“Mais, mon ami!” cried Cochefort, as Thompson tore himself away, “ne me laissez pas comme ça!” and with much gesticulation prepared to follow.
But Brentin sagely stopped him. “Restay, Mossieu Cochefort!” he said, graciously; “Restay avec nous. Tout va biang. Restay!”
“Mais, quel cochon!” cried the angry Cochefort, stretching out his black kid hands, and shaking them in Bailey Thompson’s direction. “Ma parole d’honneur! a t’on jamais vu un pareil sacré cochon!”
“C’est vrai!” said Brentin. “Mais il est toujours comme ça. Vous savvy, il n’est pas gentilhomme. Nous sommes tous gentilhommes. Nous vous garderong et vous traiterong tray biang. Restay!”
So Mossieu Cochefort allowed himself to be comforted, and restay’d. We took him with us to the church, and did him right well at lunch, and then, so forlorn and downcast the poor creature seemed, Lucy and I carried him off with us up to town, if only out of kindness, to put him on his way back to Monaco.
On the way up in the train he confessed to me his only instructions had been to try and get the money back, and that if he couldn’t manage that, or part of it, he was directed not to think of embarrassing the authorities by taking us all in charge. I could conceive, he said, that the authorities didn’t want to be made the laughing-stock of Europe by having to try us, nor to add to their already heavy expenses by keeping us in prison—nearly all quite young men—for the term of our natural lives. He hadn’t been able fully to explain all this to Bailey Thompson: the man was such a lunatic, he said, and so obstinate: and besides, from the moment of his arrival Bailey Thompson had ridden the high horse over him, and proudly declaring he didn’t require to be taught his duties by a foreigner, had immediately carried him off down to Nesshaven, scarcely allowing him once to open his mouth all the way.
At Liverpool Street he seemed more lost, poor wretch, than ever. He knew no single word of English, and looked at us so pathetically, as we stood on the platform together, our soft hearts were touched. So we made up our minds to carry him along with us to Folkestone, dine him at the “Pavilion,” and afterwards see him safe on board the night-boat for Boulogne.
It was droll, all the same, this carrying a French detective about with us on our wedding-day; but the man was so truly grateful I have never regretted it. We gave him a good dinner at the hotel, and at ten o’clock walked him out on to the pier for his boat. He made me a little speech at parting, declaring I had treated him “en vrai camarade,” and that if ever I wanted to come to Monte Carlo again I was to let him know and he would see I came to no harm. To Lucy he presented all his compliments and felicitations on securing the affection of “un si galant homme!” and then, with a twenty-pound note I slipped into his hand at parting, bowed himself away, and was soon lost to sight in the purlieus of the second cabin, whither he went prepared to be dreadfully sick, smooth and calm as the night was.
As Lucy and I strolled back to the hotel, arm-in-arm, we both were silent.
At last, just as we got back and heard the steamer’s final clanging bell and despairing whistle, “I can’t make out, really, whether you’ve all done right or wrong,” she whispered, softly; “but this I know, dearest, you have been most extraordinarily lucky.”