"Nothing at all," answered Joyce, bravely, although her heart beat twice as fast as usual as monsieur's accusing face rose up before her.
"It was all my fault," said Jules, ready to cry. "What must I do?" Joyce saw his distress, and with quick womanly tact recognized her duty as hostess. It would never do to let this, his first Thanksgiving Day, be clouded by a single unhappy remembrance. She would pretend that it was a part of their last game; so she waved her hand, and said, in a theatrical voice, "You forget, Prince Ethelried, that in the castle of Irmingarde she rules supreme. If it is the pleasure of your royal steeds to feed upon cushions they shall not be denied, even though they choose my own coach pillows, of gold-cloth and velour."
"But what if Gabriel should tell Brossard?" questioned Jules, his teeth almost chattering at the mere thought.
"Oh, never mind, Jules," she answered, laughingly. "Don't worry about a little thing like that. I'll make it all right with madame as soon as she gets home."
Jules, with utmost faith in Joyce's power to do anything that she might undertake, drew a long breath of relief. Half a dozen times between the gate and the lane that led into the Ciseaux field, he turned around to wave his old cap in answer to the hopeful flutter of her little white handkerchief; but when he was out of sight she went back to the carriage-house and looked at the wreck of the cushions with a sinking heart. After that second look, she was not so sure of making it all right with madame.
Going slowly up to her room, she curled up in the window-seat to wait for the sound of the carriage wheels. The blue parrots on the wall-paper sat in their blue hoops in straight rows from floor to ceiling, and hung all their dismal heads. It seemed to Joyce as if there were thousands of them, and that each one was more unhappy than any of the others. The blue roses on the bed-curtains, that had been in such gay blossom a few hours before, looked ugly and unnatural now.
Over the mantel hung a picture that had been a pleasure to Joyce ever since she had taken up her abode in this quaint blue room. It was called "A Message from Noël," and showed an angel flying down with gifts to fill a pair of little wooden shoes that some child had put out on a window-sill below. When madame had explained that the little French children put out their shoes for Saint Noël to fill, instead of hanging stockings for Santa Claus, Joyce had been so charmed with the picture that she declared that she intended to follow the French custom herself, this year.
Now, even the picture looked different, since she had lost her joyful anticipations of Christmas. "It is all No-el to me now," she sobbed. "No tree, no Santa Claus, and now, since the money must go to pay for the goats' mischief, no presents for anybody in the dear little brown house at home,--not even mamma and the baby!"
A big salty tear trickled down the side of Joyce's nose and splashed on her hand; then another one. It was such a gloomy ending for her happy Thanksgiving Day. One consoling thought came to her in time to stop the deluge that threatened. "Anyway, Jules has had a good time for once in his life." The thought cheered her so much that, when Marie came in to light the lamps, Joyce was walking up and down the room with her hands behind her back, singing.
As soon as she was dressed for dinner she went down-stairs, but found no one in the drawing-room. A small fire burned cozily on the hearth, for the November nights were growing chilly. Joyce picked up a book and tried to read, but found herself looking towards the door fully as often as at the page before her. Presently she set her teeth together and swallowed hard, for there was a rustling in the hall. The portière was pushed aside and madame swept into the room in a dinner-gown of dark red velvet.