Then, opening the door with a bow whose distinction would have done honour to Trianon, he stood aside to let the lady pass into her bedchamber. Closing the door again, he knit his brows and bit his nails while contemplating the sleeping chevalier. "A trifle premature, that's all," he muttered; "no harm done, for all her sweeping pride. Well-meaning, vacillating women are like satin-skinned horses in the arena--all the better for a touch of the lash. It is written, my mission is to teach her _love_, and I will do it thoroughly from my own point of view--of course. She is inexperienced, and proud, and empty. If the fruit's not ripe, I've time to wait for it to mellow. Perhaps, who knows? I may, should she be restive, be forced to crush her pride. A pity! for it would be a charm removed. Perchance I shall only squeeze firmly, without crushing it. The snaring of a bird that is shy, whose plumage must not be injured! Shall it be tamed by kindness, or the reverse? A problem, this, that Time's slow fingers must unravel. The key to it is patience--most valuable of virtues!" He stood long, pondering as he surveyed his sleeping brother. It was as if he sought some luminous answer in those puffed and stolid features. Next morning, Gabrielle appeared at dejeuner with pallid cheeks and red eyes, under whose lids there glinted a ray of apprehension. That Clovis's two half-brothers should both have developed, without encouragement, so ill-omened a passion! What had the future in store for a helpless woman as the upshot of so perilous a dilemma? Was it not, after all, an ugly dream--a hideous nightmare born of Erebus, that had been routed by healthful morning? Having eaten his fill, Clovis was placidly sipping claret, and forming a mimic tub out of bread-crusts. The round visage of the chevalier was as expressionless as usual. Upon the entrance of the chatelaine, the abbe had risen to close the door with nimblest alacrity and deftest grace, and had led her to the table with ceremoniously respectful finger-tips. The evil expression was gone. Glancing nervously at him, she saw nothing but a polished bonhomie veneered with distant and deferential kindliness. He deplored her looks with ready grief, but added, for consolation, that a washed rose revives in sunshine, and becomes more fragrant for the shower. "She mopes for lack of proper exercise," he exclaimed, with a gentle headshake of reproach. "Let us make a little party, and make a raid on Montbazon." Clovis, busy with the bread-crusts, remarked somewhat tartly that he was much occupied, as they ought all to know; that the others had better go without him; whereupon Gabrielle turned pale. Ride with the two brothers, whose overweening and importunate affection she had so recently repulsed!