She was thinking of Jasper Benham, and wondering how he did with his broken arm. His brown face, square jaw, and steady blue eyes had seemed very pleasant to her. Something in him had called to her own youth.
Her father's voice startled her from her reverie. He was looking out of an upper window, the window of his study, the wind blowing his white hair over his forehead.
"Nance."
"Yes, father."
"What are you idling there for, child?"
"I wasn't idling—I was thinking."
"Oh, and what may these most serious thoughts be?"
His morose and peering curiosity puzzled her, but she was quite frank in her answering.
"I was wondering how Mr. Benham is?"
"Tssh—do you call that thinking! Go in and brew me some tea."
Jasper Benham grew very restless those April days, though he moved in a cool, green world, and saw the primroses starring the banks of the paddock, and Squire Kit's Dutch tulips opening their cups of crimson and gold. The "cuckoo's mate" had come, and called plaintively in the oak-trees. The grass in the orchard was the colour of emeralds, and the fruit-buds were opening against the blue.
Jasper was restless, adventurous, obstinate, and Surgeon Doddington protested. He was a little, purplish man with a huge, bald head, who talked very fast and spluttered as he talked. A wag had once watched Surgeon Doddington with extreme attention for fully five minutes, and then explained that he had been waiting to see him blow up.
"Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Benham, I'll not be responsible, not for a moment, not for a moment. Ride that beast of a horse of yours, indeed! Captain Curtiss can drill the men. Your arm's more important than the way twenty bumpkins turn their toes out."
"You are not a patriot, Mr. Doddington!"
"Yes I am, sir—yes I am, sir; but I'm a surgeon, too, sir," and he ended with a sizzle.
It was of no avail. Possibly Jasper needed an excuse, and meant to have one at all costs. Sunday saw him on Devil Dick's back, his arm slung in a red sash, bound for Battle town and the Sabbath parade.
There was quite a gay gathering on the green close to the Abbey gate. The gentry were there, fresh from their pews in church; the "regulars" quartered in the town were there; Captain Curtiss was there on his big white horse. For with Napoleon's great army of invasion camped ready at Boulogne, all Sussex was dotted with red-coats. Each town and townlet had its gallant fellows ready with pikes and firelocks. There were the camps at Brighton and at Eastbourne, and guns gaping everywhere, black muzzles toward the sea. Red-coats were quartered at Hastings, Battle, Pevensey, Hailsham, Lewes, Seaford, Worthing, Arundel, Chichester, and at many places more. Hanoverians had held Bexhill. There were the Yeomanry, the Sea Fencibles, the Fencible Cavalry, the Volunteer corps, and in the west the Duke of Richmond's Volunteer Horse Artillery. All eyes were on the Channel, and many people's hearts were in their mouths.
That April Sunday the volunteers of Battle town and the neighbouring villages were drawn up on the green facing the Abbey gate. An old sergeant of regulars with a lame leg and a peppery red face was limping to and fro. Captain Curtiss sat silently superb upon his big white horse. The gentry chatted and looked important. The lesser folk bunched together in groups and enjoyed themselves in a stolid, staring way.
Near the old-timbered guest-house Rose Benham sat in her green curricle. Dick Mumfit had drawn up his nag beside the curricle, and was showing his teeth, which meant that he was making idiotic puns, and marching out all the stale jokes that had lived a vagrant life for years in the county of Sussex.
"'Tention. Shoulder arms."
Up went the muskets, one of them topped by a disreputable beaver hat.
"Damn 'ee, Sam Mepham, this be t' second time yuv scraped m' noddle wid yer musket. Sergeant! He'll be for shootin' me, sure-ly!"
"Silence in the ranks!"
"He fetched her under m' jaw time afore."
"Silence! Lower that hat. Private Mepham, you're a dashed, flat-footed, camel-backed clod, sir. D'yer hear? Now. Satan help me—did I say 'ground arms'? Of all the——! Now, what are ye all staring at? Lieutenant Benham wid his arm in a sash? Hi, some one bring me a rattle, to keep the poor babies to attention. Just look at the 'reg'lars.' They're laughin' their belts undone."
Patriotism or no patriotism, every one appeared to be laughing save the much-tried sergeant and the stately Curtiss on his white horse. Jasper caught Rose Benham's eyes. She beckoned him to come to her.
"You wicked lad, how dare you be so rash——!"
"Well, I was sick of Rush Heath."
She challenged him with her shallow eyes.
"Now—I know why you came."
"Do you?"
"Yes; but I shall not confess. Me—oh, no. Wouldn't you like to let one of the men hold your horse, and come and rest in the carriage. You won't have to drill the boobies. Look at Jeremy Curtiss. All he has to do is to look grand. Poor old cock-a-doodle-do, there, with the lame foot, does everything."
Jasper was posed. He had no desire to place himself conspicuously beside Cousin Rose.
"I can see better here. I want to see how the men handle their muskets."
"Oh you wicked deceiver. You want all the women to say: 'There's Jasper Benham with his broken arm. Doesn't he look handsome?' I caught Kitty Lavender—you know, the pretty, dark one—simply languishing at you just now."
Jasper said: "Confound Kitty Lavender!"
Then some one intervened. A big bay horse drew up on the other side of the curricle, and a man in black saluted Cousin Rose.
"All the sunshine to you, Mees Benham."
"Why, Chevalier, is it you? What a man for being here, there, and everywhere. Jasper, you know the Chevalier de Rothan."
The two men stared at each other. They had met before in a casual way.
"Mr. Benham—a broken arm, I hear."
His hard, handsome, insolent face had a look of amused tolerance.
"I come to see your brave men drill. And to think that it is against my France! Poor France. Some day I shall return to her. But picture my château; a black shell in mourning. Yes; rightly in black."
He looked grave and melancholy. Rose's eyes wandered over him.
"Still in black, Chevalier?"
"Ah, mam'selle, did I not put on black the day our King was butchered? I wear it still. I shall wear it till the white flag of the Bourbons returns to France. No bastard, upstart emperor for me. I know that even now I might return to France. Honour and pride keep me here, an exile, among charming Englishwomen."
Jasper watched the man, and disliked him in the vague yet vigorous way that one man may dislike another. De Rothan had the casual soaring air that puts other men under his feet. He could be courteous, but there was a taint about his courtesy. You could see the lines about mouth and nostrils that muttered: "These boors of English!" Rose became even more animated.
"I think you are a wonderful man, Chevalier. And do you really wish us to conquer France?"
"Mam'selle, not to conquer, but to free her."
"There is a difference."
"I pray each day of my life that I may see King Louis at Versailles, before I grow too old."
"Too old?"
"Ah, one is not the same at Court."
The sergeant's voice became the dominating sound for the moment.
"You tail-wagging lot of ducks! Stand up! Hup! Bay'nets? Dash me, I wouldn't trust ye with a set of skewers. It 'ud be a bloody business. Wanton damaging o' uniforms. Now we'll charge our pieces. Put some pipe-clay into it."
And so it went on, Captain Curtiss sitting his white horse like a great soldier in a battle-picture, looking whole campaigns, and uttering never a word.
When Jasper took leave of Rose, the Chevalier de Rothan was still in attendance.
"Jasper—now—be careful. Do send us a word. Or come yourself in a few days. I'll give Devil Dick lots of sugar."
"It is very good of you, Rose."
"Silly boy!"
Her eyes flashed at him as he turned his horse.
The Chevalier woke from a studied reverie.
"Mr. Benham, sir, I ride a little your way."
"You do?"
"I will take the charm of your company. Mees Benham, your most devoted servant."
They had ridden no further than Battle church, grey in the midst of its green grass and great elms, when De Rothan glanced significantly at Jasper.
"Mr. Benham, sir, you are a most fortunate young man. A most exquisite lady, your cousin. I offer you my felicitations."
"Sir?"
"Ah, you think me too forward. We French, sir, are less difficult, less reticent. Now in France, Mr. Benham——"
"I don't know what you mean, Chevalier."
"Ah—my good young man!"
He shrugged, and smiled like a grandee.
"These Sussex villages delight me, Mr. Benham. Such red brick, such maturity. They live in the landscape. I assure you I never tire of riding everywhere, and seeing your sweet villages."
Jasper grunted, which was bad manners.
Before long they parted company. And to part company with the Chevalier de Rothan was a considerable event. It justified, even glorified, a whole day's existence.
"Mr. Benham, your very good friend. Au revoir, au revoir."
There was a queer glint in his eyes. It puzzled Jasper like the subtle flash of a clever enemy's sword.
No sooner was he alone than De Rothan allowed himself to seem desperately amused.
"What a world of fools it is! They have swallowed me as the whale swallowed Jonah. 'Ah, Chevalier, sweet Chevalier!' How the tradesmen run after a title."
There was as much Irish blood in him as there was French. In fact, his great grandfather had been as boastful and swaggering a rogue as had ever sailed from Ireland to use his wits and his tongue in France. The Sussex folk knew him as the Chevalier de Rothan, aristocrat andémigré, a wild partisan of the Bourbons, and a wearer of the white cockade. He had taken the Brick House between the villages of Westfield and Sedlescombe, ridden to hounds, entertained the notables, and served them off plate marked with the De Rothan arms. The man seemed to have money.
"Ah, gentlemen," he would say, "I was more fortunate than many of my friends. I not only saved my head, but my plate and my jewels. It is also something to have money in English companies. But I am poor. I make what show I can."
And De Rothan was popular. He could be gay, quaint, and witty. He rode here, there, and everywhere, a man who should have been mistrusted, and yet was not. His French-Irish cleverness carried him along. He could speak English perfectly when he chose, but for effect he played picturesquely with the language, and out-Frenchified the vulgar notion of a Frenchman when he was dealing with half-educated people. A little quixotry was useful. He made much of his ostentation of wearing black, and of his passionate devotion to the Royalist cause. Once he had been seen to weep. He was ready to fight any man who had a good word for Napoleon.
On the outbreak of the war, and especially when the scare of an invasion gripped the country, the French exiles had been compelled to live a certain distance from the sea-coast. But the Chevalier de Rothan had planted himself boldly within four miles of the sea, and no one had interfered with him. He was on excellent terms with the gentlemen who wore the King's uniform, dined with them, betted with them, abused Bonaparte with them, and was allowed to ride in and out of camps and barracks very much as he pleased.
The Brick House lay in a lonely hollow where a stream wound through oak woods, and narrow, secret meadows. A lane led to the house from a by-road. It was a solid, Jacobean house with a brick-walled garden, a big porch, and a stone horse-block at the gate. Two yews, clipped in the shape of peacocks, grew on each side of the main path. De Rothan had settled here with three French servants. He kept two horses, and devoted himself to gardening. He was always ready to talk of his great garden and his orangery in France.
When he returned that Sunday, he left his horse in the stable-yard, and entered the house by the back door.
"Gaston—Gaston——!"
A short, square man appeared in the passage. He had a solid, thundery face, the nose flattened, a black patch over one eye. A red handkerchief tied round his head, and a belt with pistols stuck in it, would have made him an admirable buccaneer.
"Monsieur?"
"I shall sleep lightly to-night, Gaston. Be ready if I should want you."
"I shall be ready."
"Good. I will dine immediately."
When he had dined De Rothan climbed the Jacobean staircase and passed along a gallery to a room at the southern end of the house. It was a big room with an undulating, oak-planked floor, great beams and struts showing in the walls. There were books upon shelves, a reading-lamp and writing-materials on an oak table, and a black wainscot chair with a red cushion to soften the seat.
De Rothan locked the door, and then went to the fireplace where the bricked chimney stood out in the room like a great oven. He took off his coat and laid it on the chair, rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt, and, stooping, thrust his arm well up into the chimney. He took out a brick, laid it on the hearth, wiped the soot from his hand, and groped again. This time he brought out a little metal case. He opened it, and drew out a roll of papers.
Here, in cipher, were the results of his popularity, his wanderings to and fro from village to village. The Chevalier was interested in farming and in the breeding of cattle! Listed here were most of the larger farms in the rapes of Pevensey and Hastings, with a rough estimate of the stock, and of the corn that might be found in the barns. Here were maps, elaborate in detail, showing every road and lane, and points that might have military importance. The number of troops stationed in each town was recorded, and the number of guns in the various forts and batteries along the coast.
De Rothan glanced through these papers, making an alteration or an addition here and there. He sat back in the chair, and smiled.
"Nelson fooled, and a day's fog in the Channel! So little—and yet so much!"
It was stormy weather. The golden-budded oaks shook their branches against a hurrying grey sky. Primroses shivered on the banks, and cold glimmers of wind-swept over the bent grass. A few early swallows skimmed against the stiff south-wester. Everywhere the woods looked gloomy and black.
Up at Stonehanger the furze rolled like a sea as Jasper and Devil Dick climbed out of the valley. Jasper came slantwise up the hill, so that he had a raking view of the terrace and the grey house with its bluff, stern chimneys. The casements shook and glittered. One thin stream of smoke was blown like a pennon from the nearest chimney.
Jasper saw a figure on the terrace, outlined against the sky. It stood there visible between two clumps of thorn-trees, and tossed its arms as though they were blown about by the wind. Its gestures were so wild and passionate that Jasper drew in under the shelter of a furze-covered bank, and watched the distant figure over the tops of the bushes.
It was Anthony Durrell. Benham could tell that by his thin, black figure and white hair. The old man was like a mad poet in a frenzy, or a prophet drunk with the spirit of prophecy. He strode up and down between the thorn-trees, waving his arms, shaking his fists, pointing toward the sea. The fragments of a voice were carried down to Jasper against the blustering of the wind.
"The man's mad!"
He reconsidered the exclamation, out of respect to Nance.
"A bit queer in the head, perhaps! Too much hanging over books. I wonder what he is shouting about? Just like Mad George, the Methodist!"
He rode on, drawing a little toward the left, so that the thorn-trees were between him and Anthony Durrell. For Jasper had not ridden to Stonehanger to waste time on a dry-as-dust scholar. He wanted to make sure of seeing somebody before Anthony Durrell could interfere.
Jasper found a five-barred gate closing the stable-yard from the common. The gate was padlocked, but Jasper put Devil Dick at it, and was over in style. In fact, the horse nearly trampled on old David Barfoot, who bobbed out suddenly from the door of an outbuilding.
"Where be ye a-coming to?"
"Hallo! Good-day to you, Mr. Barfoot. Is your mistress at home?"
David stared, and Benham remembered the old man's deafness. He felt in a pocket, produced the red scarf, and also a silver crown.
He spoke slowly, showed David the scarf, and pointed to the house. David displayed utter stupidity. He held out a brown paw for the scarf.
"No, you old fool! Do you think I have ridden five miles to hand this over to you!"
He pointed toward the house, and then gave David the silver crown.
The man stared at it, scratched his chin, and then pocketed the money. He threw up his hairy face suddenly, and shouted:
"It's Miss Nance you be wanting?"
"All right, all right, don't tell the whole county!" and he nodded.
"She be'unt in."
"Oh?"
"She be gone over yonder, down to the oak wood for primroses."
David was not such a cross-grained old fool, after all.
"You'd better go round by t' lane. It'll take ye out on t' common."
Jasper smiled at him, leapt Devil Dick over the gate again, struck round by the grey wall of the garden at the back of the house, and found a gap in the hedge leading through into the lane.
"I am in David's debt," thought he. "Mr. Durrell can play the windmill yonder so long as he pleases."
The lane brought Jasper out on to the common where he could see the oak wood as a brown and purplish mass beyond the tumbling green of the wind-swept furze. Something red was moving along the edge of the wood like a spark creeping along tinder. It was the red hood that covered Nance's black curls.
Jasper thrilled on the edge of an adventure. He rode down the hill, and met Nance in a winding grass-way between the furze bushes. She was carrying a rush basket full of primroses, with a bunch of purple orchids thrust into one corner.
"Mr. Benham!"
The exclamation was as obvious as Jasper's satisfaction at seeing her.
"David told me you were down in the wood."
"David! How did you make him understand."
"Oh, somehow. I have brought you back your scarf."
He dismounted, looped Devil Dick's bridle over his sound arm, and set himself beside Nance. Her eyes sent a hovering glance over his face. An immense seriousness seemed to possess him. His square jaw, firm mouth, and blue eyes might, have belonged to a man who was about to lead a forlorn hope. Yet the whole truth of it was that he had been attacked by violent and absurd shyness.
"How is the arm?"
"Mending. Surgeon Doddington admired the way you had bound it up."
"Did he?"
"Yes. By the way, I have forgotten that cushion. I must bring it back some other time."
He glanced at Nance, and the frank flash of laughter in her eyes helped him to climb out of the slough of his own shy seriousness.
"It sounds very simple, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"To make a cushion an excuse."
"An excuse for what?"
They looked at each other again, and laughed, with the incipient mystery of the thing creeping into their blood. The wind blew the golden-flowered furze against the grey sky. Even this stormy day seemed glorious.
"I wanted to come to Stonehanger."
"Did you! Well, why not?"
"Yes, why not! And just for the same reason I'm going to call you—Nance."
She looked straight before her with a sudden self-conscious stiffening of the face. It was as though some strange new thought had touched her, and startled her into introspective silence.
"Is this your horse—Devil Dick?"
"Yes."
"And the other horses? Were the thieves caught?"
"No. They got clean away. It is a rogue's country."
"What a shame!"
She looked past Benham toward the sea where faint white smudges showed up against the greyness of the horizon. They were the sails of ships in the Channel. The boom of a distant gun came to them on the wind.
Nance stood at gaze.
"Is anything happening out there?"
"Only a signal-gun from somewhere."
"I wonder if the French will ever come?"
"I wonder!"
They moved on again toward Stonehanger, Nance looking at Jasper a little shyly.
"You are a soldier, are you not?"
"A lieutenant of volunteers. Nearly all the gentry are serving in one way or another."
"You wore a soldier's red-coat that night. If the French land it will be a terrible thing for us all."
"It may be more terrible for the French."
"But Napoleon! Who have we to put against him? And they say the French are such ruffians; think of having them quartered on us, and doing just as they please. I sometimes start awake at night and think I hear the sound of guns."
"Do you?"
"Stonehanger is such a windy old place. It is the sound of the wind in the chimneys."
Jasper looked at her gravely.
"I can promise you and your father an early warning should the French land. All the country folk will be hurried away inland with the cattle and the corn."
"I don't think I should be afraid when the danger actually came."
"No, I know you wouldn't."
"But it is the waiting, a tense feeling in the air like there is before a thunderstorm."
They came in sight of the terrace of Stonehanger. Anthony Durrell was still there, pacing up and down, and waving his arms. Nance watched him a moment, and then glanced at Jasper.
"Father has his restless moods."
"The times worry him?"
"No, I don't think it is that. He just stares when I speak of Napoleon and the French, as though I were telling him some absurd tale. He often walks up and down the terrace and makes long speeches in Greek or in Latin. I think the words are to him what music is to other people."
Jasper's presence did not seem to trouble her. She took the path that ran along the foot of the terrace, and Benham had no choice but to follow her. He was too honest a man to think of shirking Anthony Durrell. The scholar was standing by one of the yew-trees, one arm raised, head thrown back, when he caught sight of Nance and Benham. He remained thus for a moment, mouth open, eyes set in a stare. Then his arm fell abruptly, and an irritable frown wiped the finer fervour from his face.
Jasper raised his hat to the old man.
"Good day to you, Mr. Durrell."
"Good day to you, sir."
His face seemed to narrow with sharp severity, and with scorn. He stared at Jasper as an eagle might eye a jay.
"I rode over to return the scarf Miss Durrell lent me."
"You might as well have kept the rubbish, Mr. Benham. Nance, I have been waiting for you. There are several papers of notes to be copied into the manuscript book."
Nance looked at him questioningly.
"Perhaps—Mr. Benham——"
"Mr. Benham is waiting to be off. We must not keep him. It will rain in half an hour; the wind is dropping."
Nance went up the steps to the terrace, and turned to glance, half-humourously, at Jasper.
"It is one of father's whims," her eyes said to him.
Jasper mounted his horse. He was angry, and a little puzzled.
"Mr. Durrell, sir, I need hardly speak to you of the danger that threatens all of us. As a friend I can promise you an early warning, and a place in our wagons if the French should land."
The elder man stared, and seemed to breathe through scornful nostrils.
"Mr. Benham, I am obliged to you. But I have always managed my own affairs. I wish you good day."
He turned and followed Nance who was walking toward the house. Jasper watched him, and saw his narrow, black figure disappear round the grey angle of the house. Nor was he in the sweetest of tempers as he rode on through the waving furze.
The wind dropped somewhat toward nightfall, and howled less in the Stonehanger chimneys. Nance went to bed early, her face troubled and a little sad. Her father had been morose, reticent, and strange, and she had caught him watching her from his chair beside the fire.
It was near midnight when Anthony Durrell put down the book he was reading, listened a moment, and then went to the porch door. He rapped on it gently with his knuckles. The rap was answered from without.
Durrell opened the door, and the Chevalier de Rothan stepped into the hall.
"Well, sir, any news?"
"Only that young Benham has been here."
"The devil! There will be trouble between me and that young man."
Anthony Durrell had brought the candle from the parlour. That stately person De Rothan lowered his dignity to the cautious level of drawing off his boots before following Durrell up the stairs.
Nance's room was at the western end of the long upper gallery. De Rothan and the scholar had to pass the door of the girl's room, for the stairhead lay close to it. They were within three steps of the landing when Durrell heard the lifting of a latch.
Instantly he blew out the candle, and, reaching back in the darkness, thrust De Rothan gently backward.
"Is that you, father?"
Nance had opened her door an inch or two, but no light showed.
"Yes, child. Some one must have left the window open at the end of the gallery. The draught has blown out my candle."
"I thought I heard voices, and the sound of some one moving."
"Rubbish! You ought to be asleep. I was reciting Virgil to myself. Go to bed, child."
"Shall I get you a light?"
"No, no—go to bed. I know the house as well in the dark as I do in the daylight. I can go downstairs if necessary, and get a light at the fire."
"Good night, father."
"Good night, child."
Nance's door closed, and the two men passed along the gallery, Durrell holding De Rothan by the arm. The scholar's study was at the eastern end of the house. There were three rooms between it and Nance's, all of them empty and unfurnished, the keys rusting in the locks.
Durrell opened the door of his study, and led De Rothan in.
"What possessed the girl——?"
"Lucky you blew out the light. It would have been uncommonly awkward. Explanations—to women—always are awkward."
They spoke in whispers, and Durrell closed the door.
"I have a tinder-box on my table."
"Good."
There was the sound of some one moving cautiously about the room, and the thud of books falling to the floor. The flint and steel rang against each other, and sparks dropped on to the scorched linen in the tinder-box. A minute passed before Durrell got one of the sulphur matches alight. He shaded it with his hand, and carried the flame to the candle.
"That's better, Durrell. What a howling, wind-swept hell this house of yours is! I suppose Miss Nance will play us no tricks? She suspects nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Wakefulness! Shall we put it down to Mr. Benham?"
Anthony Durrell's room was crowded with books. A truckle-bed stood in one corner, looking meagre, thin, and austere. A mahogany washstand and a Dutch high-boy were squeezed in between the bookcases. The brown volumes possessed the place. They were laid like stepping-stones upon the carpetless floor, massed like buttresses against the walls, even stacked beneath the bed and table. Black curtains were drawn across the window, and hung by two straps from the narrow sill was a seaman's telescope.
The Chevalier caught his toe against a huge brown rock of a book.
"Pardon, fat fellow!—Have you read them all, Durrell? Books, books, books! Heaven help us! What did a man ever get out of a book? Has any book ever helped me to swagger, handle a sword, spend money, live gallantly, love a woman? Books, sir, are for the poltroons. They are the broken meats thrown to the wretches who stand outside the gate of life and beg."
Durrell gave one of his grim looks.
"It is strange that such a chatterbox should be trusted with such secrets."
"Good—good for you.—What's the time?"
He pulled out a watch and scanned it by the light of the candle.
"Psst, Durrell; we are due to show our first flash in five minutes. Where's the lamp? Hurry, hurry!"
Durrell went to a cupboard in the wall, and brought out a brass lamp fitted with an Argand burner. He set it on the table, lit it, and turned the wick up cautiously.
"Will they be out to-night? It's rough."
"So much the better. Jerome is no fair-weather smuggler. You had better put two or three of your precious books under the lamp. I will work the curtain."
Durrell busied himself with the lamp, and De Rothan walked to the window. He kept his watch in one hand, and held the bottom of one of the black curtains with the other.
There was a short silence. Then De Rothan glanced sharply at the scholar.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
De Rothan drew the curtain aside, and left the window uncovered for about twenty seconds.
"Jerome will have been on the lookout for that. We must wait half an hour for the next. No one is likely to pick up our signals when a window happens to be lighted for twenty seconds at intervals of half an hour."
"A mere casual flash of light. I have let people know that I work late into the night."
De Rothan looked round for a chair, and found a rush-bottomed stool by one of the bookcases.
"So Master Benham has been here? Dissolute young dog."
Anthony Durrell lifted a scornful head.
"Dissolute?"
"One of the most profligate young rogues in the county. I hear all the gossip. There's hardly a pretty wench—well, you know, Durrell. Engaged to marry his cousin, too!"
"Poor young woman."
"She is no fool. Has a thousand a year of her own, and a mouth like a man-trap. She will lead Mr. Benham a godly, straight-up-and-down life. Meanwhile the youngster must not be allowed to hang round here."
Durrell picked up a book, glanced at it, and then threw it back upon the table. His austere face had a kind of hard pride.
"A scholar need not be an owl, De Rothan."
"My good sir, did I suggest it? But sweet Nance has a lonely life here. Not much youth comes her way. And these young rakes, Durrell, have an honest, stage-hero way with them."
"I shall see to Mr. Benham."
"You may need me, sir. Faith, it seems strange that I should be here in this house once a week, and Miss Nance know nothing of it. Look you, Durrell, I'm an old friend of yours; I might pay a few open and friendly calls. I have a fatherly way with young women."
Durrell looked at him ironically. De Rothan met his eyes, and laughed.
"You think I might be as bad as young Benham? Tssh! Nance is a girl for a man to marry, and to think himself a lucky dog. I tell you, Durrell, I will pay a state call next week. Come now; we must keep an eye on the time. Jerome should have news for us. I have a packet of cipher to give him."
Anthony Durrell appeared restless and preoccupied. He began sorting and arranging some of the books that were piled against the wall. De Rothan watched him with just the faintest glimmer of contempt. This fanatic, filled with visions of a regenerated world state, was something of an enigma to the Frenchman. Durrell was a man of Miltonic dreams, austere, fervid, morose. In Bonaparte he saw a foredestined Angel of Wrath who should smite the crowns from the heads of tyrants. His work done, the man Napoleon would disappear. Liberty would stand among the peoples, holding her fiery sword aloft, her mouth full of prophetic and noble words. The world would become a new world. Kings and princelings would cease to strut and bully. The golden age of brotherhood and equality was at hand. Anthony Durrell believed all this, and yearned so fervently for its consummation that he was ready to whisper with spies in a corner. For himself he desired nothing but the right to live, and speak and write as he pleased. This disinterestedness of his made De Rothan despise him a little. The Chevalier saw visions, but they were the visions of a man who valued such material things as titles, and orders, palaces, estates, the pride and pomp of power. Durrell's fanaticism was useful to him. As for these broad English lands, he might find himself choosing which he should own and enjoy. The earth for the people—indeed! De Rothan knew better. He had no intention of sitting down on the same bench with half a score born fools.
De Rothan glanced at his watch, and returned to the window.
"It is time for the second signal."
The black curtain did its work once more.
"Cover up the lamp—now, Durrell. I will see if I can catch Jerome's answer."
Durrell carried the lamp to the cupboard, turned the wick low, and shut the door. De Rothan had opened the lattice, and was looking out into the night, the wind blowing in and tossing the black curtains behind him.
He spoke in a whisper.
"He's yonder."
"At sea?"
"I caught the two flashes. Jerome will land when we show him a third light. This smuggling game is accursedly useful."
"A means to an end."
"It makes half the county our dupes. Think of it, sir, all these greedy, spirit-swindling fools helping us to bring in the French bayonets."
Both men stood at the window and stared out into the windy darkness. Intent upon watching the black horizon they had not heard the soft, gliding tread of bare feet along the gallery. Nance had been standing for some minutes outside her father's door, a dim, white figure that faltered on the edge of a discovery.
Once she had raised her hand to knock, but the sound of that other voice had paralysed her. Who was the man who talked to her father? Why was he there? How had he come into the house? The voice seemed vaguely familiar. She had heard it before, but she could not remember where.
Perplexed, and a little afraid, she crept back to her room, closed the door gently, and, slipping back into bed, drew the clothes up over her knees. For a while she sat there in the darkness, listening. The wind blustered in the chimneys, and to Nance the grey house had become eerie and cold. Questions that she could not answer importuned her in the darkness. Her father was concealing something from her, and the thought hurt her and filled her with vague unrest.
Presently she lay down, and drew the clothes over, for she was beginning to shiver with cold. As for sleep, it eluded her. She lay there in the darkness, listening, till the old house became full of a hundred imaginary sounds.
At Rush Heath Mr. Christopher Benham snored in his great Dutch chair before the fire. Parson Goffin had talked the squire to sleep, and was still cocking his long clay pipe alertly and holding forth to Jasper Benham. His nose seemed to glow more angrily when he was in the heat of an argument, or venting a grievance. He would sit forward with his feet tucked under his chair, and emphasise each point with prodding movements of the stem of his pipe.
"I tell you, sir, the hangman is not kept busy enough in England. Freethinkers, atheists,—what! I'd string up the whole lot! They should have begun with Tom Paine, sir, and all scoundrels of that colour."
Jasper was stifling yawns, and glancing at the clock.
"Liberty indeed! Faugh, license, that's what liberty means. Right of Man! Bosh, sir,—bosh. The right of the pig to be swinish! There are men within ten miles of us who need hanging. Traitors, blasphemous scoundrels. Take that man Durrell, now, of Stonehanger."
Jasper straightened in his chair.
"Durrell——?"
"A Jacobin, sir, or I'm no parson. Tainted with all the sins of the Revolution. The justices ought to order the house to be surprised and searched. I warrant they would find seditious stuff enough at Stonehanger."
"What makes you think that, Parson?"
Goffin looked shrewdly along the stem of his pipe.
"Have I nose for a fox, sir! Not a few seditious pamphlets have come out of Stonehanger House. I'd have that man in gaol, and his daughter too."
"Nonsense, Goffin. Why, what harm can a girl do?"
"Harm, sir, harm! Have you read your Bible,—or your history?"
"You mean to say that Durrell may be a spy in the French service?"
"I do, sir, I do. And the girl is as bad as her father."
"It's a lie, Goffin, a damned lie."
"Sir, you are the son of your father."
The parson chuckled.
"A hard head, and a soft heart. No offence, Master Jasper. But facts are facts."
The clock struck eleven, and Jasper proceeded to send Mr. Goffin home with his lantern, and to get his father to bed. Squire Kit had to be carried by the servants to his room on the ground floor. He would groan and curse all the while Jack Bumpstead was undressing him, for Jack acted as valet as well as groom. He would blow all the time while his master was swearing, much to Squire Christopher's indignation.
"Jack, you mud-faced, cockle-headed calf, do ye think you're rubbing down a horse? Don't blow, I say! You make enough draught to give a man a chill."
These matters attended to, Jasper went to his own room, a frown on his face and anger within him.
"Nance Durrell a spy's daughter!"
He refused to believe such a thing. Parson Goffin had been in his cups.
Jasper woke very early, just as the day was breaking. A thrush was singing on the topmost spires of one of the cedars. The woods beyond the paddock thrilled with the orisons of the birds.
Jasper left his bed, opened the lattice wide, and took in the dawn. A mysterious ecstasy was in the air. A hundred bird voices were calling, and, with the dew upon the grass, the world was still half asleep. There were little golden rifts in the eastern sky. Here and there a cloud nearer the zenith would burst suddenly into flame.
Jasper's heart was stirred in him. The mystery of the dawn seemed for him alone. Not a soul was stirring. The earth belonged to him and to the birds.
He could use his arm now a little, and he dressed with the haste of a boy eager for a plunge in some still pool. The old house itself seemed full of secrecy, and quiet charm. He went out noiselessly, though the hinges of the stable door filled the court-yard with their creakings. Devil Dick was alert as a dog. Jasper saddled and bridled him, and rode out.
"Which way shall I go?"
The hypocrite. His heart laughed joyously at its own guile.
"She will not be up at this hour. Yes, but they are early folk. Even a glimpse of her! Why, Jasper, my man, you have seen her only twice."
Parson Goffin's bibulous scepticism staggered like a dreary toper across the stealthy joy of the morning. Jasper touched Devil Dick with his switch.
"Out—old crow!"
He put his hand on the place where Nance's red scarf lay folded. And immediately some perverse suggestion gave him the picture of Rose Benham.
"Faith! I never knew the woman was so plain. Jasper Benham, you are a beast, sir. But her eyes, and that tart talkative mouth. Dick, my lad, gallop; for God's sake, let's gallop."
They swung through a green world, with the gold of the dawn above the soft blues and greys of the horizon. Rabbits scuttled here and there. Blackbirds sung deep-throated, and skimmed along the hedgerows. The golden buds of the oaks were turning to green spray. Ash-trees, black-tipped, stood straight and stiff in the thickets. The bloom was waiting on the May trees, and blue-bells coloured the woods.
Jasper saw Stonehanger Common dark against the dawn. His heart beat to the rhythm of Devil Dick's hoofs. Nance might be standing and looking in her mirror, and Jasper envied the mirror the reflection of her eyes.
He came to the furze lands and had a glimpse of the sea. The yellow-flowered furze was very still with grey gossamer upon it. Here and there brown earth showed where rabbits had been scratching.
Two hundred yards away a plover rose, crying plaintively, and circling on heavy wings. Some one was down yonder among the furze. Jasper drew in and stood in the stirrups. A black shape seemed to dodge down suddenly behind a bank.
"Some gipsy."
He loitered a moment, and then rode on, not troubling to look behind him. The furze swayed slightly as though something were pushing through it. A man's head appeared for an instant, like the head of a swimmer seen above the crest of a wave. The muzzle of a pistol was raised, pointed, and held meaningly. But the man thought better of it.
"Too great a risk. Some fool of a labourer may be about. And I might have missed him."
He dropped back amid the furze.
Jasper rode on, ignorant of the fact that death had threatened him. The sunlight struck the windows of Stonehanger. One of the lattices opened, and a white arm showed for a moment.
Jasper turned into the lane, passed the yew-tree where the horse-thief had shot at him, pulled up at the gate, and left Devil Dick there with the bridle over a post. Jasper went in through the gate, and was given a choice of paths in the dark wilderness of the shrubbery. The path that he chose brought him into the stable-yard and face to face with a red-brown cow that was steering for the stable door.
The cow stopped to stare, and then walked on. Jasper took off his hat to her.
"Good morning, madam."
And it was Nance who caught the salutation.
She had appeared in a side passage between two grass-grown walls, a hazel stick in her hand, her hair tied up with ribbons, a red petticoat showing her ankles. Frank astonishment was the mood of the moment. A girl, surprised at such an hour, may look a sloven, but Nance seemed part of the fresh life of the morning.
For an instant she looked anxious.
"You! Have you brought bad news?"
"No. An early ride, nothing more."
"I thought the French must have landed."
"I have not heard of it. The other day, you know, I forgot to give you that scarf."
Her face and eyes lit up with amusement.
"Oh, that scarf! It seems to lie heavily upon your conscience!"
"It does."
"Leave it—or keep it."
"Then I'll keep it."
"As you like."
They stood and looked at each other, trembling upon the edge of laughter that was part of the exquisite joy of the morning. Nance's eyes looked dewy, her mouth alluring. She was the figure of May.
"Do you often visit your friends so early?"
"Sometimes."
"You must often catch them before they are up."
"I saw your window open as I came up the hill."
"Did you?"
"The end one toward the west. I woke early. Do you know how a spring morning gets into one's blood? Devil Dick wanted a gallop and so did I."
The horse's, and his own, impulses had carried him up to Stonehanger. That was where youth, and the joy of it, led. The knowledge of it came to Nance like wind from over the hills. It seemed to beat about her with sudden emotion, making a strange, mysterious stir in all the ways of her lonely life.
"I have to milk Jenny."
"Jenny and I said good morning to each other."
"One has to do so many things in the country. I made David teach me."
"May I come and watch?"
"If you like."
"Jenny won't object?"
"You had better ask her."
"It would be more polite!"
Ironically serious he walked into the stable and took off his hat to the cow.
"Madam, may I be present at the ceremony?"
Jenny turned a slow head and stared with solemn, violet eyes. Then she gave a flick of the tail.
"Jenny is agreeable. We shall be friends."
Stool and milk-pail stood in the stall where the early sunlight streamed through the doorway and fell upon the yellow straw. Nance set her stool and sat down with one cheek against Jenny's flank. The white milk frothed into the pail, the cow standing placid and trustful under the girl's hands.
Jasper Benham leant against the door-post, content to look at Nance as a man may look at a girl.
"Do you find it lonely here?"
"Lonely? Well—sometimes. Father and I have always had a lonely life. I'm used to it. Though I don't say that I might not be discontented—if——"
She glanced up and smiled.
"If——"
"If—I—had ever known gayer people. A girl likes to enjoy things just as much as a man does. I love a new dress."
"I don't know that I'm not proud of a new coat! Do you ever go to Hastings, or Eastbourne, or Brighton?"
"Hardly ever. We lived at Hastings for a while, in rooms under the cliff. I used to like the sea and the fishing-boats, and the people. But the house—! It was detestable. One long squabble with the woman, who was always cheating us."
"Yes, they are beasts. I had a season at Tunbridge Wells with the squire. It made me quarrelsome. Are you fond of the country?"
"I love it. I love finding the birds in their nests and watching everything. There is so much to watch. But then—the winter——!"
"The dull days. That is why we hunt and shoot and play cards, and why some of us drink too much. Can you ride?"
"A very little."
"I should like to teach you to ride."
"Should you! But I have no horse."
"I think of buying a quiet nag. I could come over and give you lessons. I know you could ride like a witch."
Her eyes looked up at him.
"How do you know that?"
"Well, I just know it. You do things—so cleanly—with your hands. One can always tell a bungler."
The milking was at an end, and Nance lifted the pail aside, and set the stool in a corner.
"Let me carry the pail for you?"
"It is quite light. Would you like to see my new garden?"
"I should."
"I must carry this in, and see to the fire. You must stay and take breakfast with us."
"That's good of you."
"Go round to the terrace. I'll join you there soon."
Nance ran up to her room, slipped into a simple white gown flowered with pink roses, and did her hair, drawing it back in two black waves from her forehead. Then she went to her father's room, and knocked, the gay mood of the moment overshadowed suddenly by the memory of the night when she had heard the voice of the stranger in that room. The incident might have proved utterly trivial, and Nance had waited for something to explain it. She had held her tongue, and asked no questions, but Anthony Durrell had offered her no confidences. His silence troubled Nance. It seemed that there might be something in his life that he did not desire her to know.
"Father——"
"Yes, child."
"Mr. Benham has ridden over."
"What?"
"Mr. Benham has ridden over. May I ask him to stay to breakfast?"
There was the sound of a chair being moved. Then Anthony Durrell's voice asked, "Where is Mr. Benham?"
"On the terrace."
"Keep him till I come. I have something to say to Mr. Benham."
"You're not cross with him, father?"
"Only fools and little people are cross, child. I shall not be ten minutes."
Nance went down, trying to reassure herself, and feeling that it was a very innocent thing that she should be glad of this young man's coming. She found Jasper standing by one of the yew-trees, looking out toward the sea. She saw by his eyes how the flowered gown became her.
"What a view you have here."
"Isn't it splendid. I have told father you are here. He says that he will be down in ten minutes."
"I am glad you have told him. I want to get to know your father."
"Yes, but that's so difficult."
Her face fell, and she looked grave. It was sufficient for Jasper to realise that Mr. Anthony Durrell had a perplexing personality. His austerity was the austerity of a fanatic. As for courtesy, it seemed to be absent. Nor did he appear to have any sympathy for this lonely, dark-eyed child.
"Your father leads a hard life."
"Yes. Often he is up half the night, reading. You should see his books. Sometimes I hate books. It has been like that since mother died."
Jasper looked at her with secret compassion.
"When was that?"
"Twelve years ago. Father has never been the same since then."
"No——"
"I can remember him laughing and making jokes and tossing me up in his arms. He grew so much older, as though something had died in him. He became more taken up with his books."
Throat, mouth, and eyes were tragic for an instant, and Jasper felt a yearning to be very tender and gentle with this girl. He would have liked to put his hands upon her shoulders, look in her eyes, and say "Nance, I know you are lonely—very often."
She smiled suddenly, and looked up at him with a flash of courage.
"We always think our own troubles so important.—I must go and get the breakfast ready. Father will be here in a minute."
Jasper watched her go, and then turned again toward the sea. The spring morning was no longer filled with the sheer joy of living. It had a sadness, an afterwards, a thinking voice beneath all the rhapsodies of its awakened birds.
"Mr. Benham——"
Jasper turned with a sharp throw-back of the head. He saw Anthony Durrell crossing the terrace toward him. The man's face was set like a hard and narrow stone. The lips looked tucked away, the nose pinched and thin.
"Good morning, sir."
"Mr. Benham, I have something of interest to show you. It is a thing that is often met with, but it is not always treated with due respect. Will you be so good as to follow me."
He stalked round the house into the shrubbery. Jasper puzzled, wondering whether Durrell had some rare herb, beetle, or bird to show him. Eccentricity challenges all manner of conjectures. A man may be as rude and sinister as he pleases if his force of character justifies these peculiarities.
Jasper found himself standing in the lane with Anthony Durrell. Devil Dick eyed them restlessly and scraped the ground with a forefoot. Durrell raised a hand, touched Jasper's shoulder, and pointed to the gate.
"You see that, sir?"
"Yes."
"It is a gate, is it not? I am not aware that I have asked you to see the inside of it. You understand me, I hope. Sometimes one has to speak plainly. Good morning."
He gave Jasper one look, re-entered the gate, closed it, and walked off under the hollies. Jasper stood like a rebuked schoolboy. He was too astonished at first by Durrell's incomprehensible rudeness to feel the anger that was rising in him. It rose none the less, with a fine head of indignation.
"What the devil—! Am I not gentleman enough——?"
He mounted Devil Dick in a rage.
"I have a mind to flout the old fool. There would be a scene. And Nance? Confound it, these things need thinking out coolly. I'm too hot in the head. I don't want to give Nance pain."
So often a man believes what he wishes to believe, and Anthony Durrell was no less prejudiced in this respect than the most ignorant of his neighbours. Jasper Benham's coming to Stonehanger threatened all manner of complications, and was a menace to Durrell's schemings. De Rothan's lies were exceedingly opportune and suggestive. They had worked upon Durrell's austere and Puritanical nature, and his severity never doubted its devotion. This young man was a danger, not only to Nance, but to all his secret understanding with the French.
Durrell returned to the house and found Nance busy in the parlour. She had spread a new cloth and brought out the best china. Her father, alive to these details now that they were of some significance, noticed her rose-flowered gown and an old pearl necklace she was wearing.
"That is not stuff for the day's work, Nance."
"What, father?"
"That dress. Go and change it."
"But, father, breakfast is ready, and Mr. Benham——"
"Mr. Benham has gone, child."
"Gone?"
"Yes. There will be no setting of caps this morning."
Nance flushed with surprise and resentment, for to youth sarcasm is the most hateful of all the methods of coercion, especially when it is petty and unjust.
"You should not speak to me like that, father."
"What? Am I to choose my own words to please a foolish child? I shall have more to say to you on this matter presently."
Nance was humiliated, hurt, and angry. To generous and sensitive natures cynicism seems a vulgar, shallow thing, like a coarse lout mocking at what he does not understand. Nance went to her room and changed her flowered gown for an old stuff dress. Her father had begun breakfast when she returned. He had a book open beside his plate, and he seemed absorbed in it, and disinclined to notice the girl.
Nance watched him, and her pride rose in revolt. Her father had spoken vulgar words, and thrown a contemptible accusation in her face. What shame was there in her discovering pleasure in the pleasure with which she inspired a man? She liked Jasper Benham, trusted him, and felt that her instincts were not at fault. Was her life so full of sympathy that she should be forbidden to make friends?
Yet for the while she said nothing to Anthony Durrell. His face was the colour of the pages of his book. And for once Nance noticed how narrow, thin, and harsh he looked.
She could not help remembering the night when he had brought some strange man secretly to the house, and the thought of his secretiveness and his dry reserve made her impatient. If he was to be tyrannical and unsympathetic, had she not a right to be trusted? She was living this lonely life for his sake, and yet when youth came to share with her the glamour of a spring morning, he raised forbidding hands.
Nance looked at her father, and felt compelled to speak to him.
"Why did you send Mr. Benham away?"
Durrell pushed the book aside.
"Do not catch at conclusions, child."
Nance was not to be put aside so easily.
"Then, why did he go?"
"Possibly because of something I said to him."
"What did you say to him?"
"Nance, I am not minded to be cross-questioned by my child."
She flushed, and showed a frank impatience.
"Am I to have no friends? What harm is there? You know, father, it is dangerous, sometimes, to try and smother all that is in us."
Durrell glanced at her sharply. He was man enough to be struck by the undeniable truth that challenged him out of the mouth of this young girl.
"Nance, what I do I do because it is right."
"But, have I no right to know?"
His face hardened.
"Very well, you shall know. I sent Mr. Benham away because he is not the man I would admit into my house."
"But why?"
"Nance, you have seen very little of the world of men. This young man is of bad repute. He is without honour, without morality."
Nance sat very straight in her chair, her hands moving restlessly in her lap.
"You mean to say, father——?"
"This Jasper Benham is a young man who lives a bad life. He is engaged to marry his cousin, a Miss Benham. That has not prevented him from dishonouring——"
Nance had gone very white. Her eyes were the eyes of one who recoils from something with sudden disgust.
"Father!"
"I tell you this for your own good, child. What do you know of Mr. Jasper Benham? Nothing save that he seemed grateful to you—because you were good to him, that he has a plausible tongue and an assumption of honesty."
She sat rigid, staring at the opposite wall.
"Who told you this?"
"Does that alter the truth? I will not have this young man in my house. He shall work no treachery here."
Nance was dumb. Something seemed to have been taken from life. The breath of the morning was tainted.
Durrell looked at her, not unkindly.
"Now you can understand me, child. I have seen something of the world. I do not want you to suffer pain."
Nance tried to finish her meal, but she had no heart for it, and soon left the table. She wanted to be alone, to set her little world in order. Something had jarred it into momentary confusion. Yet surely it was foolish that she should care at all.
Nance went to her room and saw the flowered gown lying across a chair. The sight of it woke a rush of anger in her. Was he that kind of man? Had he thought her a vain fool who would dance to his piping?
A voice within her cried out in denial:
"An hour ago you trusted him! Are these things true?"
A second voice replied:
"Even if they are true, what does it matter to you? You have seen the man only three times."
She put the dress away, and looked at herself haughtily in the mirror. What manner of woman was she to be so moved by a breath of scandal? If true—well—there was an end of it. She would neither bend her head to listen, nor open her mouth to speak. She had enough pride to carry her past such an incident that had been enlarged by her own loneliness, and touched with the delight of youth and of spring.
Nance had work to keep her busy, though old David Barfoot took the heavy jobs, and washed the crockery, and scrubbed the floors. At the midday meal Nance and her father hardly spoke. She meant to spend the afternoon in her piece of garden upon the terrace, planting out a few seedlings and plucking up assertive weeds. David had promised to come round with his scythe and cut the grass that was growing rank and long.
But though her hands were busy, Nance could not win her thoughts away from the revelation of the morning. She felt sore, mistrustful, incredulous. What did she know of Jasper Benham? Was it true that he was pledged to marry his cousin? She, Nance, had spoken of friendliness. Perhaps he had thought of nothing but friendliness? Her heart told her that it was not so.
Anthony Durrell came out with a book in his hand, and began to pace up and down the terrace. Sometimes he would break out into declamation, waving the book, and throwing his head back like an orator sending words to a distance.
Nance planted her seedlings one by one, kneeling on an old sack, her head bowed over the brown soil.
"Salve, Domine. How go the elegiacs?"
Nance looked up with a start. It was another voice, not her father's, that had spoken, and the voice was the voice she had heard that night in her father's room.
Nance glanced over her shoulder as she knelt. A man had appeared round the corner of the house and was walking toward her along the stone-paved path. He was a tall man, dressed in black, with roguish, sinister eyes, an arrogant mouth, and a haughty way of carrying his head and shoulders.
Anthony Durrell turned and seemed nonplussed for the moment.
"It is you, Chevalier——"
De Rothan was a magnificent fool when a pretty woman held the stage. He gave Nance one of his French-Irish bows, hat over his heart, the heels of his shoes together. De Rothan had the reddish, raddled skin, and the angry blue eyes of the Irishman. The refinements were French, the cleverness, the subtlety, the love of intrigue.
"Mr. Durrell, present a poor exile to your daughter."
Nance had risen from her piece of sacking. Her hands were stained with soil, and stooping had flushed her face. The stranger's magnificent manners seemed out of place. She believed that the man was quizzing her.
Durrell closed his book with a snap, courteous under compulsion.
"Nance, this is the Chevalier de Rothan; an old friend of mine. I knew him in France many years ago."
De Rothan laughed, with his eyes on Nance.
"Mees Durrell, your father would make me out an old man! But it is not so. I can run and leap against any lad of twenty."
There are some men whose vanity cannot be controlled when they are brought into the presence of women. De Rothan was such a man. He was the peacock on the instant, strutting, swaggering, not content unless he outshone all other men.
"Though an exile, the English women have almost made me forget my France. Why is it, Mees Durrell, that the English women have such beautiful skins? Roses and milk, roses and milk."
Nance said nothing. The man's voice had driven her into a confusion of conjectures. If he were an old friend of her father's, how was it she had never heard of him before? And why all this midnight mystery, the stealthy coming by night?
She realised that both De Rothan and her father were watching her. It was imperative that she should speak to him, or seem like agauchechild.
"I am glad to see an old friend of my father's."