“In the garden,” I finished, and risked one straight look at him. “I can trust you, Georges?”
The young man’s throat seemed to close.
“Monsieur le duc was my foster-brother, Monsieur,” he whispered. “I would die for him.”
Who the deuce monsieur le duc might be I did not tarry to discover. I had done all I could; the future was on the knees of the gods. Having smoked one more cigarette for the sake of verisimilitude, I rose, stretched myself ostentatiously, and crossed the courtyard to the stairs, where madame was descending. She had, she informed me, been preparing my bed.
“And I wish monsieur good repose,” she ended volubly. “Hitherto, no Zeppelins have come to Bleau to disturb our dreams. Though, alas, who knows what they will do, now that we have lost our most gallant hero? Monsieur has heard of the Firefly of France, he who is missing?”
That name again! Odd how it seemed to pursue me.
“I believe I shall meet that fellow sometime if he’s living,” I reflected as I climbed the stairs.
In my room, my candle lighted, I resigned myself to a ghastly night. I don’t like discomfort, though I can put up with it when I must. The bed looked as hard as nails; the bowl made cleanliness a duty, not a pleasure. And to think that I might have been sleeping in comfort at the Ritz!
Tossing from side to side, pounding a cast-iron pillow, I dozed through uneasy intervals, and woke with groans and starts. I could not rid myself of the sense of something ominous hanging over me. The gray car ramped through my dreams; so did Van Blarcom; and between sleeping and waking, I pictured my coming interview with the girl, her probable terror, the force and menaces I should have to use, our hurried flight.
At length I fell into a heavy, exhausted slumber, from which, toward morning I fancied, I sat up suddenly with the dazed impression of some sound echoing in my ears. Springing out of bed, I groped my way to the window. The galleries lay peaceful and empty in the moonlight, and down in the courtyard there was not the slightest sign of life.