The fact is, Isaline was a very pretty little girl, and
I had nothing else to do, and I might just as well make myself agreeable
to her as gain the reputation of being a bear of an Englishman. Besides,
if there was the safeguard of M. Claude, a real indigenous suitor, in
the background, there wasn't much danger of my polite attentions being
misunderstood. However, I haven't yet told you how I came to find myself on the farm at
Les Pentes at all. This, then, is how it all came about. I was sick of
the Temple; I had spent four or five briefless years in lounging about
Brick Court and dropping in casually at important cases, just to let the
world see I was the proud possessor of a well-curled wig; but even a wig
(which suits my complexion admirably) palls after five years, and I said
to myself that I would really cut London altogether, and live upon my
means somewhere on the Continent. Very small means, to be sure, but
still enough to pull through upon in Switzerland or the Black Forest. So, just by way of experiment as to how I liked it, I packed up my
fishing-rod and my portmanteau (the first the most important), took the
7.18 express from the Gare de Lyon for Geneva, and found myself next
afternoon comfortably seated on the verandah of my favourite hotel at
Vevay. The lake is delightful, that we all know; but I wanted to get
somewhere where there was a little fishing; so I struck back at once
into the mountain country round Château d'Oex and Les Avants, and came
soon upon the exact thing I wanted at Les Pentes. Picture to yourself a great amphitheatre of open alp or mountain pasture
in the foreground, with peaks covered by vivid green pines in the middle
distance, and a background of pretty aiguilles, naked at their base, but
clad near the summit with frozen masses of sparkling ice. Put into the
midst of the amphitheatre a clear green-and-white torrent, with a church
surrounded by a few wooden farmhouses on its slope, and there you have
the commune of Les Pentes. But what was most delightful of all was this,
that there was no hotel, no _pension_, not even a regular lodging-house. I was the first stranger to discover the capabilities of the village,
and I was free to exploit them for my own private advantage. By a stroke
of luck, it so happened that M. Clairon, the richest farmer of the
place, with a pretty old-fashioned Vaudois farmhouse, and a pretty,
dainty little Vaudoise daughter, was actually willing to take me in for
a mere song per week. I jumped at the chance; and the same day saw me
duly installed in a pretty little room, under the eaves of the pretty
little farmhouse, and with the pretty little daughter politely attending
to all my wants. Do you know those old-fashioned Vaudois houses, with their big
gable-ends, their deep-thatched roofs, their cobs of maize, and smoked
hams, and other rural wealth, hanging out ostentatiously under the
protecting ledges? If you don't, you can't imagine what a delightful
time I had of it at Les Pentes. The farm was a large one for the Pays
de Vaud, and M. Clairon actually kept two servants; but madame would
have been scandalized at the idea of letting "that Sara" or "that
Lisette" wait upon the English voyager; and the consequence was that
Mademoiselle Isaline herself always came to answer my little tinkling
hand-bell. It was a trifle awkward, for Mademoiselle Isaline was too
much of a young lady not to be treated with deferential politeness; and
yet there is a certain difficulty in being deferentially polite to the
person who lays your table for dinner. However, I made the best of it,
and I'm bound to say I managed to get along very comfortably. Isaline was one of those pretty, plump, laughing-eyed, dimple-cheeked,
dark little girls that you hardly ever see anywhere outside the Pays de
Vaud. It was almost impossible to look at her without smiling; I'm sure
it was quite impossible for her to look at any one else and not smile at
them. She wore the prettiest little Vaudois caps you ever saw in your
life; and she looked so coquettish in them that you must have been very
hard-hearted indeed if you did not straightway fall head over ears in
love with her at first sight. Besides, she had been to school at
Lausanne, and spoke such pretty, delicate, musical French. Now, my good
mother thought badly of my French accent; and when I told her I meant to
spend a summer month or two in western Switzerland, she said to me, "I
_do_ hope, Charlie dear, you will miss no opportunity of conversing with
the people, and improving yourself in colloquial French a little." I am
certainly the most dutiful of sons, and I solemnly assure you that
whenever I was not fishing or climbing I missed no opportunity
whatsoever of conversing with pretty little Isaline. "Mademoiselle Isaline," I said on this particular afternoon, "I should
much like a cup of tea; can Sara bring me one out here in the garden?" "Perfectly, monsieur; I will bring you out the little table on to the
grass plot," said Isaline. "That will arrange things for you much more
pleasantly." "Not for worlds," I said, running in to get it myself; but Isaline had
darted into the house before me, and brought it out with her own white
little hands on to the tiny lawn. Then she went in again, and soon
reappeared with a Japanese tray--bought at Montreux specially in my
honour--and a set of the funniest little old China tea-things ever
beheld in a London bric-à-brac cabinet. "Won't you sit and take a cup with me, mademoiselle?" I asked. "_Ma foi_, monsieur," answered Isaline, blushing again, "I have never
tasted any except as _pthisane_. But you other English drink it so,
don't you? I will try it, for the rest: one learns always." I poured her out a cup, and creamed it with some of that delicious
Vaudois cream (no cream in the world so good as what you get in the Pays
de Vaud--you see I am an enthusiast for my adopted country--but that is
anticipating matters), and handed it over to her for her approval. She
tasted it with a little _moue_. English-women don't make the _moue_, so,
though I like sticking to my mother tongue, I confess my inability to
translate the word. "Brrrr," she said. "Do you English like that stuff! Well, one must accommodate one's self to it, I suppose;" and to do her
justice, she proceeded to accommodate herself to it with such
distinguished success that she asked me soon for another cup, and drank
it off without even a murmur. "And this M. Claude, then," I asked; "he is a friend of yours? Eh?" "Passably," she answered, colouring slightly. "You see, we have not much
society at Les Pontes. He comes from the Normal School at Geneva. He is
instructed, a man of education. We see few such here. What would you
have?" She said it apologetically, as though she thought she was bound
to excuse herself for having made M. Claude's acquaintance. "But you like him very much?" "Like him? Well, yes; I liked him always well enough. Bat he is too
haughty. He gives himself airs.