"Well," thought the young man, leaning against the foot of the stairs and feeling a kind of pleasant moisture about his own eyelids, "at least I have never claimed not to be a sentimentalist. How long shall I give them?"
M. Perrelet stayed to supper, which his presence somehow enlivened into quite a cheerful meal. He was very hopeful, on what grounds could hardly be discovered. I wonder, thought Laurent once more, that he doesn't say, "I'm no optimist," and shortly afterwards, to his delight, the old surgeon did remark, "Of course I'm not one to take an unduly rosy view of things!" And Laurent himself again besought Aymar to call him as a witness, and when Aymar enquired "as a witness to what?" asseverated anew that he should not be contented till du Tremblay knew what he owed him over the cipher business—till they all knew it.
"My dear Laurent," observed L'Oiseleur a little drily, "you surely do not expect me to bring it forward as a merit that I did not betray a comrade's plans when it was suggested to me to do so!"
"Of course you would never have done it voluntarily! But I wonder how many people, in your condition, could to the very last have kept their heads sufficiently not to show so much as assent or dissent when that blackguard narrowed the issue down to a single question—that vital question of the crossing of the river?"
"Nobody who had not a will of steel," pronounced M. Perrelet.
"There you are!" cried Laurent. "There is evidence—indirect, if you like—as to intention and character. Oh, I could make it very plain to those gentlemen if I had the chance!"
Aymar shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid your desire will not be gratified, mon cher; and I am afraid that I don't want it gratified so publicly."
"It's a great waste," sighed the champion stubbornly. "And it is of no good to depreciate testimony of that kind, because you see that it is 'without a shred of real evidence,' as M. de la Boëssière would say, that you have converted"—he grinned—"a hard-headed, unemotional, scientific man like M. Perrelet from his temporary unbelief!"
(7)
The scientific man in question becoming very high-handed after supper, and ordering his ex-patient to bed, Laurent went forth to hunt up a couple of acquaintances whom he had seen as they came back from the Hôtel de Ville. He found them, as he expected, at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson and, knowing Aymar to be in excellent hands, went in with them and called for wine.