"What have you there?" said the Prefect, so quietly that his companions did not even suspect him of a suspicion.
"A shelter—an old hovel where wood is stored for the winter," Monsieur Joseph answered truthfully; but his cheeks and eyes brightened a little, as if prepared for something more.
"Ah!" the Prefect only said, looking rather fixedly that way. "And where is this view of Lancilly?"
Both the uncle and nephew breathed more freely as they led him up the hill, through higher slopes of wood, then under some great branching oaks, here allowed to grow to their full size, and out into a rugged lane, winding on through wild hedges festooned with blackberries. Here, at the top, they looked straight across the valley to Lancilly, as it lay in the sunshine. Its high roofs flashing, it looked indeed the majestic centre of the country-side. Angelot gazed at it indifferently. Again the Prefect turned to him with his kind smile.
"It will be charming for you to have your cousins there. They will reconcile you to the powers that be."
Angelot answered: "I have no quarrel with the powers that be, monsieur, as long as you represent them. As to life, I want no change. Give me a gun and set me on a moor with my uncle. There we are!"
"If I thought your uncle was quite so easily satisfied!" the Prefect said, and his look, as he turned to Monsieur Joseph, was a little enigmatical.