De Bernis returned to the present, and directed the smile at his two companions. "It is a tale," said he. "A very charming tale. However, our coach will have arrived before I have finished it with proper adroitness."
"The coach shall wait."
"Ah, my dear Coyer, 'tis not the first time that you will have made your bow to his Majesty and to the favorite. Consider my agitated eagerness."
"The sang-froid of M. de Bernis is known to be imperturbable," ventured the prior.
"And your appearance at Marly will be infinitely more important if you show yourself indifferent enough to be late."
De Bernis shrugged. "Very well, then. My history will—disappoint you. It might be so charming a romance. It is, in reality, so unfinished. However—I will be truthful.
"It began upon a certain morning five weeks past, the week of Christmas, when, as you know, I was at Fontainebleau. At ten of the morning I started out, on foot, my destination being the hut of one of the forest-keepers, my road through the forest's centre. I had some écus in my pouch, together with some food and some medicine of herbs, for the woodsman was wedded and was poor. The morning was frosty. There was some little snow on the ground, and here and there a wolf-track. I went slowly, composing consolatory speeches, and meditating—on holy matters. Presently I looked up, with the sense of some one near, to find myself facing a companion of the vows, dressed like myself. I stopped, saluted, and bade him good-morning. He returned my greeting in a pretty tenor voice, unusually high. I looked again at the man's face. It was peculiar, but pleasing—small, oval, white, and smooth. He was very young, and his eyes were remarkably large and blue. He had been fasting, I thought."
Coyer laughed.
"Each day," continued de Bernis, retrospectively, without heeding the interruption—"each day thereafter, by one chance or another, we met. I am not quite sure how. M. Devries seemed to be under no particular order of procedure, and so, at my invitation, he made himself my companion in charitable rounds. Daily I became more interested in him by reason of his reticence respecting himself; and, after a time, I fell completely under the spell of fascination emanating from his voice and his manner. By the time we set out together for Paris, and before my first suspicion of his personality came to me, my inexplicable infatuation had risen to great height. At the inn in Fontainebleau, on the Paris road, and again at the lodging that he, oddly enough, chose to take in the Faubourg St. Antoine, there was always in attendance upon my companion an old and very respectful man called Jérôme. When we passed the Paris barrier I overheard this servant, in a whispered communication, address Devries in a word which sounded strangely like 'madame.'"
Here St. Perle started with surprise, and Coyer took snuff with a little impatience at the coup anticipated by him from the beginning.