The Prince seem mollified. "Good," he remarked. "Sit down, M. de la Vireville, and before we go into details over that affair I will tell you an important piece of news. . . . You have nothing serious the matter with your head, I trust?"
"Nothing," the émigré assured him, as, half expecting that he was going to be told about the Carhoët command, he took a seat opposite Captain d'Auvergne at the big table, strewn with maps and papers.
"His Majesty's Government," went on the Prince, bringing out the words as if their utterance gave him pleasure, "have decided to support a Royalist expedition this summer to the coast of France, to land perhaps in Southern Brittany, perhaps in Vendée. You could co-operate with your Chouans, I suppose?"
"A little while ago, mon Prince," replied La Vireville, "I should have said No. But, having already heard of the likelihood of such a step, I took the opportunity of sounding my men on the point yesterday—by which your Highness sees that my delay has not been without fruit. And I am now convinced that I could, with some difficulty, get them to follow me to Finistère or Morbihan, but south of the Loire, no. They would never leave Brittany."
Leaning back in his carved chair, with the crown on the top, the Prince de Bouillon digested this information. La Vireville thought that his face had a little fallen on learning that the proposed expedition was no secret to his visitor. Although he liked him in spite of them, the Chouan was well aware of Captain d'Auvergne's weaknesses, and he let his gaze stray up to the framed pedigree on the wall behind the Prince's head that showed where, in the mists of the thirteenth century, that branch had burgeoned on the ancient stem of La Tour d'Auvergne which was to blossom, during the eighteenth, in the present scion. From that it wandered out of the window, whence he could see the blue expanse of Gorey Bay. He wondered whether the Pomone had weighed yet. . . . Confound this beating in his head!
His Serene Highness suddenly bent forward and laid a hand on his arm. "La Vireville, I am afraid you are unwell! It is your head, then; what have you done to it?"
"I beg your pardon," exclaimed the émigré, removing the hand with which he had unconsciously covered his eyes. "The fact is that I have a damnable headache—a relic of the wild-goose chase, nothing more. It will be gone to-morrow, Monseigneur."
"Then to-morrow, my dear fellow, will serve us to discuss matters. I was sure," said the good-natured Prince, "that there was something under that bandage, and that you have not had it attended to since you landed. No, I thought not. Will you take a glass of wine? . . . Well, go home to Madame de la Vireville, make her my compliments, and tell her that I am sending my surgeon to see you at once."
But as La Vireville left Gorey he wondered whether it were not rather a touch of heartache than of headache that he had.