on a wide and unusually placid brow — the brow and
the mouth were a contradiction. But Eusebe saw the
girl as a whole, saw only a creature who seemed to
belong to an age when men carved the lovely immor-
tals, and the blood throbbed with pride through his
aged veins, since was he not in part her begetter?
'My seed she has sprung from, my seed!9 he thought,
continuing to peer at ^Eliana.
And so- he believed the improbable story of ill-
treatment and hardship which she presently told him;
believed that the staff had been meanly fed, over-
worked, and the prey of their mistress's temper. Be-
lieved ^liana's graphic account of the terrible scene
that Madame had made because her nightgown had
shrunk in the washing:
'It was common and therefore it would not wash;
all her things were like that, she is rich but a screw.
However, when she threatened to box my ears . . . ,9
'You came running to grandpere,' he said fatuously,
'and quite right to come running home to your
grandpere.9
'Yes, as you say ... I came home,9 she answered.
But when Eusebe, now thoroughly roused, declared
that he would visit her mistress and demand an
immediate redress for these wrongs, ^Eliana turned on
him, speaking sharply: 'You will not. You will kindly
leave her alone!9
'Bien, bien, that must be as you wish,9 he acquiesced;
'it was only for your sake, but if you say no. . . .*
'Most emphatically I do,9 she retorted.
Just for a moment he felt suspicious. Was there
something that she was hiding from him? Some
matter that she did not wish him to sift? Then he
shrugged the unwelcome suspicion away: 'Come,
I will show you your room,9 he said quickly.
Thus it happened that ^Eliana arrived at Saint
Loup in the month of plentiful cherries, in the month
395