“I am the son of the house of Carruthers as well as of Grez and Bye, beautiful Madam, and I cannot endure that you put upon my very good Uncle, the General Carruthers, an unfriendliness to France,” I exclaimed with a quickness of my brain that I had not before discovered.  “On points of honor I have that sensitiveness that you say to be—­be of a woman.”

“Oh, my darling boy, I didn’t mean to hurt you about that absurd old feud of—­” And as she spoke the beautiful Madam Patricia rose and came upon me with outstretched arms for another abhorred embrace, which it was to my good fortune to have interrupted.  But I had a fear of that suspicion I had seen flashed into her mind even though lulled by my fine assumption of the attitude of a man of honor.

“Lovely and beautiful Madam,” I made a beginning to say, when—­

“Oh, yes, Mr. Carruthers is here, for I have an appointment to call for him,” an interruption came in the voice of my Buzz in remonstrance with the black maid of Madam Whitworth in the hall of her house.

“Come in, Buzz, dear,” called that beautiful Madam Whitworth as in one small instant she changed both her position with arms on my shoulder and her countenance of anger and anxiety.  She was a very wise and beautiful and much experienced woman, was that Madam Whitworth, but she had given to me, unlessoned as I was in the art of politics, the fact that I most wanted:  that the two papers containing the specifications concerning the mules had been mistranslated by her.

“Put a shawl around you, Madam Pat, and come out here to the street a minute to see what is going to happen to the Prince of Carruthers,” said my rescuer as he inserted his head into the room for one little minute and beckoned us to follow him.

And what did I find out there upon that street?

CHAPTER XIII

BROTHERS BY BLOODSHED

I then experienced a surprise that gave to me a very great pleasure and which made my heart to expand until it almost burst the restraint of that towel of the bath under the bag of my brown cheviot coat.  Before the door of the house of the beautiful Madam Whitworth stood the gray racing car of my Buzz, and before it stood a slim car of a similar make, only it was of the darkest amethyst that seemed to be almost a black, while behind it stood one of equal if not superior elegance of shape which had the beautiful blackness of jet.  That was not all!  Across the street stood also a car of a golden brown and to the front of it one of the red of a very dark cherry.

“There you are,” said my Buzz with a wave of his hand.  “Pick one, with the compliments of the General.  I think the amethyst is a jewel.”

“Oh, it is not possible to me to accept a present of such delight from my good Uncle, the General Robert.  I must go to him and say that I am not worthy!” I exclaimed with a large faltering in my voice.