Mere Felix was clamorous with welcomes, smiling heartsomely upon the daughter of the powerful manager of her husband's works, and quite willing to accept me as an elderly relative placed in charge of the outing. In which she made mistake, for nothing is more certain that all such expeditions were conducted according to the sole will of Rhoda Polly. We arranged for lunch to be served under the _tonnelle_ overlooking the river, and I stayed in the kitchen along with Mere Felix and the moon-faced maid-of-all-work. It was in my mind that perhaps Rhoda Polly might strike up one of her friendships with Jeanne, or at least do something to explain away the rather strained situation. Nor did I seem to be altogether wrong, for presently I saw the two girls amicably putting a boat to rights after a night's fishing in the flooded river. They were too distant for me to gather anything from their behaviour to one another. But presently it was evident that Rhoda Polly was talking in her wild harum-scarum fashion, for Jeanne threw back her head suddenly with a tinkle of laughter and a flash of brown throat showing pleasantly under a scarlet kerchief. I said in my heart--so vain and foolish was I--that the battle was to the cunning, and I thought no small potatoes of myself at that moment. I soon found, however, that Jeanne, though she might laugh at Rhoda Polly's freely expressed yarns, had no intention of forgiving me. If Rhoda Polly was heart-free, that was certainly not my fault. So when they came back to the house I tried in vain to inveigle Jeanne behind the barns where the fish-ponds lay safe and solitary, so that I might explain at my leisure. But it was "Monsieur is too good, but a poor girl has her work to do. _She_ has no time to go off sightseeing of a forenoon even with so charming a cicerone as Monsieur!" The little vixen! She tossed her head as she said it, and I declare that her small white teeth snapped together like a rat-trap. When I spoke to her after this, she answered me only with the distant civility of a well-trained servitor: "What can I do for Monsieur? If Monsieur will only take the trouble to rest himself in the _salle_ while I send Babette to attend to his wants!" (Babette was the moon-faced, rather besmutted scullion of the kitchen and the courtyard.) "Why, Jeanne," I cried, seeing that Rhoda Polly was at a safe distance learning the receipt for some sauce or dish from the Mere Felix, "Jeanne, why do you treat me like this? Are we not old comrades? Do you remember the day among the reeds after the boat went down and we had to tramp all the way home barefoot? I wrapped your feet in our handkerchiefs, Jeanne, because you had lost your shoes and stockings in the boat." "I do not know to what Monsieur is good enough to refer. I think that the walk in the sun from Chateau Schneider must have made Monsieur a little light-headed!"