“I, my lord, who was happy enough to spy Mdlle. de Taverney in the riot, near the Royal wardrobe storehouse.”
But Philip passed at once from joy to doubt and said:
“You are bringing her home very late, my lord.”
“You will understand my plight,” replied Balsamo without astonishment. “I was unaware of the address of your sister, though your father calls me a magician, kindly remembering some little incidents occurring at your country-seat. So I had her carried by my servants to the residence of the Marchioness of Savigny, a friend who lives near the Royal Stables. Then this honest fellow—Comtois,” he said, waving a footman in the royal livery to come forward, “being in the King’s household and recognizing the young lady from her being attendant of the Dauphiness, gave me this address. Her wonderful beauty had made him remark her one night when the royal coach left her at this door. I bade him get upon the box, and I have the honor to bring to you, with all the respect she merits—the young lady, less ill than she may appear.”
He finished by placing the lady with the utmost respect in the hands of Nicole and her father. For the first time the latter felt a tear on his eyelid, and he was astonished as he let it openly run down his wrinkled cheek.
“My lord,” said Philip, presenting the only hand he could use to Balsamo, “You know me and my address. Give me a chance to repay the services you have done me.”
“I have merely accomplished duty,” was the reply. “I owed you for the hospitality you once favored me at Taverney.” He took a few paces to depart, but retracing them, he added: “I ask pardon; but I was forgetting to leave the precise address of Marchioness Savigny; she lives in Saint Honore Street, near the Feuillant’s Monastery. This is said in case Mdlle. de Taverney should like to pay her a visit.”
In this explanation, exactness of details and accumulation of proofs, the delicacy touched the young lord and even the old one.
“My daughter owes her life to your lordship,” said the latter.
“I am proud and happy in that belief,” responded Balsamo.