"What does one expect from a republic?" demanded the Count.
"I have served both the republic and the empire, but I always served France!" replied the General. "The army will hold. Madame Ribot, pack such things as you need. Rest perfectly assured. I am at your service."
"And I shall have my trap here to take you to the first train. It goes at seven," said the Count, with a side glance of triumph at the General, who had no conveyance. "I have some influence and I shall see that you have a place—and I shall drive you myself."
Madame Ribot, completely reassured, gratified that she had not taken down her hair for the night and not unconscious that a dressing-gown became her well, smiled at the Count with a charming gratitude.
"You take it all so calmly, Madame, as I knew you would," he said. "Like a true Frenchwoman. It is women who are brave, not men."
The General was tugging at his moustache. Thanks to one dilapidated old trap, he who had led charges in '70 and fought from Gravelotte to Paris was holding a small hand; but he was still a strategist, who now had a Napoleonic flash of initiative.
"Madame, while as a soldier I think there is no danger," he said, "I feel it my duty to remain at the chateau overnight, so that you will know I am near in case there should be an unexpected crisis which in time of war only a soldier knows how to face. I shall take forty winks on the sofa here as I have done many times in my tent on campaign. Ah, those days! And you will find me here in the morning," he concluded, turning triumphantly to the Count.
Ever impartial, Madame Ribot now bestowed her smile on the General.
"But Madame is not afraid," put in the Count. "I fear she will take your offer, General, as an indication that she is."
"On the contrary," said Madame Ribot, "it takes crises like this to prove what good neighbours one has. You have assured my reaching the station"—with a smile to the Count—"and you have assured that some one is on guard," with a smile to the General.