Valmond, no longer fantastic in dress, speech, or manner, was happy, busy, buoyed up and cast down by turn, troubled, exhilarated. He could not understand these variations of health and mood. He had not felt equably well since the night of Gabriel’s burial in the miasmic air of the mountain. At times he felt a wonderful lightness of head and heart, with entrancing hopes; again a heaviness and an aching, accompanied by a feeling of doom. He fought the depression, and appeared before his men cheerful and alert always. He was neither looking back nor looking forward, but living in his dramatic theme from day to day, and wondering if, after all, this movement, by some joyful, extravagant chance, might not carry him on even to the chambers of the Tuileries.
From the first day that he had gathered these peasants about him, had convinced, almost against their will, the wise men of the village, this fanciful exploit had been growing a deep reality to him. He had convinced himself; he felt that he could, in a larger sphere, gather thousands about him where he now gathered scores—with a good cause. Well, was his cause not good, he asked himself?
There were others to whom this growing reality was painful. The young Seigneur was serious enough about it, and more than once, irritated and perturbed, he sought Madame Chalice; but she gave him no encouragement, remarking coldly that Monsieur Valmond probably knew very well what he was doing, and was weighing all consequences.
She had become interested in a passing drama, and De la Riviere’s attentions produced no impression on her, and gave her no pleasure. They were, however, not obtrusive. She had seen much of him two years before; he had been a good friend of her husband. She was amused at his attentions then; she had little to occupy her, and she felt herself superior to any man’s emotions: not such as this young Seigneur could win her away from her passive but certain fealty. She had played with fire, from the very spirit of adventure in her, but she had not been burnt.
“You say he is an impostor, dear monsieur,” she said languidly: “do pray exert yourself, and prove him one. What is your evidence?”
She leaned back in the very chair where she had sat looking at Valmond a few weeks before, her fingers idly smoothing out the folds of her dress.
“Oh, the thing is impossible,” he answered, blowing the smoke of a cigarette; “we’ve had no real proof of his birth, and life—and so on.”
“But there are relics—and so on!” she said suggestively, and she picked up the miniature of the Emperor.
“Owning a skeleton doesn’t make it your ancestor,” he replied.
He laughed, for he was pleased at his own cleverness, and he also wished to remain good-tempered.