Her own colour faded a little as she met his eyes. And then with courage, she answered, “No, Roland, I am afraid he might not. He is, as you know . . . very proud. But it is not as if he personally would have a hand in it. A wife’s mortal anxiety will excuse anything. I should go as one woman—as one wife—to another . . . an independent step.”
“Shall you tell M. de Trélan of it this afternoon?” asked Roland, with his eyes on the floor.
Valentine did not answer for a moment. “But in that case I could not say truthfully that he knew nothing of it—which I should wish to be able to say. Advise me, Roland!”
“O Madame, how can I presume to advise you in a matter that concerns only you and him. You know so much better what he would wish than I do!”
And Valentine sat silent, looking at him, her face drawn, the red rivulet of fire across her hands.
“Roland, what you really mean is that I know what he would not wish!”
“Yes, Madame,” answered the boy in a very low voice.
Valentine caught her underlip. “You have your father in you, there is no doubt,” she thought to herself, and as she bent over the stones a tear fell on to the possible price of blood. For the worst of it was that she knew Roland was right.
She lifted her head again. “Then I shall speak of it to him—ask his permission. . . . And I think, Roland, that I will go and prepare now. It is very early to start, but it is a long way to the Temple, and we could walk part of it. It is so hard to sit still.”
As she came downstairs again, dressed for the street, she was thinking of the man who had put the rubies into her hands that strange day at Mirabel. Ah, that the Abbé Chassin were here now! he who had always been at hand in difficulties, and who now, at the most critical time of all, was over the sea. But even he, as she knew, could do no more than was being done.