“Did ever you hear such impudence? Who, think you, the creature is?”
“Miss Lukens!” almost shouted Bess, also in English, and sitting up very straight and putting her head through the window so that she and her adversary, Madame de Beaumanoir, were scarce a foot apart. “That’s who I am; who are you?”
“I,” replied Madame de Beaumanoir, very tartly, “am Madame the Duchess of Beaumanoir.”
“Well, Madame the Duchess of Beaumanoir,” replied Bess, whose warm temper was thoroughly aroused by this time, “I would advise you to waste no more time in affairs not your own, but to go about your business.”
“Hold!” said Madame de Beaumanoir, light breaking in upon her; “are not you the English girl who came to St. Germains after young Egremont? Sure,” said the old lady, turning to Michelle, “this is that hussy!”
Bess glared at her adversary for a whole minute. Her face was alternately flushing and paling, and her eyes, although defiant, were brimming over. And suddenly, instead of bursting into a storm of wrath, she fell, quite unexpectedly to herself, into a passion of tears, that flowed like a fountain and drenched her face, and shook her figure with sobs. Bess Lukens was not a woman of many tears; few persons or things could make her weep; but this unlooked-for encounter, this harsh accusation, the feeling that perhaps her coming to St. Germains had cast discredit on the man she loved so deeply and disinterestedly, overpowered her. And there was the woman whom she unconsciously put in the place of a rival, a witness to her distress and humiliation! The world looked very black to Bess Lukens then.
Madame de Beaumanoir, however, was not a woman of evil heart, though of unbridled tongue, and she was sorry at the sight of the pain she had given. Like most persons of her condition and of her time, she thought the common people provided with a set of feelings entirely different from their betters, and did not suppose that Bess would object to being called a hussy, or to be accused of following Roger Egremont anywhere. Seeing her mistake in this case, she was willing to make amends. But before she could speak, Michelle leaned forward and said, in a very kind voice, to Bess,—
“I think Madame de Beaumanoir is mistaken. I have heard that you are a most respectable girl, and very gifted in singing. And Mr. Roger Egremont has spoken of you to me,—a thing he would scarcely have done, did you not indeed have his respect.”
The words astonished Bess Lukens. She shared Madame de Beaumanoir’s notions concerning the gulf which separated gentle and simple, and the idea had never dawned upon her mind that a woman in Michelle’s position could care about the feelings of a woman at the other end of the scale. Bess looked up, her amazement checking her tears, and in Michelle’s black eyes she saw kindness, good-will, all that makes women sisters. She reached forth her hand, and took Michelle’s—it was hard to say which woman’s hand was advanced first.
“I thank you,” said Bess, with perfect dignity. “I was a fool to let an idle, malicious word upset me so. But ’twas the first time I ever had such a thing said to my face, though God knows many might have said it behind my back. I scorn to defend myself, but I cannot let a loyal gentleman, like Mr. Roger Egremont, who has been my friend, be traduced for me. If he had been what some persons think, would the Duke of Berwick have asked Madame Michot to take me in her house? Would Monsieur Mazet, with whom I am now going to Paris, offer to take me under his roof, with his sister, while I study singing? And all these things are of common repute in St. Germains.”