The Chateau of Montplaisir

THE next morning, bright and early, Monsieur de Latour presented himself at the Chateau of Montplaisir. He proposed to Louis that a large force of workmen should be put in immediately to make one wing of the old place habitable.

“For, to tell you the truth, my dear nephew,” he said confidentially, “it would add immensely to my consequence to be able to date my letters from the Chateau of Montplaisir, and I don’t mind spending twenty or thirty thousand francs for that purpose.”

“My precious uncle!” was Louis’s only reply, endeavouring to clasp in his arms Monsieur de Latour.

But his first embrace had been fraught with so much danger to Monsieur de Latour’s ribs that the old gentleman fought him off, and Louis was reduced, as usual, to embracing the hat and umbrella.

“I could very easily telegraph to Paris for workmen,” continued Monsieur de Latour. “I could have fifty in here within twenty-four hours, and the materials could be had at Dinard. Fifty workmen ought to be able to make one wing habitable certainly within a fortnight.”

“My beloved uncle,” answered Louis, “you may have the whole chateau repaired at your expense if you desire. No one shall call me mean in that particular.”

“And as for furniture and tapestries, if an order were placed in Paris to-day it could be filled within forty-eight hours.”

“You are at perfect liberty to order furniture amounting to a million francs, if you like, also at your own expense, and Gobelins tapestries in any quantities you may wish. You will find me the most accommodating person in the world in these matters as long as you foot the bill.”

“And pictures—we must have some pictures to hide those discoloured walls.”

“Pray decorate them with old masters at five hundred thousand francs each, or if you prefer the moderns, buy a few Munkácsys, Corots, Détailles, or anything you like, provided they are good and very expensive. I place no limit upon you in that respect.”

“Really,” sarcastically answered Monsieur de Latour, “you are too good. I don’t contemplate spending my whole fortune in fitting up one wing of this establishment.”

“I shall put no obstacles in your way, if you do,” said Louis with the utmost amiability.

“I am afraid, young man, you don’t know very much about business.”

“Of course not. I am a De Latour, and if you wish to be taken for a scion of this noble house you must forget all about business—that is, as soon as you have conveyed to me the three hundred thousand francs which you have promised.”

Monsieur de Latour looked solemnly at Louis and then winked his left eye.

“I am a De Latour,” he said, “but I sha’n’t forget all about business. Don’t think that I am dipping into my principal or even hampering myself seriously in spending thirty or forty thousand francs of my income on this chateau. It is difficult to spend much in a small provincial place like Brionville. My income has been steadily accumulating for the past twenty years, and this is my first fling.”

Monsieur de Latour, however, being practical even in his follies, then proceeded to unfold his projects to Louis as they sat together at the rickety table in what Louis with much solemnity called the grand saloon. Plans were discussed, estimates were made, which provided for the expenditure of a considerable sum of money, but by no means foolishly or recklessly. Monsieur de Latour accompanied Louis through each room of the wing to be repaired. He selected his own apartments, a bedroom and a study.

“Not that I am what is called a reading man,” he explained, “but it sounds well to have a study. I have had an office all my life until now at Brionville. I can bring my servants on from home and get others here.”

All the time Louis had been asking subtle questions meant to discover how much Monsieur de Latour knew or would tell about Julie de Brésac, but without success, until Monsieur de Latour, returning to the grand saloon, squared himself off and said in a grandiose manner:

“My object in hurrying things up is that I may entertain as my guests the Comtesse de Beauregard and her niece, Mademoiselle de Brésac, of whom I spoke yesterday, and General Granier. You see, my young friend, I am not without grand acquaintances.”

“Of course not,” replied Louis. “You have known me since yesterday.”

“I mean other than yourself.”

“And what did you say was the name of Madame de Beauregard’s niece—Mademoiselle de Marsac?” asked Louis artlessly, meaning to throw Monsieur de Latour off the scent.

“De Brésac. She is in the country, or in a convent, or at St. Malo, or in Paris, or in half a dozen other places. I don’t know which. I could not get any satisfactory information concerning her out of Madame de Beauregard, and it seemed to exasperate her every time I asked about Julie.”

Louis walked to the window.

“But she is coming to the chateau, is she not?” he asked, turning around.

“Oh, yes! She is young and pretty, I understand, and I like youth and beauty. The fact is, I have not yet made up my mind whether I shall marry youth and beauty, age and rank, or”—remembering Séline Cheri—“middle age and merit.”

“I know which I shall marry,” answered Louis stoutly. “Youth and beauty, love and rapture, smiles and kisses.”

Monsieur de Latour then rose to go.

“I hope, my dear nephew-to-be,” he said, smiling, “that you will call upon my niece, Mademoiselle Mélanie Dupont, who is shortly to become your cousin. But although she has youth and beauty already, and kisses and smiles in store, they are not for you, but for that very piously inclined nephew of Madame de Beauregard, of whom I spoke—Eugène de Contiac. I am afraid you would be too gay for my niece. She is, as I mentioned, staying under the charge of Mademoiselle Cheri, my old friend, at the Villa Rose. But don’t go to kissing and embracing them as you do me.”

“Neither of them contemplates giving me three hundred thousand francs,” interrupted Louis. “I insist that it shall be made a part of our agreement that I shall be permitted to embrace you at least three times a day. You can get your life insured, you know. I shall do myself the honour and pleasure of calling this very afternoon upon Mademoiselle Cheri and my cousin, Mademoiselle Mélanie, whom I shall be proud to acknowledge as a relative.”

The arrangements took up all of the forenoon and much of the afternoon, and instead of turning up at the Villa Rose punctually at five o’clock for tea, as was his habit, Monsieur de Latour was, at that time, in the telegraph office sending and receiving despatches concerning work on the Chateau of Montplaisir.

But meanwhile Louis de Latour appeared at the villa to pay his respects to the ladies, quite unconscious of a strange and fortuitous meeting which was ahead of him.

A little before five o’clock Louis rang the bell of the villa, and was ushered through a gateway into a beautiful garden at the back, where, at their tea-table in a little grassy place almost surrounded by ancient rose-trees in the last blooming of summer, Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie received their guests in the afternoons. The air was soft and fragrant with the late blown roses, and the sunlight in unclouded splendour lay over land and sea. As Louis walked along the shady garden path to where the tea-table stood, the graceful figure of a girl, dressed modestly in black, was preceding him through the mazes of the shrubbery. One look sufficed. It was Julie de Brésac. Louis felt a shock of delight, rushed after her, and they met, unseen by other eyes, in a sweet and odorous solitude formed by a circle of rose-trees. Louis seized Julie’s hand, and she turned on him two sweet, dark eyes and a charming face all dimpling with smiles. There was pure delight in her glance.

“I did not expect to meet you here,” she said with pretty gravity, seating herself on a garden-chair and arranging her black draperies gracefully around her.

“And I did not expect to meet you here, mademoiselle,” answered Louis in rapture. “I suppose you have come, as I have, to call upon Mademoiselle Cheri and Mademoiselle Dupont, the niece of my benefactor, Monsieur de Latour. O mademoiselle, what a budget I have to unpack for you!”

“That will keep,” replied Julie hurriedly, raising her hand in a warning gesture. “But you are not to know that I am here nor to recognise me in the least, until we are introduced.”

What madcap prank had Julie now in her pretty head? thought Louis; for Julie was a madcap and given to pranks, and those which did not come of themselves into her head Madame de Beauregard was tolerably certain to put there, and this Louis expressed in guarded language. Suddenly it flashed upon him, the escapade which Julie proposed entering upon with Monsieur de Latour, and Julie herself confirmed this by whispering to him, as she opened her dainty black parasol so as to conceal her laughing face:

“You know, I have never seen Monsieur de Latour, who is the trustee of my property, but I happen to know that he has arrived at Dinard with his niece, Mélanie, and my cousin Eugène adores that girl. I also found out that Monsieur de Latour was advertising for a companion for Mélanie; so it came into my head and that of my aunt that I would take a look at my trustee without telling him who I am. So I have replied to the advertisement, and I am here to-day to be inspected for the position of companion.”

Julie said this with a dangerous demureness. Louis had discovered, in those radiant days at Algiers, that Julie was never perfectly serious unless she was bent on mischief.

“But, mademoiselle,” he said, “although Monsieur de Latour may not have mentioned it in his advertisement, he wishes a serious and settled person as companion, or rather chaperon, for Mademoiselle Mélanie. That much I know, although I met Monsieur de Latour only yesterday morning.”

“Am I not a serious and settled person?” asked Julie, tapping her little shoe with the end of her parasol. “At least am I not as serious and settled as you are?”

“Perhaps so, mademoiselle,” answered Louis, smiling. “I am afraid that both of us are a little intoxicated with the new wine of life which we are drinking.”

“At least,” promptly replied Julie, “I am twice as serious and settled as my aunt.” And at this they both laughed.

“All I ask of you,” added Julie, with a sidelong glance which enforced her request, “is that you will let me play my little part undiscovered. It is no harm—how can it be? I simply want to amuse myself a little. By the way, this is my first opportunity of congratulating you upon coming into your inheritance.”

“I wish it were a better inheritance,” replied Louis, fixing his eyes, bright with meaning, on Julie.

These two young souls, gay, affectionate, and exuberant by nature, had from the beginning, established a perfect communication by glances and unspoken words. Julie knew Louis to be her lover, and Louis felt that the thought was far from unpleasing to Julie, and she understood perfectly why he uttered this wish. He desired that his inheritance should be more worthy of her.

“But,” he said, “I have had a great, a marvellous piece of good fortune. Monsieur de Latour, you know, belongs, or thinks he belongs, to my family. Very well—I am only too happy to have an honest, hard-working soap-boiler among my relations. So Monsieur de Latour has arranged to make me a gift of three hundred thousand francs and to adopt me legally as his nephew. The papers will be prepared and will be signed as soon as ready. And then there is another glorious possibility in store for me. My Heaven-sent uncle tells me that you and Madame de Beauregard may be induced to visit us at the chateau as soon as part of it can be made habitable.”

“Then,” responded Julie softly, giving him another one of those lovely sidelong glances into which she threw both archness and sentiment, “even if I don’t succeed in playing this delightful trick on Monsieur de Latour, I shall at least have—the pleasure——”

Here Julie stopped, smiling and blushing, and Louis, taking up the thread, said delightedly:

“I shall have the joy of being under the same roof with you, at all events, for a little time.”

Louis paused and looked about him. They were quite alone except for the presence of a pair of blue pigeons, which were cooing softly on the top of an arbour near them. Louis leaned over and said one word, “Julie,” and Julie, whose eyes were suddenly downcast, raised them with a look in their blue depths which Louis had seen there when he had scarcely a franc to his name. Just then voices were heard, and in a half minute more Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie were seen approaching. There was no time for any further explanation. Julie, like most women of her class, was an admirable actress. As the women of good society have to appear interested when they are bored, to maintain their gravity when they are secretly amused, to regulate their antipathies and control their emotions, they are already graduates of the best school of acting in the world. Julie at once assumed an air which Louis had never dreamed that she possessed—an air submissive and deprecatory and well adapted to the character which she assumed of a young person looking for work. Mademoiselle Cheri spoke first, in her usual kind manner; she had no idea that this fascinating young girl was the person applying for a place as companion, and was considerably astonished when Julie said modestly:

“I am Mademoiselle de Courcey, and I have called by appointment at this hour in answer to an advertisement for a companion.”

Mademoiselle Cheri looked a little puzzled, glancing toward Louis, whom she had never seen and for whose presence she could not well account.

“Pardon, mademoiselle,” he said, advancing, “permit me to introduce myself. I am Monsieur Louis Victor de Latour, a relative of Monsieur Victor Louis de Latour, and I believe I have the honour of claiming relationship also with this young lady.” And he bowed and smiled in a pleasant manner peculiarly his own at Mélanie, who bowed and smiled in return.

There was nothing patronizing or uppish about this young man. Nothing could be simpler or more agreeable than his manner, thought Mélanie, who had expected to find him haughty to the last degree.

“I called to pay my respects to you, mademoiselle, and to my relative, Mademoiselle Dupont; but I perceive that you have an appointment with this lady, and I will postpone my visit to a more opportune season. May I return in half an hour?”

“Certainly, monsieur,” replied Mademoiselle Cheri. “I hope by that time Monsieur de Latour will be here. We expected him at five o’clock, and he is likely to arrive at any moment.”

Louis bowed himself off, and then Mademoiselle Cheri, inviting Julie to be seated, said to her politely:

“I am afraid, mademoiselle, there is a mistake here. I think Monsieur de Latour desired a lady old enough to be a chaperon, as well as a companion, for his niece.”

“Nothing was said about age, mademoiselle,” answered Julie demurely, “and I thought it possible that Monsieur de Latour might desire a companion rather than a chaperon.”

“That is what I really desire,” said Mélanie timidly. “I have no sisters, no cousins, and few girl friends. I have often longed for a companion of my own age.”

The two girls looked at each other with mutual good-will. Nothing could be more dissimilar—Mélanie, nun-like in her simplicity and piety, and Julie, full of the spirit of mischief without a restraining hand to guide her. But both of them were instinctively good, tender of heart and incapable of meanness, and their very oppositeness drew them together.

“Perhaps,” said Julie, “Monsieur de Latour might accept me temporarily as a companion for you, mademoiselle.”

“Yes,” answered Mélanie, clapping her hands softly, “at least while we are at Dinard. I should love to have a companion, and dear Mademoiselle Séline will chaperon us both.”

The two girls continued to gaze at each other with friendly and smiling eyes. Mademoiselle Cheri, the best of women and by nature a spoiler of children, girls, men, women, servants, horses, dogs, cats, and birds, at once replied:

“If it is agreeable to Monsieur de Latour, I am more than willing to chaperon you while we are at Dinard. I love to have young life about me.”

The two girls immediately plunged into a conversation with each other, Mademoiselle Cheri taking an occasional part, and the longer they conversed the more companionable they seemed. After waiting half an hour for Monsieur de Latour tea was served, and Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie succumbed still more to Julie’s sweetness and sprightliness. At last, finding it impossible to wait longer, as the alleged companion had an engagement for a very smart party given at one of the finest chateaux in the neighbourhood, Julie rose to go. She left behind her a strong desire in the minds of both Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie to see more of her.

It was quite six o’clock before Monsieur de Latour, red and panting, turned up, bringing with him Louis, who had promised to return within half an hour, but who had carefully watched the garden waiting for Julie’s departure. He had by no means the same confidence in his powers of acting that Julie had in hers, and had no mind to meet her again until he had better learned his part. Monsieur de Latour, seating himself, demanded refreshment at once, not only in the shape of tea, but in a glass of cognac.

“For I can tell you,” he puffed, turning to Louis, “I have had as hard a day’s work as I ever did when I was in charge of the vats of your respected father, Mademoiselle Séline. But,” he continued, after disposing promptly of the cognac, “I have been quite successful. In ten days more, thanks to my own energy and determination and the good-will of my nephew here”—at which he slapped Louis on the back—“one wing of my ancestral chateau will be habitable.”

Louis agreed to every plan, and even suggestion, that Monsieur de Latour made, and expressed the highest gratification at all that had been undertaken, of which he frankly acknowledged himself the beneficiary.

“And then,” he said, smiling, “I shall hope to have the pleasure of seeing you, dear uncle, and my Cousin Mélanie and Mademoiselle Cheri, established at the Chateau of Montplaisir, to stay as long as you like.”

Monsieur de Latour was delighted at this, and went on to explain the various orders he had given. Mélanie attempted once or twice to bring up the subject of the companion, but Monsieur de Latour, with his tongue tied to no ear but his own, would not listen.

“The great matter,” he said, “was the roof. I can get it temporarily patched up, and then, when the season at Dinard is over, I can have the work done properly. The windows gave me very little trouble, as I found the frames were the regulation size. The furniture and tapestries were easily managed, and I think those lazy Paris tradesmen will learn a thing or two from the way we do things at Brionville; eh, Mademoiselle Séline?”

Mademoiselle Cheri, who was as fond of her native town as provincials usually are, promptly agreed to this. Monsieur de Latour could not forbear chuckling at the accounts of his aristocratic splendour which his servants would take back to Brionville.

At last Mélanie managed to get his attention and told him that Mademoiselle de Courcey had called and was much disappointed at not seeing him, but had arranged to come to the villa again the next morning at twelve o’clock, when he must be there to meet her.

“But, my dear,” remonstrated Monsieur de Latour, “I am to be at the Chateau of Montplaisir at twelve o’clock. However, couldn’t you and Mademoiselle Cheri, as I wish to show you the chateau, bring the lady there, and we could have the interview as well as here.”

“Certainly, dear uncle,” cried Mélanie, and putting her hand on his arm, she continued: “I do hope that you will like Mademoiselle de Courcey. Ask Mademoiselle Séline what she thinks of her.”

“I admired her very much. She has the unmistakable air of good breeding which I think very necessary to a companion and most difficult to find in that capacity,” answered Mademoiselle Cheri, secretly trying to forward the wishes of the two girls. “Don’t you think so, monsieur?” she added, turning to Louis.

Louis, who wished to keep out of the imbroglio, was forced to speak, and he uttered only the truth when he cordially agreed with Mademoiselle Cheri.

“And the languages?” asked Monsieur de Latour.

Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie looked a little blank at this. They had been so captivated by Julie’s charm that they had not inquired into her accomplishments. But Louis came to the front, saying:

“I have reason to know that Mademoiselle de Courcey speaks English and German fluently, and is an admirable musician.”

Luckily, Monsieur de Latour did not demand the source from whence Louis had acquired his information, but asked the question which Mélanie had apprehended.

“And how about her age?” he inquired. “She must be over fifty, of course.”

There was a pause before Mélanie said timidly:

“She is quite young—not more than two-and-twenty, I fancy. But, uncle, I want her for a girl companion and friend, at least while we are at Dinard, and Mademoiselle Cheri says she will chaperon us both.”

Monsieur de Latour put his cup down and looked around sternly. He felt that he had been chicaned by the whole party.

“No, my love,” he said positively, “you have been talking nonsense, if you will pardon me for saying so, and you have committed a very great folly in encouraging this young lady, Mademoiselle de Courcey, to suppose that she was by any means the person I desired. I admit all her accomplishments, but she is too young. She would require more chaperoning even than you, and kind as Mademoiselle Cheri is, I could not think of imposing two girls upon her instead of one. So I am afraid you will have to give up the notion of having her.”

“But, uncle——”

“Not another word on the subject, my dear. She is too young. I wonder that you should not see the impossibility of any such arrangement. Besides, think of the scandal it would give. People would say that I intended to marry the young woman, and, being a bachelor, I must be on my guard.”

“I never observed,” said Mademoiselle Cheri, “that a bachelor on his guard was any safer than a bachelor off his guard, and besides, age is as good a protection to a man as to a woman.”

Monsieur de Latour glared at Mademoiselle Cheri. This way she had of giving him penknife thrusts when he least expected them was most unpleasant. He felt then far more inclined to marry Madame de Beauregard than Mademoiselle Cheri, being fully persuaded that he could have either lady at any time he wished.

Louis listened to this conversation with alternate hope and fear. The idea of having Julie established at the chateau where he could see her daily was inexpressibly captivating to him, but her taste for lively adventures, which was ardently fostered by that rollicking old madcap, the Comtesse de Beauregard, made him shiver with apprehension. However, he thought if he could once call Julie his own—and he had reason enough to believe he could—she would, like all other women who love, accommodate herself to his ideas, which, although not as strict as Mademoiselle Cheri’s, were not exactly as lax as Madame de Beauregard’s. The more Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie saw of Louis, the better they liked him, and he gave every indication of an intention to live up to his bargain with Monsieur de Latour and to treat the old gentleman and his family and friends with the greatest consideration.

“It would be just as well,” said Monsieur de Latour after a while, “that we should have a family meeting and a little festivity at the chateau to commemorate the reunion of the two branches of the family. My lawyers promised to have all of the papers ready in a few days, and then I shall hand over the sum agreed upon to my nephew-to-be, and it may not be all that he will get from me eventually.”

To which Louis replied by a sudden sortie on Monsieur de Latour, and an embrace which Monsieur de Latour, rubbing his sides afterward, declared almost cost him his life. But he liked the heartiness and good-will which Louis showed, and the indisposition to haggle over the terms of the bargain.

The next morning at ten o’clock Monsieur de Latour was in his glory at the Chateau of Montplaisir. The hammering of workmen resounded upon the roof, masons and carpenters were all over the place, and Monsieur de Latour was inspiring and directing them with more zeal than helpfulness. He distracted the workmen by his directions, called them when they were busy to urge them to make greater haste, and, in short, his wishes outran his discretion, as the case is with most people.

The August sun shone brightly, and the old rookery was flooded with the warm blue air. The presence of the workmen and Monsieur de Latour, strutting about declaiming in a loud, cheerful voice, followed at every step by Louis in great spirits, made a complete transformation of the scene. There was but one thing in Louis to which Monsieur de Latour objected, and that was Louis’s propensity to embrace the old gentleman on every possible occasion. When he had done this about twenty times that morning, Monsieur de Latour stopped him in the middle of the court-yard and remonstrated strongly.

“Look here,” he said, “I can’t stand this eternal embracing and kissing on your part. It’s all well enough to be grateful, and I like to see the spirit in you, young man, but I can’t run the risk of having my ribs broken twenty times a day. There must be some limit put to it.”

“Very well, then, dear uncle,” replied Louis affectionately, “only grant me the privilege of embracing you and kissing the top of your head three times a day. With less I cannot exist.”

“Wouldn’t once a day answer?” asked Monsieur de Latour dubiously.

“No, a dozen times no! I cannot control the exuberance of my feelings for twenty-four hours consecutively. I must embrace you at least three times a day. Would you consider it a violation of this arrangement, which, after all, seems so inadequate to express my feelings, if I were to put my arm affectionately around your neck, thus?”

Here Louis insinuated his arm around Monsieur de Latour’s neck and rested his head against his new-found uncle’s left ear.

“Decidedly so,” replied Monsieur de Latour, shaking him off. “It is the first time in my life that I have ever had to repress gratitude; but gratitude such as yours is positively dangerous. I think my life has been in jeopardy a dozen times since I arranged to give you the three hundred thousand francs. You are a very athletic young man and I am not as young as I was once, and although my life is insured I don’t care to take unnecessary risks.”

“I must then submit,” said Louis sorrowfully, withdrawing his arm. “But recollect, three times a day I am to be allowed to express to you by my endearments my affection and grateful thanks.”

“Yes, and whenever else you feel the impulse you will have to embrace my umbrella and hat. I put no restrictions whatever upon your endearments to those. Now let us go out upon the terrace and await our friends.”

The terrace, like the court-yard and the chateau, was mouldering, cracked, and broken in every part, but the view of the laughing blue sea, the beautiful gardens and trees and grass and the charming villas of Dinard was most lovely. Louis and Monsieur de Latour had just reached the terrace when Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie and Julie appeared. Mélanie ran forward and, taking her uncle’s hand, cried:

“Dear uncle, here we are with Mademoiselle de Courcey.”

And then Mademoiselle Cheri presented Julie. The instant Monsieur de Latour’s eyes rested upon Julie a sudden change came over his feelings. He became acutely conscious of her youth, her beauty, her charm. When a man is in Monsieur de Latour’s state of mind, having decided to marry and is merely considering the choice of a lady, he looks at every member of the sex with a critical eye—the whole fair is his as long as he has sixpence in his pocket. The idea recurred to him that he might select, as the future Madame de Latour, a young and pretty girl. He wished to see something more of the pretended Mademoiselle de Courcey, but it occurred to him at once that he had created rather an awkward complication by his firmly expressed determination not to engage Julie on account of her youth as companion for Mélanie on any terms whatever. Mélanie was delighted, however, and Louis secretly diverted, when Monsieur de Latour promptly began to promenade up and down the terrace by the side of Julie. Louis, by way of giving Julie a chance, took Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie off into a corner where there were some decayed seats—everything about the Chateau of Montplaisir was decayed—and while ostensibly showing them the view, saw Julie sailing into the old gentleman’s good graces in the most unequivocal manner. Julie, with downcast eyes and the most demure air in the world, was playing off her little practical joke on her trustee, while Monsieur de Latour, blandly unconscious that he was being hoodwinked by the artful young person at his side, was thinking that, after all, no woman is too young for any man, and rapidly coming to the determination to have Julie at any price as a member of his family circle.

Not one word on the subject of business was exchanged between them as they promenaded up and down for half an hour. The beauties of the sea and sky, the charms of Dinard, the latest plays in Paris, the last poems and romances, were the subjects on which Julie—the artful Julie—chose to entertain Monsieur de Latour, who was only too willing to be entertained. Being a very clever young person she realised all the headway she was making, and was not in the least surprised when Monsieur de Latour said impressively, after a while:

“Now, my dear mademoiselle, when the subject of your being my niece’s companion was first broached and I heard of your youth and—ah—extreme beauty and charm, I said that, notwithstanding your acquirements and accomplishments, you were not old enough to be my niece’s companion, who would also be her chaperon.”

“O dear Monsieur de Latour,” answered Julie in her sweetest voice and demurest manner, “you have no idea how sedate I am. I am serious beyond my years.” Which was quite true when she had a mischievous project on hand.

“I know—I know,” remarked Monsieur de Latour. “I see that you are prudence and primness and propriety itself. But—but—the world won’t think so.”

“If you, Monsieur de Latour, thought me old enough to be your niece’s companion, all the world—I mean our world, that is—would think so, too, because everybody respects your judgment.”

This was laying on the flattery where it would do the most good, and Monsieur de Latour smiled delightedly.

“You are very good,” he said. “Some people do think me a person of sense. But, although I cannot possibly engage you as my niece’s companion, another scheme occurs to me by which she can have the benefit of your charming society, and I, too, I hope, in a measure”—this in a very low voice so that Mademoiselle Cheri, whom Monsieur de Latour supposed to be consumed with jealousy at the other end of the terrace, could not hear.

“Any scheme which you advocate, monsieur, will be highly agreeable to me,” replied Julie, seeing that she had brought down her quarry at the first shot.

“It is this—I foresee that I shall have immediate need of a private secretary. Of course, in my business I have persons to do that sort of work, but a private secretary must be a member of my family, and you are the only person whom I have yet seen whom I should be willing to have in that position. Do you happen to have stenography among your accomplishments?”

“What is that?” asked Julie innocently.

“Oh, well, never mind! Did you ever do any typewriting?”

“No, indeed,” replied Julie, laughing, “but I have seen a typewriting machine two or three times.”

“Well, that’s no matter—I can get along without that.”

“But I can write,” said Julie.

Monsieur de Latour remembered that the only writing of hers which he had seen was far from legible, but he was not going to let a thing like ignorance of stenography or typewriting, or even the inability to write a good, plain hand stand in the way of his engaging a pretty girl as secretary.

“Well, well,” he continued confidently, “I think we can manage. I myself write a good, legible, commercial hand, and I could assist you.”

“Oh, if you would be so kind,” cried Julie, “I should think it would be perfectly charming! I never thought I could be a private secretary, but I am sure if I have neither stenography nor typewriting to do and you will write your own letters, that I could fill the place acceptably.”

“Certainly, certainly you can,” replied Monsieur de Latour. “And as for salary, only name your price.”

But Julie was too wary for this.

“Whatever you think, Monsieur de Latour,” she said.

“What do you say to five hundred francs the month?”

“I say five hundred thanks for it,” replied Julie, laughing, to whom five hundred francs was by no means the enormous sum which Monsieur de Latour supposed it would be.

Then came the breaking the news to Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie, but, as Monsieur de Latour reflected, they had tormented him to take Julie, and now they would have no right to complain if he took her for his own benefit and not theirs. So he marched up to the group at the other end of the terrace and said oracularly to Mélanie:

“My dear, you have the most indulgent uncle in the world. As soon as I found your heart was set upon having Mademoiselle de Courcey as your companion, I determined to gratify you. It is true that her youth renders her unequal to the position of chaperon, but as Mademoiselle Cheri has kindly consented to take that upon herself as long as we are at Dinard, I think we can arrange to have Mademoiselle de Courcey in another capacity. She is to be my private secretary.”

At that a look of intelligence flashed between Louis and Julie. By some occult means Louis understood that the prospect of being near him had something to do with the present arrangement, and a thrill of delight went through him. Mélanie was immensely pleased, and only Mademoiselle Cheri looked a little disconcerted. Monsieur de Latour thought it was easy to account for this last. All women are jealous.

“So now,” continued Monsieur de Latour grandly, “I hope very much that within ten days we can be established in this wing of the chateau and have some pleasant days together before the end of the season. We shall, of course, find acquaintances here. Among others”—here he turned to Julie, meaning to impress her with the fact that he knew some people at Dinard with handles to their names—“I may reckon the Comtesse de Beauregard, of one of the greatest families in France, but a very terrible old lady, mademoiselle, and much too young for her years. Then she has a friend, General Granier, as old as Methuselah and as gay as a bird. Madame de Beauregard, I think, should be a little more discreet than she is. But some women never seem to realise the passage of time.”

“Nor some men, either,” replied Mademoiselle Cheri. “A woman always realises that she must some day be old, and the idea is too painful to be ignored, but no man, particularly if he is unmarried, ever actually believes that age can touch him, and when he is a complete old wreck he thinks, just as General Granier does, that he is Apollo and Adonis rolled in one.”

This speech annoyed Monsieur de Latour very much. Most people, since he had acquired the power to write his cheque for three hundred thousand francs without seriously inconveniencing himself, treated him with a very great degree of respect, but Séline Cheri seemed unable to discern the difference between him now and in the days when he was a clerk in her father’s soap-factory.

Monsieur de Latour, feeling called upon to justify his somewhat precipitate action in engaging this pretty young lady as his private secretary, and quite determined to have his own way in the matter, remarked to Julie:

“I think, mademoiselle, we must arrange to begin work at the earliest possible moment. I have some very important matters to attend to—business affairs concerning my nephew”—here Monsieur de Latour waved his arm majestically toward Louis—“and myself, so if you could report to me, we will say to-morrow morning at ten o’clock, at the Villa Rose, we could begin work.”

“But why not here, monsieur?” asked Julie innocently. “If the weather is fine, as it promises to be, we could work on the terrace.”

“Quite true. What a very prompt and businesslike young person you are! Very well—if fair, to-morrow morning on the terrace at ten; if rainy, at the Villa Rose.”

Louis, his breath almost taken away by Julie’s proposition, gazed at her in astonishment, but nothing could exceed that young person’s calmness and composure. Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie were not much used to private secretaries, and they had been so startled by Monsieur de Latour’s sudden change of mind that nothing further could surprise them. And, besides, as they had both urged him to secure Julie’s companionship for Mélanie, they were hardly in a position to oppose him.

Louis then invited them to inspect his ancestral mansion, which he professed, with the utmost politeness, to consider Monsieur de Latour’s ancestral mansion likewise. The prospect of being established there struck the fancy of them all. It was a unique pleasure, heretofore out of the experience of each, and seemed like the beginning of one of those idyls of times past when a party of congenial persons could segregate themselves in some exquisite spot and keep the whole world at bay.

Old Suzette had, by some hocus-pocus, acquired a supply of fruit and cakes which she served on the terrace, meanwhile scrutinising the party closely and coming rapidly to the conclusion that Monsieur Louis, as she called him, was deeply in love with Mademoiselle Julie, and that Mademoiselle Julie had a soft spot in her heart for Monsieur Louis.

As Louis stood on the terrace watching Julie’s graceful figure disappearing in the shady path below, old Suzette came up, and planting herself with both arms akimbo before him, said, with a broad smile:

“It is the young lady in black, and I have a secret to tell you, monsieur. She is very much in love with you.”

At which Louis joyfully embraced her as he had done Monsieur de Latour, and, printing a sounding kiss on her leathery old cheek, cried out:

“Do you think so? Heaven send you may be right!”