Roumestan could not remember ever to have seen a landscape to be compared with that one; no, not even in his dear Provence; and he could not imagine happiness more complete than his own. No anxiety, no remorse. His wife faithful and believing, the hope of a child, the prediction Bouchereau had uttered concerning Hortense, the ruinous effect which the appearance in the Journal Officiel of the decree as to Cadaillac would produce—none of these had any existence so far as he was concerned. His entire destiny was wrapt up in that beautiful girl whose eyes reflected his own, whose knees touched his, and who, beneath her blue veil turned to a rose-color by her blond flesh, sang to him while pressing his hand:
“Maintenant je me sens aimée,
Fuyons tous deux sous la ramée.”
(Now I trust my lover’s vows,
Let us fly beneath the boughs.)
While they were rapidly whirling away in the breeze made by their motion, the turnpike, gradually becoming lonelier, widened out their horizons little by little, permitting them to see an immense plain in a semicircle with its lakes and villages and then mountains differing in shade according to their distance; it was Savoy beginning.
“O! how beautiful! O! how beautiful!” said the little singer; and he answered in a low voice: “How I do love you!”
At the last halt Bompard came up to them once more, but very piteously, on foot, dragging his horse after him by the bridle.
“This brute is most extraordinary,” said he without further explanation, and when the ladies asked him if he had fallen: “No—it’s my old wound which has opened again.”
Wounded! where and when? He had never spoken of it before. But with Bompard one had to expect any surprise. They made him get into the carriage; and with his very mild-mannered horse quietly fastened behind they set off toward Château Bayard, whose two pepper-box towers, wretchedly restored, could be seen on a high piece of ground.