He looked from one to the other, with his melancholy and self-deprecating smile.
“Voila” he added; “it remains for me to pay my respects to Madame de Chantonnay. We have travelled far, and I am tired. I shall ask her to excuse me.”
“And Monsieur de Bourbon comes to Gemosac. That is understood. He will be safe there. His apartments have been in readiness for him these last two months. Hidden there, or in other dwellings—grander and better served, perhaps, than my poor ruin, but no safer—he can continue the great work he began so well last winter. As for you, my dear Colville,” continued the Marquis, taking the Englishman’s two hands in his, “I envy you from the bottom of my heart. It is not given to many to serve France as you have served her—to serve a King as you have served one. It will be my business to see that both remember you. For France, I allow, sometimes forgets. Go to Royan, since you wish—but it is only for a time. You will be called to Paris some day, that I promise you.”
The Marquis would have embraced him then and there, had the cool-blooded Englishman shown the smallest desire for that honour. But Dormer Colville’s sad and doubting smile held at arms’ length one who was always at the mercy of his own eloquence.
The card tables had lost their attraction; and, although many parties were formed, and the cards were dealt, the players fell to talking across the ungathered tricks, and even the Abbé Touvent was caught tripping in the matter of a point.
“Never,” exclaimed Madame de Chantonnay, as her guests took leave at their wonted hour, and some of them even later—“never have I had a Thursday so dull and yet so full of incident.”
“And never, madame,” replied the Marquis, still on tiptoe, as it were, with delight and excitement, “shall we see another like it.”
Loo went back to Gemosac with the fluttering old man and Juliette. Juliette, indeed, was in no flutter, but had carried herself through the excitement of her first evening party with a demure little air of self-possession.
She had scarce spoken to Loo during the evening. Indeed, it had been his duty to attend on Madame de Chantonnay and on the older members of these quiet Royalist families biding their time in the remote country villages of Guienne and the Vendée.
On the journey home, the Marquis had so much to tell his companion, and told it so hurriedly, that his was the only voice heard above the rattle of the heavy, old-fashioned carriage. But Barebone was aware of Juliette’s presence in a dark corner of the roomy vehicle, and his eyes, seeking to penetrate the gloom, could just distinguish hers, which seemed to be turned in his direction.