But now, for the first time, fortune turned in the Marquis's favor, though I fear it seemed to that zealous patriot a poor crumb of consolation that she threw.
Instead of finding, as our betrayer had calculated, a crew of suspicious-looking adventurers, he beheld a small party of middle-aged gentlemen attired in evening clothes and anxious only to find their way home again; and, to add to our good luck, when they came to look for our case of arms and ammunition it appeared that the Marquis had forgotten to bring it. Also, these same elderly gentlemen showed a very marked disinclination to have their share in the adventure appear in the morning papers, even in the capacity of witnesses.
And, finally, as the French government had been informed of our plans for some weeks past, so that we were absolutely powerless for mischief, the police decided to overlook my share altogether and make a merely formal matter of my friend's arrest.
“What will my King say?” cried the poor Marquis. “Oh, d'Haricot, I am disgraced, and my honor is lost! Tell me not that I am unfortunate; for what difference does that make? Such misfortunes must not be survived! Adieu, my friend! Pardon my suspicions!”
Before I could prevent him, the unfortunate man quickly thrust his hand into his pistol-pocket, and in that same instant would have blown out those ingenious, unpractical brains. But, with a fresh look of despair, he stopped, petrified, his hand still in his pocket.
“My revolver also is forgotten!” he exclaimed. “I am neither capable of living nor of dying!”
“Thank Heaven who mislaid that pistol,” I replied. “Had you forgotten your bride, too?”
“Mon Dieu! I had! I thank you for reminding me. Ah, yes, I have some consolation in life left, me!”
But though the Marchioness no doubt consoled him later, she was at that moment in anything but a sympathetic mood.
“Well, my dear,” I overheard the General saying to her, “as you make your bed so you must lie in it. This—er—Marquis, doesn't he call himself?—of yours hasn't started very brilliantly, but, I dare say, by the time he has been before the magistrate and cooled down, and had a shave and so forth, he will do better. I shouldn't let him mix himself up in any more of these plots of his, though, if I were you.”