French lessons which she was giving to the three young reprobates. These lessons never taught him the correct use of the French subjunctive, but the fact that he was attending them had certain results, especially when Marie unbosomed herself to him one day. The young princes ceased trying to take liberties with their terrified governess and the little princess no longer put out her tongue at her.
It was during one of the trips to Vienna and one of the idylls at the hunting-box: the prince and princess, so irregular in other respects, displayed in this particular both regularity and co-operation. Marie Delestre, owing to Prince Basile's temporary absence, had had a most difficult day with her unmanageable pupils. They had emptied a decanter of wine into the piano and made Marie's life unbearable in every possible way. That evening Marie sat up for Prince Basile, who came home very late, just a little merry and not quite steady on his legs, but otherwise delightfully polite and charming. Marie, in tears, confessed her sorrows to Prince Basile, with the result that Prince Basile confessed his to Marie. There was a strange feeling of thunder in the air. There was a strange, early-morning feeling indoors. The servants had been drinking and dancing below stairs; and the din had ceased only when the chauffeur, who had been posted as sentry, heard Prince Basile's key in the latch. The children were in bed.
You can guess the rest, reader. It was perhaps only the fault of the French subjunctive; but Marie Delestre had to leave Bucharest a few months later . . . to go to Paris and replenish her wardrobe; for her simple, tasteful little frocks, cut to her brisk, neat, lively little governess figure, no longer fitted her at all.
V
We must not take things more tragically than the occasion warrants, lest we become more tragic than tragedy. A moment can be tragic, life never. Life is humorous rather than tragic, as witness the story of Marie Delestre, who is now in Paris, feeling a little sad about her tragic moment and replenishing her wardrobe. Humour has its eye on her—dear, kind humour, which does not admit the least shade of cruelty. In Paris she meets Jean Damour, an elderly man, a worthy younger colleague of her father's. Jean Damour is a credit to his name: he was already in love with Marie when she
