At breakfast I found myself in plain favour; I had made good my boast and shielded the house from the Black Abbé. Yvonne met my eager looks with a baffling lightness. She was all gay courtesy to me, but there was that in her face which well dashed my hopes. Some faint encouragement, indeed, I drew from the thought that her pallor (which became her wonderfully) seemed to tell the tale of a sleepless night. Had she, then, lain awake, wearily reproaching herself, while I slept like a clod? If so, my punishment was not long delayed. Before the breakfast was over I was in a fever of despairing solicitude. At last I achieved a moment’s speech with Yvonne while the others were out of earshot. “This morning,” said I, “in the apple-orchard, by an old tree which I shall all my life remember, I am to read you those verses, am I not? That was your decree.” She faced me with laughter in her eyes, but the eyes dropped in spite of her, and the colour came a little back to her cheeks. “I decree otherwise this morning,” she said, in a voice whose lightness was not perfect. “I am busy to-day, and shall not hear your poems at all, unless you read them to _us_ this evening.” “I will read them to you alone,” I muttered, “who alone are the source of them, or I will burn them at once!” “Don’t burn them,” she said, flashing one radiant glance at me. “Then when may I read them to you?” I begged. “When you are older, and a little wiser, and a great deal better,” she laughed, turning away with a finality in her air that convinced me my day was lost. Putting my bravest face on my defeat, I said to Madame de Lamourie: “If you will pardon me, Madame, I shall constrain myself and attend to certain duties in and about Grand Pré to-day. I must see the curé; and I have a commission to execute for the Sieur de Briart, which will take me perhaps as far as Pereau. In such case I shall not be back here before to-morrow noon.” “If our pleasure concerns you,” said Madame very graciously, “make your absence as brief as you can.” “I was born with a nice regard for self,” I replied. “You may be sure I shall return as quickly as possible.” “And what if the Black Abbé should come while you are away?” questioned Yvonne, in mock alarm. “If that extraordinary priest makes my presence here a long necessity I shall come to regard him as my best friend,” said I, laughing, as I bowed myself out to join De Lamourie in a stroll over the farm.