Chapter 29 - Page 2

awkwardness, and
speaking in the manner in which it is usual to announce an intention
to quit a service.

"Certainly, Annette, you have conducted yourself well, and are very
expert in your _métier_. But why do you ask this question, just
at this moment?"

"_Parceque_--because--with mademoiselle's permission, I intended
to ask for my _congé_."

"_Congé_! Do you think of quitting me, Annette?"

"It would make me happier than anything else to die in the service of
mademoiselle, but we are all subject to our destiny"--the
conversation was in French--"and mine compels me to cease my services
as a _femme de chambre_."

"This is a sudden, and for one in a strange country, an extraordinary
resolution. May I ask, Annette, what you propose to do?"

Here, the woman gave herself certain airs, endeavoured to blush, did
look at the carpet with a studied modesty that might have deceived
one who did not know the genus, and announced her intention to get
married, too, at the end of the present month.

"Married!" repeated Eve--"surely not to old Pierre, Annette!"

"Pierre, Mademoiselle! I shall not condescend to look at Pierre.
_Je vais me marier avec un avocat_."

"_Un avocat_!"

"_Oui, Mademoiselle_. I will marry myself with Monsieur
Aristabule Bragg, if Mademoiselle shall permit."

Eve was perfectly mute with astonishment, notwithstanding the proofs
she had often seen of the wide range that the ambition of an American
of a certain class allows itself. Of course, she remembered the
conversation on the Point, and it would not have been in nature, had
not a mistress who had been so lately wooed, felt some surprise at
finding her discarded suitor so soon seeking consolation in the
smiles of her own maid. Still her surprise was less than that which
the reader will probably experience at this announcement; for, as has
just been said, she had seen too much of the active and pliant
enterprise of the lover, to feel much wonder at any of his moral
_tours de force_. Even Eve, however, was not perfectly acquainted
with the views and policy that had led Aristabulus to seek this
consummation to his matrimonial schemes, which must be explained
explicitly, in order that they may be properly understood.

Mr. Bragg had no notion of any distinctions in the world, beyond
those which came from money, and political success. For the first he
had a practical deference that was as profound as his wishes for its
enjoyments; and for the last he felt precisely the sort of reverence,
that one educated under a feudal system, would feel for a feudal
lord. The