that what he wanted was to talk to me of the girl he was engaged
to. Mlle. Malo, left an orphan at ten, had been the ward of a neighbour
of the Rechamps', a chap with an old name and a starred chateau, who
had lost almost everything else at baccarat before he was forty, and had
repented, had the gout and studied agriculture for the rest of his life.
The girl's father was a rather brilliant painter, who died young, and
her mother, who followed him in a year or two, was a Pole: you may fancy
that, with such antecedents, the girl was just the mixture to shake down
quietly into French country life with a gouty and repentant guardian.
The Marquis de Corvenaire--that was his name--brought her down to his
place, got an old maid sister to come and stay, and really, as far as
one knows, brought his ward up rather decently.

Now and then she used to be driven over to play with the young Rechamps,
and Jean remembered her as an ugly little girl in a plaid frock, who
used to invent wonderful games and get tired of playing them just as the
other children were beginning to learn how. But her domineering ways
and searching questions did not meet with his mother's approval, and her
visits were not encouraged. When she was seventeen her guardian died
and left her a little money. The maiden sister had gone dotty, there was
nobody to look after Yvonne, and she went to Paris, to an aunt, broke
loose from the aunt when she came of age, set up her studio, travelled,
painted, played the violin, knew lots of people; and never laid eyes on
Jean de Rechamp till about a year before the war, when her guardian's
place was sold, and she had to go down there to see about her interest
in the property.

The old Rechamps heard she was coming, but didn't ask her to stay.
Jean drove over to the shut-up chateau, however, and found Mlle. Malo
lunching on a corner of the kitchen table. She exclaimed: "My little
Jean!" flew to him with a kiss for each cheek, and made him sit down and
share her omelet.... The ugly little girl had shed her chrysalis--and
you may fancy if he went back once or twice!

Mlle. Malo was staying at the chateau all alone, with the farmer's wife
to come in and cook her dinner: not a soul in the house at night but
herself and her brindled sheep dog. She had to be there a week, and
Jean suggested to his people to ask her to Rechamp. But at Rechamp they
hesitated, coughed, looked away, said the sparerooms were all upside
down, and the val