"can you--forgive me? It
is a bitter--mistake-I have made. Forgive."

"Forgive?" he answered, and his voice was as broken as hers; but he went
on, more firmly: "It is--nothing--less than nothing. There is--only jus'
one--in the--whole worl' who would not have treat' me the way that you
treat' me. It is to her that I am goin' to make reparation. You know
something, Henri? I am not goin' back only because the king forgive'
me. I am goin' to please him; I am goin' to espouse mademoiselle, our
cousin. My frien's, I ask your felicitations."

"And the king does not compel him!" exclaimed young Henri.

"Henri, you want to fight me?" cried his brother sharply. "Don' you
think the King of France is a wiser man than me?"

He offered his hand to Lady Mary. "Mademoiselle is fatigue'. Will she
honor me?"

He walked with her to the door. Her hand fluttering faintly in his.
From somewhere about the garments of one of them a little cloud of faded
rose-leaves fell, and lay strewn on the floor behind them. He opened the
door, and the lights shone on a multitude of eager faces turned toward
it. There was a great hum of voices, and, over all, the fiddles wove a
wandering air, a sweet French song of the voyageur.

He bowed very low, as, with fixed and glistening eyes, Lady Mary
Carlisle, the Beauty of Bath, passed slowly by him and went out of the
room.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monsieur Beaucaire, by Booth Tarkington

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE ***

***** This file should be named 1983.txt or 1983.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/1983/

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for