"Gosh! I never saw finer work!" he muttered. "Old iron this," he went on touching it as Vivian had never thought that his thick fingers could touch anything. "Very old. Yuss," he bent down and studied it intently. Then he straightened up and grinned sheepishly at her before shooting a swift, rather nervous glance at Mrs. Brownlow's slender back.
"Don't often find things in museums and old places that interest me," he murmured apologetically; "first time I ever remember to've cared a damn for any of the rot they show you."
They walked on, Tibbitts sinking again into the dull young man with the efforts at heavy pleasantry that they knew at the villa.
It was when they were in the cloisters that he seemed to come to life again. He suddenly left them, turned at right angles and was lost to view. His action had something so definite, so purposeful in it, that the others followed.
"I told you the boy was only joking when he said that he had never been here before," Mrs. Brownlow murmured.
They found Tibbitts on his knees by a funny little excrescence in the wall.
"Here is the spot!" he called exultantly. "They've built this doorway half over it, but here was the 'earth where that iron was puddled, bet your life, and drawn and hammered, and worked up, that we saw just now on that staircase."
Murgatroyd gave an exclamation.
"You think you've located the blasting furnace of Brother Placidus?" His voice shook with excitement. "We've been hunting for that for years. I was certain that it was under some part of this later addition."
"Where else could it be?" Tibbitts asked contemptuously; "seeing the way the valley faces, it would 'ave to be 'ere, wouldn't it?"
His voice was the voice of a laboring man.
"Then you think this blackened wall—" Murgatroyd's tone was quite humble.
"I don't think! I know! You can see for yourself that part of the old sandstone 'earth is still 'ere. It would be lined with charcoal dust, you know. The pile of ore would go there. The 'earth would be filled up this-a-way with charcoal, and blanketed down with a muck of wet dust and small ore. Then you'd start the blast going, and keep adding more blanketing until you got a good heat, then you'd let the blast rip, and bit by bit the whole'ld turn to bloom."
"What's 'bloom'?" Mr. Murgatroyd was always interested in anything even distantly connected with his work. "What's 'bloom,' Mr. Tibbitts?"
Mrs. Brownlow watched the scene with a faint line between her rather thick, very long and low brows.
"Why, your puddled iron o' course. The stuff wot ye draws out and hammers and rolls. The stuff wot some bloke worked into those banisters we saw in the house back there, and that r'iling to the balcony just over our heads." He pointed up with one of his big red hands. "And I'll tell you one thing, the bloke wot designed them knew iron, knew wot it will do, and wot it won't. Beaten it with his bare fists in his time he must 'ave."
"Well done!" Murgatroyd was enchanted. "Well done! They are indeed both by the same master hand. Both by Brother Placidus. But that you should have detected as much at a mere glance—you are indeed a master craftsman, not merely the dilettante which in your modesty you claimed! Metal work was a genuine hobby with you evidently."
"Metal work, yuss." Tibbitts seemed to give a little start, and again he shot a rather timid glance at Mrs. Brownlow, who only turned and began to admire the flowers.
On the way out, Murgatroyd motioned them to follow him to a little room. He pointed to a painting in a corner representing a monk with a rugged, but intellectual head.
"That's Brother Placidus. Looks like a pilgrim with that staff in his hand, doesn't he? Well, he was one. We all are."
"Staff? That's a rabble, that is!" Tibbitts was staring intently into the dull, dim picture.
"And what, pray, is a rabble?" asked Mrs. Brownlow. Her voice was bored and indifferent.
"Why, what you rabbles with, silly!" was the unexpected reply. There followed a second of appalled silence. Then Mrs. Brownlow gave a forced laugh. There was nothing forced about Vivian's. She had to laugh or burst. The absolute stupefaction on Mrs. Brownlow's features was too marked and too sudden for her self-control. Even Mr. Murgatroyd was betrayed into one reluctant cackle.
"Really, Mr. Tibbitts," Mrs. Brownlow spoke with an effort at gaiety, "you are rather overwhelming as a tutor!"
Tibbitts turned scarlet.
"Sorry, Mrs. Brownlow, I spoke too quick," he mumbled; "I was thinking of that bloke there."
"You haven't told us yet what you rabble, and why you rabble," Vivian reminded him, with another burst of hilarity.
"A rabble is the long bar wot you rouses the boiling with," he said suddenly, and walked off whistling between his teeth. And with that, as far as Tibbitts was concerned, the interest of the morning seemed to be over. But on their saunter back to the villa, a saunter in which Mrs. Brownlow very quietly, but very firmly chose Mr. Murgatroyd as her companion, Tibbitts said suddenly to Vivian:—
"Brother Placidus, eh? That's the same as Placid I suppose?" Vivian said she supposed so too.
"Placidus"—Tibbitts swung his ornate cane to and fro—"'e worked like 'is name. Placid. Nothing hurried about his work. No need to." Again there was a silence, and then he said half to himself:—
"Must be wonderful to do work like that back there. Work you 'ave a right to be proud of. Work you'd never need to brag about. It speaks for itself, it does. I used to think when I was a nipper that I'd do something like that bloke's wrought iron work some day. You couldn't do nothink finer if you was to try all your life! Yuss, I used to think in those days that once you was grown-up—why, you could do as you liked. Work to please yourself—"
He stopped again. Something in his brown eyes reminded Vivian of a homeless mongrel staring in through a window.
"I believe," she said encouragingly, "that wealth is just as much of a handicap as is poverty."
Tibbitts nodded, but he said nothing more. Mr. Murgatroyd stopped them a second later to point out a Merovingian wooden house. Suddenly Mrs. Brownlow gave a startled little exclamation.
"Ah!" beamed Murgatroyd; "you've noticed that added arch? It is indeed a dissonance. That must have been done when—"
But Mrs. Brownlow had turned and was hurrying down into the rue de la Poste without one glance at the anachronism which Murgatroyd fondly thought had surprised and shocked an informed eye.
Miss Young, as they walked on up the road that climbed to the villa, saw her hasten on towards a tall figure that was sauntering along with a leisurely,
All that I see,
Belongs to me!
air as she called it. It was Anthony Cross. Vivian saw him stop at a word from Mrs. Brownlow and take off his hat. Mrs. Brownlow drew him to one side, and together he and she, after a few minutes animated conversation, walked back towards the center of the town.
Mr. Murgatroyd, since this was a matter unconnected with sticks and stones or past ages, had noticed nothing. He burbled on. Tibbitts melted away into a café. Vivian Young threw the historian a word now and then, but she was thinking hard.
Anthony and the problem from his past! Apparently he had just arrived. He was carrying a small bag. She had noticed that at Macon there was no word or sign of his valet. She would do nothing to deliberately put herself in his path, she had decided. That should be left to Fate. Besides, always at the back of her mind was the knowledge that Anthony really was engaged in a most important search, one which, though he had denied its presence here at Cluny, was not unconnected with danger.
She wondered whether he would learn that she was staying at the Villa Porte Bonheur. She wondered, whether, and if so, when and how they two would meet.
At