“_Vous êtes méchant_,” said madame Vervier, and there was in her voice none of the inciting gaiety usual to the reproach; she spoke gravely, looking down at the cloth and slightly moving her spoon and fork upon it, and Giles suddenly divined that poor mademoiselle Blanche was in love with André. “_Mais non! Mais non!_ I think her charming,” laughed André. “But I can understand that madame Dumont is her grandmother.” CHAPTER X It was not until next day, after luncheon, that the time came, and Giles—as madame Vervier said to him, “I find it too hot for tennis to-day. Will you stay behind and talk with me, monsieur Giles?”—felt sure that it all had been planned, intended from the first. If she had thus delayed, it was in order that he should come to know her better and feel more at home with her. It was also in order that she should take his measure and see more surely what she was going to do with him. Monsieur de Maubert, also, was going to Allongeville; André’s motor waited at the gate. He and madame Vervier were to have the afternoon to themselves, and as they all parted on the verandah, Giles saw that Alix cast a long look at him.—Poor little Alix! How little she could guess at what he hoped for from this interview! If madame Vervier had her intentions, he had his. And though he believed they would not clash, his heart was beating quickly as he followed her to the drawing-room. So many things, lay between him and madame Vervier and her glance, her voice, seemed to tell him that none of them were to be evaded. The drawing-room was fresh and pale; so pale in its citrons, whites, and dim jade-greens, that the sunlight outside, shining against the transparent reed blinds, looked tawny in its fierce, prowling splendour. The sea was there, sparkling in its immensity across the lower half of the long windows, and the sky of another blue was across the upper half and the vines and honeysuckle that garlanded the verandah outside hardly stirred in the brilliant air. There were bowls of sweet-smelling small white roses from the garden, and madame Vervier was in white, the thin woollen dress with the sash at her waist and tassels at her breast that left bare her lovely arms and neck. Her russet hair was all tossed back to-day and there was something ingenuous in the shape of her forehead thus uncovered; something candid and childlike. In her hand, as she sat before Giles, she held a stone, a flat, smooth stone, pinkish-grey, that she had perhaps picked up on the beach in one of her walks at dawn. She held it, weighing it slightly from time to time and from time to time putting it against her lips or cheek, as if to enjoy its coolness.