"Angèle, ma chérie," said Mme. de Chaulnes, putting down the embroidery, "you can pen M. le Chevalier's description better than I. Have the goodness, Monsieur, to tell my sister your height and your age; the rest she can see for herself."
Mlle Angèle got pen and ink, while La Vireville, not unamused, gave her the required information. Then, looking up at him from time to time as he sat there, she wrote much more, and he knew that such a description of his personal appearance, drawn from the life, must almost inevitably, in the end, be his ruin, for in sitting for his own portrait he was also sitting for that of 'Monsieur Augustin.' And he wondered whether the picture now taking shape under her pen were flattering or the reverse. Some of the Government 'signalements' which he had seen posted up in Brittany were remarkable for their fidelity to detail. . . . At any rate, he was not forced to reveal to this artist, now accumulating unimpeachable material, what other scars he carried besides that, only too obvious, on his cheek.
"It will be best, Angèle," said Mme. de Chaulnes as the writer finished, "to put, not Monsieur's name, which for this purpose he might find inconvenient, but 'the person recommended by' and then the cypher signature. It will be best also to fill in the route to be taken, lest a fancy should seize Monsieur Augustin to go by way of Brittany, for example."
The émigré was about to protest, when it occurred to him that she might conceivably indicate the same route as that taken by Anne and his escort, which it would be a great convenience to know, since his mind was entirely set on overtaking them before they got to Paris. It need hardly be said that he had no intention of putting foot in that city if he could possibly avoid it.
Mlle. de Chaulnes passed the document to her sister-in-law, who read it through carefully.
"Excellent," she said. "I fear, M. Augustin, that you will not henceforward derive much immunity from the inaccuracy of the Convention's previous description of your person. You have taken a copy, Angèle?"
"Yes," said the younger lady.
Mme. de Chaulnes folded the passport, and gave it, together with Anne-Hilarion's safe-conduct back to England, to the prospective rescuer. "Voilà, Monsieur!" she said. "Take that to the Committee of Public Safety and you will find that it will do what you wish for the child. You need have no fear that it will not, for the Committee is something in our debt. But I take leave to doubt if your intentions are quite as heroic as they appear."
"I lay claim to no heroism of any kind," said La Vireville shortly, and, putting the papers in his breast, he took up his wet cloak.
Mme. de Chaulnes meanwhile had, for the first time, got to her feet, and stood leaning upon her stick. "Of course, M. le Chevalier, you do not think we are so blind as not to know what you mean to do. But, believe me, you will never be able to do it. For one thing, you will not be able to overtake them before Paris. They have twenty-four hours' start of you."