"I do not know," said Aline, smiling.
"Well, I think so. And now I will tell you another thing I said. I said that he could be angry, and that then I should not like to meet his eyes, they would be like blue fire. Is that true too?"
Aline was amused by the girl's confiding chatter.
"I do not think he is often angry," she said.
"Ah, but when he is," and Madelon nodded airily. "Those that are angry often—oh, well, one gets used to it, and in the end one takes no notice. It is like a kettle that goes on boiling until at last the water is all boiled away. But when one is like the Citizen Deputy, not angry often—oh, then that can be terrible, when it comes! I should think he was like that."
"Perhaps," said Aline, still smiling, but with a little contraction of the heart, as she remembered anger she had roused and faced. It did not frighten her, but it made her heart beat fast, and had a strange fascination for her now. Sometimes she even surprised a longing to heap fuel on the fire, to make it blaze high—high enough to melt the ice in which she had encased herself.
Then her own thought startled her, and she turned quickly to her companion.
"Is that your husband?" she asked, for the sake of saying something.
"Yes, indeed," said Madelon. "He is a fine man, is he not? He and the Citizen Deputy are talking together. They seem to have plenty to say—one would say they were old friends. Yes, that is my Jean Jacques; he is the miller of Rancy-les-Bois. We have travelled too, for Rancy is eight miles from here, and a road to break your heart."
"From Rancy—you come from Rancy?" said Aline, with a little, soft, surprised sound.