‘And if I refuse this mission?’
‘If you refuse, you shall bear back to Monseigneur the reasons for which I have not obeyed his commands,’ said Mirabeau coldly. ‘Methought you remembered me better. I had fancied you knew me as one who had such confidence in himself, that he believed his own counsels the wisest, and who never turned from them. There is the letter—yes or no?’
‘Yes—I will take it.’
‘I will, with your leave, avail myself of your horse till I pass the barrier. You can meanwhile take some rest here. You will be early enough with Du Saillant by eight o’clock,’ and with this the Count withdrew into a room adjoining to complete his preparations for the road. While thus occupied, he left the door partly open, and continued to converse with Gerald, asking him various questions as to what had befallen him after having quitted the Tana, and eagerly entering into the strange vicissitudes of his life as a stroller.
‘I met your poet, I think it was at Milan. We were rivals at the time, and I the victor. A double insult to him, since he hated France and Frenchmen,’ said the Count carelessly. ‘There was a story of his having cut the fingers of his right hand to the bone with a razor, to prevent his assassinating me. What strange stuff your men of imagination are made of—ordinary good sense had reserved the razor for the enemy!’
‘His is a great and noble nature,’ exclaimed Gerald enthusiastically.
‘So much the better, then, is it exercised upon fiction: real events and real men are sore tests to such temperaments. There, I am ready now; one glass to our next meeting, and good-bye.’
With a hearty shake-hands they parted, and as Gerald looked from the window, he saw the Count ride slowly down the street. Closing the window, he threw himself upon a couch and slept soundly.