At Maufant matters were not quite so peaceful. The ladies there, it may be feared, were ready enough to regret the page's visit and its consequences, if not to express that regret to the old friend who might with some cause have complained. Pretending indifference, he sate silently in a seat further from the ladies than that which he had occupied before the page's intrusion. Finding him disinclined for talk, Rose read her husband's letter without taking any further notice of him by whom it had been brought. At length she broke the awkward silence; replacing the letter in her bosom and turning to Alain, she said:-- "I must go and get your chamber ready. I shall be back anon." And she left the room by the concealed door. Left alone with his mistress, Alain fell into a great embarrassment. Marguerite, for her part, felt a qualm of conscience, had he only known it. But her _amour-propre_ was, none the less, extremely hurt by his cavalier treatment of her flowers. She was by no means in love with the saucy Scot, who had indeed given her some offence by the frankness of his leave-taking, though this was a matter of which she was not likely to complain, least of all to her official adorer. "_Pourquoi me boudez-vous, Monsieur_?" at last she said; "are you perhaps permitting yourself to be offended at my seeing M. Elliot to the door? Do you not know that he is our old friend?" "He is nothing to me," answered Alain, moodily, "it is you of whom I am thinking." "As Rose says, we can take care of ourselves. Do you for one moment think that I acknowledge any restraining right on your part, any privilege of question even? But come, if M. Elliot is an old friend you are a much older. Do not let us quarrel." "It takes two to make a quarrel," said the foolish fellow, not observing the olive-branch. If his display of annoyance was only a mask of jealousy she fancied that she could deal with it, and forgive it, but if it should be really a sign of indifference? so reasoned her rapid female brain; the cruder masculine mind was but too ready to supply the solution of the problem. "_Voyons, Marguerite_," said her lover, almost blubbering. "I have loved you all your life. Ever since you were a little totterer whom I carried in my arms and planted on the top of the garden wall to pick coquelicots, I have thought of you as one to be some day mine. I see now how foolish I have been. I will put the sea between us; and I hope my boat will go to the bottom; and then perhaps you will be sorry." ... And in the fervour of self-pity he actually shed tears. Marguerite watched him, with a joyous sense of triumph. Secure of her victory, she could now assume her turn to show anger. But she did not feel it; and she had not much skill in the feigning of unbecoming passions.