I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded pleasantly--not looking closely at me--as they walked by me to the house. I watched the two gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway swallowed them, and then I walked away to a quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and the yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I stood to think.
They were strange thoughts, I remember. If the oak can think at the moment the wind uproots it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the landslip tears it from the slope, they may have such thoughts. I stared at the leaves, at the rotting blossoms, into the dark cavities of the hedge; I stared mechanically, dazed and wondering. What was the purpose for which I was here? What was the work I had come to do? Above all, how--my God! how was I to do it in the face of these helpless women, who trusted me--who opened their house to me? Clon had not frightened me, nor the loneliness of the leagued village, nor the remoteness of this corner where the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and the King's writ ran slowly, and the rebellion, long quenched elsewhere, still smouldered. But Madame's pure faith, the younger woman's tenderness--how was I to face these?
I cursed the Cardinal, I cursed the English fool who had brought me to this, I cursed the years of plenty and scarceness and the Quartier Marais, and Zaton's, where I had lived like a pig, and--
A touch fell on my arm. I turned. It was Clon. How he had stolen up so quietly, how long he had been at my elbow, I could not tell. But his eyes gleamed spitefully in their deep sockets, and he laughed with his fleshless lips; and I hated him. In the daylight the man looked more like a death's-head than ever. I fancied I read in his face that he knew my secret, and I flashed into rage at sight of him.
"What is it?" I cried, with another oath. "Don't lay your corpse-claws on me!"
He mowed at me, and, bowing with ironical politeness, pointed to the house. "Is Madame served?" I said impatiently, crushing down my anger. "Is that what you mean, fool?"
He nodded.
"Very well," I retorted. "I can find my way, then. You may go!"
He fell behind, and I strode back through the sunshine and flowers, and along the grass-grown paths, to the door by which I had come. I walked fast, but his shadow kept pace with me, driving out the strange thoughts in which I had been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened my mood. After all, this was a little, little place; the people who lived here--I shrugged my shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life lay yonder in the great city. A boy might wreck himself here for a fancy; a man of the world, never. When I entered the room, where the two ladies stood waiting for me by the table, I was myself again.
"Clon made you understand, then?" the younger woman said kindly.