"I rejoice to know it." After which, changing the subject, he said: "Affinius is on his way here. But this you know. He may arrive at any moment. Then also, at any moment, the time for action will begin."
"I deemed as much. Well! what are the plans?"
"I go to Normandy. You to Paris."
"Ah! 'Tis there I would be. Ah! the happy day. But--you! To Normandy? What then of----" with a scornful, bitter intonation, "Madame la Duchesse!"
"She sets out for Geneva and thence across the St. Bernard, accompanied by Mademoiselle d'Angelis and Humphrey West, there to meet her sister. With her go Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury. Brutes, without doubt! yet savage, ferocious ones. Good swordsmen both and reckless. I am not wanted here and I am wanted there" nodding his head in the direction where he supposed--or perhaps, knew--Normandy might happen to be.
"What is Affinius to tell us?"
"Everything he dared not write in his letter to De Beaurepaire. The remaining money that Spain puts at our disposal, the hour when the Dutch fleet will attack, which is again to be made known by an arranged piece of false news on the subject of the King's creation of two more new marshals. The time when the Norman gentlemen are to rise and also be ready to admit the Dutch and Spanish to Quillebeuf."
"And he? De Beaurepaire?"
"Sangdieu! he is then to declare himself. Our old Norman aristocracy will accept a man of high lineage as their leader. Louise----"
"Ha! What? Hsh."