The Daredevil | Page 2

goodness that I have tied in
my stocking the necessary francs that we may land in that America,
where all is of such a good fortune? And also by my skill we have one
hundred and fifty francs above that need which must be almost an
hundred of their huge and wasteful dollars. All is well with us." And as
she spoke she pulled up the collar of Pierre's soft blue serge blouse
around his pale thin face and eased the cushion behind his crooked
small back.
"Is--is that all which remains of the fifteen hundred dollars we found to
be in that bank, Nannette?" I asked of her with a great uncertainty. My
mother's fortune, descended from her father, the Marquis de Grez and
Bye, and the income of my father from his government post, had made
life easy to live in that old house by the Quay, where so many from the
Faubourg St. Germaine came to hear her sing after her fortune and
children took her from the Opera--and to go for the summers in the
gray old Chateau de Grez--but of the investment of francs or dollars
and cents I had no knowledge, in spite of my claims to be an American
girl of much progress. My mother had laughed and very greatly adored
my assumption of an extreme American manner, copied as nearly as
possible after that of my father, and had failed to teach to me even that
thrift which is a part of the dot of every French girl from the Faubourg
St. Germaine to the Boulevard St. Michel. But even in my ignorance
the information of Nannette as to the smallness of our fortune gave to
me an alarm.
"What will you, Mademoiselle? It was necessary that I purchase the
raiment needful to the young Marquis de Grez according to his state,
and for the Marquise his sister also. It was not to be contemplated that
we should travel except in apartments of the very best in the ship. Is not
gold enough in America even for sending in great sums for relief of
suffering? Have I not seen it given in the streets of Paris? Is it not there
for us? Do you make me reproaches?" And Nannette began to weep
into the fine lawn of her nurse's handkerchief.
"No, no, Nannette; I know it was of a necessity to us to have the clothes,
and of course we had to travel in the first class. Do not have distress. If

we need more money in America I will obtain it." I made that answer
with a gesture of soothing upon her old shoulders which I could never
remember as not bent in an attitude of hovering over Pierre or me.
"Eh bien!" she answered with a perfect satisfaction at my assumption of
all the responsibilities of our three existences.
And as I leaned against the deck rail and looked out into a future as
limitless as that water ahead of us into which the great ship was
plowing, I made a remark to myself that had in it all the wisdom of
those who are ignorant.
"The best of life is not to know what will happen next."
"Ah, that was so extraordinary coming from a woman that you must
pardon me for listening and making exclamation," came an answer in a
nice voice near at my elbow. The words were spoken in as perfect
English as I had learned from my father, but in them I observed to be
an intonation that my French ear detected as Parisian. "Also,
Mademoiselle, are you young women of the new era to be without that
very delightful but often danger-creating quality of curiosity?" As I
turned I looked with startled eyes into the grave face of a man less than
forty years, whose sad eyes were for the moment lighting with a great
tenderness which I did not understand.
"I believe the quality which will be most required of the women of the
era which is mine, is--is courage and then more courage, Monsieur," I
made answer to him as if I had been discussing some question with him
in my father's smoking room at the Chateau de Grez, as I often came in
to do with my father and his friends after the death of my mother when
the evenings seemed too long alone. They had liked that I so came at
times, and the old Count de Breaux once had remarked that feminine
sympathy was the flux with which men made solid their minds into a
unanimous purpose. He had been speaking of that war a few weeks
after Louvaine and I had risen and had stood very tall and very haughty
before him and my father.
"The women of France