This, of course, did not cause Paul’s interest in the Ravenels to abate in the least. It only convinced him that they had some strange and interesting story, such as having found a pot of gold somewhere, or having had their only child stolen from them, or some of those delightfully romantic tales which a twelve-year-old boy can imagine. He was no less interested in Lucie on finding that she belonged in some way to Madame Ravenel. He had walked on a considerable distance in the park, and was trying to screw up his courage to turn around and walk back past the bench where Lucie sat, when he suddenly found her at his side. Her dark eyes glowed brightly and she was tiptoeing in her delight.
“I know all about you,” she said triumphantly. “You are Paul Verney, the advocate’s son. I like little boys very much—very much—but I never have a chance to see anything of them. However, just now I began to chase a butterfly and my sister Sophie did not call me back. But you are the butterfly,”—and at this she burst into a ripple of impish laughter.
Paul was so surprised that he did not have time to be shocked at the boldness on the part of this young lady of ten years, but his heart began to thump violently and he was trembling when he said to her:
“But aren’t you afraid to leave your sister?”
“Not in the least,” replied Lucie airily. “I am half American, and American children are not afraid of anything, so Harper, my nursery governess, says. What can happen to me? And besides that, I have always had my own way—that is, almost always—I had it about coming to see my sister Sophie. Would you like me to tell you about it?”
Paul was only too charmed to hear anything Lucie might tell him, although in a panic for fear the fierce-looking English nursery governess might appear. Lucie, without further ado, seated herself with him on the ground and, sticking her little slippered feet out on the grass, began, with the air of Scheherazade, when with confidence she turned her matchless power on the bridegroom who meant to murder her next morning:
“Sophie, you know, is my sister, although she is much older than I am. We had the same papa, but not the same mama, but Sophie was just like a mama to me after my own mama died. She was married then to another man named Count Delorme. How I hated him! He was so cross—cross to me and cross to Sophie and cross to everybody. He had a son, too, when Sophie married him, and that boy—Edouard was his name—was horrid, just like Count Delorme. I lived with Sophie then, and once a year I would go and visit my Grandmother Bernard. She is very tall and handsome and always wears black velvet or black satin and looks very fierce. Everybody is afraid of her except me. But she isn’t really in the least fierce, and I have my own way with her much more than I have with Sophie. All that grandmama can do is to scold and say, ‘Oh, you little American, what am I to do with you? You need more strictness than any French child I ever knew,’ and then she lets me do as I please.”
Lucie stopped here and cast a side glance at Paul. She possessed the art of the story-teller and wanted to know whether Paul was interested in what she was telling him. Paul was so much interested in Lucie that he would have listened with pleasure to anything she said, but the beginning of what she was telling him sounded like a book, and he listened with eagerness. Lucie, seeing this, proceeded. Like many other people, she enjoyed being the heroine of her own tale, and it lost nothing in the telling.
“Well, I used to like this visit to my grandmother—she has a big château, larger than the commandant’s house, five times as large—bigger than the Hotel de Ville.”
Lucie opened her arms and hands wide to show Paul the enormous size of the Château Bernard.