"She is here with us, monsieur. She had not been well. We have been saving the rabbits for her."
Randolph made the grand gesture that I so well remembered.
"My good people—if she would dine with us—?"
The old woman shook her head. She was not sure. She would see.
Perhaps she said pleasant things of us, perhaps mademoiselle was lonely. But whatever the reason, mademoiselle consented to dine, coming out of her seclusion, very thin and dark and small, but self-possessed.
I have often wondered what she thought, in those first moments of meeting, of Randolph, as with a spoon for a sceptre, the manner of a king, he presided over the feast. She spoke very good English, but needed to have many things explained.
"Do gentlemen cook in your country?"
Randolph sketched life as he had known it on his grandfather's plantation—negroes to do it all, except when gentlemen pleased.
She drew the mantle of her distaste about her. "Black men? I shouldn't like it."
Well, I saw before the evening ended that Randolph had met his peer. For every one of his aristocratic prejudices she matched him with a dozen. And he loved her for it! At last here was a lady who would buckle on his armor, watch his shield, tie her token on his sleeve!