Why do I always call Mademoiselle Capello beautiful? I can not tell. Her features were only tolerably regular, not even so regular as Madame Riano’s; but Francezka had on her eloquent face the power, if not the substance, of the most dazzling loveliness. She put handsomer women behind the door, at the mere look of her. Everything became her. If she were splendidly appareled, that seemed the best and only dress for her. If she rode a-horseback, with her hat and feather, that was the right thing for her, and when she wore a simple linen gown and a straw hat, we wondered how she could endure to wear any other costume. That, I take it, is the essence of beauty—not that I am learned in beauty, though I am an expert in ugliness.

The coach was stopped, and I hastened to pay my duty to the ladies. Madame Riano’s greeting was kind, Francezka’s more than kind. They were to be the guests of some great people at the fine mansion for which they were bound, during the remainder of the camp—about a fortnight longer. Madame Riano was disposed to grumble a little that so many sovereigns and princes should waste their time in pageants instead 217 of using their arms to set Prince Charles Stuart upon the throne of his ancestors; but otherwise she was reasonable enough.

Francezka looked scarcely a day older than when I had last seen her two years and a half before. She leaned forward, out of the coach door, one little red-heeled shoe showing coquettishly. A large straw hat, fit for a woodland nymph to wear shaded her dark eyes, now soft, now sparkling. She expressed many wishes to see much of me, and reminded me, as did Madame Riano, that I was due at the chÂteau of Capello on our return to France. Presently, the coach rolled away, along the highroad, under the dappled shadows of the linden trees, and that was the only satisfactory interview I had with Francezka that bout.

Gaston Cheverny had not so much as even one satisfactory interview, for, straightway, Francezka was pounced upon by every man who felt the need of fortune for himself or his sons, and every woman who thought the estates of Capello would be desirable in her family. Besides this, there were numbers of young officers who were deeply smitten by Francezka’s own dark eyes, for she was one of those women born to trouble the hearts of men. No young girl ever had more of admiration and adulation than Francezka had, on this her first entrance upon a larger stage than that of a province.

Count Saxe showed her marked, but respectful attention. The Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia admired her openly, and always danced with her at the grand balls given every other night by the King of Saxony. As for the young sprigs of royalty and nobility, 218 Mademoiselle Capello was the toast of the hour with them, and he that could rob her of her little slipper and drink her health in it was reckoned a hero.

It may be imagined how pleasant this was to Gaston Cheverny, who could scarce come near Francezka for the press. Moreover, Count Saxe attended that camp to work, and he made everybody under him work; so that Gaston Cheverny had not many hours to play the gallant to any one. Regnard Cheverny, who was merely a guest, had all the time he wanted to pursue Mademoiselle Capello, but not even he, the persistent, the tenacious, could charge successfully through the cordon of admirers which always surrounded Francezka now. I saw her sometimes at a distance, dancing at a ball, and looking like a fairy princess out of a story book; or, riding like a lapwing with Count Saxe, and other officers; or again, in gorgeous pleasure parties on the river. But she was like a comet in its brilliant but erratic course through the heavens, and no longer a fixed star, whose orbit is known.

Gaston Cheverny’s misery was extreme. He passed at once from the high heaven of delight to the lowest deeps of wretchedness, because, forsooth, Mademoiselle Capello did not show him the exclusive consideration she had bestowed on him in Brabant. He called her many of the hardest names in the lexicon; one would have thought to hear him rail at her, that she was under a strict obligation not to speak to another man than himself. Count Saxe and I rallied him often, but he grew so savage about it that presently we desisted. Regnard was far more debonair and reasonable, 219 but I have always distrusted that man who is entirely reasonable in his loves and his hates.

At last the June days came to an end, and with it, the gorgeous pageantry of the camp of Radewitz. In a night the splendid scene vanished. The silken tents, the canvas palaces, suddenly were no more. The fleet of purple-sailed pleasure boats upon the Elbe floated away; the fair green slopes, the gardens created as if by magic were trampled on by thirty thousand men on the march. The highway was choked with coaches and baggage-wagons and horsemen and horsewomen, and the inns on the roads that led from Radewitz were like camps, so many persons being forced to lodge out of doors. Count Saxe and myself, with Gaston Cheverny and faithful Beauvais, the valet, and other servants, scarcely slept in a bed from the time we left Radewitz until we reached Brussels. One reason was, that in common with other officers, Count Saxe was more generous than prudent, and after having lodged with kings at the camp, often he had not the money for a good inn. Then we were glad to take up our quarters in a roomy, clean barn; and one or two of the June nights we slept on the ground in our cloaks, as soldiers should.

In Brussels, my master made known his necessities to his father, the King of Saxony, who sent him a splendid remittance. Count Saxe remained in Brussels while awaiting this remittance, so that he might judiciously determine, in advance, how to spend it; and after it came, he naturally continued there, so as to carry out the intentions so carefully formed.

This time he allowed me to spend in Brabant, and 220 also gave Gaston Cheverny leave; and Gaston inviting, or rather commanding me to become his guest, we had a whole fortnight at the Manoir Cheverny.

Regnard went to his own castle of Haret. He civilly entreated me to visit him, but Gaston putting in his claim strongly to all my time, I was, very willingly, driven to decline.

We parted from Regnard at Brussels, and rode out in a morning to the Manoir Cheverny. At every step of the road, Gaston swore a new, strong and strange oath, that he was done with Mademoiselle Capello; that no word or act of hers could ever induce him to return to her, no, not if she made her way from the chÂteau of Capello to the Manoir Cheverny on her knees. From reproaching her, he turned to bitterly reviling me, because I had not stuck my sword all the way through his body, instead of only about six inches, on our first acquaintance. To this I made irreverent answers as we rode through the pleasant country. It was barely noon of the summer day when we came within sight of the Manoir Cheverny, and at the same time saw the chÂteau of Capello sitting, white and beautiful and stately upon its marble terraces and above its fair gardens and green slopes, like a queen upon her throne. We skirted the domain and entered the pleasure grounds of the Manoir Cheverny, and soon were reposing ourselves in the ancient and comfortable old house.

Two or three old servants had been kept in the place, and it was well aired and in good order. Scarce had we sat down to an excellent dinner with good wine, when a letter was brought to Gaston Cheverny. It was from Mademoiselle Capello, and invited us, both in her own 221 name and Madame Riano’s, to become her guests at supper that evening.

Without one word of apology, Gaston Cheverny dashed away from the dinner table, wrote a letter of acceptance, and came back looking exactly as a man does when he has won the first prize in the lottery, or has just received a field marshal’s baton. In an instant of time, and by a stroke of Francezka’s pen, all of his grievances, his resolves, his fierce resentment, melted away like the mists of the morning. Nobody could complain that Gaston Cheverny was coldly reasonable in his love.

Six o’clock was the hour named in Francezka’s letter, but Gaston’s impatience was so great that we set out a little after five, and spent the time loitering in the great park. If I had thought the chÂteau of Capello lovely in the autumn days, more than two years before, when the woods were russet, the earth brown, how much lovelier did it appear in this rare summer afternoon when it was one vast garden of beauty! The green, softly rolling hills, the rich park, the purple woods, the chÂteau rising from its emerald terraces, its marble balustrades gleaming white, the fountains plashing diamonds, the lake blue and still and melancholy, the Italian garden like a poet’s dream—my senses ached with so much beauty—but I forgot it all, when, in the sunset glow, I saw Francezka Capello.

The bell in the little village church was clanging musically, as Gaston Cheverny and I mounted the terrace steps. A table was set out in the rose garden by the side of the canal, for an al fresco supper, and there 222 in the sweet, warm evening air, sat Francezka, dressed in white, a book, her usual companion, in her hands. Madame Riano had not yet appeared. As soon as Francezka saw us, she dropped her book, and ran toward us merrily, like a child, a thin white scarf floating cloudlike behind her.

I think she felt that Gaston perhaps had some cause for complaint of her behavior at Radewitz, for never was woman kinder to a man than she to him at that meeting. And as for myself, one would have thought Babache, the Tatar prince, and native of the Marais, was the Crown Prince of Prussia. She wished to know how my health was, and praised and admired Count Saxe to my heart’s content, and desired to know if I was ready to desert his service for hers.

Thus, warming our hearts with her sweetness, Francezka took us back to the rustic seats by the canal, where Madame Riano now awaited us.

As we had the good fortune to be favorites of that lady, we were well received by her also. Gaston Cheverny was a prime favorite of hers, having won her good will by many warm protestations of his devotion to what she called the cause of England’s rightful king; a devotion which I think Gaston Cheverny very much exaggerated for purposes of his own.

We spent a pleasant hour at supper. Old Peter directed the servants who waited on us. The old man blushed under his tan and wrinkles when I greeted him kindly. I saw that the story of his niece’s disgrace was ever present with him, and my presence recalled the fate of poor Lisa. After supper, when the harvest moon was rising in pale beauty, and the western sky 223 glowed with gold and amber and green, we walked to the Italian garden. The air of retirement and repose and distance of the spot grew upon me. It seemed a place for sweet meditation. Francezka, pointing to the sun dial, said to me:

“So far, it has had none but sunny hours to mark for me.” She said this with a little note of triumph in her voice; but what young girl situated as Francezka Capello was, at this period of her life, could have remained wholly undazzled?

Below us lay the lake, dark and solemn under the shadow of the cedars.

“Listen,” said Francezka; and listening, we heard that faint, sad murmur of the water, that came, no one knew how.

We spent an hour sitting on the stone benches, under the yew and box hedges, and watching the purple twilight enfold the landscape, as we conversed. Francezka declared we must have some music, and calling in her clear voice, a servant heard and answered her, and brought from the chÂteau a Spanish guitar. To this Gaston Cheverny sang. Presently, in response to the silent request of Francezka’s eyes, and an eloquent assent from his own, he sang that song to which I always thought they attached a fond and secret meaning:

Francezka, with her white scarf about her dark head, listened in her favorite attitude, her cheek upon her hand; listened with an air that would have made any man’s heart beat the quicker for it.

We did not leave the garden until late, and then it was time for us to go back to the Manoir Cheverny. On the way through the park and fields, under the harvest moon, Gaston Cheverny raved as only lovers rave; but I, of all men, excused him, knowing the object of his love.

The time sped away during that fortnight, albeit I was separated from Count Saxe. We saw the ladies at the chÂteau of Capello daily. The extraordinary kindness of Mademoiselle Capello toward me rather increased. It seemed as if she lay bare her mind, her heart, her soul, to me. I was not, and never could be, her lover, but I was her friend. I found out many things about her that I did not know before. One was—whether it were a defect or not I do not know—she had few intimates. She was not only so differently placed, but so different in herself from most young creatures of her age, that she had not much in common with them. She confessed to me more than once that she had been disappointed in feminine friendships.

“When I think I have found a friend and companion I invariably find in the background a brother or a cousin—some one who wants to rule here,” she said to me one day.

“And whenever you find one of the other sex who seems to know what friendship is, does he not also resolve himself into a lover after a while?” I asked.

Francezka laughed and blushed.

“All, except you,” she answered. “That is why I turn to you with so much confidence, Babache. You alone of the whole wide world, as I know it, can I call my friend, without any admixture of love or flattery. You 225 alone ever found fault with me, or told me my way was not a reasonable way.”

“But I can not now recall ever having dared to find fault with you, Mademoiselle,” I said, cudgeling my brains.

“Oh, it matters not exactly in words; but I know you would find fault with me, if you thought I was wrong, and would tell me so, though I can not bear to be told of my faults—and so I love you”—and then she laughed, as I did, at her own peculiar logic.

Regnard Cheverny by no means allowed his brother a monopoly of Mademoiselle Capello’s company, but duly appeared, after a few days. I watched Francezka’s behavior to him and came to the conclusion that in spite of the entertainment she derived from his company, she liked him no better than she had two years and a half before. I happened to speak to her one day of the resemblance between the two brothers, which was so marked.

“How can you think that?” she replied. “I never mistake one for the other. One is charming—the other is not.”

That very evening, the two Chevernys and myself being at the chÂteau, we sat down to cards with Francezka and Madame Riano. It was stormy outside, and a sudden gust of wind coming, all the lights were in an instant blown out. While we sat in the dark, waiting for the servants to come and relight the candles, Regnard Cheverny spoke, and his voice being so much like his brother’s, Francezka answered him for Gaston, and they talked together, much to our diversion. Francezka did not find out her mistake until the candles 226 were again alight, and then, instead of laughing, was strangely vexed and offended at the pleasantry played upon her.

Regnard Cheverny, as well as Gaston, was fond of books, and on that ground he could hold his own with Francezka. She had all of the new books sent her from Paris, Brussels and the Hague, including Monsieur Voltaire’s, much to Madame Riano’s horror. Likewise, she diligently studied the harpsichord, having masters from Brussels to instruct her. She loved to be praised for her good management of her affairs, but I was inclined to think that old Peter, whose gray, humble head was full of sound sense for other people’s affairs, deserved more credit for this than he got. One morning, meeting him as I walked through the park, I remarked upon the beauty and order of the estate and congratulated him on having so capable a mistress to serve.

“Truly,” he said, “mademoiselle has a good understanding of affairs, but, in confidence, Captain Babache, she makes her mistakes. I tell her a certain man is lazy, is not doing his work; that I have given him a fair trial, have warned him, and yet he will not work, so I have discharged him. The rascal waylays mademoiselle in the park; tells her a pitiful tale about a wife and seven children all starving. My lady offers to take him back into her service. Oh, no; my rogue does not want that; he wants money enough to get to the next town, where he has a brother who will get him work. Mademoiselle hands him out a gold piece, returns to the chÂteau, sends for me, storms at me, and at last permits me, as a favor, to explain to her that the 227 fellow has no wife, no child, no brother that I know of, but her gold piece will enable him to get drunk and to live without work for a month. Oh, young ladies of fortune are difficult to manage—very. Mine is no worse than others, I dare say. Rather better than some, for at least she knows her own mind.”

I had said no word concerning Lisa or Jacques Haret, but before the old man left me he spoke of his misfortune to me, looking as if he were the guilty one instead of Jacques Haret.

“It was I who was blind—I who should have watched my niece. But I did not—I was much to blame.” The scanty tears of age dropped from his eyes as he spoke. I asked if anything had been heard of Lisa.

“Not a word,” he said, “but I believe, and mademoiselle believes, that as soon as Monsieur Jacques deserts her, Lisa will return.”

So, even poor Peter knew that Jacques Haret would desert Lisa.

Madame Riano was ever talking during that fortnight of her projected journey to Scotland. I saw that the mention of it made Mademoiselle Capello very uneasy. Fearless as Francezka was, she knew better than to attempt to remain alone and unmarried in Brabant, for there was no strain of deep-seated folly in her. She might find some dame de compagnie to take Madame Riano’s place, but that was not an agreeable thought to her, and she was very far from being ready to give up her liberty to any man—just then. She confided to me with secret laughter that her one hope of keeping her aunt in Brabant was, that the war was still on with unabated fury between Madame Riano and the Bishop of 228 Louvain, and Madame Riano had not yet scored a conclusive victory over her enemy. At present the bishop was trying to get the consent of the government to add to the episcopal palace, and Madame Riano, who loved to enact the rÔle of a she-Jupiter, had determined that the palace was already large enough for the bishop, and was preaching a crusade through the country against the proposed improvement.