"Oh, mother!" cried Kitty in a voice of mingled consternation and impatience, and wriggled Mrs. Kesteven into her bedroom where she could harangue her without ribald interruption from Val. The minute Haidee got Val alone she said furiously:

"Oh, Val, you are a silly a.s.s! You know quite well it 's _them_!"

"_Them?_"

"Those Lorrain boys. Do leave off rotting."

"Rotting?"

"Och! _you!_" cried Haidee in a black rage, and flung out of the room.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WAYS OF BOYS

"For every grain of wit a grain of folly."

All the same, Val and Harry were beginning to say to each other, "What next?"

It was a great relief that the Lorrain boys, most correctly dressed and apparently laced in their best corsets, came very ceremoniously to call that afternoon. They were accompanied by two ladies. One was Mademoiselle Celine Lorrain, the other the Comtesse de Vervanne, who had come to spend part of the summer with them. Upon being introduced to the latter, Val and Mrs. Kesteven, who knew what they knew about a _chic_ lighthouse and a lady's ankle, exchanged a fleet glance that was not without humour.

Celine Lorrain, the sister of Sacha, was a girl of twenty-five, with eyes of Mediterranean blue in a rather broad sweet face. The boys had monopolised all the beauty of the family, but she had a singularly pure expression, and with her gallant bearing would have made an ideal Joan of Arc. The countess, of a very different type, was, it transpired, the bosom friend of another and married Lorrain sister. She was little and piquant and plump, and made-up as for the stage. Pearl powder lay thick as white velvet on her nose, and her dark-green eyes were artistically outlined with spode-blue shadows. A little mole on her chin had been carefully blackened--and in her cheeks was a wild-rose flush out of a box. A few gilt streaks in the little dark plaits she wore coiled over her ears _jeune fille_ fashion told that at some past period her hair had been magically changed to gold, but was now returning to its original colour. No doubt she was extremely picturesque, and her manners were charming. But Val, who always looked at eyes, noticed that hers, in spite of their enshrouding blue shadows, were as cold as some still mountain lake, though, at the same time, full of the swift brightness of the Parisienne who misses nothing there is to see. She included the two women, the girls, and the room in one rapid enveloping glance, much as a painter might take a snapshot of something he meant to examine more carefully later on, and thereafter took upon herself the "expense of the conversation," as the French phrase runs. Unfortunately, her English was not so excellent as she believed it to be--though a good deal more amusing. In answer to Val's polite "How do you do?" she responded affably:

"Vary much." And later she related, with a pretty little high laugh: "It is the costume in France for strange womens to visit first, but we have taken the beef by the horns and come to see you in case you have not the spirit of the adventuress."

Mrs. Kesteven, fearing that Kitty and Haidee might disgrace themselves if they listened to much of this style of thing, gradually wriggled the conversation back into French, at which they were all fairly fluent, except Val who, however, understood everything. With a general intention to be amiable, time hung on no one's hands. Every one took tea, and the young men made themselves useful, twisting with ease in the tiny room to hand cups and bread and b.u.t.ter.

"We must all be friends and go walks and swims together," said the Comtesse. "I hear your girls swim beautifully, Madame Valdana. I want them to teach me."

"And would you let them go sailing with us in our little sailing boat?"

a voice beguiled in Val's ear, and she found the misty blue eyes which she had maliciously described as "drunken" looking at her.

"Oh, I don't know about that," she said in her faltering French.

"You spik in English and I spik in French and we will understand us," he said, smiling charmingly at her. He reminded her intensely of Bran, and for this reason she felt a great leaning to him. Besides, no one could have helped liking him. His fresh clear skin was made fresher by the blueness of his eyes and the blackness of his hair. Added to his boyish beauty was a sort of good honest look that warmed the heart.

"We are very all right sailors," he continued, still politely expressing himself in English. "My cousin and I have sailed our boat here every year since we had ten years of age. You need not have fear of accidents."

"My sister often goes with us," chimed in Sacha, "but she's getting lazy. Mademoiselle your daughter and Mees Kesteven both say they adore to go on the sea."

Val let them remain under the impression that Haidee was her daughter, feeling that it gave her more authority to shake her head at the idea of the girls going sailing. But the chorus of beguilements continued and the two girls kept saying:

"Oh, do, Val ... _do_, mother ... _do_ ... _do_...."

Bran made a diversion by bursting in, bright of eye, his fair hair wild, a strong scent of puppy dog about him, for he had been amusing himself with a litter of terriers bred by _pere_ Duval.

He was introduced to the company, but his news would hardly keep until the ceremony was over.

"Mammie! At last I 've found out the difference between boy puppies and girl puppies. The boys----"

"Go and wash your hands for tea, darling."

"But, Mammie, the boys--

"Yes, I know, Bran, go now and wash your----"

"The boys have blue eyes and the girls have brown ones," he shouted indignantly as, hurt and astonished at his mother's strange lack of interest in his latest discovery, he was being pushed from the room by Haidee. Val suddenly ran after him and hugged him, and every one exploded into laughter.

Val and Harriott found themselves almost mesmerised into giving half-promises to let the girls go sailing, but after the visitors were gone and the last echo of the Comtesse's little gay sky-high laugh had died away, they gazed at each other doubtfully. The mesmerism was wearing off.

"I don't think we ought to let them go," Mrs. Kesteven said.

"I 'm sure we ought not," declared Val, wondering what Westenra would say if Haidee were drowned. There was a chorus of howls. Kitty put on her _Spring Song_ face. Haidee's expression resembled that of a rhino about to charge.

"Mother, you _promised_...!"

"Oh, Val, you mean pig...!"

They burst from the room, scowling and muttering. Later even sobs were heard upstairs.

"Perhaps, after all...?" Harriott wavered.

"They are, I 'm sure, nice boys..." said Val, "and evidently good sailors. Shall we ask _pere_ Duval?"

They found the latter, as usual, hoeing his garden, Bran a.s.sisting him.

Bran loved _pere_ Duval, who, he said, "smelt like a bar of iron that had been lying at the bottom of the sea for a few weeks ... all green and rusty, but yet nice."

"Of those two boys," the old man peered at them with his bleary eyes, "you need have no fear, mesdames. There are no better sailors on this coast. And round here it is very safe too--no bad winds--safe as heaven."

Less uneasy, they went upstairs to throw the oil of consent upon the stormy waters of rebellion. Immediately the two began to get out their sweaters and warm skirts as if to start at once, though the sail had been fixed for next morning. Harriott and Val stood smiling grimly, throwing little darts.

"I hope you 'll take your tubs before you go--even though you may get an unpremeditated dip," gibed Harriott.

"Yes; brush your teeth, dears, and your hair," supplemented the other tormentor. "Don't go out looking like a pair of rabbits plucked out of a dust barrel."

"Rabbits! Dust barrels!" snorted the girls, shaking their hair, each strong in the consciousness of annihilating beauty. Afterwards Haidee said with a superior smile to Kitty:

"Poor things! It must be awful to be old."

"Yes," said Kitty, who was sniffing a good deal. "They 're mad with jealousy. That's why I don't take any notice of all Mother's blither."

She added thoughtfully: "I hope she doesn't find out I 've got a cold, before to-morrow morning. She 's such a fuss pot."

"Let's go to bed early, then she won't," suggested Haidee. And they went, and rose early too. Usually it was the work of two persons to pick them out of their blankets, but they were up at five, pinking and preening before the mirror, with many a glance from the window to see why the river was n't filling. The tide, it seemed, was unaccountably delayed that morning!