Mistress Erskine laughed:
"True, I forgot. If he had been as particular as he should concerning precedence, I should not be here. You know, do you not, that my husband's predecessor quarreled with President Jefferson because he gave his arm to Dolly Madison, in going in to dinner, instead of to the wife of the British minister?"
"Yes; I have heard of the 'Merry War,'" I answered, and stopped. Not another word could I utter. Nor apparently could anybody else in the room; for every voice was hushed as all eyes were turned to the door where the French minister was entering with his wife on his left arm, and what I veritably believed to be the most beautiful creature in the world on his right.
It was a brilliant spectacle; for the French minister and his wife dazzled the sight by the glitter of gold lace and the flash of jewels, and Pelagie blinded the eyes as truly by a vision of radiant dark eyes, soft black tresses curling around a white throat, the gleam of snowy neck and rounded arms through rare lace, and the color of the rose slowly tinting the rich ivory of her cheeks, as they passed through a double lane of guests to speak to the President.
Now was I in two minds whether to be supremely happy in once more beholding Mademoiselle Pelagie, whose graceful figure I thought had forever faded from my sight when the boat rounded the bend of the Ohio, or to be most miserable lest here among courtiers, and taking her rightful place with the great of the earth, she should no longer condescend to show me the friendliness she had shown on our last evening on the river. Neither was I quite sure whether it was my place to go forward and speak to her or to await her pleasure in speaking to me.
But Mistress Erskine solved the problem.
"You do know her," she said—"I see it in your eyes; and you must present me at once. And do tell me," she added eagerly: "is she so great a lady? We have heard so many rumors about her; what is the truth?"
"I have only known her," I answered, "as Mademoiselle Pelagie de Villa Réal. I know that in France she is of high rank, but I do not know what."
"Ah," she said, with a little gesture of disappointment, "then you cannot introduce me properly, and I shall have to trust to that astute diplomat that he gives her her right title. Does she know it herself?"
"I think she did not when she left St. Louis," I answered, "but her new friends may have revealed it to her."