Part 12 (1/2)

Schmidt laughed. ”You are too sharp, Pearl. In a minute, but for your saucy tongue, I should have trapped our Tory friend. To George the greater,” said Schmidt.

The Quaker turned down his gla.s.s. ”Not I, indeed.”

”I hope the poor man will never hear of it, Josiah,” said Miss Wynne as she rose laughing, and presently Schmidt and the young people went away, followed shortly after by Langstroth.

For a while Margaret walked on in silence, De Courval and the German talking. At last she said: ”Thou shouldst know that my uncle is not as bad as he seems. He is really a kind and generous man, but he loves to contradict my aunt, and no one else can so easily make her angry.”

”Ah, Pearl, the Madeira was good,” said Schmidt--”too good; or, rather, the several Madeiras. In the mult.i.tude of vinous counselers there is little wisdom, and the man's ways would tempt an angel to mischief.”

Mrs. Swanwick, being alone, had gone out to take supper with a friend, and as Margaret left them in the hall, Schmidt said to De Courval: ”Come in. I have a great package from Gouverneur Morris, from Paris. You may as well hear what news there is. I saw your anxiety, but I was of no mind to have that imitation Quaker discuss the agony of a great nation.”

It took two months or more to hear from France, and each week added to the gathering anxiety with which De Courval awaited news. He was grateful for the daily labor, with its steady exactions, which forbade excessive thought of the home land, for no sagacity of his friend or any forecast that man could make three thousand miles away was competent to predict the acts of the sinister historic drama on which the curtain was rising far away in France.

As the German opened the envelop and set aside letter after letter, he talked on in his disconnected way. ”I could like some bad men more than Josiah Langstroth. He has what he calls opinions, and will say, 'Welladay,'--no, that is my b.a.s.t.a.r.d English,--he will say 'Well, at all events, that is my opinion.' What means 'all events,' Herr Rene? A kick would change them. 'T is an event--a kick. And Mistress Wynne is sometimes not easy to endure. She steps heavily on tender toes, even when on errands of goodness.” The younger man scarce heard these comments as letter after letter was put aside, until at last he put down his pipe, and Schmidt said: ”I was sorry to keep you, but now this last letter has it all--all. There is no detail, my friend, but enough--enough. He writes me all France is in a ferment. This is from Mr. Morris, whom our mobocrats loathe for an aristocrat. He writes: 'The King has vetoed two bills, one about the priests and one of less moment. La Fayette is in disgrace, and wants the surgeon's courage to let blood. Worst of all, and I write in haste,' he says, 'a mob on June 20th broke into the Tuileries and there, in the OEil de Boeuf, a butcher mocked the King to his face as Monsieur Veto. The King laughed, it is said, and set their d.a.m.ned bonnet on his head, and drew his sword, and cried ”_Vive la nation!_” The war goes ill or well as you please; ill for all, I fear. Dillon was murdered by his own regiment after a retreat.'”

”I knew him in the army,” said De Courval. ”I was young then. But the king--has he no courage? Are they all mad?”

”No. He has not the courage of action. He has the courage to endure, if that is to be so nominated. The other is needed just now. That is all--all.”

”And too much.”

”Yes. Come, let us go out and fence a bit in the garden, and sweat out too much Madeira. Come, there is still light enough.”

VIII

Through the quiet of a Sunday morning, De Courval rode slowly up Fifth Street, and into a land of farms and woodland, to spend a quiet day alone with his mother, Miss Wynne, not altogether to the young man's regret, having to remain in town over Monday. As he came to the scenes where Schmidt, in their walks of Sundays, had explained to him Was.h.i.+ngton's well-laid plan of the Germantown battle, he began at last to escape for a time the too sad reflection which haunted his hours of leisure in the renewed interest of a young soldier who had known only the army life, but never actual war. He bent low in the saddle, hat off to a group on the lawn at Cliveden, the once war-battered home of the Chews, and was soon after kissing his mother on the porch of the Hill farm.

There was disquieting news to tell of France, and he soon learned that despite the heat and mosquitos she preferred the tranquillity of the widow's home to the luxury of Miss Wynne's house. She was as usual calmly decided, and he did not urge her to stay longer. She would return to the city on Thursday. They talked of money matters, with reticence on his part in regard to Schmidt's kindness and good counsels, and concerning the satisfaction Mr. Wynne had expressed with regard to his secretary.

”It may be good training for thee, my son,” she said and then, after a pause, ”I begin to comprehend these people,” and, pleased with her progress, made little ventures in English to let him see how well she was learning to speak. An habitual respect made him refrain from critical corrections, but he looked up in open astonishment when she said rather abruptly: ”The girl in her gray gowns is on the way to become one of the women about whom men go wild. Neither are you very ugly, my son. Have a care; but a word from me should suffice.”

”Oh, mother,” he exclaimed, ”do not misunderstand me!”

”My son, I know you are not as some of the light-minded cousins we knew in France; but a word of warning does no harm, even if it be not needed.”

”I think you may be at ease, _maman_. You amaze me when you call her beautiful. A pleasant little maid she seems to me, and not always the same, and at times gay,--oh, when away from her mother,--and intelligent, too. But beautiful--oh, hardly. _Soyez tranquille, maman._”

”I did not say she was beautiful. I said she was good-looking; or that at least was what I meant. Certainly she is unlike our too ignorant demoiselles; but contrast with the familiar may have its peril. It is quite another type from our young women at home, and attractive enough in its way--in its bourgeois way.”

He smiled. ”I am quite too busy to concern myself with young women.” In fact he had begun to find interest in a little study of this new type.

”Yes, quite too busy.”

”That is as well.” But she was not at ease. On the whole, she thought it would be proper now for him to go to Mrs. Bingham's and to the President's receptions. Miss Wynne would see that he had the entree. He was too occupied, he said once more, and his clothes were quite unfit.

Neither was he inclined yet awhile. And so he rode away to town with several things to think about, and on Thursday the vicomtesse made clear to the well-pleased Mrs. Swanwick that she was glad of the quiet and the English lessons and the crisp talk of Schmidt, who spoke French, but not fluently, and concerning whom she was mildly jealous and, for her, curious. ”Schmidt, my son? No; a name disguised. He is a gentleman to his finger-ends, but surely a strange one.”

”It is enough, _maman_, that he is my friend. Often I, too, am curious; but--ah, well, I wonder why he likes me; but he does, and I am glad of it.”

”You wonder. I do not,” and she smiled.

”Ah, the vain _maman!_” he cried. It was very rare that she praised him, and she was by long habit given to no demonstrations of affection.