"Yes and yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you and you can help. Here is the story: When Napoleon was overthrown my grandfather, Paul Bellaire, was a boy of eighteen. But already Napoleon's eye had found him and he was Captain Bellaire. That title suited him better than his inherited one of Count. Already men called him le Beau Diable. Then Napoleon went down before Wellington and Paul Bellaire had to shift for himself under difficult circumstances. But he didn't flee from France as did so many. He twirled his young mustaches and went to Paris.
"Louis, le Desiré, had at length got his desire and was King Louis XVIII. Now that the lion was in his cage Louis roared. The young Captain Bellaire, going everywhere that entertaining society was to be found, managed to keep out of Louis's hands. One night, while he was being sought in one end of the kingdom, he danced en masque in the palace of the king. The most celebrated beauty of the court was the Lady Louise de Neville. Perhaps a little because she was the beauty she was, perhaps more because she was the king's ward, Paul Bellaire paid her his court.
"The king had a husband for her but the Lady Louise had found one more to her liking. Knowing what royal displeasure might mean, and being, despite her hot heart, a cool-headed sort of person, she took precautions to put all of her estates into gold and jewels which one could carry readily in case of flight. Then she slipped away from the court and rode with her lover to the south.
"That was in the year 1820. Bellaire, though penniless after the disaster of 1815, had managed in the five years to have accumulated much. He was a born gambler and the fates turned the dice for him so that men said that he was in truth the Devil and the son of the Devil. Like the Lady Louise he had his property converted into such form that a man might carry it in his hands. It became known publicly after the flight that the Nemours diamonds and the pearls of the old prince de Chartres had found their way into Bellaire's hands across a table with a green top.
"When the honeymoon was six hours old the wrath of the testy king found them. Paul Bellaire put the Lady Louise out of a side door and upon her horse; then he unlocked the front door and bowed to his callers. They were five men and those of them whom he did not merely cripple he killed. All of France rang with it."
The girl was breathing deeply as though agitated by her own tale, her eyes having the look of one who stares at ghost figures through the dim years. In her voice there was the ringing note of pride, pride of blood, of consanguinity with such a man as her fancy pictured Paul Bellaire to have been.
"He was hurt, badly hurt," she went on. "But he found another horse and left the village, following the Lady Louise to the coast and carrying with him both her moneys and his. A ship brought them to America and they made a home in New Orleans. There they sought and found exiles of their own station, making about them a circle as brilliant as Louis's court. And here Bellaire prospered until after my father was born. Then there came other trouble, a game in Paul Bellaire's own home over which there were hot dispute and pistol shots. And once more, because he had killed a man who was not without fame, wealth and a wide reaching influence, Paul Bellaire became an exile.
"After that night the Countess Louise saw my grandfather only four times. An exile from two countries, two prices upon his head, he played daily with death. Driven from France he had come to America; now driven from America he went back to France. Louis was dead; a new government held sway; and yet he was not forgotten there. Once, even the authorities got their hands upon him. But again he slipped away, and again he came to New Orleans. He spent one night in his own home with the Countess Louise and their little son; then word of his return leaked out and once more he was a fugitive.
"In spite of all this he lived to be a man of seventy. In 1850, drawn with the tide of adventurers surging to California, he took ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus, and at last came to the Golden Gate. He lived in California for seven years, added to his wealth, and went back for the second time to New Orleans. Again he made the long trip to the West, but this time he fared further and came on into the Dominion of Canada. He was wealthy, more wealthy than most men suspected then. He brought servants with him and plunging into the wilds devoted his time to the lure of exploration and the sport of hunting big game. A third trip to New Orleans and he confided in his countess that he had found a home for both of them and their son in their old age; he would make of himself a power in a new world; his son should some day be a man for the world to reckon with.
"Coming back to Canada he brought with him the bulk of his own and the Countess Louise's wealth, converting landed property into coined gold and jewels. In 1868 he came back to New Orleans, a hale, stalwart old man, who thought to have a score of years still before him. But the law had never forgotten him and this time found him. In his own home, fighting as the young Captain Bellaire in Napoleon's cavalry had fought, he went down to an assassin's bullet."