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Updated: June 13, 2025
Francezka apparently forgot that although strange disappearances and equally strange reappearances take place often in troublous times, but few persons in the world had been searched for as thoroughly, as patiently, and with such lavish expenditure of time and money as had Gaston Cheverny.
I dismounted in the courtyard, and ran, rather than walked up the terrace. Through the window, with its undrawn curtains, I saw Francezka and Gaston seated together in the yellow saloon. I had not meant to watch them. I meant to stop and recover myself a little before presenting myself before them, but I could not keep my eyes away from the scene in the yellow saloon.
Francezka sprang from her horse, ran up the marble steps, Gaston Cheverny hotly pursuing, and entered under her own roof, crying, with smiles and tears: "This is my Joyeuse Entrée, as the old Brabantians had it! Welcome, welcome Monsieur Cheverny and my own good Babache!" We entered a magnificent hall, with many suites of rooms.
It is not to be wondered at, however, that the rest of Francezka's world reckoned Gaston Cheverny a dead man. Father Benart, the little priest, who was a courageous man, even hinted to Francezka that she should wear mourning. This went to her heart like a knife. To put on the garments of widowhood would be the last abandonment of hope, and to this she would not consent.
It left her with but one rational basis of hope, that of finding Gaston in some Austrian prison. On the night of this interview with Prince Eugene, at which I was present, Francezka sent for me to come to her room at the little inn where we were staying. I saw by the gravity of her look that the old hunchback prince's clear, but not unkind, statement of the case had produced its effect upon her.
Her traveling chaise was in the tavern yard, and I caught sight of Peter, with two men servants, and Elizabeth, Francezka's maid. As always, Francezka seemed glad to see me. She knew I had no news of Gaston, and only asked me if search was still kept up for him. I told her yes, and that Count Saxe had increased the already large reward offered for news of Gaston.
Francezka, to my surprise, took part in it, as in everything else, but being full of art and finesse, was never caught except by one person, the aged Marshal Duc de Noailles, who was brave and gallant at the age of eighty. Gaston Cheverny excelled at this wild and gallant sport, and the ladies vowed there was no escaping him.
To this Francezka replied, saying as the bishop was so incensed with her, she would reconsider a considerable gift she had intended making toward building the new wing of the palace, to which Madame Riano was so much opposed. This brought the bishop down on his marrow bones.
But the Kirkpatricks are all given sense to manage themselves at a very early age God having decreed it so. And especially is this true with Francezka. Seeing her bent on managing herself, at least, I have withdrawn some of my authority, for it is better that she should know what responsibility means, before herself and her fortune lie in her own hand.
I am not a gallant, but I am enough of a gentleman to tell a lie, if necessary, to a lady, and to swear to it until I am black in the face; so I said: "I swear it to you, Madame, on my sacred honor." And all the time I saw and knew that Francezka had reason to be wretched with Gaston Cheverny as he now was.
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