“Monsieur le comte is away?” said Ned, as he took his seat by one of the silent ladies.
“He is gone south to join his regiment. He will be at Liége for a few days to inspect the fortifications. I do not know, I, what it all portends. They say the air is full of hidden menace. Anyhow, what does M. Lafayette purpose in bringing an army of ragamuffins to the frontier? He is a nobleman and a gentleman. I saw him once at Belle-Chasse. Ah! the dear industrious days! But I prefer a life of ease, monsieur; do not you? To gild baskets and work samplers, with the sun on one’s head in the hot white room! Mother of Christ, it is hot enough in Brussels! One may think one hears the sun drop grease upon the stones in the street, when Fanchon spits upon a flat-iron in the kitchen. Have you ever known a summer so sultry? The sky is packed with thunder like the hold of a ship. Then will come the rain one day and swell it and swell it, and the decks will burst asunder and the ribs explode apart. I do not like thunder, monsieur—do you? It is disturbing, like the play of children. Yet we are to have thunder enough soon, they say.”
So she talked on, in a tuneless soft voice; and there seemed no particular reason why she should ever come to an end. She never paused for an answer or for a word, nor often for breath, which long habit had taught her the art of nursing. She asked no questions as to her mother; did not, indeed, so much as allude to her until Ned indirectly forced a reference.
“And where is monsieur le duc?” said he, cutting in during a momentary ellipsis that was caused by her indetermination in choosing between two dishes of vegetables. She did not answer till she had decided—upon taking some of each. Then she turned her soft eyes on him in a little wonder.
“Monsieur——?” she began, as if she had not heard.
“The Duke of Orleans,” said Ned.
“Indeed, I do not know. He should be in Paris.”
“He has left here, then?”
“Here? Brussels, do you mean? He has not, to my knowledge, been in Brussels these six months—no, not since January, when he came to meet the demoiselle Théroigne on her return from the Austrian prisons, and conducted her back to the capital.”
“Théroigne!” exclaimed Ned in faint amazement.