“To my cousin de Moulny’s annoyance and disgust unspeakable,” he returned, with a lighter tone and a lighter look, though he had glowed and kindled at the praise from her. “I did indulge—at those periods when he was staying at Wraye Abbey—in a good deal of that sort of bosh. But—quite wrongly, I dare say!—he seemed to me a high-falutin’, pompous young French donkey; and it became a point of importance not to lose an opportunity of taking him down. By the way, I heard from him quite lately. He gave up the idea of entering the Roman Catholic priesthood after some clash or collision with the Rules of the Fathers Directors, and is now an Under-Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.”
“He should have a notable career before him!” she commented.
“The Legitimist Party, at this present juncture, possess not one featherweight in the scale of popularity or influence. France is on the eve,” said Bertham, “or so it seems to me, of shedding her skin, and whether the new one will be of one color or of Three, White it will not be; I’ll bet my hat on that! So possibly it may be fortunate for de Moulny that the harness he pulls in has an Imperial Crown upon it. I need hardly say a pretty hand is upon the reins.”
Her laugh made soft music in the cosy, homely parlor, and amusement danced on her sweet firelit eyes....
“Whose is the hand?”
“It appertains, physically, to a certain Comtesse de Roux, and legally to a purple-haired, fiercely-whiskered, fiery-featured Colonel Comte de Roux—by whose original creation Comte is a little uncertain—but a brave and distinguished officer, commanding the 999th of the Line.”
She said, with a memory stirring in her face:
“That is the regiment—according to his old governess, for he did not tell me—to which M. Hector Dunoisse is attached.”
Bertham might not have heard. He said: