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Updated: June 9, 2025
"You want to look out for these distingué foreigners, Hélène! You're an heiress, you know," said Octavie, who was an omnivorous newspaper reader. "Yes," said Hélène, and then she was silent. Beverly Cruger looked at her. Her face, usually happy and smiling, was sad and thoughtful. "This stranger has made quite an impression on her," he thought.
I can't make her out," interposed Octavie, a pretty little blonde sprite, and a perfect antithesis to her sister Charlotte. "She is thinking of some one who is not here." "Quite true," nodded Hélène, smiling. "Happy fellow," murmured Beverly. "On the contrary," said Hélène, who had sharp ears. "The fellow I am thinking about is very unhappy."
As they turned into the avenue leading to the house, a whole choir of feathered songsters fluted a sudden torrent of melodious greeting from their leafy hiding places. Octavie felt as if she had passed into a stage of existence which was like a dream, more poignant and real than life. There was the old gray house with its sloping eaves.
The unlucky wife of the Keeper of the Seals sent to the Chamber for her husband; but precautions had been taken, and at that moment the Minister was on his legs addressing the Chamber. The lady racked her brains and replied to the note with such intellect as she could improvise. "Your Chancellor will supply the rest," cried Octavie, laughing at the King's chagrin.
"Step aside!" commanded the White Leaguer. "But by the law the color follows the mother, and so I am white." "Step aside!" cried the man, in a fury. "Octavie ." A pretty, Oriental looking girl rises, silent, pale, but self-controlled. "Are you colored?" "Yes; I am colored." She moves aside. "Marie O ."
She laughed with a shrillness which almost shattered the windows, familiarly calling her companion "My big darling." Shame overwhelmed Patissot, who as a government employee, had to observe a certain amount of decorum. But Octavie stopped talking, glancing at her neighbors, seized with the overpowering desire which haunts all women of a certain class to make the acquaintance of respectable women.
"I shall take pains to remind her that we Crugers marry quietly in Trinity!" Hélène laughed aloud. The idea of Octavie doing anything quietly appealed to her sense of humour. "She does not take us very seriously," thought Mr. Cruger. Mrs. Cruger glanced at her husband and noticed a rather injured expression appear upon his face. Evidently he was not highly pleased at Hélène's levity.
Octavie decided, after making observations of her own, that the King was corresponding with his Minister. She laid her plans. With the help of a faithful friend, she arranged that a stormy debate should detain the Minister at the Chamber; then she contrived to secure a tete-a-tete, and to convince outraged Majesty of the fraud.
As soon as she saw Patissot, Octavie, who was leaning on the tanned arm of a strapping fellow who probably had more muscle than brains, whispered a few words in his ears. He answered: "That's an agreement." She returned to the clerk full of joy, her eyes sparkling, almost caressing. "Let's go for a row," said she. Pleased to see her so charming, he gave in to this new whim and procured a boat.
Why was the spring here with its flowers and its seductive breath if he was dead! Why was she here! What further had she to do with life and the living! Octavie had experienced many such moments of despair, but a blessed resignation had never failed to follow, and it fell then upon her like a mantle and enveloped her.
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