LI
She could think clearly and remember again. The confusion in her overwrought brain gradually subsided. She went back to the fatal days when the news of the defeats of Wörth and Spicheren rushed shrieking through France and Belgium, and the 16th of August brought word of Bazaine's intercepted retreat from Metz. That day a young girl, sitting under the grisly wing of Madame Tessier at the table d'hôte of the Hôtel de Flandre, in Brussels, had risen up as pale as death and hurried from the room.
The picture was clear-cut, definite as a photograph. She saw the tables in confusion.... French guests uprising, the men exclaiming, and the ladies in tears,—Belgians sympathizing—Teutons exchanging congratulatory eye-glances, and smiles not at all concealed. As the white girl passed the chair from which a German cavalry officer had risen, he whipped the obstacle out of her way with an ogle and a bow. And Juliette, covering her eyes as though the sight of him scorched them, had fled past him.... As she quitted the salle à manger, the voice of Madame Tessier had reached her, saying grimly to the dandy:
"A civility from one of your nation at such a moment is an insult, Monsieur."
And Madame, with bristling mustaches, had also risen, and gone in search of her daughter-in-law elect, to be arrested at the foot of the grand staircase by a waiter with the intelligence that Mademoiselle had gone to her room to lie down, and begged not to be disturbed.... To which apartment, it being on the third floor, Madame Tessier—having wound up the twelve-o'clock déjeuner of hot meats and vegetables and salad with coffee and pastry,—did not follow her. Had she braved the ascent, this story would have ended in quite a different way.
Upon this day, that saw the battle of Mars la Tour, Juliette would not have met the elegant, self-possessed, ingratiating lady who had spoken to her so amiably on the previous afternoon. When—Madame Tessier being engaged in changing a French billet de banque into Belgian money—Juliette had inquired for letters at the bureau.
"'Mademoiselle de Bayard.' ... Unhappily there is not a single letter for Mademoiselle de Bayard..." had said the curled and whiskered functionary, taking an envelope from compartment "B" of the green baize-covered letter-rack, and handing it to this lady, who stood immediately behind.
Juliette had found it impossible not to see the address upon this letter:
"To MADAME DE BATE,
"HÔTEL DE FLANDRE,
"BRUSSELS,"
written in rather a vulgar scrawl. It carried extra stamps, and looked bulky. And the elegantly-gloved hand that was extended to take it, recoiled from the contact as though the envelope had concealed a scorpion.