Frances Waldeaux Part 15

But her little triumph was short lived.

A famous professional soprano appeared in a white-ribboned enclosure at the end of the salon, and the guests were rapidly arranged according to their rank to listen. Clara and Jean stood until every man and woman were comfortably seated, when they were placed in the back row.

When the music was over supper was announced, and the same ceremony was observed. The Highnessess, the hochwohlgeboren privy councillors, the hochgeboren secretaries, even the unt.i.tled Herren who held some petty office, were ushered with profound deference to their seats at the long table, while Clara stood waiting. Jean's eyes still drooped meekly, but even her lips were pale.

"How can you look so placid?" she whispered. "It is a deliberate insult to your gray hairs."

"No. It is the custom of the country. It does not hurt me."

They were led at the moment to the lowest seats. Jean shot one vindictive glance around the table.

"You have more wit and breeding than any of them!" she said. "And as for me, this lace I wear would buy any of their rickety old palaces."

"They have something which we cannot buy," said Miss Vance gravely. "I never understood before how actual a thing rank is here."

"Cannot it be bought? I am going to look into that when this huge feed is over," Miss Ha.s.sard said to herself.

Late in the evening she danced with Count Odo, and prattled to him in a childish, frank fashion which he found very charming.

"Your rules of precedence are very disagreeable!" she pouted.

"Especially when one sits at the foot of the table and is served last."

"They must seem queer to you," he said, laughing, "but they are inflexible as iron."

"But they will bend for Miss Dunbar, if she makes up her mind to marry your cousin?" she asked, looking up into his face like an innocent child.

"No. Hugo makes a serious sacrifice in marrying a woman of no birth,"

he said. "He must give up his place and t.i.tle as head of the family.

She will not be received at court nor in certain houses; she must always remain outside of much of his social life."

He led her back to Miss Vance. She seemed to be struck dumb, and even forgot to smile when he bowed low and thanked her for the dance.

"Let us go home," she whispered to Clara. "The American girl is a fool who marries one of these men!"

When Miss Vance's carriage reached her hotel, she found Prince Hugo's coupe before the door.

"He has come to see Lucy, alone!" she said indignantly, as she hurried up the steps. "He has no right to annoy her!"

She met him coming out of the long salle. The little man walked nervously, fingering his sword hilt. He could not control his voice when he tried to speak naturally.

"Yes, gracious lady, I am guilty. It was unpardonable to come when I knew the chaperone was gone. But--ach! I could not wait!" throwing out both hands to her. "I have waited so long! I knew when she did not come to meet my sisters to-night she had resolved against me, but I could not sleep uncertain. So I break all the laws, and come!"

"You have seen her, then? She has told you?"

He nodded without speaking. His round face was red, and something like tears stood in his eyes.

He waited irresolute a moment, and then threw up his head.

"Soh! It is over! I shall not whine! You have been very good to me,"

he said earnestly, taking Clara's hand. "This is the first great trouble in my life. I have loved her very dearly. I decided to make great sacrifices for her. But I am not to have her--never."

"I am so sorry for you, prince." Clara squeezed his hand energetically.

"Nor her dot. That would have been so comfortable for me," he said simply.

Clara hid a smile, and bade him an affectionate good-night.

As he pa.s.sed into the outer salle a childish figure in creamy lace rose before him, and a soft hand was held out. "I know what has happened!"

she whispered pa.s.sionately. "She has treated you scandalously! She cannot appreciate YOU!"

Prince Hugo stuttered and coughed and almost kissed the little hand which lay so trustingly in his. He found himself safely outside at last, and drove away, wretched to the soul.

But below his wretchedness something whispered: "SHE appreciates me, and her dot is quite as large."

CHAPTER XIII

George Waldeaux hummed a tune gayly as he climbed the winding maze of streets in Vannes, one cloudy afternoon, with Lisa.

"It is impertinent to be modern Americans in this old town," he said.

"We might play that we were jongleurs, and that it was still mediaeval times. I am sure the gray walls yonder and the fortress houses in this street have not changed in ages."

"Neither have the smells, apparently," said Lisa grimly. "Wrap this scarf about your throat, George. You coughed last night."

George tied up his throat. "Coughed, did I?" he said anxiously. He had had a cold last winter, and his wife with her poultices and fright had convinced him that he was a confirmed invalid. The coming of her baby had given to the woman a motherly feeling toward all of the world, even to her husband.

"Look at these women," he said, going on with his fancy presently. "I am sure that they were here wearing these black gowns and huge red ap.r.o.ns in the twelfth century. What is this?" he said, stopping abruptly, to a boy of six who was digging mud at the foot of an ancient ivy-covered tower.

"C'est le tour du Connetable," the child lisped. "Et v'la, monsieur!"

pointing to a filthy pen with a gate of black oak; "v'la le donjon de Clisson!" "Who was Clisson?" said Lisa impatiently.

"A live man to Froissart--and to this boy," said George, laughing. "I told you that we had gone back seven centuries. This fog comes in from the Morbihan sea where Arthur and his knights went sailing to find the Holy Greal. They have not come back. And south yonder is the country of the Druids. I will take you to-morrow and show you twenty thousand of their menhirs, and then we will sail away to an island where there is an altar that the serpent worshippers built ages before Christ."

Lisa laughed. He was not often in this playful mood. She panted as she toiled up the dark little street, a step behind him, but he did not think of giving her his arm. He had grown accustomed to regard himself as the invalid now, and the one who needed care.

"I am going for letters," he called back, diving into a dingy alley.

The baby and its bonne were near Lisa. The child never was out of her sight for, a moment. She waited, standing a little apart from Colette to watch whether the pa.s.sers-by would notice the baby. When one or two of the gloomy and stolid women who hurried past in their wooden sabots clicked their fingers to it, she could not help smiling gayly and bidding them good-day.

The fog was stifling. As she waited she gave a tired gasp. Colette ran to her. "Madame is going to be ill!"

"No, no! Don't frighten monsieur."

George came out of the gate at the moment.

"Going to faint again, Lisa?" he said, with an annoyed glance around the street. "Your attacks do choose the most malapropos times----"