"I will have my revenge," said Dorothy. "I mind not at all the age of that stupid old man. I see him and I will go."
"Dorothy, don't--Dorothy, I command thee not to go," said Madame Derode, but Dorothy cared very little indeed for any such command. She had light and agile feet and before the unhappy little Comtesse could prevent her, had rushed into the garden where the peaches and the bees were, dropped a low curtsey to M. le Comte and then said in a hurried tone,
"M'sieur speaks the tongue of England. I am an English girl. My name is Dorothy Duncan. I am at the school of la Princesse de Fleury. _La petite_ Comtesse no longer goes to that school."
The old Comte managed to hold himself very erect. He fixed his eyes on the pale blue eyes of the English girl.
"No, I want not your peaches, M. le Comte. But, listen, behold, I want to tell the very truth. _La petite_ was practically expelled from our school. We would have nothing to do with her. Think, M. le Comte, would it be likely? She attends in a shop."
"In the shop of the present Comtesse. It is now known as the _établissement_ of Madame Marcelle and _la petite_ Comtesse goes there every day of her life to sell ugly, common things to the wives of farmers. The shop belongs to La Comtesse and she dreads that you should know. Ah, but what a buzzing," continued Dorothy at the end of her sentence. There were innumerable voices; there was the angry tone of Hébé confirming her sister's words; there was Madame Derode in tears, for she could not hear to afflict the aged; and there was the Comtesse, white as a sheet, bending over "_mon adorable_ Alphonse," who had sunk slowly but surely to the ground in a state of complete unconsciousness.
Dorothy stood at his back, a little frightened at her own words, and then she uttered a scream and a shriek, for the celebrated bees of M. le Comte St. Juste were surrounding her. They were getting into her hair, they were stinging her neck, her arms, even her lips and her eyes. She could not get away from them. The old man heard nothing--nothing at all, and Dorothy rushed out of the garden extremely sorry for her mean little revenge.
She was immediately followed by Lady Hébé and Madame Derode. No one had been stung but Dorothy and she could do nothing but cry out at her pain. Madame Derode called her a child of the most _méchantes_--of revenge the most puerile. She said the bees had but done their duty and when she dropped Dorothy at her school, she said that someone who could remove the stings had better be sent for, but that _hélas_, for the rest, she pitied not at all _la pauvre chatte_!