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"True!" cried Yvon, his passion breaking out. "Yes, it is true! What, then? Because my sister is to marry, some day, she is but just out of her pinafores, I tell you, because some day she is to marry, and the estates are to join, is that a reason that my friend is to be insulted, my pleasure broken up, my summer destroyed? I insist upon knowing what that cat said to you, Jacques!"
"She told me what you acknowledge," I said. "That I can be insulted I deny, unless there be ground for what is said. Mme. de Lalange did what she considered to be her duty; and and I have spent a month of great happiness with you, marquis, and it is a time that will always be the brightest of my life."
But at this Yvon flung himself on my neck it is not a thing practised among men in this country, but in him it seemed nowise strange, my blood being partly like his own and wept and stormed. He loved me, I am glad to believe, truly; yet after all the most part was to him, that his party of pleasure was spoiled, and his plans broken up. And then I remembered how we had talked together that day in the old grist-mill, and how he had said that when trouble came, we should spread our wings and fly away from it. And Ham's words came back to me, too, till I could almost hear him speak, and see the grave, wise look of him. "Take good stuff, and grind it in the Lord's mill, and you've got the best this world can give." And I found that Ham's philosophy was the one that held.
There was no more question of the gay party that afternoon. Mlle. de Ste. Valerie did not dine with us, word coming down that her head ached, and she would not go out. Yvon and I went to walk, and I led the way to my tower (so I may call it this once), thinking I would like to see it once more. All these three months and more (counting from the day I first met Yvon de Ste. Valerie at the priest's house), I had played a second in the duet, and that right cheerfully. Though my own age, the marquis was older in many ways from his knowledge of society and its ways, and his gay, masterful manner; and I, the country lad, had been too happy only to follow his lead, and go about open-eyed, seeing all he would show, and loving him with honest admiration and pride in him. But it was curious to see how from this moment we changed; and now it was I who led, and was the master. The master in my own house, I thought for a moment, as we sat on the shelf under the great round window, and looked out over the lands that had once belonged to my people. Here once more the dream came upon me, and I had a wild vision of myself coming back after years, rich and famous, and buying back the old tower, building the castle, and holding that sweet princess by my side. The poet Coleridge, my dear, in describing a man whose wits are crazed, makes use of this remarkable expression:
This knowledge was also mercifully mine. And I was helped, too, by a thing slight enough, and yet curious. Being in distress of mind, I sought some use of my hands, as is the case with most women and some men. I fell to pulling off the dead leaves of ivy from the wall; and so, running my hand along the inside of the window, felt beneath it a carving on the stone. I lifted the leaves, which here were not so thick as in most places, and saw a shield carved with arms, and on it the motto I knew well: "D'Arthenay, tenez foi! "
I told my friend that I must be gone that night; that I knew his aunt desired it, and was entirely in her right, it being most unfitting that a stranger should be present on such an occasion as this. Doubtless other friends would be coming, too, and my room would be wanted.
Here he broke out in a storm, and vowed no one should have my room, and I should not stir a foot for a hundred of them. And here had she kept him in the dark, as if he were a babe, instead of the head of the house. It was an affront never to be forgiven. If the vicomte had not been the friend of his father, he would break off the match, and forbid him the house. As it was, he was powerless, tied hand and foot.
I interrupted him, thinking such talk idle; and begged to know what manner of man this was who was coming. Was he was he the man he should be?
He was a gallant gentleman, Yvon confessed; there was no fault to find with him, save that he was old enough to be the girl's father. But that was all one! If he were twenty viscounts, he should not turn out his, Yvon's friend, the only man he ever cared to call his brother, and so on and so on, till I cut him short. For now I saw no way, Melody, but to tell him how it was with me; and this I did in as few words as might be, and begged him to let me go quietly, and say no more. For once, I think, the lad was put to such depth of sorrow as was in him. He had never guessed, never thought of this; his sister was a child to him, and must be so, he supposed, to all. How could he tell? Why had he brought me here, to suffer? He was a criminal! What could he do? And then there struck him a thought, and he glanced up sharply at me, and I saw not the face of my friend, but one cold and questioning. Had I spoken to his sister? Did she