"But here, here!" cried Sue. "What in the world would Louis be doing in America? I could believe it more easily if we lived somewhere in France."
"I read in one book," replied the Imp to this objection, "that there was a rumor that after the dauphin escaped he was taken to America. There was an American Indian, named Eleazar Williams, or something like that, who claimed to be the dauphin. So you see it's not so impossible, after all."
"Now I begin to see," remarked Carol, after a long pause, "what you meant by some of those three things. If Monsieur thinks Louis is a descendant of the dauphin, I can understand why they all treat him with such respect. Why, girls," she cried enthusiastically, "just think,—Louis—our Louis—may have royal blood in his veins! I simply can't believe it!"
"That remark about 'the Temple look' meant, I suppose," murmured Sue, "that Louis looked so awfully when he was sick that it reminded Monsieur how the dauphin must have appeared after his bad treatment and illness in the Temple Tower. That never occurred to me. But I can't yet see any connection with what you said about 'Louis the Locksmith.'"
"That's easy," answered the Imp. "It was one of the first things I thought of. Don't you remember how Louis XVI was always tinkering with things and fixing locks, and how fond he was of mechanical work? The whole court used to resent it. Well, the Meadows and Monsieur evidently think that Louis has inherited that trait, and it drives them wild. Don't you remember what Louis told us Miss Yvonne once said when she found him fixing the lock on the kitchen-door? 'The ancient blood! It will ruin everything!' Doesn't that indicate what they think?"
"True enough," Sue had to admit. "But what foolishness all this is, girls, when you think of Louis's history and the history of his family! I was asking Father about Louis's folks not long ago, just out of curiosity. He said that the Durants had lived in and owned that house across the Green for many, many years, even longer than our descendants have lived in our house. It was way back in the eighties when Louis's father left here and went out West. He was a young man then, about Father's age. In fact, they'd gone to school together. But this Charles Durant went away out West to better himself, and rented the old house on this Green. Father says he never saw him again, because Charles Durant and the wife he'd married out there were suddenly killed in an accident. The first Father heard about it was when old Mr. Meadows and his daughter, whom nobody had ever seen before, came to this place with the tiny baby who was Louis, and settled here for good. They never said much about themselves, except that they were old friends of the Durant family and that they had always lived in France. They explained that they had come over here to take care of and bring up the last Durant baby, since its parents had been killed. Now will you tell me how anything about a dauphin could come in there?"
"Maybe they didn't bring the baby from out West," suggested Carol, "but brought him over from France with them. Maybe he isn't a Durant at all."
"That's possible, too," said the Imp, "but, after all, it doesn't make any difference where he came from, does it, if Louis is what we think he is?"
"But who is this 'Monsieur,' and what has he to do with the whole thing?" suddenly cried Carol.
"That," admitted the Imp, "is what I can't figure out. I'm sure he must be some relative. They say there are descendants of the Bourbons still living. It wouldn't be strange if he wanted to hunt up a long-lost relative, but why he should make such a secret of it is beyond me."