“I am quite of your mind,” he said quietly, “concerning that lady. The circumstances are most unfortunate. I can express to you, privately, a degree of sympathy which I can not do publicly, but believe me, no man could be more anxious than I am to save that lady’s feelings in this affair. Captain Merrilat will wait on you this morning. I think if you will agree to make him a very slight apology, everything can be arranged, and, for my part, I pledge you my word, as Lieutenant Creci’s commanding officer, to use all the power I possess to induce him to accept anything in the shape of an apology which you may offer.”
“But I can not apologize,” blurted out poor Ravenel. “The lady in question was sitting quietly on the bench, and did not even see Creci, and he came up and spoke to her insultingly, and the lady became embarrassed and alarmed, and then he sat down by her most impudently and improperly, and attempted to throw his arm around her, and then I caught him and thrashed him—and am I to apologize for that?”
The colonel paused. The story which he had overheard that naughty little boy of Madame Marcel’s telling the night before in the garden corresponded exactly with what Ravenel had said,—not that Ravenel’s word alone needed any corroboration with Colonel Duquesne.
“Yes,” he said, “you must say something which may be construed into an apology. Not a man in the regiment sustains Creci’s course, but for reasons which you understand, the chief of which is the lady in the case, it must be hushed up. I have arranged for you to meet Creci this morning at my house and the affair shall be settled before me.”
Ravenel, with his soul in his eyes, looked at the colonel, who was a man with a heart in his breast, even though he was a colonel; and then the colonel held out his hand. Ravenel gripped it for a moment and then hurried away through the park that he might not miss the morning mail, for he was as careful and prompt in the performance of his duty with regard to these circulars, which he addressed at next to nothing a thousand, as if it had been the best-paid and most important work in the world.
But his heart was more joyful than it had been for many a day. He had something pleasant to take back to Sophie. When he returned, and they had their eleven o’clock breakfast together in the little garden, he looked so cheerful that Sophie felt almost gay. They sat with Lucie at the little round table with a white cloth on it, under a big acacia tree. Close by them were a dozen tall oleanders in tubs, for Captain Ravenel, turning his unusual skill in flowers to account, supplied most of the cafés in town with their ornamental plants. Their breakfast was simple, but very good, and Lucie triumphed in the production of the omelette which was the work of her own hands. She was already lamenting that in one week more she would have to go back to the Château Bernard, and Madame Bernard’s chef.
“Oh, it is so nice to be with you here!” she cried, and then said, as she had done two or three times before: “It is so much nicer than at Châlons—and I hated Count Delorme!”
As she spoke the name, Ravenel looked away, while poor Sophie blushed and trembled, but Lucie, meaning to please her hosts, kept on:
“When I am grown up, and get my money, I intend to come and live with you, Sophie and Captain Ravenel. Harper says that when I am eighteen I shall have a whole lot of money in America that grandmama can not keep me out of, and that I can spend it as I like, and I will come and live in Bienville and have a carriage and everything I want, but I think I would like to stay in this house—it is small, but so very pleasant.”
“Harper should not tell you such things, Lucie,” said Sophie. She looked at Captain Ravenel. It is impossible to keep nursery governesses and upper servants from gossiping,—how much had she told Lucie in the past, and how much might she tell her in the future?