“I am in a damnably awkward place, Babache,” he said. “Of course, we all know about Jacques Haret, but the fellow has been permitted in all the houses where the Harets have been received for generations. You remember well, after that expedition to Courland, he stayed some time at the Manoir Cheverny and went to the château of Capello whenever he liked. So, meeting him to-day, as I say, in the gardens of the Palais Royal, and bringing him home with me—in fact, asking him to come and sup with us, for his entertainment always pays for his supper, you perceived the reception he got from my lady Francezka and Madame Riano. Now, what am I to do?”
“You forget,” I replied, “that in those days when Jacques Haret stayed with you at the Manoir Cheverny, and with your brother Regnard at Castle Haret, it was before that scoundrelly business with poor Lisa, old Peter’s niece.”
“That is true,” he answered reflectively. “It was a very atrocious thing, as you say, but it is a common enough story. The girl was a village girl; little more than a peasant.”
I own I was full of disgust when Gaston Cheverny spoke thus. How different was this from the high-souled, chivalric Gaston Cheverny whom I had known, and who treated all women with the consideration of a Bayard! I said, however, coldly enough:
“Perhaps you have forgotten that old Peter shared his wages with that villain of a Jacques Haret—his wages, think of that! And in his own poor house sheltered the fellow. I must say that seldom if ever in my life have I known such treachery as Jacques Haret’s.”
I walked on, but Gaston kept step with me along the graveled paths, through the bright flower beds and under the green arbors of the garden. His face had changed completely. All amusement had vanished, and in its place was an expression of perplexity, and even fear. At last he stopped me under an arbor already covered with the young green leaves of a climbing rose.
“Babache,” he said, “I am pledged to have Jacques Haret sup with me; that is the truth. You have great influence over Francezka. Will you not endeavor to reconcile Francezka to me for receiving him?”
“No,” I replied; “I have not lived so long without learning to keep from meddling with affairs between husband and wife. But who cares for offending Jacques Haret? I gave him a sound beating myself not a fortnight ago in the gardens of the Luxembourg.”
We were standing still in the arbor, and the mellow afternoon light showed me every line in Gaston Cheverny’s comely face. Nothing that he had yet said or done had made me feel so like a stranger to him—to Gaston Cheverny, with whom I had lived in the closest intimacy for seven years—as his attitude on the subject of this rascally Jacques Haret. I could but study his countenance, which was always vivid and full of expression. The thought flashed into my mind that 432 Jacques Haret possessed some hold over Gaston Cheverny; perhaps some secret of those lost years. Jacques Haret at Paris had known in advance of the very day and hour of Gaston’s return to Brabant. This thought troubled me.