The trees, the flowery hedges, the gay parterres, the glimpses of the noble Thames white with the sails of innumerable craft, the beautiful villas with their small highly cultivated pleasure-grounds, the pretty nursery-maids, and happy English children, all came in for a share of his rapturous admiration; and so vivacious and original were his comments on all that he saw, that he in some sort communicated the infection of his merry humour to us also, and we were all as gay and joyous as the season and the scene.

  When we came to the ground destined for the review, my brother was silent, and I saw his cheek turn pale for a moment; but his eye brightened and flashed as it ran over the splendid lines of the cavalry, which, at the moment we came upon the ground, were parading past the royal personage in honour of whom the review was given, and who was on horseback, by the side of a somewhat slender elderly gentleman, dressed in the uniform of a field-marshal, whose eagle eye and aquiline nose announced him, at a glance, the vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre.

  “Magnifique, mais c’est vraiment magnifique,” muttered my brother to himself, as the superb life-guards swept along with their polished steel helmets and breast-plates glittering like silver in the sunshine, and their plumes and guidons flashing and twinkling in the breeze. “Dieu de dieu! qu’ils sont géants les cavaliers, qu’ils sont colossaux les chevaux. Et les allures si lestes, si gracieuses, comme s’ils n’étaient que des juments. Mais c’est un spectacle magnifique!”

  A moment afterwards, a regiment of lancers passed at a trot, with their pennons fluttering in the breeze, and their lance-heads glimmering like stars above the clouds of dust which rose from under their horses’ hoofs; and these were followed by several squadrons of hussars, with their crimson trousers and their gaily furred pelisses, and then troop after troop of horse-artillery clattering along, the high-bred horses whirling the heavy guns and caissons behind them as if they had been mere playthings.

  It certainly was a beautiful and brilliant pageant, and the splendid military music of the cavalry-bands, the clash and clang of the silver cymbals, the ringing roll of the kettle-drums, and the symphonious cadences of the cornets, horns, and trumpets at the same time, delighted and excited me to the utmost.

  But, I confess, that to me the calm old veteran, sitting unmoved amidst all that pomp and clangour, and evidently marking only every smallest minutiae of the men, the accoutrements, the movements, was a more interesting, a more moving sight, than all the pageantry of uniform, than all the thrill of music.

  I thought how he had sat as cool and impassive under the iron hail of battle, with thousands and thousands of the best and bravest falling around him, the fate of nations hanging on a balanced scale in those fights of giants — I thought how he, alone of men, had faced undaunted and self-confident, that greater than Hannibal, or Alexander, that world-conqueror Napoleon — I thought how he had quelled the might of my own gallant land, and my blood seemed to thrill coldly in my veins, as it will at the recital of great deeds and noble daring — and I knew not altogether whether it was the shudder of dislike, or the thrill of admiration that so shook me.

  Had he looked proud, or self-elate, or triumphant, I felt that I could have hated him; but so impassive, and withal now so frail and feeble, yet with an eye so calmly firm, an expression of rectitude so conscious, I could not but perceive that if an enemy of my belle France was before me, it was an enemy who had been made such by duty, not by choice — an enemy who had done nought in hatred, all in honour.

  I acknowledged to myself that I was in the presence of the greatest living man; and though I could neither love nor worship, I felt subdued and awed into a sort of breathless horror, as one might fancy humanity to be in the presence of some superior intelligence, some being of another world.

  The girls observed my riveted and almost fascinated eye, as it dwelt on that mighty soldier, and began to whisper to one another with a sort of very natural pride at the evident interest which we took in their favourite hero.

  Their tittering attracted my brother’s attention, and following their eyes he was not long in discovering what it was that had excited their mirth, and he looked at me for a moment with something like a frown on his forehead. But it cleared away in a moment, and he smiled at his own vehemence, perhaps injustice.

  At that moment, the different regiments began wheeling to and fro in long lines, and open columns of troops, and performing an infinity of manoeuvres, which, though I of course did not in the least degree comprehend them, were very fine and beautiful to look at, from the rapidity of the movements, the high spirit of the horses, and the gleam and glitter of the arms, half seen among the dust-clouds. My brother, however, began, as I could see, to be vehemently excited, and his constant comments and exclamations of surprise and admiration, bore testimony to the correctness with which every movement was executed.

  Then came the roar of the artillery, as the guns retreated before the charging horse, and even I could comprehend and appreciate the marvellous celerity with which flash followed flash, and roar echoed roar, from the same piece, so speedily that it was scarcely possible to comprehend how the gun should have been loaded and re-loaded while the horses were at full gallop.

  By this time all the gentlemen had become so much interested and excited by the scene, that, Lionel having got upon his horse which had been led down to the ground by his servant, they asked our permission to leave us for a short time, and ride nearer to the spot where the artillery were manoeuvring.

  As we had several servants about us in the first place, and as in the second there is not the slightest danger of ladies being treated with incivility by an English crowd, unless through their own fault or indiscretion, of course no objection was made, and our cavaliers galloped away, promising to return within a quarter of an hour.

  Scarcely were they out of sight, before I observed a tall, handsome, soldierly man, though in plain clothes, ride past the carriage on a very fine horse, followed by a groom in a plain dark frock, with a cockade in his hat.

  It seemed to me on the instant that I had seen his face somewhere before, and that I ought to know him; for the features all seemed familiar, although had it been to save my life, I could not have said where I had met him.

  I was torturing my memory on this head in vain — for he was evidently an Englishman, and I had no acquaintance with any English officer — when he rode past a second time, and seemed to be engaged in endeavouring to decipher the arms on our carriage, and his object appeared to be the discovery of who I was; at least, I could not but observe that he looked at me from time to time with a furtive glance from under the brim of his hat, as if he, too, fancied that he knew or remembered me. The same thing happened yet a third time; and then he called his servant to his side, and I saw the man ride up a second afterwards to Judge Selwyn’s footman, who was standing at a few yards’ distance from the carriage, and ask him some question, which he answered by a word or two, when the groom rode away.

  The gentleman, on receiving the reply, nodded his head quietly, as if he would have said, “I thought so,” and then he looked at me steadily till he caught my eye, when he raised his hat, made a half military bow, and trotted slowly away.

  Caroline’s quick eye caught this action in an instant, and, turning to me suddenly, she cried quickly —

  “Ah! Valerie, who is that? that handsome man who bowed to you? — Where have I seen him before?”

  “The very question which I was asking myself, Caroline. I am quite sure that I have seen his face, and yet I cannot remember where. It is very strange.”

  “Very!” replied a strange, sneering voice, close to my ear, with a slightly foreign accent. “Can you say where you have seen mine, Ingrate?”

  I turned my head as quick as lightning; for in answering Caroline, who sat on the side of the carriage next to the military spectacle, I had leaned a little inward; and there, with his effeminate features actually livid with rage, and writhing with impotent malignity, stood Monsieur G — , the infamous divorced husband of Madame d’Albret, and the first cause of almost all my misfortunes.

  I looked at him steadily, and replied with bitter but calm contempt —

  “Perfectly well, Monsieur G — . And very little did I suppose that I should ever see it again. I imagined, sir, that you were in your proper place, — the galleys!”

  It was wrong, doubtless, in me so to answer him — unfeminine, perhaps, and too provocative of insult; but the blood of my race is hot, and vehement to repel insult; and when I thought of the sufferings I had endured, the trials I had encountered, and the contumely which I had borne on account of that man, my every vein seemed to overflow with passion.

  “Ha!” he replied, grinding his teeth with rage, and becoming crimson from the rush of blood to his head, while he grasped my wrist hard with his hand, and shook it furiously. “Ha! to the galleys yourself — Chienne! Ingrate! Perfide! Traitresse! c’est aux galères que j’ai cru te rencontrer — ou plutot à la—”

  What further atrocity the ruffian was about to utter, I know not, for while his odious voice was yet hissing in my ear these atrocious epithets, before the footman who was standing, as I have said, a few yards off at the other

  side of the carriage, had time to interfere, I heard the sound of a horse at full gallop, and, the next instant, he was dragged forcibly away, and I saw him quivering in the furious grasp of the Count de Chavannes, who had, it seems, been returning to join us, when the assault was committed.

  To gallop to my side, to spring to the ground, to collar the ruffian, drag him from the carriage, and lash him with his whole strength with a rough jockey whip till he fairly screamed for mercy, were but the work of a moment.

  And I could not but marvel afterwards to think how much power and nervous energy his indignant spirit had lent to his slight frame and slender limbs; for in size, he was by no means superior to G — , whom he nevertheless handled almost as if he had been a child of five years old.

  Want of breath at last, rather than want of will, compelled him to pause in his exercise; and then turning towards us with an air as composed and smiling as if he had been merely dancing a quadrille, he took off his hat, saying: —

  “I must implore your pardon, ladies, yours more especially, Mademoiselle Valerie, for enacting such a scene in your presence. Mais c’était plus fort que moi!” he added, laughing. “I could not contain myself at seeing a lady so infamously insulted.”

  Caroline and the Misses Selwyn were so much frightened by the whole fracas, that they were really unable to answer, and I was for the moment so much taken by surprise, that I could not find words to reply. At this moment, covered with dust and blood, for the whip had cut his face in several places, without his hat, and with all his gay attire besmeared and rent, G — again came up towards the carriage.

  He was very pale, nay white, even to the lips — but it was evidently not with terror but with rage, as his first words testified —

  “Monsieur le Comte de Chavannes,” he said, slowly, “car je vous connais, et vous me connaîtrez aussi, je vous le jure; vous m’avez frappé, vous me rendrez satisfaction, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Oh! no, no,” I exclaimed, before he could answer, clasping my hands eagerly together, “oh, no, no! not on my account, I implore you, Monsieur le Comte — no life on my account — above all, not yours!”

  He thanked me by one expressive glance, which spoke volumes to my heart, and perhaps read volumes in return, in my pale face and trembling lips, then turned with a calm smile to his late antagonist, and answered him in English. “I do not know in the least, sir, who you are, and I do not suppose that I ever shall know. I chastised you, five minutes since, for insulting this lady most grossly—”

  “Lady!” interrupted the ruffian, with a sneer. “Lady. Lady of plea—”

  But the Count went on without pausing or seeming to hear him— “which I should have done at all events, whether I had known you or not, and which I shall most assuredly do again, should you think fit to proceed further with your infamies. As for satisfaction, if I should be called upon in a proper way, I shall not refuse it to any person worthy to meet me.”

  “Which this person is not, sir,” interposed yet a third voice; and, looking up, I recognised the officer who had bowed to me: “which this person is not, I assure you, and my word is wont to be sufficient in such cases — Lieutenant-Colonel Jervis,” — he added, with a half bow to me,— “late of His Majesty’s — Light Dragoons. This person is the notorious Monsieur G — , who was detected cheating at écarté at the ‘Travellers,’ was a defaulter on the St Leger in the St Patrick’s year, has been warned off every race-course in England, by the Jockey Club, besides being horsewhipped by half the Legs in England. He can get no gentleman to bring you a message, sir; and if he could, you must not meet him.”

  Gnashing his teeth with impotent rage, the detected impostor slunk away, while the Count, bowing to Colonel Jervis, replied quietly —

  “I thank you very much, Colonel. I am Monsieur de Chavannes; and I have no doubt what you say is perfectly correct. No one but a low ruffian could have behaved as this fellow did. It was, I assure you, no small offence which caused me to strike a blow in the presence of ladies.”

  “I saw it, Monsieur le Comte,” answered Jervis, “I saw it from a distance, and was coming up as fast as I could make my horse gallop, when you anticipated me. Then, seeing that I was not wanted, I stood looking on with intense satisfaction; for, upon my word! I never saw a thing better done in my life. No offence, Count, but by the way you use your hands, I think you ought to have been an Englishman rather than a Frenchman, which I suppose from your name — for you have no French accent — you are.”

  “I was at school in England, Colonel,” answered the Count, laughing, “and so learned the use of my hands.”

  “That accounts for it — that accounts for it — for on my life, I never saw a fellow more handsomely horsewhipped — and I have seen a good many, too. Did you, Mademoiselle Valerie de Chatenoeuf; for I believe it is you whom I have the honour of addressing?”

  “I have been less fortunate than you, Colonel Jervis, for I never saw any one horsewhipped before, and sincerely hope I shall never see another.”

  “Don’t say that, my dear lady, don’t say that. I am sure it is a very pretty sight, when it is well and soundly done. Besides it seems ungrateful to the Count.”

  “I would not be ungrateful for the world,” I replied; “and I am sure the Count needs no assurance of that fact. I am for ever obliged by his prompt defence of me — but it is nothing more than I should have expected from him.”

  “What, that he would fight for you, Valerie?” whispered Caroline, maliciously, in a tone which, perhaps, she did not intend to be overheard; but, if such was her meaning, she missed it, for all present heard her distinctly.

  I replied, however, very coolly —

  “Yes, Caroline, that he would fight for me, or you, or any lady who was aggrieved or insulted in his presence.”

  “Mille graces for your good opinions!” said de Chavannes, with a bow, and a glance that was far more eloquent than words.

  “A truce to compliments, if you will not think me impertinent, Count,” said the Colonel; “but I wish to ask this fair lady, if she will pardon me one question; had you ever a friend called—”

  “Adèle Chabot!” I interrupted him; “and I shall be most enchanted to hear of her, or better still to see her, as Mrs Jervis.”

  “You have anticipated me; that is what I was about to say. We arrived in town last night; and she commissioned me at once to make out your whereabouts for her. The Gironacs told me that you were staying at Kew—”

  “Yes, at Judge Selwyn’s. By the way,” I added, a little mischievously, I confess, “allow me to make known to one another, Mrs Charles Selwyn, once Caroline Stanhope, and Colonel Jervis.”

  Jervis bowed low, but his cheek and brow burned a little, and he looked sharply at me out of the corner of his eye; but I preserved such a demure face, that he did not quite know whether I was au fait or not.

  Caroline, to do her justice, behaved exceedingly well. Her character, indeed, which had been quite unformed before her marriage, had gained solidity, and her mind, judgment as well as tone, since her introduction to a family so superior as that of the Selwyns. And she now neither blushed nor tittered, nor, indeed, showed any signs of consciousness, although she gave me a sly pinch, while she was inquiring in her sweetest voice and serenest manner after Adèle, whom she said she had always loved very much, and longed to see her sincerely in her new station, which she was so admirably qualified to fill. “I hear she was vastly admired in Paris, Colonel; and no wonder, for I really think she was the very prettiest creature I ever saw in my life. You are a fortunate man, Colonel Jervis.”

  “I am, indeed,” said he, laughing. “Adèle is a very good little creature, and the people were so good-natured as to be very civil to her in Paris, especially your friend Madame d’Albret, Mademoiselle de Chatenoeuf. Nothing could exceed her attentions to us. We are very much indebted to you for her acquaintance. By the way, Adèle has no end of letters, and presents of all sorts for you from her. When can you come and see Adèle?”

  “Where are you staying, Colonel Jervis?”

  “At Thomas’s Hotel, in Berkeley Square, at present, until we can find a furnished house for the season. In August we are going down to a little cottage of mine, in the Highlands. And I believe Adèle has some plan for inducing you to come down and bear her company, while I am slaughtering grouse and black cock.”

  “Thanks, Colonel, both to you and Adèle. But I do not know how that will be. August is two whole months distant yet, and one never knows what may happen in the course of two months. Do you know I was half thinking of paying a visit to France myself, when my brother who is on a visit to me now, returns to join his regiment.”

  “Were you, indeed?” asked de Chavannes, more earnestly than the subject seemed to warrant. “I had not heard of that scheme before. Is it likely to be carried into effect, Mademoiselle?”