rm of La Masane was left to me burden-free for
my lifetime, when he had so great need of the money to spend in Madrid!"

"I hate him! I cannot tell why--no," added Claire, recurring to the
former speech of Professor Anatole, "I do not fear him--why should I? In
the end, I am stronger than he!"

"Ah," said the Professor, "but it is always such a long way to the
end!"

CHAPTER XXV.

CLAIRE'S EMBARRASSMENT OF CHOICE

There could be no longer any doubt about it. Raphael Llorient, Lord of
Collioure, was in love with his cousin. At least he made love to her,
which, of course, is an entirely different thing. The Professor pointed
this out. The grave Alcalde of Collioure showed the meal-dust in a new
wrinkle, and said that, for a Doctor of a learned college which excluded
women as unholy things, Anatole was strangely learned in matters which
concerned them. Whereupon the Professor asked his brother who had placed
a handful of early roses beside Claire's platter, in a tall green Venice
glass, at the mid-day meal. He further remarked that these roses came
from the castle gardens, and wished to be informed whether the miller of
Collioure was grinding his own corn or another man's.

Don Jordy openly laughed at them both. One he declared to be bald and
the other musty. He alone, owing to his handsome face and
figure--considering also his semi-ecclesiastical prestige, a great thing
with women in all ages--had a right to hope!

The Professor broke in more sharply than became his learned dignity.

"Tush--what is the use?" he said, not without a certain bitterness;
"she is not for any of us. I have seen another. I have stood silently
by, while she was thinking about him. I do as much every day. If we all
died for her sake----"

Don Jordy clapped his elder brother on the shoulder with a more anxious
face, crying, "What, man, surely this is not serious? Why, Anatole, I
thought you had never looked on women--since--but that is better not
spoken of. I was only jesting, lad. You know me better than that!"

But Jean-Marie, the Alcalde of Collioure, gravely shook his head. He
knew Raphael Llorient was not a man to stick at trifles, and that the
fact that his young cousin loved an unseen captain warring for the
Bearnais would only whet his desires. So it happened that once in a way
the service of defence broke down. The Senora, a brave worker about her
house, could not pass the bounds of her garden without laying herself up