d was lost to sight. For a moment longer
the lullaby floated across the garden and the green fields, then
the cornet and the concertina began again, and Ferrol turned towards
Christine.

He had seen her paleness and her look of consternation, had observed the
sulky, penetrating look of the bear-leader's eye, and he knew that he
was stumbling upon a story. Her eye met his, then swiftly turned
away. When her look came to his face again it was filled with defiant
laughter, and a hot brilliancy showed where the paleness had been.

"Will you dance with me?" Ferrol asked.

"Dance with you here?" she responded incredulously.

"Yes, just here," he said, with a dry little laugh, as he ran his arm
round her waist and drew her out upon the green.

"And who is Vanne Castine?" he asked as they swung away in time with the
music.

The rest stopped dancing when they saw these two appear in the
ring-through curiosity or through courtesy.

She did not answer immediately. They danced a little longer, then he
said:

"An old friend, eh?"

After a moment, with a masked defiance still, and a hard laugh, she
answered in English, though his question had been in French:

"De frien' of an ol frien'."

"You seem to be strangers now," he suggested. She did not answer at all,
but suddenly stopped dancing, saying: "I'm tired."

The dance went on without them. Sophie and Farcinelle presently withdrew
also. In five minutes the crowd had scattered, and the Lavilettes and
Mr. Ferrol returned to the house.

Meanwhile, as they passed up the street, the droning, vibrating voice
of the bear-leader came floating along the air and through the voices of
the crowd like the thread of motive in the movement of an opera.

CHAPTER V

That night, while gaiety and feasting went on at the Lavilettes', there
was another sort of feasting under way at the house of Shangois, the
notary.

On one side of a tiny fire in the chimney, over which hung a little
black kettle, sat Shangois and Vanne Castine. Castine was blowing clouds
of smoke from his pipe, and Shangois was pouring some tea leaves into a
little tin pot, humming to himself snatches of an old song as he did so:

"What shall we do when the King comes home?
What shall we do when he rides along
With his slaves of Greece and his serfs of Rome?
What shall we sing for a song--
When the King comes home?

"What shall we do when the King