CHAPTER XI.
THE MARQUISE TELLS A STORY.
It was a vastly different repast from that of the Bishop of Lodève's which was offered to St. Georges, although the difference consisted more, perhaps, in the manner of cooking and serving than in aught else. The wine, which was excellent—though no better than that last bottle from the old Clos—did not come in at the end, but cheered the fasting and wayworn man from the commencement; the viands were in good condition and properly prepared; the soup was not dishwater, but of a good, sufficient quality. Moreover, here, as in the great salon, a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth, instead of the spluttering, snow-soaked logs that had hissed and smoked in Phélypeaux's house. Also, he had for company two women, each beautiful according to her time of life—women soft, gentle, and well bred—instead of the cynical bishop of whom all France told strange tales.
Sitting there, his eyes resting sometimes on the budding loveliness of Aurélie de Roquemaure, sometimes on the mellowed sweetness of the face of the marquise, St. Georges forced himself to discard from his mind the thought which he had now come to deem unworthy—the thought that treachery lurked in their bosoms against him—that, though the present marquis might be the man who had led the foul and despicable attack on him in the graveyard at Aignay-le-Duc, they had had part or share in it. For, he told himself, to believe this was to believe that there was no faith nor honesty in womankind.
Yet one thing, at the commencement of the meal, and when the old servant and another had withdrawn from the room, had almost served to keep his suspicions alive. The marquise—as far as a woman of rank and high breeding might do so—had asked him many questions about himself, while Aurélie, following the rigidness which prevailed in French life of the time, sat by, a silent listener, scarce joining in the conversation at all.
And St. Georges, moved perhaps by the company in which he found himself, and, soldier-like, scorning to conceal any part of his history except that which he deemed absolutely necessary—he making no reference whatever to the name of De Vannes—told them much of his existence. His career in Holland until the peace; his lonely life in garrison; his marriage with a young girl, a daughter of the middle classes; her death, and the little child she had left to his care, were all touched upon by him and listened to attentively—indeed, absorbingly. And so, at last, he came to the summons to Paris, to his setting forth, to his stay at Dijon, and the attack made upon him and Boussac.
To both women this portion of his narrative caused great excitement. For, stately as the marquise was, environed, so to speak, by all the dignity of the haute noblesse of the days of the Great King, she could not prevent her agitation from being apparent to him. Her white, jewelled hand quivered as she raised it to her breast; her eyes sparkled as they might have sparkled when she was her daughter's age; while, as for that daughter, her bosom rose and fell with her rapid breathing, her colour came and went—once she was as pale as death, the next moment her face suffused.
"The cowards!" exclaimed the marquise; "the base, cowardly dogs, to attack two men thus, and one hampered with a defenceless child! Quel tour de lâche! Oh! sir, I would to God your brand or that of your brave companion had struck the poltroon, the craven who sheltered himself behind his visor, his death blow! I would to God one of your swords had found out his heart as they found out the hearts of his mercenaries!"