It is February fourteenth, the day of sweet St. Valentine. Also, it is among the coy and blushing possibilities, that sweet Saint Valentine has been lying in wait for him; for our sailor, home from sea, finds in the hands of his agent a pretty note, which in its sequence is to carry him into the midst of much tenderness and flowery happiness. The note is from his good friend, the Marchioness de Marsan. The Marchioness asks Commodore Paul Jones, when he is next in l’Orient and can spare himself from his ship, to visit her at her palace. Weary with the sea, sore from the loss of the _Serapis_, the summons falls in with his tired humor. He leaves the _Alliance_ in charge of Lieutenant Dale, and goes with what haste he may to his friend the Marchioness. That good noblewoman kisses him on both cheeks. “It is for your victory!” she says. “France is a-quiver with it!” As Commodore Paul Jones is about to reply, a girl of twenty enters the room. “Aimee de Telison, Commodore,” says the Marchioness, presenting him. Then aside: “She is my ward--my godchild! Is she not beautiful?” “Beautiful! Skin pink and white! Teeth like pearls or rice! Damask lips, eyes deep and lustrous and large! Hair a flood of red gold! In form a little rounded goddess! Beautiful!” Thus run the thoughts of the sailor, as the sweetness and witchery of the vision carries his senses along. “Aimee de Telison!” he repeats in a whisper. “Who is she?” The Marchioness hesitates; then she returns in the same guarded tones: “Who is she? She is the daughter of a King.” CHAPTER XXI--ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Presently the beautiful Aimee quits the room, and the good Marchioness de Marsan tells her story. “There is surely no reason why you shouldn’t know, my dear Commodore,” she says; “since all France knows. Aimee’s mother is of the de Tiercelins--a noble house, but impoverished. As a girl the mother was ravishingly lovely. This was in the days of Monsieur le Bel and the Parc-aux-Cerfs. The old king saw Mademoiselle de Tiercelin; the Pompadour did not object. Aimee was born; and presently her mother, whom the king called his ‘de Bonneval,’ was put away with a pension. The Bonneval’s father talked loudly, and was sent to the Bastile as a ‘Russian spy.’ One may say what one will in the Bastile; the walls are thick and have no ears. The Pompadour looked after poor de Bonneval and the little Aimee. She married the mother to a gentleman named Telison. The Pompadour died; the king died; Aimee was sixteen. Her stepfather de Telison, and her mother de Bonneval neglected her. They said ‘She is a Bourbon. Let the Bourbons provide.’ So I, who am her godmother, took Aimee. That was four years ago; and now it is as though she were my own child in very fact--I love her so.” “But the present king?”