“Monsieur,” said the Lieutenant, Count de Bourdon, with another bow and then a quick recovery as he saw that he must take the hand of Buzz, held out to him in great cordiality.  These handshakes of America are very confusing to those of Europe.

I saw a great laughter almost to explosion in the eyes of my Buzz at the very little man who had such a great manner, and I made a hurrying of him and my Uncle, the General Robert, to the large car standing beside the station.

“I will precede you in my Cherry,” I said as I saw both the gentlemen seated together upon the back seat of the large black machine.

“No you don’t; you take your seat right in here with us, to be on hand if any bridge of this international conversation breaks down under the Count and me,” answered my Uncle, the General Robert, with stern command.

“Is it that the young Monsieur Carruthers had an education in France?” asked the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon.  “He has the air of French—­shall I say, youth?” And as he spoke again I saw a gleam of deeply aroused interest in his eyes which made my knees to tremble in their tweed trousers.

“Born there; son of my brother, who died at the Marne,” made answer to the question my Uncle, the General Robert.

“It is now that I make a remembrance.  That Capitaine Carruthers was the husband to the very beautiful Marquise de Grez and Bye.  In her youth I was her friend.  I did not know—­” but as the Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, was making this discovery which sent a thrill of fear into the toes of my very shoes, the car stopped at the main entrance of the Capitol and halfway down the long flight of steps stood His Excellency, the great Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, waiting to receive the guest who came on a mission to him from a great land across the waters.  Until I die and even into a space beyond that, I shall take that picture of magnificence which was made by my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner as he stood in the May sunlight with his bronze hair in a gleaming.  I thought him to be a great statue of Succor as he held out both of his strong hands to the smaller man who had come from a stricken land for his help.

“Le bon Dieu keep of his heart a friend of France,” I prayed as I watched those hands clasp as my Uncle, the General Robert, made the introduction.

And all the long hours of that long day were as dreams of sadness and fear to me as I went about the many duties of entertainment laid upon me.  At luncheon at that Club of Old Hickory I sat opposite the small Frenchman who sat on the right hand of my Gouverneur Faulkner, and opposite to me sat my Uncle, the General Robert.  No business was in discussion at that time but I could see those eyes of French shrewdness make a darting from one face to another and ever they came back to me with a great puzzle which gave to me terrible fear.

To all the plans for his entertainment he gave an assent of delight and for that two days’ journey down into the grazing lands of the Harpeth Valley he had a great eagerness until told that it was to be undertaken upon the morrow.