“Because it’s the rule.  And, ma fe, it is good for a girl’s tongue to be tied at times.”  Then, in answer to the enquiring looks he was casting at me, she said, “This is Phil Carre of Belfontaine, whom some folks thought dead.  But I never did, and he’s come back to show I was right.  This is M. Bernel Torode of Herm, Phil, mon gars.”

And young Torode and I looked into one another’s eyes and knew that we were not to be friends.  What he saw amiss in me I do not know, but to me there was about him something overmasterful which roused in me a keen desire to master it, or thwart it.

“You are but just home, then, M. Carre?” he asked.

“This evening.”

“From—?”

“From Florida last by way of New York.”

“Ah!  Many ships about?”

“Not many but our own.”

“There will be no bones left to pick soon,” he laughed, “and the appetite grows.  And what with the preventive men and their new powers it will soon be difficult to pick up an honest living.”

“From all accounts M. Torode manages it one way or another,” I said.

“All the same it gets more difficult.  It’s a case of too many pots and not enough lobsters.”

And then Jeanne Falla, who had gone across to the others, suddenly clapped her hands, and Nicholas Grut’s hungry bow dashed into a quick step that set feet dancing in spite of themselves.

And Carette sprang up from her seat and stepped out of her bower, and her face, radiant at her release, had in it all the loveliness of all the flowers from among which she came.  The roses clung to her white gown as though loth to let her go, and strewed the ground as she passed, and no man’s heart but must have jumped the quicker at sight of her coming towards him with welcomes in her eyes and hands.

She came straight across to us, and the other girls watched eagerly to see which of us she would speak to first—­for Midsummer Eve is as full of signs and omens as Aunt Jeanne’s gache of currants.

She gave a hand to each of us, the left to me and the right to young Torode, and the left is nearer the heart, said I to myself.

“Phil, mon cher,” she cried joyously.  “It is good to see you alive and home again.  And some foolish ones said you were gone for good!  And you are bigger and browner than ever—­” and she held me off at arm’s length for inspection.  “And when did you arrive?”

“I reached home just in time for supper.”

“Ah, how glad your mother would be!  She and Aunt Jeanne and I were the only ones who hoped still, I do believe.”

“May I beg the first dance, mademoiselle?” broke in young Torode, for the couples were whirling past us and he had waited impatiently while we talked.

“I must go and tie up my hair first.  It looks like a tangle of vraic,” she laughed, and slipped away by the sides of the room and disappeared through the doorway.  And young Torode immediately took up his post there to claim his dance as soon as she returned.