"Tiny, yes; but firm, too!" exclaimed Petit-Pierre, as if his vanity was ruffled.
"Yes, but firm as it may be, it is too small not to be recognized."
"By whom?"
"By those who are on our traces."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Petit-Pierre, with comic sadness; "who would ever have told me that some day, or some night, I should regret that my foot was not as large as that of Madame la Duchesse de ----"
"Poor Marquis de Souday, who was so fluttered by what you told him of your court acquaintances," said Bonneville, laughing, "what would he think now if he heard you talking with such assurance and experience of the feet of duchesses?"
"He would set it down to my rôle of page." Then after a moment's silence, "I understand very well that you should want them to lose my tracks; but you know we can't travel long in this way. Saint Christopher himself would get tired; and, sooner or later, that wretched little foot will leave its imprint on a patch of mud."
"We'll baffle the hounds for a short time, at any rate."
The young man bore to the left, attracted by the sound of a brook.
"What are you about?" asked Petit-Pierre. "You will lose the path; you are knee-deep in water now."