Could the Comtesse de Baloit be jealous? or was it the haughty Faubourg St. Germain scorning the parvenue of the Tuileries? I hoped it was the first, but in either case it behooved me to make quick amende.
"Forgive me, Comtesse," I said, as coldly as she had spoken, but in English, and so low that I hoped no listener could understand even if he knew the tongue. "It was true, but you could not know how true, and I have no right to tell you. I know well how great a distance lies between the proud Lady of France and a simple American gentleman. Permit me to inform you, Comtesse, that I have been in Paris for more than a month with my uncle, Monsieur Barbé Marbois. And permit me to add, as a simple fact in which you may be interested or not, that this is the moment for which I have lived through that month—the moment when I should meet again the Comtesse de Baloit."
It had ever been the way with the little Pelagie in America to meet her hauteur with hauteur, but I was not sure it would work here, and I trembled inwardly while I spoke so calmly. But it did. Her lids dropped for a moment, and a soft color stole up to her temples. When she lifted her eyes again, there was a sweet, shy light in them.
"Monsieur," she said softly, in her pretty English, "why do you call me Comtesse? Have you forgotten?"
"Is it still to be Mademoiselle?" I cried eagerly, and had hard work not to pick her up in my arms and run away with her, so adorable was she in her sweet friendliness.
"Mademoiselle always, unless it is—" But then she broke off suddenly and turned a rosy red, and added quickly, with something of her old sauciness: "Never Comtesse, unless I am very, very naughty."
My heart told me what she had meant to say, and I whispered proudly:
"Unless it is some day—Pelagie"; and I know my eyes told her all the rest I did not dare to say, for she looked away from me quickly, and I, glancing up, met a black scowl on the face of the chevalier, who, I knew, must have been watching this little by-play, though he could not have heard a word, such was the buzz and clatter of conversation about us. His face cleared instantly, and he stepped quickly forward with a forced smile and an extended hand.
"Permit me to greet an old friend," he said gaily. "When did you arrive in Paris?"
It would have been well for me if I could have swallowed my pride sufficiently to take his proffered hand; but it seemed to me the hand of a scoundrel and a dastard, and I could not bring myself to touch it. I pretended not to see it, and I hoped the chevalier and those who were looking on might be deceived into thinking I did not, as I answered politely enough: