“I have.”
“Ever hear that they sprang from the stock of a prince royal of France?”
“No, I have not.”
“They say they did; one of them, a Marquis Réné Théodore something or other was a colonel in Louis the Fourteenth’s body-guards—came out to Quebec in command of a regiment there, then to Acadie and founded this branch of the family; it is too long a story to tell. I dare say mademoiselle is as proud as the rest of them.”
“She is,” said his hearer with a short laugh.
“Born aristocrats—and years of noses to the grindstone can’t take it out of them, and the Delavignes, though hewers of wood and drawers of water, as compared with the aristocratic Lacy d’Entrevilles, were all high strung and full of honesty. Seriously, Macartney, I think her father was a monomaniac. A quiet man immersed in his business wouldn’t start out all at once on a career of dishonesty after an unblemished record.”
“I am glad to hear this,” said Captain Macartney, “and I am exceedingly obliged to you. Some other time I shall ask you to favor me with the whole story,” and he went thoughtfully away.
CHAPTER VIII
AN INTERVIEW IN THE LIBRARY
At ten o’clock on the evening of the day that Captain Macartney made his call on Dr. Camperdown Judy was restlessly hitching herself up and down the big front hall at Pinewood.
“Oh, that crutch!” ejaculated Mrs. Colonibel, who was playing cards with Valentine in the drawing room; “how I hate to hear it.”