but the huge man’s bearing stopped his tongue. Instead, he stood by the lady’s chair and bowed.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, and he marvelled to find his words flowing easily before so much elegance and beauty. “You have heard me say I was a shepherd. I have also had the fancy, at times, that I am a poet. If it be the test of a poet to adore and cherish the beautiful, that fancy is now strengthened. Can I serve you in any way, mademoiselle?”
The young woman looked up at him with eyes dry and mournful. His frank, glowing face, made serious by the gravity of the adventure, his strong, straight figure and the liquid sympathy in his blue eyes, perhaps, also, her imminent need of long-denied help and kindness, thawed her to sudden tears.
“Monsieur,” she said, in low tones, “you look to be true and kind. He is my uncle, the brother of my father, and my only relative. He loved my mother, and he hates me because I am like her. He has made my life one long terror. I am afraid of his very looks, and never before dared to disobey him. But to-night he would have married me to a man three times my age. You will forgive me for bringing this vexation upon you, monsieur. You will, of course, decline this mad act he tries to force upon you. But let me thank you for your generous words, at least. I have had none spoken to me in so long.”
There was now something more than generosity in the poet’s eye. Poet he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new loveliness held him with
