and in another moment he was out of sight.
He hurried on quickly at first, then gradually his pace slackened.
“What a charming little goose it is,” he said, smiling to himself. “I wonder how many moods and humours she has been in, in the last half-hour! The happy man who wins you for his ‘hope’ and ‘joy,’ my dear Geneviève, will find his hands full. And yet how awfully pretty and sweet she is!” An uneasy expression came over his face. “It isn’t fair,” he muttered, “it is too hard upon one; it is, by George! I must come to an understanding with Cicely. I must and shall.”
Geneviève meanwhile went on her way rejoicing. To her self-absorbed imagination Mr. Fawcett’s last words could bear but one interpretation, and her fancy, vivid enough in all that concerned herself, set to work forthwith to build gorgeous castles upon what she now firmly believed to be a substantial foundation.
The chosen of Trevor Fawcett! What a blissful position would be hers! How glad she was that she had agreed to carry the soup to the Widow Lafon that Sunday ever so long ago it seemed now!—how much more inclined she felt to call Monsieur Béret’s horses “angels” than “beasts”! What would Mathurine say? How triumphant she would be at the fulfilment of her prophecy! “Riche, beau, jeune.” Did not Geneviève’s hero well answer the description? Yes, it would be all that could be desired; even the living in England, which had certainly proved a more triste affair than the pastor’s daughter had imagined, would not be so bad as the wife of a man able and willing to gratify her every wish.
“We shall travel often,” thought Geneviève, “we shall go to Paris two—three times a year. All my dresses shall come from there of course. When Eudoxie grows older and is more reasonable, she shall come to visit me. I shall send many presents à la maison. All my old dresses Eudoxie shall have—that in itself will help much my mother. Poor Maman, but she will be pleased to announce the news to Madame Rousille! And Stéphanie shall visit me—I shall enjoy, oh! how I shall enjoy to see her face when she enters Lingthurst! ‘La petite Casalis,’ indeed! Ah! it will no longer be ‘la petite Casalis’ by then.”
The delightful companionship of her thoughts had lent wings to her feet. She found herself at the Abbey Lodge before she knew where she was. She hurried up the drive, then hastened round to the side of the house by the same path in which Cicely had lost sight of her the night before. Just as she reached the glass door, she heard herself called by name, and in another minute Cicely came running across the lawn.