And higher still sang my heart as Fatima, in answer to my excited touch, leaped and bounded along the avenue, and I remembered that night upon La Belle Rivière when mademoiselle had wished that I was a chevalier of France. Was I not one now in fact, if not in name?
CHAPTER XXV
THE COMTESSE DE BALOIT SENDS FOR HER HUNTER
"Take a straw and throw it into the air; you may see by that which way the wind is."
All my riding up and down the Champs-Élysées was like to have been for naught. We had received orders to be in readiness to start on the morrow for Belgium, where Bonaparte was to make his headquarters while preparing for war with England, and still I had not seen the comtesse, and she had not seen my beautiful regimentals.
My packing was done, my last arrangements made, most of my good-bys said; there was nothing left to do but to take my last ride down the avenue. And this time not in vain! There she sat in her gorgeous coach of scarlet and gold with the footmen and coachmen in dazzling liveries of gold lace and scarlet plush, and beside her, not the stern duchesse this time, but a younger woman who looked as if she might be a less formidable guardian.
She saw me, though for a moment she did not recognize me in my new and gaudy plumage. When she did, her eager look of welcome more than repaid me for my fruitless rides up and down the avenue. She signaled to her coachman to stop, and with a pretty little peremptory gesture summoned me to her side. She seemed to have no fear of the lady beside her, and no doubt she was merely a paid companion, for she ignored her entirely, or noticed her presence only by using English when she had anything of serious import to say.
"'Tis Fatima I wish to see, sir," she said as I drew up by her coach, my hat tucked under my arm. She put out her little hand and gently stroked the white star on Fatima's forehead, and the mare whinnied softly and rubbed her nose against the little gloved hand as if to say, "I remember you well; those were famous rides we had in old St. Louis."