“Eh! Margaï, let me be,” Nicolette cried, and jumped to her feet, to show that she was in no way hurt. “What a to-do, to be sure. One would think it was I who nearly fell from a horse.”
“Women,” muttered Margaï crossly, “who don’t know how to sit a horse should not be allowed to ride.”
And rows of wise young heads nodded sagely in assent.
Rixende, watching this little scene from the road, felt querulous and irritated.
“Who,” she asked peremptorily, “was that fool of a girl who threw herself between my horse’s feet?”
“It was our little Nicolette,” the curé replied gently. “The child was running and dancing, and Ameyric dragged her so fast in the _Farandoulo_ that she lost her footing and fell. She might have been killed,” the old man added gravely.
“Fortunately I had my horse in hand,” Rixende riposted dryly. “’Twas I who might have been killed.”
But this last doleful remark of hers Bertrand did not hear. He was at the moment engaged in fastening his horse’s bridle to a convenient tree, for at sound of Nicolette’s name he had jumped out of the saddle. Nicolette! Poor little Nicolette hurt! He must know, he must know at once. Just for the next few seconds he forgot Rixende, yes! forgot her! and sped across the road and through the orange-grove in the direction of that distant, agitated group, in the midst of which he feared to find poor little Nicolette mangled and bleeding.
Rixende called peremptorily after him. She thought Bertrand indifferent to the danger which she had run, and indifference was a manlike condition which she could not tolerate.
“Bertrand,” she called, “Bertrand, come back.”
But he did not hear her, which further exasperated her nerves. She turned to the old curé who was standing by rather uncomfortably, longing for an excuse to go and see how Nicolette was faring.
“M. le Curé,” Rixende said tartly, “I pray you tell M. le Comte that my nerves are on edge, and that I must return home immediately. If he’ll not accompany me, then must I go alone.”
“At your service, mademoiselle,” the old priest responded readily enough, and picked up his soutane ready to follow M. le Comte through the grove. For the moment he had disappeared, but a few seconds later the group of harvesters parted and disclosed Bertrand standing beside Nicolette.