“The noise of your departure awakened me,” he said to the young girl. “So I have come to claim my compensation––the pleasure of seeing you––”
“Depart!” she laughed quickly.
Momentarily disconcerted, he turned to the soldier. “You ride early.”
“As you see,” returned the other, immovably.
“A habit contracted in the army, no doubt!” retorted Mauville, recovering his easy self-possession. “Well, a bumping trunk is as efficacious as a bugle 86 call! But au revoir, Miss Carew; for we may meet again. The world is broad––yet its highways are narrow! There is no need wishing you a pleasant journey.”
His glance rested on Saint-Prosper for a moment, but told nothing beyond the slight touch of irony in his words and then shifting to the young girl, it lingered upon each detail of costume and outline of feature. Before she could reply, Barnes cracked his whip, the horses sprang forward, and the stable boy, a confused tangle of legs and arms, was shot as from a catapult among the sweet-williams. The abrupt departure of the chariot was the cue for the property wagon, which followed with some labor and jolting, like a convoy struggling in the wake of a pretentious ship. From the door Mauville watched it until it reached a toll-gate, passed beneath the portcullis and disappeared into the broad province of the wilderness.