"This must be Gondreville, is it not, my good woman?" said the young man.
"We don't say 'my good woman' here," said Michu. "We are still simple enough to say 'citizen' and 'citizeness' in these parts.""Ah!" exclaimed the young man, in a natural way, and without seeming at all annoyed.
Players of ecarte often have a sense of inward disaster when some unknown person sits down at the same table with them, whose manners, look, voice, and method of shuffling the cards, all, to their fancy, foretell defeat. The instant Michu looked at the young man he felt an inward and prophetic collapse. He was struck by a fatal presentiment;he had a sudden confused foreboding of the scaffold. A voice told him that that dandy would destroy him, although there was nothing whatever in common between them. For this reason his answer was rude; he was and he wished to be forbidding.
"Don't you belong to the Councillor of State, Malin?" said the younger man.
"I am my own master," answered Malin.
"Mesdames," said the young man, assuming a most polite air, "are we not at Gondreville? We are expected there by Monsieur Malin.""There's the park," said Michu, pointing to the open gate.
"Why are you hiding that gun, my fine girl?" said the elder, catching sight of the carbine as he passed through the gate.
"You never let a chance escape you, even in the country!" cried his companion.
They both turned back with a sense of distrust which the bailiff understood at once in spite of their impassible faces. Marthe let them look at the gun, to the tune of Couraut's bark; she was so convinced that her husband was meditating some evil deed that she was thankful for the curiosity of the strangers.
Michu flung a look at his wife which made her tremble; he took the gun and began to load it, accepting quietly the fatal ill-luck of this encounter and the discovery of the weapon. He seemed no longer to care for life, and his wife fathomed his inward feeling.
"So you have wolves in these parts?" said the young man, watching him.
"There are always wolves where there are sheep. You are in Champagne, and there's a forest; we have wild-boars, large and small game both, a little of everything," replied Michu, in a truculent manner.
"I'll bet, Corentin," said the elder of the two men, after exchanging a glance with his companion, "that this is my friend Michu--""We never kept pigs together that I know of," said the bailiff.
"No, but we both presided over Jacobins, citizen," replied the old cynic,--"you at Arcis, I elsewhere. I see you've kept your Carmagnole civility, but it's no longer in fashion, my good fellow.""The park strikes me as rather large; we might lose our way. If you are really the bailiff show us the path to the chateau," said Corentin, in a peremptory tone.
Michu whistled to his son and continued to load his gun. Corentin looked at Marthe with indifference, while his companion seemed charmed by her; but the young man noticed the signs of her inward distress, which escaped the old libertine, who had, however, noticed and feared the gun. The natures of the two men were disclosed in this trifling yet important circumstance.
"I've an appointment the other side of the forest," said the bailiff.
"I can't go with you, but my son here will take you to the chateau.
How did you get to Gondreville? did you come by Cinq-Cygne?""We had, like yourself, business in the forest," said Corentin, without apparent sarcasm.
"Francois," cried Michu, "take these gentlemen to the chateau by the wood path, so that no one sees them; they don't follow the beaten tracks. Come here," he added, as the strangers turned to walk away, talking together as they did so in a low voice. Michu caught the boy in his arms, and kissed him almost solemnly with an expression which confirmed his wife's fears; cold chills ran down her back; she glanced at her mother with haggard eyes, for she could not weep.
"Go," said Michu; and he watched the boy until he was entirely out of sight. Couraut was barking on the other side of the road in the direction of Grouage. "Oh, that's Violette," remarked Michu. "This is the third time that old fellow has passed here to-day. What's in the wind? Hush, Couraut!"A few moments later the trot of a pony was heard approaching.
