She murmured something in reply, and a moment afterwards the Governor, his suite, and the crowd were gone; and the men-at-arms-the fantastic body of men in their antique livery-armed with the latest modern weapons, had gone back to civic life again.
Inside the house once more, Madelinette laid her hand upon Louis' arm with a smile that wholly deceived him for a moment.

He thought now that she must have known of his deformity before she came--the world was so full of tale-bearers--and no doubt had long since reconciled herself to the painful fact.

She had shown no surprise, no shrinking.

There had been only the one lightning instant in which he had felt a kind of suspension of her breath and being, but when he had looked her in the face, she was composed and smiling.

After all his frightened anticipation the great moment had come and gone without tragedy.