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And so you mustn't talk to a woman until somebody whose name has been spoken to you speaks yours to her! Do you call that a rule of nature?" "My dear boy," I laughed in some desperation, "we must conform to it, ordinarily, no matter whose rule it is." "Do you think Madame d'Armand cares for little forms like that?" he asked challengingly. "She does," I assured him with perfect confidence.
"I have the honour to salute you," I said aloud. "I make my apologies for misbehaving with sandwiches and camp-stools in your presence, Madame d'Armand." Something in my own pronunciation of her name struck me as reminiscent: save for the prefix, it had sounded like "Harman," as a Frenchman might pronounce it. Foreign names involve the French in terrible difficulties.
Some hasty ejaculation, I do not know what, came from me, but she lifted her hand. "Wait," she said quietly. "As soon as he saw me he came straight toward me " "Oh, but this won't do at all," I broke out. "It's too bad " "Wait." She leaned forward slightly, lifting her hand again. "He called me 'Madame d'Armand, and said he must know if he had offended me." "You told him "
"Professor Keredec," I returned, with asperity, "I have no idea how you came to conceive such a preposterous scheme, but I agree heartily that the word for it is madness. In the first place, I must tell you that her name is not even d'Armand " "My dear sir, I know. It was the mistake of that absurd Amedee. She is Mrs. Harman." "You knew it?" I cried, hopelessly confused.
He had cleared the table, and now, with a final explosion of the word which gave him such immoderate satisfaction, he lifted the tray and made one of his precipitate departures. "Amedee," I said, as he slackened down to his sidelong leisure. "Monsieur?" "Who is Madame d'Armand?" "A guest of Mademoiselle Ward at Quesnay.
Glouglou would have replied, but the words were taken out of his mouth. Amedee awoke with a frantic start and launched himself at the archway, carroming from its nearest corner and hurtling onward at a speed which for once did not diminish in proportion to his progress. "That lady, monsieur?" he gasped, checking himself at the young man's side and gazing after the trap, "that is Madame d'Armand."
You see, he'd heard I was called 'Madame d'Armand, and I wanted him to keep on thinking that, for I thought if he knew I was Mrs. Harman he might find out " She paused, her lip beginning to tremble. "Oh, don't you see why I didn't want him to know? I didn't want him to suffer as he would as he does now, poor child! but most of all I wanted I wanted to see if he would fall in love with me again!
The lady upon the slope, then, I concluded, must be Madame d'Armand, the inspiration of Amedee's "Monsieur has much to live for!" Once more this day I indorsed that worthy man's opinion, for, though I was too far distant to see clearly, I knew that roses trimmed Madame d'Armand's white hat, and that she had passed me, no long time since, in the forest. I took off my cap.
"Madame d'Armand?" I said. "That is not the name. You mean Mademoiselle Ward." "No, no!" He shook his head and his fat cheeks bulged with a smile which I believe he intended to express a respectful roguishness. If she did not like the ocean there below the chateau, the ocean would have to move!
It is worth our while to speak first of Charlotte herself and of the man she slew, and then to tell that other tale which ought always to be entwined with her great deed of daring. Charlotte Corday Marie Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armand was a native of Normandy, and was descended, as her name implies, from noble ancestors.
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