Part 32 (1/2)

”It is not necessary at this moment, monsieur. You will not meet me at the Chateau de Lancilly.”

”But you may possibly meet me--Vicomte des Barres--for your father and I sometimes put our old acquaintance before politics--” cried the voice from the carriage. ”You will be very welcome to your family. But this arranges matters, Monsieur le Capitaine, for you are on the wrong road.”

”Sapristi! The wrong road! Why, I picked up a wounded fellow and brought him a few miles. He got down to take a short cut home, and told me the next turn to the right would bring me to Lancilly. He was lying, then? A fellow called Joubard, not of my regiment.”

”What do you say?” said d'Ombre to Angelot, who had already greeted him, lingering in the background to see the end of the dispute.

Georges de Sainfoy now first looked at the sportsman standing by the roadside, and Angelot looked at him. Monsieur des Barres, a little stiff from a long day's shooting--for he was not so lithe and active as his host, and not so young as the Baron--now got down from the carriage and joined the group.

”Bonjour, Monsieur Ange,” he said kindly. ”You have been shooting, I see, but not with your uncle. Have you met before, you two?” He glanced at Georges de Sainfoy, who stared haughtily. Even in the dim dusk Angelot could see that he was wonderfully like his mother.

”No, monsieur,” he answered. ”Not since twenty years ago, at least, and I think my cousin remembers that time as little as I do.”

He spoke carelessly and lightly. De Sainfoy's fine blue eyes considered him coldly, measured his height and breadth and found them wanting.

”Ah! You are a La Mariniere, I suppose?” he said.

”Ange de la Mariniere, at your service.”

Georges held out his hand. It was with an oddly unwilling sensation that Angelot gave his. Though the action might be friendly, there was something slighting, something impatient, in the stranger's manner; and the cousins already disliked each other, not yet knowing why.

”Are my family well? Do they expect me?” said Georges de Sainfoy.

”I believe they are very well. I do not know if they expect you,”

Angelot answered.

”Is it true that this is not the road to Lancilly?”

D'Ombre growled something about military insolence, and Monsieur des Barres laughed.

”Pardon, gentlemen,” said De Sainfoy. ”I am impatient, I know. A soldier on his way home does not expect to be stopped by etiquettes about pa.s.sing on the road. My cousin knows the country; I appeal to him, as one of you did just now. Is this the way to Lancilly, or not?”

Angelot laughed. ”Yes--and no,” he said.

”What do you mean by that? Come, I am in no humour for joking.”

Angelot looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

”It is _a_ road, but not _the_ road,” he said. ”No one in his senses would drive this way to Lancilly. This part of it is bad enough; further on, where it goes down into the valley, it is much worse; I doubt if a heavy carriage could pa.s.s. You turned to the right too soon. Martin Joubard forgot this lane, perhaps. He would hardly have directed you this way--unless--”

”Unless what?”

”Unless he wished to show you the nature of the country, in case you should think of invading it in force.”

The two Chouans laughed.

”Well said, Angelot!” muttered Cesar d'Ombre.

Georges de Sainfoy, stiff and haughty, did not trouble himself about any jest or earnest concealed under his cousin's speech and the way the neighbours took it. He realised, perhaps, that in this wild west country the name of Napoleon was not altogether one to conjure with, that he had not left the enemies of the Empire behind him in Spain. But he realised, too, that this was hardly the place or the time to a.s.sert his own importance and his master's authority.