ho ever
heard of such a thing! He is on the beach to gaze at the sunset! _Nom
d'un nom_, is it extraordinary that the sun should set! But it is not
him, it is mademoiselle. I am sure he knows nothing of all this, and
concerns himself less. It is mademoiselle's doing. And I have had
enough! I will not any longer be made a fool of!" He banged his pudgy
fist on the _comptoir_. "Is it to stand on my head that I am patron of
the Bas Rhone! _Sacre bleu_! I will not support it! I tell you that
I will not--" Papa Fregeau's mouth remained wide open.

"Monsieur Fregeau!" a voice called softly in excellent French from the
rear door. "Nanette is struggling with a valise on the back stairs
that is much too heavy for her, and perhaps if you--"

Papa Fregeau's mouth closed, opened again--and, in his haste to make a
bow, the cognac glass became a shower of tinkling splinters on the
floor.

"But _immediatement_! Instantly, Mademoiselle!" cried Papa Fregeau
effusively. "On the moment! A valise that is too heavy for her! It
is a sacrilege! It is unpardonable! Instantly, Mademoiselle, on the
instant! On the moment!"--and he rushed from the room.

She stood in the doorway; and, from under bewitchingly half closed
lids, the grey eyes met Jean's. And under her gaze that was quite
calm, unruffled, self-possessed now, the blood rushed tingling again
through his veins, and again he felt it mounting to his cheeks. She
wore no hat now; and, with the sun's last rays through the doorway
falling softly upon her wealth of hair, it was as though it were a
wondrously woven mass of glinting bronze that crowned her head.

Jean's cap was in his hand.

"Oh!" she said. "You are the"--there was just a trace of hesitation
over the choice of the word--"the man who passed us on the bridge a
little while ago, aren't you?"

There was something, a sort of indefinable challenge, in the voice and
eyes, a carelessness that, well as it was simulated, was not wholly
genuine. Jean's eyes met the grey ones, held them--and suddenly he
smiled, accepting the challenge.

"It is good of mademoiselle to recognise me," he answered.

She stared at him for an instant, her eyes opening wide; and then, with
a contagious, impulsive laugh, she came forward into the room.

"Of course!" she cried. "You would answer like that! I knew it! You
are less like a fisherman, for all your clothes, than any man I ever
saw."

"I?" said Jean, in quick surpr