“Not at all, mother, dear,” he replied, laying his great hand on the small one resting on the arm of her chair, and caressing it until the frown disappeared from her face. “I have had serious thoughts of emigrating to America, and, but for you, I think I should.”
“Thank God for me, then! America, indeed!” she said, and her voice indicated her opinion of our country.
Just then Zaidee came in with a card, which she handed to Michel, and then courtesying to me, left the room.
“I am sorry,” Michel said, after reading the card, “but I am needed, and must go.”
“Is it that Scholaskie affair again?” madame asked, while my heart began to beat violently, and Katy turned pale.
“It is not. I am through with that,” Michel replied, with a look at me which was meant to reassure me.
After he was gone, madame said, more to herself than to us: “That young Scholaskie is giving the police a world of trouble. Michel was sure of him last night, but jailed. I hope he will be found, and the nest broken up.”
“What has he done?” I asked, and she replied, with a haughty toss of her head: “I am sure, I don’t know. I never ask what they have done. Plotted, of course, and stirred up bitter feelings against their superiors. The Scholaskies are a bad lot. The father was sent to Siberia, and the son will probably follow. I hear the daughter is at home, driving around in fine equipages, with a host of friends—all anarchists, I dare say, if the truth was known. I wish they were all——”
She did not finish the sentence, for just then Zaidee came in again on some whispered errand, and Chance bounded in after her, but was at once ordered out by my lady, who did not think a dog’s place was in the drawing room.
“I am told,” she said, “that, when I was gone, Michel had him at the table, and even let him sleep on one of the silken lounges in the daytime. The whole house seemed like a dog kennel when I came home, but we are having different arrangements now, and Chance must keep his place.”