Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/216

204 And, as so often happens in the circumstances, she went a little farther than the facts bore her.

“Any way, he has followed us so far!” she cried viciously.

“M. de Tignonville?”

“Yes. I saw him this morning while you were bathing. She left me and went into the little coppice. He came down the other side of the brook, stooping and running, and went to join her.”

“How did he cross the brook?”

Madame St. Lo blushed. “Old Badelon was there, gathering simples,” she said. “He scared him. And he crawled away.”

“Then he did not cross?”

“No. I did not say he did!”

“Nor speak to her?”

“No. But if you think it will pass so next time—you do not know much of women!”

“Of women generally, not much,” he answered, grimly polite. “Of this woman a great deal!”

“You looked in her big eyes, I suppose!” Madame St. Lo cried with heat. “And straightway fell down and worshipped her!” She liked rather than disliked the Countess; but she was of the lightest, and the least opposition drove her out of her course. “And you think you know her! And she, if she could save you from death by opening an eye, would go with a patch on it till her dying day! Take my word for it, Monsieur, between her and her lover you will come to harm.”

Count Hannibal’s swarthy face darkened a tone, and his eyes grew a very little smaller.

“I fancy that he runs the greater risk,” he muttered.

“You may deal with him, but, for her”

“I can deal with her. You deal with some women with a whip”