Strange it may be, but it was true. I seemed to have known that voice all my life—and it was only the merry laugh of a heedless girl.
Has any listened to the prattle of the schoolroom without hearing at odd moments the tone of some note that is not girlish—the voice of the woman speaking gravely through the chatter of the child?
I seemed to hear that note now, and turning, found the owner of the voice within touch of me. She was tall and slim, with a certain fresh immaturity, which was like the scent of the first spring flowers in my own Norfolk woods at home. Flower-like, too, was her face—somewhat long and narrow, with a fair flush on it of youth, health and happiness. The merriest eyes in the world were looking laughingly into the face of an old gentleman at her side, smiling, happy eyes of innocent maidenhood. And yet here again I saw the woman in the girl. I saw a gracious lady, knowing life, and being yet pure, having learned of good and evil only to remember the good. For the knowledge of evil is like vaccine—it causes disturbance only when hidden impurity awaits it.
"Come," said John Turner, taking my arm, "no one else wants to forget Waterloo."
I went with him a little. Then I paused.
"Who is the young lady coming down the steps behind us?"
John Turner, looking over his shoulder, gave a grunt.
"Old De Clericy and his daughter," he answered. "One of the families that are too old to keep pace with the times."
We walked on a little.
"There is a chance for you—wants a secretary," muttered my companion.
"Does he?" I exclaimed, stopping. "Then introduce me."
"Not I."
"Why?"
"Can't introduce a man who came across in a piano-case," he answered, with a laugh, which made me remember that this was a man of station and some standing in Paris, while I was but a vagabond and ne'er-do-well.
"Then I'll introduce myself," I said, hastily.
John Turner shrugged his broad shoulders and walked on. As for me, I stopped and on the impulse of the moment turned.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Clericy were coming slowly towards me, and more than one looked at the fair young girl with a franker admiration than I cared about, while she was happily unconscious of it. It would seem that she must lately have left the convent, for the guileless pink and white of that pure life lingered on her face, while her eyes danced with an excitement out of all proportion to the moment. What should she know of Napoleon I, and how rejoice for France when she knew but little of the dark days through which the great general had brought that land?
I edged my way towards them through the crowd without pausing to reflect what I was about to do. I had run away from my creditors, it is true, but was not called upon to work for my living. The Howards had not done much of that, so far as I knew; though many of my ancestors, if one may credit the old portraits at home, had fought for rights, and even wrongs, with considerable spirit and success.
The throng was a well-dressed one, and consequently of a cold and evil temper if one worked against it. I succeeded, however, in reaching Monsieur de Clericy and touched his arm. He turned hastily, as one possessing foes as well as friends, and showed me a most benevolent countenance, kindly and sympathetic even when accosted by a total stranger.
"Monsieur de Clericy?" I asked.
He peered up at me with pleasant, short-sighted eyes while returning my salute.
"But yes. Am I happy enough to be able to do anything for Monsieur?"
He spoke in a high, thin voice that was almost childlike, and a feeling of misgiving ran through me that one so young and inexperienced as Mademoiselle de Clericy should be abroad on such a day with no better escort than this old man.
"Pardon my addressing you," I said, "but I hear that you are seeking a secretary. I only ask permission to call at your hotel and apply for the post."
"But, mon grand monsieur," he said with a delightful playfulness, spreading out his hands in recognition of my height and east-country bulk, "this is no time to talk of affairs. To-day we are at pleasure."
"Not all, Monsieur; some are busy enough," I replied, handing him my card, which he held close to his eyes, after the manner of one who has never possessed long or keen sight.
"What determination!" he exclaimed, with an old man's tolerance. "Mon Dieu! these English allies of ours!"
"Well!" he said, after a pause, "if Monsieur honours me with such a request, I shall be in and at your service from ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
He felt in his pocket and handed me a card with courtesy. It was quite refreshing to meet such a man in Paris in 1869—so naïve, so unassuming, so free from that aggressive self-esteem which characterized Frenchmen before the war. Since I had arrived in the capital under the circumstances that amused John Turner so consumedly, I had been tempted to raise my fist in the face of every second flaneur I met on the boulevard.
Again I joined my English friend, who was standing where I had left him, looking around him with a stout, good-natured tolerance.
"Well," he asked, "have you got the situation?"
"No; but I am going to call to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and obtain it."
"Umph!" said John Turner; "I did not know you were such a scoundrel."
Chapter II
Monsieur
"La destinée a deux manières de nous briser; en se refusant à nos désirs et en les accomplissant."
To some the night brings wiser or at all events a second counsel. For myself, however, it has never been so. In the prosecution of such small enterprises as have marked a life no more eventful than those around it, I have always awakened in the morning of the same mind as I was when sleep laid its quiet hand upon me. It seems, moreover, that I have made just as many as but no more mistakes than my neighbours. Taking it likewise as a broad generality, the balance seems, in my experience, to tell quite perceptibly in favour of those who make up their minds and hold to that decision firmly, rather than towards such men as seek counsel of the multitude and trim their sail to the tame breeze of precedent.
"Always go straight for a jump," my father had shouted to me once, years ago, while I sat up in a Norfolk ditch and watched my horse disappear through a gap in the next hedge.
I awoke on the morning after the centenary fêtes without any doubt in my mind—being still determined to seek a situation for which I was unfitted.
Having quarrelled with my father, who obstinately refused to pay a few debts such as no young man living in London could, with self-respect, avoid, I was still in the enjoyment of a small annual income left to me by a mother whom I had never seen—upon whose grave in the old, disused churchyard at Hopton I had indeed been taught to lay a few flowers