"Angelique, how you talk!"
"But the hussars——"
"Don't talk of them, pray. The thought of meeting hussars in this absurd dress makes my blood run cold."
"Then, think of mademoiselle. Ma foi! a Parisian girl like her required some one to interest, to excite her, amid the gloom of this old chateau, with its big rats and terrible legends, so you came just in time to prevent her dying of ennui. But for Jacquot I should have fallen in love with you myself."
She took great pains with me; a few false curls adroitly pinned on, and one of her own tall, coif-like Breton caps, of spotless white linen, completed my head gear. She patted my chin, and thanked Heaven I wore neither beard nor moustache; then I joined her in a hearty fit of laughter, on surveying myself in a mirror.
"What would Jack Charters, Tom Kirkton, or other fellows of ours, say if they could see me thus!" was my first thought.
Angelique taught me how to seat myself, and how to hold myself when seated; how to spread or gather my skirts when ascending or descending stairs; and she burst again and again into ringing fits of laughter at the length of ankle I exhibited. At last, after being well drilled, I was taken to the drawing-room, and with a heart that certainly palpitated, and a cheek that blushed truly with shame and ridicule, I was presented to madame, as the new attendant of mademoiselle—a girl from the wild marshes of the Morbihan.
My costume was perfect, even to the black velvet necklet, which no Breton girl is ever without.
Jacqueline grew very pale, but a smile twinkled in her tearful dark eyes, when she retired behind the chair of her aunt, who bowed politely, and surveyed me through her eyeglass, as I advanced, courtseying at every second step, my hands folded meekly across my breast, and my eyes cast modestly down, in a manner taught me by that pretty rogue, Angelique.
The idea occurred to me that a candid confession of who I was, and the weight of the mutual service Jacqueline and I had rendered each other, would have been better than the adoption of this absurd and most dangerous disguise, which could only serve to complicate the perils of my present position; but there was no resource—I was in for it now!