The Miller Jean-Marie loved--after a fashion, his own silent, dour, middle-aged fashion--the young girl Claire Agnew, whom he called his "niece" in that strange land. For in this he followed the example of his brother, judging that what was right for a learned professor of the Sorbonne could not be wrong for a rough miller, earning his bread (and his "niece's") by the turning of his grindstones and the gigantic whirl of his sails.
Still, he had never spoken his love, but on this final morning the miller had not gone forth. He was determined to speak at last. His mother and brother were soon to arrive. The mistral drave too strong for work. He had indeed little corn to grind--nothing that an hour earlier on the morrow could not put to rights. Then and there he would speak to Claire. At long and last he was sure of himself. His courage would not, as usual, ooze away from his finger nails. He and she were alone in the newly-furnished rooms of the Mas of the Mountain--for only a few portable items such as his mother's chair and the ancient pot-bellied horologe had been brought in a _tartana_ from La Masane to the little harbour of Les Saintes Maries, where the big mosquitoes are.
"It is not good for man to be alone," began Jean-Marie, even more sententiously than usual; "I have heard you read that out of your Bible of Geneva--do you believe it, Claire?"
"Indeed I do," said the girl, looking up brightly; "I have longed--ah, how I have longed--all these weeks--for your mother!"
"I was thinking of myself!" said the miller heavily.
"Ah, well, that will soon be at an end," returned Claire; "I am sorry, but I did my best. I have often heard you sigh and sigh and sigh when you and I walked together of the evening. And I knew I was no company for you. I was too young and too foolish, was it not so? But now you will have your mother and your brother, the Professor, who is learned. He knows all about how to grow onions according to the methods of Virgil! He told me so himself!"
The big ex-Alcalde looked doubtfully sidelong at his little friend. He was not a suspicious man, and usually considered Claire as innocent as a frisking lambling. But now--no, it could not be. She was not making fun of him--of the man who had done all these things, who had brought her in safety by paths perilous to this new home!