"I regret to hear that, Madame," he said aloud, drily.
"It was my—Monsieur Alexis' express wish if anything happened to him," said she, as if aware of the unspoken criticism, as if careless, too, what implications of intimacy were contained in that avowal.
CHAPTER XVII
Strange Conduct of the Agent
(1)
Half an hour later M. de la Vireville's half-perfunctory, half-condemnatory regret at Mme. Rozel's approaching departure was a much more genuine and a deeper feeling. At his request she had been giving him particulars about the arrangements of the correspondence at Porhoët, so that he or his delegate could take steps for it to be carried on with as little interruption as might be. And he very quickly saw that she was the right person for the post—a remarkable woman, full of intelligence and resource. M. de Kérouan had been lucky in his 'agent.' And yet, in talking to her much more frankly than he had yet done, or she to him, he could not help speculating as to where that passionate soul which he guessed to be yoked with so much understanding and will might one day lead her. He was to know before long.
She ended by warning him that she thought it would be well in the future to choose some other place on the coast for the Jersey correspondence. The new mayor was exhibiting a certain amount of suspicion and zeal. She hoped that Monsieur Augustin's landing had not been observed; she had warned Grain d'Orge to be very careful. Fortuné, who was a little surprised to learn that so small a place had a mayor at all, thereupon described with some humour the form which Grain d'Orge's inspired caution had taken.
And after this their talk, late as it was, began to range farther afield into the past, and somehow La Vireville found himself touching on his own previous experiences of exile, for he had been in the army of the Princes in 1792.
"I hated Coblentz when I was there," he said frankly, finishing his wine at last. "It is true I was pretty near starving at the time."
And suddenly he felt Mme. Rozel's recovering confidence in him retract, as a sea-anemone shrinks up at the touch of a finger.
"Ah, you have been at Coblentz, Monsieur," she said slowly, looking at him with a curious expression. "When exactly was that, if I may ask?"