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I must not forget, I reflected, that I am responsible for Carlotta's education, whereas I am in no wise responsible for the animals or for Judith. If Judith and I had claims one on the other, the entire charm of our relationship would be broken. I resolved to take Carlotta to the park, in order to improve her mind. She would see how well-bred Englishwomen comport themselves externally.
It was a white palace of a house with a closed balcony supported on rude corbels and tightly shuttered. At the back spread a large garden surrounded by the famous wall. There was no doubt that Hamdi was a wealthy personage, and that Carlotta's nurture had been as gentle as that of any lady in Syria. But the place wherein Carlotta's childhood had been sheltered had an air of impenetrable mystery.
I took from Carlotta's work-basket an unfinished bit of baby clothing. I went to him and held it up and pointed to the monogram she had embroidered on it. "E. R. S.," he read aloud. Then he looked at me with a queer expression beginning to form in his eyes. "Edward Ramsay Sayler, if it's a boy," said I. "Edwina Ramsay Sayler, if it's a girl."
He seemed scarcely worth so many of Carlotta's sparkles, she thought. "Herb Lathrop father is the big tea and coffee man all rolled up in millions. Carlotta's people are putting all the bets on him, apparently, though for the life of me I can't see why. Don't see why people with money are always expected to match up with somebody with a whole caboodle of the same junk.
"What a queer girl she is!" said one of Carlotta's friends in the stalls, almost aloud. "The other day she was divine; and to-night she's simply bleating. She has no experience, no training." "Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there And tell her from me ..." The viscount put his head under his hands and wept. The count, behind him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.
From the tonneau of the other car Harrison Cressy stepped out, somewhat ponderously, followed by some one else, some one all in white with hair that shone pure gold even in the gathering twilight. Phil made one leap and in another moment, before the eyes of his father and Carlotta's, not to mention the interested stare of the Eagle garage chauffeur, he swept his far-away princess into his arms.
Twice, between breakfast and the time Eugene departed, she thought she heard Eugene and Carlotta whispering on the second floor, but there was no proof. Carlotta's readiness to rise for breakfast at six-thirty in order to be at the same table with Eugene was peculiar, and her giving up Narragansett for Riverwood was most significant.
But the situation forced Napoleon to turn a deaf ear to Carlotta's prayers. The brokenhearted woman besought him on her knees, but his fear of losing an army made all pleadings vain. In fact, as I ascertained by the following cablegram which came into my hands, Napoleon's instructions for the French evacuation were in Mexico at the very time of this pathetic scene between him and Carlotta.
It was not till he found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her tenderness and his real love for her he won back all his youth again; and he found it of a truer and sweeter quality than he had known even when his years were few, while the gay old-bachelor life he had long led seemed to him a period of miserable loneliness and decrepitude.
These people's castle in the air was a house furnished from Carlotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of the city not too far from the Piazza, and convenient to a decent caffè, from which they could order a lemonade or a cup of coffee for visitors.
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