“Diable!  Girl, out of this!” he cried; “this is no place for thee.  Go to thine aunt.”

“She did bid me come and serve the supper for the strangers,” replied Victorine.  “She herself will not come down.”

“Go to the devil!  Thou shalt not, and it is I that say it,” shouted Victor; and Victorine, terrified, fled back to Jeanne, and reported her grandfather’s words.

Poor Jeanne was at her wit’s end now.  “Why said he that?” she asked.

“I know not,” replied Victorine, demurely.  “He was in one of his great rages, and I do think that the pigeons are fast burning, by the smell.”

“Bah!” cried Jeanne, in disgust.  “Is this a house to live in, where one cannot be let down from one’s chamber except in sight of the highway?  Run, Victorine!  Look over and see if the strangers be in sight.  I must go down to the kitchen.  I would a witch were at hand with a broom or a tail of a mare.  I’d mount and down the chimney, I warrant me!”

Laughing heartily, Victorine ran to reconnoitre.  “There is none in sight,” she cried.  “Thou canst come down.  A man is asleep under the pear-tree, but I think not he is one of them.”

Jeanne ran quickly down the stairs, followed by Victorine, who, as she entered the kitchen again, took up her position in one corner, and stood leaning against the wall, tapping her pretty little black slippers with their crimson bows impatiently on the floor.  Jeanne drew her father to one side, and whispered in his ear.  He retorted angrily, in a louder tone.  Not a look or tone was lost on Victorine.  Presently the old man, shrugging his shoulders, went back to the pigeons, and began to turn the spit, muttering to himself in French.  Jeanne had conquered.

“Thy grandfather is in a rage,” she said to Victorine, “because we must give meat and drink to the man who has treated me so ill; that is why he did not wish thee to serve.  But I have persuaded him that it is needful that we do all we can to keep Willan Blaycke well disposed to us.  He might withhold from me all my money if he so chose; and he is rich, and we are but poor people.  We could not find any redress.  So do thou take care and treat him as if thou hadst never heard aught against him from me.  It will lie with thee, child, to see that he goes not away angered; for thy grandfather is in a mood when the saints themselves could not hold his tongue if he have a mind to speak.  Keep thou out of his sight till supper be ready.  I stay here till all is done.”

Between the kitchen and the common living-room, which was also the dining-room, was a long dark passage-way, at one end of which was a small storeroom.  Here Victorine took refuge, to wait till her aunt should call her to serve the supper.  The window of this storeroom was wide open.  The shutter had fallen off the hinges several days before, and Benoit had forgotten to put it up.  Victorine seated herself on a cider cask close to the window, and leaning her head against the wall began to sing again in a low tone.  She had a habit of singing at all times, and often hardly knew that she sang at all.  The Provencal melody was still running in her head.