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The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Volume 2 by Gilbert Parker
page 37 of 77 (48%)
"Oh, the rider, the rider he stayeth
(Oh, joy that my lover hath come!)
We will journey together he sayeth
(No more with the bugle and drum!)"

He caught sight of Christine for a moment as she passed through the
garden towards the stable. Her gown was of white stuff, with little
spots of red in it, and a narrow red ribbon was shot through the collar.
Her hat was a pretty white straw, with red artificial flowers upon it.
She wore at her throat a medallion brooch: one of the two heirlooms of
the Lavilette family. It had belonged to the great-grandmother of
Monsieur Louis Lavilette, and was the one security that this ambitious
family did not spring up, like a mushroom, in one night. It had always
touched Christine's imagination as a child. Some native instinct in, her
made her prize it beyond everything else. She used to make up wonderful
stories about it, and tell them to Sophie, who merely wondered, and was
not sure but that Christine was wicked; for were not these little
romances little lies? Sophie's imagination was limited. As the years
went on Christine finally got possession of the medallion, and held it
against all opposition. Somehow, with it on this morning, she felt
diminish the social distance between herself and Ferrol.

Ferrol himself thought nothing of social distance. Men, as a rule, get
rather above that sort of thing. The woman: that was all that was in his
mind. She was good to look at: warm, lovable, fascinating in her little
daring wickednesses; a fiery little animal, full of splendid impulses,
gifted with a perilous temperament: and she loved him. He had a kind of
exultation at the very fierceness of her love for him, of what she had
done to prove her love: her fury at Vanne Castine, the slaughter of the
bear, and the intention to kill Vanne himself; and he knew that she would
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