She agreed. But this, though a very easy course to advise, was one anything but easy to pursue. I discovered that, a few minutes later, when I went out to see if the carriage was ready, and found De Géol in the doorway with a face as hard as his own hills. "You are starting?" he said.
I muttered that I was.
"I find that I have to congratulate you," he continued, with a smile of unpleasant meaning.
"On what, Monsieur?"
"On finding your family," he answered, looking at me with a bitter sort of humour. "To discover both a mother and a sister in twenty-four hours must be great happiness. But--may I give you a hint, M. le Vicomte?"
"If you please," I said, with desperate coolness.
"Then if--being so happy in making discoveries--you happen to light next on M. Froment--on M. Froment, the firebrand of Nîmes, false Capuchin, and false traitor!--do not adopt him also! That is all."
"I am not acquainted with him," I said coldly. He had spoken with passion and fire.
"Do not become so," he answered.
I shrugged my shoulders, and he said no more; and in a moment Madame and Mademoiselle came out, and took their seats, and I set out to walk up the hill beside the horses.