“We must bandage it to keep down the swelling,” said Judithe, working deftly as she spoke; “it happened once in New Orleans––this, and though painful, is not really serious, but she is so eager to commence the refurnishing of the yacht that she laments even a day’s delay.”
Louise did not speak again––only showed by a look her comprehension of the statement, and bore patiently the binding of the ankle.
It was three days before she could move about the room with help of a cane, and during those days of feverish anxiety her mistress had an opportunity to observe the very pointed and musical interest Pluto showed in the invalid 204 whose language he could not speak. He was seldom out of hearing or her call and was plainly disturbed when word came from Loringwood that the folks would all be over in a few days. He even ventured to ask Evilena if Mr. Loring’s eyesight hadn’t failed some since his long sickness, and was well satisfied, apparently, by an affirmative reply. He even went so far as to give Louise a slight warning, which she repeated to her mistress one day after the Judge and Delaven had called, and Louise had promptly gone to bed and to sleep, professing herself too well now for a doctor’s attention.
“Pluto is either trying to lay a trap for me to see if I do know English, or else he is better informed than we guess––which it is, I cannot say, Marquise,” she confided, nervously. “When he heard his mistress say I was to start Thursday, he watched his chance and whispered: ‘Go Wednesday––don’t wait till visitors come, go Wednesday.’”
“Visitors?––then he means the Lorings, they are to be here Thursday,” and Judithe closed the book she had been reading, and looked thoughtfully out of the window. Louise was moving about the room with the aid of a cane, glancing at her mistress now and then and waiting to hear her opinion.
“I believe I would take his advice, Louise,” she said at last. “I have not noticed the man much beyond the fact that he has been wonderfully attentive to your wants. What do you think of him––or of his motives?”
“I believe they are good,” said the girl, promptly. “He is dissatisfied; I can see that––one of the insurrection sort who are always restless. He’s entirely bound up in the issue of the war, as regards his own people. He suspects me and because he suspects me tries to warn me––to be my friend. When I am gone you may need some one here, and of all 205 I see he is the one to be most trusted, though, perhaps, Dr. Delaven––”
“Is out of the question,” and Judithe’s decision was emphatic. “These people are his friends.”
“They are yours, too, Marquise,” said the girl, smiling a little; but no smile answered her, a slight shade of annoyance––a tiny frown––bent the dark brows.
“Yes, I remember that sometimes, but I possess an antidote,” she replied, lightly. “You know––or perhaps you do not know––that it is counted a virtue in a Gypsy to deceive a Georgio––well, I am fancying myself a Gypsy. In the Mohammedan it is a virtue to deceive the Christian, and I am a Mohammedan for the moment. In the Christian it was counted for centuries a mark of special grace if he despoil the Jew, until generations of oppression showed the wanderer the real God held sacred by his foes––money, my child, which he proceeded to garner that he might purchase the privileges of other races. So, with my Jewish name as a foundation, I have created an imaginary Jewish ancestor whose wrongs I take up against the people of a Christian land; I add all this debt to the debt Africa owes this enlightened nation, and I shall help to pay it.”