Jeanne eyed me one instant, with a length, breadth, and depth of contempt which cut to the quick even my self-conceit, at that time a young and exceedingly healthy growth. Then without a word she turned on her heel and went into the house. We saw no more of her that day. And when Rhoda Polly asked after her to say good-bye as we were leaving, the Mère Félix, after taking counsel with a casual stable-boy, informed us that Jeanne had rowed away up the river to visit a friend whose father kept a pépinière or nursery of young trees at Cabannes farther up the Durance. Yes, Jeanne was often there. She and Blanche Eymard had been at school together. It was an old friendship. Besides, there was more company and gaiety at Cabannes—what would you, maids are but young once, and with a daughter so "sage" as Jeanne—why, Père Félix and she never disquieted themselves for a moment. She sometimes stayed a week or a fortnight, for she loved the culture of the young trees and the flower seeds. The work at the pépinière was like a play to her with so many young people about her!
CHAPTER XXI
THE GOLDEN HEART OF RHODA POLLY
I admit that I was gloomy and disappointed as I turned to walk back with Rhoda Polly—disappointed in the turn things had taken, in the ill success of my cherished diplomacy, and especially disappointed in the desertion of Jeanne, who had carried what ought at least to have been a broken heart, to the consolation of a newer and gayer place where doubtless young men abounded, as full of admiration and eagerness to please as I had been—well, any time these last two years.
It did not strike me at the time that I was only a vain young fool, whose corns had been most deservedly trampled upon, and that here was the lesson which of all others would benefit me the most.
It was therefore in a most humbled and chastened frame of mind that I opened out to Rhoda Polly the vexed and difficult problem of Alida. Perhaps it was well that I was still suffering from the rods with which Jeanne had chastised me. For, had I begun on the way towards the Restaurant Félix, when I was rampant and haughty of crest, I might not have made my points so well.
But for once I forgot my silly self, and devoted all my energies to pleading for Alida. I painted her solitary condition, and the unlikelihood that, if she (Rhoda Polly) refused to help her, she would find any other friend of her rank in Aramon.
"Why, of course I will!" cried Rhoda Polly the golden-hearted; "why did it ever get into your stupid old noddle that I would not? And so will the rest—specially mother, who will be the most useful of us all. She has never had any mother, really, this Alida of yours! Oh, of course, your Linn has done her best, but then, you see, she knew she was a princess, and from early association Madame Keller would be little more than a servant. Oh, I shall understand, never fear. Mother will be as grand a dame as she is, and I—well, I shall be the daughter of the Great Emir of the Aramon Small Arms Factory. I wish she had been coming to stay with us—but no, it is better as it is. The Garden Cottage!—Think of it, what a Princess of the Sleeping Woods she will make. We are too noisy. But why did Hugh never tell us? I should have thought he would simply have raved about such a marvel. But he has been as silent as mumchance!"
"Forgive me. I wanted to tell you myself," I said, still humbly; "it was very good of Hugh, but I really could not let anyone else tell you, and it seemed so hard to get hold of you these days—I mean without your fighting tail."