Gilbert suddenly sat up in his chair. “Louis has quite omitted to state that if he had not taken the knife in his shoulder it would have been in my back. It was like this,” he went on rapidly, while all three stared at him. “When they fell upon us we had each to fend for himself, but one cannot see all round one, and if Louis had not thrown himself in between——”
“Rubbish!” interposed the Vicomte, looking both surprised and disconcerted. “I never knew that the man had a knife till I felt it.”
“That does not alter the fact that you probably saved my life,” said the Marquis. “Surely after that one would owe everything——” His voice and eyes dropped, and his fingers played with the stem of his wine glass.
“Will you bring me some more wine, my dear Louis?” asked the Marquise in a low voice; and when the young man, rising, brought it from the sideboard and filled her glass, she laid her hand on his and kept him for a moment in converse by her chair. Gilbert too got up, and helped himself to a plateful of the meat which he had not long ago refused. M. des Graves sat quite still, and looked out at the tops of the elms, dead black now against a dying green sky. Was that the voice of gratitude? Not indeed that there had been the faintest note of grudging in the tribute, but because, to his fine ear, it was pierced by the sharp consciousness of a counter-claim which might, in a man of Gilbert’s temperament, have been the very motive of its payment. He was troubled.
“Will you hear the rest to-night, ma mère?” asked the Marquis, sitting down again. After all, he had left the plate on the sideboard. “I must have a conversation with M. des Graves this evening, and it grows late.”
The Marquise let her nephew go. “We must hear it to-night,” she answered. “But I hope that you do not all intend to sit up till morning.”
“You need not distress yourself about me, my dear aunt,” retorted Louis, dropping into his chair. He looked indeed extremely fatigued, and even his gaiety rang to the priest a little forced. “I hope,” he went on, “to be asleep in another half-hour. There is no need for me to take part in the council. I have always known that there were advantages in not living on one’s estate. One pays the penalty of one’s model dairies—though that English milord, by the way, was not looking after his tenants in the prescribed British fashion. You might tell them about him, Gilbert.”
The narrative, losing in the Marquis’ hands the lively humour with which Louis had previously invested it, was listened to in silence. Nine o’clock struck as Gilbert finished with almost obvious relief. Madame de Château-Foix sighed, and rose with more obvious reluctance.
“Louis, I release you. You will find your old room all ready for you,” she said to him, as he lifted her hand to his lips. “And may God bless you for what you did,” she added softly, kissing him. “Promise me that you will not keep Gilbert long, Father. Good-night, my son.”
“Good-night, my dear mother,” said Château-Foix, kissing her tenderly.