He had not stood many minutes when a young voice saluted him:—­

“Ah, Monsieur Falcroft.  Come, come quickly.  Mamma is delighted to see you!” His mental picture was decomposed by the repeated waving of the famous shawl, which only came into view as Berenice turned.  Hubert regretted that she had not worn it—­the peacocks could have been exchanged for its vivid note of scarlet.  Pretending not to have heard her speech, he gravely saluted the mother and daughter.  But Berenice was unabashed.

“Mamma was wondering if you would visit us to-night, Monsieur Falcroft, when I saw you staring at us as if we were ghosts.”  A burst of malicious laughter followed.

“Berenice, Berenice,” remonstrated her mother, “when will you cease such tasteless remarks!” She blushed in her pretty matronly fashion and put her hand on her daughter’s mouth.

“Don’t mind her, Madame Mineur!  I like to meet a French girl with a little unconventionality.  Berenice reminds me now of an English girl—­”

“Or one of your own countrywomen!” interrupted Berenice; “and please—­Miss, after this, I am a grown young lady.”  He joined in the merriment.  She was not to be resisted and he wished—­no, he did not wish—­but he thought, that if he were younger, what gay days he might have.  Yet he admired her mother much more.  Elaine Cot-Mineur was an old-fashioned woman, gentle, reserved, and at the age when her beauty had a rare autumnal quality—­the very apex of its perfection; in a few years, in a year, perhaps, the change would come and crabbed winter set in.  He particularly admired the oval of her face, her soft brown eyes, and the harmonious contour of her head.  He saw her instantly with a painter’s imagination—­filmy lace must modulate about her head like a dreamy aureole; across her figure a scarf of yellow silk; in her hands he would paint a crystal vase, and in the vase one rose with a heart of sulphur.  And her eyes would gaze as if she saw the symbol of her age—­the days slipping away like ropes of sand from her grasp.  He could make a fascinating portrait he thought, and he said so.  Instantly another peal of irritating laughter came from Berenice:—­

“Don’t tell papa.  He is so jealous of the portrait he tried to make of mamma last summer.  You never saw it!  It’s awful.  It’s hid away behind a lot of canvases in the atelier.  It looks like a Cezanne still-life.  I’ll show it to you sometime.”  Her mother revealed annoyance by compressing her lips.  Falcroft said nothing.  They had skirted the pool in single file, for the path was narrow and the denseness of the trees caused a partial obscurity.  When they reached the wall, the moon was rising in the eastern sky.