“Il est tres bien, cet Ashley,” the Marquise continued, “chic—­distinguished—­no more like a wooden man than any other Englishman.  Il est tres bien—­but what a difference!—­two natures—­the one a mountain pool, fierce, deep, hemmed in all round—­the other the great sea.  Voila—­Ashley et mon Davenant.  And he helped me.  He gave me courage to stand up against the Melcourt—­to run away from them.  Oh yes, we ran away—­almost.  I made a pretext for going to Paris—­the old pretext, the dentist.  They didn’t suspect at my age—­how should they?—­or they wouldn’t have let me come alone.  Helie or Paul or Anne Marie would have come with me.  Oh, they smother me!  But we ran away.  We took the train to Cherbourg, just like two eloping lovers—­and the bateau de luxe, the Louisiana to New York.  Mais helas!—­”

She paused to laugh, and at the same time to dash away a tear.  “At New York we parted, never to meet again—­so he thinks.  His work was done!  He went straight to that funny place in Michigan to join his pal.  He’s there now—­waiting to hear that Olivia has married her Englishman, as you might wait to hear that sentence of death on some one you were fond of had been carried out.  Ah, mon Dieu, quel brave homme!  I’m proud to belong to the people who produced him.  I don’t know that I ever was before.”

“Oh, the world is full of brave fellows, when the moment comes to try them.”

“Perhaps.  I’m not convinced.  What about him?” She flicked her hand again toward Ashley.  “Would he stand a big test?”

“He’s stood a good many of them, I understand.  He’s certainly been equal to his duty here.”

“He’s done what a gentleman couldn’t help doing.  That’s something, but it’s possible to ask more.”

“I hope you’re not going to ask it,” he began, in some anxiety.

“He strikes me as a man who would grant what was wrung from him, while the other—­my blond Hercules—­gives royally, like a king.”

“There’s a soul that climbs as by a ladder, and there’s a soul that soars naturally as a lark.  I don’t know that it matters which they do, so long as they both mount upward.”

“We shall see.”

“What shall we see?  I hope you’re not up to anything, Vic?”

With another jerk of her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, she said, “That’s the match that should have—­”

But the old man was out of his seat.  “You must excuse me now, Vic.  I’ve some work to do.”

“Yes, be off.  Only—­”

She put her forefinger on her lips, rolling her eyes under the brim of her extravagant hat with an expression intended to exclude from their pact of confidence not only the other two occupants of the room, but every one else.

Olivia received the reply to her telegram:  “Shall arrive in Boston Wednesday night.”