The girl's heart called out after him. She bit her lips to keep back the gush of tears. "Now he will hate me forever and ever! He'll never want to speak to me again," she told herself. She threw her head back, and stepped out into the light. Scrutiny would help to steady her. Count Ronsard still held court, his two attendants being Pierre and Yuki. Gwendolen's generous heart flared into new anger for her friend. "What are my stings to Yuki's!" she cried to herself. "Those two men are devils to torture a woman as I know they are doing!" Gwendolen felt a sense of returning energy. She had found a definite task. Count Ronsard, who flattered himself that he understood all women, to whom raw débutantes were as glass candy jars in a village shop-window, felt a little surprise, perhaps even a little excitement, as Gwendolen, smiling like a tall white angel, bore down upon him, and announced, in her sweetest voice, that she had come to "keep him company." Enlightenment and a challenge lay in her two next sentences. "Bring me that footstool, Pierre. Yuki, darling, let me take your place now as ministering angel to the count. Other guests may need you." Like a snowy bird of Paradise flecked with gold, she perched beside the caged Frenchman. He saw through her feint as clearly as she had seen through his. Having avowed himself incapable of walking, he had no choice but to remain where he was, or to return home. In sheer intellectual delight at the girl's wit and daring, he yielded himself to her snare. Her sentences enwrapped him in bright skeins. Excitement gave her pungency. She realized that she had never talked so well, and even in the midst of it regretted that it had to be wasted on an "old pig." Pierre hovered about sullenly until released by a nod from his chief. No further speech did he obtain with Yuki. Gwendolen noted, with malicious satisfaction, how close the young wife kept to her husband's side, how tenderly the great man leaned and spoke with her. Together they now moved through the crowded rooms, delivering invitations to the sewing-meeting on the following Monday, the first to be held. The air of the room crackled to eager acceptances. Mrs. Stunt's was the explosion of a small torpedo. Tranquillity and her usual pale-rose flush came back to the face of the little princess. Gwendolen's sparkling eyes jeered light into those of Count Ronsard. The man was a great man in his distorted way. As yet life's greatest values were, for him, of the mind. Rising at last with ostentatious and smothered groans, as he prepared to limp to his waiting carriage, he gave the girl her meed of praise. "Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "it would be a happy day for France were you to become the wife of one of her diplomats." "Merci," said Gwendolen, with a French curtsy. "The profession allures me, but--an American diplomat will be good enough for me!" CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE