LV
"But surely, M. le Comte, it would please me to receive these two ladies. M. de Straz has just been speaking of Mademoiselle de Bayard."
And he dismissed Straz, who for once had been stricken speechless; giving his hand to him and saying: "I am very much obliged by your visit, Monsieur!"
The equerry retired, shepherding the unstrung Roumanian. The Prince waited, looking at the door.
He heard footsteps descending the stairs, a slight bustle in the hall, or so it seemed to him. Once a raised voice cried out something, drowned in the buzzing of the crowd that now gorged the Place of the Prefecture.
It still rained. The brass helmets of the Fire-Brigade and the black shakos of the local police strung out along the edge of the pavement, showed as fringing a solid mass of dripping umbrellas; there were clumps of more privileged umbrellas in the middle of the Place, where a hackney-carriage now stood, doubtless the vehicle that a moment previously had stopped before the door. The Cent Gardes had their undress cocked-hats on; their blue-caped mantles, pulled out in cavalry fashion over the hindquarters of their tall brown horses, shed off the merciless downpour like penthouse roofs....
Brr! It was chilly. Why did not Mademoiselle come? Such delay was rather a breach of etiquette.
Meanwhile, there upon the blotter lay a sheet of paper, with an unfinished caricature upon it—masterly, considering that a mere boy had drawn it—representing M. Thiers, bald, spectacled, oracularly smiling, in the guise of a gobbling turkey-cock.
M. Thiers would keep. The Prince chose another sheet, and began his portrait of the Roumanian, humming a song, popular with the African infantry-regiments, in capital tune and time. "Gentle Turco" had been half sung through when the door opened. The crisp grizzled curls, tanned soldierly face, waxed mustache, and green-and-silver uniform of the equerry reappeared upon the threshold, ushering in a small young lady.... D'Aure said, as the boy laid down his pen, rose and came toward them:
"Monseigneur, I bring the young lady of whom I spoke to you, daughter of Colonel de Bayard, 777th Chasseurs of the Emperor's Guard. She has convinced me of her identity by showing me a portrait, and a letter from her father.... She begs me to assure you that she will not detain you longer than ten minutes. For that space of time I will return to the lady downstairs." He added at the Prince's glance of inquiry: "The lady is the wife of a French officer, and accompanied Mademoiselle de Bayard. As I went downstairs just now with M. de Straz, we encountered both ladies in the vestibule. A giddiness seized the elder, she cried out, and swooned away."