But Marguerite gave a happy little laugh when she saw him coming towards her.
“Oh, Sir Percy!” she said gaily, “and pray have you seen the show? I vow 'tis the maddest, merriest throng I've seen for many a day. Nay! but for the sighs and shudders of my poor little Juliette, I should be enjoying one of the liveliest days of my life.”
She patted Juliette's arm affectionately.
“Do not shame me before Sir Percy,” murmured the young girl, casting shy glances at the elegant cavalier before her, vainly trying to find in the indolent, foppish personality of this society butterfly, some trace of the daring man of action, the bold adventurer who had snatched her and her lover from out the very tumbril that bore them both to death.
“I know I ought to be gay,” she continued with an attempt at a smile, “I ought to forget everything, save what I owe to...”
Sir Percy's laugh broke in on her half-finished sentence.
“Lud! and to think of all that I ought not to forget!” he said loudly. “Tony here has been clamouring for iced punch this last half-hour, and I promised to find a booth wherein the noble liquid is properly dispensed. Within half an hour from now His Royal Highness will be here. I assure you, Mlle. Juliette, that from that time onwards I have to endure the qualms of the damned, for the heir to Great Britain's throne always contrives to be thirsty when I am satiated, which is Tantalus' torture magnified a thousandfold, or to be satiated when my parched palate most requires solace; in either case I am a most pitiable man.”
“In either case you contrive to talk a deal of nonsense, Sir Percy,” said Marguerite gaily.
“What else would your ladyship have me do this lazy, hot afternoon?”
“Come and view the booths with me,” she said. “I am dying for a sight of the fat woman and the lean man, the pig-faced child, the dwarfs and the giants. There! Monsieur Deroulede,” she added, turning to the young Frenchman who was standing close beside her, “take Mlle. Juliette to hear the clavecin players. I vow she is tired of my company.”