All the while the piece of red glass had remained tightly clasped in Péron’s hand. In his agitation he had held it unconsciously, and now he was afraid to tell Madame Michel, dreading a repetition of the scene. He crept away with it to his own little room and examined it with a tremor of excitement. It was so pretty, and it had so nearly precipitated a terrible calamity; for he felt that had madame struck him, he should have died of shame. He was afraid to return the stone and afraid to play with it, and it became a fresh cause for embarrassment. However, he finally solved the problem by determining to hide it away. In a little cupboard in the corner of his room there was one shelf devoted to his treasures,—wax and paper models of jacquemarts, broken watch-springs, some fancifully shaped pebbles, a number of marvellously useless valuables, and here Madame Michel never meddled. Therefore he loved it with the pride of sole proprietorship, and here in a dark corner he stowed away the bit of red glass wrapped in a soiled sheet of paper. For a few days he took it out surreptitiously and played with it, and then he forgot it and it lay there unheeded and unsought; for as yet Madame Michel had not discovered her loss.
CHAPTER III
PÈRE ANTOINE
AFTER Péron had gratified his curiosity in regard to the garret and found it such a bare and unprofitable spot, he speedily forgot it, and only once again during his childhood was he to startle Madame Michel with the mention of it. This was on the occasion of a conversation which took place some months later in the shop. The house at the sign of Ste. Geneviève was too small to harbor any of the apprentices at night, so after work hours they took their departure, leaving the members of the little family to themselves. As none of his patrons ever visited him in the evening, Jacques des Horloges was then at liberty to entertain his personal friends. The clockmaker was a quiet man, not much addicted to conviviality, and he had few visitors at such times, occupying himself frequently with studies connected with his work or in straightening his accounts. It was the family custom in the evening to gather around the table in the living-room, which was cheerfully lighted with tapers. Madame Michel was always knitting, her needles flying with marvellous celerity, while her eyes were equally alert in observing Péron and M. de Turenne. Jacques des Horloges was a broad-shouldered, stalwart-looking man, a native of Picardy, his rugged face and honest, kindly eye commending him to the observer. He had a powerful build for one of his profession, and looked better suited to bear the sword than to wind the machinery of delicate watches. His dress was suited to his station in life and showed no signs of the fortune which, it was whispered, he had accumulated. His only ornament was a chain of gold around his neck which supported a tiny, cruciform watch, so ingeniously manufactured that it not only struck the hours but showed also the day of the month.[1]
It was on one of these evenings, when Jacques and his wife and little Péron sat around the table, that a knock at the shop door disturbed the quiet scene. Madame Michel rose and went to answer it, still knitting, even when she walked across the dimly lighted shop, not even dropping a stitch as she made her way between the tiers of clocks. When she opened the door she curtsied low and greeted the visitor with reverence as well as affection. A moment later she returned to the living-room conducting a tall, thin man wearing the plain black habit of a priest,—a man of middle age, stooping slightly in his bearing and with a face of unusual sweetness and refinement of expression. Michel greeted the new-comer with as much cordiality as his wife had shown; and even little Péron ran to draw forward a chair for him, while the cat rubbed himself against his cassock with evident affection. There are some persons to whom all animals turn with instinctive trust and affection, and there is no better sign, as there is no worse than the aversion shown to others. The instinct of an animal is more unerring than human perception: it recognizes both brutes and traitors.
The priest smiled an equal welcome upon all, but there was perplexity in his blue eyes. He sat down and laid his broad-brimmed hat on the table and clasped his hands on his knee; and he had handsome hands, slender and nervous, with delicate finger-tips. His face was pale, with lines about the thin lips and under the large eyes, showing care, anxiety, midnight vigils; he had the face of a student, and the hair, already gray at the back of his head, was white on the temples. His gaze rested now on the child, who, having seated the visitor, had resumed his own place on the floor, where he was cutting out a paper clock. The priest watched him attentively, while Jacques des Horloges and his wife waited in respectful silence for him to open the conversation. Something about little Péron interested Père Antoine so much that it was some moments before he looked up, and when he did, it was with a grave face.
“I have strange tidings,” he said softly, glancing from Jacques to his wife. “M. de Bruneau has been arrested and will be condemned to death.”
Michel stared at him in blank amazement, and madame uttered a cry and dropped her knitting-needles. The priest made a sign with his hand toward the child on the floor, and it had its effect at once; both his auditors restrained their agitation.
“I cannot understand,” Jacques des Horloges said. “What was his offence? Not a plot against the king, surely?”
“Ay,” Père Antoine replied soberly, “something of that sort, although a much exaggerated charge, manufactured, I fear, by his enemies. He was taken on the Rue St. Denis, on information furnished by one high in the favor of Albert de Luynes.”
“Who is he?” asked Michel eagerly.