(9)
Laurent indeed had been in both, to a high degree, in the cell of the disused convent to which he had been conducted. The discomfort, the fact of arrest itself, could have been light payment for his "moment exquis" . . . in other circumstances. But in these his loss of liberty was calamitous. His evidence (that precious evidence, to the hope of giving which he still clung), his presence itself in the Court next morning at the verdict, all hung by a hair. He tried to bribe the sentries, he cast wildly about for means of escape . . . till it came to him crushingly that even if he did escape he could not present himself in Court without being instantly rearrested—and damaging Aymar. It was, therefore, to a very subdued and uneffervescent young man that it was announced, about eight in the morning, that he could regard himself as under open arrest for the day in order to attend the Court of Enquiry.
He walked out, dazed but thankful, to find M. de Fresne waiting for him in the street.
"I owe this to you, then, Monsieur!" he exclaimed gratefully. "How good of you! You cannot realize what it means to me!"
"You owe it to M. de la Rocheterie," responded de Fresne with no grace of manner. "He had to be roused from sleep early this morning to request your release. I could not have done anything." (Nor, his tone added, should I have done anything if I could.)
Laurent hung his head.
"Well," continued de Fresne, surveying him, "if you are going into Court you had better come back with me to my hotel and make yourself a little more presentable."
"I can go to my room at Mme Leblanc's," said Laurent meekly. "I suppose I do look rather disreputable," he added, trying to laugh, as they turned together along the street.
But as they walked de Fresne was sufficiently human and unwise to try to improve the occasion a little further. "I cannot help wondering, Monsieur de Courtomer," he remarked, "what benefit you imagined you were doing La Rocheterie by running the risk of being brought back last night to his lodging on a shutter, as you might so easily have been."
Laurent was silent.
"Nor," pursued the elder man, "what support you fancied you were giving to his cause by brawling. Obviously it can have done it nothing but harm."
"There you are wrong," replied Laurent rather shortly. "Ask M. Perrelet."
"I am astonished that M. Perrelet did not use his influence to prevent the disturbance."
"He didn't want to," replied the duellist. "He enjoyed it—nearly as much as I did." He sighed reminiscently, almost tenderly.
"And now," continued his mentor, disregarding this, "if you do give evidence on any point, everybody in Court will see that you are without your sword."
"But so I was yesterday. You did not notice that? No, you were rather occupied yourself."
De Fresne glanced sharply at him. They were nearly at the hotel by now. "I am older than you, Monsieur de Courtomer, and therefore I permit myself to regret that you did not think more carefully of the consequences of your behaviour to other people—to one person, in particular."
There was now a wicked light in Laurent's eyes. "I am so sorry," he exclaimed, with what sounded the most genuine regret in his voice. "You mean that you were waked up over this scandalous escapade of mine! I had not realized that! Do, Monsieur, receive my most profound apologies!"
"Pshaw!" said de Fresne angrily. They had stopped at the entry of the hotel, scene of last night's drama. "You know I mean La Rocheterie, whom you might have spared an added anxiety!"
"But it is so hard," said the young man gently, his eyes on the cobblestones, "so hard to know beforehand the consequences of an action even of an entirely justifiable action like mine! For instance, even you yourself, Monsieur de Fresne, must have felt sometimes that if you had not brought back that letter of yours to the Bois des Fauvettes——" He stopped, raised his eyes, and saw from de Fresne's face that he had planted his counterthrust almost too well. The elder man turned his back and disappeared without a word into the hotel.
"Well, he should not have lectured me!" thought Laurent rather uncomfortably as he sped to Mme Leblanc's. And he burst in upon Aymar, who was finishing his breakfast, crying, "Return of the prodigal, who badly needs a wash! Oh, mon cher, I am at least a penitent prodigal—I am, indeed!"
"But are you really an unhurt one?" asked Aymar, springing up and seizing him. "M. Perrelet swears it, but——"
"But you think that I, too, might have been hiding an injury from him and telling him a cock-and-bull story about it?—No, Aymar," he added more seriously, "I have not received—I could wish I had—the poorest equivalent of what you carry for me. . . . On the contrary, I hear that you had to be waked up this morning on my account, wretch that I am!"
"Who told you that, Laurent? I was already awake, after a night in a thousand."
But a little later, when, having washed and shaved, the prodigal was eating, Aymar said in a low voice, "You understand me when I say I hope it was for me that you fought, Laurent? Not that I wish a hundred times you had not exposed yourself in a quarrel that was not worth it! But it was my quarrel, was it not? I dared not ask M. Perrelet."
"Entirely and absolutely your quarrel," replied Laurent, looking him in the face, and thanking his stars that he had not taken any notice of the remarks about Mme de Villecresne. "—And mine," he added, finishing his coffee.
Aymar had laid his watch on the table. He pointed to it now and got up. "Time to start. It is odd to think, isn't it, that when the hour hand gets round to this spot again it will all be over?"
Laurent fixed his eyes on the watch, suddenly miserable and afraid. "They can't proclaim you guilty, Aymar!"
"They won't proclaim me innocent. It will just be not proven. I do not know whether they will deprive me of my commission, but I shall resign it, of course."
"But there is your reputation—there is the Moulin Brûlé and all the rest."
"Nobody is concerned with my reputation of last year, Laurent."
"That's just it!" cried Laurent angrily. "Oh, if only I were defending you!—Why is no one defending you, so that he could bring it forward, since you are so damnably proud that you will not do it yourself? All the time yesterday one could watch points that ought to have been made in your favour going unheeded, just because to emphasize them involved a little blowing of your own trumpet. And I suppose it will be the same to-day! Others may think it modesty—perhaps you think so yourself—but I tell you it is pride, rank, ineradicable pride! You are as proud as Lucifer!"
After which outburst, almost in tears, he put his head down on his arms on the breakfast-table. Aymar stood and looked at him.
"I did not know you had such powers of denunciation, Laurent."
"It is of no use denouncing you," said the muffled voice. "You will not do any differently." He lifted his head. "The only thing that would be of the slightest benefit to-day would be for me to change—to become, if only I could, Saint-Etienne for an hour."
"Do you think I want you changed, even for poor Saint-Etienne?" asked Aymar gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I don't want you to be anybody but yourself, Laurent.—Come we must start. You have no need to pretend to forget your sword to-day, my poor knight-errant!"