The Mesmerist's Victim Page 6

  CHAPTER VI.

  WHAT GILBERT EXPECTED.

  A shiver ran through the watcher as the girl rose from her chair. Withher alabaster hands she pulled out her hairpins one by one while thewrapper, slipping down upon her shoulders, disclosed her pure andgraceful neck, and her arms, carelessly arched over her head, threw outthe lower curve of the body to the advantage of the exquisite throat,quivering under the linen.

  Gilbert felt a touch of madness and was on the verge of rushing forward,yelling:

  "You are lovely, but you must not be too proud of your beauty since youowe it to me--it was I saved your life!"

  Suddenly a knot in the corset string irritated Andrea who stamped herfoot and rang the bell.

  This knell recalled the lover to reason. Nicole had left the door openso as to run back. She would come.

  He wanted to dart out of the house, but the baron had closed the otherdoors as he came along. He was forced to take refuge in Nicole's room.

  From there he saw her hurry in to her mistress, assist her to bed andretire, after a short chat, in which she displayed all the fawning of amaid who wishes to win her forgiveness for delinquency.

  Singing to make her peace of mind be believed, she was going through onthe way to the garden when Gilbert showed himself in a moonbeam.

  She was going to scream but taking him for another, she said, conqueringher fright:

  "Oh, it is you--what rashness!"

  "Yes, it is I--but do not scream any louder for me than the other," saidGilbert.

  "Why, whatever are you doing here?" she challenged, knowing herfellow-dependent at Taverney. "But I guess--you are still after mymistress. But though you love her, she does not care for you."

  "Really?"

  "Mind that I do not expose you and have you thrown out," she said in athreatening tone.

  "One may be thrown out, but it will be Nicole to whom stones are tossedover the wall."

  "That is nothing to the piece of our mistress's dress found in your handon Louis XV Square, as Master Philip told his father. He does not seefar into the matter yet, but I may help him."

  "Take care, Nicole, or they may learn that the stones thrown over thewall are wrapped in love-letters."

  "It is not true!" Then recovering her coolness, she added: "It is nocrime to receive a love-letter--not like sneaking in to peep at pooryoung mistress in her private room."

  "But it is a crime for a waiting-maid to slip keys under garden doorsand keep tryst with soldiers in the greenhouse!"

  "Gilbert, Gilbert!"

  "Such is the Nicole Virtue! Now, assert that I am in love with Mdlle.Andrea and I will say I am in love with my playfellow Nicole and theywill believe that the sooner. Then you will be packed off. Instead ofgoing to the Trianon Palace with your mistress, and coqueting with thefine fops around the Dauphiness, you will have to hang around thebarracks to see your lover the corporal of the Guards. A low fall, andNicole's ambition ought to have carried her higher. Nicole, a dangler ona guardsman!"

  And he began to hum a popular song:

  "In the French Guards my sweetheart marches!"

  "For pity's sake, Gilbert, do not eye me thus--it alarms me."

  "Open the door and get that swashbuckler out of the way in ten minuteswhen I may take my leave."

  Subjugated by his imperious air, Nicole obeyed. When she returned afterdismissing the corporal, her first lover was gone.

  Alone in his attic, Gilbert cherished of his recollections solely thepicture of Andrea letting down her fine tresses.