Part 9 (1/2)
”Can love so expand the heart of man that it fills even his stomach?
Well, well, if you will not eat, at least have the grace to bear me company at table. Come, Andrea,” and I took his arm, ”let us ascend to that chamber which she has but just quitted. Who can tell but that we shall find there some token of her recent presence? If nothing more, at least the air will be pervaded by the perfume she affected, and since you scorn the humble food of man, you can dine on that.”
He smiled despite himself as I drew him towards the staircase.
”Scoffer!” quoth he. ”Your callous soul knows naught of love.”
”Whereas you have had three hours' experience. Pardieu! You shall instruct me in the gentle art.”
Alas, for those perfumes upon which I had proposed that he should feast himself. If any the beautiful Genevieve had left behind her, they had been smothered in the vulgar yet appetising odour of the steaming ragout that occupied the table.
I prevailed at length upon the love-lorn boy to take some food, but I could lead him to talk of naught save Genevieve de Canaples. Presently he took to chiding me for the deliberateness wherewith I ate, and betrayed thereby his impatience to be in the saddle and after her.
I argued that whilst she saw him not she might think of him. But the argument, though sound, availed me little, and in the end I was forced--for all that I am a man accustomed to please myself--to hurriedly end my repast, and p.r.o.nounce myself ready to start.
As Andrea had with him some store of baggage--since his sojourn at Blois was likely to be of some duration--he travelled in a coach. Into this coach, then, we climbed--he and I. His valet, Silvio, occupied the seat beside the coachman, whilst my stalwart Michelot rode behind leading my horse by the bridle. In this fas.h.i.+on we set out, and ere long the silence of my thoughtful companion, the monotonous rumbling of the vehicle, and, most important of all factors, the good dinner that I had consumed, bred in me a torpor that soon became a sleep.
From a dream that, bound hand and foot, I was being dragged by St. Auban and Malpertuis before the Cardinal, I awakened with a start to find that we were clattering already through the streets of Etrechy; so that whilst I had slept we had covered some six leagues. Twilight had already set in, and Andrea lay back idly in the carriage, holding a book which it was growing too dark to read, and between the leaves of which he had slipped his forefinger to mark the place where he had paused.
His eyes met mine as I looked round, and he smiled. ”I should not have thought, Gaston,” he said, ”that a man with so seared a conscience could have slept thus soundly.”
”I have not slept soundly,” I grumbled, recalling my dream.
”Pardieu! you have slept long, at least.”
”Out of self-protection; so that I might not hear the name of Genevieve de Canaples. 'T is a sweet name, but you render it monotonous.”
He laughed good-humouredly.
”Have you never loved, Gaston?”
”Often.”
”Ah--but I mean did you never conceive a great pa.s.sion?”
”Hundreds, boy.”
”But never such a one as mine!”
”a.s.suredly not; for the world has never seen its fellow. Be good enough to pull the cord, you Cupid incarnate. I wish to alight.”
”You wish to alight! Why?”
”Because I am sick of love. I am going to ride awhile with Michelot whilst you dream of her coral lips, her sapphire eyes, and what other gems const.i.tute her wondrous personality.”
Two minutes later I was in the saddle riding with Michelot in the wake of the carriage. As I have already sought to indicate in these pages, Michelot was as much my friend as my servant. It was therefore no more than natural that I should communicate to him my fears touching what might come of the machinations of St. Auban, Vilmorin, and even, perchance, of that little firebrand, Malpertuis.
Night fell while we talked, and at last the lights of etampes, where we proposed to lie, peeped at us from a distance, and food and warmth.