He was making
a stealthy entrance, and we a stealthy exit, and we came upon one
another so suddenly that we all three stood motionless and silent for
an awkward second or so.
Madame de Beaumont relieved the stupid situation by saying, "Miss
Hampden, this is my son, I suppose you know him already by name."
I was too surprised to say or do anything appropriate. I merely raised
my eyes and inclined my head a little, and worked my way through the
door with an impatience almost equal to that with which he had flown
from the room which we had invaded an hour or so before.
In a few minutes more I was safe and secure in my own apartment, free
to sit down quietly and make out a calm realization of the whole state
of affairs for my own private benefit. The figure I had just left
standing in the opposite doorway came back to me now, more
clearly-defined in memory than he was to my corporal eyes as they
rested on him. He was a handsome fellow, very handsome, but how
strange looking, with his rich embroidered gown falling about him in
heavy folds, and his cap shoved back off his brow, throwing his marked
features into exquisite relief, this was Hortense's brother of whom
she had never spoken to me, whose name I had never heard until
to-night! This was Bayard de Beaumont!
I stood up and began to unfasten my trinkets, and my eyes were
instinctively raised to a picture which hung over the mirror beside
me. It consisted of two photographs in a pretty delicate frame, one
was Bayard's, the other was a woman's, not his mother's, nor his
sister's.
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