“On such a night!”
“Yes. A Scotchman asked me to-day why I was not fighting for France. I could not come back after that and play cards with his Royal Highness.”
“I know how you must have felt,” said Lady Betty, in a low voice.
“Not quite,” answered De Bourmont, with a smile that was ferocious in its despair. “No one can know what a Frenchman suffers, all of whose ancestors used their swords for France, while now she is fighting all Europe, and he stays here in attendance upon royalty!”
De Bourmont spoke with such a concentration of rage that Lady Betty looked around, fearful that he might be overheard.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Lady Betty Stair,” said he, smiling slightly. “I wish I could be overheard! I wish this moment that his Royal Highness would kick me out of this place. Sometimes, do you know, I ask myself if those ‘canaille’ in France are not right after all in thinking the country more than the king. See how gallantly they fought the Austrians that we, we, WE, the royalists, invited into France to avenge the killing of the king and queen! I assure you, I have not spent a day in peace or slept a night through since first I began following his Royal Highness. I thought it was my duty at first; but there is ‘noblesse oblige’ for one’s country as well as one’s sovereign, and I will be hanged, shot, or guillotined,” he suddenly cried, “if I stay out of France another month!”
“Good, good!” cried Lady Betty. “There spoke a man!”
“But remember,” said De Bourmont, in a warning voice, “not one word of this. I am here to stay until the Day of Judgment, if need be. Nothing would induce me to desert his Royal Highness, Charles Philippe, Comte d’Artois. I have no intention whatever of running away.” Here De Bourmont smiled cunningly.
“I understand you perfectly,” gravely answered Lady Betty. “You want permission offered you by his Royal Highness.”
And then De Bourmont asked, “Shall you be sorry when I am gone?”