Michelle, in reply, turned on him two eyes, so filled with a sudden fear and melancholy that Roger was amazed and abashed.
“It might very well be,” she said. “I might desire to make my way back to France, but I should be pursued and brought ignominiously back. No! I hope I shall ever have sense enough to appear to submit voluntarily to what I cannot help.”
Roger was still more puzzled at her words. She and Madame de Beaumanoir were going to visit their relative, the Prince of Orlamunde. No time was fixed for their return, but no one had power to detain them a day longer than they wished. But then he remembered uncomfortably that there was something in this visit which he did not wholly understand, and so he relapsed into a sulky silence.
The sun was shining on the broad, bright Marne when they reached it. They had had no bad weather so far. A boat was got for them, and it took three trips to transport the passengers, with the chaise and baggage wagon. The saddle-horses swam the stream. When they reached the opposite bank, Michelle’s horse being too wet for her to mount, Roger offered his escort to walk with her to the inn of the Golden Lion, where they were to stop.
They walked, therefore, from the river bank to the inn, a considerable distance, through tortuous streets. It was not the same as walking in the pleasant country lanes. The sights and sounds and smells were not inviting; but Roger admired Michelle’s calm and unruffled air at things that would have provoked spleen in most women.
Madame de Beaumanoir, who was not, after all, so young as she had been when she was a reigning toast at the court of Charles the Second, retired with her woman as soon as supper was over. Michelle being obliged to go also, Berwick and Roger spent their evening together, as they had usually done since the beginning of the journey. François did not give them much of his company, being usually engaged in writing down in his commonplace book all his acts and reflections for the day. To-night he sighed heavily, as, at the table in a corner of the common room, he wrote, and then desisted, and then wrote again.
“What is the trouble, Delaunay?” asked Berwick, flourishing a decanter of wine in François’ direction. “Come and be jolly with a couple of sinners.”
“I would I were such a sinner as you two,” sighed François. “You are gentlemen and men of honor, and have no scruples in the life you lead. While I, gentlemen, I am the most tormented man on earth by that—”
François stopped; he too was a man of honor, and received much kindness along with many cruel gibes daily from Madame de Beaumanoir. And Berwick and Roger grinned heartlessly at him and urged him to drown his sorrows in drink, and find surcease of pain in play. François shook his head at these wicked suggestions and went dejectedly to bed.
There is a very noble cathedral at Châlons, and Roger, putting two and two together, determined to visit it early the next morning. He thought he could get quietly out of the inn, without being caught by Berwick; but that sharp-eyed soldier called to him from an upper window as he passed through the courtyard,—