So the visit was very
stupid, and everybody felt ill at ease,--especially Willan, who had lost
his temper in the beginning at a speech of Pierre's to Victorine, which
seemed to his jealous sense too familiar.
"I thought thou never wouldst take leave," he said ill-naturedly to
Victorine, as they rode away.
Victorine turned towards him with an admirably counterfeited expression
of surprise. "Oh, sir," she said, "I did think I ought to wait for thee
to take leave. I was dying with the desire I had to be back in the woods
again; and only when I could not bear it any longer, did I bethink me to
say that my aunt expected us back to dinner."
Long they lingered on the river-banks on their way home. Even the
plotting brain of Victorine was not insensible to the charm of the sky,
the air, the budding foliage, and the myriads of blossoms. "Oh, sir,"
she said, "I think there never was such a day as this before!"
"I know there never was," replied Willan, looking at her with an
expression which was key to his words. But the daughter of Jeanne Dubois
was not to be wooed by any vague sentimentalisms.
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