Ringfield: A Novel

by S. Frances Harrison

As it was, the truth remained sufficiently high coloured. He listened, he apprehended, but he could not see that it mattered.

"So now," remarked mademoiselle, trailing her large firm white hand through the water and knitting her firm black brows still closer, "I have brought the story up to the appearance on the scene of my brother, whom you have met, no doubt pondered over, perhaps shrunk from."

"No, no!" cried Ringfield. "You mistake. I was conscious only of having no right to enter."

"Ah—I could see, I could see. Poor Henry! He is the victim of many delusions. One—that he is a great invalid and cannot leave his room, that room you saw him in to-day. Another—that we are properly De Clairvilles, but that we have somehow lost the prefix, the 'De,' in course of years, and that a Bill may have to pass in Parliament to permit us using it legally. There has been already in this antiquated province a case very similar to ours, but it was a genuine case, which ours is not. My brother owns the largest collection of old French and old French-Canadian memoirs and books in the country, I believe, and it may be that out of constant poring over them has come this ruling passion, this dominant idea, to prove himself a seigneur, and more, a noble, grand seigneur de France! Voilà! but I forget, Mr. Ringfield hardly speaks French, and I—hate the sound of it, only it crops out sometimes."

"But why—and you—how do you speak such good English? I have been wondering over that much more than over the case of your brother."

Ringfield, as he asked the question, stopped paddling and sat down cautiously opposite his companion. Her dark brows clouded even more and the warm colouring of her face went white; she again resembled the fury who had lectured the unfortunate pedant in the arm-chair.

"I knew you would ask that. Every one does. I suppose it is to be expected. Well then, my mother was English and I was educated at a mixed school, ladies' school at Sorel, not a convent. I was quick at the language—voilà!"

"Perhaps it was rude in me to ask. I believe I am deficient in manners; my friends often tell me so. But you spoke such good English; better far than mine."

"That would not be difficult. You have the accent strange to me, that of the West. Then I have studied for the stage, in fact, and now I suppose I shall frighten you altogether and make you upset the canoe when I tell you that I am on the stage."

It only needed some such declaration to convince Ringfield that, still floating on this silent, desolate lake he was indeed removed from all his usual convictions, prejudices and preferences. What had he to do with the stage! To the Methodist of his day the Stage was deliberately ignored in the study of social conditions. It was too evil to be redeemed. Its case was hopeless. Then let it alone and let us pretend it does not exist. This in effect was his actual state of mind.