Chapter 14

Paul found the _Bois_ as beautiful as ever, with its lakes and rippling streams hidden away in the forests. But he was conscious of a feeling of solitude as he rode along among the hundreds upon hundreds of jangling equipages.

All the world was there it seemed to Paul. _Grande dames_ there were, with gorgeous footmen on the box; and elegant little victorias containing wonderfully gowned _demoiselles_. Paul recognized one of the latter as a lady who had caused the disruption of a kingdom. There were less conspicuous carriages, too, whose occupants seemed to be having the best time of all--whole families, there, with father and mother and laughing children.

Suppose the lady were somewhere in that wonderful throng of pleasure-seekers? In what fashion would she drive abroad?

"God knows," he muttered hoarsely to himself, "who or what she may be. Princess or lady's maid, I must find her."

So he rode on through the limitless _Bois_, that wonderful wilderness of green trees and country pleasures, of _fêtes_ and promenades.

At last they turned into the _Route de Suresnes_, which soon led them to the _Lac Supérieur_. There Paul dismissed his _cocher_, for he had a fancy to stroll along the borders of the lake.

The banks were alive with boys and girls running about like young savages, to the distraction of their nurses. Paul threaded his way among them contentedly, for he loved children and had all too little opportunity to be with them. He stood for a time and watched with much amusement a game of blind-man's-buff--_colin-maillard_ the little beggars called it, but if the name was different, the play was the same that Paul had known in his own boyhood at Verdayne Place.

Many fine ships were sailing along the lake's shore, navigated by brave mariners of eight and ten. Paul had just turned away from watching one spirited race when a scream arrested his attention. At first he saw only an excited group gathered at the lake's edge, and then his eye caught sight of a tell-tale hat, floating on the surface. With a few bounds he was in the water, to emerge soon with a little limp body in his arms. He laid his burden down gently on the pebbly bank and then gave place to a man who pushed his way through the crowd with the brisk professional air a doctor is wont to assume. In a few moments the sturdy _enfant_ breathed again.

Paul felt anything but a hero. He had never been wetter--and moreover he had lost his hat. It would be a wonder, too, if any _cocher_ would let him get into his carriage with the water running off him in rivulets.

He was standing by the road-side bargaining with one of that tribe and had nearly exhausted his stock of dignified French when he happened to glance over his shoulder as a carriage passed close by him. Beneath a parasol a lady's face stood out clearly from the moving maze around him--her face again.

The smile in her eyes made Paul mad.

He thrust a twenty-franc note into the hand of the astonished _cocher_, and springing into the cab directed the man to hurry on.

And then the impossibility of the situation dawned upon him. A fine sight he was! to go dashing off the Lord knew where after a lady he did not know! Such an adventure attempted by as bedraggled a cavalier as he, might easily land him in a police station. He had no relish for being dragged off by a _gendarme_, he reflected, and even if that should not occur, the best he could possibly manage would be to make an ass of himself. And he had been far too successful in that line once before.

With the thought, his customary sober judgment returned.

"_L'Hôtel du Rhin!_" he shouted savagely to his _cocher_, and with one last glance at the back of the carriage ahead (if it were only an automobile!--then there'd be a number on it! he thought) Paul was turned sharply around and carried toward the main entrance to the _Bois_.

* * * * *

Even some hours later, when he was ready to start for the Dalmatian Embassy, his rage had not cooled greatly; it was therefore in a tone strangely at variance with his unruffled evening dress that he directed his chauffeur. As for Baxter, he had never seen his master in so villainous a humour. Indeed, had it not been for an uncommonly pretty _femme de chambre_ in the hotel, whose acquaintance he had made the evening before, he would have been tempted to give his employer notice.

"His langwidge was somethink dreadful!" he confided to her after Paul had gone.

The pleasant ride through the _Faubourg St. Germain_ served to mollify Paul somewhat; and when he walked up to the brilliantly lighted entrance, where a resplendent flunky opened the massive doors for him, he was more himself again. He was soon greeting his host and hostess, whose genuine pleasure at seeing him once more was so evident that the last vestige of Paul's ill-humour vanished before their welcoming smiles.

Presently the Countess turned to Paul and said:

"Come! I want to present you to a young Russian friend of mine whom you are to take in to dinner," and taking his arm she led him into an adjoining room.

And there Paul met his vision, face to face; the lady of his quest.