"From General Bonaparte, sir," he said; and as I opened my saddle-bags to put the packet away for safe keeping, my eye caught the directions on the wrapper.

"To be delivered to the Comtesse de Baloit, Faubourg St. Germain."

The sight of the inscription gave me only pleasure, and I was tempted to think that the Consul had devised this commission especially to give me an opportunity of seeing the comtesse. It seemed to me an evidence of wonderful delicacy of feeling and thoughtfulness for others on the part of the great general, and I could not sufficiently admire him or be grateful to him. There was no question but that his commission would be faithfully executed the very first possible moment after my arrival in Paris.

It was early morning, the dew still on the hedges and the lark still singing his matins, as we entered the city with a stream of market-carts bringing in fresh fruits and vegetables and flowers for the early morning markets. Only working-people were in the streets: men going to their day's labor, blanchisseuses with their clothes in bundles on their heads, cooks and maids of all work with their baskets on their arms going to the market for the day's supply of food for the family.

Crossing the Place de la Bastille, a man on horseback rode up beside us and gave us good day. He had evidently come in with the country folk and was himself without doubt a small market-gardener, for the loam of the garden was on his rough cowhide boots and his blue smock was such as a countryman wears. I thought at first there was something strangely familiar in his face, and then I remembered I had seen him the evening before at the little country inn, twenty miles out from the city, where we had spent the night. He, like us, must have started at early dawn to reach the city by seven o'clock, very like for the same reason--to take advantage of the cool of the day; and like us also, he must have had a very good horse to make that distance in that time. I glanced at his horse as the thought occurred to me, and saw that it was indeed a good horse. Coal-black, except for a white star on his forehead and one white stocking, he was powerfully built, and yet with such an easy stretch of limb as promised speed as well as endurance. I thought it a little strange that a country farmer should own a horse of such points and breeding as this one showed itself to be, and perhaps my thought appeared in my face, for the countryman answered it.

"'Tis a fine horse, Monsieur, is it not?" he said.

I noticed that he spoke with a very slight lisp, but that otherwise both his language and his intonations were better than I could have expected.

"Yes," I said. "Did you breed him yourself?"

"Not exactly," he answered, "but he was bred on an estate belonging to the Comtesse de Baloit, where I work, and I have helped to train him."

He must have seen my irrepressible start when he mentioned Pelagie's name, for he looked at me curiously with something like either alarm or suspicion in his glance. I was tempted to tell him that I knew his mistress and expected to see her that very day, but I was saved from making such a foolish speech by the fellow himself.

"I am bringing him into the city for the comtesse to try," he said.

"He is a very fine hunter."

"Then your mistress intends to follow the chase?" I asked, feeling a queer little pang that I did not stop to explain to myself at the thought.

"I suppose so, Monsieur, since she has sent for her hunter."

We were now well down the Rue de la St. Antoine, just where the narrow street of Francois-Miron comes in; and as if a sudden thought had struck him, the countryman said:

"I go this way, Monsieur; adieu," turned into the narrow street, and Caesar and I rode on into the Rue de Rivoli, past the Hotel de Ville, and so toward my uncle's house.

"Marsa," said Caesar, as we turned off the Rue de Rivoli, "dat fellah had a gold belt and a little dagger stuck in it under his smock. I seed it when I's ridin' behind youse bof and de win' tuk and blew up his smock-skirt."

I believed the "gold belt" and the "little dagger" were inventions of Caesar's, for he loved to tell wonderful tales; but none the less was I uneasy and troubled, for suppose it should be true! I liked not the thought of a man wearing a concealed weapon going on a plausible errand to the Comtesse de Baloit.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONSUL'S COMMISSION

"Hope tells a flattering tale, Delusive, vain, and hollow.

Ah! let not Hope prevail, Lest disappointment follow."

Not many hours later saw me seeking admittance to the stately but dilapidated hotel of the Comtesse de Baloit in the Faubourg St.

Germain. I was determined to see Pelagie, and if possible alone, so I sent up word that a messenger from the First Consul desired to see Mademoiselle la Comtesse on business of importance. I feared, should I send up my own name, that the d.u.c.h.esse would not permit her to see me, but, had I known it, I could have sent no message less likely to win Pelagie's consent to an interview. It was only through a lurking suspicion of whom the messenger might be that she consented to see me.

I was ushered into a room very luxuriously furnished, but in which everything had an air of faded grandeur--as if belonging to another age. The tapestries were not only faded but rapidly growing thread-bare, and the gold of the buhl furniture was peeling off in strips, and in tables inlaid with fine mosaics many of the stones were wanting. All this lack of care or evidence of poverty rather surprised me, remembering the magnificent coach and gorgeously liveried servants I had twice seen on the avenue. Then I recalled what I had often heard since coming to Paris, that the n.o.bility of the old regime would starve and go cold at home to make the display in public they considered befitting their dignity. It seemed very sad to me, and I wondered if it could be because mademoiselle did not have enough to eat that she had seemed of late to be growing thin and pale. To me, who am both somewhat of an epicure and a valiant trencherman (and remembering the abundance she had been used to in America), nothing could seem more pitiful than to think of my little Pelagie as going hungry.

Yet when, in a few minutes, she came in, radiantly beautiful in some Frenchy flowing gown of pale rose-color and much soft lace and ribbons, no one could think of her as hungry or poverty-pinched in any way, but only as some wonderful fairy queen who dined on peac.o.c.ks'

tongues and supped on nectar and ambrosia.

She was greatly surprised to see me; I think she thought of me as a kind of Daniel venturing into the lion's den. But the old lioness, the d.u.c.h.esse, was not with her, only the same companion I had seen in the carriage on the Champs-elysees, and I felt once more that fate smiled on me. It meant much to me, for I knew not whether I should ever see her again, and I longed greatly to have a few minutes' untrammeled conversation with her, such as I had often had in St. Louis in those days that seemed so far away.

Perhaps my eyes dwelt too eagerly upon her. I never could quite remember how beautiful she was when I was away from her, and so every time I saw her I was dazzled afresh. This time, too, I was trying to fasten every lovely curve of cheek and throat, and glowing scarlet of lips, and shadowy glory of dark eyes and waving hair, and witching little curls about white brow and neck, yes, and every knot of lace and ribbon, so firmly in my mind that I might always have the beautiful picture to look on when there was no longer any hope of seeing again the bright reality.

So absorbed was I in fixing fast in memory every little detail of the bright picture that I think I must have forgot my manners: it was only seeing the long lashes on the rose-tinted cheek that brought me to myself. I bent low over her hand and then put into it the packet the First Consul had intrusted me to give to her.

"For me? From the First Consul?" she said, in slow surprise.

"Yes," I said; "and when you have opened it, Mademoiselle, then I crave a few minutes' speech with you."

I turned and walked to one of the windows and stood looking down into the courtyard where Caesar was holding our horses, that mademoiselle might examine its contents un.o.bserved.

I knew not what was in the package nor the contents of the note that accompanied it, but somehow I had had a feeling (perhaps because the First Consul had seemed so kind in his manner at our last interview, or perhaps only because my hopes pointed that way) that the Consul's note was to use his influence with her in my behalf, as he had once used it for the chevalier. Therefore as I stood with my back to her, looking down into the courtyard, my eyes saw not what they were looking at, for they were filled with a vision of future happiness and I was trembling with the beauty of the vision.

"Monsieur!" I turned quickly, for the voice was cold and hard, and it fell on my heart like the sleet of early spring falling on opening buds to chill them to death. And when I turned, the Pelagie that met my gaze was the Pelagie I had first seen in Mr. Gratiot's house: eyes blazing with wrath, little teeth close set between scarlet lips, and little hands tightly clenched. My heart froze at the sight. Could the Consul's plea for me have been so distasteful to her?

"Monsieur," she repeated, every word a poniard, "how did you dare bring me such a message!"

I found no words to answer her, for if the message was what I had hoped, then I began to wonder how I had dared, though my spirit, as proud as hers, brooked not that she should take it as an insult. But she did not wait for any answer.

"You!" she said, with inexpressible bitterness. "Has wearing the First Consul's uniform so changed you from the American gentleman I once knew that you delight to humiliate a poor and helpless lady of France?"

"Mademoiselle la Comtesse," I said coldly, for still the foolish idea clung to my brain that the First Consul had wished to further my suit, and that mademoiselle had regarded it as humiliating that I should so presume, "I know not the contents of the First Consul's note, but I think la Comtesse knows I would never willingly humiliate her."

"You know not!" and she half extended the note toward me, as if to show it to me, and then drew it quickly back, a sudden change in her manner from proud anger to shrinking shame. She turned to her companion and said in a cool tone of command:

"You may wait for me, Henriette, in the blue salon; I have something to say to Monsieur."

Henriette seemed to hesitate. No doubt in France it was not permitted to see a young gentleman alone, or perhaps Henriette had instructions from the d.u.c.h.esse to be ever on guard when she herself could not be present. Mademoiselle saw her hesitation.

"Go!" she said haughtily, and I believe no being on earth would have dared disobey that ringing tone of command. Henriette shrank from it, and as she hastened to obey, mademoiselle added in a gentler tone:

"You may return in five minutes."

As she left the room, mademoiselle turned quickly to me, as if to lose no moment of the few she had given herself.

"Monsieur," she said, and her manner was the manner of the old Pelagie, "I hope you will forgive me for supposing for a moment that you knew the contents of the First Consul's note. I cannot show it to you, but I am going to place a great trust in you. Monsieur, I cannot stay longer in France. Between the d.u.c.h.esse, the chevalier, and the First Consul, I will be driven to marry the chevalier, or--worse. Ah, Monsieur, if I had never left St. Louis!"

She had spoken hurriedly, as if fearing to lose courage otherwise, but she looked not at me as she spoke, and her face was dyed with painful blushes. A horrible suspicion of the contents of that note almost froze my blood, but the next thought, that mademoiselle must fly from France, sent it rushing hotly through my veins.

"Mademoiselle," I cried impetuously, "go home with me to America."

I saw her turn pale and draw herself up proudly. I did not dream she could misunderstand me: I only thought she scorned so humble a suitor.

And the thought set fire to a pride that was equal to her own.