Mr. Webster disclaimed the praise of his mistress very pleasantly.
“I neither made the soil nor planted the vines, nor work any miracles at all, Mr. Ricardo. Mine is a simple humble office which Miss Tasborough’s kindness makes a pleasure rather than a toil.”
The disclaimer might have sounded just a trifle too humble but for the attractive frankness of his manner. He was of average height with quite white hair, and a pair of bright blue eyes. But the white hair was in him no sign of age. Mr. Ricardo put him down at somewhere between thirty-five and forty years of age, and could not remember to have seen a man of a more handsome appearance. He was clean-shaven, fastidious in his dress, with some touch of the exquisite. He spoke with a certain precision in his articulation which for some unaccountable reason was familiar to Mr. Ricardo; and altogether Mr. Ricardo was charmed to find anyone so companionable and friendly.
“I shall look forward to seeing something of the vintage under your guidance tomorrow, Mr. Webster,” he said; and a voice hailed him from the long window which stood open to the terrace.
“And not one word of greeting for me, Mr. Ricardo?”
Joyce Whipple was standing in the window relieved against the evening light. Of the anxiety which had clouded her face the last time he had seen her, there was not a trace. She was dressed in a shimmering frock of silver lace, there was a tinge of colour in her face, and she smiled at him joyously.
“So, after all, you put off your return to America,” he said, advancing eagerly towards her.
“For a month, which is almost ended,” she replied. “I am leaving here tomorrow for Cherbourg.”
“If we let you go,” said de Mirandol gallantly—a phrase which Mr. Ricardo was to remember.
Mr. Ricardo was introduced to two young ladies from the neighbourhood and two young men from Bordeaux, none of whose names were sufficiently pronounced for him to distinguish them. But they were merely guests of the evening, and Mr. Ricardo was not concerned with them.
“For whom do we wait now, Diana?” Mrs. Tasborough’s voice broke in rather pettishly.
“Monsieur l’Abbé, aunt,” Diana answered.
“You should persuade your friends to be punctual,” said the aunt, and there was no gentleness in that rebuke. Mr. Ricardo had been startled and shocked. Here was a third riddle to surprise him. He remembered Mrs. Tasborough as the most submissive of pensioned relations, a chaperon who knew that her duties did not include interference, a silent symbol of respectability. Yet here she was interfering and talking with all the authority in the world. No less surprising was Diana’s meekness in reply.
“I am very sorry, aunt. The Abbé is so seldom late for his dinner that I am afraid that he has met with an accident. I certainly sent the car for him in good time.”
Mrs. Tasborough shrugged her shoulders, and was not appeased. Mr. Ricardo looked from one to the other. The old lady in her dowdy, old-fashioned dress sitting throned in a great chair, the pretty niece in her modern fineries humble as a village maid. There was a reversal of positions here which thoroughly intrigued Mr. Ricardo. He glanced towards Joyce Whipple, but the door was opening, and Jules Amadée announced:
“Monsieur l’Abbé Fauriel.”
A little round man in a cassock, with a ruddy face, thick features, and a small pair of shrewd twinkling grey eyes, bustled into the room in a condition of heat and perturbation.
“I am late, madame. I express my apologies upon my knees,” he protested, raising Mrs. Tasborough’s hand to his lips. It was noticeable perhaps that he looked to her as his hostess. “But when you hear of my calamity you will forgive me. My church has been robbed.”
“Robbed!” Joyce Whipple cried in a most curious voice. There was dismay in it, but not surprise. The robbery was unexpected, and yet, now that it had happened, not unlikely.
“Yes, mademoiselle. A sacrilege!” and the little man threw up his hands.
“You shall tell us about it at the dinner-table,” said Mrs. Tasborough, cutting him short. Mrs. Tasborough was a Protestant. At home she sat under a man who preached in a Geneva gown. The robbery of a Roman Catholic church was to her a very minor offence, and dinner should not be delayed by it.
“It is true, madame; I forget my manners,” said the Abbé Fauriel, and, indeed, he had barely time to greet the rest of the party before dinner was announced.
The rest of that evening passed apparently as uneventfully as most evenings pass in country houses. But Mr. Ricardo, whose faculty of observation was keyed up to a sharper pitch than usual, did notice during the course of it some things which were odd. The Abbé Fauriel’s complaint, for instance. No money had been stolen, nor any sacred vessel from his church, but certain vestments of fine linen, which he wore when he celebrated Mass, and a little scarlet cassock and white surplice used by the young acolyte who swung the censer.
“It is unbelievable!” the old man cried. “They were of value, to be sure. My dear Madame de Fontanges, now dead, presented them to the church. But they must be cut up at once and then their value is gone. Who would commit a sacrilege for so small a gain?”
“You have, of course, informed the police,” said the Vicomte de Mirandol.
“But understand, Monsieur le Vicomte, that it is only within the hour that I discovered my loss. You would all realise”—and a twinkle of humour lit up his face—“if you were not all heathens, as you are, that tomorrow is the feast of Saint Matthew, a most sacred day in the Calendar of the Church. I went to the sacristy to assure myself that those garments of high respect were in order, and they are gone. However, Madame Tasborough, I must not spoil your evening with too
