“What!” he cried. “Does my frugal Scot fancy we have not enough trinkgeld for enjoyment. Why, look here!—and here!—and here!”
He thrust his hand into his bosom and drew forth numerous rouleaux—so many that I thought his corpulence might well be a plethora of coin.
“There!” said he, squeezing a rouleau till it burst and spreading out the gold upon the table before him. “Am I a poor parish priest or a very Croesus?”
Then he scooped in the coins with his fat hands and returned all to his bosom. “Allons!” he said shortly; we were on the road again!
That night we put up at the Bon Accueil in a town whose name escapes my recollection.
He had gone to bed; through the wall from his chamber came the noise of his sleep, while I was at the writing of my first letter to Miss Walkinshaw, making the same as free and almost affectionate as I had been her lover, for as I know it now, I was but seeking in her for the face of the love of the first woman and the last my heart was given to.
I had scarcely concluded when the Swiss came knocking softly to my door, and handed me a letter from the very woman whose name was still in wet ink upon my folded page. I tore it open eagerly, to find a score of pleasant remembrances. She had learned the night before that the priest was to set out in the morning: “I have kept my word,” she went on. “Your best friend is Bernard, so I let you have him, and let us exchange our billets through him. It will be the most Discreet method. And I am, with every consideration, Ye Ken Wha.”