“But I refused to present him to her only a few months ago.”
“I know.”
“What then—?” Suddenly it dawned on me.
“Philibert!” I almost shouted, “Philibert has done this without consulting me. That miserable little creature.”
You nodded.
I knew the Damas boy. Philibert and I had stayed with his uncle in their dreadful old prison of a place.
The young man had made on me a very disagreeable impression. His reputation was of the worst, and his appearance did not belie it. He was small and weak legged and had no chin. His skin was bad and his eyes yellow. He professed in those days a great admiration for the Crown Prince of Germany, and I fancy had taken the latter as his model. One of the things that amused him was, I found out, the torturing of animals. Fan had told me a tale about him that I had never forgotten.
One day he was terribly bored. Not knowing what to do with himself he brought all his dogs into the house. He had twelve, all kinds, greyhounds, setters, great danes. He told his man to keep them in one of the salons, while he went into the next one, and loaded his revolver. Disgusted with life, he had become disgusted with his dogs. He called them one by one. Then as they came through the door, shot them dead. He didn’t miss one. He got each one between the eyes.
“Pour parlers” of marriage were going on you told me, between Philibert and the august uncle of this heir to a bankrupt principality. I saw it all. The house of the Deux Ponts was royal. It was a branch of the Nettleburgs but had maintained a strict neutrality during the war. With nearly every throne in Europe crumbling into dust, Philibert still wanted a crown for his daughter’s head. In the midst of the savage passion of anger that had seized me, I could have yelled with laughter. Philibert still believed in his ridiculous baubles. He wanted to put his little girl on a throne. Well, I would stop him.
She was mine. She was mine.