“Yes, I know,” she answered; “you work like a devil.”
He laughed and came down the ladder, and when he was standing at her side, he felt that they had passed some invisible landmark, and that Manon knew it and was holding out a hand.
“Where is Monsieur Anatole?”
“Dreaming,” she said, “dreaming, but I think his dreams will come true.”
“A great old man—that.”
“Because he is not old. He looks forward, not back. If he can only give his eyes to Beaucourt, it will be good for Beaucourt—and for us.”
She turned through the gateway into the garden where old Durand’s first ridge of freshly turned brown soil showed at the end of a green carpet of weeds. The path under the pollarded limes and between them and the stone wall was broad enough for two. It had many memories for Manon, many associations—this old garden; it was an intimate place, and Brent was no longer a stranger.
“I am worried about Bibi,” she said.
She looked up at Paul with a full, frank glance of the eyes, a glance that seemed to open the whole of her world to him.
“I can look after myself. I don’t want to quarrel with the fellow.”