Mr. Achille St. Ange wanted a friend, that was all; and madame promised to do her best to advise him in the new life upon which he was entering. They talked a little of his Louisiana home, and of his future intentions, but the visit was not prolonged at this time. “He had made his introduction,” he said, “the future he hoped to justify it.” The advent of this rekindled friendship was quite an event to madame. She could do nothing but talk of it; she kept recalling her life with Gertrude Bergen, and she wondered a little over her grandson’s appearance. “But, then,” she continued, “Gertrude was from Belgium, and swarthy, though fine-looking. Much darker is her grandson, more intense, more buoyant--well, that, too, is natural; it is the French _esprit_ upon the Dutch respectability. His grandfather I remember now--the most careless of mortals, full of fire and fight, and yet amiable--most amiable. We all envied Gertrude a little. He took her to France--to some little town near Paris. How did they get to Louisiana, I wonder?” Annette was the silent one in this event. She let her grandmother talk. She wanted to hear all about Achille. The man had made a singular impression on her. Many lovers had been at her feet, but she had really loved none of them. Was this strange emotion--more akin to tears than laughter--really love? She told herself that the man was captivating, and that she must be “on guard” whenever he was present. And withal she kept wondering “what he thought of her,” and worrying because she was not dressed to the best advantage. Perhaps she would not have been quite pleased if she had been truthfully told Mr. St. Ange’s feeling concerning her, for it was one of a perverse admiration, oddly mingled of repulsion and fascination. He had never before seen a woman so startlingly fair, so white--so white and pink--eyes so blue, hair so palely yellow; her beauty struck him as great, but almost uncanny--he wondered if so white a woman was not equally cold. Would she ever warm to love? And then he answered his reflections with a soft utterance: “We shall see! We shall see!” The dinner party at the judge’s was to be at four o’clock, and the rest of the afternoon was fully occupied in preparing for it. And in this preparation, if Annette had been keeping “guard” over herself, she would have noticed that even already the stranger influenced her. She laid aside the spangled robe and put on a gown of purple cloth trimmed with minever. And she thought, and said, that this change was in deference to her grandmother’s desires; but in reality it came from the feeling that Mr. St. Ange would not be at her uncle’s, and that no one else much mattered. Even if Leonard was present, she felt now that Leonard was a past interest; St. Ange was new and different, and his favour full of all kinds of possibilities.