"It frightens a body," she said. "He may be hiding somewhere to jump on one treacherously. You know what I mean, Peyrol."
"Well, the lieutenant will have nothing to fear, as he's going away. As to myself, Scevola and I are good friends. I had a long talk with him quite recently. You two women can manage him perfectly; and then, who knows, perhaps he has gone away for good."
Catherine stared at him, if such a word as stare can be applied to a profound contemplative gaze. "The lieutenant has nothing to fear from him," she repeated cautiously.
"No, he is going away. Didn't you know it?" The old woman continued to look at him profoundly. "Yes, he is on service."
For another minute or so Catherine continued silent in her contemplative attitude. Then her hesitation came to an end. She could not resist the desire to inform Peyrol of the events of the night. As she went on Peyrol forgot the half-full bowl of coffee and his half-eaten piece of bread. Catherine's voice flowed with austerity. She stood there, imposing and solemn like a peasant-priestess. The relation of what had been to her a soul-shaking experience did not take much time, and she finished with the words, "The lieutenant is an honest man." And after a pause she insisted further: "There is no denying it. He has acted like an honest man."
For a moment longer Peyrol continued to look at the coffee in the bowl, then without warning got up with such violence that the chair behind him was thrown back upon the flagstones.
"Where is he, that honest man?" he shouted suddenly in stentorian tones which not only caused Catherine to raise her hands, but frightened himself, and he dropped at once to a mere forcible utterance. "Where is that man? Let me see him."
Even Catherine's hieratic composure was disturbed. "Why," she said, looking really disconcerted, "he will be down here directly. This bowl of coffee is for him."
Peyrol made as if to leave the kitchen, but Catherine stopped him. "For God's sake, Monsieur Peyrol," she said, half in entreaty and half in command, "don't wake up the child. Let her sleep. Oh, let her sleep! Don't wake her up. God only knows how long it is since she has slept properly. I could not tell you. I daren't think of it." She was shocked by hearing Peyrol declare: "All this is confounded nonsense." But he sat down again, seemed to catch sight of the coffee bowl and emptied what was left in it down his throat.
"I don't want her on my hands more crazy than she has been before," said Catherine, in a sort of exasperation but in a very low tone. This phrase in its selfish form expressed a real and profound compassion for her niece. She dreaded the moment when that fatal Arlette would wake up and the dreadful complications of life which her slumbers had suspended would have to be picked up again. Peyrol fidgeted on his seat.
"And so he told you he was going? He actually did tell you that?" he asked.
"He promised to go before the child wakes up. . . . At once."
"But, sacré nom d'un chien, there is never any wind before eleven o'clock," Peyrol exclaimed in a tone of profound annoyance, yet trying to moderate his voice, while Catherine, indulgent to his changing moods, only compressed her lips and nodded at him soothingly. "It is impossible to work with people like that," he mumbled.
"Do you know, Monsieur Peyrol, that she has been to see the priest?" Catherine was heard suddenly, towering above her end of the table. The two women had had a talk before Arlette had been induced by her aunt to lie down. Peyrol gave a start.
"What? Priest? . . . Now look here, Catherine," he went on with repressed ferocity, "do you imagine that all this interests me in the least?"
"I can think of nothing but that niece of mine. We two have nobody but each other in the world," she went on, reproducing the very phrase Arlette had used to Réal. She seemed to be thinking aloud, but noticed that Peyrol was listening with attention. "He wanted to shut her up from everybody," and the old woman clasped her meagre hands with a sudden gesture. "I suppose there are still some convents about the world."
"You and the patronne are mad together," declared Peyrol. "All this only shows what an ass the curé is. I don't know much about these things, though I have seen some nuns in my time, and some very queer ones too, but it seems to me that they don't take crazy people into convents. Don't you be afraid. I tell you that." He stopped because the inner door of the kitchen came open and Lieutenant Réal stepped in. His sword hung on his forearm by the belt, his hat was on his head. He dropped his little valise on the floor and sat down in the nearest chair to put on his shoes which he had brought down in his other hand. Then he came up to the table. Peyrol, who had kept his eyes on him, thought: "Here is one who looks like a moth scorched in the fire." Réal's eyes were sunk, his cheeks seemed hollowed and the whole face had an arid and dry aspect.
"Well, you are in a fine state for the work of deceiving the enemy," Peyrol observed. "Why, to look at you, nobody would believe a word you said. You are not going to be ill, I hope. You are on service. You haven't got the right to be ill. I say, Mademoiselle Catherine, produce the bottle – you know, my private bottle. . . ." He snatched it from Catherine's hand, poured some brandy into the lieutenant's coffee, pushed the bowl towards him and waited. "Nom de nom!" he said forcibly, "don't you know what this is for? It's for you to drink." Réal obeyed with a strange, automatic docility. "And now," said Peyrol, getting up, "I will go to my room and shave. This is a great day – the day we are going to see the lieutenant off."
Till then Réal had not uttered a word, but directly the door closed behind Peyrol he raised his head.
"Catherine!" His voice was like a rustle in his throat. She was looking at him steadily and he continued: "Listen, when she finds I am gone you tell her I will return soon. To-morrow. Always to-morrow."
"Yes, my good Monsieur," said Catherine in an unmoved voice but clasping her hands convulsively. "There is nothing else I would dare tell her!"
"She will believe you," whispered Réal wildly.
"Yes! She will believe me," repeated Catherine in a mournful tone.
Réal got up, put the sword-belt over his head, picked up the valise. There was a little flush on his cheeks.
"Adieu," he said to the silent old woman. She made no answer, but as he turned away she raised her hand a little, hesitated, and let it fall again. It seemed to her that the women of Escampobar had been singled out for divine wrath. Her niece appeared to her like the scapegoat charged with all the murders and blasphemies of the Revolution. She herself too had been cast out from the grace of God. But that had been a long time ago. She had made her peace with Heaven since. Again she raised her hand and, this time, made in the air the sign of the cross at the back of Lieutenant Réal.
Meanwhile upstairs Peyrol, scraping his big flat cheek with an English razor-blade at the window, saw Lieutenant Réal on the path to the shore; and high above there, commanding a vast view of sea and land, he shrugged his shoulders impatiently with no visible provocation. One could not trust those epaulette-wearers. They would cram a fellow's head with notions either for their own sake or for the sake of the service. Still, he was too old a bird to be caught with chaff; and besides, that long-legged stiff beggar going down the path with all his officer airs, was honest enough. At any rate he knew a seaman when he saw one, though he was as cold-blooded as a fish. Peyrol had a smile which was a little awry.