However, time waits for no man; and when the eight o’clock train from Paris was due Captain de Meneval was at the little station waiting for it. And when it rolled in Léontine sprang gracefully out of her compartment.
As in the morning, each felt remorseful and penitent toward the other and tried to make up for the wrong that each had secretly done the other by renewed demonstrations of affection. When de Meneval escorted his charming wife across the street to the Pigeon House, which was only a step away, he paid her the prettiest and most lover-like compliments imaginable. Léontine responded with the sweetest smiles and the tenderest words; so that by the time they reached the terrace garden through a covered hedge next the Pigeon House itself, each felt like a thief and a murderer.
Léontine exclaimed with delight at the beauty of the terrace garden. It was indeed a pretty and cheerful place. It looked down straight into a little valley where the river meandered. An iron railing and a stone coping defined the terrace. Trees and shrubbery, pretty flower beds and a rustic arbor were lighted by incandescent lamps that gleamed softly in the purple glow of evening. The windows of the Pigeon House gave directly on the terrace, and already the glittering lights and the sounds of the orchestra showed that the performance was beginning. There were only a few persons scattered about, and the waiters were collected in groups, whispering, while waiting for customers. One, however—the identical François, whom de Meneval wished to avoid—ran forward and showed them a pleasant table. He was in the act of saying, “What will Monsieur le Capitaine have?” when de Meneval, looking him straight in the face, though addressing Léontine, said:
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen this place—not since our marriage, in fact—that I hardly know what it is like.”
“Oho!” thought François, “that is your game, is it? Very well, Monsieur, I will help you out with it—for a consideration.” Then, extending his hand for de Meneval’s hat, he gave a slight but significant twitch of his fingers and palm, to which a ten-franc piece was the agreeable response. “Since Monsieur is evidently not familiar with this place,” said the wily François, “perhaps he will allow me to recommend our white soup, to begin with.”
“Thank you,” replied de Meneval; “and can you also recommend this turbot on the menu?”
“Yes, Monsieur. If you had ever tasted our turbot you would never look at turbot outside of the Pigeon House.”
“By the way, what is your name?”
“François, if you please.”
François remembered perfectly, that little supper at the Pigeon House the week before, when Captain de Meneval had not only forgotten François’s name but his own as well, and so had several other very jolly officers. But François, though but a waiter, had the soul of a gentleman, and was nobly oblivious of ever having set eyes on Captain de Meneval before.