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Her stepmother noticed a new air of determination in the poise of her head, and the firm lines of her mouth. "The Count might have spared himself the trouble," she said. "He knows very well what my answer will be. I think that you know, too. It is no, most emphatically and decidedly! I will not marry the Count de Brensault."
She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they walked slowly away from the crowded part of the ballroom. "So you are up again," she remarked looking at him curiously. "Does that mean ?" "It means nothing, worse luck," he answered, "except that I have twenty-four hours' leave. I am off back again at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Tell me about this De Brensault affair. How is it going on?"
You have no other relatives or friends in this country, and I hear that a man named De Brensault is a suitor for your hand." "I shall never marry him," Jeanne said firmly. "I think that he is detestable." "I am glad to hear you say so," the Duke continued, "because he is not a man whom I would allow any young lady for whom I had any shade of respect or affection, to become acquainted with.
"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."
I have been talking to her for a long time this afternoon. Frankly, I do not know which would be best to give up the idea of anything of the sort for some time, or to to " "To what?" De Brensault demanded, as the Princess hesitated. "To take extreme measures," the Princess answered slowly.
Are you perfectly serious in your suit?" "Absolutely!" De Brensault answered eagerly. "I myself would like the matter settled. I propose to you for her hand." The Princess bowed her head thoughtfully. "Now, my dear Count," she said, "I am going to talk to you as a woman of the world. You know that my husband, in leaving his fortune entirely to Jeanne, treated me very badly.
He is the sort of person I can talk to. In fact I have already given him a hint." Forrest nodded understandingly. "But, Ena," he said, "if he really does shell out, won't you be sailing rather close to the wind?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I am not afraid," she said. "I know De Brensault and his sort. If he feels that he has been duped, he will keep it to himself.
"You can do no good," he said. "Wait and see what happens." What did happen was very simple, and for the Count de Brensault a little humiliating. Jeanne passed her arm through the newcomer's and with the curtest of nods to her late companion, disappeared through an open doorway. The Belgian stood looking after them, twirling his moustache with shaking fingers.
"Nothing," she said, "would induce me to marry the Count de Brensault, not even if he knew that I am penniless. If we cannot afford to live in this house, or to keep carriages, let us go away at once and take rooms somewhere. I do not wish to live under false pretences." The Princess was very pale, but her eyes were hard and steely. "Child," she said, "don't be a fool.
Will you obey me if I tell you not to leave your room until I send for you?" Jeanne hesitated. "Yes!" she said. "I will obey you in that." "Then go there and wait," the Princess said. "I must think what to do." The Count de Brensault called in Berkeley Square at three o'clock precisely that afternoon, but it was the Princess who received him, and the Princess was alone.
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