The shadow of a smile flitted over Madame de Tecle’s brown but charming face.  “His niece?” she said:  “I am his niece.”

“You I Pardon me, Madame, but I thought—­they said—­I expected to find an elderly—­a—­person—­that is, a respectable” he hesitated, then added simply—­“and I find I am in error.”

Madame de Tecle seemed completely unmoved by this compliment.

“Will you be kind enough, Monsieur,” she said, “to let me know whom I have the honor of receiving?”

“I am Monsieur de Camors.”

“Ah!  Then I have excuses also to make.  It was probably you whom we saw this morning.  We have been very rude—­my daughter and I—­but we were ignorant of your arrival; and Reuilly has been so long deserted.”

“I sincerely hope, Madame, that your daughter and yourself will make no change in your rides.”

Madame de Tecle replied by a movement of the hand that implied certainly she appreciated the offer, and certainly she should not accept it.  Then there was a pause long enough to embarrass Camors, during which his eye fell upon the piano, and his lips almost formed the original remark—­“You are a musician, Madame.”  Suddenly recollecting his tree, however, he feared to betray himself by the allusion, and was silent.

“You come from Paris, Monsieur de Camors?” Madame de Tecle at length asked.

“No, Madame, I have been passing several weeks with my kinsman, General de Campvallon, who has also the honor, I believe, to be a friend of yours; and who has requested me to call upon you.”

“We are delighted that you have done so; and what an excellent man the General is!”

“Excellent indeed, Madame.”  There was another pause.

“If you do not object to a short walk in the sun,” said Madame de Tecle at length, “let us walk to meet my uncle.  We are almost sure to meet him.”  Camors bowed.  Madame de Tecle rose and rang the bell:  “Ask Mademoiselle Marie,” she said to the servant, “to be kind enough to put on her hat and join us.”

A moment after, Mademoiselle Marie entered, cast on the stranger the steady, frank look of an inquisitive child, bowed slightly to him, and they all left the room by a door opening on the lawn.

Madame de Tecle, while responding courteously to the graceful speeches of Camors, walked on with a light and rapid step, her fairy-like little shoes leaving their impression on the smooth fine sand of the path.

She walked with indescribable, unconscious grace; with that supple, elastic undulation which would have been coquettish had it not been undeniably natural.  Reaching the wall that enclosed the right side of the park, she opened a wicket that led into a narrow path through a large field of ripe corn.  She passed into this path, followed in single file by Mademoiselle Marie and by Camors.  Until now the child had been very quiet, but the rich golden corn-tassels, entangled with bright daisies, red poppies, and hollyhocks,