“I imagine not.”
“Who then? Some divinity of the coulisses, I’ll wager.”
“Louvois,” said the count gravely, “you wrong our friend. De Courtenaye, as you know, abhors vice, and I am much mistaken if she whom he loves is not a virtuous woman.”
Louvois shrugged his shoulders as only a certain kind of Frenchman can. Virtue was a word not in his dictionary.
The next day the prince received this note, the second from his unknown relative:
“My Nephew: Why do you decline to marry Mlle. de Craon, who unites all that is illustrious in birth and splendid in fortune? I will provide you with the capital of the income I now allow you. Accept also as a wedding-gift for your intended the jewels I send herewith.
“If you consent, wear for eight days in your buttonhole a carnation; if you refuse, a rose.”
With the letter came a handsome jewel-case containing a million of francs in bills—it is well for the romancer to be liberal in these matters—and a magnificent parure of diamonds of the purest water, valued by the Tiffany of the time at 100,000 more.
That afternoon it was noticed in the garden that Nanette was unusually pale and silent. The Prince de Courtenaye entered at his usual hour; the nosegay in his buttonhole bore neither pink nor rose. He drew near the flower-girl, who offered him a posy with a hand she vainly tried to make steady. Like his own, it had neither pink nor rose.
The prince examined Nanette’s offering attentively, smiled sadly, stood for an instant in a musing attitude twirling the bouquet in his fingers, and then suddenly, as one whose mind is made up: