“You do love Monsieur de Rochefort,” finished Lavenne, with a laugh.
Javotte flushed, her eyes sparkled, as though the words had been an insult, then she calmed down.
“Perhaps you are right, monsieur, perhaps you are wrong. In any case, my feelings have nothing to do with the matter.”
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne, “you are right. I have been indiscreet. Let us forget it—and accept my apology. Now, as to this letter. May I ask you to tell me its contents?”
“I can do better, monsieur, I can show you the letter itself.”
She took the letter from her breast and handed it to Lavenne, who spread it open on the table before him and began to read, his elbows upon the table and his head between the palms of his hands.
It was a terrible document for Choiseul to have put his name to. Written in a moment of fury immediately after the presentation of Madame Dubarry, it consisted of only twelve lines. Yet it told of the failure of his plot against Dubarry, and it spoke of the King in a sentence that was at once indecent and almost treasonable.
“Mordieu!” said Lavenne. “What a letter! What a letter! What a letter!” He glanced at the back of it, then he cast his eyes again over the contents.
It will be remembered that Choiseul was the enemy of Sartines, and that the overthrow of Choiseul was, at that moment, the central desire of the heart of Sartines. Lavenne knew this fact, and he knew that the weapon lying before him on the table was of so deadly a nature, that were he to hand it to his master, both honour and money would be handed to him in return; he was no opportunist, however, nor could the prospects of personal advantage blind him to the fact that the weapon before him on the table was not his to sell. It belonged to Javotte. To serve Rochefort, she had sullied her integrity by opening Choiseul’s letter; trusting to Lavenne, she had brought him the letter, and not a man, perhaps, in the Hôtel de Sartines other than Lavenne but would have put her off with promises or threats and carried the letter to his master, after the fashion of a dog retrieving game.
But Lavenne was not a common man. With a villain, he would use every art and subtlety; but with the straightforward and simple, he was always honest and straightforward. Your modern police or political agent is supposed to be a man who excels in his profession according to his capacity for the detection of crime; this is but a half truth, for the detection of innocence is just as important to the police agent, and to feel the innocence in others one requires a mind that can attune itself to innocence as well as to villainy. A mind, in other words, that can keep its freshness, even though its possessor dwells on the dust-heap of crime.