Will You Love Me in September

I was still awake when Lance came up. For once I was not interested in whether he had won or lost at the tables. My thoughts were all for Jeanne. I kept seeing her in her various moods: often sharp and astringent of tongue, trying to hide that innate sentimentality in her caustic comments, and at heart good and kind. I would never forget what she had saved me from when I was young and helpless.

And now to find that she was a thief... .

I just would not believe that.

I talked about her to Lance, for I could not sleep, and he, understanding how I felt, did not sleep either.

He said gently that there was only one explanation, and we must accept it. Jeanne had decided to leave us. Perhaps all those years she had been hankering for her native France. She had seen the valuable jewelry and she had calculated what it would be worth.

"The temptation was too strong for her," said Lance. "Poor Jeanne, she could not resist it.”

Lance thought he understood. He knew a great deal about irresistible temptations.

The next day he sent a man to Dover and Southampton to discover if there was any sign of Jeanne trying to escape to France. It was impossible to find any information about her.

But as the weeks began to pass, even I began to believe that there could be no other explanation. Every time Jeanne had picked up my jewelry-as she had been in the habit of doing since Lance had given me the emeralds-she had seen through it the flower shop of her dreams.

It seemed that every way I looked at it, this must be the case.

The temptation had been too strong for her, and she had left me to own a flower shop in the heart of Paris.

Then I had never really known her. She could not be the woman I had always believed her to be.

It was a heartbreaking discovery. What had I known of Jeanne? What did I know of anybody?

Discovery in a Shop

Window ft was only during the next weeks that I realized how very much Jeanne had meant to me. She had been the mother-figure in my early, impressionable days, and in spite of all the evidence, something within me refused to accept the fact that she had run away in order to steal my jewelry and buy a flower shop. She had looked after me since I was more or less a baby with my parents in Paris, and when ill fortune had overtaken me she had cared for me. Then she had come to England to find me. Oh, no, I would not believe that Jeanne was a common thief.

There was some explanation. There must be.

"What?" asked Aimee.

As for Lance, he shrugged his shoulders. He did not want to dwell on the matter.

It was a blow, losing the jewelry, he agreed, but when his winnings warranted it, he would buy more for me. It was no use crying over what was done was his motto.

Jeanne had gone, and there was no way we could find her without a great deal of trouble and expense. Besides, what if we did? Should we take the flower shop away from her?

No, let her keep it, said Lance. He had a grudging admiration for one who could devise such a plan and carry it out. If his luck held, he would buy me bigger and better emeralds.

He was ready to forget Jeanne. He almost wished her well of her ill-gotten gains.

He did not understand that her action had wounded me far more deeply than the loss of the jewels. His indifference about the important things in life exasperated me especially when I compared it with his intense passion for gambling.

It was three or four weeks after Jeanne's disappearance and we were back in London.

The season had begun, and although we did not go often to court, it was necessary to do so now and then. The new King was reckoned to be a boor, and it was always the King and Queen who set the mode of the court. This King had no Queen-or rather he had put her away years ago on account of her suspected intrigue with Count Konigsmarck.

His German Distresses reigned in her place, and on account of their lack of charm, as well as their rapaciousness, they were not very popular, so there was no great desire to go to a court which was not in fact the center of polite society. Queen Anne had called George the "German boor," and apparently the description still fitted him.

Lance said he selected his friends and companions from people who were considered inferior-lacking wit, dignity and good breeding. "He feels more at home with them than he does with English gentlefolk. He lacks dignity of mind and manners.”

But Lance admitted that in some respects he served the country well, for although he was a good soldier, he believed that prosperity rested in peace, and he would therefore do his best to preserve it.

"George is better for the country than the Stuart would have been," was Lance's verdict.

"Though with a Stuart we might have had someone who looked more like a king. Still it is actions that count, and we'll get by with George-and at least his mistresses provide some amusement.”