"As he came to know you."
"I wouldn't let him go away. He stayed at the inn in the village two weeks and more. It's an old chef of mine who keeps it. And I learned all his secrets. He thought he was throwing dust in my eyes, but he didn't throw a grain. As if I couldn't see who was in love with who—after all my experience! Ah, mon bon Rodney, if I'd been fifty years younger! And yet if I'd been fifty years younger, I shouldn't have judged him at his worth. He's the type to which you can do justice only when you've a standard of comparison, n'est-ce pas? It's in putting him beside other men—the best—even Ashley over there—that you see how big he is."
She tossed her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, sitting by the tea-table at the other end of the room. Mrs. Temple had again found errands of mercy to insure her absence.
"Il est très bien, cet Ashley," the Marquise continued, "chic—distinguished—no more like a wooden man than any other Englishman. Il est très bien—but what a difference!—two natures—the one a mountain pool, fierce, deep, hemmed in all round—the other the great sea. Voilà—Ashley et mon Davenant. And he helped me. He gave me courage to stand up against the Melcourt—to run away from them. Oh yes, we ran away—almost. I made a pretext for going to Paris—the old pretext, the dentist. They didn't suspect at my age—how should they?—or they wouldn't have let me come alone. Helie or Paul or Anne Marie would have come with me. Oh, they smother me! But we ran away. We took the train to Cherbourg, just like two eloping lovers—and the bateau de luxe, the Louisiana to New York. Mais hélas!—"
She paused to laugh, and at the same time to dash away a tear. "At New York we parted, never to meet again—so he thinks. His work was done! He went straight to that funny place in Michigan to join his pal. He's there now—waiting to hear that Olivia has married her Englishman, as you might wait to hear that sentence of death on some one you were fond of had been carried out. Ah, mon Dieu, quel brave homme! I'm proud to belong to the people who produced him. I don't know that I ever was before."
"Oh, the world is full of brave fellows, when the moment comes to try them."
"Perhaps. I'm not convinced. What about him?" She flicked her hand again toward Ashley. "Would he stand a big test?"
"He's stood a good many of them, I understand. He's certainly been equal to his duty here."
"He's done what a gentleman couldn't help doing. That's something, but it's possible to ask more."
"I hope you're not going to ask it," he began, in some anxiety.