“Then what?” he questioned.
The vicomte failed to find an answer, and the marquis supplied one for him:
“Then ... nothing! Where could such a comedy end? How long do you think we could stand the strain? It is no easy matter to keep our hold on an old man ready for the grave. Could we, without a moment’s respite, and till the end of the world, suppress the individuality of a man like Monsieur le capitaine, youthful, robust of body, and strong of will? Nonsense, Monsieur! Utter nonsense! Find something better than that, Vicomte. Come, gentlemen, you have heads! Use them!”
But the count and the vicomte added not a word. The staccato laugh of the marquis alone continued to grate through the silence of the hall.
XXIII
Suddenly my flaccid arteries began to dilate again under stronger pulsations of my heart. As had been my experience a few moments earlier, a diffuse tingling spread through all my fibres, and the paralyzing grasp upon me was relaxed anew. But on previous occasions my freedom had been only half restored and for very brief intervals. Now I was free, free from head to foot—a liberty without any restraint whatever; and the sensation of possessing it was destined to endure. I raised my head in astonishment. On my eyes the eyes of the marquis rested; but no imperious commands were emanating from them now.
A temptation flashed across my mind: to leap from my chair, spring upon my captors, and, disarmed as I was, make a fight to the death against them. And a second thought also came to me: the thought of fleeing.
But I contented myself in the end with a shrug of the shoulders. What could I do, after all? Speedier than my flight, more powerful than any violence, the unerring glance darting from the old man’s eyes would have halted me, overwhelmed me—that I well knew. If indeed he was now loosening the unseen bonds that held me, much as shackles are removed from a prisoner once the doors of the gaol are closed, I was in reality no less a captive than before; and any strength I may have had, though I was now ostensibly free to use it, seemed hardly dangerous to my three antagonists.