‘I may stay another day or two,’ he said, ’if I can be of any earthly service.’

Madame d’Auffray bowed as to a friendly decision on his part, saying, ’It would be a thousand pities to disappoint M. Roland; and it will be offering my brother an amicable chance.  I will send him word that you await him; at least, that you defer your departure as long as possible.  Ah! now you perceive, M. Beauchamp, now you have become aware of our purely infantile plan to bring you over to us, how very ostensible a punishment it would be were you to remain so short a period.’

Having no designs, he was neither dupe nor sceptic; but he felt oddly entangled, and the dream of his holiday had fled like morning’s beams, as a self-deception will at a very gentle shaking.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT

Madame d’Auffray passed Renee, whispering on her way to take her seat at the breakfast-table.

Renee did not condescend to whisper.  ‘Roland will be glad,’ she said aloud.

Her low eyelids challenged Beauchamp for a look of indifference.  There was more for her to unbosom than Madame d’Auffray had revealed, but the comparative innocence of her position in this new light prompted her to meet him defiantly, if he chose to feel injured.  He was attracted by a happy contrast of colour between her dress and complexion, together with a cavalierly charm in the sullen brows she lifted; and seeing the reverse of a look of indifference on his face, after what he had heard of her frivolousness, she had a fear that it existed.

‘Are we not to have M. d’Henriel to-day? he amuses me,’ the baronne d’Orbec remarked.

‘If he would learn that he was fashioned for that purpose!’ exclaimed little M. Livret.

’Do not ask young men for too much head, my friend; he would cease to be amusing.’

‘D’Henriel should have been up in the fields at ten this morning,’ said M. d’Orbec.  ‘As to his head, I back him for a clever shot.’

‘Or a duelling-sword,’ said Renee.  ’It is a quality, count it for what we will.  Your favourite, Madame la Baronne, is interdicted from presenting himself here so long as he persists in offending me.’

She was requested to explain, and, with the fair ingenuousness which outshines innocence, she touched on the story of the glove.

Ah! what a delicate, what an exciting, how subtle a question!

Had M. d’Henriel the right to possess it? and, having that, had he the right to wear it at his breast?

Beauchamp was dragged into the discussion of the case.

Renee waited curiously for his judgement.

Pleading an apology for the stormy weather, which had detained him, and for his ignorance that so precious an article was at stake, he held, that by the terms of the wager, the glove was lost; the claim to wear it was a matter of taste.