"And now," said the merchant, "let us go to my house and see Mrs. Gouverneur, and above all have dinner."
René had thought that flight might be needed if he carried out his fatal purpose, and he had therefore put in his saddle-bags enough garments to replace the muddy dress of a hard ride. He had said that he must leave at dawn, and having laid aside the cares of the last days, he gave himself up joyously to the charm of the refined hospitality of his hosts.
As they turned away, the corvette was setting her sails and the cries of the sailors and the creak of the windlass showed the anchor was being raised. Before they had reached Gouverneur's house she was under way, with papers destined to make trouble for many.
As René lay at rest that night within the curtained bed, no man on Manhattan Island could have been more agreeably at ease with his world. The worry of indecision was over. He felt with honest conviction that his prayer for the downfall of his enemy had been answered, and in this cooler hour he knew with gratitude that his brute will to kill had been wisely denied its desire. It had seemed to him at the time that to act on his instinct was only to do swift justice on a criminal; but he had been given a day to reflect and acknowledged the saner wisdom of the morrow.
Further thought should have left him less well pleased at what the future might hold for him. But the despatch had gone, his errand was done. An image of Margaret in the splendor of brocade and lace haunted the dreamy interval between the waking state and the wholesome sleep of tired youth. Moreover, the good merchant's Madeira had its power of somnolent charm, and, thus soothed, De Courval passed into a world of visionless slumber.
He rode back through the Jerseys to avoid Bristol and the scene of his encounter, and, finding at Camden a flat barge returning to Philadelphia, was able, as the river was open and free of ice, to get his horse aboard and thus to return with some renewal of anxiety to Mrs. Swanwick's house. No one was at home; but Nanny told him that Mr. Schmidt, who had been absent, had returned two days before, but was out. Miss Margaret was at the Hill, and June, the cat, off for two days on love-affairs or predatory business.
He went up-stairs to see his mother. Should he tell her? On the whole, it was better not to speak until he had seen Schmidt. He amused her with an account of having been sent to New York on business and then spoke of the Gouverneur family and their Huguenot descent. He went away satisfied that he had left her at ease, which was not quite the case. "Something has happened," she said to herself. "By and by he will tell me. Is it the girl? I trust not. Or that man? Hardly."
The supper passed in quiet, with light talk of familiar things, the vicomtesse, always a taciturn woman, saying but little.
As De Courval sat down, her black dress, the silvery quiet of Mrs. Swanwick's garb, her notably gentle voice, the simple room without colors, the sanded floor, the spotless cleanliness of the table furniture, of a sudden struck him as he thought of the violence and anger of the scene on the Bristol road. What would this gentle Friend say, and the Pearl? What, indeed!
Supper was just over when, to René's relief, Schmidt appeared. He nodded coolly to René and said, laughing: "Ah, Frau Swanwick, I have not had a chance to growl; but when I go again to the country, I shall take Nanny. I survive; but the diet!" He gave an amusing account of it. "Pork—it is because of the unanimous pig. Pies—ach!—cabbage, a sour woman and sour bread, chicken rigged with hemp and with bosoms which need not stays." Even the vicomtesse smiled. "I have dined at Mr. Morris's, to my relief. Come, René, let us smoke."