My Little Lady | Page 8

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, and presently from the hotel the sound of the music, and the measured beat of feet, came softened to the ear, mingled with the low rush of the stream, and the ceaseless ringing of the hammers in the village forges.
Horace had not sat there above ten minutes, and was debating whether--his Belgian friend notwithstanding--a stroll along the river-bank would not be a pleasanter termination to his evening than a return to the dancing, when he saw a small figure appear in the hall doorway, stand a moment as is irresolute, and then come slowly across the courtyard towards him. As she came near he recognised little Madelon. She pauses when she was within a yard or two of him, and stood contemplating him with her hands clasped