“Put Mademoiselle to bed at once. There is rough work to-night. Hear that!” They stood still and listened. There was a dull, heavy booming sound. Proté raised her hands.
“Cannon; and it’s the Tuileries. Neville told me a half hour ago that there were wild doings to-night. I’ll take care of Mademoiselle, never fear. Now get you home, Gonfleur. The others will be coming when they know there’s trouble.” As she spoke Proté shut the door and bolted it. Then she and Marie Josephine and Flambeau climbed the stairs as quickly as they could.
Proté’s fingers flew in undressing Marie Josephine and very soon she was tucked in her big bed. She lay awake a little while thinking of the music and the dancing and how lovely Rosanne’s cousin Cécile had looked in her white and silver frock and with her hair powdered.
“She seemed really grown-up, not pretending like Hortense and Denise, yet she is only fifteen. I saw the party anyway. What would Lisle and the girls say if they knew! I am nearly thirteen and they treat me like a baby. I am not a baby. I think more than Denise and I read many books that she does not know about at all, and I know about things too, battles and poems and old, old days that grandfather told me about. I’m not young at all, really I——” She was asleep!
When she awoke it was still dark. Flambeau’s cold nose was touching her arm and Lisle was sitting on the edge of her bed. In her astonishment she sat up and stared at him. He had thrown back the blue velvet, ermine-trimmed mantle that he had worn at the ball, and had unsheathed his jeweled sword. It glowed like a live thing on the whiteness of the satin counterpane. In the light from a flaring socket just outside the open door, his white face, fair hair, and the gleaming crystals on his costume shone in the summer darkness.
Marie Josephine touched his arm. “Lisle, why are you here?” she asked. “Isn’t it the middle of the night?” She shook the curls from her eyes, shivering a little in the midnight cold.
“I was just sitting here. I’m sorry you woke up, but now that you are awake I will tell you something. You are to leave for Pigeon Valley at six in the morning, you and Hortense and Denise, and of course Madame le Pont and Proté,” Lisle said.
“And Flambeau?”
Lisle shrugged his shoulders. “The dog goes everywhere with you. Bertran du Monde is going too, and his servant. They will ride by the coach. Bertran will be staying at Les Vignes with you.”
“Bertran du Monde! But he is not your great friend. You will not want him as a companion. Why does he go?” Marie Josephine was bewildered and not yet quite awake. It all seemed like a dream to her.