“Mme. la Baronne Léopold, Mme. Blanche, et M. le Capitaine Léopold!” called out the servant. Pearl and Polly flew to greet Blanche, who was Polly’s bosom-friend, and the three girls betook themselves to a private corner of their own, and were soon deep in confidential talk. Mme. Léopold got out her tapestry, and began stitching away by the shaded lamp near Mrs. Redacre’s sofa; and Léon, after doubling himself in two before the ladies of the house three separate times, fell in with a group of gentlemen on the hearth-rug. Presently Mme. Léopold looked up from her floss silks and called out to the young girls:
“Have we interrupted the music, mesdemoiselles? I implore of you to go on with it! My son will be in despair if you don’t; he perfectly adores music. I hope you will induce him to sing a duet with you—that one from Fra Diavolo that goes so well with your voice, Pearl. Do make him sing it, dear child, I pray you!”
Thus adjured, Pearl drifted away to capture the reluctant and, so far, unconscious songster, who again doubled himself in two, and vowed that he was a miserable singer, but at the orders of ces demoiselles.
“Are we not to see Léopold this evening?” inquired Col. Redacre in his loud military tones.
“Can I say? He is so busy. He keeps me hard at work, too; I write twenty letters a day for him, and still he can’t get through all his correspondence. One must have real patriotism to serve one’s country in France, my dear colonel.”
“Humph! It is easy enough to serve it when one can stay at home and keep one’s legs,” grunted the colonel. “I should not mind writing five hundred letters a day if I could get my leg back.”
“Ah! but you are a hero,” smiled Mme. Léopold.
Presently, throwing aside her tapestry, she sallied over to the card-table, and, laying her hand on Mrs. Monteagle’s shoulder, “Will your game soon be done, chère madame?” she said. “I want to have a little chat with you, and it is so difficult for me to get to you in the day! M. Léopold, since he is in the Chamber, works me to death. Not that I complain of it. I am proud to be of use to him; but it is a life of sacrifice.” And the patriot’s wife sighed.
“My dear baronne, if there be a thing I resent it is having my game of whist interfered with,” burst out Mme. de Kerbec before Mrs. Monteagle could answer. “How is Mrs. Monteagle to give her full attention to the game, if you stand there watching the minutes till it is over?” And the irate whist-player turned down her hand and looked indignantly at the intruder.
Mme. Léopold fled with a pretty pretence of terror; and Mrs. Monteagle, whose attention had been disturbed by the interruption, after nervously surveying a wretched set of cards, threw a low trump—on her partner’s ace.