The Last Hope Part 36

And a hundred facetious questions gleamed from the major's eye.

"All right, my boy," answered Colville, cheerfully. "I am off to France to-morrow morning."

The Major shook his head wisely as if in approval of a course of conduct savouring of that prudence which is the better part of valour, glanced at Loo Barebone, and waited in vain for an invitation to take a vacant chair near at hand.

"Still in the south of France, I suppose?"

"Still in the south of France," replied Colville, turning to Barebone in a final way, which had the effect of dismissing this inquisitive idler.

While they were at dinner another came. He was a raw-boned Scotchman, who spoke in broken English when the waiter was absent and in perfect French when that servitor hovered near.

"I wish I could show my face in Paris," he said, frankly, "but I can't.

Too much mixed up with Louis Philippe to find favour in the eyes of the Prince President."

"Why?" asked Colville. "What could you gain by showing in Paris a face which I am sure has the stamp of innocence all over it?"

The Scotchman laughed curtly.

"Gain?" he answered. "Gain? I don't say I would, but I think I might be able to turn an honest penny out of the approaching events."

"What events?"

"The Lord alone knows," replied the Scotchman, who had never set foot in his country, but had acquired elsewhere the prudent habit of never answering a question. "France doesn't, I am sure of that. I am thinking there will be events, though, before long, Colville. Will there not, now?"

Colville looked at him with an open smile.

"You mean," he said, slowly, "the Prince President."

"That is what he calls himself at present. I'm wondering how long. Eh!

man. He is just pouring money into the country from here, from America, from Austria--from wherever he can get it."

"Why is he doing that?"

"You must ask somebody who knows him better than I do. They say you knew him yourself once well enough, eh?"

"He is not a man I have much faith in," said Colville, vaguely. "And France has no faith in him at all."

"So I'm told. But France--well, does France know what she wants? She mostly wants something without knowing what it is. She is like a woman.

It's excitement she wants, perhaps. And she will buy it at any cost, and then find afterward she has paid too dear for it. That is like a woman, too. But it isn't another Bonaparte she wants, I am sure of that."

"So am I," answered Colville, with a side glance toward Barebone, a mere flicker of the eyelids.

"Not unless it is a Napoleon of that ilk."

"And he is not," completed Colville.

"But--" the Scotchman paused, for a waiter came at this moment to tell him that his dinner was ready at a table nearer to the fire. "But," he went on, in French, for the waiter lingered, "but he might be able to persuade France that it is himself she wants--might he not, now? With money at the back of it, eh?"

"He might," admitted Colville, doubtfully. The Scotchman moved away, but came back again.

"I am thinking," he said, with a grim smile, "that like all intelligent people who know France, you are aware that it is a King she wants."

"But not an Orleans King," replied Colville, with his friendly and indifferent laugh.

The Scotchman smiled more grimly still and went away.

He was seated too near for Colville and Loo to talk of him. But Colville took an opportunity to mention his name in an undertone. It was a name known all over Europe then, and forgotten now.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE THURSDAY OF MADAME DE CHANTONNAY

"It is," Madame de Chantonnay had maintained throughout the months of January and February--"it is an affair of the heart."

She continued to hold this opinion with, however, a shade less conviction, well into a cold March.

"It is an affair of the heart, Abbe," she said. "_Allez_! I know what I talk of. It is an affair of the heart and nothing more. There is some one in England: some blonde English girl. They are always washing, I am told.

And certainly they have that air--like a garment that has been too often to the _blanchisseuse_ and has lost its substance. A beautiful skin, I allow you. But so thin--so thin."

"The skin, madame?" inquired the Abbe Touvent, with that gentle and cackling humour in which the ordained of any Church may indulge after a good dinner.

The Abbe Touvent had, as a matter of fact, been Madame de Chantonnay's most patient listener through the months of suspense that followed Loo Barebone's sudden disappearance. Needless to say he agreed ardently with whatever explanation she put forward. Old ladies who give good dinners to a Low Church British curate, or an abbe of the Roman confession, or, indeed, to the needy celibate exponents of any creed whatsoever, may always count upon the active conversational support of their spiritual adviser. And it is not only within the fold of Papacy that careful Christians find the road to heaven made smooth by the arts of an efficient cook.

"You know well enough what I mean, malicious one," retorted the lady, arranging her shawl upon her fat shoulders.

"I always think," murmured the Abbe, sipping his digestive gla.s.s of eau-de-vie d'Armagnac, which is better than any cognac of Charente--"I always think that to be thin shows a mean mind, lacking generosity."

"Take my word for it," pursued Madame de Chantonnay, warming to her subject, "that is the explanation of the young man's disappearance. They say the government has taken some underhand way of putting him aside. One does not give credence to such rumours in these orderly times. No: it is simply that he prefers the pale eyes of some Mees to glory and France.

Has it not happened before, Abbe?"

"Ah! Madame--" another sip of Armagnac.

"And will it not happen again? It is the heart that has the first word and the last. I know--I who address you, I know!"

And she touched her breast where, very deeply seated it is to be presumed, she kept her own heart.

"Ah! Madame. Who better?" murmured the Abbe.

"Na, na!" exclaimed Madame de Chantonnay, holding up one hand, heavy with rings, while with the other she gathered her shawl closer about her as if for protection.

"Now you tread on dangerous ground, wicked one--_wicked_! And you so demure in your soutane!"

But the Abbe only laughed and held up his small gla.s.s after the manner of any abandoned layman drinking a toast.