"Why?" repeated Commines.
"Because of its silences, its coldness, its inhumanity—no, not inhumanity, its inhumanness. In Valmy no man sings; in Valmy few men laugh. When they speak they say little and their eyes are always afraid. And they are afraid; I see it, and I am growing afraid too."
"But half an hour ago you were singing?"
"But I am only nine days in Valmy. And sometimes when I sing I remember where I am and stop suddenly. It is as indecent as if one sang in the house of the dead. Soon I shall always remember and not sing at all. And I do not wonder that few men laugh."
"Why?" asked Commines for the third time. This was a new side to Stephen La Mothe and one that in the King's service—not forgetting his own—should not be ignored. Often in his career he had seen a well-laid plan miscarry because some seeming triviality was ignored. Was it not one of Louis' aphorisms that life held nothing really trivial?
"Because it is a house of the living dead."
"For God's sake, Stephen, hush. If the King heard you speak of his feebleness in such a way there would be a sudden end to both you and your service."
"The King? But I don't mean the King. I mean——" He paused as if searching for a comprehensive word or phrase, and presently he found it. "I mean the justice of the King."
"Well?" Commines' throat seemed suddenly to have gone dry, so that the word came harshly. Within the hour the King had used the same phrase, and the coincidence startled him unpleasantly.
But La Mothe made no immediate reply. To answer the little jerked-cut dry interrogatory in concise words was not easy. He knew his own meaning clearly enough, but how was he to make it equally clear to Commines, who was plainly unsympathetic? When at last he spoke it was with a hesitation which was almost an apology.