Part 43 (1/2)

”Shake hands with him, Brigit,” suggested Victor pulling his moustache to suppress a smile. Brigit held out her hand.

”I am very glad to meet you,” she said in French.

The old man stared. Then he smiled, showing one snow-white tooth. ”_Tu parles_,” he murmured. Then he went back to his game.

The old woman, more polite, had risen, and was waiting her turn. She was very tall and had a heavy moustache.

”They told me you were beautiful,” she began courteously, whereupon the old man interrupted, repeating her words but, by a change in emphasis, casting derisive doubts on whoever ”they” might be. ”They _told_ me you were _beautiful_.”

Brigit burst out laughing, and leaning forward smiled at the speaker.

”Well--am I not beautiful?” she asked with an infectious chuckle of sincere amus.e.m.e.nt.

But old Joyselle was a man of character, apparently, and not to be beguiled.

”_Belle? Non, non. Pas ca. Mais_--Victor, _pet.i.t_, surely you can't be going to marry a real lady?”

Joyselle flushed, and she knew his flush had to do only with his father's lapse of memory, not his reference to her ladyhood.

”Not I, _mon pere_. I married Felicite, you know. It is our boy who is going to marry this--ugly lady.”

His father shook his head. ”Not ugly, _mon fils_.” he declared solemnly, ”not ugly. Only _plain_.”

This time Brigit did not laugh. Something in the old man's half-vacant face touched her. He was Victor's father; he had held, as a little baby, the man she loved; he had worked for him and helped to make him what he was. Laying her hand on his, she smiled down at him.

”You are quite right,” she said gently, ”only plain. Will you show me how to play dominoes?”

”He can't,” retorted Madame Joyselle, eagerly, ”he has forgotten, and, besides, he cheats.”

Joyselle walked to the window, his shoulders shaking, and before the old man could retort, Theo came into the room carrying a lacquered tin tray with a jug of cider and some gla.s.ses on it.

”Ah, you have come? _Grand-pere, grand-mere_, what do you think of my _fiancee_?”

But Brigit drew him away and sat down on the ingeniously uncomfortable sofa with him.

”Fighting again, are they? Poor old dears, it really is quite dreadful.

You see, grandfather used to be a fearful tyrant, though he is so little, and grandmother was deathly afraid of him until his health began to fail. So now she is getting even with him. They adore each other, however. Isn't the house quaint? Have you seen the garden?”

She shook her head. ”No, show it to me.”

Leaving the room they crossed to the oilclothed pa.s.sage and went into the dining-room, a small apartment enlivened by an oleograph of Leo XIII., and some gay chromos.

The windows opened to the ground, and opening one the young people went out into the moonlight. Brigit was feeling very happy, and therefore very kind. When Theo put his arm round her and drew her to him she did not protest.

”Brigitte,” he whispered, ”I do so love you.”

”Dear Theo----” Suddenly she remembered that other moonlight night, nearly a year before, when she had accepted him. She recalled the look of the beautiful old house, the sound of Tommy at the pianola, the splas.h.i.+ng of the fountain, the sun-dial at which, in his boyish grief, he had knelt.