Nor was my pleasure much lessened by the fact that I was so soon to part from Mademoiselle de la Vire. Frankly, I was far from liking her. Exposure to the air of a court had spoiled, it seemed to me, whatever graces of disposition the young lady had ever possessed. She still maintained, and had maintained throughout the journey, the cold and suspicious attitude assumed at starting; nor had she ever expressed the least solicitude on my behalf, or the slightest sense that we were incurring danger in her service. She had not scrupled constantly to prefer her whims to the common advantage, and even safety; while her sense of self-importance had come to be so great, that she seemed to hold herself exempt from the duty of thanking any human creature. I could not deny that she was beautiful—indeed, I often thought, when watching her, of the day when I had seen her in the King of Navarre’s antechamber in all the glory of her charms. But I felt none the less that I could turn my back on her—leaving her in safety—without regret; and be thankful that her path would never again cross mine.
With such thoughts in my breast I turned the corner of the Rue de St. Denys and came at once upon the Bleeding Heart, a small but decent-looking hostelry situate near the end of the street and opposite a church. A bluff grey-haired man, who was standing in the doorway, came forward as we halted, and looking curiously at mademoiselle asked what I lacked; adding civilly that the house was full and they had no sleeping room, the late events having drawn a great assemblage to Blois.
‘I want only an address,’ I answered, leaning from the saddle and speaking in a low voice that I might not be overheard by the passers-by. ‘The Baron de Rosny is in Blois, is he not?’
The man started at the name of the Huguenot leader, and looked round him nervously. But, seeing that no one was very near us, he answered: ‘He was, sir; but he left town a week ago and more. ‘There have been strange doings here, and M. de Rosny thought that the climate suited him ill.’
He said this with so much meaning, as well as concern that he should not be overheard, that, though I was taken aback and bitterly disappointed, I succeeded in restraining all exclamations and even show of feeling. After a pause of dismay, I asked whither M. de Rosny had gone.
‘To Rosny,’ was the answer.
‘And Rosny?’
‘Is beyond Chartres, pretty well all the way to Mantes,’ the man answered, stroking my horse’s neck. ‘Say thirty leagues.’
I turned my horse, and hurriedly communicated what he said to mademoiselle, who was waiting a few paces away. Unwelcome to me, the news was still less welcome to her. Her chagrin and indignation knew no bounds. For a moment words failed her, but her flashing eyes said more than her tongue as she cried to me: ‘Well, sir, and what now? Is this the end of your fine promises? Where is your Rosny, if all be not a lying invention of your own?’
Feeling that she had some excuse I suppressed my choler, and humbly repeating that Rosny was at his house, two days farther on, and that I could see nothing for it but to go to him, I asked the landlord where we could find a lodging for the night.