I took her hand and bent low over it.
"Farewell, Mademoiselle," I said, for it cut me to the quick that she had not said "Au revoir," as she had said it on La Belle Rivière.
Down in the courtyard, in the act of throwing my leg over Fatima's back, there rode under the arch of the entrance the countryman who had overtaken us in the morning, leading the magnificent horse he had said was for Mademoiselle la Comtesse, and riding another. It was not strange that he should be bringing mademoiselle her hunter, but it struck me as somewhat strange that the moment he caught sight of me a quick scowl should darken his brow and as quickly be cleared away: as if it had come unbidden and been driven away from a sense of expediency. As I passed him on the way out he touched his cap to me politely, and the sleeve of his rough jerkin falling away a little in the act, I thought I caught a glimpse of a lace wrist-ruffle.
"Perhaps Cæsar was not mistaken, after all," I said to myself; "if he wears lace ruffles at his wrist he may well wear a gold belt and poniard at his waist. A strange countryman, forsooth!" And a secret uneasiness that I could neither explain nor dismiss returned to me as often as he came into my thoughts.
CHAPTER XXVII
"GOOD-BY, SWEETHEART!"
"I have found out a gift for my fair."
There was nothing to keep me in Paris. I could not see mademoiselle; she would not let me help her in her flight. I was restless and impatient to be off. No boat would sail from Le Havre for nearly a week. It would not take a week either by horse, as Cæsar and I would go, or by the river, where my baggage was to be floated down in a small yawl in the charge of a trusty boatman. But if I stayed in Paris I would be eating my heart out; it was better to be on the way and taking the route by slow stages.