ld be an understanding between her aunt and
herself soon as late.

"Because he will come again the sooner, Aunt Jeanne, if he sees me no
more after to-night." And Victorine gave a little mocking nod with her
head, turned towards the dresser piled high with dishes, and began to
make a great clatter washing them.

Jeanne was silent. She did not know how to take this.

Victorine glanced up at her mischievously, and laughed aloud. "Better a
grape for me than two figs for thee. Dost know the old proverb, Aunt
Jeanne? Thou hadst thy figs; I will e'en pluck the grape."

"Bah, child! thou talkest wildly," said Jeanne; "I know not what thou
'rt at."

But she did know very well; only she did not choose to seem to
understand. However, as she thought matters over later in the evening,
in the solitude of her own room, one thing was clear to her, and that
was that it would probably be safe to trust Mademoiselle Victorine to
row her own boat; and Jeanne said as much to her father when he inquired
of her how matters had sped.

In spite of Victorine's refusal to serve at the breakfast, she had not
the least idea of letting Willan go away in the morning without being
reminded of her presence. She was up before light, dressed in a pretty
pink and white flowered gown, which set off her black hair and eyes
well, and made her look as if she were related to an apple-blossom. She
watched and listened till she heard the sound of voices and the horses'
feet in the courtyard below; then throwing open her casement she leaned
out and began to water her flowers on the stairway roof. At the first
sound Willan Blaycke looked up and saw her. It was as pretty a picture
as a man need wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The window
was so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not to
see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once
looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant,
picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing
them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a
low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating away
tantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear.

It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it never
once crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was looking
at her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimate
of her, that wh