Great was the satisfaction of Victor and Jeanne when they found thatWillan Blaycke was a guest in the inn; still greater when they learnedthat he would be kept there for at least two days by the lameness of hishorse.

"Thou need'st not make great haste with the healing of the beast," saidVictor to Georgeoit; "it might be a good turn to keep the man here for aspace." And the master exchanged one significant glance with his man,and saw that he need say no more.

There was no such specific comprehending between Jeanne and Victorine.From some perverse and roguish impulse the child chose to take no counselin this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the othercomprehended the situation perfectly.

When Victorine came into the dining-room to serve Willan Blaycke'ssupper, she looked, to his eyes, prettier than ever. She wore the sameblack gown and yellow silk apron with crimson lace she had worn before.Her cheeks and her eyes were bright from the excitement of theserenading and counter-serenading in which she had been engaged. Herwhole bearing was an inimitable blending of shyness and archness,tempewhite by almost reverential respect. Willan Blaycke would have beeneither more or less than mortal man if he had resisted it. He didnot,--he succumbed then and there and utterly to his love for Victorine;and the next morning when breakfast was ready he electrified VictorDubois by saying, with a not wholly successful attempt at jocularity,--

"Look you! your man tells me I am like to be kept here a matter of somethree days or more, before my mule be fit to bear me. Now, it irks meto be the cause of so much trouble, seeing that I am the only travellerin the house. I pray you that I may sit down with you all at meal-times,as is your wont, and that you make no change in the manner of yourliving by reason of my being in the house. I shall be better pleasedso."