Renee answered:  ’He has the misfortune to be considered the handsomest young man in France.’

‘He has an Italian look.’

‘His mother was Provencale.’

She put her horse in motion, saying:  ’I agree with you that handsome men are rarities.  And, by the way, they do not set our world on fire quite as much as beautiful women do yours, my friend.  Acknowledge so much in our favour.’

He assented indefinitely.  He could have wished himself away canvassing in Bevisham.  He had only to imagine himself away from her, to feel the flood of joy in being with her.

‘Your husband is travelling?’

‘It is his pleasure.’

Could she have intended to say that this was good news to give of him as well as of the happiness of her father and brother?

‘Now look on Tourdestelle,’ said Renee.  ’You will avow that for an active man to be condemned to seek repose in so dull a place, after the fatigues of the season in Paris, it is considerably worse than for women, so I am here to dispense the hospitalities.  The right wing of the chateau, on your left, is new.  The side abutting the river is inhabited by Dame Philiberte, whom her husband imprisoned for attempting to take her pleasure in travel.  I hear upon authority that she dresses in white, and wears a black crucifix.  She is many centuries old, and still she lives to remind people that she married a Rouaillout.  Do you not think she should have come to me to welcome me?  She never has; and possibly of ladies who are disembodied we may say that they know best.  For me, I desire the interview—­and I am a coward:  I need not state it.’  She ceased; presently continuing:  ’The other inhabitants are my sister, Agnes d’Auffray, wife of a general officer serving in Afric—­my sister by marriage, and my friend; the baronne d’Orbec, a relation by marriage; M. d’Orbec, her son, a guest, and a sportsman; M. Livret, an erudite.  No young ladies:  I can bear much, but not their presence; girls are odious to me.  I knew one in Venice.’

They came within the rays of the lamp hanging above the unpretending entrance to the chateau.  Renee’s broad grey Longueville hat curved low with its black plume on the side farthest from him.  He was favoured by the gallant lift of the brim on the near side, but she had overshadowed her eyes.

‘He wears a glove at his breast,’ said Beauchamp.

’You speak of M. d’Henriel.  He wears a glove at his breast; yes, it is mine,’ said Renee.

She slipped from her horse and stood against his shoulder, as if waiting to be questioned before she rang the bell of the chateau.

Beauchamp alighted, burning with his unutterable questions concerning that glove.

‘Lift your hat, let me beg you; let me see you,’ he said.

This was not what she had expected.  With one heave of her bosom, and murmuring:  ‘I made a vow I would obey you absolutely if you came,’ she raised the hat above her brows, and lightning would not have surprised him more; for there had not been a single vibration of her voice to tell him of tears running:  nay, the absence of the usual French formalities in her manner of addressing him, had seemed to him to indicate her intention to put him at once on an easy friendly footing, such as would be natural to her, and not painful to him.  Now she said: