“Of course not,” acquiesced Ninon, proudly producing her double louis. “Can I not pay?” But the hours passed, the sun declined, and not so much as a solitary cottage had presented itself to their eyes, into which a shade of anxiety had crept; and ere long they began to feel certain they saw wolves and lions and bandits lurking in all directions behind the huge black forest tree-trunks, and young Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld had now grown so tired that, he wanted nothing so much as to go to bed. Even supper was a secondary consideration. Still, desperately hungry as they both were, liberty is such a glorious thing; and were they not free?—free as the air that was growing so chilly, and the pale moonlight rays as they broke through some darkening clouds, seemed to make it almost shuddery. These, however, suddenly crossed something white, and though terrifying for the moment, the second glance to which they schooled themselves brought reassurance. The white patch they saw was a bit of a cottage wall pierced by a little lattice, through which gleamed the yellow light of a tallow candle; for the two, creeping close to the panes, peeped in. But noiselessly as they strove to render their movements, the attention of a couple of big dogs of the boule-dogue breed was aroused, to the extent of one of them fastening upon Marsillac’s haut-de-chausses, and he was only induced to forbear and drop off, under the knotty, chastising stick of a man, apparently the master of the house, who turned upon the trembling truants, and bade them clear off for the vagabonds they were. Their mud-stained and torn apparel, rendered more dilapidated in Marsillac’s case, by the dog’s teeth, justified to a great extent the man’s conclusions; but on their asseverating that they were not good-for-nothing at all; but two very well-born young gentlemen who had lost their way, and would be glad to pay generously for a supper, he called his wife, and committing them to her care, bade her entertain them with the best her larder afforded, and to put a bottle of good wine on the table. Then he went out, while an excellent little piece of a haunch of roe-deer—cooking apparently for the supper of the worthy couple themselves—which Dame Jacqueline set before the hungry wanderers, was heartily appreciated by both. Washed down by a glass or two of the fairly good wine, Marsillac grew hopelessly drowsy. Tired out, he wanted to go to bed. “And why not?” said the dame, not without a gleam of malice in her eyes, which had been keenly measuring the two—“but I have only one bed to offer you, our own, and you must make the best of it.” She smiled on.
“Not I,” said Ninon, rising from the settle like a giant refreshed—“I am going on to Tours. The moon is lovely. It will be delightful. How much to pay, dame? And a thousand thanks for your hospitality. Come, Marsillac,” and Ninon strode to the door. But the glimpses of the pillows within the shadow of the alcove had been too much for Marsillac, and he had already divested himself of his justaucorps, and jumped into bed.
“And now, my young gentleman, what about you?” inquired Jacqueline of the embarrassed Ninon, who seated herself disconsolately on a little three-legged stool. “Come, quick, to bed with you!”
“No!” said Ninon, “I prefer this stool.”
“Oh, ta! ta! that will never do,” said Jacqueline, who was beginning to heap up a broad old settle with a cushion or two, and some wraps. “Sooner than that, I would sit on that stool myself all night, and give you up my place here beside my—Ah! à la bonne heure! There he is,” she cried, as the heavy footsteps of the master of the house, crunching up the garden path, amid the barking of the dogs, grew audible—“and, as I say, give you up my own place—”
“Ah, mon Dieu! no,” distractedly cried Ninon, tearing off her cloak; and bounding into the alcove, to the side of the already fast asleep Marsillac, she dragged the coverings over her head.
“Well, good-night! Sweet repose, you charming little couple,” laughed on Dame Jacqueline, as she drew the curtains to. “But I’d not go to sleep yet awhile, look you. Some friends of yours are coming here to see you. Ah yes, here they are! This way, ladies.”
And the next moment, Madame de Montaigu and the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld stood within the alcove, gazing down with glances beyond power of words to describe.
Dragged by the two ladies from their refuge, Marsillac was hustled into his garments, but Ninon was bidden to leave hers alone, and to don the petticoats and bodice which the baroness had brought for the purpose. “No more masquerading, if you please,” said her aunt, in tones terrible with indignation and severity, “while I have you under my charge. Now, quick, home with you!”