"I don't think you have been here since we all grew up," she said, with a smile. "We are rather assommant, I admit. We stun people with our trick of throwing ourselves at each other's heads. But you will soon get used to the clamour. Meantime, if I were you, I should go out and walk in the acacia avenue. It is a good place to be quiet in, and I have it in my mind that you may learn something there"—she paused a moment—"something that will take the taste of Jack Jaikes' threatenings and slaughters out of your mouth."
She had moved back her chair a little so as to let me slip out, and then with a nod and half-smile she launched herself into the fiercest of the fray. So keen was challenge and réplique just at that moment that I was outside the fine old tapestried dining-room without being perceived by anyone.
I ran downstairs and reported to the sentinel on duty at the front door. I told him that I did not feel well and was going to take the air. He asked if I had my revolvers with me, and was only pacified at sight of them. He had gone often with messages from the Chief to my father at Gobelet, and so took an interest in me.
I skirted the house, and was just plunging into a belt of woodland through which I could gain the acacia walk without being seen, when I was hailed from the roof by Jack Jaikes. He wanted to know where I was going, and what I was going to do when I got there.
Instead of being rude and obvious I made him the reply which I knew would baffle him.
"Ask Rhoda Polly!" I said, and he swore aloud. If he had not been safe on the roof he would have come after me at once. As it was I advised him that he had as much responsibility as one man could safely shoulder, and that he would do wisely not to fret about me.
With that I waved my hand and stepped into the thickest of the bushes. The little wood ran round an artificial lake, and was prolonged right to the great wall of the Château policies half a mile away. It was the part of the grounds most distant from the works, and from what might be called the centre of disturbance.
I climbed a young but good-sized plane which overtopped the wall. It had been pollarded, and the step from the tree to the top of the wall was rather a long one. I managed it, however, without difficulty, thanks to the bough of an acacia which came swaying and trembling over from the highway beyond. The next moment I had dropped like a cat out of the acacia boughs into the road. A young man was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, pensively smoking a cigarette, his hat pulled low on his brow, and his eyes on the road.
I had no chance to escape his notice, for the sound of my feet attracted him and he looked up at once. He rose smilingly and held out his hand. It was Gaston Cremieux.