Upon the return of the Professor and Claire from the river-side to the little walled garden and white house of Dame Granier, they found Anthony Arpajon waiting for them. With him was a lady—no, a girl of thirty; the expression is right. For through the girlish brightness of her complexion, and in spite of the quick smile that went and came upon her lips, there pierced the sure determination and settled convictions of the adult of a strong race.
"I am Catherine d'Albret and a cousin of your friend," said the girl; "I have a number of followers—brave gentlemen all of them, who have ridden with me from the south. They are lodging with our friend Anthony here. But I am come to abide with you—if I may. We shall share the same room and, if you like me, we shall talk the moon across the sky!"
She held out both her hands, but Claire's shy Scottish blood still held off. The Professor came to their assistance.
"As my lady is a D'Albret," he said, "she must be a cousin-germain to our good Abbé John!"
The girl smiled, and gave her head a little uplift, half of amusement, half of contempt.
"Ay, truly," she said, "but we are of different religions. I love not to see a man waste his life on the benches of the Sorbonne; and all for what—only to wear a red hat when all is done, like my Uncle of Bourbon!"
The Professor sighed, and thoughtfully rubbed his brow. Then he smiled, as he answered the girl.
"Ah," he said, "it is always so with you young people. Here am I who have spent the best part of my life on these very Sorbonne benches, teaching Eloquence to a party of young jackanapes who had far better hold their tongues till they have something to say. And for me, no cardinal's hat at the end of all!"
He sighed a second time, as he added, "Indeed, I know not very well what, after all, is at the end—certainly not their monkish dreams of hell, purgatory, paradise!"
The newcomer stepped eagerly forward and laid her hand on his lips. "Hush," she said, "you have lost your way. You have wandered in your own mazes of subtlety, and arrived nowhere. Now we of the Faith will lead you in the green pastures, beside still but living waters, which your soul shall love!"