‘What a happy trinket to hold your thoughts so long,’ he said as he did so. ‘I have been watching you for a quarter of an hour, and you have never ceased to look at that most fortunate jewel.’
‘My cousin, the Duc de Vannes, gave it to me a moment ago,’ she answered him, vexed that he should suppose she could care so much for any trifle.
‘De Vannes!’ echoed Othmar in some surprise; ‘I did not know he had so much good taste in the selection either of his gifts or their recipients. It is a very pretty medallion,’ he added, noticing her look of distress and of bewilderment. ‘The dove is admirably done; I hope it will be an emblem of the peace which will always remain with you.’
She did not speak; the quick sensitiveness of her instincts made her feel the satire of his felicitations, and become conscious that for some reason or another he disapproved the gift which she had received.
‘I have never had any present before from anyone,’ she said simply, ‘so it is a great pleasure to me. I do not mean only because it is pretty——’
‘But because of the affection it represents? I understand,’ said Othmar, while he thought to himself, ‘That goailleur de Vannes!—must he even bring his indecencies to Millo and try and corrupt a poor helpless child? The man would not spend twenty francs out of mere good nature, nor look at her twice out of mere compassion.’
He looked at her himself now where she sat under the magnolia branches; and it seemed to him as if she were the dove and he saw the hawk descending. Alain de Vannes could be seductive when he chose; he was good-looking and extremely distinguished, was accustomed to conquest, and had that charm of manner which the habit of the world and the society of women make second nature. If his fancy had lighted on his wife’s cousin he would not be likely to pause because she was penniless, lonely, and consecrated to a spiritual life.
‘One ought to put her on her guard, and yet, who could venture to do that,’ he thought; he, at all events, had no title to do so, and if he had, he could not willingly have been the first to tell her that under the roses there were vipers, that behind the dew and the sunrise there were evil fires burning.
‘Will you stay long at Millo?’ he asked abruptly.
‘I came here for two months,’ she said. ‘We were all sent away,—there was fever; I have been here often before. I am very fond of Millo.’