Lydie had listened quite quietly to this long explanation, taking in every detail of the project, lest anything should escape her. Her father could indeed be completely reassured. She was perfectly calm, apparently cheerful, and when he had finished speaking she thanked him quite naturally and expressed approval of all that had been done.
"Everything is beautifully planned and arranged, my dear father," she said pleasantly, "methinks I cannot do better than take a rest. I fear I have been overwrought all day and have caused you much anxiety. All is for the best now, is it not? . . . Shall we both go to bed?"
Monsieur le Duc sighed with satisfaction. He seemed to have found a long-lost daughter. This was the one he knew, self-possessed, clear-headed, a comfort and a guide.
He drew her to him and kissed her tenderly, and if there was a suggestion of shrinking, of withdrawal in the young body, he was certainly too preoccupied to notice it. He bade her "good-night," and then with obvious relief and a light, elastic step, he finally went out of the room.
CHAPTER XXX
M. DE STAINVILLE'S SECONDS
When Monsieur Achille, having escorted Madame la Marquise as far as her apartments, once more retraced his sedate footsteps toward those occupied by Lord Eglinton, he was much surprised to find the worthy Baptiste Durand in the octagonal room which gave immediately on milor's study.
The wizened little man looked singularly upset; he had a couple of heavy books under his arm: and two large white quills, one behind each ear, gave him the look of a frightened stork.
It was long past the usual hour when M. Durand laden with his bulky books habitually entered the Marquis's private room and remained closeted therein with milor until long past midnight. Every evening at the self-same hour he came to the octagonal room, passed the time of day with Monsieur Achille and then went in, to milor: he always carried a leather bag filled with papers neatly tied in bundles, and he wore a somewhat anxious look when he entered and one of relief when he finally departed. Monsieur Achille had often bent his broad and majestic back, in order to bring his ear down to the level of the keyhole of the door, through which Monsieur Durand invariably disappeared at ten o'clock in the evening; but all the satisfaction which his curiosity obtained was the sound of two voices, one steady and low and the other somewhat shrill, without any individual or comprehensible sentence detaching itself from the irritating babel.
And when M. Durand came out of the room after midnight, he bade Monsieur Achille a curt good-night and invariably refused any information with regard to the work he did for milor at that late hour of the night.