“That’s a good one, ha! ha! ha!... Me!... concocting!... Why me?”
“Well,” said Peyrol carelessly, “there are not many of us to carry out treacheries about here. The women are gone upstairs; Michel is down at the tartane. There’s me, and you would not dare suspect me of treachery. Well, there remains only you.”
Scevola roused himself. “This is not much of a jest,” he said. “I have been a treason-hunter. I....”
He checked that strain. He was full of purely emotional suspicions. Peyrol was talking like this only to annoy him and to get him out of the way; but in the particular state of his feelings Scevola was acutely aware of every syllable of these offensive remarks. “Aha,” he thought to himself, “he doesn’t mention the lieutenant.” This omission seemed to the patriot of immense importance. If Peyrol had not mentioned the lieutenant it was because those two had been plotting some treachery together, all the afternoon on board that tartane. That’s why nothing had been seen of them for the best part of the day. As a matter of fact, Scevola too had observed Peyrol returning to the farm in the evening, only he had observed him from another window than Arlette. This was a few minutes before his attempt to open the lieutenant’s door, in order to find out whether Réal was in his room. He had tiptoed away, uncertain, and going into the kitchen had found only Catherine and Peyrol there. Directly Arlette joined them a sudden inspiration made him run upstairs and try the door again. It was open now! A clear proof that it was Arlette who had been locked up in there. The discovery that she made herself at home like this in the lieutenant’s room gave Scevola such a sickening shock that he thought he would die of it. It was beyond doubt now that the lieutenant had been conspiring with Peyrol down on board that tartane; for what else could they have been doing there. But why had not Réal come up in the evening with Peyrol? Scevola asked himself, sitting on the bench with his hands clasped between his knees.... “It’s their cunning,” he concluded suddenly. “Conspirators always avoid being seen together. Ha!”
It was as if somebody had let off a lot of fireworks in his brain. He was illuminated, dazzled, confused, with a hissing in his ears and showers of sparks before his eyes. When he raised his head he saw he was alone. Peyrol had vanished. Scevola seemed to remember that he had heard somebody pronounce the word “Good-night” and the door of the salle slam. And sure enough the door of the salle was shut now. A dim light shone in the window that was next to it. Peyrol had extinguished three of the lamp flames, and was now reclining on one of the long tables with that faculty of accommodating himself to a plank an old sea-dog never loses. He had decided to remain below simply to be handy, and he didn’t lie down on one of the benches along the wall because they were too narrow. He left one wick burning, so that the lieutenant should know where to look for him, and he was tired enough to think that he would snatch a couple of hours’ sleep before Réal could return from Toulon. He settled himself with one arm under his head as if he were on the deck of a privateer, and it never occurred to him that Scevola was looking through the panes; but they were so small and dusty that the patriot could see nothing. His movement had been purely instinctive. He wasn’t even aware that he had looked in. He went away from there, walked to the end of the building, spun round and walked back again to the other end; and it was as if he had been afraid of going beyond the wall against which he reeled sometimes. Conspiracy, conspiracy, he thought. He was now absolutely certain that the lieutenant was still hiding in that tartane, and was only waiting till all was quiet to sneak back to his room in which Scevola had proof positive that Arlette was in the habit of making herself at home. To rob him of his right to Arlette was part of the conspiracy, no doubt.
“Have I been a slave to those two women, have I waited all those years, only to see that corrupt creature go off infamously with a ci-devant, with a conspiring aristocrat?”
He became giddy with virtuous fury. There was enough evidence there for any revolutionary tribunal to cut all their heads off. Tribunal! There was no tribunal! No revolutionary justice! No patriots! He hit his shoulder against the wall in his distress with such force that he rebounded. This world was no place for patriots.
“If I had betrayed myself in the kitchen they would have murdered me in there.”
As it was he thought that he had said too much. Too much. “Prudence! Caution!” he repeated to himself, gesticulating with both arms. Suddenly he stumbled, and there was an amazing metallic clatter made by something that fell at his feet.
“They are trying to kill me now,” he thought, shaking with fright. He gave himself up for dead. Profound silence reigned all round. Nothing more happened. He stooped fearfully to look and recognized his own stable fork lying on the ground. He remembered he had left it at noon leaning against the wall. His own foot had made it fall. He threw himself upon it greedily. “Here’s what I need,” he muttered feverishly. “I suppose that by now the lieutenant would think I am gone to bed.”