That lady was very like many other persons who came to see my Gouverneur and whom I persuaded to make me much exhaustion instead of him. It was while telling him of the lady and the two very delicious soda ice creams that he very suddenly interrupted me with a nice smile that had in it a small warmth like the first glow of a fire, and said:
"Robert, I"m going to ask the General to lend you to me for a couple of weeks while I am so pressed. Buzz can do more for him than you do and--and, well, just looking at you and hearing you tell about the flies you brush from my wearied brow, rests me. Report to me to-morrow instead of to him. I know it will be all right, for he really needs Buzz. Now you run home and get ready for one great time at this party I"m giving to you to-night. And, Robert, remember to tell me everything the flies say, translated in your United States."
"I will and I go, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I made an answer to him with a laugh in which I did not show entirely all of the pleasure I experienced when I discovered I was to be in the place of his secretary, that fine Buzz Clendenning.
And with much haste I took my departure from the Capitol of the State of Harpeth to Twin Oaks in the car of my Uncle, the General Robert, for I knew that upon this evening I must make a new and terrible toilet and I would require much time thereto.
The good old Nannette and my Governess Madam Fournet have always taught me that the art of a lovely woman"s toilet could not be performed in less than two hours, and I felt that I had better begin in the way to which I was accustomed and go as far as I could in that direction, then finish in the manly manner which would now be of a necessity to me.
The good Bonbon, whom I now know is called Sam, had laid out my evening apparel, from the queer dancing shoes with flat heels to a very stiff and high collar, upon a couch in the huge room, and after my bath I began to put them upon me with as much rapidity as was possible to me. For a few moments all went well, even up to having tucked the fine and very stiff white linen shirt garment into the silky black cloth trousers, but a trouble arose when I put upon myself the beautiful long coat that is in the shape of a raven, which the American gentleman wears for evening toilet. My shoulders were sufficiently broad to hold it nicely in place and it fell with a gracefulness upon my hips, but at my waist it collapsed on account of a slimness in that locality. The fit of the tweed, which had been like to that of a bag, had been very correct and had not revealed the curve of waist, but now it was manifest.
"What is it that you must do, Roberta, to disguise your roundness of a young woman? All is lost!" I said to myself in despair. Then a thought came to me. I had never been habited in a corset in my life on account of a prejudice entertained to that garment by my Nannette, but I bethought me to remove that shirt and also the silk one underneath and swath about me one of the heavy towels of the bath. Immediately I did so and fastened it in place with a needle and thread from the gentleman"s traveling case that I found in the pocket of my bag. Over it I then drew the silk undershirt and then that of fine linen, before again putting myself into the black raven"s dress. Behold, all roundness and slimness had disappeared and when the collar was added I could see that I was as beautifully habited as either Mr. Peter Scudder or that Mr. Saint Louis of the boat.
"Roberta of Grez and Bye," I said to myself as I looked into the tall mirror, "it is indeed a sorrow to you that you cannot make your courtesy to that Gouverneur Faulkner habited in the white lace and tulle garment that is in those trunks which you have lost in that New York, with your throat that your Russian Cossack has said was like a lily at the blush of dawn, bare to his eyes, but you are a nice, clean, upstanding American boy who can be his friend. You must be and you must play the game."
And in the language of that Mr. Willie Saint Louis, it was "some game."
CHAPTER IX
"O"ER THE LAND OF THE FREE--"
I have a desire to know if it is into the life of every person there comes one night which he is never to forget until death and perhaps even after. I do not know; but I am sure that I shall always keep the memory of the night upon which Mr. Robert Carruthers of Grez and Bye was introduced to the friends of his ancestors. It is my jewel that seems a drop of heart"s blood that I will wear forever hid in my breast.
At dinner I sat beside the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner and tears came into my eyes as he rose from beside me at the head of the table and said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to drink to the homecoming of Robert Carruthers, my friend, your friend, and everybody his friends."
And from that long table there came to me such beautiful and loving smiles over the gla.s.ses of champagne that they went to my head instead of the wine I could not even sip because of the tears in my throat. It was as that day upon the great ship when I saw fulfilled before my eyes my vow to my Capitaine, the Count de La.s.selles: "Friends for France." I sat still for a long minute; then I rose to my feet with my gla.s.s in my hand.
"I cannot make to you a speech, but I beg that I may say to you words that were of the first taught to my infant tongue and which I last repeated in an old convent close to the trenches in France."
Then in the rich voice which has come to me from the deep singing of my mother I repeated very quietly:
"Oh--say, can you see, by the dawn"s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight"s last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro" the perilous fight, O"er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket"s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro" the night that our flag was still there--"
through to the last words which had fallen from my lips as I had taken my father"s dying kiss:
"O"er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Though I had not told them of it, I do believe there was not a heart among those kind people which did not know of that last moment in the old convent and I could see it in tears dashed aside as they all rose and sang the last strain of the American song, with the musicians in the anteroom leading them.
And as they sang that most wonderful song, Gouverneur Faulkner laid his arm across my shoulder, and the comfort of its strength gave to me the courage to send back all the smiles that were sent to me, as that funny Mr. Buzz Clendenning said while they seated themselves:
"Gee, but L"Aiglon is the real un-hyphenated brand of old Uncle Sam, Jr."
"Thank G.o.d that firebrand isn"t a girl," I heard my Uncle, the General Robert, say to most lovely Mademoiselle Susan, in a corn-colored gown of fine line, who sat at his side.
"I"m so grateful to you, General, that he is a boy," I heard her say in the deepest respect and regard for my Uncle, the General Robert.
"I don"t doubt at all, Madam, that you will succeed in making me wish that he had been born a girl or not at all," was the kind reply that he made to her nicely spoken grat.i.tude as we laughed into each other"s eyes across the table.
"I hope so," was the answer with which Mademoiselle Sue comforted him.
"And now what have you to say to me, boy, the oldest friend you"ve got in America, who hasn"t seen you for days--that have been too long,"
said that Madam Whitworth, who was seated at my side, and as she spoke she turned one lovely bare shoulder in the direction of my Uncle, the General Robert, and the beautiful Mademoiselle Sue and also Buzz, as if to shut them away from her and me in a little s.p.a.ce of world just for two people.
"I can say with truth, Madam, that your loveliness to-night is but the flowering of my suspicions of it that morning upon the railroad train," I answered her in words that were a very nice translation of what that fine young Cossack had once said to me at the Chateau de Grez of my own flowering into rose chiffon after an afternoon"s hunting with him in corduroys. And in truth I spoke no falsehood to that Madam Whitworth, for she was of a very great beauty of body, very much of which was in view from a scantiness of bodice that I had never seen excelled in any ballroom in France.
"I knew you for a poet from that adorable black mop which I see you have very nicely plastered in an exact imitation of Buzz Clendenning"s red one," she answered me with a laugh. "Follow me from the ballroom just after supper at midnight for a half hour"s chat alone in a place I know; and don"t let either the General or the Governor see you," she then said in an undertone as the Gouverneur Faulkner bent forward and began a laughing conversation with her.
"I will," I answered her under my breath, and I leaned back in my chair so that the Gouverneur Faulkner could more conveniently converse with her. And to that end he placed his arm across the back of my chair, and thus I sat in his embrace with my shoulder pressed into his.
I do not know exactly what it was that happened in the depths of me, but suddenly the daredevil rose from those depths and knew herself for a very strong woman filled to the brim with a primitive, savage cunning with which to fight the beautiful woman at my side for the honor of the man whose strong heart I could feel beating against my woman"s breast strapped down under its garment of man"s attire. And that cunning showed me that I would have a hundredfold better opportunity to do her and her schemes against him and against France to the death in my garments and character of a man, than I could have had if I had come into his and her world as the beautiful young Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye. Then for those hated garments of a raven my heart beat so high with grat.i.tude that I moved again forward from the arm of His Excellency for fear that he might feel the tumult even through that strong towel of the bath which I had sewed above it, and be in wonderment as to its cause.
"Here"s to your first duel with a woman in which you use a man"s weapons, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, and see that you score--for him--and for France!" I said to myself as we rose from the table and with the other men I bowed the ladies from the room.
"At midnight," I whispered while I bent for a second to kiss the hand of the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she left the room. As I raised my head from the salutation I encountered the eyes of the Gouverneur Faulkner, which looked into mine with an expression of calm question.
And for a moment I let the woman rise superior to the raven attire and I looked back into those eyes, in which I saw the mystery of the dawn star, as would have gazed Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, had she been attired in the white tulle and lace abandoned in that New York; then I beat her back down into my heart and gave him the smile of fealty that was his due from Robert Carruthers, his friend, along with one similar, to the fine young Buzz Clendenning, who at that moment came to my side and claimed my attention.
"You score with Sue. I"m to be the gracious little home city host and give up any dances your Marquisity may choose with her. Sue foxes like she was born in a fox hole under a hollow log, but she tangoes like the original Emperor Tang himself, so go ahead and suit yourself.
Don"t mind me. I"m the loving little playmate."
"That Mademoiselle Sue is so much of a peach that I am inclined to request the receptacle of cream that I may devour her," I then made answer to him in as many of the words of enthusiasm over a nice lady as I could remember that Mr. George Slade of Detroit to have used over the "skirt" in Louisville in the Country of Kentucky.
"Good, Bobby! I"ll have to go tell Sue that before she is two minutes older. I wouldn"t want her to live five minutes longer without having heard it. Sue"s dead sure to tell the rest of the girl bunch, so I hope you have a supply where that came from, for they"ll all cry for "em. There"s the Governor making towards the door and Mrs. Pat, who is always waiting at the gate for him, so come, let me lead you to the dance." With which my nice Buzz and I followed the Gouverneur Faulkner and the other gentlemen across the hall into the long salon of the Mansion, whose floors were polished like unto a lake of ice, for dancing.
In Touraine it is said that a nice lady fairy comes for a visit of inspection at the _berceau_--in America it is cradle--of each small human that is born, and gives to it a beautiful gift if propitiations are made for it to please her. To that end sweetmeats and nice presents are placed beside the small infant with which to beguile the good opinion of that fairy. I would I could be that exalted person and able to visit every small infant born a female in all of the world. And the gift I would give to her, there in her sleep, would be to one time in her life attend a ball in the raven attire of a man in the city of Hayesville of America. I could bestow no greater gift.
The hours that followed my entry into the ballroom in the Mansion of the exalted Gouverneur Faulkner were like minutes of time that dropped from a golden clock of joy. I danced on feet that were strong wings to glide over a floor that was a many colored cloud from the reflection of the soft lights and the silken skirts which ruffled over it. And, what was most enjoyable to me in this case, I glided in whatever direction pleased me and took with me the armful of cloud, which was the girl with whom I was dancing, on long swoops of my own will, instead of being led in my flights by another as had always before been the case with my dancing. It was the most of a joy that I had ever experienced. And as I so enjoyed that freedom I did not know how it was that I should have such a feeling of dissatisfaction when I beheld that beautiful Madam Whitworth dancing within the arms of the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner. I blushed that I should be so unworthy, with such an unreasonable fury in my heart, and I looked away so that I seemed not to see the smile that he sent to me over the head of the very sweet Belle girl in blue ruffles and silver slippers I was guiding past him in the trot of a fox.
"Yes, Sue Tomlinson _is_ as lovely as a ripe peach, isn"t she?"
asked Mademoiselle Blue Cloud of me as I lowered her almost to the floor over my arm, slid her four steps to the left then trotted her two back and two forward; and her tone had a very sweet demand of wistfulness in it as she looked up into my eyes and pressed very close to that protecting towel of the bath.
For an instant I could not think of one single bonbon of compliment to offer the lady and I wished I had sat up all of the night to talk to that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit in the railroad train and had had my nice gray lady friend in the Ritz-Carlton there with her notebook to transcribe the many pleasing things he reported himself to have said to the ladies whom he called "skirts." Then nice Lord Chisholm came all the way from England into my memory to a.s.sist me in my difficulty.
I translated from him freely in this manner:
"Aw, on me word, you _are_ a ripping good sort and I could take you on for the whole evening if you"d let me. What?"
"I wish I could," she answered and by that time I had thought out a nice little squeeze for her very pretty waist in its silver girdle under my arm. Then I had to put her into the arms of a nice young man named Miles Menefee. To get my breath and to think up some more of the compliments that had been given to me for my pleasure in the past, I made my retreat behind a very large palm that was in the corner of the room, and out upon a wide balcony which hung over a moonlit garden across which I could see dim hills in the moonlight.
"Girls of all nations are granddaughters of the same Monsieur Satan, I suspect," I made remark to myself as I inhaled the perfume of the flower garments of the spring garden below. "I must take a great care that I do not--"
"And then, boy, you"ll slip on the thin ice when you least expect it,"