"Yes," I said; "and when you have opened it, Mademoiselle, then I crave a few minutes' speech with you."
I turned and walked to one of the windows and stood looking down into the courtyard where Cæsar was holding our horses, that mademoiselle might examine its contents unobserved.
I knew not what was in the package nor the contents of the note that accompanied it, but somehow I had had a feeling (perhaps because the First Consul had seemed so kind in his manner at our last interview, or perhaps only because my hopes pointed that way) that the Consul's note was to use his influence with her in my behalf, as he had once used it for the chevalier. Therefore as I stood with my back to her, looking down into the courtyard, my eyes saw not what they were looking at, for they were filled with a vision of future happiness and I was trembling with the beauty of the vision.
"Monsieur!" I turned quickly, for the voice was cold and hard, and it fell on my heart like the sleet of early spring falling on opening buds to chill them to death. And when I turned, the Pelagie that met my gaze was the Pelagie I had first seen in Mr. Gratiot's house: eyes blazing with wrath, little teeth close set between scarlet lips, and little hands tightly clenched. My heart froze at the sight. Could the Consul's plea for me have been so distasteful to her?
"Monsieur," she repeated, every word a poniard, "how did you dare bring me such a message!"
I found no words to answer her, for if the message was what I had hoped, then I began to wonder how I had dared, though my spirit, as proud as hers, brooked not that she should take it as an insult. But she did not wait for any answer.
"You!" she said, with inexpressible bitterness. "Has wearing the First Consul's uniform so changed you from the American gentleman I once knew that you delight to humiliate a poor and helpless lady of France?"
"Mademoiselle la Comtesse," I said coldly, for still the foolish idea clung to my brain that the First Consul had wished to further my suit, and that mademoiselle had regarded it as humiliating that I should so presume, "I know not the contents of the First Consul's note, but I think la Comtesse knows I would never willingly humiliate her."
"You know not!" and she half extended the note toward me, as if to show it to me, and then drew it quickly back, a sudden change in her manner from proud anger to shrinking shame. She turned to her companion and said in a cool tone of command:
"You may wait for me, Henriette, in the blue salon; I have something to say to Monsieur."