Next morning Albert Styvens asked Maurice to show him the portrait of Esperance. He gazed at it a long time in silent admiration. He could gaze his fill at a portrait without outraging the conventions.

"What marvellous delicacy! Oh! the blue of the eyes! The mother of pearl of the temples!"

He sat down, quivering with emotion, and looked frankly at Maurice.

"I love your cousin; you know that, don't you?"

Maurice nodded.

"I have loved her for a year, and you see me here, still hesitating to speak to her father."

"Why?"

"Because I know that she does not love me.... Oh! I believe," he went on sadly, "I hope, at least that she does feel some friendship for me--but if she declines my proposal... what else would ever matter to me?"

Maurice came and sat down beside him.

"Your mother?" he queried.

"My mother loves Esperance devotedly, and she has a very real admiration for your uncle as well. She is very religious. M. Darbois's philosophical books, which deny nothingness and proclaim the ideal, have been a great comfort to her in her voluntary solitude. She would be very happy to know if I could be happy."

"But," objected Maurice. "I am afraid that my cousin does not wish to give up her art--the stage."

"Yes, I am aware of that, but my mother and I have not the stupid prejudices of the mult.i.tude. Undoubtedly, this union, under such conditions, would estrange us from many of our so called friends, and I should have to give up the diplomatic service, but that would not trouble me. No," he went on, resting his hand on Maurice's knee, "the hard part would be to see her every evening surrounded by the admiration of so many men. I suffered when she was playing at the Vaudeville, and then she was scarcely more than a child, but I heard them all commenting on her beauty and it was all I could do to control myself. What shall I be if she becomes my wife? Ah! my wife! my wife!

I really believe, M. Renaud, that her refusal would drive me mad; so, I hesitate. Hope is the refuge of the sick; and I am very sick--sick at heart."

Maurice felt strangely drawn to this man, so simple, and so frank, and so innately refined in thought.

"From to-day I am your ally, and I hope soon to be able to call you 'dear cousin.' As to her artistic career, Esperance will have to sacrifice that for you. We will all try to lead her to this decision, but you must not make her unhappy about it."

"I am already disposed to all concessions except those which touch my honour, and I a.s.sure you that my mother and I are both ready to scorn all idle talk."

The girls came up with Jean Perliez. The Count said, "Your portrait is a perfect likeness and is, moreover, a beautiful picture. But," he exclaimed, "you are all ready for riding!"

"Yes, we are going to Port-Herlin. Won't you come with us? Mama, little Mademoiselle and Genevieve, are going in the carriage to carry some provisions to poor old Mother Borderie."

"Your invitation is very tempting, and I am going to surprise you perhaps by declining. The farmer arranged to have the Commandant's horse here for this morning, but he comes accompanied by many warnings and I want to try him out when you are not here; if M. Perliez will be my guide to Port-Herlin to-day I shall be glad. To-morrow I hope you will offer me the same chance again...?"

Esperance smiled delightfully.

"Suppose we have lunch there," said Maurice.

"Papa would be left alone too long, and I want to see if M. Styvens can fish as well as ride. We will come back to pull up the nets about five o'clock, and then we will have tea in the boat."

The carriage was ready, the horses saddled. The Count had the pleasure of a.s.sisting the young actress to mount, and then Esperance and Maurice set out together, followed by the brake. The Count and Jean Perliez took a more roundabout and a steeper way. Albert wanted to study the character of his horse. The first to arrive at Port-Herlin were to await the others, and together they were to go to visit old Mother Borderie.

The dwelling was one of the White Breton houses with thatched roof.

There were three rooms, the kitchen, where one entered, and two little rooms. In the first, fitted in the wall one above the other were two narrow beds edged with carved wood; in the second room, four similar beds. Large bunches of box, which had been blessed, ornamented the beds where the woman's four children had died. The father of the little grandson was the last to go. The kitchen was unlighted except when the door was open. The bedrooms had each one narrow opening like a loophole.

The old woman was sitting beside the hearth, by the side of which was an armful of furze. The evening meal was slowly cooking in a marmite suspended from a hook. Between her knees she held the child, combing his hair. She stopped when she saw the visitors enter, and the child ran towards the Count who took him in his arms.

The presents they had brought were unwrapped by the girls. Blouses, trousers, clothes for the baby, a woollen dress, a muslin dress, with two beautiful fichus in true Breton style for the grandmother. One box contained sugar, coffee, and six jars of preserves; another, smoked bacon, salt pork, two bottles of candy and prunes, and six bottles of red wine. The old woman looked, caressingly felt everything with her old knotted fingers, while the tears ran down the furrows that sorrow had hollowed in each cheek.

"Ah! if my son had had such good things, perhaps he would not have died!"

And she stood before the food with her hands crossed, her eyes lost in the distance among old far off memories. Esperance undressed the little fellow, and Genevieve looked for water to wash him before putting on his new clothes, but despairing of finding any, she tried to draw the old woman back from her dream.

"Water?" she said. "I have been too weak these three days to go to the well. There is none here but what is in that pitcher there, on the board, but don't take it, Mam'selle, the baby is always thirsty."

Genevieve raised her beautiful arm in its loose sleeve and picked up the pitcher. She looked at the water and asked with surprise, "This is the water you drink?"

"Yes, the cistern is empty, on account of the drought we have had these two months, and the spring is a mile away. It is too far for me, and especially for the child who is not strong. I don't dare leave him alone in the house here; and I don't dare leave him with the neighbours. They are too rough and they knock the little fellow about and he doesn't understand it is only done in joke, and he cries and calls for me and gets such a fever that he almost died one day when I left him to go do washing still further away."

"But couldn't you get the neighbours to bring you some water?" asked Esperance.

"My young lady, there are thirteen in that family, and one of them is ill to death!" she added sighing.

Albert joined in, "Where is the spring?"

"Over there, near the church in the next village."

"Very good, we three will go there," he said, calling Maurice and Jean, "and we will bring you back lots of water?"

"Wait till I give you...." she opened the cupboard. "Here is the pail.

Take care, it is very heavy."

Albert began to laugh. "Come along, my friends. I have got an idea."

Esperance watched him as he went out and for an instant she loved him.

While waiting for the young men to return she settled her mother on a chest. The only chair in the house was a straw arm-chair with a high back, on which the old Borderie was sitting and which she had not thought of offering.

"No doubt," said Mme. Darbois in a low tone, "little by little she has had to sell everything she had."

The girls opened a bottle of wine, the jar of prunes and the jar of candy, and arranged them on the board pointed out by the poor woman, who thanked them simply and said, "Ah! my little lad, how good it will be for him!"

"And for you too, you know. Now drink some wine and take some coffee,"

said Esperance, caressing the grandmother's hands.

"I haven't got enough wood to boil the water."

Madame Darbois looked at the girls contritely. "Wood," she said. "And we never thought of it."

"If you aren't poor, you don't have to think," muttered the old woman.

A contraction of the heart, the sting of remorse, pierced Mme. Darbois and the two girls.

"To-morrow you shall have plenty of wood, Mme. Borderie."