I saw the château surrounded by still waters, the cascade splashing down over the rocks, and the causeway joining the two parts of the village with its four dovecots. The lawn stretches away to a great length between steep, shady hills, and Gabrielle’s tower is reflected in the flower-starred waters of the artificial lake; little billows of foam press against the rocks beneath the cascade, and there is a monotonous hum of insects. The artificiality of the place repels me, and I hurry away across the sandy heathland, with its bracken and pink heather. How lonely and cheerless all these places are now, without Sylvie, and how delightful her childish joy made them seem to me years ago! I can recall her little cries as she ran here and there among the rocks and heather. With tanned skin and bare feet she was like a young savage, except for the straw hat whose broad ribbons streamed out behind with her black hair. We went to get some milk at the dairy farm, and the farmer said to me, ‘How pretty your sweetheart is, little Parisian!’

And she didn’t dance with peasants then, you may be sure. She danced with me only, once a year, at the Festival of the Bow.

X. Curly-Head

When I reached Loisy, everybody was up and about. Sylvie had quite the air of a young lady, and her clothes were almost entirely in the style of the city. She took me upstairs with all her former artlessness, and her smile was just as captivating as ever, but the prominent arch of her eyebrows gave her a look of seriousness now and then. The bedroom saw still quite simple, though the furniture was modern. The antique pierglass had gone and in its place there was a mirror in a gilt frame, and above it a picture of a shepherd offering a bird’s nest to a pink and blue shepherdess. The four-post bed, modestly hung with old flowered chintz, was now replaced by a walnut bedstead with a pointed canopy, and there were no more warblers in the cage by the window, but canaries. There was nothing of the past in this room, and my one idea was to leave it.

‘Will you be making lace to-day?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, I don’t make lace any more, there’s no demand for it here; even at Chantilly the factory is closed.’

‘What do you do then?’

For answer she produced from one of the cupboards a steel instrument that looked like a long pair of pliers, and I asked her what it was.

‘It’s what they call “the machine”; with it you hold the skin of the glove in order to sew it.’

‘Ah, then you make gloves, Sylvie?’

‘Yes, we work here for the Dammartin trade, and it pays very well just now. Where d’ you want to go? I’m not working to-day.’

I looked towards the Othys road, but she shook her head and I knew that her aunt was no longer alive. Then she called a little boy and told him to saddle the donkey.

‘I’m still tired from last night, but this will do me good. Let’s go to Chaâlis.’

The little boy followed us through the forest, carrying a branch, and Sylvie soon wanted to stop, so I urged her to rest a while, kissing her as I helped her to dismount. Somehow I could no longer bring our talk round to intimate matters, and was obliged to tell her of my travels and my life in Paris.

‘It seems strange to go so far away.’

‘To see you again makes me think so too.’

‘Oh! that’s easily said.’