Flora, listening, counted on her fingers: "Seventeen, one, eighteen—why, just my age."
Peyrolles approved. "You are hearing the voice of Nature—excellent."
Æsop put in his word: "That mother has been looking for her child ever since."
Peyrolles summed up the situation with a malign smile: "We believe we have found her."
Flora began to catch the drift of the conversation, and was eager for more knowledge. "Go on—go on! I always dreamed of being a great lady."
Peyrolles raised a chastening finger. "Patience, child, patience. The prince, my master, honors the fair to-day in company with a most exalted personage. I will bring him here to see you dance. If he recognizes you, your fortune is made."
Flora questioned, cunningly: "How can he recognize a child of one?"
Peyrolles lifted to his eyes the elaborately laced kerchief he had been carrying in his right hand, and appeared to be a prey to violent emotions. "Your father was his dearest friend," he murmured, in a tearful voice. "He would see his features in you."
Flora clapped her hands. "I hope he will."
Æsop, looking cynically from the girl to the man and from the man to the girl, commented, dryly: "I think he will."