"Father and mother."

"You mean when you're pretending?"

The gate stopped in its jerkings. There had been enough about the name. He was an imperious youngster. "No, I don't," he said; "it's William Leroy backward."

The little girl looked mystified, but evidently thought best to change a subject about which the person concerned seemed testy. "I saw one once," she said sociably; "a real one. He was in a carriage, with horses and soldiers, and a star on his coat."

"One what?" demanded the boy.

"A king, a real one, you know."

Now, this princeling on the gate knew when his own s.e.x were guying and he knew the remedy. He did not know this little girl, but he would not have thought it of her.

"A real--what?" he demanded.

"A real king, but they don't say king; they say 'l'empereur.'"

William looked stern. "I don't know what you mean," he returned; "where did you see any king?"

The grave eyes were not one bit abashed. "In Paris, where we lived,"

said the little girl. "There was a boy named Tommy watching at the hotel window, too, and he said, 'Vive le roi,' and Marie, my bonne, she said, 'Sh--h: l'empereur!'"

The effect of this was unexpected, for the boy, descending from the gate, turned a keenly irradiated countenance upon her. "Do you mean Paris, my father's Paris, Paris in France?"

"Why," said the little girl, regarding him with some surprise, "yes."

For he was taking her by the hand in a masterful fashion.

"Come in," he commanded. "I want you to tell father; that's father there."

But Alexina, friendly soul, went willingly enough with him through the gate and up the wide pavement between bordering beds of unflourishing perennials.

"Listen, father," William Leroy was calling to the gentleman at the foot of the steps; "she's been in Paris, your Paris."

The gentleman's ivory-tinted fingers removed the cigar from his lips.

As he turned the western light fell on his lean, clean-shaven face, thin-flanked beneath high cheek-bones. From between grey brows thick as a finger rose a Louis Philippe nose, its Roman prominence accentuated by the hollowness of the cheeks. The iron-grey hair, thrown back off the face, fell, square-cut, to the coat collar behind.

Never a word spoke the gentleman, only, cigar in hand, waited, eagle-countenanced, sphinx-like. Yet straight Alexina came to his side, and her baby eyes, quick to dilate, now confidingly calm, met the ones looking out piercingly from their retreat beneath the heavy brows, and quite as a matter of course a little hand rested on his knee as she stood there, and equally as naturally, his face impa.s.sive, did the fingers of the gentleman close upon it.

A silent compact, silently entered into, for before a word was interchanged the animated contralto of the lady came down from above.

"Who is the little girl, son? What is your name, dear?"

Son's wince was visible. He had no knowledge of the little girl's name, but he did not want to say so.

But she was answering for herself, looking up at the pretty lady, dressed as though for a party. "It's Mary Alexina Blair," she was saying, "but my Aunt Harriet says it's to be just Alexina now."

"Oh," said the lady. There was a little silence before she spoke again. "It must be Alexander Blair's child, Georges. Come up, dear, and let me see you."

But King William, balancing himself on the back of his father's chair, objected. "Hurry, then, mother," he demanded; "we want to play."

But Alexina had gone up the steps obediently. The eyes of the lady were dark and slumbrous, but in them was the slightly helpless look of short vision. She drew the child close for inspection.

The fair hair, the even brows, the clear-gazing eyes she seemed to have expected, but the dilation in those same wondering eyes raised to hers, the short upper-lip, the full under one that trembled--these the lady did not know. "A sensitiveness, a warmth," she said, half aloud.

What did she mean? Then she raised her voice.

"See, w.i.l.l.y Leroy, how she stands for me, while you pull away if I so much as lay my hand on you."

"But you look so close," objected w.i.l.l.y, "and you fix my hair, and you say my collar ain't straight. You've seen her now, mother; you've seen her close, and I want her to come sit on the step."

"Go, then, little Mary Alexina Blair," said the lady; "he's a little ingrate whose mother has to barter with him for every concession he makes her." And, smiling at herself, her face alight and arch with the animation of her smile, Charlotte Leroy sat back in the scarlet settee and respread her draperies as a bird its plumage, touching the ribbons at her waist and throat, resettling them with the air of one who takes frank pleasure in their presence and becomingness. This done, she viewed her hands, charming hands heavy with costly rings, and finally, rea.s.sured at all points, she relaxed her buoyant figure and looked around with smiling return to her surroundings. It was for no party she was dressed but for her own satisfaction.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Your initials spell Mab," King William was telling Alexina as they sat on the step; "that means you'll be rich. Mine don't spell anything. I'm named for my grandfather up in Woodford, William Ransome. He's dead. Father's don't either--Georges Gautier Hippolyte Leroy. His father ran away from France because he was a Girondist, and came to Louisville because it was French, and father's been to Paris, too; haven't you, father?"

The gentleman thus adjured removed his cigar and addressed his wife.

"It begins to amount to garrulity. If the opposite s.e.x produces this at ten, what are we to expect later on?"

Mrs. Leroy's voice had a note of defence in it, as if she could not brook even humorous criticism of the boy. It was plain where the pa.s.sionate ardour in her nature was centred.

"I'm glad, I'm glad to see it," she declared. "I was afraid it was not in him, I was beginning to fear he was a self-sufficient little monster."

But her son was continuing the family history. "Mother's name was Charlotte Ransome; wasn't it, mother? When I'm a man I'm going to buy my grandfather's stock farm back, and we'll live there; won't we, mother?"

But the impulsive Charlotte, veering around, here took her husband's side: "'I'm going to--I'm going to,'" she mimicked the boy, then began to chant derisively as in words familiar to both:

"And if you don't believe me And think I tell a lie--"

But it only gave him an idea. He was not often a host. It was going to his head. "Wait!" he ordered, to whom it was not quite clear, and tore into the house, to be back almost at once, bearing a beribboned guitar.

"Now," he said, depositing it upon his mother's lap; "now, sing it for her; sing it right, mother. It's 'The Ram of Derby.'" This to Alexina, with a sudden shyness as he found himself addressing her.

But she, unconscious soul, did not recognize it, hers being an all-absorbed interest, and, rea.s.sured, young William went on:

"There was a William Ransome once, when he was little, sat on General Washington's knee, and General Washington sang him 'The Ram of Derby.'

Go on, mother, sing it."

And Charlotte, with eyes laughing down on the two upturned faces, "went on," her jewelled fingers bringing the touch of a practised hand upon the strings, her buoyant figure responsive to the rhythm, while into the Munchausen recital she threw a dash, a swing that rendered the interest breathless.

"There was a ram of Derby I've often heard it said, He was the greatest sheep, sir, That ever wore a head.

And if you don't believe me And think I tell a lie, Just go down to Derby And see as well as I.

"The horns upon this ram, sir, They reached up to the sky, The eagles built their nest there, For I heard the young ones cry.

And if you don't believe me, etc., etc.

"The wool upon this ram, sir, It grew down to the ground, The devil cut it off, sir, To make a morning gown.