“True for you,” replied Beau-Pied, “and you may add that she gives pretty good cider—but I can’t drink it in peace till I know what’s behind those devilish hedges. I always remember poor Larose and Vieux-Chapeau rolling down the ditch at La Pelerine. I shall recollect Larose’s queue to the end of my days; it went hammering down like the knocker of a front door.”
“Beau-Pied, my friend; you have too much imagination for a soldier; you ought to be making songs at the national Institute.”
“If I’ve too much imagination,” retorted Beau-Pied, “you haven’t any; it will take you some time to get your degree as consul.”
A general laugh put an end to the discussion, for Clef-des-Coeurs found no suitable reply in his pouch with which to floor his adversary.
“Come and make our rounds; I’ll go to the right,” said Beau-Pied.
“Very good, I’ll take the left,” replied his comrade. “But stop one minute, I must have a glass of cider; my throat is glued together like the oiled-silk of Hulot’s best hat.”
The left bank of the gardens, which Clef-des-Coeurs thus delayed searching at once, was, unhappily, the dangerous slope where Francine had seen the moving line of men. All things go by chance in war.
As Gerard entered the salon and bowed to the company he cast a penetrating eye on the men who were present. Suspicions came forcibly to his mind, and he went at once to Mademoiselle de Verneuil and said in a low voice: “I think you had better leave this place immediately. We are not safe here.”
“What can you fear while I am with you?” she answered, laughing. “You are safer here than you would be at Mayenne.”
A woman answers for her lover in good faith. The two officers were reassured. The party now moved into the dining-room after some discussion about a guest, apparently of some importance, who had not appeared. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was able, thanks to the silence which always reigns at the beginning of a meal, to give some attention to the character of the assemblage, which was curious enough under existing circumstances. One thing struck her with surprise. The Republican officers seemed superior to the rest of the assembly by reason of their dignified appearance. Their long hair tied behind in a queue drew lines beside their foreheads which gave, in those days, an expression of great candor and nobleness to young heads. Their threadbare blue uniforms with the shabby red facings, even their epaulets flung back behind their shoulders (a sign throughout the army, even among the leaders, of a lack of overcoats),—all these things brought the two Republican officers into strong relief against the men who surrounded them.