Fathers and sons -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction; Princes -- Fiction; Refugees -- Fiction
Before they returned home, they found their way to a large house which
stood in a courtyard. In the iron work of the handsome gates which shut
it in was wrought a gilded coronet. The gates were closed and the house
was not brightly lighted.
They walked past it and round it without speaking, but, when they neared
the entrance for the second time, The Rat said in a low tone:
"She is five feet seven, has black hair, a nose with a high bridge, her
eyebrows are black and almost meet across it, she has a pale olive skin
and holds her head proudly."
"That is the one," Marco answered.
They were a week in Paris and each day passed this big house. There were
certain hours when great ladies were more likely to go out and come in
than they were at others. Marco knew this, and they managed to be within
sight of the house or to pass it at these hours. For two days they saw
no sign of the person they wished to see, but one morning the gates were
thrown open and they saw flowers and palms being taken in.
"She has been away and is coming back," said Marco. The next day they
passed three times--once at the hour when fashionable women drive out to
do their shopping, once at the time when afternoon visiting is most
likely to begin, and once when the streets were brilliant with lights
and the carriages had begun to roll by to dinner-parties and theaters.
Then, as they stood at a little distance from the iron gates, a carriage
drove through them and stopped before the big open door which was thrown
open by two tall footmen in splendid livery.
"She is coming out," said The Rat.
They would be able to see her plainly when she came, because the lights
over the entrance were so bright.
Marco slipped from under his coat sleeve a carefully made sketch.
He looked at it and The Rat looked at it.
A footman stood erect on each side of the open door. The footman who sat
with the coachman had got down and was waiting by the carriage. Marco
and The Rat glanced again with furtive haste at the sketch. A handsome
woman appeared upon the threshold. She paused and gave some order to the
footman who stood on the right. Then she came out in the full light and
got into the carriage which drove out of the courtyard and quite near
the place where the two boys waited.
When it was gone, Marco drew a long breath as he tore the sketch into
very small pieces indeed. He did not throw them away but put them into
his pocket.
The Rat drew a long breath also.
"Yes," he said positively.
"Yes," said Marco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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