Jacqueline laughed her pretty silvery laugh; that also was high-bred, if her speech did not always match.
“The Americans are incredibly ignorant, are they not?” she said amiably. “It is that you have no noblesse, my poor Honor. Every Frenchman knows that in the veins of the family of La Tour de Provence runs the blood royal of France.”
“Oh, Jacqueline! not really? How thrilling!” murmured Honor.
“A La Tour de Provence married a cousin of the Grand Monarque!” said Jacqueline, acknowledging the murmur with a regal bend of the head. “But that is nothing; the Bourbons, you understand, are of yesterday. On my mother’s side—” she paused, and proceeded slowly, dropping each word as if it were a pearl—“I am a daughter of St. Louis, and of those from whom St. Louis sprang. I am directly descended from la reine Berthe!”
“Jacqueline! What do you tell me? Not Bertha Broadfoot?”
Jacqueline again bent a regal head. “Wife of Pepin d’Heristal!” she said calmly. “Mother of Charlemagne! From that royal and sainted woman descends the House of La Tour de Provence!”
She paused to enjoy for a moment Honor’s look of genuine awe and astonishment; when she continued, it was with a touch of queenly condescension, which might have moved to unseemly mirth any one less direct and simple-minded than Honor.
“We were not in the direct line of succession; our ancestor was a younger brother, you understand, of the Emperor. We have never reigned! But we know our descent, and we never stoop. Such as you see me here—” Jacqueline made a disparaging gesture—“in a tiny pension (though the Madeleines are well-born, it goes without saying, otherwise were I not here!) surrounded by a little bourgeoisie like this, I remain Myself.”
Jacqueline was silent a moment, contemplating her polished finger-nails.
“I have the Capet hand, you perceive!” she raised a very pretty, useless-looking hand; not to be compared for beauty with Patricia’s hand, thought Honor, that combination of white velvet and steel, but pretty enough.