What was the meaning of this obscure warning which she had given me against her father, and why was she so frankly anxious to know about my love affairs? These were the two questions which pressed for an answer. So out we went together into the sweet coast-land air, the sweeter for the gale of the night before, and we walked through the old yew-lined paths, and out into the park, and so round the castle, looking up at the gables, the grey pinnacles, the oak-mullioned windows, the ancient wing with its crenulated walls and its meurtriere windows, the modern with its pleasant verandah and veil of honeysuckle. And as she showed ne each fresh little detail, with a particularity which made me understand how dear the place had become to her, she would still keep offering her apologies for the fact that she should be the hostess and I the visitor.
'It is not against you but against ourselves that I was bitter,' said she, 'for are we not the cuckoos who have taken a strange nest and driven out those who built it? It makes me blush to think that my father should invite you to your own house.'
'Perhaps we had been rooted here too long,' I answered. 'Perhaps it is for our own good that we are driven out to carve our own fortunes, as I intend to do.'
'You say that you are going to the Emperor?'
'Yes.'
'You know that he is in camp near here?'
'So I have heard.'
'But your family is still proscribed?'
'I have done him no harm. I will go boldly to him and ask him to admit me into his service.'
'Well,' said she, 'there are some who call him a usurper, and wish him all evil; but for my own part I have never heard of anything that he has said and done which was not great and noble. But I had expected that you would be quite an Englishman, Cousin Louis, and come over here with your pockets full of Pitt's guineas and your heart of treason.'
'I have met nothing but hospitality from the English,' I answered; 'but my heart has always been French.'
'But your father fought against us at Quiberon.'
'Let each generation settle its own quarrels,' said I. 'I am quite of your father's opinion about that.'
'Do not judge my father by his words, but by his deeds,' said she, with a warning finger upraised; 'and, above all, Cousin Louis, unless you wish to have my life upon your conscience, never let him suspect that I have said a word to set you on your guard.'
'Your life!' I gasped.
'Oh, yes, he would not stick at that!' she cried. 'He killed my mother. I do not say that he slaughtered her, but I mean that his cold brutality broke her gentle heart. Now perhaps you begin to understand why I can talk of him in this fashion.'
As she spoke I could see the secret broodings of years, the bitter resentments crushed down in her silent soul, rising suddenly to flush her dark cheeks and to gleam in her splendid eyes. I realised at that moment that in that tall slim figure there dwelt an unconquerable spirit.
'You must think that I speak very freely to you, since I have only known you a few hours, Cousin Louis,' said she.
'To whom should you speak freely if not to your own relative?'
'It is true; and yet I never expected that I should be on such terms with you. I looked forward to your coming with dread and sorrow. No doubt I showed something of my feelings when my father brought you in.'
'Indeed you did,' I answered. 'I feared that my presence was unwelcome to you.'
'Most unwelcome, both for your own sake and for mine,' said she. 'For your sake because I suspected, as I have told you, that my father's intentions might be unfriendly. For mine--'
'Why for yours?' I asked in surprise, for she had stopped in embarrassment.
'You have told me that your heart is another's. I may tell you that my hand is also promised, and that my love has gone with it.'
'May all happiness attend it!' said I. 'But why should this make my coming unwelcome?'
'That thick English air has dimmed your wits, cousin,' said she, shaking her stately head at me. 'But I can speak freely now that I know that this plan would be as hateful to you as to me.