you
tankards, and five hundred dollars for the crew, and what the women will
say or do the Lord knows. You will have need to keep your head cool
among them all."

"Ah, Mr. Wynne, if my head was not turned by what you said to me when we
parted, it is safe enough."

"My opinion has been fully justified; but now for business. Both ships
are in. You have made an unlooked-for gain for me. Your share--oh, I
shall take care of the captain, too--your share will be two thousand
dollars. It is now in the bank with what is left of your deposit with
me. I can take you again as my clerk or Stephen Girard will send you as
supercargo to China. For the present I have said my say."

"I thank you, sir. It is too much, far too much. I shall go back to my
work with you."

"And I shall be glad to have you. But I fear it may not be for life--as
I should wish."

"No, Mr. Wynne. Some day this confusion in France must end, and then or
before, though no Jacobin, I would be in the army."

"I thought as much," said Wynne. "Come back now to me, and in the fall
or sooner something better may turn up; but for a month or two take a
holiday. Your wages will go on. Now, do not protest. You need the rest,
and you have earned it." With this he added: "And come out to Merion. My
wife wants to thank you; and madame must come, too. Have you heard that
we are to have a new French minister in April?"

"Indeed? I suppose he will have a great welcome from the Republicans."

"Very likely," said Wynne.

It was more from loss of blood that Rene had suffered than from the
gravity of the wound. His recovery was rapid, and he was soon released
from the tyranny which woman loves to establish about the
sickness-fettered man. The vicomtesse had some vague regret when he
asserted his independence, for again he had been a child, and her care
of him a novel interest in a life of stringent beliefs, some prejudices,
and very few positive sources of pleasure. The son at this time came to
know her limitations better and to recognize with clearer vision how
narrow must always have been a life of small occupations behind which
lay, as yet unassailed, the pride of race and the more personal creed of
the obligations of a caste which no one, except Mistress Wynne, ventured
to describe to Schmidt as needing social spectacles. "A provincial
lady," she said; "a lady, but of the provinces." The German smiled,
which was often his only comment upon her shrewd insight and unguar