But perhaps most foolish in her inability to await his coming. For he and the little Countess were approaching the group, at a slow pace; the girl talking with an animation that showed she had quite forgotten her shyness. Bonne marked the manner, the smile, the confiding upward look, the lifted hand; and she muttered something, and escaped before the two came within earshot. She wanted to be alone, quite alone, to have this out with herself; and she made for a tiny cup in the hillside, hidden from the camp by the thick branches of the plane-tree. She had discovered it the day before, but when she gained it now, there in the hollow sat Roger, looking down on the scene below. He nodded as if he were not in the best of tempers; which was strange, for he had been in high spirits an hour before. She sat down beside him, having no choice, but some minutes elapsed before he opened his mouth. Then, "Lord," he exclaimed, with something between a groan and a laugh, "what a fool a man can be!" She did not answer; perhaps for the word "man" she was substituting the word "woman." He moved irritably in his seat. "Hang it!" he exclaimed. "Say something, Bonne! Of course it seems funny to you that because she thanked me prettily the day I tried to cover her retreat to the house and--and because she talked to me the night before last as we rode--as if she liked it, I mean--I should forget who she is!" "Who she is," Bonne repeated quietly, thinking of some one else who had forgotten. "And who I am!" he answered. "As if the Vicomte had not ground it into me enough! If I were Charles, she would still be--who she is, and meat for my master. But as I am what I am," he laughed ruefully, "would you have thought I could be such a fool, Bonne?" "Poor Roger," she said gently. "She clung to me that day, when I ran with her. But, dash it"--rubbing his head--"I must not think of it. I suppose she would have clung to old Solomon just the same!" "I am afraid so!" Bonne said, smiling faintly. It was certain that she had not clung to any one. Yet there were analogies. "I suppose you--you saw them just now?" "Yes, I saw them." "She never talked to me like that! Why should she--a thing like me." Poor Roger! "I knew the moment I cast eyes on them. You did, too, I suppose?" "Yes," she answered. Perhaps Roger had hoped in his heart for a different reply, for he stared gloomily at the swarming huts visible above the tree. And finally, "There is Charles," he said, "walking the ridge--against the sky-line there! Why cannot I be like him, as happy as a king, with my head full of battles and sieges, and the Bat more to me than any woman in the world! Why cannot I? With such a pair of shoulders as I have--" "Dear lad!"