a shy upward look that something seemed suddenly to take Garnache by the
throat. The blood flew to his cheeks. He fancied an odd meaning in those
words of hers--a meaning that set his pulses throbbing faster than joy
or peril had ever set them yet. Then he checked himself, and deep down
in his soul he seemed to hear a peal of mocking laughter--just such a
burst of sardonic mirth as had broken from his lips two nights ago when
on his way to Voiron. Then he went back to the business he had in hand.

"I am glad it is so with you," he said quietly. "Because Florimond has
brought him home a wife."

The words were out, and he stood back as stands a man who, having cast
an insult, prepares to ward the blow he expects in answer. He had looked
for a storm, a wild, frantic outburst; the lightning of flashing, angry
eyes; the thunder of outraged pride. Instead, here was a gentle calm, a
wan smile overspreading her sweet, pale face, and then she hid that
face in her hands, buried face and hands upon his shoulder and fell to
weeping very quietly.

This, he thought, was almost worse than the tempest he had looked for.
How was he to know that these tears were the overflow of a heart that
was on the point of bursting from sheer joy? He patted her shoulder; he
soothed her.

"Little child," he whispered in her ear. "What does it matter? You did
not really love him. He was all unworthy of you. Do not grieve, child.
So, so, that is better."

She was looking up at him, smiling through the tears that suffused er
eyes.

"I am weeping for joy, monsieur," said she.

"For joy?" quoth he. "Vertudieu! There is no end to the things a woman
weeps for!"

Unconsciously, instinctively almost, she nestled closer to him, and
again his pulses throbbed, again that flush came to overspread his lean
countenance. Very softly he whispered in her ear:

"Will you go to Paris with me, mademoiselle?"

He meant by that question no more than to ask whether, now that here in
Dauphiny she would be friendless and alone, it were not better for her
to place herself under the care of the Queen-Regent. But what blame to
her if she misunderstood the question, if she read in it the very words
her heart was longing to hear from him? The very gentleness of his tone
implied his meaning to be the one she desired. She raised her hazel eyes
again to his, she nestled closer to him, and then, with a shy fluttering
of her lids, a delicious red suffusing her virgin cheek,