“Tell me about it, anyway,” he evaded. “If any one has a right to consider himself your guardian, surely I have.”
“You have the right to consider yourself anything you choose,” she admitted. “I speak, then, of Monsieur Viotti. He has not uttered one word to me, but he still comes to see Madame. I see that great automobile of his outside when I return home and I go away for a walk and wait until it has disappeared. When I come in, Madame looks at me curiously. She is always hinting that I should be more like other girls, that I should go to places where they dance and make acquaintances, that it is time I was fiancée. She talks like that usually after Monsieur Viotti has been there. Of course, they come from the same village—they have the right to be friends—but I believe he gives her money.”
“I will have a few words with Madame,” Roger said in a low tone.
Her fingers sought his arm again.
“Please do not, Monsieur Roger,” she begged. “Can you not see that he has a perfect right to come? Madame and he are old friends. If I am afraid of him, it is my fault. But I am,” she added, with a little burst of passion. “I hate him! When he looks at me I shiver. I know that he is a bad man. I think that I have the gift of knowing, when people come near me, if they are honest or not…. Ciel! What is this that arrives?”
Jeannine might well ask, for what was arriving was nothing less amazing than the lilac-coloured automobile of Monsieur the ex-Mayor of La Bastide! The ex-Mayor himself and his brother were seated inside. The automobile came to a standstill outside the gate.
“For the love of Mike, they’re going to call on us!” Roger exclaimed.
She sprang to her feet.
“Let me go,” she begged.
“Not likely,” he answered, catching at her hand. “Here we stay together, here we receive them and here we finish this matter once and for all. We commence with an act of courtesy. We stand up to receive our visitors.”
The two men advanced in formal fashion. They had rung the bell at the gate and Bardells himself announced them.
“Monsieur Paul and Monsieur Pierre Viotti.”
By the side of Monsieur Pierre Viotti, resplendent in purple-coloured serge, with a white and yellow waistcoat, his brother looked almost distinguished. Roger, with an inward grimace, shook hands and presented his ward. Bardells placed chairs. It was Paul Viotti who took charge of the proceedings.
“Monsieur speaks French, I hope?”
“Sufficiently,” Roger replied.
“That makes it easier, then,” Paul Viotti remarked with a smile. “Because although I myself speak good English American, my brother understands nothing but French. It is of his affairs I wish to speak.”
“I scarcely see,” Roger said, “how his affairs can in any way concern me, but pray proceed.”
“My brother, as you know, is your neighbour,” Paul Viotti continued, “and a very successful man he has been. I myself have prospered in America and it is my wish to assist my brother in any way he may desire. I learn from him that he wishes for the hand of Mademoiselle Jeannine in marriage—”
“Then he’d better go and wish for something else,” Roger interrupted bluntly, “for that he never will have.”
The florid courtesy of the proceedings was somewhat marred. There was a very unpleasant light in Pierre Viotti’s eyes. His brother Paul extended his hands in protest.
“My dear sir,” he begged. “Why so hasty? We come to make a good offer—a very good offer. We do not demand a dot. On the contrary, on the day of the marriage, my brother and I will settle upon the young lady the sum of one million francs.”
“One million francs,” the ex-Mayor of La Bastide repeated, patting his waistcoat and looking eagerly towards Jeannine. “It is something that—yes? And the château—that you can have too. My mother and sister can find another home. You can wear beautiful clothes, you can be the belle of the village and all the villages around. It is something—yes?”
“It is a great deal,” Jeannine acknowledged, smiling, “but will you permit me to say at once that nothing in the world would induce me to marry you, Monsieur Viotti. Not for one million. Not for twenty!”
There was a moment or two of silence. The ex-Mayor of La Bastide remained with his mouth open and the air of one who has heard an incredible thing. His brother, Paul, who had mixed more with the world, was perhaps less surprised. He turned to Roger.
“In your ward’s best interests, Monsieur,” he appealed, “can we not beg for your aid? My brother’s position entitles him to consideration and money such as he speaks of is not lightly come by.”
“Not a chance,” was the curt reply. “As a matter of fact, Mademoiselle Jeannine has already decided to do me the great honour of becoming my wife.”
All the gloss and bumptiousness and conceit seemed to pass from the unsuccessful suitor. He stood like a man withered in the sunshine. His brother preserved his dignity. He picked up his hat and rose to his feet.
“Under those circumstances, Monsieur Sloane,” he said, “we offer you our regret that we have troubled you. My brother was, I am sure, unaware of this felicitous happening.”
“Unaware, and I don’t believe it,” Pierre Viotti declared harshly. “Marriage! Bah! Rich men with villas and relations who are of the nobility do not marry village brats!”
Roger took a step forward.
“Monsieur Viotti,” he said to Paul, “I once had to teach your brother a lesson. Please take him away at once before I am tempted to repeat it.”
He struck the gong which stood upon the table. Bardells came hurrying out.
“Show these gentlemen to their car,” Roger enjoined.
The brothers Viotti walked down the gravel path. The ex-Mayor of La Bastide was carrying his bowler hat in one hand and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief with the other.
“You will do as I ask now, Paul,” he begged. “You see how he treats me—like dirt! And I must have the girl.”
His brother smiled benevolently.
“The girl seems to me like many others,” he said, “but, so far as I am concerned, I consent. You shall have your way with her. You shall have your way with him. He has given us trouble enough.”
Jeannine had drawn her chair a little farther back into the seclusion of the arbour. She was sitting very upright, her fingers twisted together, undisguised tears in her eyes.
“You should not have said that,” she murmured. “It was cruel of you.”
“Why cruel?”
“Because you know that it is not possible.”
“I don’t believe anything of the sort,” he replied. “You know I’m fond of you, Jeannine.”
She suffered his arm around her waist unresistingly, but the hopelessness of her expression remained unchanged. She took his other hand and caressed it.
“You have been so good to me, Monsieur Roger,” she said, “and now you feel that you must do this. You think so much of what is right and wrong, and you know what I feel, and you are afraid that I may be unhappy. That is not what I wish in life. That I will not have.”
She sprang suddenly to her feet. Roger, taken by surprise, was silent. She stood opposite to him, her eyes aflame. She was once more the gamine of the orange tree.
“You do not love me,” she cried. “What you offer, you offer out of pity. You have not love in your heart—you have kindness. You have not madness