Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/216

 "Am I so unpopular, then?" he asked.

"Non, m'sieur; it is not that. It is that m'sieur is a friend of M'sieur Chambret,

"Yes, yes, darlint. Go on."

He spoke soothingly, for he desired to know more. But he found it rather annoying that the girl should persist in keeping her back to the light; it was difficult to read her face, through the shadows. He maneuvered to exchange positions with mam'selle, but she seemed intuitively to divine his purpose, and outwitted the man.

"And," she resumed, under encouragement, "M'sieur Chambret is known to love Madame la Duchesse, whom Prince Georges wishes to marry. It is known to all that M'sieur Chambret was requested to leave Lützelburg. What is more natural than that he should send his friend, the Irish adventurer, to avenge him—to take his place?" "Yes. That's all very well, me dear; but what bewilders me—more than your own bright eyes, darlint—is: how did ye discover that I was coming here?"

O'Rourke endeavored to speak lightly, but he was biting the lip of him over that epithet, "Irish adventurer"; in which there lurked a flavor that he found distasteful. "'Tis a sweet-smelling reputation I bear in these parts," he thought ruefully.

"What"—the girl leaned toward O'Rourke, almost whispering; whereby she riveted his attention upon her charms as well as upon her words—"is more natural, m'sieur, than that Prince Georges should set a watch upon M'sieur Chambret?"

"Oh, ho!" said the Irishman. "'Tis meself that begins to see a light. And, me dear," he added sharply, "ye fill me with curiosity. How comes it that ye know so much?"