“Impossible.  I knew none of them.”

“But Mademoiselle Ward knows that you are here.  Without doubt.”

“Why do you say so?”

“Because she has inquired for you.”

“So!” I rose at once and went toward the door.  “Why didn’t you tell me at once?”

“But surely,” he remonstrated, ignoring my question, “monsieur will make some change of attire?”

“Change of attire?” I echoed.

“Eh, the poor old coat all hunched at the shoulders and spotted with paint!”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” I hissed, thoroughly irritated.  “Do you take me for a racing marquis?”

“But monsieur has a coat much more as a coat ought to be.  And Jean Ferret says—­”

“Ha, now we’re getting at it!” said I.  “What does Jean Ferret say?”

“Perhaps it would be better if I did not repeat—­”

“Out with it!  What does Jean Ferret say?”

“Well, then, Mademoiselle Ward’s maid from Paris has told Jean Ferret that monsieur and Mademoiselle Ward have corresponded for years, and that—­and that—­”

“Go on,” I bade him ominously.

“That monsieur has sent Mademoiselle Ward many expensive jewels, and—­”

“Aha!” said I, at which he paused abruptly, and stood staring at me.  The idea of explaining Miss Elizabeth’s collection to him, of getting anything whatever through that complacent head of his, was so hopeless that I did not even consider it.  There was only one thing to do, and perhaps I should have done it—­I do not know, for he saw the menace coiling in my eye, and hurriedly retreated.

“Monsieur!” he gasped, backing away from me, and as his hand, fumbling behind him, found the latch of the door, he opened it, and scrambled out by a sort of spiral movement round the casing.  When I followed, a moment later—­with my traps on my shoulder and the packet of sandwiches in my pocket—­he was out of sight.

Miss Elizabeth sat beneath the arbour at the other end of the courtyard, and beside her stood the trim and glossy bay saddle-horse that she had ridden from Quesnay, his head outstretched above his mistress to paddle at the vine leaves with a tremulous upper lip.  She checked his desire with a slight movement of her hand upon the bridle-rein; and he arched his neck prettily, pawing the gravel with a neat forefoot.  Miss Elizabeth is one of the few large women I have known to whom a riding-habit is entirely becoming, and this group of two—­a handsome woman and her handsome horse—­has had a charm for all men ever since horses were tamed and women began to be beautiful.  I thought of my work, of the canvases I meant to cover, but I felt the charm—­and I felt it stirringly.  It was a fine, fresh morning, and the sun just risen.

An expression in the lady’s attitude, and air which I instinctively construed as histrionic, seemed intended to convey that she had been kept waiting, yet had waited without reproach; and although she must have heard me coming, she did not look toward me until I was quite near and spoke her name.  At that she sprang up quickly enough, and stretched out her hand to me.