``And who--par exemple--is to protect me against--you, Monsieur?'' she asked in the lowest of voices.
``You forget that I, too, am unprotected--and vulnerable, Mademoiselle,'' he answered.
Her face was hidden again, but not for long.
``How did you come?'' she demanded presently.
``On air,'' he answered, ``for we saw you in New Orleans yesterday.''
``And--why?''
``Need you ask, Mademoiselle?'' said the rogue, and then, with more effrontery than ever, he began to sing:--`` `Je voudrais bien me marier, Je voudrais bien me marier, Mais j'ai grand' peur de me tromper.' ''
She rose, her sewing falling to the ground, and took a few startled steps towards us.
``Monsieur! you will be heard,'' she cried.
``And put out of the Garden of Eden,'' said Nick.
``I must leave you,'' she said, with the quaintest of English pronunciation.
Yet she stood irresolute in the garden path, a picture against the dark green leaves and the flowers.Her age might have been seventeen.Her gown was of some soft and light material printed in buds of delicate color, her slim arms bare above the elbow.She had the ivory complexion of the province, more delicate than I had yet seen, and beyond that I shall not attempt to describe her, save to add that she was such a strange mixture of innocence and ingenuousness and coquetry as I had not imagined.
Presently her gaze was fixed seriously on me.
``Do you think it very wrong, Monsieur?'' she asked.
I was more than taken aback by this tribute.
``Oh,'' cried Nick, ``the arbiter of etiquette!''
``Since I am here, Mademoiselle,'' I answered, with anything but readiness, ``I am not a proper judge.''
Her next question staggered me.
``You are well-born?'' she asked.
``Mr.Ritchie's grandfather was a Scottish earl,'' said Nick, immediately, a piece of news that startled me into protest.``It is true, Davy, though you may not know it,'' he added.
``And you, Monsieur?'' she said to Nick.
``I am his cousin,--is it not honor enough?'' said he.
``Yet you do not resemble one another.''
``Mr.Ritchie has all the good looks in the family,'' said Nick.
``Oh!'' cried the young lady, and this time she gave us her profile.
``Come, Mademoiselle,'' said Nick, ``since the fates have cast the die, let us all sit down in the shade.The place was made for us.''
``Monsieur!'' she cried, giving back, ``I have never in my life been alone with gentlemen.''
``But Mr.Ritchie is a duenna to satisfy the most exacting,'' said Nick; ``when you know him better you will believe me.''
She laughed softly and glanced at me.By this time we were all three under the branches.
``Monsieur, you do not understand the French customs.
Mon Dieu, if the good Sister Lorette could see me now--''
``But she is safe in the convent,'' said Nick.``Are they going to put glass on the walls?''
``And why?'' asked Mademoiselle, innocently.
``Because,'' said Nick, ``because a very bad man has come to New Orleans,--one who is given to climbing walls.''
``You?''
``Yes.But when I found that a certain demoiselle had left the convent, I was no longer anxious to climb them.''
``And how did you know that I had left it?''
I was at a loss to know whether this were coquetry or innocence.
``Because I saw you on the levee,'' said Nick.
``You saw me on the levee?'' she repeated, giving back.
``And I had a great fear,'' the rogue persisted.
``A fear of what?''
``A fear that you were married,'' he said, with a boldness that made me blush.As for Mademoiselle, a color that vied with the June roses charged through her cheeks.
She stooped to pick up her sewing, but Nick was before her.
``And why did you think me married?'' she asked in a voice so low that we scarcely heard.
``Faith,'' said Nick, ``because you seemed to be quarrelling with a man.''
She turned to him with an irresistible seriousness.
``And is that your idea of marriage, Monsieur?''
This time it was I who laughed, for he had been hit very fairly.
``Mademoiselle,'' said he, ``I did not for a moment think it could have been a love match.''
Mademoiselle turned away and laughed.
``You are the very strangest man I have ever seen,''
she said.
``Shall I give you my notion of a love match, Mademoiselle?'' said Nick.
``I should think you might be well versed in the subject, Monsieur,'' she answered, speaking to the tree, ``but here is scarcely the time and place.'' She wound up her sewing, and faced him.``I must really leave you,'' she said.
He took a step towards her and stood looking down into her face.Her eyes dropped.
``And am I never to see you again?'' he asked.
Monsieur!'' she cried softly, ``I do not know who you are.'' She made him a courtesy, took a few steps in the opposite path, and turned.``That depends upon your ingenuity,'' she added; ``you seem to have no lack of it, Monsieur.''
Nick was transported.
``You must not go,'' he cried.
``Must not? How dare you speak to me thus, Monsieur?'' Then she tempered it.``There is a lady here whom I love, and who is ill.I must not be long from her bedside.''
``She is very ill?'' said Nick, probably for want of something better.
``She is not really ill, Monsieur, but depressed--is not that the word? She is a very dear friend, and she has had trouble--so much, Monsieur,--and my mother brought her here.We love her as one of the family.''
This was certainly ingenuous, and it was plain that the girl gave us this story through a certain nervousness, for she twisted her sewing in her fingers as she spoke.
``Mademoiselle,'' said Nick, ``I would not keep you from such an errand of mercy.''
She gave him a grateful look, more dangerous than any which had gone before.
``And besides,'' he went on, ``we have come to stay awhile with you, Mr.Ritchie and myself.''
``You have come to stay awhile?'' she said.
I thought it time that the farce were ended.
``We have come with letters to your father, Monsieur de Saint-Gre, Mademoiselle,'' I said, ``and I should like very much to see him, if he is at leisure.''
Mademoiselle stared at me in unfeigned astonishment.
``But did you not meet him, Monsieur?'' she demanded.