The Red Cockade

That afforded me a little revenge. Madame St. Alais went white and red in the same instant, and sat a moment with her lips pressed together, and her eyes on the table. "Who is he? What do you know of him?" she said at last.

"He is a poor gentleman and a bigoted Protestant," I answered drily.

She bit her lip. "Bon Dieu!" she muttered. "Who could have foreseen such an accident? Do you think that he suspects anything?"

"Doubtless. To begin, I left early this morning, in breach of an agreement to travel with him. When he learns, in addition, that I am travelling with my mother and sister, whom yesterday I did not possess-"

Madame looked at me, as if she would strike me. "What will you do?" she cried.

"It is for my mother to say," I answered politely. And I helped myself very indifferently to cheese. "She dictated this policy."

She was white with rage, and perhaps alarm; I chuckled secretly, seeing her condition. But rage availed her little; she had to humble herself. "What do you advise?" she said at last.

"There is only one course open," I answered. "We must brazen it out."

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.

The ascent was steep and long and toilsome, and a dozen times as we climbed out of the valley we had to halt to breathe the cattle; a dozen times I looked back at the grey mountain inn lying on the desolate grey plateau at our feet. Always I found the Baron looking up at us, stern and gaunt and motionless as the house before which he stood. And I shivered.

CHAPTER XVII.

FROMENT OF NÎMES

This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less easily allayed. True, Géol had not betrayed me, but he might have his reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left, all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.

Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or wearily climbed long lacets, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind us, and the less regard she paid to me.

This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual. Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naïve-a smile that remained while the tear passed-seemed to say that the joys of that strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth, white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!

Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was happy. In spite of all-the cold, the journey, Géol, Madame-I was happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say clearly, "Is that he?"

It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.

"What is it?" I said in wonder.

She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was "O Richard, O mon Roi!" In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side, and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a man of the country.

"You are going to Ganges?" Madame cried to him, without preface.

"Yes, Madame," he answered, as he came quietly up, and saluted her.

"We can take you on," she said.

"A thousand thanks," he answered, his eyes twinkling. "You are too good. If the gentleman does not object?" And he looked at me, smiling without disguise.

"Oh, no!" Madame said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, "the gentleman will not object."

But that gave me, in the middle of my astonishment, the fillip that I needed. The device of the meeting was so transparent, the appearance of this man, in cloak and boots, on the desolate road far from any habitation, was so clearly a part of an arranged plan, that I could not swallow it; I must either fall in with it, be dupe, and play my rôle with my eyes open, or act at once. I awoke from my astonishment. "One moment, Madame," I said. "I do not know who this gentleman is."

She had resumed her seat, and the stranger had come up to the window on her side, and was looking in. He had a face of striking power, large-sized and coarse, but not unpleasant; with quick, bright eyes, and mobile lips that smiled easily. The hand he laid on the carriage door was immense.

I think my words took Madame by surprise. She flashed round on me. "Nonsense," she cried imperiously. And to him, "Get in, Monsieur."

"No," I retorted, half-rising. "Stay, if you please. Stay where you are, until-"

Madame turned to me, furious. "This is my carriage," she said.

"Absolutely," I answered.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Only that if this gentleman enters it, I leave it."

For an instant we looked at one another. Then she saw that I was determined, and, knowing my position, she lowered her tone. "Why?" she said, breathing quickly. "Why, because he enters it, should you leave it?"

"Because, Madame," I answered, "I see no reason for taking in a stranger whom we do not know. This gentleman may be everything that is upright-"

"He is no stranger!" she snapped. "I know him. Will that satisfy you?"

"If he will give me his name," I said.

Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. "With pleasure, Monsieur," he said. "My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of Montauban, who last week had the good fortune-"

"No," I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; "I think not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nîmes, I think, Monsieur."

A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in his tone. "Well, Monsieur," he said, "and if I am? What then?"

"If you are," I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, "I decline to travel with you."

"And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must not travel with me!"