“Until we meet again,” whispered Lady Betty. At that moment there was the faint cry of a nightbird outside under the eaves—so faint that only sharp ears could have heard it at all. Lady Betty, who was as full of superstition as a whole clan of Highlanders might be, turned a little pale.
“Hear that!” she said. “It is a bad omen, I am afraid. You know there never was any fortunate love in this old palace; there seems to be a blight upon it.”
At which De Bourmont, respectfully taking her hand,—for it was in a ceremonious age,—answered, smiling, “Well, I have a presentiment—a presentiment that I shall one day have the bliss of looking into those dear eyes again.”
“‘Dear lady, this is the night I go.’”
They were getting on quite fast in the Scotch fashion of courtship, when a tall figure in a cassock loomed before them, and the Abbé de Ronceray’s voice called out peremptorily:—
“Marie—Pierre—loitering here at this time of night? Oh, I beg you ten thousand pardons, Mademoiselle, and you, too, Monsieur de Bourmont. My eyesight is so bad—I took you at first for Marie, the maid, who is always being followed by my footboy, Pierre—the rascal is in love with her.”
The Abbé looked around blandly—Lady Betty was blushing, and De Bourmont was laughing—it was too bad! Lady Betty, turning her back on De Bourmont, walked on toward the salon and passed through the broad folding doors and the Abbé followed her. It was early yet—not quite nine o’clock—when the royalties usually entered the salon after dinner. No one was there but themselves.
“I am afraid I was a little awkward just now,” began the Abbé, good-humoredly. “I have spent so much more of my life in camps than in courts, that I cannot altogether learn the soft ways of people about a court. Sometimes I scold Pierre so loudly that I disturb the slumbers of their Royal Highnesses themselves.”
Here was a chance to ask a question or two—after having solemnly sworn she would not.