Part 20 (1/2)
”She's not even trying,” murmured her enchanted owner ”She's cool as a rose”
The cries which had naled, and Bon Jour, flying around the eht have heard her naracefully, her head even with the favorite's saddle and the English gray was a far-off third Bon Jour was pressing to fa in full sight of the Grand Stand it was evident the pretty creature had ood The horses leapt simultaneously and cast the frantic acclareet the surprise of unlooked-for oal Jack Falconer was an interesting figure on the turf; his horse orth twenty thousand pounds
Several hours later, Bulstrode, early in the salon, walked up and doaiting the arrival of the ladies He had paid downstairs a hundred francs for the privilege of dining in theof the restaurant, because Mrs Falconer chanced to remark that one saw the room better from that point And the head waiter even after this monstrous tip said if ”_ces dailt-edged table for theht of the year at Trouville: Boldi and his Hungarians played to five hundred people in the dining-room
Bulstrode looked at the clock; they had yet ten race
Extremely satisfied with himself, with Bon Jour, above all with the French Marquis--he felt a glow of affection for the whole French nation
”Hoeto their fa bad colonists; call theenerates; and declare that they lack nerve and force to rescue theeneration! And here without hesitation this young man----” At this moment the salon door opened, and one of the ladies he had been expecting caest one, Miss Molly Malines, in a tulle dress, an enorht scarf over her shoulders, and the remains of recent tears on her face
”Oh, Mr Bulstrode!” she exclaiain, as she bit her lips: ”I thought I should find Mary here; I wanted to see her first to _cry_ with! but of course it is you I _should_ see and not cry with!”
She gave a little gasp and put her handkerchief to her eyes to his consternation; then to his relief controlled herself
”Maurice has just told _,” she repeated the ith much the saesture which to Bulstrode had signified ruin
”He's too wonderful! too _glorious_, Mr Bulstrode, isn't he? I loved hilorious I never heard anything so terrible and so silly!”
Bright tears sprang to brighter eyes, and she dashed thee it
”Why, how could you be so cruel; yes, I will say it, so cruel, so hard, so brutal?”
”_Brutal_?”--he fairly whispered the word in his surprise
”Why, fancy Maurice in the West, in the dreadful Western life, in that climate----!”
”Why, it is the Garden of Eden,” murmured Bulstrode
”Oh, I mean to say with cattle and cowboys”
”Come,” interrupted her father's friend, practically, ”you don't knohat you are talking about, Molly You don't talk like an Airl They've spoiled De Presle-Vaulx, and this will make a man of him!”
Miss Malines called out in scorn:
”_A man of him_! What do you think he is? He's the finest man I ever saw You don't know him Just because he has a title and his mother spoils him, and because he has been a little reckless in debts and things, you throw hi them!”
Her tears had dried and her cheeks flamed
”Why, Maurice has served three years as a coascar Army; and _that's_ no cinch! Cuba's a joke to it He's had the fever andbut the clothes he had worn for weeks He's eaten bread and drunk dirty water He's been a soldier three years The way I came to know him was at Dinard where he swam out into the sea to save a fisherman who couldn't swim, and all the toas out in the storm to welcome him! They carried him up the streets in their arms--” she waited ain Abyssinia with a native caravan--no white ion d'Honneur in France _And you want to send him out to make a cowboy of him in the American West to turn him into a man_!”