“I have told monsieur what every one in the duchy knows; there’s no charge for that. For what more his Highness and—and those in his Highness’s confidence know,” he drew himself up with brusque importance, “there’s no price, monsieur.”
“Body o’ me, here’s pride and vainglory!” answered the other. “But I know you, my fine Pergot, I knew you almost too well years ago; and then you were not so sensitive; then you were a good Royalist like me, Pergot.”
This time he fastened the man’s look with his own and held it until Pergot dropped his head before it.
“I don’t remember monsieur,” he answered, perturbed.
“Of course not. The fine Pergot has a bad memory, like a good Republican, who by law cannot worship his God, or make the sign of the Cross, or, ask the priest to visit him when he’s dying. A red Revolutionist is our Pergot now!”
“I’m as good a Royalist as monsieur,” retorted the man with some asperity. “So are most of us. Only—only his Highness says to us—”
“Don’t gossip of what his Highness says, but do his bidding, Pergot. What a fool are you to babble thus! How d’ye know but I’m one of Fouche’s or Barere’s men? How d’ye know but there are five hundred men beyond waiting for my whistle?”
The man changed instantly. His hand was at his side like lightning. “They’d never hear that whistle, monsieur, though you be Vaufontaine or no Vaufontaine!”
The other, smiling, reached out and touched him on the shoulder kindly.
“My dear Frange Pergot,” said he, “that’s the man I knew once, and the sort of man that’s been fighting with me for the Church and for the King these months past in the Vendee. Come, come, don’t you know me, Pergot? Don’t you remember the scapegrace with whom, for a jape, you waylaid my uncle the Cardinal and robbed him, then sold him back his jewelled watch for a year’s indulgences?”