‘No, indeed! I was trying to trace thine old likeness, and then wondering how I ever liked thy boyish face better than the noble look thou bearest now!’
‘Ah! when I set out to come to thee, I was a walking rainbow; yet I was coxcomb enough to think thou wouldst overlook it.’
‘Show me those cruel strokes,’ she said; ‘I see one’—and her finger traced the seam as poor King Charles had done—‘but where is the one my wicked cousin called by that frightful name?’
‘Nay, verily, that sweet name spared my life! A little less spite at my peach cheek, and I had been sped, and had not lisped and stammered all my days in honour of le baiser d’Eustacie!’ and as he pushed aside his long golden silk moustache to show the ineffaceable red and purple scar, he added, smiling, ‘It has waited long for its right remedy.’
At that moment the door in the rood-screen opened. Captain Falconnet’s one eye stared in amazement, and from beneath his gray moustache thundered forth the word ‘Comment!’ in accents fit to wake the dead.
Was this Esperance, the most irreproachable of pastor’s daughters and widows? ‘What, Madame, so soon as your good father is under ground? At least I thought ONE woman could be trusted; but it seems we must see to the wounded ourselves.’
She blushed, but stood her ground; and Berenger shouted, ‘She is my wife, sir!—my wife whom I have sought so long!’
‘That must be as Madame la Duchesse chooses,’ said the Captain. ‘She is under her charge, and must be sent to her as soon as this canaille is cleared off. To your rooms, Madame!’
‘I am her husband!’ again cried Berenger. ‘We have been married sixteen years.’
‘You need not talk to me of dowry; Madame la Duchesse will settle that, if you are fool enough to mean anything by it. No, no, Mademoiselle, I’ve no time for folly. Come with me, sir, and see if that be true which they say of the rogues outside.’