At the door he met Trudaine, who said to him, rather hastily, “You are going back to Lyons with Madame Danville, I suppose?”
“This very day,” answered Lomaque.
“If you should hear of a convenient bachelor lodging, at Lyons, or near it,” continued the other, dropping his voice and speaking more rapidly than before, “you would be doing me a favor if you would let me know about it.”
Lomaque assented; but before he could add a question which was on the tip of his tongue, Trudaine had vanished in the interior of the house.
“A bachelor lodging!” repeated the land-steward, standing alone on the doorstep. “At or near Lyons! Aha! Monsieur Trudaine, I put your bachelor lodging and your talk to me last night together, and I make out a sum total which is, I think, pretty near the mark. You have refused that Paris appointment, my friend; and I fancy I can guess why.”
He paused thoughtfully, and shook his head with ominous frowns and bitings of his lips.
“All clear enough in that sky,” he continued, after a while, looking up at the lustrous midday heaven. “All clear enough there; but I think I see a little cloud rising in a certain household firmament already—a little cloud which hides much, and which I for one shall watch carefully.”