To suspect ... oh, base! Did not Dunoisse know—had not Madame de Roux assured him over and over that intercourse between herself and Alain was limited to the merest, slightest civilities that may be exchanged between acquaintances? Had she not pledged her word—had she not kept her vow? Anger, and shame, and horror at his own disloyalty burned in Dunoisse like some corrosive poison; killing the wholesome appetite for food, banishing weariness and the desire for rest. And thus, reaching his rooms in the Rue du Bac, and dismissing to bed the sleepy valet who had waited up for him, Dunoisse bathed and changed, and instead of lying down, went out, haggard, and hot-eyed, and headachy, into the soldier-ridden streets again, in the clear, pale, frosty sunshine of the December morning; barely feeling the slippery asphalte pavement underneath his feet; hardly cognizant of faces and shapes that passed him; answering mechanically when challenged by sentries or stopped by patrols, and hastening on again, driven—though he would have died rather than own it—by the demon that had been conjured up by the tall, grimy, sneering workman who had chatted with his mate on the previous night, at the street-corner....
His destination was the Rue de Sèvres, for Madame de Roux still retained her apartments in the outer buildings of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where cloistered Princesses once gave instruction in housekeeping, deportment, and diplomacy to the daughters of the noblest families of France, and stars of the Comédie Française drilled the youthful performers in the dramas of “Esther” and the ballets of “Orpheus and Eurydice.”
The Abbaye has nearly all been swept away; the last wheelbarrowful of rubbish has been carted from the cat-haunted desert where once the stately chapel stood: they have built upon the lovely gardens where Marie de Rochechouart, beautiful, pure, and saintly, once walked with Hélène Massalska clinging to her arm. But at this date the gardens, though sadly curtailed, were still beautiful.... Nowhere in all Paris were such chestnuts and acacias, such lilacs, and laburnums, and hawthorns to be found. The branches of the loftier trees—leafless, and bare, and wintry now—seemed to Dunoisse to nod and beckon pleasantly over the high iron-spiked walls and great grilled gates that shut in the stately pile of ancient masonry.
And with the sight of these familiar things his mood changed.... His demon quitted him,—he knew infinite relief of mind when the portress, a buxom peasant of Auvergne, roused from her morning slumbers by the Colonel’s ring at the gate-bell, at length made her appearance; apologizing with volubility for her nightcap; for the red woolen shawl and short, striped petticoat, bundled on over a lengthier garment of dubious whiteness; and the stout, bare feet thrust into the baggy list slippers that completed her disarray.... And Dunoisse greeted her pleasantly, responding in gallant vein to her profuse excuses, failing to notice the sharp glances with which she scanned him; unobservant of the avid curiosity that her verbosity would have concealed, while his wearied eyes drank in the scene about him; the blackbird, and thrush, and robin-haunted shrubberies of frosted laurels, and myrtles, and veronicas glimpsed through the arched carriage-way, piercing the more modern right wing of the ancient building: the beds starring the rimy grass-plat in the center of the great courtyard, gay with such flowers as the rigorous season admitted: clumps of mauve, and pink-and-white Japanese anemones; hardy red chrysanthemums; frost-nipped bachelor’s buttons; and even a pinched, belated dahlia here and there....
Here at least no grisly shadow of the Élysée brooded, or it seemed so to Dunoisse. Into this quiet haven the blue official documents, the brass-bound shakos, and clanking swords of Military Authority had not intruded, bringing disorder, confusion, and terror in their train.... Lead, and Steel, and Fire—that trio of malignant forces—obedient to the potent nod of Monseigneur, had swept past the Abbaye, without pausing to exact their toll of human life. And the robin’s breast, burning like a crimson star amidst the rich dark foliage of a yew-tree, the short, sweet, sudden song of the bird seemed to answer, “Happily, yes!” And the wintry yellow sunshine drew a pleasant smell from the chilled blossoms, and the wood-smoke of the portress’s crackling, newly-lighted fire came fragrantly to the nostrils of the returned traveler, as he passed under the portico of the stately block of building where were the apartments rented by Madame de Roux, and rang the ground-floor bell.
The thought of seeing Henriette again absorbed and dominated him completely. And yet, even to his slight passing observation, the servant who answered the door seemed flustered and embarrassed. The man opened his mouth to speak, shut it hurriedly, and awkwardly drew back to let the Colonel pass in. But a moment later, as Dunoisse’s eager footsteps were hurrying in the direction of the gray boudoir, he arrested them by saying:
“Pardon, Monsieur the Colonel! but Madame is not at home!...”
“Indeed? Madame went out early?”
Thus interrogated, the man showed confusion. He explained, after some floundering, that Madame had gone out, and had not yet returned.