"May you come to a better throne than the unsteady one of France.
"Your friend and servant,
Etienne du Plessy.
"Garlic is the spice of life, my boy!"
I asked no questions about the affair in which he had been engaged. If he had wanted me to know he would have told me.
The garden was more than I could endure. I lay down early and slept late, as soon as I awoke in the morning beginning preparation for leaving France. Yet two days passed, for we were obliged to exchange our worn post-carriage for another after waiting for repairs. The old valet packed my belongings; though I wondered what I was going to do with them in America. The outfit of a young man of fashion overdressed a refugee of diminished fortune.
For no sooner was I on the street than a sense of being unmistakably watched grew upon me. I scarcely caught anybody in the act. A succession of vanishing people passed me from one to another. A working man in his blouse eyed me; and disappeared. In the afternoon it was a soldier who turned up near my elbow, and in the evening he was succeeded by an equally interested old woman. I might not have remembered these people with distrust if Skenedonk had not told me he was trailed by changing figures, and he thought it was time to get behind trees.
Bellenger might have returned to Paris, and set Napoleon's spies on the least befriended Bourbon of all; or the police upon a man escaped from Ste. Pélagie after choking a sacristan.
The Indian and I were not skilled in disguises as our watchers were. Our safety lay in getting out of Paris. Skenedonk undertook to stow our belongings in the post-chaise at the last minute. I went to De Chaumont's hotel to bring the money from Doctor Chantry and to take leave without appearing to do so.
Mademoiselle de Chaumont seized me as I entered. Her carriage stood in the court. Miss Chantry was waiting in it while Annabel's maid fastened her glove.
"O Lazarre!" the poppet cried, her heartiness going through me like wine. "Are you back? And how you are changed! They must have abused you in Russia. We heard you went to Russia. But since dear Marquis du Plessy died we never hear the truth about anything."