“So grand I feel like a pigmy.”
“I hope I am creditable.”
What was causing my stomach to twitch wasn’t concern at her being thrown out, but who would be waiting for us once we were let in. For some time, though I searched the place with my eye, taking in flags, bunting, smilax, and the band up on the stage, I didn’t see her. We got into the receiving line and I had a bad moment when we came to Dan Dorsey, who was presenting the guests. He was in dress uniform, with epaulets, braid, sword, knots, and white gloves, and when he saw Marie his face turned to stone. But he didn’t hesitate, and sang out loud and clear: “Mr. William Cresap, Miss Marie Tremaine!” The General’s lady, I imagine, had never heard of Marie; she smiled graciously and offered her hand. Marie, after dropping a graceful, comic little continental curtsey, took it. I took it. We shook hands with the General, passed on, and that was that. “Voilà, I am in!” said Marie, pleased as a child.
“The honor is theirs,” I assured her.
We stood around and I kept on looking. The band struck up the Grand March, and after we had sashayed around there came a long intermission while programs were filled out. All kinds of people wanted to dance with Marie, but she kept saying: “Lancers and quadrilles only — I care not for polkas and galops.” That touched me, as it really meant she knew I couldn’t dance round dances, and was willing to pretend she preferred to sit them out. So I marked them all X on her card, but accepted quite a few couples to make up sets for the square dances. And then, in the middle of it, I saw by the change in her face, from little French dancing partner to cold, calculating gambler, that Mignon had entered the room. I turned, and she was just crossing to the receiving stand on Burke’s arm, Mr. Landry on the other side. She had on a black dress, whether left over from her palmier days or lent her by Lavadeau’s I didn’t know and don’t know now. Over her shoulders was a mantilla, with a pattern of small gold spangles, and I remember a twinge of relief that her big, beautiful bulges wouldn’t be seen by everyone. When the three of them had been received, Mr. Landry went skipping off and then reappeared in a box near the stage, where Mignon and Burke went to keep him company, though they stayed out on the floor. “Alors,” whispered Marie. “I must speak; it devolves, let us go.”
Her grip on my arm meant business, and for my part I steeled myself, feeling I might just as well get it over with. “Mignon,” called Marie brightly as she rustled over the floor, “bon jour, bon chance, salut.”
“Marie,” said Mignon, “comment ça va?”
She said it very coldly, staring down at Marie’s bare shoulders, and then Burke took notice of us. “Why,” he said, “if it isn’t the sneak thieves themselves — the girl who enticed me gippo to her bed, the sly minx — and the boy—”
“Burke,” I said, “retract.”
His eyes moved around in their rheum as he took in my grip on the stick, and he said: “I may have spoken in haste.”
“Apologize.”
“I regret me impulsive words.”
“Then fine. Hereafter speak when you’re spoken to.”
Marie’s hand on my arms gave a quick, grateful squeeze, and then she went on: “Mignon, I have business with you, we have an affaire — but first may I present my fiancé, M’sieu Guillaume Cresap?”
Mignon flinched as though hit with a whip, and started to answer in French. Then she remembered and said: “I congratulate you, truly. I didn’t know you were engaged.”
“I didn’t either,” I said, sounding silly.
Now if, on that, Mignon had burst out laughing and said: “Willie, let’s be going,” my story would be over. And if Marie had slapped me and left me, it would be over, too. But neither of them did, the two of them standing there, Mignon as though turned to marble, Marie as though turned to flame. It was Marie who said: “Alors? I excuse me, then. One may be mistaken, it seems.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I told her.
“What would you say? Jouez, if you please?”
“... Count me in. My chip’s on the table.”
“I congratulate me.”
There was quite a long pause, with nobody saying anything, especially Burke. Then Mignon said: “And now may I present my fiancé, Mr. Frank Burke.”
“Enchantée,” said Marie.
Burke bowed. I tried to say something and couldn’t. Mignon went on: “Marie, what business have you with me? What affair can we possibly have?”
“Ah bon, you shall see.”
She dug in the little gold purse and came up with pieces of paper that had been folded, then rolled. She stretched them like shavings off a board, held them up to Mignon, and said: “See! Here I have some billets, signed by Raoul Fournet!”
“Signed by — whom?” whispered Mignon.
“Raoul, your husband, who died.”
“Let me see those notes!”
“Certainly — I have returned the money Raoul lost to me, but these billets I forgot. Here are two for four hundred, one for two hundred, one for six hundred — four in all, for total of sixteen hundred dollars. But, did you not know about them?”
“No, I knew nothing at all.”
“I am distressed if you are upset.”
“... File your claim is all I can tell you, Marie. The estate’s not settled yet — there’s quite a lot owing, beside this.”
“But a gambling debt claims not.”
“Then what do you want of me?”
“Nothing. I thought you might like to have.”
“In return for what, Marie?”
“Alors — you dance in my lancers, perhaps?”
“What lancers?”
“Here. Now. Tonight.”
“Takes more than two for a lancers.”
“Oui — you, I, your fiancé, my fiancé, friends.”
After a long time Mignon said: “I accept.”
Marie tore the notes in half and handed them over, and five minutes later we were all marching the lancers, Mignon like a ghost in the graceful way she moved, Marie more like a doll in that comic way she moved, as though spinning around on a music box. But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who had bowed the head to whom.
At supper, Mr. Dumont joined us, a mousy little man with gray hair — the first time I’d actually seen him, though we had talked through my door. He gave a report on the hypothèques, which I took to mean mortgages, that Marie was going to assume to raise my twenty-five thousand dollars. They involved considerable talk, not only with him but also with other men who dropped by, most of it in French, with Marie jabbering it pretty coldly. But in the middle of it, Mr. Dumont whispered to me: “You’re getting a wonderful partner, Mr. Cresap. This woman can see a dollar farther and grab it quicker than anyone I know. Count yourself lucky, sir.” When the music started again she decided she wanted to leave; going home in the cab she told me: “M’sieu Dumont accepts you, Guillaume. He thinks you homme de bien, and ingénieur versé.”