“You have taken a great deal upon your shoulders, Mr. Ritchie,” she said. “They are from all accounts broad ones. There, I was wrong to be indignant in your presence,—you who seem to have spent your life in trying to get others out of difficulties. Mercy,” she said, with a quick gesture at my protest, “there are few men with whom one might talk thus in so short an acquaintance. I love the girl, and I cannot help being angry with Mr. Temple. I suppose there is something to be said on his side. Let us hear it—I dare say he could not have a better advocate,” she finished, with an indefinable smile.
I began at the wrong end of my narrative, and it was some time before I had my facts arranged in proper sequence. I could not forget that Madame la Vicomtesse was looking at me fixedly. I reviewed Nick's neglected childhood; painted as well as I might his temperament and character—his generosity and fearlessness, his recklessness and improvidence. His loyalty to those he loved, his detestation of those he hated. I told how, under these conditions, the sins and vagaries of his parents had gone far to wreck his life at the beginning of it. I told how I had found him again with Sevier, how he had come to New Orleans with me the first time, how he had loved Antoinette, and how he had disappeared after the dreadful scene in the garden at Les Îles, how I had not seen him again for five years. Here I hesitated, little knowing how to tell the Vicomtesse of that affair in Louisville. Though I had a sense that I could not keep the truth from so discerning a person, I was startled to find this to be so.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” she said quickly. “And in the morning he had flown with that most worthy of my relatives, Auguste de St. Gré.”
I looked at her, finding no words to express my astonishment at this perspicacity.
“And now what do you intend to do?” she asked. “Find him in New Orleans, if you can, of course. But how?” She rose quickly, went to the fireplace, and stood for a moment with her back to me. Suddenly she turned. “It ought not to be difficult, after all. Auguste de St. Gré is a fool, and he confirms what you say of the expedition. He is, indeed, a pretty person to choose for an intrigue of this kind. And your cousin,—what shall we call him?”
“To say the least, secrecy is not Nick's forte,” I answered, catching her mood.
She was silent awhile.
“It would be a blessing if Monsieur le Baron could hang Auguste privately. As for your cousin, he may be worth saving, after all. I know Monsieur de Carondelet, and he has no patience with conspirators of this sort. I think he would not hesitate to make examples of them. However, we will try to save them.”
“We!” I repeated unwittingly.
Madame la Vicomtesse looked at me and laughed outright.