“Their unconsciousness, the entire absence of the conviction that they are ridiculous, makes them quite lovable,� thought Mr. Brown. “That fat, fair papa, with spectacles and large sandy whiskers, as Pluton, from Orphée aux Enfers, in red satin tunic and black silk tights spotted with yellow, a satin cloak with a train, a gilt pasteboard crown and trident pleases me tremendously. He is, I believe, a magistrate from Charny. His wife is the even fatter and fairer lady attired as Norma, and those three little dumpy girls, flower girls of a period decidedly uncertain.�
“Does not Monsieur dance?� said Mademoiselle Lucie, looking, with her filmy green draperies, her fair locks crowned, and her slim waist girdled with water-lilies and forget-me-nots, a really exquisite river sprite.
“If Mademoiselle would accord me the honor of her hand in a valse,� Mr. Brown began; then he broke off, remembering that in England the tutor did not usually dance with the daughters of the house—if, indeed, that functionary danced at all. But——
“Mamma has been telling me that Englishmen dance badly,� observed Mademoiselle, with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “Grandmamma will have it, by the way, that you are Scotch! Do not look round for her; she was a little fatigued by so much conversation and fuss, and will not come down to-night.... Heavens! look at Frédéric,� she added, in a tone of sisterly solicitude, as the page of the Court of Burgundy moved unsteadily into sight, clinging to the arm of a bosom friend in a “celadon� costume and a condition of similar obfuscation. “Alas! I comprehend!� she continued. “Those plums conserved in cognac have a fatal fascination for my unhappy brother. Quick, Monsieur! make to remove him from the view of Papa, or the consequences will be of the most terrible.... Frédéric has been already warned....�
And outwardly grave and sympathetic, albeit splitting with repressed laughter, Mr. Brown went in chase of the unseasoned vessels, and conveyed them to the safe harbor of the small study on the second floor, which had been allotted to him as a den. Locking them in, he was about to descend in search of seltzer water, when, in the act of crossing the gallery, unlighted save for the dazzling moonlight that poured through the long mullioned windows, giving a strange semblance of fantastic life to the dark family portraits on the opposite wall, and lying in silver pools upon the shining parquet islanded with threadbare carpets of ancient Oriental woof, he encountered the elder Madame de Courvaux, who came swiftly toward him from the opposite end of a long gallery, carrying a light and a book that looked like a Catholic breviary. With the glamour of moonlight upon her, in a loose silken dressing robe trimmed with the priceless lace she affected, her wealth of golden-gray tresses in two massive plaits, drawn forward and hanging over her bosom, almost to her knees, her beauty was marvelous. Mr. Brown caught his breath and stopped short; Madame, on her part, uttered a faint cry—was it of delight or of terror?—and would have dropped her candle had not the tutor caught it and placed it on a console that stood near.
“Pardon, Madame!� he was beginning, when....
“Oh, Angus Dunbar! Angus, my beloved, my adored!� broke from Madame de Courvaux. “There is no need that either of us should ask for pardon.� Her blue eyes gleamed like sapphires, her still beautiful bosom heaved and panted, her lips smiled, though the great tears brimmed one by one over her underlids and chased down her pale cheeks. “We did what was right. The path of honor was never easy. You married, and I also, and all these years no news of you has reached me. But I understand now that you are dead, and bound no longer by the vows of earth, and that you have come, brave as of old, beautiful as of old, to tell me that you are free!�
With an impulse never quite to be accounted for, Angus Dunbar, the younger, stepped forward and enclosed in his own warm, living grasp Madame’s trembling hands....
“My name is Angus Dunbar, Madame,� he said, “but—but I believe you must be speaking of my uncle. He succeeded to the peerage twenty years ago; he is now Lord Hailhope, but he—he never married, though I believe he loved, very sincerely and devotedly, a lady whose portrait by Varolan hangs in the dining-room at Hailhope, just as it hangs in the library here at Charny les Bois.�
“I—I do not understand.... How comes it that——� Madame hesitated piteously, her hands wringing each other, her great wistful eyes fixed upon the splendid, stalwart figure of the young man. “You are so like.... And the costume——�