“Voyons, patronne,” he began, unable to think of anything else to say. “What’s all this fuss about? I expect him to be back here about midnight.”
He was extremely relieved to notice that she believed him. It was the truth. For indeed he did not know what he could have invented on the spur of the moment that would get her out of the way and induce her to go to bed. She treated him to a sinister frown and a terribly menacing “If you have lied. … Oh!”
He produced an indulgent smile. “Compose yourself. He will be here soon after midnight. You may go to sleep with an easy mind.”
She turned her back on him contemptuously, and said curtly, “Come along, aunt,” and went to the door leading to the passage. There she turned for a moment with her hand on the door handle.
“You are changed. I can’t trust either of you. You are not the same people.”
She went out. Only then did Catherine detach her gaze from the wall to meet Peyrol’s eyes. “Did you hear what she said? We! Changed! It is she herself. …”
Peyrol nodded twice, and there was a long pause during which even the flames of the lamp did not stir.
“Go after her, Mademoiselle Catherine,” he said at last with a shade of sympathy in his tone. She did not move. “Allons—du courage,” he urged her deferentially as it were. “Try to put her to sleep.”
XII
Upright and deliberate, Catherine left the kitchen, and in the passage outside found Arlette waiting for her with a lighted candle in her hand. Her heart was filled with sudden desolation by the beauty of that young face enhaloed in the patch of light, with the profound darkness as of a dungeon for a background. At once her niece led the way upstairs muttering savagely through her pretty teeth: “He thinks I could go to sleep. Old imbecile!”
Peyrol did not take his eyes off Catherine’s straight back till the door had closed after her. Only then he relieved himself by letting the air escape through his pursed lips and rolling his eyes freely about. He picked up the lamp by the ring on the top of the central rod and went into the salle, closing behind him the door of the dark kitchen. He stood the lamp on the very table on which Lieutenant Réal had had his midday meal. A small white cloth was still spread on it, and there was his chair askew as he had pushed it back when he got up. Another of the many chairs in the salle was turned round conspicuously to face the table. These things made Peyrol remark to himself bitterly: “She sat and stared at him as if he had been gilt all over, with three heads and seven arms on his body”—a comparison reminiscent of certain idols he had seen in an Indian temple. Though not an iconoclast, Peyrol felt positively sick at the recollection, and hastened to step outside. The great cloud had broken up and the mighty fragments were moving to the westward in stately flight before the rising moon. Scevola, who had been lying extended full length on the bench, swung himself up suddenly, very upright.
“Had a little nap in the open?” asked Peyrol, letting his eyes roam through the luminous space under the departing rearguard of the clouds jostling each other up there.
“I did not sleep,” said the sansculotte. “I haven’t closed my eyes—not for one moment.”
“That must be because you weren’t sleepy,” suggested the deliberate Peyrol, whose thoughts were far away with the English ship. His mental eye contemplated her black image against the white beach of the Salins describing a sparkling curve under the moon; and meantime he went on slowly, “for it could not have been noise that kept you awake.” On the level of Escampobar the shadows lay long on the ground while the side of the lookout hill remained yet black but edged with an increasing brightness. And the amenity of the stillness was such that it softened for a moment Peyrol’s hard inward attitude towards all mankind, including even the captain of the English ship. The old rover savoured a moment of serenity in the midst of his cares.
“This is an accursed spot,” declared Scevola suddenly.
Peyrol, without turning his head, looked at him sideways. Though he had sprung up from his reclining posture smartly enough, the citizen had gone slack all over and was sitting all in a heap. His shoulders were hunched up, his hands reposed on his knees. With his staring eyes he resembled a sick child in the moonlight.
“It’s the very spot for hatching treacheries. One feels steeped in them up to the neck.”
He shuddered and yawned a long irresistible nervous yawn with the gleam of unexpected long canines in a retracted, gaping mouth giving away the restless panther lurking in the man.
“Oh yes, there’s treachery about right enough. You couldn’t conceive that, citoyen?”
“Of course I couldn’t,” assented Peyrol with serene contempt. “What is this treachery that you are concocting?” he added carelessly, in
