CHAPTER IV

MADELINETTE MAKES A DISCOVERY

The national fete of the summer was over. The day had been successful,
more successful indeed than any within the memory of the inhabitants;
for the English and French soldiers joined in the festivities without
any intrusion of racial spirit, but in the very essence and soul of good-
fellowship. The General had called at the Manor, and paid his respects
to the Seigneur, who received him abstractedly if not coolly, but
Madelinette had captured his imagination and his sympathies. He was fond
of music for an Englishman, and with a ravishing charm she sang for him a
bergerette of the eighteenth century and then a ballad of Shakespeare's
set to her own music. She was so anxious that the great holiday should
pass off without one untoward incident, that she would have resorted to
any fair device to attain the desired end. The General could help her
by his influence and instructions, and if the soldiers--regulars and
militia--joined in the celebrations harmoniously, and with goodwill,
a long step would be made towards undoing the harm that Louis had done,
and maybe influencing him towards a saner, wiser view of things. He had
changed much since the fateful day when he had forced George Fournel to
fight him; had grown more silent, and had turned grey. His eyes had
become by turns watchful and suspicious, gloomy and abstracted; and his
speech knew the same variations; now bitter and cynical, now sad and
distant, and all the time his eyes seemed to grow darker and his face
paler. But however moody and variable and irascible he might be with
others, however unappeasable, with Madelinette he struggled to be gentle,
and his petulance gave way under the intangible persuasiveness of her