He must have seen my irrepressible start when he mentioned Pelagie's name, for he looked at me curiously with something like either alarm or suspicion in his glance. I was tempted to tell him that I knew his mistress and expected to see her that very day, but I was saved from making such a foolish speech by the fellow himself.
"I am bringing him into the city for the comtesse to try," he said. "He is a very fine hunter."
"Then your mistress intends to follow the chase?" I asked, feeling a queer little pang that I did not stop to explain to myself at the thought.
"I suppose so, Monsieur, since she has sent for her hunter."
We were now well down the Rue de la St. Antoine, just where the narrow street of François-Miron comes in; and as if a sudden thought had struck him, the countryman said:
"I go this way, Monsieur; adieu," turned into the narrow street, and Cæsar and I rode on into the Rue de Rivoli, past the Hôtel de Ville, and so toward my uncle's house.
"Marsa," said Cæsar, as we turned off the Rue de Rivoli, "dat fellah had a gold belt and a little dagger stuck in it under his smock. I seed it when I's ridin' behind youse bof and de win' tuk and blew up his smock-skirt."
I believed the "gold belt" and the "little dagger" were inventions of Cæsar's, for he loved to tell wonderful tales; but none the less was I uneasy and troubled, for suppose it should be true! I liked not the thought of a man wearing a concealed weapon going on a plausible errand to the Comtesse de Baloit.