The Two Vanrevels | Page 8

"And I couldn't say worse!"
"Why didn't you present me to her?" asked Vanrevel.
"Because I thought a man of your gallantry might prefer not to face a
shotgun in the presence of ladies!"
"Pooh!"
"Pooh!" mimicked Miss Bareaud. "You can `pooh' as much as you like,
but if he had seen us from the window--" She covered her face with her
hands for a moment, then dropped them and smiled upon him. "I
understand perfectly to what I owe the pleasure of a stroll with you this
morning, and your casual insistence on the shadiness of Carewe
Street!" He laughed nervously, but her smile vanished, and she
continued, "Keep away, Tom. She is beautiful, and at St. Mary's I
always thought she had spirit and wit, too. I only hope Crailey won't
see her before the wedding! But it isn't safe for you. Go along, now,
and ask Crailey please to come at three this afternoon."
This message from Mr. Gray's betrothed was not all the ill-starred Tom
conveyed to his friend. Mr. Vanrevel was ordinarily esteemed a person
of great reserve and discretion; nevertheless there was one man to
whom he told everything, and from whom he had no secrets. He spent
the noon hour in feeble attempts to describe to Crailey Gray the
outward appearance of Miss Elizabeth Carewe; how she ran like a
young Diana; what one felt upon hearing her voice; and he presented in
himself an example exhibiting something of the cost of looking in her
eyes. His conversation was more or less incoherent, but the effect of it
was complete.

Chapter II

Surviving Evils of the Reign of Terror
Does there exist an incredulous, or jealous, denizen of another portion
of our country who, knowing that the room in the wooden cupola over
Mr. Carewe's library was commonly alluded to by Rouen as the "Tower
Chamber," will prove himself so sectionally prejudiced as to deny that
the town was a veritable hotbed of literary interest, or that Sir `Walter
Scott was ill-appreciated there? Some of the men looked sly, and others
grinned, at mention of this apartment; but the romantic were not
lacking who spoke of it in whispers: how the lights sometimes shone
there all night long, and the gentlemen drove away, whitefaced, in the
dawn. The cupola, rising above the library, overlooked the garden; and
the house, save for that, was of a single story, with a low veranda
running the length of its front. The windows of the library and of a row
of bedrooms---one of which was Miss Betty's--lined the veranda,
"steamboat fashion;" the inner doors of these rooms all opening upon a
long hail which bisected the house. he stairway leading to the room in
the cupola rose the library itself, while the bisecting hail afforded be
only access to the library; hence, the gossips, `eli acquainted with the
geography of the place, conferred seriously together upon what effect
Miss Betty's homecoming would have in this connection:
Dr anyone going to the stairway must needs pass her door; and, what
was more to the point, a party C gentlemen descending late from the
mysterious garret might be not so quiet as they intended, and the young
lady sufficiently disturbed to inquire of her father what entertainment
he provided that should keep his guests until four in the morning.
But at present it was with the opposite end of the house that the town
was occupied, for there, workmen were hammering and sawing and
painting day long, finishing the addition Mr. Carewe was building for
his daughter's debut. This hammering disturbed Miss Betty, who had
become almost as busy with the French Revolution as with her
mantua-maker. For she had found in her father's library many books not
for convent-shelves; and she had become a Girondin. She found
memoirs, histories, and tales of that delectable period, then not so dim
with time but that the figures of it were more than tragic shadows; and

for a week there was no meal in that house to which she sat down
earlier than half an hour Jate. She had a rightful property-interest in the
Revolution, her own great-uncle having been one of those who
"suffered;" not, however, under the guillotine; for to Georges Meilhac
appertained the rare distinction of death by accident on the day when
the business-like young Bonaparte played upon the mob with his
cannon.
There were some yellow letters of this great uncle's in a box which had
belonged to her grandmother, a rich discovery for Miss Betty, who read
and re-read them with eager and excited eyes, living more in Paris with
Georges and his friends than in Rouen with her father. Indeed, she had
little else to do. Mr. Carewe was no comrade for her, by far