Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/99

 was true, comically true; though Jill would never know it. He did not dislike her; not at all; he even enjoyed watching her antics as he would have enjoyed watching a dappled panther at the Zoo, when the dinner hour approaches and it leaps restlessly about its cage. But the memory of her and of her smiles made him feel that it would be specially pleasant to see Jill again. He wanted a draught of that fresh spring water. And, deeper than the reaction from the panther in its cage, he knew, as he walked down the winding road, a sense of relief, of escape. He had not seen Mademoiselle Ludérac again.

So he went quickly. But at the cemetery walls he paused. He paused, looking up at them, and went round to the gates and stood there, with head bent, considering; and then went in. He did not glance to right or left as he threaded his way rapidly among the mausoleums and in a moment he had reached the unspoiled space of grass that sloped down to the forest.

There was the solitary grave and it glimmered as if with pale tapers. It was just as he had known it would be after seeing her daughter lighting them in the room where this Marthe Ludérac once had lived. He stood and looked down at the wreath of daffodils laid upon the foot and the three tall vases at the head, filled with the flames of spring; and the spell, the presence, fell so strongly upon him that he seemed to see Mademoiselle Ludérac standing there, on the other side of the grave.

Jill had spread their tea at the window opening on