“Take you with me! My dear fellow, you are asking what is quite impossible.”
“Why?”
“Why—well, to be frank with you, it is necessary for me to stand well with Choiseul, and if I were to do that I would damage my position at Court.”
“What I like about you,” said Rochefort, “is your perfect frankness. Another man would have excused himself, said that he had already invited a friend, and so forth; but you state your own selfish reason, and that is precisely what I would have done in your place. Well, I can assure you that you will not damage your position in the least. First of all, I am going to make peace with Choiseul; secondly, if I fail, you can tell him that the whole fault was mine and that you understood from me that I had put myself right with him. I will bear you out in that. There is no danger to you, and think what fun it will be to see his face when I appear.”
Chartres hung on this fascinating prospect for a moment.
“All the same,” said he, “I think, in your own interests, you are wrong—the whole thing is mad.”
“So is the whole situation, my dear man. I want to get a word alone with Choiseul. I cannot reach him in any other way. If I went to see him at Versailles I would be taken by the guards and I would only see him across drawn swords. If I went to interview him at his house the concierge would pass me to the major-domo, and the major-domo would show me into a waiting-room, and Choiseul, ten to one, when he heard I had called, would order my arrest without even seeing me. No. This reception of his was arranged by Fate for me, of that I feel sure, as sure as I am that I will make things even with Camus before to-morrow.”
“You seem to count a good deal on Fate, yet it seems to me she has not treated you very kindly.”
“Ah,” said Rochefort, laughing, “that is because you do not know how she treated me in the Castle of Vincennes. I assure you, I have made entire friends with the lady——” He paused for a moment and then looked up at Chartres.
“When we talk of Fate, my friend, we always refer to our own persons and fortunes; when we receive a buffet in life we never consider that the shock may come to us, not directly from Fate, but indirectly as the result of a blow struck at some other person, just as at the Lycée Louis le Grand, one boy would strike another so that he would fall against the next, and he against the next. Well, Fate in this case is decidedly on my side, since she protected me till now at Vincennes and gave me my release on the day of Choiseul’s reception, and threw me into your arms in the Rue Malaquais. If she is with me she cannot be with the persons who are against me, that is to say, Camus and the Fontrailles, if she cares for Camus.