"Impossible," was the answer I thought was returned.

And from that audience chamber I went quickly and alone in my good Cherry to Twin Oaks, was admitted by Bonbon, whom I instructed not in any way to allow that I be interrupted, ascended to my own apartment and seated myself in a large chair before the glowing ashes of a small fire of fragrant chip twigs, which kind Madam Kizzie had had lighted, against what she called a "May chill," during my toilet of the morning. Above me from the mantelshelf, that Grandmamma Carruthers looked down with her great and n.o.ble smile, while the flame in her eyes seemed to answer that in my soul as I communed with myself.

"What is it that you will now do, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye?"

I asked of myself with a slight shaking of my knees in their cheviot trousers. "It is hardly possible that you will escape from revealing your woman's estate to this Frenchman of your own cla.s.s. Here all mistakes of a man's estate are forgiven you and laid to the fact of your being an alien, but that Lieutenant, Count de Bourdon, will ask questions of you and perhaps has a knowledge of your relatives and friends--indeed, must have. Also, already that wicked Madam Whitworth entertains suspicions of you. What is it that you will do?"

And after I had asked myself for a second time that question I sat and looked into the eyes of that Grandmamma Carruthers for many long moments and had an argument with myself; then I answered to her as I rose to my feet so that my eyes came more nearly on a level with hers:

"No, Madam Ancestress, born of her whom not an Indian or a fierce bear could frighten away from her duty of protection to those of her affections, I will not flee. I will stay here by the side of my Uncle, the General Robert, and my great chief, that Gouverneur Faulkner, to fight for their honor and to protect France from robbery. Then, if I be discovered and can do no more for them, I will go from their presence quickly in the night and be lost in the trenches of France before I am detained. And if it be that I am not discovered before all is made well concerning those mules for transportation of food to the soldiers of France, then I will still go away to the battlefields of France before it is discovered by all who have given affection to Robert Carruthers, that he is a--lie. I will leave love for me and for France in all of these kind hearts, which will comfort me when I fight for the Republique, or live for her during long years. I grieve exceedingly; but I go!"

And after that long conference with myself I called upon the telephone my Buzz and asked of him that he meet me at the Club of Old Hickory, of which, after the required time of waiting, I was soon to be an enrolled member.

And when I told to my Mr. b.u.mble Bee the fact that in the s.p.a.ce of barely three days the great gentleman of France would be in Hayesville for the purpose of a visit and the signing of the contracts concerning our much discussed friend, the mule, he gave a very long and loud whistle and placed his elbows upon the smoking table between us.

"Well, this does call for hustle," he said as he knocked from his cigarette the ashes. "What are your plans, L'Aiglon?"

"I do not know what it is best to plan, my Buzz," I answered in perplexity. "Of course, there must be the official reception by His Excellency, the Gouverneur Faulkner, upon the evening of their arrival, but more I cannot think. Also, I am commanded by His Excellency to consult the beautiful Madam Whitworth as the only official wife of the State, on account of the t.i.tle of Treasurer of her husband."

"Oh, Mrs. Pat will be satisfied to shine at the elbow of Governor Bill at the reception and we can trust her to arrange little odd cosy hours for herself and any of the bunch who pleases her. It's the man end of it we want to handle."

"Yes, it is that man end you speak of I wish you to perform for me, my Buzz," I a.s.sented eagerly.

"I'll tell you what let's do," exclaimed that Buzz with a very great light of enthusiasm coming into his countenance. "Let's don't try to imitate London, Paris or New York in blowing 'em off; let's give them a taste of the genuine rural thing. Let's take the bunch down to the Brice stock farm, Glencove, give 'em a barbecue done by old Cato and let 'em see the horses run. Gee, they have got a string of youngsters there! It will take two and a half days, for it's fifty miles down over a mighty poor road, but it's worth it when you get there. The Brice farm is the heart of the Harpeth Valley. We took that English Lordkin, who came to visit Governor Bill last year, down to see old Brice, and it took us ten days to get him to break away."

"That we will do, my fine Mr. b.u.mble Bee," I answered with grat.i.tude.

"Sure, it's the thing," said my Buzz with conviction. "We pa.s.s right through the grazing land of the State and we can show them the mule in the making--the right kind of mule. We'd have to do that anyway, for that is what they are here for."

I feel a certainty that if I should continue to be an American man for all of the days I may live, to that three score and ten age, I would never be able to gain in any way even a small portion of what my fine Mr. Buzz Clendenning calls "hustle." I went at his side for the three days which intervened between the news of the arrival of that Lieutenant, Count de Bourdon, and that actual arrival, in what seemed to me to be the pace of a very fleet horse or even as the flight of a bird. And as fast as we went from the arrangement of one detail of entertainment to another, the beautiful Madam Whitworth went with us, with her eyes of the flower blue very bright with a great excitement.

I was glad that in all matters it was necessary that my fine Buzz also consult with her and thus I was not exposed to any of her wickedness alone.

And in my own heart was also a great excitement, for it seemed to me that I was fighting a great battle for France all alone. All day I could see that that Mr. Jefferson Whitworth and the other men of wealth who with him were seeking to be robbers to my Country, were first in consultation with themselves and then with my Uncle, the General Robert, and also the Gouverneur Faulkner. Would their powerful wickedness prevail and be able to force a signing of that paper on the Gouverneur? Was that in their power, I asked of myself, and in my ignorance I did not know an answer and had no person to demand one from. There was no ease of heart to me, when the days went by and I was so at work with my Buzz that I had no time for words from my Gouverneur Faulkner or glance from those eyes of the dawn star. I could only murmur to myself:

"_Vive la France_ and Harpeth America!"

CHAPTER XVI

"IMMEDIATELY I COME TO YOU!"

And so the time pa.s.sed until the morning upon which the same railroad train which had brought young Robert Carruthers down into the valley home of his forefathers, arrived with yet another son of France and his secretaries and servants. All were in attendance at the station of arrival, from the Secretary of State, the General Carruthers, who in his large car was to take the Count de Bourdon to the Gouverneur's Mansion for immediate introduction, down to good Cato in a very new gray coat and a quite shiny black hat.

"Stand right alongside, Robert," commanded my Uncle, the General Robert, as he arranged with impatience a large white rose I had placed upon the lapel of his very elegant gray coat. "I never did like heathens. They make my flesh crawl. Be sure and repeat slowly all he says, d.a.m.n him!"

"He will speak to you in English very like unto that I use, I feel sure, my Uncle Robert," I said with a great soothing.

"He will not, sir, he will not!" answered my Uncle, the General Robert, with a great impatience. "Half the blood in your veins is the good red blood I gave you, sir, and never forget that. Look what a man it has made of you!"

"Yes, my Uncle Robert," I answered with a great sadness but also some amus.e.m.e.nt. In my heart I prayed that always when I had left him he would think that blood to be the good red blood of a man of honor and not of a woman of lies. It might be that some day he would be proud that still another man of his house had died in battle for France and--never know.

It was while my eyes were covered with a mist of tears that I heard the great railway train approaching, which was perhaps to bring me my dishonor, and I drew those tears back into my heart and stepped forward to the steps of the car from which I could see a very slight and short but very distinguished looking Frenchman about to descend.

"I thank the good G.o.d I have never before encountered him," I said in my heart as I stood in front of him.

"Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, I make you welcome to the State of Harpeth, in the name of my Uncle, the Secretary of that State," I said to him in the language of his own country as I clapped together my heels and gave to him the bow from the waist of a French gentleman who is not a soldier. "Will you permit that I lead you to that Uncle?"

"Many thanks, Monsieur, is it Carruthers I name you after your distinguished relative?" he made answer to me as he returned my bow with first one of its kind and then a military salute.

"Robert Carruthers, sir, and at your service," I made answer to him with a great formality. And as I spoke I saw that he gave to me a glance of great curiosity and would have asked a question but at that moment my Uncle, the General Robert, stood beside us.

"I present to you the General Carruthers, Secretary of the State of Harpeth, Monsieur the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon of the forty-fourth Cha.s.seurs of the Republique of France." I said with again a great ceremony and a very deep bow.

"I'm mighty glad to welcome you to Old Harpeth, Count. How did you make the trip down? said my Uncle, the General Robert, as he held out his large and beautiful old hand and gave to the Count Edouard de Bourdon such a clasp that must have been to him most painful. And as I beheld that very tall grand old soldier of that Lost Cause look down upon that very polished and small representative of the French army, that American eagle began a flapping of his wings against the strings of my heart where I had not before discovered him to reside.

"But he is not as my Capitaine, the Count de La.s.selles," I said in reproof to that eagle, which made a quiet in my heart so that I could listen to the words returned by the man of France to the man of America.

"I thank you, Monsieur the Secretary of Harpeth; my journey was of great pleasure and comfort," were the words which he returned in very nice English.

"Then we'll go right up and see Governor Faulkner at the Capitol before lunch, Count, if that suits you," my Uncle, the General Robert, said with a very evident relief at those words of English coming from that French mouth. "Here's my car over this way and this is Mr.

Clendenning, who'll look after the rest of the gentlemen in your party and bring them on up to the Capitol."

"Monsieur," said the Lieutenant, Count de Bourdon, with another bow and then a quick recovery as he saw that he must take the hand of Buzz, held out to him in great cordiality. These handshakes of America are very confusing to those of Europe.

I saw a great laughter almost to explosion in the eyes of my Buzz at the very little man who had such a great manner, and I made a hurrying of him and my Uncle, the General Robert, to the large car standing beside the station.

"I will precede you in my Cherry," I said as I saw both the gentlemen seated together upon the back seat of the large black machine.

"No you don't; you take your seat right in here with us, to be on hand if any bridge of this international conversation breaks down under the Count and me," answered my Uncle, the General Robert, with stern command.

"Is it that the young Monsieur Carruthers had an education in France?"

asked the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon. "He has the air of French--shall I say, youth?" And as he spoke again I saw a gleam of deeply aroused interest in his eyes which made my knees to tremble in their tweed trousers.

"Born there; son of my brother, who died at the Marne," made answer to the question my Uncle, the General Robert.

"It is now that I make a remembrance. That Capitaine Carruthers was the husband to the very beautiful Marquise de Grez and Bye. In her youth I was her friend. I did not know--" but as the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, was making this discovery which sent a thrill of fear into the toes of my very shoes, the car stopped at the main entrance of the Capitol and halfway down the long flight of steps stood His Excellency, the great Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, waiting to receive the guest who came on a mission to him from a great land across the waters. Until I die and even into a s.p.a.ce beyond that, I shall take that picture of magnificence which was made by my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner as he stood in the May sunlight with his bronze hair in a gleaming. I thought him to be a great statue of Succor as he held out both of his strong hands to the smaller man who had come from a stricken land for his help.

"_Le bon Dieu_ keep of his heart a friend of France," I prayed as I watched those hands clasp as my Uncle, the General Robert, made the introduction.

And all the long hours of that long day were as dreams of sadness and fear to me as I went about the many duties of entertainment laid upon me. At luncheon at that Club of Old Hickory I sat opposite the small Frenchman who sat on the right hand of my Gouverneur Faulkner, and opposite to me sat my Uncle, the General Robert. No business was in discussion at that time but I could see those eyes of French shrewdness make a darting from one face to another and ever they came back to me with a great puzzle which gave to me terrible fear.

To all the plans for his entertainment he gave an a.s.sent of delight and for that two days' journey down into the grazing lands of the Harpeth Valley he had a great eagerness until told that it was to be undertaken upon the morrow.

"Is it not that we will be occupied on the morning of to-morrow with the signing of those papers of importance, Your Excellency?" he asked with a grave annoyance which was under a fine control.

"The Secretary of State, General Carruthers, and I think it will be best that you see the grazing lands of Harpeth and some of the mules being put into condition before the signing of the contracts," was what was "handed out to him," as my Buzz would have expressed it, by my Gouverneur Faulkner with a great courtesy and kindliness as he helped himself to some excellent chicken prepared in a fry. I could see a great start of alarm come into the eyes of that small Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, at those calm words, but he gave not a sign of it. In my heart was a great hope that something had been discovered for the protection of my soldiers of France, and I also took to myself a portion of that excellent chicken and did make the attempt to consume it as I beheld all of those great gentlemen performing. I believe that under excitement men possess a much greater calmness of appet.i.te than do women.