Monsieur Bourdon rose, put on his hat with a drunken flourish, and went back to his friends. The major and Mrs. Lennard had been all this time staring aghast at the drunken Frenchman. He had spoken in a loud whisper to Eleanor, but neither Frederick Lennard nor his wife retained very much of that French which had been sedulously drilled into them during their school-days, and beyond ordering a dinner, or disputing with a landlord as to the unconscionable number of wax-candles in a month’s hotel bill, their knowledge of the language was very limited; so Eleanor had only to explain to her friends that Monsieur Bourdon was a person whom she had known in England, and that he had brought her some news of importance which she was to hear the following day in the gardens of the Palais Royal.
Mrs. Lennard, who was the soul of good-nature, readily assented to accompany Eleanor to this rendezvous.
“Of course I’ll go, my dear, with pleasure; and really I think it’s quite funny, and indeed actually romantic, to go and meet a tipsy Frenchman—at least, of course, he won’t be tipsy to-day—near a fountain; and it reminds me of a French novel I read once in English, which shows how true it must have been to foreign manners; but as the major knows we’re going, there’s no harm, you know,” Mrs. Lennard remarked, as they walked from the Hotel du Palais to the gardens. The diners were hard at work already at the cheap restaurants, and the brass band was braying lively melodies amidst the dusty trees and flowers, the lukewarm fountain, the children, the nursemaids, and the rather seedy-looking Parisian loungers. It was a quarter past five, for Mrs. Lennard had mislaid her parasol at the last moment, and there had been ten minutes employed in skirmish and search. Monsieur Victor Bourdon was sitting upon a bench near the fountain, but he rose and darted forward with his hat in his hand as the two ladies approached.
“I’ll go and look in the jewellers’ shops, Miss Villars,” Mrs. Lennard said, “while you’re talking to your friend; and please come and look for me when you want me. The major is to join us here, you know, at half-past six, and we’re to dine at Vèfours’. Good morning.”
Mrs. Leonard bestowed these final words upon the Frenchman, accompanied by a graceful curtsey, and departed. Victor Bourdon pointed to the bench which he had just left, and Eleanor sat down. The Frenchman seated himself next her, but at a respectful distance. Every trace of the tipsy excitement of the previous night had vanished. He was quite cool to-day; and there was a certain look of determination about his mouth, and a cold glitter in his light, greenish-grey eyes that did not promise well for any one against whom he might bear a grudge.
He spoke English to-day. He spoke it remarkably well, with only an occasional French locution.
“Madame,” he began, “I shall not waste time, but come at once to the point. You hate Launcelot Darrell?”
Eleanor hesitated. There is something terrible in that word “hate.” People entertain the deadly sentiment; but they shrink from its plain expression. The naked word is too appalling. It is the half-sister of murder.
“I have good reason to dislike him——” she began.
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders as he interrupted her.