Tiphaïne laughed, but there was less joyousness in her laughter than before. The perfume of the thorns drifted on the air, their white knolls rising against the sky’s blue and deepening the green of the long grass. The child sprang down from the saddle, defying the dew, and patted Dame Jake, who came to rub her head against Tiphaïne’s hand.
Bertrand broke a bough from one of the trees. Tiphaïne had turned to the cromlech, and, seating herself on one of the fallen stones, she stared at it wistfully, as though it had some mystery for her she could not fathom. Bertrand watched her, wondering at the seriousness that so suddenly possessed the child.
“Bertrand.”
He stood beside her, holding the white bough in one hand, the palfrey’s bridle in the other.
“Bertrand, you are coming with us to Rennes?”
The lad’s face clouded on the instant, and he frowned thoughtfully at the great cromlech.
“Madame Jeanne does not wish it,” he said. “Olivier has my place.”
“Olivier!”
“Yes. You see—they are proud of him, Tiphaïne, but they are ashamed of me.”
He spoke out bluntly, yet with a bitterness that he could not hide.