Aline shivered a little, and then, in spite of herself, she smiled. Jeanne had her pan on the fire, and a sudden raw smell of burning rose up, almost palpably. The mistress of the house came back from her dreams with a start, looked wildly round, and missed her eggs, her herbs, her every ingredient. "Jeanne! but truly, Jeanne!" she cried hotly; and as she spoke the little figure at the fire whisked round and precipitated a burnt, sodden substance on to the waiting dish.
"Ma'mselle is served," she said snappishly, but there was a glint of triumph in her eye.
"No, Jeanne, it is too much," said Ange, flushing; whereat Jeanne merely picked up the dish and observed:
"If Ma'mselle will proceed into the other room, I will serve the dejeuner. Ma'mselle has perhaps not remarked that it grows late."
After which speech Mlle Desaix walked out of the room with a fine dignity, and the smell of the burnt omelette followed her.
Then began a time of household peace and quiet healing, in which at first Aline rested happily. In this small backwater, life went on very uneventfully,—birth and death in the village being the only happenings of note,—the state of Jeanne's temper the most pressing anxiety, since Mlle Marthe's suffering condition was a thing of such long standing as to be accepted as a matter of course, even by her devoted sister.
Of France beyond the hills—of Paris, only thirty miles away—they heard very little. The news of the Queen's trial and death did penetrate, and fell into the quiet like a stone into a sleeping pond. All the village rippled with it—broke into waves of discussion, splashes of lamentation, froth of approval, and then settled again into its wonted placidity.
Aline felt a pang of awakening. Whilst she was dreaming here amongst the peace of herby scents and the drowse of harvesting bees, tragedy still moved on Fate's highways, and she felt sudden terror and the sting of a sharp self-reproach. She shrank from Mlle Ange's kind eyes of pity, touched—just touched—with an unfaltering faith in the necessity for the appalling judgment. The misty hazel eyes wept bitterly, but the will behind them bowed loyally to the decrees of the Revolution.
"There 's no great cause without its victim, no new faith without bloodshed," she said to Marthe, with a kindling glance.
"I said nothing, my dear," was the dry reply.