At first Carterette was inclined to run towards the prophet-like figure--it was Ranulph’s father; next she drew back with dislike--his smile was leering malice under the guise of amiable mirth. But he was old, and he looked feeble, so her mind instantly changed again, and she offered him a seat on a bench beside the arched doorway with the superscription:
“Nor Poverty nor Riches, but Daily Bread Under Mine Own Fig Tree.”
After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him refreshment, and brought him brandy--good old brandy was always to be got at the house of Elie Mattingley! As he drank she noticed a peculiar, uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids. The old man’s eyes were continually shifting from place to place. He asked Carterette many questions. He had known the house years before--did the deep stream still run beneath it? Was the round hole still in the floor of the back room, from which water used to be drawn in old days? Carterette replied that it was M. Detricand’s bedroom now, and you could plainly hear the stream running beneath the house. Did not the noise of the water worry poor M. Detricand then? And so it still went straight on to the sea--and, of course, much swifter after such a heavy rain as they had had the day before.
Carterette took him into every room in the house save her own and the Chevalier’s. In the kitchen and in Detricand’s bedroom Olivier Delagarde’s eyes were very busy. He saw that the kitchen opened on the garden, which had a gate in the rear wall. He also saw that the lozenge-paned windows swung like doors, and were not securely fastened; and he tried the trap-door in Detricand’s bedroom to see the water flowing beneath, just as it did when he was young--Yes, there it was running swiftly away to the sea! Then he babbled all the way to the door that led into the street; for now he would stay no longer.
When he had gone, Carterette sat wondering why it was that Ranulph’s father should inspire her with such dislike. She knew that at this moment no man in Jersey was so popular as Olivier Delagarde. The longer she thought the more puzzled she became. No sooner had she got one theory than another forced her to move on. In the language of her people, she did not know on which foot to dance.