"I hate him! I cannot tell why—no," added Claire, recurring to the former speech of Professor Anatole, "I do not fear him—why should I? In the end, I am stronger than he!"
"Ah," said the Professor, "but it is always such a long way to the end!"
CHAPTER XXV.
CLAIRE'S EMBARRASSMENT OF CHOICE
There could be no longer any doubt about it. Raphael Llorient, Lord of Collioure, was in love with his cousin. At least he made love to her, which, of course, is an entirely different thing. The Professor pointed this out. The grave Alcalde of Collioure showed the meal-dust in a new wrinkle, and said that, for a Doctor of a learned college which excluded women as unholy things, Anatole was strangely learned in matters which concerned them. Whereupon the Professor asked his brother who had placed a handful of early roses beside Claire's platter, in a tall green Venice glass, at the mid-day meal. He further remarked that these roses came from the castle gardens, and wished to be informed whether the miller of Collioure was grinding his own corn or another man's.
Don Jordy openly laughed at them both. One he declared to be bald and the other musty. He alone, owing to his handsome face and figure—considering also his semi-ecclesiastical prestige, a great thing with women in all ages—had a right to hope!
The Professor broke in more sharply than became his learned dignity.
"Tush—what is the use?" he said, not without a certain bitterness; "she is not for any of us. I have seen another. I have stood silently by, while she was thinking about him. I do as much every day. If we all died for her sake——"
Don Jordy clapped his elder brother on the shoulder with a more anxious face, crying, "What, man, surely this is not serious? Why, Anatole, I thought you had never looked on women—since—but that is better not spoken of. I was only jesting, lad. You know me better than that!"