irruping in his
pleasure. "For Napoleon--"

"Ah, Napoleon--yes, Napoleon?" she said, turning to Valmond, with a look
half of interest, half of incredulity.

"--For Napoleon is, through him, a revelation," the avocat went on. "He
fills in the vague spaces, clears up mysteries of incident, and gives,
instead, mystery of character."

"Indeed," she added, still incredulous, but interested in this bizarre
figure who had so worked upon her old friend, interested because she
had a keen scent for mystery, and instinctively felt it here before her.
Like De la Riviere, she perceived a strange combination of the gentleman
and--something else; but, unlike him, she saw also a light in the face
and eyes that might be genius, poetry, adventure. For the incongruities,
what did they matter to her? She wished to probe life, to live it,
to race the whole gamut of inquiry, experiences, follies, loves, and
sacrifices, to squeeze the orange dry, and then to die while yet young,
having gone the full compass, the needle pointing home. She was as broad
as sumptuous in her nature; so what did a gaucherie matter? or a dash of
the Oriental in a citizen of the Occident?

"Then we must set the centuries right, and so on--if you will come to
see me when I am settled at the Manor," she added, with soft raillery,
to Valmond. He bowed, expressed his pleasure a little oracularly, and
was about to say something else, but she turned deftly to De la Riviere,
with a sweetness which made up for her previous irony to him, and said:

"You, my kind Seigneur, will come to breakfast with me one day? My
husband will be here soon. When you see our flag flying, you will find
the table always laid for four."

Then to the Cure and the avocat: "You shall visit me whenever you will,
and you are to wait for nothing, or I shall come to fetch you. Voila!
I am so glad to see you. And now, dear Cure, will you take me to my
carriage?"

Soon there was a surf of dust rising behind the carriage, hiding her;
but four men, left behind in the little garden, stood watching, as if
they expected to see a vision in rose and gold rise from it; and each
was smiling unconsciously.

CHAPTER IV

Since Friday night the good Cure, in his calm, philosophical way, had
brooded much over the talk in the garden upon France, the Revolution,
and Napoleon. As a rule, his sermons were commonplace almost to a
classical simplicity, but there were times when, moved by some new
theme, he