"Aymar made out that it was . . . all over very quickly . . . done in the surprise . . . almost a mistake," she said faintly at the end.
"On the contrary," replied Laurent remorselessly, "it was as protracted and deliberate as I have told you. You can imagine that the Imperialists, finding him in the situation they did, were not likely to show him more consideration than . . . than some of his friends have done since. He was taken to Arbelles, senseless, in a farm cart. How he was looked on there I have told you. One would have thought he had paid enough. . . ."
He was very brutal; he knew it. He was going very far—he did not care. He was so worked up that a very little more would have brought out the story of the ramrod. But there was also a limit to what his hearer could endure. He saw her now get up, and ask him to excuse her "for a few minutes." As he shut the door which he had held open for her he was almost sure that he heard a stifled sob on the other side.
Then he paced up and down the room thinking, "I have done it now! What would Aymar say if he knew! I don't care, I don't care! It was time she heard these things. Look what keeping this from her has resulted in!" And this was his most secret thought: "She has hurt Aymar bitterly, unbearably: but I have hurt her!"
He did not believe that she would reappear that evening; and she did not. By that he knew that his blows had gone home. After waiting a little he wandered round the salon again, coming finally to an anchor in front of the picture of the two children. That to end in this! "How could you?" he said to the laughing little girl, and soon afterwards went unhappily, guiltily, yet unrepentantly to bed.
(11)
When Laurent came downstairs next morning, after taking his farewell of the Vicomtesse, he was greatly surprised to find Mme de Villecresne, a little ghost in white organdie, in the hall—waiting for him as was evident by her request that he would speak to her, if he had the time. And as he went out with her into the garden, which she seemed to indicate as the scene of their interview, his conscience rather smote him for last evening's free speech. But the mantle of the avenger had not yet fallen from his shoulders. Mme de Villecresne's first words, however, gave the panoply a perceptible twitch.
"I am very grateful to you for speaking to me as you did last night, Monsieur de Courtomer," she said. "I am sure you cannot have liked doing it." (Laurent surveyed the grass at his feet.) "I want, while I still have the chance, to ask you something more."
They were now in the middle of the rose-garden, by the sundial, and here she paused; paused, too, in her speech and looked away. Whatever she was going to ask him was not easy to bring out. He supposed he must give her time, even if he had to hurry for the diligence. So he looked down in silence at the sundial, which assured him in its antiquated French "Icy ne verras que les heures sans nuages," though a later hand had scrawled on the copper of the dial the cynical proviso, "Si de telles heures existent!"
Suddenly it came out, in a voice that shook. "Is it really true that it was all done for me?"