"Well, Monsieur le Baron," broke in the ringing voice of Valerie, "are you envying El Moro his feast, or are you composing a Latin poem for your tutor, or have you gone to sleep? You stand there leaning against that tree, and looking at me as if you never had seen me before."
"Perhaps I wish I never had," replied François a little moodily, as he sauntered across the space of sun light between the cork-tree and the oak, and stood leaning against the latter, his arm resting upon the footstool of the rustic seat.
"Perhaps you,—there, run away, mon Moro: run and catch a cricket to take the flavor of the grapes out of your mouth,—perhaps you wish you had never seen me, François? And why?"
She leaned one cheek upon her hand, as she stooped smiling toward him, and the other hand rested lightly and caressingly upon his head. He caught it in his own, and, raising his face, looked long and ardently up into hers. And it is a pity some great painter had not been hidden among the roses to catch that picture, and make himself immortal by it; for the baron François was as nearly handsome as a manly man should be, and had inherited from his Norman mother all the high and haughty characteristics of her race,—the cold, clear eyes, blue as steel, and betimes as trenchant and as cruel, the fair complexion, proud, thin-lipped mouth, and tawny golden hair. His figure, too, differed largely from the delicate elegance lapsing into sensuous roundness of his Provencal sires, and was tall, large-boned, powerful, and soldierly, like
