Here was I, admitted to the Hôtel Clericy--welcomed in the family circle, and trusted there in the immediate vicinity of and with daily access to as innocent and trusting a soul as ever stepped from a French convent. I--a wolf who had not hitherto even troubled to cover my shaggy sides with a fleece. What could I do? Lucille was so gay, so confiding, in a pretty girlish way which never altered as we came to know each other better. Madame was so placid and easy-going--in her stout black silk dress, with her lace-work. Monsieur de Clericy gave me his confidence so unreservedly--what could I do but lapse into virtue? And I venture to think that many a blacker sheep than myself would have blanched in the midst of so pure a flock.
One evening Madame asked me to join the family circle in the drawing-room. The room was very pretty and homelike--quite unlike our grim drawing-room at Hopton, where my father never willingly set foot since its rightful owner had passed elsewhere. There were flowers in abundance--their scent filled the air--from the Var estate in Provence, which had been Madame's home and formed part of the _dot_ she brought into the diminishing Clericy coffers. Two lamps illuminated the room rather dimly, and a pair of candles stood on the piano.
[Illustration: "YOU ARE SAD," SAID LUCILLE, WITH A LITTLE LAUGH, "WITH YOUR FACE IN YOUR HAND COMME ÇA."]
Monsieur de Clericy played a game at bezique with Madame, who chuckled a good deal at her own mistakes with the cards, and then asked Lucille for some music. The girl sat down at the piano, and there, to her own accompaniment, without the printed score, sang such songs of Provence as tug at the heart strings, one knows not why. There seemed to be a wail in the music--and in slurring, as it were, from one note to the other--a trick such Southern songs demand--I heard the tone I loved.
Madame listened while she worked. The Vicomte dropped gently to sleep. I sat with my elbow on my knee and looked at the carpet. And when the voice rose and fell, I knew that none other had the same message for me.
"You are sad," said Lucille, with a little laugh, "with your face in your hand, comme ça."
And she imitated my position and expression with a merry toss of the head. "Are you thinking of your sins?"