“Which, monsieur?”
“Why, to meet you here to-night.”
“Well, M. de Duras, unexpected pleasures are always the sweetest; but why should the pleasure be unexpected?”
“Why——?” stammered the old fellow—“Well, monsieur, it was rumoured that you were in Germany.”
“Ah! it was rumoured that I was in Germany—well, Rumour has told a lie for the first time. Ah, Sartines, you see I have kept my promise; how are you this evening—charmingly, I hope?”
Rochefort had recovered his spirits. The sight of Camus, the Fontrailles, Chon, and Jean Dubarry all in one group laughing and talking together, had clinched the business with him and given the last blow to his half-dead passion for Camille Fontrailles. But a dead passion makes fine combustible material when it is bound together with wounded pride. This dead passion of Rochefort’s burst into flame like a lit tar-barrel, and his anger against the Dubarry group became furiously alive and the next worse thing to hatred.
“Hush, my dear fellow,” said de Sartines, drawing him aside. “I do not know what has driven you to this mad act, but at least remember that I am your friend. You have kept no promise to me. I could not help receiving your letter; had I been in communication with you, I would have been the first to warn you against what you have done.”
“And you know perfectly well,” replied Rochefort, “that I have never taken warnings—or at least only once, when I was foolish enough to take a cell in that rat-haunted old barrack of Vincennes at your advice, instead of facing Choiseul like a man.”
“Facing Choiseul like a man! And what do you expect from that?”
“I expect that he will listen to reason, hear my story, which I would have told him had he not tried to arrest me as I was just starting to Paris to keep an appointment, and release me.”