“But it was very good, very kind of monsieur your father to be so good to the poor.”
“I thought so too; but Miss Temple said it was wrong to give so much,” said Helen, simply. She did not understand the wonder that was rising in the mind of her new acquaintance. What Helen innocently revealed seemed to Cécile the condition of a grand seigneur in the old days when a grand seigneur was a prince in rural France. And it was very extraordinary to think of a great English nobleman or gentleman—words of which she partially understood the meaning—living in Latour! She looked at Helen again, examining her very closely; and Cécile knew that her dress, which was the dress she had brought from Fareham, was costly and fine, though so simple. They had wondered, gazed at the English family in church, and wherever they met them. But it was still more extraordinary now. The only thing was that they were English. That accounts for so much! for every kind of eccentricity, Cécile thought.
“Some friends, some people whom we know—indeed,” said Cécile with pretty dignity, “why should I not say it?—the gentleman who is my fiancé is coming soon to see us. You will like to meet your compatriots? But I hope you will come before that time—oh, long before! as soon as you will—to-morrow! I should like to show you the château. It is very old and curious. You will forgive us for not going sooner to see you. We hoped mamma would have been well; but now they tell us that she must not go out all the winter. She who loves the air so much and to be active. She will like to see you, Miss——”
“You promised to call me Helen.” Helen had forgotten her own horror about the name, and said this with a mischievous sense of amusement, her pleasure in her new friend and in the prospect thus offered to her opening up all the closed doors in her heart. She laughed as she spoke. It had gone out of her mind that for the moment she had no name.
“It seems too familiar,” said Cécile, gravely, “for the first time; but if it is so that in England one does not say Miss—but they do say it, or why should the word exist?—I will willingly call you Helen. Do you thus pronounce the ‘h’? In France we say (H)élène.”
“Is it that mademoiselle will come to the château to-morrow?” said Thérèse, coming up. “The little one will come. She has told me a great many things. Oh, how it is pleasant to have some one new to talk to! She is delicious,” cried the young Frenchwoman. “And mademoiselle, I hope she too finds it pleasant to have friends.”
“We are to say Helen,” said Cécile, with her air of dignity. They had reached M. Goudron’s house as she spoke, where he was standing with an old shawl wrapped about his shoulders. He was not susceptible about his personal appearance. But the sight of Helen’s companions made a change in his looks. He grinned, but he scowled as well. His countenance became diabolical between hatred and mockery. Thérèse caught her sister by the arm.
“He is like the demons in the pictures. I dare not go any nearer. Cécile, come! he will do thee some harm. Me, I am not fiancé, nothing is going to happen to me; but he will bewitch thee, he will do thee harm.”
“I am not afraid,” said Cécile, though she trembled a little; “there are no people in England who hate you because you are aristocrats, that makes me very happy. And you will come to-morrow to the château? At one o’clock, after the déjeuner, will that do? and we will come to meet you. Then good-bye, à demain, au revoir,” both the girls cried, turning hastily away. M. Goudron had put them to flight. The frown disappeared from his face as they turned, and the grin became more diabolical than ever.
“What a pity,” he said, “mesdemoiselles, that your fine friends, those magnificent young ladies from the château, the young princesses, the great personages, should run away from a poor old man.”