As she spoke she drew a massive gold bracelet off her own arm, and leaning farther down over the marble parapet, threw it towards the girl. Her aim was good; the boat was almost motionless, the bracelet was very weighty; it fell with admirable precision where it was intended to fall—on the knees of the girl as she sat in the prow behind the pile of golden fruit.
'How astonished and pleased she will be!' said Loswa. 'It is only you, Madame, who have such apropos inspirations.'
Even as he spoke the maiden in the boat had taken up the bracelet, looked at it a moment with a frown upon her face, then without a second's pause had sprung to her feet to obtain a better attitude for her effort, and with a magnificent sweep of her bare arm upward and backward cast the thing back again on high on to the balustrade, where it rolled to the feet of its mistress.
Without waiting an instant, she plucked the oars up, one from the hand of the old woman the other from the bottom of the boat, and with vigorous strokes drove her sluggish old vessel past the terrace wall, never once looking up, and not heeding the cries of her companion. In a few moments, under her fierce swift movements, the boat was several yards away, leaving the shallow water for the deeper, and hidden altogether from the gaze of her admirers by the red sail flaked with amber and bistre stains, where wind, and sun, and storm had marked it for their own.
'What has happened?' said Melville, who had not understood the episode of the bracelet, rising and coming towards them.
'We are in Arcadia, Monsignor!' cried Nadine. 'A peasant girl rejects a jewel!'
'Is she a peasant? I should doubt it,' said Béthune.
Melville looked through one of the spy-glasses.
'No, no! It is Damaris Bérarde,' he said as he laid it aside. 'She is by no means a peasant. She is a great heiress in her own little way, and as proud as if she were dauphine of France.'
'Damaris! What a pretty name!' said Loswa. 'It makes one think of damask roses, and she is rather like one. Where does she live, Monsignor?'