“Yes,” said Pierre; “they rode with you to the grave. I thought, maybe, they were the servants of the house: who were they, mademoiselle?”
“Servants,” and the dark eyes flashed angrily, for if they were hers—her flesh and blood—nobody must speak against them. “Servants! Pierre, you are an idiot!”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” the old man answered, humbly, and Reinette continued:
“You don’t yet understand how different everything is in America. There is no nobility here—no aristocracy like what we have in Europe. Your son, if you had one born here, might be the President, for all of his birth. It’s worth and education which make nobility here, with, perhaps, a little bit of money, and, Pierre, those ladies—mind you, ladies—whom you thought servants, were my own grandmother, and aunt, and cousin, my mother’s relatives.”
“Mon Dieu!” dropped involuntarily from the old man’s lips, as he looked searchingly at his mistress for an instant, and then dropped his eyes meekly as he met her threatening gaze.
“Yes I do not quite know how it is, or why papa never told me of them; some family quarrel most likely,” Reinette continued. “He tried to tell me when he was dying. He said there was something he must explain; something he ought to have told me, and this was it. My mother was American and not English, as I supposed, and these are her relatives and mine, and it’s nice to find friends where one did not expect them.”
“Yes, mademoiselle, very nice,” Pierre said with a nod of assent, though, knowing the proud little lady as he did, he knew perfectly well how hotly she was rebelling against these new friends, and how it was her great pride which prompted her to exalt them in his estimation if possible.
But it was not for him to express any opinion, so he remained silent, while Reinette went on:
“Mother’s own blood relations, who can tell me all about her, though I mean to find Christine Bodine just the same, and hear what she has to say of mamma. Pierre, there was another cousin at the station—a young man, with such a fair, winning face and perfect manners. He was at the grave, too. You must have seen him. He was a gentleman, I am sure.”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” and Pierre brightened at once. “He is quite the gentleman, the nobility, the aristocracy, like Monsieur Hetherton. He rode with Monsieur Beresford and myself, and spoke to me in my own tongue; not as you talk it, but fair, very fair, though he did not understand me so well.”