It was awful.  And this poor child running with her hair loose over here publicly!  She has been seen by some people in the fields.  She has roused the whole household, too.  It’s awkward for her.  Luckily you are to be married next week. . . .  Adele, sit up.  He has come home on his own legs. . . .  We expected to see you coming on a stretcher, perhaps—­what do I know?  Go and see if the carriage is ready.  I must take this child home at once.  It isn’t proper for her to stay here a minute longer.”

General D’Hubert did not move.  It was as though he had heard nothing.  Madame Leonie changed her mind.  “I will go and see myself,” she cried.  “I want also my cloak.—­Adele—­” she began, but did not add “sit up.”  She went out saying, in a very loud and cheerful tone:  “I leave the door open.”

General D’Hubert made a movement towards the divan, but then Adele sat up, and that checked him dead.  He thought, “I haven’t washed this morning.  I must look like an old tramp.  There’s earth on the back of my coat and pine-needles in my hair.”  It occurred to him that the situation required a good deal of circumspection on his part.

“I am greatly concerned, mademoiselle,” he began, vaguely, and abandoned that line.  She was sitting up on the divan with her cheeks unusually pink and her hair, brilliantly fair, falling all over her shoulders—­which was a very novel sight to the general.  He walked away up the room, and looking out of the window for safety said, “I fear you must think I behaved like a madman,” in accents of sincere despair.  Then he spun round, and noticed that she had followed him with her eyes.  They were not cast down on meeting his glance.  And the expression of her face was novel to him also.  It was, one might have said, reversed.  Those eyes looked at him with grave thoughtfulness, while the exquisite lines of her mouth seemed to suggest a restrained smile.  This change made her transcendental beauty much less mysterious, much more accessible to a man’s comprehension.  An amazing ease of mind came to the general—­and even some ease of manner.  He walked down the room with as much pleasurable excitement as he would have found in walking up to a battery vomiting death, fire, and smoke; then stood looking down with smiling eyes at the girl whose marriage with him (next week) had been so carefully arranged by the wise, the good, the admirable Leonie.

“Ah! mademoiselle,” he said, in a tone of courtly regret, “if only I could be certain that you did not come here this morning, two miles, running all the way, merely from affection for your mother!”

He waited for an answer imperturbable but inwardly elated.  It came in a demure murmur, eyelashes lowered with fascinating effect.  “You must not be mechant as well as mad.”

And then General D’Hubert made an aggressive movement towards the divan which nothing could check.  That piece of furniture was not exactly in the line of the open door.  But Madame Leonie, coming back wrapped up in a light cloak and carrying a lace shawl on her arm for Adele to hide her incriminating hair under, had a swift impression of her brother getting up from his knees.