"I beg a thousand pardons, Mme. la Marquise," she stammered ruefully, as she wiped her hot, red hands on her apron. "I have known the Gen--I mean M. de Maurel all these years, and ... I ... I was meaning that...." "That what, my good woman?" asked Madame tartly. She appeared very detached and haughty, but Fernande, who shot one of her keen, mischievous glances at her aunt from beneath her long lashes, noted with vast amusement that though Madame was not working for the moment, the knitting needles in her hands were clicking audibly one against the other. "I mean, Madame la Marquise, that M. le Comte de Maurel is coming down the avenue," Annette was at last able to blurt out. "Will Mme. la Marquise receive him?" "Of course I will receive M. le Comte," replied Madame with perfect dignity. "Tell Matthieu to show M. le Comte up here." "Yes, Madame la Marquise," murmured Annette, who felt a little awed by the atmosphere of pomp which had so unaccountably descended on the old veranda and its inmates, and to which she--poor soul!--was wholly unaccustomed. "And Matthieu says, Madame la Marquise, what is he to do about the horse?" "The horse?" "The Gen ... I ... I mean M. le Comte is on horseback and the stable roof fell in six years ago." "My good Annette," here interposed M. de Courson with marked irritability, "do not worry Madame la Marquise with such trifles. Surely Matthieu can look after a horse for an hour or so while a visitor pays his respects up here!" "Well ... Matthieu says," muttered Annette, whose temper was none too equable at any time, "that he cannot come up and announce a visitor and look after a horse at one and the same time." An exclamation of impatience came from Laurent as he rose from his seat. "Why all this pother, I wonder?" he said. "I'll go and see after the man's horse. One of his own vanners, I suppose. He must look funny on horseback with that linen blouse of his flopping round him in the wind." He crossed the veranda, ready to follow Annette. The worthy woman, having shrugged her fat shoulders and thrown up her hands with an expressive gesture of complete detachment from the doings of her betters, started to shuffle back the way she came. But before either she or Laurent had reached the wide glass portieres which gave on the principal State apartments of the chateau, a firm tread, with a curious drag in it and accompanied by the click of spurs, was heard to cross the hall and then to resound on the parquet floor of the vast reception-room which led directly to the veranda. "Too late, _mon cousin_," said Fernande in her tantalizingly demure way. "M. de Maurel has apparently been too impatient to await your welcome. He...." She paused--the next words dying upon her lips--her hands poised in mid-air holding her work and the embroidery thread. Even she could not repress a slight gasp of astonishment as Ronnay de Maurel's tall figure appeared under the lintel of the door. III