She paused as if overcome, and then hurriedly vanished within the open door.
Her words thrilled me with joy and pain. What did she mean by saying, “When I am gone?” Who was more likely to live than Francezka? Why should she be contemplating the end of all things? I was roused from my anxious reverie by the sound of locking the great iron gates, the bolts and bars making a huge noise in the stillness of the night. This grating sound, however, did not drown those words of Francezka’s. Something led my footsteps again to the street, where I could get from the back a clear view of Monsieur Voltaire’s room. When I reached the place all was dark, and the doors and windows were closed for the night, but on the corner stood a plain coach, which I recognized in the half darkness of the summer night as belonging to Gaston Cheverny.
If I had been surprised at his patience with Jacques Haret’s impertinence an hour ago, I now saw that it was not so long suffering as I had thought, for Gaston, sitting in the coach and holding the door open, was swearing at Jacques Haret with a concentration of rage I had never seen excelled in any human being before. Every word that he said was true, but there was a defiance 447 in it which further sustained my notion that Jacques Haret held some power over Gaston Cheverny.
Jacques was taking it with the same coolness he had taken the beating I had given him in the Luxembourg gardens. Gaston was shouting out insults to him, and when Gaston stopped at the point where any other man would have drawn his sword, Jacques coolly remarked:
“You have called me a liar, a blackmailer, a leper, a dog and a devil’s imp. I take it that you are of a different opinion from me on certain points. Your withdrawing your invitation to me to the château of Capello is most unhandsome. However, it is not your château, anyhow.”
Gaston leaped out of the coach after him, but Jacques Haret disappeared somewhere in the darkness, for he had no scruples about avoiding a fight, yet I believe him to have been singularly insensible to fear.
Within three days I heard that Monsieur and Madame Cheverny had left Paris for their estates in Brabant. As they went together, it was plain there had been no outward break between them.