“‘Madame has a leetle babee,’ Eugenie said, and as Fred uttered an exclamation of surprise, she continued: ‘It is so, veritable, but I it not write, for fear to worry la mere. Both doing well, petite mother and babee, which makes a boy, and monsieur is—what you call it?—very much up; oui, very much; but I hasten. Monsieur comes to find me to-night a diner. I tell you all toute de suite.’
“Then very rapidly she communicated her plan for future action, interspersing her talk frequently with ‘Mon Dieu! you make so pretty girl Anglaise, with that fair hair and those blue eyes. Nobody can suspect.’
“And Fred followed her closely, and understood what he was to do, and, after she was gone, wrote to his mother a full account of his adventures thus far, and then waited with what patience he could command for what was to follow.
“As will have been inferred, Eugenie was better. The nervous depression and weakness had passed away, and, stimulated with this new excitement, she had never looked handsomer than when she consented at last to receive Haverleigh as a guest at her house. He had not seen her for weeks, or rather months; for since the time she left Chateau d’Or, until the day she visited Fred at the Louvre, he had not so much as heard the sound of her voice, and this long separation from her, and seeming indifference on her part, had revived his old passion for her ten-fold, and when at last she wrote, ‘Come and dine with me this evening,’ he felt as elated and delighted as the bashful lover who goes for his first visit to his fiancee.
“He found her waiting for him, dressed with elegant simplicity, and looking so fresh and young that he went forward eagerly to meet her, with his usual gush of tenderness, but she stepped backward from him, with something in her manner which kept him in check so that he only raised her hand to his lips, and then stood looking at her and marveling at her changed demeanor. And yet in most points she was not changed; she would not suffer him to touch her, and she compelled him to treat her with a respect he had not been accustomed to pay her in private; but otherwise she was the same brilliant, fascinating woman, bewildering him with her beauty and intoxicating him with her wit and sharp repartees.
“For the le petite madame and la petite garcon she made many inquiries, expressing a strong desire to see them, and telling him that as soon as the weather was more favorable she meant to go down to Chateau d’Or for a little visit. To this Haverleigh assented, for he was perfectly willing that Eugenie and Anna should be on terms of intimacy, especially as the former pretended to believe in the lunacy of the latter, and inquired now very anxiously how she was in her mind since the birth of her child.
“‘A little better,’ Haverleigh hoped, and Eugenie continued:
“‘I mean some time this summer, say in June, to have her here at my house for a little; the change will do her great good. You are willing, of course, when it will please me so much.’
“The eyes which looked at him were very soft and pleading, and Haverleigh could not resist them, and answered readily that Madame Anna should certainly come up to Paris; that he should be glad to have her come, especially as Madame Arschinard was so kind as to ask her. Then Eugenie grew more gracious and captivating, and told him of her strange sickness, which made her so nervous that she could not see her dearest friends, but she was so much better now, and glad to have monsieur to dine just as he used to do; then she told him as a great misfortune that Elise, her waiting-maid, had left her, and that she had made up her mind to advertise for an English girl to fill her place. She was so tired of the trickery of her own countrywomen that she wanted to try some other nation; did monsieur think an English girl would suit her? Haverleigh did not know, but advised her to try, and then the conversation drifted into other channels until the elegant little dinner was served.