“He promised to go before the child wakes up.... At once.”
“But, sacré nom d’un chien, there is never any wind before eleven o’clock,” Peyrol exclaimed in a tone of profound annoyance, yet trying to moderate his voice, while Catherine, indulgent to his changing moods, only compressed her lips and nodded at him soothingly. “It is impossible to work with people like that,” he mumbled.
“Do you know, Monsieur Peyrol, that she has been to see the priest?” Catherine was heard suddenly towering above her end of the table. The two women had had a talk before Arlette had been induced by her aunt to lie down. Peyrol gave a start.
“What? Priest?... Now look here, Catherine,” he went on with repressed ferocity, “do you imagine that all this interests me in the least?”
“I can think of nothing but that niece of mine. We two have nobody but each other in the world,” she went on, reproducing the very phrase Arlette had used to Réal. She seemed to be thinking aloud, but noticed that Peyrol was listening with attention. “He wanted to shut her up from everybody,” and the old woman clasped her meagre hands with a sudden gesture. “I suppose there are still some convents about the world.”
“You and the patronne are mad together,” declared Peyrol. “All this only shows what an ass the curé is. I don’t know much about these things, though I have seen some nuns in my time, and some very queer ones too, but it seems to me that they don’t take crazy people into convents. Don’t you be afraid. I tell you that.” He stopped, because the inner door of the kitchen came open and Lieutenant Réal stepped in. His sword hung on his forearm by the belt, his hat was on his head. He dropped his little valise on the floor and sat down in the nearest chair to put on his shoes, which he had brought down in his other hand. Then he came up to the table. Peyrol, who had kept his eyes on him, thought: “Here is one who looks like a moth scorched in the fire.” Réal’s eyes were sunk, his cheeks seemed hollowed, and the whole face had an arid and dry aspect.
“Well, you are in a fine state for the work of deceiving the enemy,” Peyrol observed. “Why, to look at you, nobody would believe a word you said. You are not going to be ill, I hope. You are on service. You haven’t got the right to be ill. I say, Mademoiselle Catherine, produce the bottle, you know, my private bottle....” He snatched it from Catherine’s hand, poured some brandy into the lieutenant’s coffee, pushed the bowl towards him and waited. “Nom de nom!” he said forcibly, “don’t you know what this is for? It’s for you to drink.” Réal obeyed with a strange, automatic docility. “And now,” said Peyrol, getting up, “I will go to my room and shave. This is a great day—the day we are going to see the lieutenant off.”
Till then Réal had not uttered a word, but directly the door closed behind Peyrol he raised his head.
“Catherine!” His voice was like a rustle in his throat. She was looking at him steadily, and he continued: “Listen, when she finds I am gone you tell her I will return soon. To-morrow. Always to-morrow.”
“Yes, my good Monsieur,” said Catherine in an unmoved voice but clasping her hands convulsively. “There is nothing else I would dare tell her!”