The Talisman Ring Read Online Free PDF Page B

said?’
    ‘No, he said also that it was useless for him to come any more to see Grandpère, because when he said he should have gruel Grandpère at once sent for a green goose and a bottle of burgundy. The doctor said that it would kill him, and du vrai , I think he is piqued because it did not kill Grandpère at all. So perhaps Grandpère will not die, but on the contrary get quite well again.’
    ‘I am afraid it is only his will which keeps him alive.’ Shield moved towards the fire and said, looking curiously down at Eustacie: ‘Are you fond of him? Will it make you unhappy if he dies?’
    ‘No,’ she replied frankly. ‘I am a little fond of him, but not very much, because he is not fond of anybody, he. It is not his wish that one should be fond of him.’
    ‘He brought you out of France,’ Shield reminded her.
    ‘Yes, but I did not want to be brought out of France,’ said Eustacie bitterly.
    ‘Perhaps you did not then, but you are surely glad to be in England now?’
    ‘I am not at all glad, but, on the contrary, very sorry,’ said Eustacie. ‘If he had left me with my uncle I should have gone to Vienna, which would have been not only very gay, but also romantic, because my uncle fled from France with all his family, in a berline, just like the King and Queen.’
    ‘Not quite like the King and Queen if he succeeded in crossing the frontier,’ said Shield.
    ‘I will tell you something,’ said Eustacie, incensed. ‘Whenever I recount to you an interesting story you make me an answer which is like – which is like those snuffers – enfin !’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Shield, rather startled.
    ‘Well, I am sorry too,’ said Eustacie, getting up from the sofa, ‘because it makes it very difficult to converse. I shall wish you a good night, mon cousin .’
    If she expected him to try to detain her she was disappointed. He merely bowed formally and opened the door for her to pass out of the room.
    Five minutes later her maid, hurrying to her bedchamber in answer to a somewhat vehement tug at the bell-rope, found her seated before her mirror, stormily regarding her own reflection.
    ‘I will undress, and I will go to bed,’ announced Eustacie.
    ‘Yes, miss.’
    ‘And I wish, moreover, that I had gone to Madame Guillotine in a tumbril, alone !’
    Country-bred Lucy, a far more appreciative audience than Sir Tristram, gave a shudder, and said: ‘Oh, miss, don’t speak of such a thing! To think of you having your head cut off, and you so young and beautiful!’
    Eustacie stepped out of her muslin gown, and pushed her arms into the wrapper Lucy was holding. ‘And I should have worn a white dress, and even the sans-culottes would have been sorry to have seen me in a tumbril!’
    Lucy had no very clear idea who the sans-culottes might be, but she assented readily, and added, in all sincerity, that her mistress would have looked lovely.
    ‘Well, I think I should have looked nice,’ said Eustacie candidly. ‘Only it is no use thinking of that, because instead I am going to be married.’
    Lucy paused in her task of taking the pins out of her mistress’s hair to clasp her hands, and breathe ecstatically: ‘Yes, miss, and if I may make so bold, I do wish you so happy!’
    ‘When one is forced into a marriage infinitely distasteful one does not hope for happiness,’ said Eustacie in a hollow voice.
    ‘Good gracious, miss, his lordship surely isn’t a-going to force you?’ gasped Lucy. ‘I never heard such a thing!’
    ‘Oh!’ said Eustacie. ‘Then it is true what I have heard in France, that English ladies are permitted to choose for themselves whom they will marry!’ She added despondently: ‘But I have not seen anyone whom I should like to have for my husband, so it does not signify in the least.’
    ‘No, miss, but – but don’t you like Sir Tristram, miss? I’m sure he’s a very nice gentleman, and would make anyone a good husband.’
    ‘I do not want a good husband who is thirty-one