“Oh, very well, then!” she murmured with agreeable alacrity.
Evidently Gerald had not yet quite recovered from his legitimate displeasure of the night. He minutely examined his mouth in the glass of the Louis Philippe wardrobe. It showed scarcely a trace of battle.
“I say!” he stopped her, as, nervous at the prospect before her, she was leaving the room. “I was thinking of going to Auxerre to-day.”
“Auxerre?” she repeated, wondering under what circumstances she had recently heard that name. Then she remembered: it was the place of execution of the murderer Rivain.
“Yes,” he said. “Chirac has to go. He’s on a newspaper now. He was an architect when I knew him. He’s got to go and he thinks himself jolly lucky. So I thought I’d go with him.”
The truth was that he had definitely arranged to go.
“Not to see the execution?” she stammered.
“Why not? I’ve always wanted to see an execution, especially with the guillotine. And executions are public in France. It’s quite the proper thing to go to them.”
“But why do you want to see an execution?”
“It just happens that I do want to see an execution. It’s a fancy of mine, that’s all. I don’t know that any reason is necessary,” he said, pouring out water into the diminutive ewer.