Carterette was half sorry that her great moment had come. She wished she could have linked out the suspense longer. But she let herself be comforted by the anticipated effect of her “wonderfuls.”
“I’ll tell you what comes after—ah, but see then what a news I have for you! You know that Monsieur d’Avranche—well, what do you think has come to him?”
Guida felt as if a monstrous hand had her heart in its grasp, crushing it. Presentiment seized her. Carterette was busy running over the pages of the letter, and did not notice her colourless face. She had no thought that Guida had any vital interest in Philip, and ruthlessly, though unconsciously, she began to torture the young wife as few are tortured in this world.
She read aloud Detricand’s description of his visit to the Castle of Bercy, and of the meeting with Philip. “‘See what comes of a name!’” wrote Detricand. “‘Here was a poor prisoner whose ancestor, hundreds of years ago, may or mayn’t have been a relative of the d’Avranches of Clermont, when a disappointed duke, with an eye open for heirs, takes a fancy to the good-looking face of the poor prisoner, and voila! you have him whisked off to a palace, fed on milk and honey, and adopted into the family. Then a pedigree is nicely grown on a summer day, and this fine young Jersey adventurer is found to be a green branch from the old root; and there’s a great blare of trumpets, and the States of the duchy are called together to make this English officer a prince—and that’s the Thousand and One Nights in Arabia, Ma’m’selle Carterette.’”
Guida was sitting rigid and still. In the slight pause Carterette made, a hundred confused torturing thoughts swam through her mind and presently floated into the succeeding sentences of the letter:
“‘As for me, I’m like Rabot’s mare, I haven’t time to laugh at my own foolishness. I’m either up to my knees in grass or clay fighting Revolutionists, or I’m riding hard day and night till I’m round-backed like a wood-louse, to make up for all the good time I so badly lost in your little island. You wouldn’t have expected that, my friend with the tongue that stings, would you? But then, Ma’m’selle of the red slippers, one is never butted save by a dishorned cow—as your father used to say.”’
Carterette paused again, saying in an aside: “That is M’sieu’ all over, all so gay. But who knows? For he says, too, that the other day a-fighting Fontenay, five thousand of his men come across a cavalry as they run to take the guns that eat them up like cabbages, and they drop on their knees, and he drops with them, and they all pray to God to help them, while the cannon balls whiz-whiz over their heads. And God did hear them, for they fell down flat when the guns was fired and the cannon balls never touched ‘em.”
During this interlude, Guida, sick with anxiety, could scarcely sit still. She began sewing again, though her fingers trembled so she could hardly make a stitch. But Carterette, the little egoist, did not notice her agitation; her own flurry dimmed her sight.
She began reading again. The first few words had little or no significance for Guida, but presently she was held as by the fascination of a serpent.
“‘And Ma’m’selle Carterette, what do you think this young captain, now Prince Philip d’Avranche, heir to the title of Bercy—what do you think he is next to do? Even to marry a countess of great family the old Duke has chosen for him; so that the name of d’Avranche may not die out in the land. And that is the way that love begins.... Wherefore, I want you to write and tell me—‘”