Although I was dressed like a French peasant I think she realized that I was of gentle blood. She was surprised at the ease with which I mounted her on her horse, and when she gave me that louis—my hand went to my breast. Yes, it still hung there! I hadn’t gambled that away, thank God!—and, as I promptly returned her another, she seemed to understand. I wonder what she did with hers? She told me that I had not only saved her from assault but that I had done more, I had saved the honor of France, and that she would some day prove her gratitude. Then she galloped away from me and left me standing staring in the road like a fool, madly in love with her!
Aye, this evidenced my folly, I will admit, but as they say here, “What would you?” She was the first lady I had seen in three years of cruising, and such a woman! If you had seen her you would have understood. How I had searched for her! Blue eyes, dark hair; tall, exquisitely molded, graceful figure; dainty hands and feet—this vague description might have fitted any woman or a million, and she was one of that million. It was no use. I should never see her again, and if I saw her now, disgraced as I was, I must avoid her. So absorbed was I in these miserable musings that I hadn’t heeded a tap at the door.
“Ma foi!” cried a rather shrill, metallic voice as a man opened the door and stepped within. “My dear friend, I have rapped several times, and so I took the liberty....”
“Oh, come in by all means, Monsieur du Trémigon,” I replied, rising and welcoming the newcomer, although with no great cordiality.
He was the hatefulest of all the crowd with whom I had cast my lot since I had been in Paris, and I more than suspected it was to him that I had passed those little pieces of paper which began more and more definitely to impress themselves upon my recollection.
“I suppose,” I said, “that you have come to settle our accounts of last night, Monsieur?”
“There is no haste about that,” he returned politely enough, “but since you insist, as well now as any other time.”
“I shall be honest with you, Marquis,” I returned bluntly; “I’m afraid I shall have to ask your indulgence for a short time.”
He drew from his pocket a package of papers and laid them on the table. I took them up as I spoke, and although I am no great hand at figures, I saw that the total was appalling. My heart sank, but I flatter myself that I displayed as equable a demeanor as the man opposite me. It has always been my practice to put a bold face on everything.
“Pray give yourself no uneasiness whatever about these little matters,” said the Marquis in his most genial manner—and the more gentle and kindly he was, strange to say, the more I hated him! “Or rather,” he continued, interrupting me as I began to speak, “I can show you a way to discharge them with little difficulty to yourself, and that immediately.”