Part 15 (1/2)

”I want to know--you are so vexed; are you not? They say you have lost all your money!”

”Do they? They are not far wrong then. Who are 'they,' Pet.i.te Reine?”

”Oh! Prince Alexis, and the Duc de Lorance, and mamma, and everybody. Is it true?”

”Very true, my little lady.”

”Ah!” She gave a long sigh, looking pathetically at him, with her head on one side, and her lips parted; ”I heard the Russian gentleman saying that you were ruined. Is that true, too?”

”Yes, dear,” he answered wearily, thinking little of the child in the desperate pa.s.s to which his life had come.

Pet.i.te Reine stood by him silent; her proud, imperial young ladys.h.i.+p had a very tender heart, and she was very sorry; she had understood what had been said before her of him vaguely indeed, and with no sense of its true meaning, yet still with the quick perception of a brilliant and petted child. Looking at her, he saw with astonishment that her eyes were filled with tears. He put out his hand and drew her to him.

”Why, little one, what do you know of these things? How did you find me out here?”

She bent nearer to him, swaying her slender figure, with its bright gossamer muslins, like a dainty hare-bell, and lifting her face to his--earnest, beseeching, and very eager.

”I came--I came--please don't be angry--because I heard them say you had no money, and I want you to take mine. Do take it! Look, it is all bright gold, and it is my own, my very own. Papa gives it to me to do just what I like with. Do take it; pray do!”

Coloring deeply, for the Pet.i.te Reine had that true instinct of generous natures,--a most sensitive delicacy for others,--but growing ardent in her eloquence and imploring in her entreaty, she shook on to Cecil's knee, out of a little enamel sweetmeat box, twenty bright Napoleons that fell in a glittering shower on the gra.s.s.

He started, and looked at her in a silence that she mistook for offense.

She leaned nearer, pale now with her excitement, and with her large eyes gleaming and melting with pa.s.sionate entreaty.

”Don't be angry; pray take it; it is all my own, and you know I have bonbons, and books, and playthings, and ponies, and dogs till I am tired of them; I never want the money; indeed I don't. Take it, please take it; and if you will only let me ask Papa or Rock they will give you thousands and thousands of pounds, if that isn't enough. Do let me!”

Cecil, in silence still, stooped and drew her to him. When he spoke his voice shook ever so slightly, and he felt his eyes dim with an emotion that he had not known in all his careless life; the child's words and action touched him deeply, the caressing, generous innocence of the offered gift, beside the enormous extravagance and hopeless bankruptcy of his career, smote him with a keen pang, yet moved him with a strange pleasure.

”Pet.i.te Reine,” he murmured gently, striving vainly for his old lightness, ”Pet.i.te Reine, how some man will love you one day! Thank you from my heart, my little innocent friend.”

Her face flushed with gladness; she smiled with all a child's unshadowed joy.

”Ah! then you will take it! and if you want more only let me ask them for it; papa and Philip never refuse me anything!”

His hand wandered gently over the shower of her hair, as he put back the Napoleons that he had gathered up into her azure bonbonniere.

”Pet.i.te Reine, you are a little angel; but I cannot take your money, my child, and you must ask for none for my sake from your father or from Rock. Do not look so grieved, little one; I love you none the less because I refuse it.”

Pet.i.te Reine's face was very pale and grave; a delicate face, in its miniature feminine childhood almost absurdly like the Seraph's; her eyes were full of plaintive wonder and of pathetic reproach.

”Ah!” she said, drooping her head with a sigh; ”it is no good to you because it is such a little; do let me ask for more!”

He smiled, but the smile was very weary.

”No, dear, you must not ask for more; I have been very foolish, my little friend, and I must take the fruits of my folly; all men must.

I can accept no one's money, not even yours; when you are older and remember this, you will know why. But I do not thank you the less from my heart.”

She looked at him, pained and wistful.