Nance glanced over her shoulder as she knelt. A man had appeared round the corner of the house and was walking toward her along the stone-paved path. He was a tall man, dressed in black, with roguish, sinister eyes, an arrogant mouth, and a haughty way of carrying his head and shoulders.
Anthony Durrell turned and seemed nonplussed for the moment.
"It is you, Chevalier——"
De Rothan was a magnificent fool when a pretty woman held the stage. He gave Nance one of his French-Irish bows, hat over his heart, the heels of his shoes together. De Rothan had the reddish, raddled skin, and the angry blue eyes of the Irishman. The refinements were French, the cleverness, the subtlety, the love of intrigue.
"Mr. Durrell, present a poor exile to your daughter."
Nance had risen from her piece of sacking. Her hands were stained with soil, and stooping had flushed her face. The stranger's magnificent manners seemed out of place. She believed that the man was quizzing her.
Durrell closed his book with a snap, courteous under compulsion.
"Nance, this is the Chevalier de Rothan; an old friend of mine. I knew him in France many years ago."
De Rothan laughed, with his eyes on Nance.
"Mees Durrell, your father would make me out an old man! But it is not so. I can run and leap against any lad of twenty."