The duke had more than one splendid château, but Trimousette had heard of the small old castle of Boury, on the coast of Brittany, where the duke was born. Thither Trimousette decided they would go directly they were married; for, of course, the duke—or Fernand, as Trimousette already called him in her thoughts—would ask her where she wished to go. In her day dream she saw the place—an old stone fortalice, perched on the brown Breton rocks, with a garden of hardy shrubs and flowers, straying almost to the cliff, and seagulls clanging overhead in the sharp blue air. There would Trimousette and her duke live like their Majesties at the Little Trianon, where the Count d’Artois milked the cow, and Queen Marie Antoinette herself skimmed the cream from the milk pails. The Queen, too, always wore a linen gown and a straw hat when she was at the Little Trianon, and Trimousette would dress in the same way at Boury.
While all these idle, sweet fancies floated through her mind, like white butterflies dancing in the sun, she glanced up and saw Victor coming toward her. Victor did not march across the flower beds like the old countess, but slinked along through the yew alley, in the dull green light that brooded upon it even at noontide. He was like Trimousette, only ten times handsomer, and gave indications of having seen a good deal of life. To-day, it was plain he had been up all night. He was unshaven, his hat had lost its jaunty cock, his waistcoat was wine-stained, and the lace on his sleeves had been badly damaged in a romp with some very gay ladies about four o’clock that morning.
Victor beckoned to Trimousette, and she rose and went into the cool, dark alley with him where they were quite secure from observation. Then, taking Trimousette’s hand, he kissed it gallantly.
“So you want to be a duchess, my little sister,” he said, laughing, yet kindly. “I hope you will be happy, but don’t get any nonsense in your romantic head about you and Belgarde living like a pair of blue pigeons in an almond tree. Belgarde is a gay dog if ever I saw one. We were together last night—and look!” Victor showed his tattered ruffles and battered hat, and touched his unshaven chin. “We went to a little supper together, which began at midnight, and is just over now within the hour.”
Trimousette firmly believed that she would be able to cure her duke of his taste for such suppers, but she was too timid to put her belief in words. She said, however, after a blushing pause:
“One thing I mean to ask the duke as soon as we are married, and that is for some money to pay your debts, dear Victor.”
At that Victor sat down on the ground and laughed until he cried.
“You are as innocent as the birds upon the bushes, my little duchess,” he said. “Belgarde pay my debts! He cannot pay his own.”
“But yours cannot be so very large,” urged Trimousette earnestly. “If it were even as much as a thousand louis d’ors, I should ask the duke to give it to me, and if he loved me—”
She paused with downcast eyes, and Victor stopped laughing and looked at her with pity. What an innocent, affectionate, guileless child she was, and what a lesson lay before her!