Awhile he paused there on the heights; then he gave his horse a touch of the spur, and they started down the winding road that led into La Rochette. A half-hour later they were riding under the porte cochere of the inn of the Black Boar. Of the ostler who hastened forward to take their reins Monsieur de Garnache inquired if the Marquis de Condillac were lodged there. He was answered in the affirmative, and he got down at once from his horse. Indeed, but for the formality of the thing, he might have spared himself the question, for lounging about the courtyard were a score of stalwart weather-tanned fellows, whose air and accoutrements proclaimed them soldiers. It required little shrewdness to guess in them the personal followers of the Marquis, the remainder of the little troop that had followed the young seigneur to the wars when, some three years ago, he had set out from Condillac.
Garnache gave orders for the horses to be cared for, and bade Rabecque get himself fed in the common room. Heralded by the host, the Parisian then mounted the stairs to Monsieur de Condillac"s apartments.
The landlord led the way to the inn"s best room, turned the handle, and, throwing wide the door, stood aside for Monsieur de Garnache to enter.
From within the chamber came the sounds of a scuffle, a man"s soft laugh, and a girl"s softer intercession.
"Let me go, monsieur. Of your pity, let me go. Some one is coming."
"And what care I who comes?" answered a voice that seemed oppressed by laughter.
Garnache strode into the chamber--s.p.a.cious and handsomely furnished as became the best room of the Auberge du Sanglier Noir--to find a meal spread on the table, steaming with an odour promising of good things, but neglected by the guest for the charms of the serving-wench, whose waist he had imprisoned. As Garnache"s tall figure loomed before him he let the girl go and turned a half-laughing, half-startled face upon the intruder.
"Who the devil may you be?" he inquired, and a brown eye, rakish and roving in its glance, played briskly over the Parisian, whilst Garnache himself returned the compliment, and calmly surveyed this florid gentleman of middle height with the fair hair and regular features.
The girl scurried by and darted from the room, dodging the smiting hand which the host raised as she flew past him. The Parisian felt his gorge rising. Was this the sort of fever that had kept Monsieur le Marquis at La Rochette, whilst mademoiselle was suffering in durance at Condillac?
His last night"s jealous speculations touching a man he did not know had leastways led him into no exaggeration. He found just such a man as he had pictured--a lightly-loving, pleasure-taking roysterer, with never a thought beyond the amus.e.m.e.nt which the hour afforded him.
With curling lip Garnache bowed stiffly, and in a cold, formal voice he announced himself.
"My name is Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache. I am an emissary dispatched from Paris by her Majesty the Queen-mother to procure the enlargement of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye from the durance in which she is held by madame your stepmother."
The pleasant gentleman"s eyebrows went up; a smile that was almost insolent broke on his face.
"That being so, monsieur, why the devil are you here?"
"I am here, monsieur," answered him Garnache, throwing back his head, his nostrils quivering, "because you are not at Condillac."
The tone was truculent to the point of defiance, for despite the firm resolve he had taken last night never again to let his temper overmaster him, already Garnache"s self-control was slipping away.
The Marquis noted the tone, and observed the man. In their way he liked both; in their way he disliked both. But he clearly saw that this peppery gentleman must be treated less cavalierly, or trouble would come of it. So he waved him gracefully to the table, where a brace of flagons stood amid the steaming viands.
"You will dine with me, monsieur," said he, the utmost politeness marking his utterance now. "I take it that since you have come here in quest of me you have something to tell me. Shall we talk as we eat? I detest a lonely meal."
The florid gentleman"s tone and manner were mollifying in the extreme.
Garnache had risen early and ridden far; the smell of the viands had quickened an appet.i.te already very keen; moreover, since he and this gentleman were to be allies, it was as well they should not begin by quarrelling.
He bowed less stiffly, expressed his willingness and his thanks, laid hat and whip and cloak aside, unbuckled and set down his sword, and, that done, took at table the place which his host himself prepared him.
Garnache took more careful stock of the Marquis now. He found much to like in his countenance. It was frank and jovial; obviously that of a sensualist, but, leastways, an honest sensualist. He was dressed in black, as became a man who mourned his father, yet with a striking richness of material, whilst his broad collar of fine point and the lace cuffs of his doublet were worth a fortune.
What time they ate Monsieur de Garnache told of his journey from Paris and of his dealings with Tressan and his subsequent adventures at Condillac. He dwelt pa.s.singly upon the manner in which they had treated him, and found it difficult to choose words to express the reason for his returning in disguise to play the knight-errant to Valerie. He pa.s.sed on to speak of last night"s happenings and of his escape.
Throughout, the Marquis heard him with a grave countenance and a sober, attentive glance, yet, when he had finished a smile crept round the sensual lips.
"The letter that I had at Milan prepared me for some such trouble as this," said he, and Garnache was amazed at the lightness of his tone, just as he had been amazed to see the fellow keep his countenance at the narrative of mademoiselle"s position. "I guessed that my beautiful stepmother intended me some such scurviness from the circ.u.mstance of her having kept me in ignorance of my father"s death. But frankly, sir, your tale by far outstrips my wildest imaginings. You have behaved very--very bravely in this affair. You seem, in fact, to have taken a greater interest in Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye"s enlargement than the Queen could have a right to expect of you." And he smiled, a world of suggestion in his eyes. Garnache sat back in his chair and stared at the man.
"This levity, monsieur, on such a subject, leaves me thunderstruck," he said at last.
"Diable!" laughed the other. "You are too p.r.o.ne, after your trials; to view its tragic rather than its comic side. Forgive me if I am smitten only with the humour of the thing."
"The humour of the thing!" gurgled Garnache, his eyes starting from his head. Then out leapt that temper of his like an eager hound that has been suddenly unleashed. He brought down his clenched hand upon the table, caught in pa.s.sing a flagon, and sent it crashing to the floor. If there was a table near at hand when his temper went, he never failed to treat it so.
"Par la mort Dieu! monsieur, you see but the humour of it, do you? And what of that poor child who is lying there, suffering this incarceration because of her fidelity to a promise given you?"
The statement was hardly fully accurate. But it served its purpose. The other"s face became instantly, grave.
"Calm yourself, I beg, monsieur," he cried, raising a soothing hand. "I have offended you somewhere; that is plain. There is something here that I do not altogether understand. You say that Valerie has suffered on account of a promise given me? To what are you referring?"
"They hold her a prisoner, monsieur, because they wish to wed her to Marius," answered Garnache, striving hard to cool his anger.
"Parfaitement! That much I understood."
"Well, then, monsieur, is the rest not plain? Because she is betrothed to you--" He paused. He saw, at last, that he was stating something not altogether accurate. But the other took his meaning there and then, lay back in his chair, and burst out laughing.
The blood hummed through Garnache"s head as he tightened his lips and watched this gentleman indulge his inexplicable mirth. Surely Monsieur de Condillac was possessed of the keenest sense of humour in all France.
He laughed with a will, and Garnache sent up a devout prayer that the laugh might choke him. The noise of it filled the hostelry.
"Sir," said Garnache, with an ever-increasing tartness, "there is a by-word has it "Much laughter, little wit." In confidence won, is that your case, monsieur?"
The other looked at him soberly a moment, then went off again.
"Monsieur, monsieur!" he gasped, "you"ll be the death of me. For the love of Heaven look less fierce. Is it my fault that I must laugh? The folly of it all is so colossal. Three years from home, yet there is a woman keeps faithful and holds to a promise given for her. Come, monsieur, you who have seen the world, you must agree that there is in this something that is pa.s.sing singular, extravagantly amusing. My poor little Valerie!" he spluttered through his half-checked mirth, "does she wait for me still? does she count me still betrothed to her? And because of that, says "No" to brother Marius! Death of my life! I shall die of it."
"I have a notion that you may, monsieur," rasped Garnache"s voice, and with it rasped Garnache"s chair upon the boards. He had risen, and he was confronting his merry host very fiercely, white to the lips, his eyes aflame. There was no mistaking his att.i.tude, no mistaking his words.
"Eh?" gasped the other, recovering himself at last to envisage what appeared to develop into a serious situation.
"Monsieur," said Garnache, his voice very cold, "do I understand that you no longer intend to carry out your engagement and wed Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye?"
A dull flush spread upon the Marquis"s face. He rose too, and across the table he confronted his guest, his mien haughty, his eyes imperious.
"I thought, monsieur," said he, with a great dignity, "I thought when I invited you to sit at my table that your business was to serve me, however little I might be conscious of having merited the honour. It seems instead that you are come hither to affront me. You are my guest, monsieur. Let me beg that you will depart before I resent a question on a matter which concerns myself alone."
The man was right, and Garnache was wrong. He had no t.i.tle to take up the affairs of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he was past reason now, and he was not the man to brook haughtiness, however courteously it might be cloaked. He eyed the Marquis"s flushed ace across the board, and his lip curled.
"Monsieur," said he, "I take your meaning very fully. Half a word with me is as good as a whole sentence with another. You have dubbed me in polite phrases an impertinent. That I am not; and I resent the imputation."
"Oh, that!" said the Marquis, with a half-laugh and a shrug. "If you resent it--" His smile and his gesture made the rest plain.
"Exactly, monsieur," was Garnache"s answer. "But I do not fight sick men."
Florimond"s brows grew wrinkled, his eyes puzzled.
"Sick men!" he echoed. "Awhile ago, monsieur, you appeared to cast a doubt upon my sanity. Is it a case of the drunkard who thinks all the world drunk but himself?"
Garnache gazed at him. That doubt he had entertained grew now into something like a.s.surance.
"I know not whether it is the fever makes your tongue run so--" he began, when the other broke in, a sudden light of understanding in his eyes.