The hour was eleven in the forenoon, the busiest of the day. In twenty minutes the London coach would be due with the mails, and this always brought the prisoners out into the street. The largest crowd gathered in front of "The Dogs," waiting to see the horses changed and the bags unloaded. But a second hung around the Post Office, where the Commissary received and distributed the prisoners' letters, while lesser groups shifted and moved about at the tail of the butchers' carts, and others laden with milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables from the country; for Axcester had now a daily market, and in the few minutes before the mail's arrival the salesmen drove their best trade.
General Rochambeau tapped his snuffbox meditatively, like a man in two minds. But he kept a sidelong eye upon Dorothea, as she turned to acknowledge a bow from the Vicomte de Tocqueville. The Vicomte, with an air of amused contempt, was choosing a steak for his dinner, using his gold-ferruled walking-stick to direct the butcher how to cut it out, while his servant stood ready with a plate.
"To tell you the truth, Mademoiselle, I find a hand at picquet with the Admiral less fatiguing for two old gentlemen than these public gaieties."
"In other words, you are nursing him. They tell me he has never been well since that night of the snowstorm."
"Your informants may now add that he is better; these few Spring days have done wonders for his rheumatism, and, indeed, he is dressed and abroad this morning."
"Which explains why you are willing to stop and chat with me, instead of hurrying off to the Post Office to ask for his letter—that letter which never comes."
"So M. Raoul has been telling you all about us?"
Dorothea blushed.
"He happened to speak of it, at one of my working parties—"
"He has a fine gift for the pathetic, that young man; oh, yes, and a pretty humour too! I can fancy what he makes of us—poor old Damon and Pythias—while he holds the skeins; with a smile for poor old Pythias' pigtail, and a tremor of the voice for the Emperor's tabatière, and a tear, no doubt, for the letter which never comes. M. Raoul is great with an audience."