My Little Lady | Page 8

reply.
"Oh, then, I really must take it away," said the Countess; "allons, be
reasonable, _ma petite;_ let me have that, and go and dance with the
other little boys and girls."
"But I don't want to dance, and I like to play at this," cries Madelon
with her shrill little voice, clutching the board with both her small
hands, as the Countess tried to get possession of it; "you have no right
to take it away. Papa lets me play with it; and I don't care for you! Give
it me back again, I say; _je le veux, je le veux!_"
"No, no," answered the Countess, pushing it beyond Madelon's reach to
the other side of the table. "I daresay you have seen your papa play at
that game; but children must not always do the same as their papas.
Now, be good, and eat your bonbons like a sensible child."
"I will not eat them if I may not play for them!" cried the child; and
with one sweep of her hand she sent them all off the table on to the
floor, and stamped on them again and again with her tiny foot. "You
have no right to speak to me so!" she went on energetically; "no one
but my papa speaks to me; and I don't know you, and I don't like you,
and you are very ugly!" and then she turned her back on the Countess
and stood in dignified silence.
"_Mais c'est un petit diable!_" cried the astonished lady, fanning herself
vigorously with her pocket-handkerchief. She was discomfited though
she had won the victory, and hailed the return of her partner with the
_eau sucrée_ as a relief. "A thousand thanks, M. Jules! What if we take
another turn, though this room really is of insufferable heat."

Madelon was let confronting Horace, a most ill-used little girl, not
crying, but with flushed cheeks and pouting lips--a little girl who had
lost her game and her bonbons, and felt at war with all the world in
consequence. Horace was sorry for her; he, too, thought she had been
ill-used, and no sooner was the Countess fairly off than he said, very
immorally, no doubt,
"Would you like to have your game back again?"
"No," said Madelon, in whom this speech roused a fresh sense of injury;
"I have no more bonbons."
Graham had none to offer her, and a silence ensued, during which she
stood leaning against the table, slowly scraping one foot backwards and
forwards over the remains of the scattered bonbons. At last he
bethought him of a small bunch of charms that he had got somewhere,
and hung to his watch-chain, and with which he had often enticed and
won the hearts of children.
"Would you like to come and look at these?" he said, holding them up.
"No," she replied, ungraciously, and retreating a step backwards.
"Not at this?" he said. "Here is a little steam engine that runs on wheels;
and, see, here is a fan that will open and shut."
"No," she said again, with a determined little shake of her head, and
still retreating.
"But only look at this," he said, selecting a little flexible enamel fish,
and trying to lure back this small wild bird. "See this little gold and
green fish, it moves its head and tail."
"No," she said once more, but the fish was evidently a temptation, and
she paused irresolute for a moment; but Graham made a step forward,
and this decided her.
"I don't care for breloques," she said, with disdain, "and I don't want to

see them, I tell you." And then, turning round, she marched straight out
of the room.
At that moment the music stopped, the waltzing ceased, an a line of
retreat was left open for Graham. He saw the Countess once more
approaching, and availed himself of it; out of the noise and heat and
crowd he fled, into the fresh open air of the quiet courtyard.
CHAPTER III.
In the Courtyard.
Three gentlemen with cigars, sitting on the bench under the salon
windows, two more pacing up and down in the moonlight before the
hall-door, and a sixth apparently asleep in a shadowy corner, were the
only occupants of the courtyard. Graham passed them by, and sought
solitude at the lower end, where he found a seat on the stone coping of
the iron railing. The peace and coolness and silence were refreshing,
after the heat and clamour of the salon; the broad harvest-moon had
risen above the opposite ridge of hills, and flooded everything with
clear light, the river gleamed and sparkled, the poplars threw long still
shadows across the white road; now and then the leaves rustled faintly,
some far-off voice echoed back from the hills,