You feel that you belong here? “

I was silent. I thought of it. The life Jean Pierre was offering me. I imagined myself being caught up in the excitement of the vineyards, taking my easel out and developing that little talent I had for painting. Visiting the family at the Maison Bastide . But no, then I should see the chateau; I should never be able to look at it without a pain in my heart; and there would be times when I should see the Comte perhaps. He would look at me and bow courteously. And perhaps he would say to himself:

Who is that woman? I have seen her somewhere. Oh, she is that Mademoiselle Lawson who came to do the pictures and married Jean Pierre Bastide over at Mermoz.

Better to go right away than that better to take the opportunity which Claude had offered and which was still open although it would probably not remain so much longer.

“You hesitate,” said Jeanne Pierre.

“No. It can’t be.”

“You do not love me?”

“I don’t really know you, Jean Pierre.” The words had escaped me, and I had not meant to say them.

“But we are old friends, I thought.”

“There is so much that we don’t know about each other.”

“All I have to know of you is that I love you.”

Love? I thought. Yet you do not speak of it as vehemently as you do of hate.

His hatred of the Comte was stronger than his love for me; and it occurred to me then that one had grown out of the other. Was Jean Pierre eager to marry me because he thought that the Comte was attracted by me? As that thought came to me I was conscious of a great revulsion against him and he no longer seemed like the old friend in whose home I had spent so many hours. He was a sinister stranger.

“Come, Dallas,” he said, ‘say we’ll be married. And I’ll go to the Comte and tell him that I shall be taking a bride with me to Mermoz. ”

There it was! He would go to the Comte in triumph.

“I’m sorry, Jean Pierre,” I said, ‘but this is not the way. “

“You mean you will not marry me?”

“No, Jean Pierre, I can’t marry you.”

He dropped my hands and a look of baffled rage crossed his features.

Then he lifted his shoulders, “But,” he said, “I shall continue to hope.”

I had a great desire to escape from the cellar. Such hatred of one man towards another was terrifying; and I, who had felt so self-sufficient in the past, so able to take care of myself, had now begun to learn the meaning of fear.

I was glad to come out into the hot light of day.

I went straight to my room and thought about Jean Pierre’s proposal.

He had not the manner of a man in love. He i’ had shown me how deeply he could feel when he talked of the Comte. To spite the Comte he would marry me. This horrifying thought brought with it its elation. He had noticed, then, the Comte’s interest in me. Yet since his return from Paris he had scarcely seemed aware of me.

The next morning I was working on the wall-painting to which I was putting the finishing touches when Nounou came to me in great distress.

“It’s Genevieve,” she said.

“She’s come in and gone straight to her room. She’s half crying, half laughing and I can’t get out of her what’s wrong. I wish you’d come and help me.”

I went with her to Genevieve’s room. The girl was certainly in a wild mood. She had thrown her riding-hat and crop into a corner of the room and when I entered was sitting on her bed glowering into space.

“What’s wrong, Genevieve?” I asked.

“I might be able to help.”

“Help! How can you help? Unless you go and ask my father …” She looked at me speculatively.

I said coldly: “Ask what?”

She didn’t answer; she clenched her fists and beat them on the bed.

“I’m not a baby!” she cried.

“I’m grown up. I won’t stay here if I don’t want to. I’ll run away.”

Nounou caught her breath in fear but asked: “Where to?”

“Anywhere I like and you won’t find me.”

“I don’t think I should be eager to if you remain in your present mood.”

She burst out laughing but was sober almost at once.

“I tell you, miss, I won’t be treated like a child.”

“What has happened to upset you? How have you been treated like a child?”

She stared at the tips of her riding-boots.

“If I want friends, I shall have them.”

“Who said you shouldn’t?”

“I don’t think people should be sent away just because …” She stopped and glared at me.

“It’s no business of yours. Nor yours, Nounou. Go away. Don’t stand staring at me as though I’m a baby.”

Nounou looked ready to burst into tears and I thought I could handle this better if she were not there, continually to remind Genevieve that she was her nurse. So I signed to her to leave us. She went readily.

I sat on the bed and waited. Genevieve said sullenly, “My father is sending Jean Pierre away because he’s my friend.”

“Who said so?”

“No one has to say so. I know.”

“But why should he be sent away for that reason?”

“Because I’m Papa’s daughter and Jean Pierre is one of the wine growers

“I don’t see the point.”

“Because I’m growing up, that’s why. Because …” She looked at me and her lips quivered. Then she threw herself on to the bed and burst into loud sobs which shook her body.

I leaned over her.

“Genevieve,” I said gently, ‘do you mean that they’re afraid you’ll fall in love with him? “

“Now you laugh!” she cried, turning a hot face to glare at me.

“I tell you I’m old enough. I’m not a child.”

“I didn’t say you were. Genevieve, are you in love with Jean Pierre?”

She didn’t answer, so I went on: “And Jean Pierre?”

She nodded.

“He told me that was why Papa is sending him away.”

“I see,” I said slowly.

She laughed bitterly.

“It’s only to Mermoz. I shall run away with him.

I shan’t stay here if he goes. “

“Did Jean Pierre suggest this?”

“Don’t keep questioning me. You’re not on my side.”

“I am, Genevieve. I am on your side.”

She raised herself and looked at me.

“Are you?”

I nodded.

“I thought you weren’t because… because I thought you liked him too.

I was jealous of you,” she admitted naively.

“There’s no need to be jealous of me, Genevieve. But you have to be reasonable, you know. When I was young I fell in love.”

The thought made her smile.

“Oh, no, miss, yowl”

“Yes,” I said tartly, ‘even I. “

“That must have been funny.”

“It seemed tragic rather.”

“Why? Did your father send him away?”

“He couldn’t do that. But he made me see how impossible it would have been.”

“And would it have been?”

“It usually is when one is very young.”

“Now you’re trying to influence me. I tell you I won’t listen. I’ll tell you this, though, that when Jean Pierre goes to Mermoz I am going with him.”

“He’ll go after the harvest.”

“And so shall I,” she said with determination.

I could see that it was no use talking to her when she was in this mood.

I was worried, asking myself what this meant. Had she imagined that Jean Pierre was in love with her, or had he told her so? Could he have done this at the same time that he was asking me to marry him?

I thought of Jean Pierre in the cellar, his eyes brilliant with hatred.

It seemed to me that the ruling passion of his life was hatred of the Comte, and because he thought that the Comte was interested in me he had asked me to marry him. Because Genevieve was the Comte’s daughter could it be that he was attempting to seduce her?

I was very uneasy.

The following day had been fixed for the gathering of the grapes. All day long the sky overhead had been a cloudless blue; the sun was hot and the abundant grapes were ripe for picking. I was not thinking of the next day. I was thinking of

Jean Pierre and his desire for revenge on the Comte. I was watching Genevieve, for in her present mood I could not guess what she would do next. Nor could I rid myself of that sinister feeling that I myself was being watched.

I longed for a tete-a-tete with the Comte but he seemed to ignore me and I thought perhaps it was as well since my own feelings were in such a turmoil. Claude made several significant references to my work’s growing near its termination. How she wanted to be rid of me!

On the few occasions when I encountered him Philippe was as remote yet friendly as he had ever been.

After Genevieve’s outburst I had been wondering how to act and I suddenly thought that the one person who might help me was Jean Pierre’s grandmother.

The afternoon was almost turning into evening when I went to see her.

I guessed she would be alone in the house for there was a great deal of activity in the vineyards, preparing for the next day, and even Yves and Margot were not near the house.

She welcomed me as always, and without preamble I told her how worried I was.

“Jean Pierre has asked me to marry him,” I said.

“And you do not love him?”

I shook my head.

“He does not love me, either,” I went on.

“But he hates the Comte.”

I saw how the veins in her hands stood out as she clenched them together.

“There is Genevieve,” I went on.

“He has led her to believe…” ^ “Oh, no!”

“She is excitable and vulnerable and I’m afraid for her. She’s in a state of hysteria because he is being sent away. We must do something… I’m not sure what. But I’m afraid something dreadful will happen. This hatred of his … it’s unnatural.”

“It’s born in him. Try to understand it. Every day he looks at the chateau there and he thinks: ” Why should it be the Comte’s . that and the power that goes with it! Why not. ? ” ” But this is absurd. Why should he feel this? Everyone in the neighbourhood sees the chateau but they don’t think it should be theirs. “

“It’s different. We Bastides have chateau blood in us. Bastide! Here in the south a has tide is a country house … but might it not once have been Bdtard^ That is how names come about.”

“There must be plenty of people hereabouts who, as they say, have chateau blood.”

“That’s so, but with the Bastides it was different. We were closer to the chateau. We belonged to it, and it is not so many years that we can forget. My husband’s father was the son of a Comte de la Talle.

Jean Pierre knows this; and when he looks at the chateau, when he sees the Comte, he thinks:

So might I have ridden about the land. These vineyards might have been mine . and the chateau too. “

“It’s … unhealthy to think so.”

“He has always been proud. He has always listened to the stories of the chateau which were handed down in our family. He knows how the Comtesse sheltered here in this house … how her son was born here, how he lived here until he went back to join his grandmother in the chateau. You see, the Madame Bastide who sheltered him had a son of her own; he was a year older than the little Comte but they had the same father.”

“It makes a strong link, I see, but it doesn’t explain this envy and hatred going on over years.”

Madame Bastide shook her head and I burst out: “You must make him see reason. There’ll be a tragedy if he goes on in this way. I sense it.

In the woods when the Comte was shot. “

“That was not Jean Pierre.”

“But if he hates him so much …”

“He is not a murderer.”

“Then who … ?”

“A man such as the Comte has his enemies.”

“None could hate him more than your grandson. I don’t like it. It must be stopped.”

“You must always restore people to what you think they should be, Dallas. Human beings are not pictures, you know. Nor …”

“Nor am I so perfect that I should seek to reform others. I know. But I find this alarming.”

“If you could know the secret thoughts which go on in our minds there might often be cause for alarm. But, Dallas, what of yourself? You are in love with the Comte, are you not?”

I drew away from her in dismay.

“It is as clear to me as Jean Pierre’s hatred is to you. You are alarmed not because Jean Pierre hates, but because he hates the Comte.

You fear he will do him some harm. It is necessary to Jean Pierre. It soothes his pride. You are in greater danger through your love, Dallas, than he is through his hate. “

I was silent.