Renaud rode at a foot-pace to the MÉnage, one of the farms belonging to the ChÂteau d’Avignon. He had ordered Bernard to bring Blanchet to him there, intending to take him back to the chÂteau. It was but a short distance from one to the other.

He was exceedingly astonished to find that the more he reflected upon what had happened to him—and it was really what he had hoped for—the more dissatisfied he was.

He believed that he had finally formed, in spite of everything, a fairly accurate estimate of the gipsy’s character—a fact that pleased him. He had simply said to himself that she was an uncivilized creature, since she could forget all shame of her nakedness in her haste to punish as best she could a man she deemed overbold. From her very immodesty, from the arrogance and malignity she had exhibited at their first meeting, he had, strangely enough, evolved a proof of chastity so sure of itself, so disdainful of peril, that the shameless creature seemed to him only the more desirable.

He knew that the gipsy women esteem thieves, but not prostitutes, and he had enjoyed seeing in Zinzara a sort of savage virgin, ferocious as a wild beast of the Orient, over whom he, the tamer of beasts, would be the first to enjoy the pride of triumph. And, lo! she suddenly aroused in him a feeling of repulsion which he could not explain. Simply because he had heard her pronounce a few words, of obscure meaning, like all gipsy words, and threatening in tone as he ought to expect,—more amiable, in point of fact, than he had any right to hope,—he believed her, as if it had been revealed to him in a dream, capable of anything, a wicked woman! He felt that the devil was in her.

He had no precise knowledge as to her age. Was she seventeen or twenty-five? The swarthy tint of her impassive yet smiling face told nothing, hid blushes and pallor alike.

Her face was extremely young, and its expression was of no age. Renaud had undergone the inexplicable fascination of that face, whereon the malignity born of a woman’s experience of the world, false for the sake of omnipotence, was mingled with something child-like.

Stronger men than he would have been caught in the snare. Neither king nor priest could have escaped the evil fascination of the gitana! She would have had but to will. The very things that repelled one were attractive!

So Renaud was caught, and his manner showed it. Sitting upon his tired horse, upon the stallion whose fiery nature was subdued by so much hard riding in all directions, and who carried his head less high, the drover, supporting the head of his spear upon his stirrup while the handle rested against his arm, seemed like a vanquished king, humiliated by the feeling that he was a prisoner in the free air.

He found Bernard at the MÉnage, in the huge room on the lower floor, like those in all the farm-houses of the province, with the high mantelpiece, the long massive table in the centre, the kneading-trough of well-waxed walnut, the carved bread-cupboard with little columns, fastened to the wall like a cage, and the shining copper pans. Upon the whitewashed wall a few colored pictures were hanging: the Saintes-Maries in their boat; NapolÉon I. on the Bridge of Arcola, and GeneviÈve de Brabant, with the roe, in the depths of a forest.

An old shepherd was seated at the table, beside Bernard, slowly eating his slice of bread.

“Is it you, king?” said he as Renaud entered. “I have seen you hold your head higher! What’s the matter with you? you look downhearted. Aren’t you still a cattle-herder, my boy? A shepherd’s virtue, young man, is patience, remember that. What you can’t find in a day you may find in a hundred years.” “Ah! there you are, Sigaud, eh?” Renaud replied, without answering his questions. “When do you start for the Alps?”

“Right away, my son. We are behindhand this year. I am just getting ready.”

Nothing more was said. When they had eaten in silence their bread and sheep’s-milk cheese, and drunk a cup of sour wine made from the wild grape, they rose.

The shepherd threw his cloak over his arm, took his staff from a corner, and having doffed his broad-brimmed hat before an old image of the Nativity, that hung on the wall, embellished with a branch laden with cocoons, and beneath which, on a carved oak stand, stood a little lamp, long unlighted, he went slowly from the room.

When Renaud, mounted upon Prince and leading Blanchet, left the MÉnage, he rode some time with the shepherds, by the side of the enormous flock on their way to the Alps, where they were to pass the summer season.

Two thousand sheep, led by the rams, and arranged in battalions and companies, under the care of several shepherds of whom old Sigaud was the chief, were trotting along the road with hanging heads, making with their eight thousand feet a dull, smothered pattering, as of falling hailstones, in the dense clouds of dust. The Labry dogs ran to and fro along the edges of the flock, full of business, but frequently turning their eyes toward their master. A few asses scattered among the different companies bore upon their backs, jolting about in double wicker-baskets, the sleepy, bleating lambs.

Old Sigaud was in high feather, thinking of the cool, fresh air of the Alps, where the grass is green and the water pure, and where he could gaze in peace every night at Cassiopeia’s Chair and the Three Kings and the Pleiades in the heavens studded with myriads of stars.

“Adieu, Sigaud,” said Renaud, drawing rein when the time came for him to part from the flock and its guardians.

Sigaud also stopped in front of him.

“Adieu, Renaud,” said he gravely. “There must be a woman at the bottom of your trouble. You are too sad. But we called you King to do honor to your courage, you mustn’t forget that. Remember, too, that everything is of some use, my boy, and that good may come out of evil. It takes all kinds to make the world!”

Renaud found Livette sitting on the stone bench in front of the door of the chÂteau. He had not leaped down from Prince before she was covering Blanchet with kisses. Audiffret was very glad to learn that the stolen horse had returned to the drove, but when Renaud explained that he had come, on this occasion, to return Blanchet, Livette showed some feeling.

“So you are not satisfied with what he has done for you?” said she. “Such a pretty horse! and so clever!—or perhaps you are tired of teaching him for me, of preventing him from learning bad tricks in the stable, of training him so that I can have the pleasure of seeing him return a winner from the races at BÉziers, where my father is anxious to send him next month?”

“Certainly, Renaud,” said Audiffret, “you ought to keep him. He gets rusty here in the stable. But I am surprised at what Livette says. Why, would you believe that she was regretting him this very morning, saying that she proposed to ask you to bring him back to-day. And now she doesn’t want him!—It takes a very shrewd man to understand these girls!”

But what Audiffret could not understand, Renaud, for his part, understood very well. The lovelorn damsel said to herself that, by returning the horse, her fiancÉ would rid himself of a reminder of her, which was a cause of remorse to him perhaps—whereas, he ought, like a jealous lover, to have wanted to look after Blanchet, and take care of him for her, as long as possible.

Renaud resisted as best he could. He would have a deal of hard riding to do at the time of the fÊtes, he said, and he did not want to overwork Blanchet or to leave him with the drove to become wild again.

Thereupon, Audiffret, easily influenced by the last who spoke, agreed with Renaud.

While the discussion was in progress, Renaud had put up both horses in the stable. That done, he went slowly up to the hay-loft, whence he threw down an armful of hay into the racks through the openings in the floor.

When he went down again, Blanchet was standing alone in front of the mangers, nibbling at the hay.—Renaud ran to the door. Livette, having removed Prince’s halter, was shouting at him and waving her pretty arms to drive him away, naked and free. Honest Audiffret, delighted at his daughter’s cunning, laughed and laughed. And Prince, overjoyed to return to the desert after these few days of slavery, thinking no more of the oats to be had at the chÂteau, stood erect like a goat, neighed shrilly with delight, shook his luxuriant mane, flung up his tail and thrashed the air, alive with the flies he had driven from his flanks—and darted away toward the horizon through the lane between the trees in the park.

Renaud had no choice but to submit with an affectation of gratitude, and to laugh with the rest;—but it was more distasteful to him than ever to ride a horse that belonged to him less than any other in the drove, a horse that was his fiancÉe’s.

Thereupon, Audiffret went about his various tasks; and, two hours later, when they were all assembled in the lower room of the farm-house, Renaud, being suddenly seized with ennui at the thought that he was likely at any moment to have to endure an embarrassing tÊte-À-tÊte with this same Livette whose company he had so ardently desired a few days before, spoke of taking his leave. Audiffret remonstrated, and invited him to supper. They would drink a glass in honor of his victory. Renaud refused awkwardly, conscious how lacking in courtesy such an utterly motiveless refusal was.

But when the grandmother, who hardly ever spoke, urged him to stay, he stayed.

The old woman rarely spoke, for her thoughts were always with the dead and gone grandfather, who had been the faithful companion of her toilsome life. She was slowly drying up, like wood that is sound in all its fibres, but has lost its sap. Hers was a lovely old age, such as are seen in the land of the grasshopper, where people live sober lives, preserved by the light. Already advanced in years when she came to Camargue, she had never suffered from the malevolence of the swamps. It was too late. The cypress-tree does not allow the worms to draw their lines upon its surface.

She was patiently awaiting death, sometimes mumbling paters upon her rosary of olive-nuts, gazing fearlessly, with her dimmed eyes, straight before her at the vague shadow wherein her departed old man, her good, faithful Tiennet, was waiting for her;—Tiennet, who had never, in forty years, caused her a pang, and whom she had never wronged by a smile, even in the days of her gayest youth. Tiennet, from the depths of the shadow, sometimes called to her softly, and then the old woman would be heard to murmur, in a dreamy voice: “I am coming, good man! I am coming!” Being left alone for a moment with Livette, just before supper, Renaud did not know what to say. Nor did she. He did not dare to lie, and she hoped that he would open his heart and confess. At one moment, she felt that the very fact of his silence was sufficient proof of his treachery, and the next moment, on the contrary, she said to herself: “If there was an understanding between them, he would not be here! I was mad! He loves me.”

At supper, he was very talkative, told about his battles and his hunting exploits; how, the year before, with that rascal of a Rampal, he had beaten up two coveys of partridges, on horseback, in a single morning. They had taken twenty-eight, more than twenty being killed on the wing at a single casting of their staves, Arab-fashion.

Audiffret, overjoyed at the recovery of a horse he had thought lost forever, drew from under the woodpile an old-fashioned bottle, a gift from the masters, those masters who are always absent—like all the landowners of Camargue, who prefer to dwell in cities,—Paris, Marseilles, or Montpellier,—leaving the desert to their bailiffs.

“Ah! the masters in old times!” said Audiffret, “they had more courage and were better served and better loved!” Renaud, becoming more and more animated, stood up for the times we live in. The grandmother, grave and serious as always, said once to Audiffret at table, speaking of Renaud: “Wait upon your son, my son.” Well, well, he was decidedly one of the family.

And that certainty, which it behooved him to retain at any price, instead of moving his heart to gratitude, led him on to play the hypocrite. He was ready to betray Livette, without renouncing her, for he loved her so dearly, so sincerely, that he felt that he was ready, on the other hand, to renounce the gitana, without too great a pang, if circumstances should make it necessary. He laughed a great deal, raising his glass with great frequency, and winking involuntarily at Audiffret, as if to say: “We are sly fellows!” But honest Audiffret could not detect his excitement. He had never interested himself in anything except the farm accounts. He had never divined anything in all his life, not he!—As far as the gipsy was concerned, she certainly would not leave Saintes-Maries before the fÊte, that is to say, for a week or more. After that, she could go where she chose! it would make little difference to him. What could he hope for from a wandering creature like that? An hour’s meeting at the cross-roads on the way to Arles! Nothing more!

As to Zinzara, he had hopes; as to Livette, he had certainty. And he was very light of heart.

So it was, that, when the time came for him to take his leave, he indulged in an outburst of affection toward his new family, quite contrary to his usual habit, and to the habit of all drovers, who are rough-mannered by profession.

You must know that the peasants, in general, do not kiss except on great occasions—weddings or baptisms. Only the mothers kiss their young children. The man of the soil is of stern mould.

“Audiffret,” the grandmother suddenly said to her son, laying her knitting on the table and her spectacles on her knitting;—“Audiffret, every day brings me a little nearer the end, and I would like to see this marriage take place before I die. You must hurry it as much as possible, now that it’s decided on. And if I can’t be present on the wedding-day, don’t forget, my children, that the old woman blessed you from the bottom of her heart to-night.”

And, without another word, she calmly took up the stockings and needles.

She had spoken almost without inflection, in a grave, calm tone, moving her lips only.

Every one was deeply moved. Livette looked at Renaud. He, carried away by his emotion, forgot everything except this new family that offered itself to him, the orphan. Livette saw it and was grateful to him for it. She felt that he was won back, like the stolen horse, and she sprang to her feet in a burst of enthusiasm.

“Kiss me, my betrothed!” said she proudly.

He kissed her with heartfelt sincerity. The father and the grandmother looked on with eyes that gradually became dim with tears.

When he had pressed the father’s hand, Renaud turned to the grandmother, as she stuck her knitting-needle into the white hair that fluttered about her temples.

“Kiss me, grandmother!” he said, with a smile.

The old woman gave a leap, then stood erect, recoiling a little as if in fear:

“Since my husband died, no man has ever kissed me,” she said, “not even my son there! Let young people kiss. Life is before them. I,” she added, “am already with the dead.”

And with that, the old peasant-woman, straight and stiff and withered,—the image of a by-gone time, when it was deemed a praiseworthy thing to remain true to a single sentiment,—sought the bed of her old age, which was soon to see her lying dead, with the tranquillity of a simple, loving, faithful heart upon her parchment-like face.