“But I cannot remember what my brother told me,” he said, “except that the rose was found nowhere but in the Basque provinces of Spain.” ...
A half-hour later Cartaret had bought his traveling-kit, which included a forty-five caliber automatic revolver. Forty minutes later he had paid Refrogné ten months’ rent in advance, together with a twenty-five franc tip, and directed that his room be held against his return. An hour later he was sheepishly handing Seraphin a bulky package, evidently containing certain canvases, and saying to him:
“These are something I wouldn’t leave about and couldn’t bring myself to store, and you’re—well, I think you’ll understand.”
At twelve o’clock that night, from an opened window in his compartment of a sleeping-car on a southward-speeding train de luxe, Cartaret was looking up at the yellow stars somewhere about Tours.
“Good-night, Vitoria!” he was whispering. “Good-night, and—God keep you!”
He was a very practical man.
CHAPTER XIII
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF AN AMATEUR BOTANIST
The happiness of the good old times is a mere dream in every age; but to keep on the laws of the old times, in preserving to reform, in reforming to preserve, is the true life of a free people.—Freeman: The Norman Conquest.
“Vitoria,” explained the guard, whom Cartaret inveigled into conversation next morning, “is the capital of the province of Alava.”