Читать книгу The Wounded Name - D. K. Broster - Страница 10

Late that night Laurent, deeper than ever in the toils of hero-worship, stood, candlestick in hand, in his guest's bedroom, and, looking at M. de la Rocheterie as he took the watch from his fob and laid it on the dimity-hung dressing-table, said earnestly, "I hope you will sleep well!"

He himself would dream to-night of those revolving sheets of flame, the sails of the riddled Moulin Brûlé; of the Emperor's soldiers ceasing fire at last, thinking that they were merely wasting ammunition on the holocaust whose heat was too great for them to approach; and of the dozen blackened figures—or, more probably, of one figure in particular—bursting out of that inferno of smoke and blood and, completely surrounded though they were, cutting a way through the stupefied besiegers.

"I suppose you can—sleep in any surroundings," he added, for though he knew that L'Oiseleur must often have spent the night in the open, that reflection was somehow as incongruous as the recital downstairs with this composed and very well-dressed young man now calmly winding up his watch in the best bedroom of Keynton House.

"I much prefer a bed to any other surroundings," replied the Vicomte de la Rocheterie. "Yours, I am sure, is most comfortable." Here, as Laurent afterwards realized, he must have discovered on what a vain employment he was spending his time; but, instead of holding his useless watch to his ear, or otherwise betraying to the man in whose service he had wrecked it, the effect of Dart water upon its interior, he quietly laid it face downwards on the dressing-table, glanced at the mantelpiece to ascertain that there was a clock in the room, and went on, "By the way, Monsieur de Courtomer, I hope my early start to-morrow will not prevent my taking farewell of Mme la Comtesse?"

Laurent reassured him, warning him that, unless he chose to have coffee brought to him in his room, he would have to face an English breakfast. But for this M. de la Rocheterie expressed a preference.

"I trust you have everything you require?" then said Laurent, reluctantly preparing to take his leave. "No, there is one thing that you will need in the morning, Monsieur, and that is a hat. You cannot travel without one, though you can remedy the lack excellently well when you get to Bath. You must really allow me to supply you with one."

"Thank you," said his guest. "Yes, I suppose that to travel so far bareheaded might excite comment."

"Especially in your case," thought Laurent, though by now he admired the hair en queue. "Do you know Bath, Vicomte?" he asked as an excuse to linger a little.

"No, not at all," returned the traveller.

"It is a prodigious fine place," pronounced Laurent. "I hope I am not impertinent in assuming that it is not—fortunately—for the good of your health that you are going there?"

"No," answered L'Oiseleur, "it is certainly not for my health that I am going to Bath."

He was fingering, with bent head, the seals of his watch lying there. Laurent had the impression that his mouth tightened as he spoke, and got an instant conviction that M. de la Rocheterie's visit to Bath was no pleasure to him. He wondered, not for the first time, what the object of his journey could be, he whose Chouans were still under arms, yet who avowed that he was not on the King's business. And his eyes, following the strong, slender hand, noted the crest on the back of the watch, a swan with its neck encircled by a crown; he even distinguished, on the scroll below the proud and laconic motto, Sans tache. Both pleased him.

Then he made a more determined effort, and bade his guest good-night. There would always be the morning.

But the morning was disappointing, as usually on the occasion of an early start. There seemed no time for conversation, no opportunity for learning any more of the visitor. The inspiration which had come to Laurent of begging the latter to spend a day or two at Keynton House on his way back from Bath proved unfruitful, M. de la Rocheterie explaining that he would probably have to return by London and Dover. It was Mme de Courtomer who had most of L'Oiseleur's attention during the English breakfast, and it seemed to her son that it was not till the last stage of all had arrived, and he was walking down the village beside his guest, with Walters behind carrying his valise, that he had the chance of a word with him; and then there seemed nothing to say ... just because there was so much. He tried, indeed, to thank him anew for yesterday's act, but even that expression of his feelings was debarred him. Aymar de la Rocheterie declared that thanks for a thing which he had not done made him feel as fraudulent as he sometimes did over the jartier. So Laurent, after murmuring stubbornly, "You meant to save me! I only wish I might have a chance of repaying you some day," had to desist. Then the coach came rumbling in.

"You have promised my mother that when you are in Paris you will give us the pleasure of seeing you, Monsieur," Laurent reminded the traveller. "I want the promise made to me, too."

"I do not need to be doubly bound," retorted M. de la Rocheterie, smiling. "And you, Monsieur de Courtomer, when are you coming to Brittany? We have a little river at Sessignes, with indifferent fishing ... though to be sure I have succeeded in catching excellent trout at Pont-aux-Rochers ... but that is a good way off."

"I do not need to be tempted by fishing," responded Laurent in his turn. "Some day ..."

A hearty shake of the hand on both sides, and again that charming smile of L'Oiseleur's, and he was mounting to his place.

"At any rate, he's got my hat!" reflected Laurent, watching the coach roll off. Then he went rather pensively home.