He could talk, too, for that was an accomplishment necessitous to the friends and satellites of Prince Florizel, who hated nothing so much as being bored.
And it was no hard matter to talk to such gracious hostesses.
Madame was ready to smile, and be interested in everything he said, whilst little Cécile, seated demurely in the background with her embroidery, raised great eyes of wondering admiration to his again and again, though she would drop them quickly, with a dawning blush, when she found his gaze ever fixed upon her. As for Morice, he was living in a new world for the moment, and could hardly have fathomed his own feelings had he tried.
Were there two personalities within—one of which had but newly sprung to life?
He did not deem it possible at present, though he was vaguely conscious of the desire to be indeed Monsieur le Marquis de Varenac, and not Morice Conyers, member of a certain London Corresponding Society, friend of one Marcel Trouet, and burning advocate of the glorious and blood-thirsty Revolution.
Perhaps this faint stabbing of a drugged conscience was what made him so eager to talk of everything but the object that brought him to Brittany.
It was of England that he talked, of Gabrielle, of the long-dead mother, whom he but vaguely remembered. Of everything, indeed, excepting Breton woes and Breton hopes.
It was not till later, when the hour for retiring drew near, that Madame leant forward a little in her chair, laying a gentle, almost motherly, touch on his twitching fingers.
"Tell me, my nephew," she asked, "why is it that Jéhan did not return with you?"
A brief silence followed, in which Morice could hear the faint click of the needle drawn through the stiff satin of Mademoiselle Cécile's work.