“I must ask your pardon. Please do not doubt that, all this is only to assure your future by protecting the secret of our work. Good-by.”
The train carried him off.
I had let him talk without showing any signs of annoyance; and indeed, without feeling any, for, being but a poor chauffeur, detesting grease and scars on my hands, and obliged by my uncle’s will to do without a mechanic, I had brought with me, in the boot of my car, several spare pieces, amongst which, was a complete carburetor, ready to be put in its place. Ignorance stood me in better stead than professional skill, so I set to work at once, being in no wise disturbed, and merely anxious about the inmates of Fonval left to their own devices.
Presently, having garaged my car in a clump of trees, I climbed over the park wall, and I should have climbed straight to Emma’s room, if a melancholy barking had not sounded in the direction of the gray buildings.
“The laboratory! Nell!” This curious fact of a dog being chained up in a laboratory made me hesitate between the attractiveness of the mystery, and that of Emma; but this time, a sort of instinct of self-preservation aroused by the unknown, and the danger one attributes to it, was bound to carry the day.
I made my way towards the gray buildings. Besides, the Germans would no doubt be there, and their presence would prevent me from dawdling. So it was merely a matter of snatching a few minutes from love-making.
As I passed the Yellow Room, I put my ear to the shutters in order to assure myself that Macbeth was alone. He was so, a circumstance which filled my heart with a vast satisfaction.
Some white clouds were floating in a cold sky. The wind was coming from Grey-l’Abbaye, and brought me through the gorge the monotonous sound of the church bells. Endlessly they repeated the same three notes, thus performing the chime of the Arlésienne. I was gay! To this sacred accompaniment I whistled the melody played by the orchestra, and the juxtaposition of the two was like placing a modern statuette on a Gothic pedestal.
In front of the laboratory, on the other side of the road, there was a wood. I made tacks to reach it, having formed my plan of assault. In the middle of this wood, I used to possess an old friend—a fir tree. Its projecting branches formed a spiral staircase. It completely dominated the buildings. No laboratory could have been better placed, or more accessible, and in the old days I used to play there at being a sailor on the yard-arms.
The tree offered me a perch, rather short, no doubt, but still, well padded. On the upper branches, a relic awaited me, made of cords and rotten planks—the cross-trees! Who would have said that one day I, who used to spy out continents, archipelagoes—phantasies with some likelihood about them—should now be there as a spy for things so fabulously unreal? My glances turned towards the ground.