“Paris?” said a clear boy’s voice just behind them.
It was Jean himself, fresh from a morning in the woods, with a retriever puppy gamboling at his heels. It was youth, and hope, and ardour, and all incredible, dauntless things! It was the spirit of growing life and spring, and it was followed by Elizabeth, who promptly announced déjeuner, half an hour after the usual time.
“We will finish this discussion later on,” said Miss Prenderghast.
Jean greeted his two old friends cordially.
“But what is all this about Paris, Aunt Anne?” he asked, smiling a little as he held back the portière for her to pass out. “Have you and Monsieur le Curé and the doctor just discovered it?”
“You should not come into rooms suddenly,” said Miss Prenderghast coldly. “Then you would not overhear parts of other people’s conversations which were not meant for your ears.”
Jean frowned and apologized. Miss Prenderghast resented the frown, and ignored the apology.
It is so seldom that the very observant observe the right things. It was a dull lunch party; the doctor was a little frightened at Miss Prenderghast’s reception of his suggestion; the Curé was thinking how bad the lunch was, and how he could influence Jean to accept his point of view. Miss Prenderghast was greatly annoyed with Elizabeth. And to Jean the word “Paris” was like a lighted torch to a bundle of dry hay. Suddenly all his ideas had taken fire—but like all the fires of youth it burned silently, and none of his elders had the least idea that they were attending at a conflagration.
CHAPTER II
AFTER lunch Jean went to Elizabeth. She was washing up the dishes, or she preferred to let Jean think she was; as a matter of fact, she had been having what is known in servants’ quarters as a “snack,” but like all healthy, properly brought up English servants, she liked her employers to fancy that she lived upon air alone. Jean sat on the kitchen table and swung his legs to and fro in a confidential manner. He had an implicit masculine confidence in Elizabeth’s sympathy—Elizabeth was perhaps only a sour old maid, but she would know that he was there to have his grievance produced, and she would in time produce it for him. So he took a cigarette and waited.