“Ah, the guillotine–he was, then, an aristocrat?” She put bread, cheese and a bottle of wine on the table, having taken them from a cupboard in the wall.
“Do aristocrats only go to the guillotine?” he replied, while his hand went out to the bread. “No, there are no longer any aristocrats, and now we execute the good republicans, citizeness.”
“Yes,” she answered; “but you spoke as if you had lived with aristocrats, citizen.”
The Marquis shuddered: so she had noticed it, this stupid woman; his speech stamped him, he could not disguise that.
“I was in a good place,” he said.
She left him, and he began eating and drinking, not thinking for the moment of anything but that, the gratification of his necessity.
He ate all the bread and cheese she had brought him before he dare touch the wine; when he did drink it, poor and thin as it was, it restored his blood to nearer its normal beat and heat; his brain began to work more clearly and sanely, his strong intelligence reasserted its sway; he began to form plans, to make resolves.
The woman came in and brought him meat and more bread; he asked her if he could rest there till noon, and she answered that he could stay in the room till then, he would not trouble her, and she was not likely to have more customers before the evening.
Again he was alone; the peace of the dark parlour, the delicious green of the softly-waving leaves outside, the silence and a certain homely perfume from the herbs hanging in bunches from the dark raftered ceiling affected him like a spell.
It was probably foolish to remain here; it would probably be wise to take advantage of his luck and slip away while the inn was quiet, but he could not. The pain of hunger ceased, his great fatigue asserted itself; if they had been galloping red-hot from Paris after him with certain news that he was at this very spot, he must still have done as he did; drop on to the worn chintz settle and sleep.