turn around," whispered Betty Castlemaine, leaning across from Cecil's arm. "Oh, Dorrie! what a beauty!"
At the same moment the old vicomte rose from his gilded chair and stepped forward to the threshold, saying, "Lorraine! Lorraine! Then you have come at last, little bad one?" And he kissed her white hands and led her to his wife, murmuring, "Helen, what shall we do with the little bad one who never comes to bid two old people good-day?"
"Ah, Lorraine!" said Madame de Morteyn; "kiss me, my child."
There she stood, her cheeks faintly touched with colour, her splendid eyes shining like azure stars, the candle-light setting her heavy hair aglow till it glistened and burned as molten ore flashes in a crucible. They pressed around her; she saw, through the flare of yellow light, a sea of rosy faces; a vague mist of lace set with jewels; and she smiled at them while the colour deepened in her cheeks. There was music in her ears and music in her heart, and she was dancing now—dancing with a tall, bronzed young fellow who held her strong and safe, and whose eyes continually sought her own.
"You see," she said, demurely, "that my gowns came to-day from Paris."
"It is a dream—this one," he said, smiling back into her eyes, "but I shall never forget the scarlet skirt and little bodice of velvet, and the silver chains, and your hair—"
"My hair? It is still on my head."
"It was tangled across your face—then."
"Taisez-vous, Monsieur Marche!"
"And you seem to have grown taller—"
"It is my ball-gown."
"And you do not cast down your eyes and say, 'Oui, monsieur,' 'Non, monsieur'—"
"Non, monsieur."
Again they laughed, looking into each other's eyes, and there was music in the room and music in their hearts.
Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.
When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful, they reassured each other with their silence.
She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"
"Yes. Some German fête. I thought at first it might be thunder. Give me your fan."
"You do not hold it right—there—"
"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed—or is it the lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"
She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.
"They are dancing," she repeated.
"Must we go?"
"No."
In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed saturated with song.
"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is doing, all that he will do—God willing. Why is it I tell you this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more. Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"
"Yes—everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.
"But—ah, this is the wonderful part!—he has made a balloon that can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas—that is, it needs no common illuminating gas."
"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.
"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except that—well—there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust—to which you touch a drop of water—piff! puff! c'est fini! The balloon is filled."
"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.
"Voilà! Do you not wish you knew? I—Lorraine de Nesville—I know! It is a secret. If the time ever should come—in case of war, for instance—my father will give the secret to France—freely—without recompense—a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy! Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
"And you know?"
"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations get wind of this they might kidnap you."
"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father—as though he bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
"And that map-making fellow this morning—do you suppose he might have been hanging about after that sort of thing—trying to pry and pick up some scrap of information?"
"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps. Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen—I shall whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other is—you will be astonished—the plan for a navigable balloon!"
"Has he tried it?"
"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
"Do people know this, too?"
"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high; we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us, and—would you believe it?—they fired their horrid guns at us—pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!—that ends all. Dear me! we talk a great deal of war—you and I. It is time for me to go."
They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
"Symbol of France," she whispered.
"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
A deep boom,
