“The marquis your father has encouraged me to hope that you will take pity upon a poor prisoner, and forget and forgive his having fought against your compatriots.”

Adele adroitly took up the line thus offered to her, and was soon deep in a laughing contest with him as to the merits of their respective countries, and above all as to his opinion of French beauty.  Rupert answered in the exaggerated compliments characteristic of the time.  After talking with her for some little time he withdrew, saying that he should have the honour of calling upon the following day with her father.

The next day when they arrived Rupert was greeted with a frank smile of welcome.

“I am indeed glad to see you again, Monsieur Rupert; but tell me why was that little farce of pretending that we were strangers, played yesterday?”

“It was my doing, Adele,” her father said.  “You know what the king is.  If he were aware that Rupert were an old friend of ours he would imagine all sorts of things.”

“What sort of things, papa?”

“To begin with, that Monsieur Rupert had come to carry you off from the various noblemen, for one or other of whom his Majesty destines your hand.”

The girl coloured.

“What nonsense!

“However,” she went on, “it would anyhow make no difference so far as the king is concerned, for I am quite determined that I will go into a convent and let all my lands go to whomsoever his Majesty may think fit to give them rather than marry any one I don’t care for.  I couldn’t do it even to please you, papa, so you may be quite sure I couldn’t do it to please the king.

“And now let me look at you, Monsieur Rupert.  I talked to you last night, but I did not fairly look at you.  Yes, you are really very little altered except that you have grown into a man:  but I should have known you anywhere.  Now, would you have known me?”

“Not if I had met you in the street,” Rupert said.  “When I talk to you, and look at you closely, Mademoiselle Adele Dessin comes back again; but at a casual glance you are simply Mademoiselle Adele de Pignerolles.”

“I wish I were Adele Dessin again,” she said.  “I should be a thousand times happier living with my father than in this artificial court, where no one is what they seem to be; where everyone considers it his duty to say complimentary things; where everyone seems to be gay and happy, but everyone is as much slaves as if they wore chains.  I break out sometimes, and astonish them.”

A slight smile passed over Rupert’s face; and Adele knew that he had overheard her the evening before.  The girl flushed hotly.  Her father and Madame de Soissons were talking together in a deep bay window at the end of the room.

“So you heard me last night, Monsieur Rupert.  Well, there is nothing to be ashamed of.  You were my hero when I was a child; I don’t mind saying so now.  If you had made me your heroine it would have been different, but you never did, one bit.  Now don’t try to tell stories.  I should find you out in a moment; I am accustomed to hear falsehoods all day.”