“Do you think,” she said, after a pause, “that in taking care of me Monsieur Cheverny is running a greater risk than any of you?”
“No, Mademoiselle. His chance seems to me rather the better. At best, he can demand to be sent to the palace, while for us, we must run the gantlet of the Russians; sixteen men must take their chances of getting horses, and we must travel in company. But Count Saxe is with us, and he is the favorite of fortune as well as of nature.”
She remained silent a while, then spoke again:
“So this may be the last time we shall speak together in this world.”
“I hope not, Mademoiselle,” I replied. “I hope to have the honor of speaking to you in Paris before the year is out.”
“No, not Paris, but at my château of Capello. It is only twelve miles from the highroad between Brussels and Paris. I would not be boastful, but it is the charmingest place, at the foot of the Ardennes. I have not seen it since I was a child. Monsieur Gaston Cheverny remembers it better than I. He says he even remembers me, a little child but six years old, and so did Monsieur Regnard Cheverny tell me that at Paris last year. I think I remember Monsieur Gaston Cheverny a little—perhaps because he is nearer my age.”
“Then,” said I, humoring her as a child, “we shall stop and dine with you on our way to Paris, for, of 94 course, I can not go anywhere unless my master, Count Saxe, be asked, too.”
“He will be asked, never fear. Good fortune will attend us all, no doubt. I do not feel the least afraid of what is before me, unless the tunnel be damp, and there be toads in it, then I shall die of fright, for all that I am a Kirkpatrick.”
How light-hearted she was, in the midst of things terrifying to most women!
Count Saxe, wishing to spare her the sight of our outrush, then returned with Gaston Cheverny, who had received his money and instructions. Gaston wore a black hat and cloak of Count Saxe’s; and, since the count is a very tall man, and Gaston only of the middle height, the cloak hung down upon his heels, and we could but smile at the figure he made. Yet he looked not ungraceful. Then Mademoiselle Capello came out, wearing her hat and mantle. She said to Count Saxe, very earnestly: