"I have suspicions to verify the ends to serve, as you shall see.
Will you do me the favour to go out by the back and call my men?
Tell the corporal to make his way to the front of the house, and to hold himself in readiness to enter the moment I call him."
"What are you about to do?" she asked and the face, as he saw it by the light of the candle she held, wore an expression of sullen disapproval.
He reassured her that there would be no bloodshed, and suggested that the men were dangerous characters whom it might be ill for her to entertain. And so at last he won his way, and she went to do his errand, whilst he reentered the kitchen He found Des Cadoux by the fire, intent upon drying as much of himself as possible. The younger man had seized upon the bottle of brandy that had been left on the table, and was in the act of filling himself a second glass. Nothing could be further from the mind of either than a suspicion of the identity of this rustically-clad and grimy-faced fellow.
"Mathilde will be here in a moment," said Caron deferentially.
"She is seeking something for you."
Had he told them precisely what she was seeking they had been, possibly, less at ease.
"Let her hasten," cried the courier, "for I am famished."
"Have patience, Anatole," murmured the ever-gentle Cadoux. "The good woman did not expect us."
Anatole! The name buzzed through Caron's brain. To whom did it belong? He knew of someone who bore it. Yet question himself though he might, he could at the moment find no answer. And then the courier created a diversion by addressing him.
"Fill yourself a glass, mon bonhomme," said he. "I have a toast for you."
"For me, Monsieur," cried La Boulaye, with surprised humility. "It were too great an honour."
"Do as you are bidden, man," returned this very peremptory courier.
"There; now let us see how your favour runs. Cry 'Long Live the King!'"
Holding the brandy-glass, which the man had forced upon him, La Boulaye eyed him whimsically for a second.
"There is no toast I would more gladly drink," said he at last, "if I considered it availing. But - alas - you propose it over-late."
"Diable! What may you mean?"
"Why, that since the King is dead, it shall profit us little to cry, 'Long Live the King!'"
"The King, Monsieur, never dies," said Cadoux sententiously.
"Since you put it so, Monsieur," answered La Boulaye, as if convinced, "I'll honour the toast." And with the cry they asked of him he drained his glass.
"And so, my honest fellow," said Des Cadoux, producing his eternal snuff-box, "it seems that you are a Royalist. We did but test you with that toast, my friend."
"What should a poor fellow know of politics, Messieurs?" he deprecated. "These are odd times. I doubt me the world has never seen their like. No man may safely know his neighbour. Now you, sir," he pursued, turning to the younger man," you have the air of a sans-culotte, yet from your speech you seem an honest enough gentleman."
The fellow laughed with unction.
"The air of a sans-culotte?" he cried. "My faith, yes. So much so, that this morning I imposed myself as a courier from Paris upon no less an astute sleuth-hound of the Convention than the Citizen-deputy La Boulaye."
"Is it possible?" cried Caron, his eyes opening wide in wonder. "But how, Monsieurs? For surely a courier must bear letters, and - "
"So did I, so did I, my friend," the other interrupted, with vain glory. "I knocked a patriotic courier over the head to obtain them.
He was genuine, that other courier, and I passed myself out of France with his papers."
"Monsieur is amusing himself at the expense of my credulity," La Boulaye complained.
"My good man, I am telling you facts," the other insisted.
"But how could such a thing be accomplished?" asked Caron, seating himself at the table, and resting his chin upon his hand, his gaze so full of admiration as to seem awestruck.
"How? I will tell you. I am from Artois."
"You'll be repeating that charming story once too often," Des Cadoux cautioned him.