“Sir Count de Chavigni, I beg you would mark me,” replied De Blenau. “You are one of the King’s Council—a gentleman of good repute, and so forth; but there is not that love between us that we should be seen taking our evening’s walk together, unless, indeed, it were for the purpose of using our weapons more than our tongues.”
“Indeed, Monsieur de Blenau,” rejoined Chavigni, his lip curling into a smile which partook more of good humour than scorn, though, perhaps, mingled somewhat of each—“indeed you do not do me justice; I love you better than you know, and may have an opportunity of doing you a good turn some day, whether you will or not. So with your leave I walk with you, for we both seek the Queen.”
De Blenau was provoked. “Must I tell you, Sir,” exclaimed he, “that your company is disagreeable to me?—that I do not like the society of men who herd with robbers and assassins?”
“Psha!” exclaimed Chavigni, somewhat peevishly. “Captious boy, you’ll get yourself into the Bastille some day, where you would have been long ago, had it not been for me.”
“When you tell me, Sir, how such obligations have been incurred,” answered the Count, “I shall be happy to acknowledge them.”
“Why, twenty times, Monsieur de Blenau, you have nearly been put there,” replied Chavigni, with that air of candour which it is very difficult to affect when it is not genuine. “Your hot and boiling spirit, Sir, is always running you into danger. Notwithstanding all your late wounds, a little bleeding, even now, would not do you any harm. Here the first thing you do is to quarrel with a man who has served you, is disposed to serve you, and of whose service you may stand in need within five minutes.
“But to give you proof at once that what I advance is more than a mere jest—Do you think that your romantic expedition to Languedoc escaped me? Monsieur de Blenau, you start, as if you dreamed that in such a country as this, and under such an administration, any thing could take place without being known to some member of the government. No, no, Sir! there are many people in France, even now, who think they are acting in perfect security, because no notice is apparently taken of the plans they are forming, or the intrigues they are carrying on; while, in reality, the hundred eyes of Policy are upon their every action, and the sword is only suspended over their heads, that it may eventually fall with more severity.”
“You surprise me, I own,” replied De Blenau, “by showing me that you are acquainted with an adventure, which I thought buried in my own bosom, or only confided to one equally faithful to me.”
“You mean your Page,” said Chavigni, with the same easy tone in which he had spoken all along. “You have no cause to doubt him. He has never betrayed you (at least to my knowledge). But these things come about very simply, without treachery on any part. The stag never flies so fast, nor the hare doubles so often, but they leave a scent behind them for the dogs to follow,—and so it is with the actions of man; conceal them as he will, there is always some trace by which they may be discovered; and it is no secret to any one, now-a-days, that there are people in every situation of life, in every town of France, paid to give information of all that happens; so that the schemes must be well concealed indeed, which some circumstance does not discover. I see, you shake your head, as if you disapproved of the principle.
“De Blenau, you and I are engaged in different parties. You act firmly convinced of the rectitude of your own cause—Do me the justice to believe that I do the same. You hate the Minister—I admire him, and feel fully certain that all he does is for the good of the State. On the other hand, I applaud your courage, your devotion to the cause you have espoused, and your proud unbending spirit—and I would bring you to the scaffold to-morrow, if I thought it would really serve the party to which I am attached.”