"With all my heart. But let it rest here, and let time and fate have their way."
"I will," she said, rising. "It is cool. I must go in. It is a sad tangle, and those two mothers! I am sometimes glad that I never married and have no child. Good night. I fear that I shall dream of it."
"I shall have another pipe before I follow you. We are three old cupids," he added, laughing. "We had better go out of business."
"There is a good bit of cupidity about one of us, sir."
"A not uncommon quality," laughed Schmidt.
Pleased with her jest, she went away, saying, "Tom will take care of you."
To the well-concealed satisfaction of the vicomtesse, it was settled that Margaret's health required her to remain all summer at the Hill; but when June was over, De Courval was able to ride, and why not to Chestnut Hill? And although Gainor never left them alone, it was impossible to refuse permission for him to ride with them.
They explored the country far and wide with Aunt Gainor on her great stallion, a rash rider despite her years. Together they saw White Marsh and the historic lines of Valley Forge, and heard of Hugh Wynne's ride, and, by good luck, met General Wayne one day and were told the story of that dismal winter when snow was both foe and friend. Aunt Gainor rode in a riding-mask, and the Quaker bonnet was worn no longer, wherefore, the code of lovers' signals being ingeniously good, there needed no cupids old or young. The spring of love had come and the summer would follow in nature's course. Yet always René felt that until his dark debt was paid he could not speak.
Therefore, sometimes he refrained from turning his horse toward the Hill and went to see his mother, now again, to her pleasure, with Darthea, or else he rode with Schmidt through that bit of Holland on the Neck and saw sails over the dikes and the flour windmills turning in the breeze. Schmidt, too, kept him busy, and he visited Baltimore and New York, and fished or shot.
"You are well enough now. Let us fence again," said Schmidt, and once more he was made welcome by the émigrés late in the evening when no others came.