The girl sniffed, and caught her breath. If she had but little heart, the emotionalism in her was always a responsive quantity. She answered, almost hysterically:
“O! what is the good of asking me? He is gone, I tell you—some say summoned by the archduke to answer for his conduct. Perhaps he is dead by now.”
She saw the roses quit the cheek, and clutched at the slender form as it swayed backwards. She was full of passionate remorse and alarm in a moment.
“Mistress—dearest, it was a lie. Look up—listen to me—I am a wicked heartless wretch! He is not dead—I know it—I was told by one who knows it. He has been to Vienna, and left again: it is thought he has gone to the wars.”
She wept, and upbraided herself, and fondled the scarce animate form, calling upon it to speak, to forgive her, not to die and curse her to eternal despair. And presently her urgency prevailed, and a tinge of colour came back to the white face, and the ghost of a voice reassured her:
“Without one word to me?”
She took her in her arms, and rocked her, soothing and protesting in one:
“They are all alike for that. Loin des yeux, loin du coeur, is it not. There, don’t give way so. It is wiser anyhow that he should disappear for the time being; and like enough he sees it, and sees clearer than you. If he’s all your fancy paints him, he’ll come back again when the dust he’s kicked up has settled; and in the meantime—” she ventured to coax, trusting to the impression she was making—“I’d try to forget him, dear mistress, an I were you—if for no better reason than to prepare yourself against emergencies. He’s not strong enough to fight against a throne, and if he hasn’t realised that by this time, a little reflection will be sure to convince him. And then it isn’t as if you were asked to make your choice between honey and gall. His Highness by all accounts is a very proper man, tender but self-willed, as we women like, and with all the advantage of youth on his side——”
She submitted, falling silent, to the quick passionate rebuff which her words evoked. Isabella, putting her aside, rose to her feet and stood breathing spasmodically, her hand crushed to her bosom.
“There,” she said, panting a little: “you have said enough. I have been weak and foolish; and I am ashamed. Forget everything I said, Fanchette, and let me forget it. I am very tired, and I wish to sleep.”