“His excellency wishes to speak to you of them. Possibly you may have heard some tradition of a relation once existing between the two families—that of my husband and the Delavignes?”
“No, your excellency, I have not; but I know that the earls of Vaulabel are of French origin.”
Lady Vaulabel smiled graciously and was about to make some further observations when she was interrupted by a plaintive ejaculation that made her raise her eyes quickly.
“Madeleine, Madeleine,” the voice was murmuring; “Madeleine, my beloved.”
The sentimental tones issued from the mouth of an old gentleman who had an air of being one of the fathers of the town—a father who had evidently not been confining himself to the ice cream and cooling drinks served before the supper, but had been indulging in something stronger.
“Madeleine, will you not come with me?” and the foolish old figure straightened itself. “Delavigne is dead. I have seen his ghost, and it had white hair. Now you can marry me.”
What nonsense was Colonel Armour talking? Vivienne looked in deep mortification at Lady Vaulabel, who had laid a detaining hand on her arm. Her excellency’s glance also detained two watchful military aides-de-camp, who at a sign from her would have thrust each an arm through those of the senile disturber of her conversation and walked him away. She had recognized the foolish old man. It was Colonel Armour, who was suffering from a state of collapse, both mental and physical, and horribly changed from the gallant old man who had been presented to her earlier in the evening.
“Your excellency,” murmured Vivienne, “Colonel Armour is a very old man, and lately he has been subject to strange lapses of memory. He will recover himself presently.”
The words had scarcely left her lips when the bent figure raised itself, and a voice rang like a trumpet through the ballroom:
“Delavigne is a milksop and a fool!”