It was a soft September night when Gaston came into my chamber, joyfully bringing Regnard with him. My room was small, but had a large and pleasant balcony overlooking the straggling gardens and the river. Regnard greeted me pleasantly—he looked gallant in his white Austrian uniform. We went out upon the balcony, had wine brought and spent an hour or two together. Regnard had lately paid a flying visit to Castle Haret, and, of course, had been to the château of Capello.
“Mademoiselle Capello was most kind and charming,” he said, “and, by the way, Captain Babache, she desired her remembrance to you.”
“And nothing to me?” cried Gaston.
Regnard smiled—I never liked his smile, in which his eyes took no part.
“Do you think, boy,” he replied, “that I employed the gracious minutes that Francezka—I mean Mademoiselle Capello—allowed me, in talking to her of another man?”
“Then,” cried Gaston, rising half in mirth and half in anger, “I will myself see Mademoiselle Capello and hear from her own lips whether she has forgotten me.”
“We do not propose to give you time to make excursions,” replied Regnard, laughing good-naturedly. “Your Berwick has to dance a branle first with Prince Eugene, and he who would dance with such a partner must be very active and keep his wits and his legs ready.”
Gaston sat down again, and did not lose his good temper. But Regnard told us further that Madame Riano was really going to Scotland. She had got it in her blood, and was likely to leave any day. Mademoiselle Capello had been forced to engage a dame de compagnie in the person of Madame Chambellan, some relation of Count Bellegarde’s, and as near milk and water as he. I surmised that Francezka was not likely to choose for her dame de compagnie one able or desirous to cross her.
After an hour or two I was called to attend Count Saxe, and the brothers were left alone. They seemed as affectionate as ever I saw brothers. I heard their voices as they spent the hours in converse in Gaston’s room. Toward morning, in the ghostly half light which precedes the dawn, they left the house together, taking a boat at the foot of the garden. I watched them as they passed down the old garden path to the river. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders, schoolboy 247 fashion, and both of them wore long dark cloaks, for the hour before the dawn was chill. Never were two figures more alike than Gaston and Regnard Cheverny, and there was not the smallest difference in their gait and bearing. I think the mother who bore them would scarcely have known them apart, as I saw them walking away in the pale hours of the morning. A boat awaited them at the foot of the garden. The river rolled dark in the gray half light, half darkness, and a ghostly mist lay upon its bosom. As the boat containing the two brothers was pulled into midstream the creeping mist enveloped it for a moment, then a wandering breeze driving the mist away, the boat became again visible. Some singular interest fixed my eyes upon those two figures in the boat, trying to distinguish one from the other. But, to my chagrin, I could not do this. Presently the mist enveloped them wholly.