“But it will be wiser,” said he, “not to go there now. When I return. . . . You see, he might make difficulties about my visiting Paris at all. So I will write to him. . . .”
He would not accept Mlle de la Vergne’s pearls, though he thought it sublime of her to offer them. He had plenty of money, he said. And he settled to start next day. Artamène tried to salve his own fierce dejection by resolving to accompany him part of the way.
But, perhaps from the excitement of these deliberations, the Chevalier de la Vergne’s arm became unexpectedly painful during the night. It was out of the question for him even to leave his bed next morning, and, for once in his life, he did not seem wishful to do so. Roland’s offer to delay his departure was, however, declined by him. Mme de la Vergne, supposing their young guest to be setting off for Kerlidec—a point on which he did not undeceive her—hoped that he would visit them again, and when he asked if he might pay his parting respects to Mlle de la Vergne (having already taken a bedside farewell of her brother), replied rather absently that she was probably in the poultry-yard, and that if M. de Céligny would give himself the trouble. . . . For her thoughts were not at the moment with an unchaperoned daughter and what a susceptible young man might say to her ere he rode away, but with her son in pain upstairs, and whether the surgeon really understood his case, and if the constant poulticing he had ordered were right. Besides—though this even the inquiring mind of Artamène had never come near guessing—there existed a certain understanding between her and M. de Carné on the subject of Roland and Marthe.
Roland was off before the permission could be revoked. But Mlle de la Vergne was not in the poultry yard, though matters connected with her pensioners had drawn her to the spot where he found her, the miniature bridge which spanned the little stream winding through the grounds. From this she was watching with some anxiety the first voyage of a brood of ducklings down that St. Lawrence. Roland was stabbed to the heart. He was going to danger, to prison perhaps, for her—and her mind was set on ducklings!
Erect and noble (so he hoped—at any rate booted and spurred) the young man walked towards the bridge. Directly she turned, the surprise and concern on her face healed him.
“What! you are going already, Monsieur de Céligny! I thought it was not to be for another hour, and that you were closeted with Artamène . . . and I might have missed wishing you Godspeed because of these wretched little adventurers!”
“Ah no, Mademoiselle!” said Roland. “Do you think I should have gone like that? I have need of all the benedictions you can give me.”
And what she gave him satisfied him fully—only a look, but a look so charged with meaning—and both her hands. There on the tiny bridge he raised them with reverence and joy to his lips. Her silence, her faint flush, her movement of surrender, whether it were ultimate or no, dubbed him indeed her knight, going to the ogre’s castle with her colours on his helm—invincible indeed, and supremely blest to serve at once his lady and his King.
And unregarded, in that high moment, went the indignant comments of the little yellow navigator under their very feet, who was finding the stream on which his inexperience had embarked of an unlooked-for strength and volume.