On going to his own room, Captain Philip found a doctor whom the valet Labrie had sent for. He examined the injured arm, not broken but dislocated, and set the bone. Still uneasy about his sister, he took the medical man to her bedside. He felt her pulse, listened to her breathing and smiled.
“Her slumber is calm and peaceful as a child’s,” he said. “Let her sleep on, young sir, there is nothing more to do.”
The baron was sound asleep already assured about his children on whom were built the ambitious schemes which had lured him to the capital.
CHAPTER IV.
AN AERIAL JOURNEY.
MORE fortunate than Andrea, Gilbert had in lieu of an ordinary practitioner, a light of medical science to attend to his ails. The eminent Dr Jussieu, a friend of Rousseau’s, though allied to the Court, happened to call in the nick to be of service. He promised that the young man would be on his legs in a week.
Moreover, being a botanist like Rousseau, he proposed that on the coming Sunday they should give the youth a walk with them in the country, out Marly way. Gilbert might rest while they gathered the curious plants.
With this prospect to entice him, the invalid returned rapidly to health.
But while Rousseau believed that his ward was well, and his wife Therese told the gossips that it was due to the skill of the celebrated Dr. Jussieu, Gilbert was running the worst danger ever befalling his obstinacy and perpetual dreaming.
Gilbert was the son of a farmer on the land of Baron Taverney. The master had dissipated his revenue and sold his principal to play the rake in Paris. When he returned to bring up his son and daughter in poverty in the dilapidated manor house, Gilbert was a hanger-on, who fell in love with Nicole as a stepping-stone to becoming infatuated with her mistress. As at the fireworks, the youth never thought of anything but this mad love.
From the attic of Rousseau’s house he could look down on the garden where the summerhouse stood in which Andrea was also in convalescence.