“On Friday, Madame Gigon,” she said. “My husband will be there. He is home from the Balkans and full of news.”
“Of the wars I suppose.... On Friday, Madame.”
“And tell Madame Shane she is expected also.”
Then Captain Marchand and Madame Marchand, also in a bad humor because they got on badly. Madame Marchand’s day fell on Monday and she too asked the old woman to bring Madame Shane. Her invitation was made in the same oblique fashion as the other. “Bring Madame Shane if she cares to come.”
At last there remained no one save those whom Lily, in her vague, lazy fashion called “the family.” These were old Madame Gigon, Ellen Tolliver, Jean, herself and the Baron.
As the blond little Captain Marchand, pompously clanking his spurs as he walked, disappeared up the darkening reaches of the long stairway, Jean, who had been reading in a corner reserved for himself, sprang up with the bound of a young animal and ran across to Ellen and Schneidermann.
“Alors! Viens donc ... la musique!” he cried, seizing her by the hand while she struggled against his youthful strength, and Schneiderman laughed at his exuberance. She resisted, bracing her strong slim body and indulging in a mock struggle.
“Not a sound from me,” she replied. “Unless we talk English. I can make no more effort with this waiter’s chatter.”
It was a price which she exacted frequently, for she spoke French badly, though with great vigor, and with an accent so atrocious that it seemed quite beyond hope of improvement. Her English carried the drawling tang of the middle west. She called “dog” dawg and “water” watter.
Jean resembled his mother. His hair, like hers, was red though less soft and more carroty. His nose was short, straight, and conveyed an impression of good humor and high spirits. He was tall for his age and strongly built with a slim figure which gave every promise of one day growing into the bulky strength of the Governor. He possessed a restless, noisy, energy quite incomprehensible to Lily. To-day he wore the uniform of a cadet at the cavalry school at St. Cyr. It was the idea of the Baron, himself a cuirassier, that Jean should be trained for the cavalry. “If he does not like it, he may quit,” he told Lily. As for Jean, he appeared to like it well enough. He was as eager for a war as Madame Blaise had been certain of one.