At last, toward the middle of August, all things being arranged, I set out with Francezka on our travels in search of her lost love.
CHAPTER XXIII
A LOVING QUEST
Francezka had a natural desire to see the spot from which Gaston had disappeared, and to satisfy herself as to the search in those parts. We traveled to Hüningen, therefore, crossed the Rhine at the point below where the boat had crossed and came to the place, a low-lying Austrian outpost, at which Gaston had been last seen alive. From thence we hunted the Rhine country on both sides of the river before proceeding to Prince Eugene’s headquarters, which had been moved farther back in the interior, toward the Taunus hills.
We traveled rapidly. A journey is fast or slow, according as there is money forthcoming. Old Peter, in spite of his years, acted admirably as an avant-courier. He always rode ahead two stages to secure post-horses; and if there was any dispute about it, I could always bring the postmaster to the right way of thinking. But what was quite as effective was Francezka’s soft and insinuating address, which never failed to get horses or anything else she wanted. It is a part of human nature to delight in exercising a power with which one is gifted. Francezka had the power of persuasion in a high degree, and it pleased her self-love to see a postmaster or an innkeeper succumb to it, as quickly as a Maurice of Saxe.
We had fine weather from the day we left Philipsburg. The Duke of Berwick used to say that travel was the best means ever devised to wean the human mind from the continual contemplation of sorrow. So it proved in this instance. There is something in the motion of a horse under one, which is a subtile distraction. The horse itself becomes a component part of being, and exacts a share of attention. Francezka, who was fond of horse exercise, left the chaise almost entirely to Madame Chambellan and rode on horseback with me.
There could be no doubt of her high and even feverish hope. She was never more to have that serene expectation of happiness which I had seen in the soft and lambent light of her eyes on my first knowing of her marriage to Gaston Cheverny. Rather was it an excited and over-sanguine hope that built itself most lovely visions on nothing at all. She seemed to think it probable that at any moment Gaston might appear. The least movement startled her. If she were at table and the door opened suddenly she would half rise, with the flash of expectation in her face. At night every sound brought her to the window. She was still under the sweet illusion of youth, that happiness was her right. I really believe she thought that God, having given her so much—such love, beauty, youth, health, and wealth—could not in justice refuse her happiness.