He did not wait for Clyffurde's reply, nor did he appear to notice the latter's obvious coldness of manner, but went prattling on with great volubility.
"What a man!" he exclaimed, nodding significantly in the direction whence he had just come. "A six days' march—mostly on foot and along steep mountain paths! and to-day as fresh and vigorous as if he had just spent a month's holiday at some pleasant watering place! What luck to be serving such a man! And what luck to be able to render him really useful service! The tables will be turned, eh, my dear Clyffurde?" he added, giving his taciturn friend a jovial dig in the ribs, "and what lovely discomfiture for our proud aristocrats, eh? They will be sorry to have made an enemy of Victor de Marmont, what?"
Whereupon Clyffurde made a violent effort to appear friendly and jovial too.
"Why," he said with a pleasant laugh, "what madcap ideas are floating through your head now?"
"Madcap schemes?" ejaculated de Marmont. "Nothing more or less, my dear Clyffurde, than complete revenge for the humiliation those de Cambrays put upon me last Sunday."
"Revenge? That sounds exciting," said Clyffurde with a smile, even while his palm itched to slap the young braggart's face.
"Exciting, par Dieu! Of course it will be exciting. They have no idea that I guessed their little machinations. Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen travelling to Paris forsooth! Aye! but with five and twenty millions sewn somewhere inside her petticoats. Well! the Emperor happens to want his own five and twenty millions, if you please. So Mme. la Duchesse or M. le Comte will have to disgorge. And I shall have the pleasing task of making them disgorge. What say you to that, friend Clyffurde?"
"That I am sorry for you," replied the other drily.
"Sorry for me? Why?"
"Because it is never a pleasing task to bully a defenceless woman—and an old one at that."