At any rate she had heard me fight her battle; yet she did not speak to me nor I to her; and under these strange conditions we began and pursued the strangest journey man ever made. We drove through pleasant valleys growing green, over sterile passes, where winter still fringed the rocks with snow, through sunshine, and in the teeth of cold mountain winds; but we scarcely heeded any of these things. Our hearts and thoughts lay inside the carriage, where Madame sat smiling, and we two kept grim silence.
About noon we halted to rest and eat at a little village inn, high up. It seemed to me a place almost at the end of the world, with a chaos of mountains rising tier on tier above it, and slopes of shale below. But the frenzy of the time had reached even this barren nook. Before we had taken two mouthfuls, the Syndic called to see our papers; and--God knows I had no choice--Madame passed for my mother, and Denise for my sister. Then, while the Syndic still stood bowing over my commission, and striving to learn from me what news there was below, a horse halted at the door, and I heard a man's voice, and in a breath M. le Baron de Géol walked in. There was a single decent room in the inn--that in which we sat--and he came into it.
He uncovered, seeing ladies; and recognising me with a start smiled, but a trifle sourly. "You set off early?" he said. "I waited at the east gate, but you did not come, Monsieur."
I coloured, conscience-stricken, and begged a thousand pardons. As a fact, I had clean forgotten him. I had not once thought of the appointment I had made with him at the gate.
"You are not riding?" he said, looking at my companions a little strangely.
"No," I answered. And I could not find another word to say. The Syndic still stood smiling and bowing beside me; and on a sudden I saw the pit on the edge of which I tottered; and my face burned.
"You have met friends?" M. le Baron persisted, looking, hat in hand, at Madame.
"Yes," I muttered. Politeness required that I should introduce him. But I dared not.
However, at that, he at last took the hint; and retired with the Syndic. The moment they were over the threshold Madame flashed out at me, in a passion of anger. "Fool!" she said, without ceremony, "why did you not present him? Don't you know that that is the way to arouse suspicion, and ruin us? A child could see that you had something to hide. If you had presented him at once to your mother----"
"Yes, Madame?"