Part 8 (1/2)

”Faith! no chance to even play the lackey for her,” he grumbled.

”There's an old saying that 'G.o.d is good to the Irish;' but I don't think I'm getting my share of it this day; unless its by way of being kept out of temptation, and sure, its never a Delaven would pray for that when the temptation is a lovely woman. Now wasn't she worth a day's journey afoot just to look at?”

He turned to his companion, whose gaze was still on the receding carriage, and who seemed, at last, to be aroused to interest in something Parisian; for his eyes were alight, his expression, a mingling of delight and disappointment. At Delaven's question, however, he attempted nonchalance, not very successfully, and remarked, as they re-entered the house, ”There were two of them to look at, which do you mean?”

”Faith, now, did you suppose for a minute it was the dowager I meant?

Not a bit of it! Madame Alain, as I heard some of them call her, is the 'gem of purest ray serene.' What star of the heavens dare twinkle beside her?”

”Don't attempt the poetical,” suggested the other, unfeelingly. ”I am to suppose, then, that you know her--this Madame Alain?”

”Do I know her? Haven't I been raving about her for days? Haven't you vowed she belonged to the type abhorrent to you? Haven't I had to endure your reflections on my sanity because of the adjectives I've employed to describe her attractions? Haven't you been laughing at your own mother and myself for our infatuation?--and now--”

He stopped, because the Lieutenant's grip on his shoulder was uncomfortably tight, as he said:

”Shut up! Who the devil are you talking about?”

”By the same power, how can I shut up and tell you at the same time?”

and Delaven moved his arm, and felt of his shoulder, with exaggerated self-pity. ”Man! but you've got a grip in that fist of yours.”

”Who is the lady you call Madame Alain?”

”Faith, if you had gone to her home when you were invited you'd have no need to ask me the question this day. Her nearest friends call her Madame Alain, because that was the given name of her husband, the saints be good to him! and it helps distinguish her from the dowager.

But for all that she is the lady you disdained to know--Madame la Marquise de Caron.”

McVeigh stared at him moodily, even doubtfully.

”You are not trying to play a practical joke, I reckon?” he said at last; and then without waiting for a reply, walked over to the office window, where he stood staring out, his hands in his pockets, his back to Delaven, who was eyeing him calmly. Directly, he came back smiling; his moody fit all gone.

”And I was idiot enough to disdain that invitation?” he asked; ”well, Fitz, I have repented. I am willing to do penance in any agreeable way we can conjure up, and to commence by calling tomorrow, if you can find a way.”

Delaven found a way. Finding the way out of, or into difficulties was one of his strong points and one he especially delighted in, if it had a flavor of intrigue, and was to serve a friend. Since his mother's death in Paris, several years before, he had made his home in or about the city. He was without near relatives, but had quite a number of connections whose social standing was such that there were few doors he could not find keys to, or a pa.s.sword that was the equivalent. His own frank, ingenuous nature made him quite as many friends as his social and diplomatic connections; so that despite the fact of a not enormous income, and that he meant to belong to the professions some day, and that he was by no means a youth on matrimony bent--with all these drawbacks he was welcomed in a social way to most delightful circles, and when he remarked to the dowager that he would like to bring his friend, the Lieutenant, at an early day, she a.s.sured him they would be welcome.

She endeavored to make them so in her own characteristic way, when they called, twenty-four hours later, and they spent a delightful twenty minutes with her. She could not converse very freely with the American, because of the difficulties of his French and her English, but their laughter over mistakes really tended to better their acquaintance. He was conscious that her eyes were on him, even while she talked with Delaven, whose mother she had known. He would have been uncomfortable under such surveillance but for the feeling that it was not entirely an unkindly regard, and he had hopes that the impression made was in his favor.

Loris Dumaresque arrived as they were about to take their departure, and Lieutenant McVeigh gathered from their greeting that he was a daily visitor--that as G.o.d-son he was acting as far as possible in the stead of a real son, and that the dowager depended on him in many ways since his return to Paris.

The American realized also that the artist would be called a very handsome man by some people, and that his gaiety and his self confidence would make him especially attractive to women. He felt an impatience with women who liked that sort of impudence. Delaven did not get a civil word from him all the way home.

Madame la Marquise--Madame Alain--had not appeared upon the scene at all.

CHAPTER V.

”But he is not at all bad, this American officer,” insisted the dowager; ”such a great, manly fellow, with the deference instinctive, and eyes that regard you well and kindly. Your imagination has most certainly led you astray; it could not be that with such a face, and such a mother, he could be the--horrible! of that story.”

”All the better for him,” remarked her daughter-in-law. ”But I should not feel at ease with him. He must be some relation, and I should shrink from all of the name.”

”But, Madame McVeigh--so charming!”