To adopt the vernacular of the stables, Nancy shied violently, for the apparition was both unexpected and unwelcome. She rallied swiftly, however, and, promptly resolving to make the best of a bad matter, she gave a little nod and smile of recognition. The next instant, both nod and smile went sliding away from the unresponsive countenance of Mr. Cecil Barth and focussed themselves with an added touch of cordiality upon M. St. Jacques, while the young Frenchman bowed low in surprised pleasure at her friendly greeting. Even in her instantaneous glance, Nancy saw that Barth looked worn and ill; and, with unregenerate spite working in her heart, she told herself that she was glad of it. She had no idea that, unable to supply himself with new glasses before his return to the city, Barth had gained absolutely no conception of the personal appearance of his quondam nurse. Moreover, as Nancy had neglected to inform him in regard to her normal pursuits and her future plans, he had spent the last week in regretfully picturing her, still in cap and pinafore, ministering to the needs of some invalid Yankee in that vast unknown which he vaguely termed The States. Accordingly, it came about that the dinner, that Sunday noon, was finished in hot rage by Nancy, in joyous anticipation by Adolphe St. Jacques, and in stolid unconcern by Mr. Cecil Barth who was aware neither of the existence of an emotional crisis, nor of the fact that to him was due any share of its creation.
Nancy sat alone in the parlor, after dinner, waiting for her father to join her, when Barth came into the room. He halted on the threshold long enough to look her over in detail; then he limped past her and took possession of the chair beyond her own. As they sat there silent, elbow to elbow, Nancy was conscious of a wayward longing to remind him that it was high time for his liniment. However, she refrained. Two could play at that game of stolid disregard.
The Lady looked puzzled, as she followed Barth into the room, a few moments later. Only a day or two before, Nancy, moved by a spirit of iniquity, had confided to the Lady the whole tale of her connection with Barth, and the Lady, who already adored Nancy and, moreover, was discerning enough to see the inherent manliness of Barth, had held her peace. A charming scene of recognition was bound to follow Barth’s return to The Maple Leaf. No hint of a mystery to come should take from the glamor of that pleasant surprise. Barth and Nancy both were curiously alone; both were aliens, meeting upon neutral soil. Already in her mind’s eye the Lady foresaw romance and international complications.
With her bodily eye the Lady saw the elements of her international complications sitting in close juxtaposition, but with their backs discreetly turned to an obtuse angle with each other. She made a swift, but futile, effort to account for the situation. Then she gave Nancy a merry nod of comprehension, if not of understanding, and passed on to speak to Barth.
“You are better, to-day, I hope.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I hope you didn’t feel obliged to come over to dinner. It was no trouble to send your meals to you.”
“Oh, no. I was tired of stopping in my room.”
“You look as if you had been having rather a hard time of it,” the Lady said kindly.
“Yes. I never supposed an ankle could be so painful. Still, I hope it is over now.”
“Then it doesn’t trouble you to walk?”
“Oh, rather! And, besides, it makes one such an object, you know, and then people stare. It won’t be long, though, I dare say, before I can walk without limping.”
A naughty impulse seized upon the Lady.
“You were at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, you said? And could you get proper care in so small a place?”
Over the unconscious head of Mr. Cecil Barth, Nancy shook her fist at the Lady. Then she fled from the room; but not quickly enough to lose Barth’s answer,—
“Oh, so-so; nothing extra, but still quite tolerable. The doctor was clever; but the nurse, his daughter, was an American, a good-hearted sort of girl, but rather rude and untrained.”
All that Sunday afternoon, Nancy cherished her hopes of vengeance. Plan after plan suggested itself to her fertile brain, was weighed and found wanting. Planned hostility was totally inadequate; she would leave everything to chance. Nevertheless, Nancy tarried long at her mirror, that night; and she went down to supper with her head held high and a brilliant spot of color in either cheek. As she passed the parlor door, she saw Barth, book in hand, seated exactly where she had left him, and she suddenly realized that, rather than endure the short walk to his room, he had chosen to spend his afternoon in the dreary solitude of a public sitting-room. For an instant, her heart smote her, and her step lagged a little; then she remembered the guinea, and recalled Barth’s words, that noon, and her step quickened once more.
Brock followed her back to the parlor.
“Oh, let the Basilica go, to-night,” he urged.
“But you told me it was a part of my itinerary.”
“No matter. You haven’t kept up your round, to-day, anyway. Did you do the Ursulines, this afternoon?”
“No. I was all ready to go; but something happened that put me in an unchurchly frame of mind,” Nancy said vindictively.
“Just as well. It makes people suspicious of your past habits, if you rush too violently into church-going.”
“But twice isn’t too violently.”
“Two is too,” he retorted. “Besides, St. Jacques asked me to ask you if he might be formally introduced, to-night.”
Nancy’s face brightened, and her voice lost the little sharp edge it had taken on with her reference to her encounter with Barth.
“Of course. Both on account of his courtesy to me, and of your characterization of him, I shall be delighted to meet him. Where is he?”
Over in his corner by the window, Barth glanced up from his book. Voices rarely made any impression upon him; but something in Nancy’s tone caught his fancy, reminded him, too, of an indefinite something in his past. With calm deliberation, he fumbled about for the string of his glasses, put them on and favored Nancy with a second scrutiny, critical and prolonged. The girl’s cheeks reddened under his gaze, and instinctively she turned to Brock for protection; but Brock had gone in search of his friend. From across the room, one rose from a group of women and came to Nancy’s rescue.
“Mr. Barth?” she said interrogatively, in her pretty broken French. “I think it is Mr. Cecil Barth; is it not? My friend, Mrs............