The sun was on Evelyn Clifford’s hair, burnishing it to a halo of gold under the white hat.  She looked radiantly beautiful, and as happy as if her soul were singing a Christmas Carol.  On the face of Hugh Egerton was a look which no woman could mistake, least of all such a woman as Julie de Lavalette; and it was not for her, never would be for her.

Now she knew why her expected guest had not come last night, or remembered to send an excuse.  Sick with jealousy and spite, she bowed as she passed, trying to look eighteen, and tenderly reproachful.

Her bow was returned, indifferently by Evelyn, but by Hugh with eyes of steel, and a mouth of bronze.  If he had cut her, he would have shown less contempt than in that stiff raising of the hat.

Julie turned and walked straight down to the Condamine, forgetting that her shoes were tight.

[Illustration:  CHAPTER NINE]

THE LAST WORD OF MADEMOISELLE

[Illustration:  R]

Rosemary chose the toys for the children of the rock village, and then the “picnic” began.

The car whizzed them up the zigzag road to La Turbie, while the noon sunshine still gilded Caesar’s Trophy.  They lunched in the Moorish restaurant, and then sped on along the Upper Corniche, with a white sea of snow mountains billowing away to the right, and a sea of sapphire spreading to the horizon, on their left.

Out from orange groves and olives they saw the hill of Eze rising like a horn; while on its almost pointed apex, the old town hung like some carved fetish, to keep away the witches.

The car swooped down, and up again; but half way up the rocky horn the wide white road turned into a stone paved mule path, old as the Romans.  Evelyn and Rosemary climbed hand in hand, singing a Christmas carol, while Hugh carried the two huge baskets filled with toys, and sweets in little packets.

Some small sentinel perched on high (perhaps hidden among the ruins of that fortress-castle where once the temple of Isis stood) must have spied the odd procession; for as the tall white girl and the little blue one, with the brown young man, reached the last step of the steep mule path, a tidal wave of children swept down upon them, out from the mystery of dark tunnelled streets.

Such eyes were never seen as those that gleamed at the new comers, great with surprise and wonder; eyes of brown velvet with diamonds shining through; eyes like black wells, with mirrored stars in their unfathomed depths; eyes of wild deer; eyes of fierce Saracens; eyes of baby saints, all set in small bronze faces clear-cut as the profiles on ancient Roman coins.

“Bella Madonna, bella Madonna!” piped a tiny voice, and forty other voices caught up the adoring cry.

The brown children of the old rock village had poured down from their high eyrie to bombard the strangers from the world below; to stare, to beg, to laugh, to lisp out strange epithets in their crude patois; but at sight of the wonderful white lady and her gold-haired child they crowded back upon each other, hushed after their first cry into awed admiration for visitants from another world.