"It is possible," Paul admitted.
"Very," said M. Guillaume dryly. "And as regards Dieppe our course is very plain. I am at the rendezvous, waiting for him, by half-past six. You will also be at, or near, the rendezvous. We will settle more particularly how it is best to conduct matters when we see the lie of the ground. No general can arrange his tactics without inspecting the battlefield, eh? And moreover we can't tell what the enemy's dispositions—or disposition—may turn out to be."
"And meanwhile there is nothing to do?"
"Nothing? On the contrary—breakfast, a smoke, and a nap," corrected Guillaume in a contented tone. "Then, my friend, we shall be ready for anything that may occur—for anything in the world we shall be ready."
"I wonder if you will," thought Paul de Roustache, resentfully eyeing the glass which M. Guillaume had emptied.
It remains to add only that, on the advice and information of the innkeeper, the Cross on the roadside up the hill behind the village had been suggested as the rendezvous, and that seven in the evening had seemed a convenient hour to propose for the meeting. For Guillaume had no reason to suppose that a prior engagement would take the Captain to the same neighbourhood at six.
CHAPTER V
THE RENDEZVOUS BY THE CROSS
Beneath the reserved and somewhat melancholy front which he generally presented to the world, the Count of Fieramondi was of an ardent and affectionate disposition. Rather lacking, perhaps, in resolution and strength of character, he was the more dependent on the regard and help of others, and his fortitude was often unequal to the sacrifices which his dignity and his pride demanded. Yet the very pride which led him into positions that he could not endure made it well-nigh impossible for him to retreat. This disposition, an honourable but not altogether a happy one, serves to explain both the uncompromising attitude which he had assumed in his dispute with his wife, and the misery of heart which had betrayed itself in the poem he read to Captain Dieppe, with its indirect but touching appeal to his friend's sympathy.