Jeanne made no motion to obey.
"Do you object to my writing?" she asked.
"I object," the Princess said, "to your writing anybody on any subject without my permission, and so far as regards the information you have asked for from Monsieur Laplanche, I will tell you all that you want to know."
"I prefer," Jeanne said steadily, "to hear it from Monsieur Laplanche himself. There are times when you say things which I do not understand.
I have quite made up my mind that I will have things made plain to me by my trustee."
The Princess was outwardly calm, but her eyes were like steel.
"You are a foolish child," she said. "I am your guardian. You have nothing whatever to do with your trustees. They exist to help me, not you. Everything that you wish to know you must learn from me. It is not until you are of age that any measure of control pa.s.ses from me. Give me that letter."
Jeanne hesitated for a moment. Then she turned toward the door.
"No!" she said. "I am going to post it."
The Princess rose from her chair, and crossing the room locked the door.
"Jeanne," she said, "come here."
The girl hesitated. In the end she obeyed. The Princess reached out her hand and struck her on the cheek.
"Give me that letter," she commanded.
Jeanne shrank back. The suddenness of the blow, its indignity, and these new relations which it seemed designed to indicate, bewildered her. She stood pa.s.sive while the Princess took the letter from her fingers and tore it into pieces. Then she unlocked the door.
"Go to your room, Jeanne," she ordered.
Jeanne heard the sound of people ascending the stairs, and this time she did not hesitate. The Princess drew a little breath and looked at the fragments of the letter in the grate. It was victory of a sort, but she realized very well that the ultimate issue was more doubtful than ever. In her room Jeanne would have time for reflection. If she chose she might easily decide upon the one step which would be irretrievable.
CHAPTER V
The Count de Brensault was a small man, with a large pale face. There were puffy little bags under his eyes, from which the colour had departed. His hair, though skilfully arranged, was very thin at the top, and his figure had the lumpiness of the man who has never known any sort of athletic training. He looked a dozen years older than his age, which was in reality thirty-five, and for the last ten years he had been a constant though cautious devotee of every form of dissipation. Jeanne, who sat by his side at dinner-time, found herself looking at him more than once in a sort of fascinated wonder. Was it really possible that any one could believe her capable of marrying such a creature! There were eight people at dinner, in none of whom she was in the least interested. The Count de Brensault talked a good deal, and very loudly. He spoke of his horses and his dogs and his motor cars, but he omitted to say that he had ceased to ride his horses, and that he never drove his motor car. Jeanne listened to him in quiet contempt, and the Princess fidgetted in her chair. The man ought to know that this was not the way to impress a child fresh from boarding-school!
"You seem," Jeanne remarked, after listening to him almost in silence for a long time, "to give most of your time to sports. Do you play polo?"
He shook his head.
"I am too heavy," he said, "and the game, it is a little dangerous."
"Do you hunt?" she asked.
"No!" he admitted. "In Belgium we do not hunt."
"Do you race with your motor cars?"
"I entered one," he answered, "for the Prix des Ardennes. It was the third. My driver, he was not very clever."
"You did not drive it yourself, then?" she asked.
He laughed in a superior manner.
"I do not wish," he said, "to have a broken neck. There are so many things in life which I still find very pleasant."
He smiled at her in a knowing manner, and Jeanne looked away to hide her disgust.
"Your interest in sport," she remarked, "seems to be a sort of second-hand one, does it not?"
"I do not know that," he answered. "I do not know quite what you mean.
At Ostend last year I won the great sweepstakes."
"For shooting pigeons?" she asked.
"So!" he admitted, with content.
She smiled.
"I see that I must beg your pardon," she said. "Have you ever done any big game shooting?"
He shook his head.
"I do not like to travel very much," he answered. "I do not like the cooking, and I think that my tastes are what you would call very civilized."
The Princess intervened. She felt that it was necessary at any cost to do so.
"The Count," she told Jeanne, "has just been elected a member of the Four-in-Hand Club here. If we are very nice to him he will take us out in his coach."
"As soon," De Brensault interposed hastily, "as I have found another team not quite so what you call spirited. My black horses are very beautiful, but I do not like to drive them. They pull very hard, and they always try to run away."
The Princess sighed. The man, after all, was really a little hopeless.
She saw clearly that it was useless to try and impress Jeanne. The affair must take its course. Afterwards in the drawing-room the Count came and sat by Jeanne"s side.
"Always," he declared, "in England it is bridge. One dines with one"s friends, and one would like to talk for a little time, and it is bridge. It must be very dull for you little girls who are not old enough to play. There is no one left to talk to you."
Jeanne smiled.
"Perhaps," she said, "I am an exception. There are very few people whom I care to have talk to me."
She looked him in the eyes, but he was unfortunately a very spoilt young man, and he only stroked the waxed tip of a scanty moustache.
"I am very glad to hear you say so, mademoiselle," he said. "That makes it the more pleasant that your excellent mother gives me one quarter of an hour"s respite from bridge that we may have a little conversation.
Have you ever been in my country, Miss Le Mesurier?"
"I have only travelled through it," Jeanne answered; "but I am afraid that you did not understand what I meant just now. I said that there were very few people with whom I cared to talk. You are not one of those few, Monsieur le Comte."