Comtesse Du Jones

I

BORN and raised on the farm, Bessie Jones loved everything on it, from the brown cochin bantam hen, just large enough for an elf’s mount, to the thicknecked, glossy-black stallion, who snuggled his velvety nose so softly against her cheek — a cheek tanned by constant exposure to Kansas sun, but still firm and rounded. Dave and the twins, Edwin and Earnest (big, strapping boys now), Margaret, Bob, Doris, William T., Barby, and little George — this lively brood and the active years of endless duties had left their inevitable traces: Bessie looked all of her fortytwo years, but her pleasant face seemed to declare that of slight importance. Her life, if full to overflowing, was not complex. Again with child, she clucked her cheery round among her children and their pets, her stock and her fowls, as contentedly as one of her numerous hens, pleasantly conscious of her capabilities, and basking in the genial atmosphere of her husband’s approval.

Absorbed in his hardware and implement store, Phil Jones was content to leave the farm to his wife. What, spare time he had was occupied in fulfilling his obligations as president of Fallon’s Chamber of Commerce, Worshipful Master of the Masons, member of the Board of Education, and Chancellor-Commander of the Knights of Pythias.

He was used to Bessie, and could not have conceived of himself as married to anyone else. She was a part of him, just as their children were. He especially liked her homey, housewifely temperament, in a day of women given over to bridge and foolish clubs and unnecessary dabbling in business. He understood perfectly that, successful as her farm was, Bessie never conceived of it as an enterprise. To her, the farm and the household were one. She raised her hogs, that she might provide her large family with delicious spiced hams, and handled cows, that her children might have all they wished of clotted cream, cheeses, and unsalted butter, which she churned daily. The skimmed milk helped to feed the hogs. And it was for them that she raised her corn; the oats were for her horses, and the kaffir and rye fed the chickens that came to her table, crisply fried or boiled with noodles. She fattened a few steers and sheep, that they might have fresh beef and mutton, and into her cellar went piles of home-raised potatoes, and apples gathered by the children for pies and roasting in the long winter evenings by the hearth-fire. In her cupboards were rows of finely flavored jellies from fruit in her own orchard. Even the walnuts, hickories, and pecans, which the children’s eager hands picked, were from the trees Bessie herself had planted. Merely to think of her was to conjure to one’s mind delicious plenty — flocks of snowy ducks and huge gray geese, bronze turkeys, pearl guineas, and cooing pigeons.

Under her hand, the farm yielded a rich comfort. She was a bit odd, thought the town, — bearing so many children with such obvious pride and delight; taking such satisfaction in fulfilling all of the farm life’s insistent demands, — but she was so friendly and good-tempered, so warmly hospitable, that it was impossible not to respond to her. Besides, brought up, as she had been, so near Fallon, and educated in its schools, she knew everyone in the little county seat and surrounding country, and was taken quite simply where a stranger would have had to run the gauntlet of comment.

She and Janet Graham, Vice-President of the First State Bank, where Phil and Bessie did their business, had been friends ever since Janet could remember; and as Robert Graham, Janet’s husband, was a ‘gentleman farmer,’ Janet frequently consulted Bessie on problems of agriculture and animal husbandry.

Robert had gone in heavily for poultry, but, occupied as he was with his new novel, it happened frequently that for two or three days at a time he would forget the hens’ existence, and would leave such details as the care of five hundred chickens to his versatile Janet; so she was not particularly surprised when, one evening at dinner, Robert declared that he was at too critical a point in his story to give any attention to a large straw-packed hamper containing two hundred Rhode Island Red eggs, which had been deposited at the bank that afternoon.

‘But Robert,’ protested Janet reasonably, ‘both your incubators are full, and you have n’t a hen that wants to set. What am I to do with them?’

‘Anything you like — just so I don’t have to be bothered. Why don’t you ’phone Bessie Jones, and see if she’ll lend you some hens?’

Janet, too much of a farmer herself to ask such a favor casually, went over to the Joneses’ to discuss the matter. She found Bessie, clean and sweet in her simple, freshly laundered frock of pink gingham and white organdy, lovely in the first fullness of her approaching maternity, sitting on the wide steps of her back porch, surrounded by flower-filled vases and little children, her lap full of sweet peas and nasturtiums, which she was arranging in the bowl that five-year-old Barby held up for her, happily intent upon her pretty task. Silence flooded the quiet, well-ordered barnyard, a peace broken only by occasional night noises, the suppressed twittering of little chicks, and the laughter of the older children and their friends. In Bessie’s blue eyes were reflected the peace and the beauty she found in her home.

‘Why, sure,’ she smiled, when Janet had made known her errand. ‘Sure, I ’ll let you have all I got.’ And gently disengaging a couple of furry kittens and a flop-eared puppy from among the flowers in her lap, she led Janet, with the children eddying around them, to the chicken-house, where the two women began with practised hands to stroke the hens they found on nests, ascertaining quickly, by the degree of broodiness, which could be depended upon for setting, even if moved from their own nests.

‘How many do you want?’

‘Honestly, Bessie, I’m ashamed to say.’

‘Aw! Don’t be foolish. I know how Robert is.’

‘Bessie, you ’re a dear. There really ought to be fourteen. I don’t like to put more than fifteen of those Rhode Island eggs under one hen. What do you think about it? I ’ll bring over laying hens to replace them.’

‘You ’ll do no such thing. Use ’em till you ’re through with ’em. Just put leg-bands on ’em and keep ’em till next fall, if you like. I’ll tell you what,’ she added, ‘you put your eggs in the nests to-night, Janet, and I ’ll bring over the hens to-morrow. You ought to let your eggs lie quiet twenty-four hours anyway, you know. And I ’ll like the ride in the cool of the evening.’

To Robert, looking from his studywindow the next day, she made a quaint picture, driving up his gravel road in a fine old phaeton, surrounded by half a dozen dogs, with five or six small boys hanging on behind and Barby firmly astride the horse in the shafts, the whole cortege flapping and cackling.

‘Bessie,’ he laughed, ‘you have as many followers as the lady of whom I have just been reading. What do you think of the Pompadour, Bessie?’ he added impishly.

‘Who?’ Bessie’s tone was blank.

‘Bessie Jones, you surely don’t mean you have never heard of her? What is the world coming to when intelligent women like you, mothers of the rising generation, know so little and care so little for the famous women who’ve made history? Bessie, I am going to lend you this book. And when you’ve read it, I want your opinion.’

Bessie’s glance at the sombre brown volume was not enthusiastic. ‘I don’t have much time to read,’ she ventured; ‘and when I do, I like something real excitin’. There’s a book in the front room downstairs that I started the other day, when I was waitin’ for Janet to go with me to the Parent-Teachers meetin’. It seemed real good. I don’t mind takin’ that.’

‘One of the books downstairs, was it?’ exclaimed Robert derisively. ‘Bessie, those are only my policemen. I keep them there to ward off people from my real library upstairs — from books like this. You are too superior a woman to want trash. You deserve one of the best. And as for exciting — well!’

Too shrewd to be entirely taken in by Robert’s apparent flattery, yet touched and made curious by it, Bessie held out her capable-looking hand.

‘Well, it won’t hurt me to try it, I suppose,’ she conceded.

II

Little did she suspect how memorable this quiet moment was to be. Later, when she looked back, she saw that it marked the entrance into a new world. Yet how narrowly had she missed her great adventure! The brown book with its black trimmings looked so dull; the title of the introduction, with the queer hieroglyphical name, ‘Choisy-le-Roi,’ was so unintelligible. But her pride had been touched by Robert’s halfcomprehended condescension of manner, and the fine texture of the paper and the clear print told her the quality of the book, warned her that it should not tarry long in a house where half a dozen canaries fluttered about uncaged, kittens chose their own lounging places unmolested, and curious puppies ran snuffling noses over strange objects, which little fingers were as eager to investigate. She had been foolish to bring such a treasure home, and she was n’t interested in it anyway. Thus Bessie to herself. Well, she had said she would read it, so she would. Then it would be off her mind. Sheer will-power held her at first; but later the brown boards became the great bronze gates of the grounds of Madame de Pompadour’s palace; and through them Bessie passed from her farm into the subtle, romantic world of the marquise — into her very life.

Bessie read on with the peculiar absorption of the person who, reading but seldom, becomes genuinely interested. Louis the Fifteenth, heretofore less than a name, no more definitely placed in her mind than one of the Pharaohs, France, even time itself — for what had the eighteenth century ever meant to Bessie Jones? — all became real.

As she came to the end, her mind was crowded with thoughts of the Marquise de Pompadour’s beauty and dignity, the horror of Damien’s death, — could a time that had produced such a woman countenance such tortures? — a curious wonder at the tale she had read, a tale that stirred her the deeper because it was true.

The next day Bessie went about in a strange dreaminess, the world of the night before more vivid than the actual one about her. If only she could see how this Madame de Pompadour looked. And even the miserable du Barry, so slightingly alluded to by the marquise’s chronicler! And the King! Of course, since they had been real, there must be pictures of them, so she would ask Robert; her heart beat with excitement at the thought. But she would wait until her work was done. As it was her day to clean the brooder-house, broom and oil-can in hand and mitekiller at her side, she went through her usual task with habitual thoroughness. But her mind was busy with the marquise’s defense of Latude’s charges; for suddenly it had become of importance to Bessie that she keep her faith in her new-found friend — a friend whose kindliness was fragrant as the perfume of Bessie’s own flowers.

It did n’t occur to her as strange that she, brought up in a Presbyterian atmosphere, taught to accept the Ten Commandments literally, should find it so simple to delight in a life where all were broken with a smile. Something deeply human in Bessie had been touched by all that was so deeply human in the marquise; and with the Pompadour’s own capacity for friendship Bessie offered hers.

Robert accepted the returned book that evening.

‘And what will you have now, Bessie?’ he asked, too absorbed in his own thoughts to be further amused.

But her answer, ‘ I ’d like to read du Barry,’ brought the old teasing look into his eyes.

‘What! You surely have n’t finished this one!'

Bessie laughed. ‘I sure did, Robert Graham. You were right, too. It was as excitin’ as anything I ever did hear of. It was most time to get up when I quit. The roosters were a-crowin’ a’ready. Phil says he has n’t known me to do such a thing since we been married. I ’m going to take the next one slower. What’s the matter with me, Janet?’ she demanded, suddenly flustered. ‘Look at the way Robert ’s starin’ at me — ’

‘Bessie Jones!' murmured Robert solemnly, ‘I should think you would want to read of du Barry! Observe, Janet, she has the same blue eyes, the same ash-blonde hair, — and I ’ll venture it’s long too, Bessie, — and, as I live! the same dark eyebrows and eyelashes. Bessie, did you ever feel you had lived before?’

Bessie’s eyes flashed. ‘Well, if I did, I’ll bet I was never the common thing this book says she was.’

‘Wait until you really know her, Bessie,’ remonstrated Robert, sternly. ‘You ’ll find her far, far kinder than the marquise. She was n’t at all unlike you — loved dogs and children. And she was warm-hearted and magnanimous. Read what the Goncourts have to say of her generosity to Marie Antoinette, who, you ’ll find, had been so steadily unkind to her, in her earlier days. She had n’t much of a mind, the comtesse, but she had a great heart. In her journal she will tell you, in her own way, everything about herself, just as the Pompadour did in hers. You must read the journal first, by all means.’

And Bessie read — this time slowly, absorbing every detail, every picture. Had she been the friend addressed, she could not have taken it more personally, been more completely held. It was as if each day she received a letter from ‘Jeanne’ — for so Bessie thought of the Comtesse du Barry. And Bessie knew at once, by intuition, that this Jeanne was far more of her own kind than the brilliant, discriminating Pompadour. Without loving the marquise less, Bessie lived and breathed with the comtesse, her own pure mind, by some strange alchemy, accepting her friend’s amours but purging them of all grossness. Unthinkable, of course, such actions for herself or the people of Fallon! Yet she justified easily the standards of the French court. ‘They were so honest and simple about it,’ she thought. She even went so far as to wonder what Fallon would think of her if it knew how lenient she was.

Each day found her more deeply absorbed in the romance and beauty and luxury of the period. Its charm enveloped her like a fairy mist, through which she saw her farm and her children in enchanting colors, drawing them into the picture. A snow-white peacock and one resplendent in iridescence, each with his mate, appeared as if by magic, and to Phil’s startled inquiry Bessie answered tranquilly: ’I sold those two registered heifers and bought them. They look so pretty on the place. And besides,’ she added, practically, ‘they ’ll more than pay for themselves with their little ones.’

To their large assortment of collies and bird dogs was added a stately wolfhound, and in the smooth pasture that stretched between the house and the public road Bessie began excavations for a lily pond.

Phil was astonished. ‘How much is it going to cost you?’ he exclaimed.

‘Not a penny,’ Bessie answered, trying to evade the bobbing head of little Georgie as he clung about her neck. ‘I am letting anyone take the dirt for the hauling of it, and there are three wagons being loaded out there now.’

' But why not make a regular stock pond out of it?’

‘We already have one in the big pasture. We don’t need this, you see. It’s just to look pretty. I want it to be like one they might have had at Choisy-le-Roi or at Luciennes — and be all white with lilies.’ Her voice trailed dreamily, and the children, clustering with intent eyes about her, caught eagerly the reflection of her vision. ‘I guess,’ she added sensibly, with one of her typically sudden descents to fact, ‘I ’ll stock the pond in the big pasture with fish. We might as well raise our own.’

Phil laughed heartily. ‘Good heavens, Bessie, what next? You have filled the air and the land, now you ’re going to populate the water! Well, go to it. I’m for you.’

And the lily pond was only a forerunner. With the aid of her children and a blueprint sent down at her request from the State Agricultural College, she evolved a stately formal garden, and at its end, against a background of young lilacs and hollyhocks, nestling among madonna and tiger lilies, iris, phlox, and Japanese anemones, there glimmered an entrancing fairy pool. True, it would be many a day before the garden would come into its fullness, and meanwhile the pool had to be emptied by hand, and water carried in tubs from the pump; but Bessie and her children saw it always in its ultimate perfection.

There came, too, a tennis court; and in the rose-garden a little rustic throne doubly dear to Bessie because Dave (a trifle condescendingly) and the twins had made it. Forthwith her skillful fingers fashioned from tissue paper and tarlatan, cheesecloth and Christmas tinsel, little costumes for her own and Janet’s children; and Bessie and her retinue began to play at fetes. Janet and Robert were amazed at the completeness and accuracy with which these revels were adapted and reproduced from du Barry’s.

So real had ‘Jeanne’ now become to Bessie, that there was often in her heart an ache to see, to touch her. She strained against the long interval that had elapsed between their lives, feeling in this love for one so beautiful, so wistful, so tragically tossed to and from the depths, a lilt unlike anything that her comfortable, deep entity with Phil, or her brooding tenderness for her children, had to offer. Du Barry’s friends were Bessie’s; so too her enemies.

She named her fowls for these various personages. There was the Comtesse de Berne, a hateful old hen that tried to peck every time Bessie came to look at the eggs. She had always to lift her by the comb and the back of the neck, as you would a kitten. And the smooth, silky Persian cat, so charming and so two-faced, was the Maréchale de Mirepoix; while the old lame pothound, who had proved herself such a good watchdog, was Chon. The proud turkey-cock, who ruled over the whole flock, was Choiseul, of course, though Bessie spent many an hour, while her hands were busy at humdrum tasks, trying to determine what attitude to take toward this minister, whose appointment the Pompadour had considered her greatest feat of statesmanship and whom du Barry had found so difficult and inimical. The gentle white turkey-hen was the duke’s gracious wife; but for his sister, Duchesse de Grammont, Bessie reserved the parrot, so cross and treacherous to all but her one or two favorites. There was much discussion as to who should have the honor of being the Duc d’Aiguillon, and for a time this nomination was left open, until, a majestic swan arriving, the children conferred the dukedom upon him by acclamation. One after another, the entire court of Louis XV came to life in Bessie’s barnyard. Day by day, the children listened to the fascinating tales that their mother retold in her own language, and learned to know these famous folk.

And Bessie, poring over the Goncourts’ life of the comtesse, came upon her expense accounts and was bespelled by them. For there were itemized all du Barry’s frocks — frocks such as only she and fairy princesses ever wore. There Bessie discovered satin foundations embroidered with knots of rosecolored spangles, gold folds forming waves, bouquets of spangles enameled with rubies, robes of blonde lace over foundations of silver, chicory-colored borders of puffs with bouquets in the openings, innumerable knots of jasmine, jeweled robes edged with silver.

Bessie would find her breath coming quickly at the vision of such loveliness. She felt no envy, only a rich delight, as when she rejoiced in a starlit sky. And, indeed, were not du Barry’s costumes woven of clouds and of starlight? They were not of this world, surely — not, at any rate, of the earth of which Fallon and Fallon’s clothes were a part. Wonderful, unbelievably beautiful as they were, Bessie knew them as well as her own modest dresses. Not one preserved by the historians escaped her. Not a hat, not a slipper or parasol, not a cloak or a négligé. And her vases and snuff boxes, pincases and goblets, basins for flowers, her fruit dishes, the furnishings of her bedroom and salon, on throughout the whole of Luciennes, to the berries on the armchairs — Bessie could remember all.

Robert and Janet were astounded at the amount that had been absorbed by the ‘Comtesse.’ At first, Robert had given Bessie the title purely in jest, declaring that, as she spent so much time with du Barry and the folk of Louis’s court, she must have a rank in keeping; but Bessie took it simply, and the children caught it up with delight, so that, slipping more and more constantly into use, it soon became her recognized appellation, affording the Grahams infinite amusement at some of the incongruities involved.

‘Countess,’ Maggie would call, ‘the apple butter’s boilin’ over.’

‘Hi, Barby! Where’s the Countess?’ Dave would yell from the barn.

‘I dunno.’

‘Well, you better find her — quick. That new cow she got last week’s havin’ a calf down here.’

Or it might be, ‘Say, Henriette’ (for so Maggie had become in token of her mother’s affectionate acknowledgment of her capabilities), ‘the Dook dee Richelloo’s a-trompin’ on Princess Adelaide’s goslings. Ask the Countess where she wants me to put ’em.’

III

And through it all, with her own children and other people’s, dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, canaries and love birds, the ubiquitous Duchesse de Grammont, colts and calves, chickens and pigs, perpetually flocking about her, Bessie moved through the long summer, happy because in her heart was now a song, a rainbow, a fairy bubble of illusion. Fact and romance moved in her fructifying soul, side by side, without conflict.

A phrase about the Marquise de Pompadour sometimes floated through her head — ‘After having been more than the Queen, she exercised greater sway than the King.’ ‘That’s me!’ she would think. ‘I ’m like a queen here, sure enough; and no king ever had such loving subjects nor more power over ’em.’

Lured backward by du Barry’s references to the Grand Monarque and Madame de Maintenon, Bessie lived through the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, whom, thanks to Robert’s kindly teaching, she now (as did her children) spoke of carefully as Louis Quatorze; through the period of Madame de Châteauroux; then turned once more to her first love, the Marquise de Pompadour, and again, with the adored du Barry as a starting-point, dove into the life of Marie Antoinette.

‘I like her,’ she explained to Robert, ‘because she died like a queen ought to; and I like that wonderful Madame Roland. I like folks to have spunk.’

‘But, my dear Comtesse, that was just what your friend lacked.’

‘And don’t it make your heart break to think how she wanted to live and could n’t?’ was Bessie’s irrelevant answer, the easy tear filling her blue eyes at the abrupt remembrance of du Barry’s futile resistance. ‘She was just like a lost child, at the end, with the whole world turning against her — for nothing. I guess I’d have acted just the same.’ And a wave of indignation dried the tears.

‘O Bessie,’ laughed Robert, ‘what a perfect reader you are! Do you know, if it were n’t for people like you there would be no use writing books.’

‘Now quit your kidding, Robert Graham,’ was her brisk rejoinder.

She was reliving, one afternoon, du Barry’s later days at Luciennes, when a lively ringing of the telephone jangled its way into her consciousness.

‘It’s Mr. Graham, and he wants you, Countess,’ announced Henriette from the house.

Bessie made her leisurely way, majestic as she now was with child, and accompanied as usual by a numerous retinue, into her dining-room.

‘Yourself, is it, Comtesse?’ came Robert’s fine voice over the wire. ‘I should like to bring to supper a descendant of the Due de Brissac — he would hold that title, himself, Bessie, if France were still a monarchy.’

Bessie’s brain whirled. 4 Robert Graham! You surely ain’t talkin’ sense!’

4I surely am. Pierre de Brissac is his name, and he was born in France. I used to know him when we were children; but he’s Anglicized it now to Peter Breeze. Phil ’ll like him, too.’

For once the little Joneses saw their mother flustered. Company was no event at the Comtesse’s table; but never had she dreamed of entertaining a de Brissac — a descendant of Jeanne du Barry’s last lover! On went Bessie’s finest linen, her prettiest company china; and into their Sunday clothes went all the children. The house was swiftly swept and dusted, shades were pulled to just the right height, curtains shaken out, imaginary flies swatted; the house was made a bower of flowers, and her most delicious supper was prepared. Her little court moved to her command, quickly, deftly.

And finally she saw them coming — all in Phil’s big car: Robert and Janet and Phil, and — the Due de Brissac. Shyness overwhelmed Bessie; her fingers grew cold, her throat ached with the excitement and tension of the moment. And yet she would have found it almost impossible to put into words what she expected. Just so might a child have felt, had she known that within the moment she was actually to see and to touch the hand of the fairy prince who had awakened the Sleeping Beauty. The remote, the marvelous were incredibly to emerge from the very midst of the familiar and the commonplace; her two worlds the vivid one of her mind and the routine one of her flesh — were to blend for a never-to-be-forgotten hour. To touch the hand of this stranger, to talk with him, to have him at her table, would be to touch, to talk with, to entertain du Barry, Louis, and all his court. Small wonder that before this miracle Bessie faltered, eager, but deeply abashed.

Phil’s laconic, ‘Meet my wife and kids, Mr. Breeze,’ gave her a distinct shock. For the first time she dared really to look at her guest; and even as she began to regain her usual poise her heart sank. Why, he was just — just an ordinary person, without even that differentiating quality that made Robert Graham stand out as distinct from all Fallon. Breeze was 4 well-dressed,’ to be sure; his large, horn-rimmed glasses had a sophisticated air, and his pleasant face, if a bit smug, was keen enough. But his whole manner, a trifle too obviously genial, seemed proudly and boomingly to proclaim him a professional mixer. Bessie could feel Phil silently applauding him.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said coolly, distaste unconsciously creeping into her voice.

Robert came to her rescue. ‘To Bessie,’ he explained, ‘you should introduce Pierre by his rightful title, Phil. Comtesse du Jones, let me present Monsieur le Due de Brissac. Mrs. Jones is deeply interested in French history of the period of your illustrious forbear, Pierre.’

Breeze took refuge behind a rumbling, would-be contagious laugh. ‘See here, folks,’ he protested good-naturedly, ‘you can’t hold a fellow responsible for his ancestors, now can you? You would n’t do that, Mrs. Jones, now would you? Nor you, Mrs. Graham? Even if our family did use to live in France, we ’re a hundred per cent American now.’

‘Now you ’re talkin’,’ exclaimed Phil; and Robert agreed easily with, ‘Of course. You see, Bessie, how much civilization accomplishes. Peter Breeze is here organizing for the Kiwanis. As a result of the Madame de Pompadours and the Diderots and Molières, as a result of revolutions and assassinations, of du Barrys and Duc de Brissacs, we get Peter here, the Kiwanis clubs, good sound Fallon standards — is n’t that right, Pierre?’

‘You’ve hit it that time, old man. Times change. And we got to have progress. And about to-night,’ Breeze diverged deftly; ‘tell me again who is president of the First National Bank.’

Phil eagerly supplied the name.

‘And what ’d you say was the name of the merchant that runs that big drygoods store on the west side? You got to get your leading citizens in it, you know. By Jiminy! but this town certainly does need a Kiwanis club. Something to put a little pep into it. There ain’t a “welcome” sign anywhere as you come driving in. And those iron rails around the courthouse — say, folks,’ — his tone became confidentially earnest, — ‘ they really ought to come out — d’ you know that? This town’s for progress and autos, what? If people have got to come in with horses, let ’em hitch ’em somewheres off the square.’

He launched eagerly into further suggestions for improving Fallon.

After Bessie had taken up the supper and they were all seated at the table, she observed him silently, noting every detail. The hot evening in early September was none too kind to Breeze. Sweat trickled down his glossy cheeks, wilting his stiff collar. In an effort to make the Joneses feel that he was of their own kind, he displayed the most careless of manners, shoveling in the excellent food with gusto as he talked.

Robert was right, thought Bessie. The world had indeed gone backward. Instead of Madame du Barry, so beautiful that her worst slanderers were stricken into silence before her, so gracious and brave in adversity that the good nuns of her prison adored her; instead of the Duc de Brissac, giving new dignity to his beloved by the depth and restraint of his passion, here was this Kiwanis organizer, and herself, awkward and countrified, trying to pretend that a rambling, old, badly built house and a prosaic farm were a château and Luciennes. Slowly her disillusion penetrated still deeper.

Conscious of what he had done, and already full of compunction, Robert did not go with the others.

‘I ’m like you, Bessie,’ he explained; ‘I have very little taste for Kiwanis and Rotary clubs.’

The perfume from the vine-covered porch enveloped them; and standing there in the twilight, watching the departing car, disappointment chastened Bessie’s sweet face and gave it an illusive wistfulness. It seemed to Robert, for a moment, that he had a glimpse of how Bessie might have looked, had she lived in that other time and in that other environment for which she longed. Under the tan, hidden away in this mother of many children, there was the possibility of a rarely charming woman. Yet, for years, — until he had lent her that Pompadour book, — he had differentiated her from their other neighbors only by the size of her family and the superiority of her poultry.

‘Come,’ she said, turning to Robert; ‘I want to show you our new little colt; and you know I have ten hens and my big two-hundred-and-fifty-egg incubator hatching. The chicks began coming out this morning. I like to bring off a brood in September. It ’ll be the last one this year, and I’ve just had real good luck. You must see them.’

As they went down the cellar stairs, the squeals of puppies were blurred by the manifold cheeping of the twohundred-odd fluffy bits of life.

‘Like flowers, ain’t they?’ murmured Bessie, lifting them on her hands as lightly as the blossoms they seemed to her. There was a warm silence as her children entered with her into the delicate ecstasy of the moment.

‘I ’m thinkin’,’ she said with a smile, ‘that we ’ll have something a heap nicer than this in a few hours. If it was a girl, I was a-goin’ to call her Marie Antoinette — just to show there was no hard feelin’. But now, somehow, since this evenin’ — somehow,’ she broke out desperately, ‘somehow I’m wonderin’ if du Barry and all the rest of ’em might n’t seem as differ’nt from what I ’ve been thinkin’ as this Mr. Breeze turned out. Seems as if I’ve been actin’ kinda foolish like with all this pretendin’ and livin’ in a dream.’

‘Why, Comtesse,’ returned Robert gently, ‘Pierre is like you and myself: he has simply yielded to the perpetual leveling, — cavaliers turning Roundheads, — that’s all. It’s a process and we call it — progress.

‘I feel terribly guilty, Bessie,’ he went on, ‘but — I have another world, if you want it. ’

‘Another?’

‘Hundreds of them. Suppose we let the next one be Mrs. Thrale’s. How congenial you two should be! And you will love her friends — Sam Johnson, Boswell, the Italian fiddler, and — ’

‘Do you know any of their descendants?’ Bessie asked suspiciously.

But Robert noticed with satisfaction that she seemed less shaken. His tone carried conviction. ‘I guarantee you, Bessie, that this time there will not be a single descendant.’