Victor."

"He is a charming personality, isn't he, Colibris?" asked Madame
Chalumeau, folding the letter and beaming with satisfaction. "I am
curious to see this lady. The daughter of a Count, _fichtre_! And very
beautiful. That must please Victor; he has an eye for beauty."

"Yes, yes," returned Jacques Colibris absently, filling his glass with
cider, "it is an excellent thing. I, too, have it, the eye for beauty.
Only the other day, looking at the new blue wash I have put on the
walls, old Madame Thibaut was saying----"

"What an eye for beauty you have!" cut short Madame Chalumeau
ruthlessly. "Well, Jacques, I must now make myself presentable and go to
the Rue d'Argentin. Berton will no doubt be very proud to have a lady in
his inn--although many English people stop there. It is curious," she
added, putting her plate on his and carrying them to a distant table,
"what an interest _ces Anglais_ take in le Conquerant. As an enemy, one
who conquered their country, one would think they would dislike his
memory, but they do not. Very generous of them, I always think."

CHAPTER THREE

Joyselle's party arrived at Falaise the next evening, and leaving Brigit
at the inn in the Rue d'Argentin, the others drove on to old M.
Joyselle's house in the Rue Victor Hugo.

Brigit was very tired and glad to rest, for the day's journey had been
long, and Joyselle's interest in her interest in his country had taken
the form of a restless desire to have her see everything possible from
both sides of the compartment. For hours, therefore, she had been
springing from one window to another, admiring everything to which he
pointed, in a mad attempt to satisfy his pride in _ici-bas_.

Her coming at all had been entirely his idea, and her faint refusals he
had laughed to scorn, easily enlisting Theo, and, with a trifle more
difficulty, his wife, to his cause.

"Of course you will go with us," he had cried, beaming with joy and
tossing Papillon nearly to the ceiling as some outlet for his feelings,
"and it will be glorious; and think of the ecstasy of my old people and
the rest!"

"Remember, Victor--they are simple people," Felicite had ventured, but
he had laughed again.

"And so is she! They are peasants, and she is a great lady. _Ca se
comprend._ But extremes meet, and Brigit has none of the British
middle-class snobbism. It is well that she should see the people from
whom we come. She shall go with us."

And she had com