Fanchette one evening was “finishing” her young lady in preparation for a descent to the audience chamber—to which was coming M. du Tillot, Marquis de Felino and Secretary of State—and was taking full advantage of the licence allowed her tongue by a spoiling mistress.
“It is fortunate, is it not, your Highness,” she said, with a little simper, “that somebody whom we know does not approve of rouge for ladies?”
She was daintily fitting, as she spoke, a spray of natural pink rose-buds into the silken fillet which bound the girl’s unpowdered chestnut-brown hair. Isabella’s laced bodice was of the simplest, meet sheath for the flower-like neck and bosom which emerged from it. A sacque, like a drooped petal, fell from between her shoulder-blades; her slender hips were innocent of the grotesque abomination of hoops. So she was permitted, in that court of burlesque and man-millinery, to indulge her own humorous naïveté. It gave her an odd distinction, not unagreeable to papa’s pride. He would sternly repress any inclination detected in others to ape, servilely, that natural innocence; Isabelita should be the only sweet Arcadian in Parma. If she was to be Hebe in a raree show, she alone should display the delicious novelty of acting humanly, while the puppets, reversing their part, looked on and applauded. And yet, to Isabella herself, hers was no part at all, but only the most natural of instincts.
“Fanchette,” she said; “your voice sounds very demure; or else I am very stupid. Was it weighted, or was it not, with some meaning I did not understand?”
“Only that mademoiselle’s cheek, so sensitive to sudden changes of feeling, is its own best interpreter.”
“Interpreter of what, and to whom, Fanchette?”
“Ah! I have blundered,” said the maid; “and now I am full of confusion. It would be too daring in me to suggest.”
“Well, I will not ask you to,” said Isabella. “Does my cheek satisfy you now? But it does not blush for what you think; only to be made the target to gossips and impertinents.”
“O, mademoiselle! O, your Highness! Let me go and weep my heart out in solitude. I have offended you, and without the least little thought of offence. O, let me go, mademoiselle!”
“Don’t be silly, Fanchette. I am not blaming you for the idle chatter you repeat. People may think what they like about rouge, without its affecting my fortunes, that is all. Sensitive! There is nobody in the world so absurdly sensitive as yourself, I believe. Come——”