So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his escape. It was only
when he knew himself safe, when he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in the
courtyard and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he knew also
that he was failing for want of food. The room seemed to go round with
him; the window to shift, the light to flicker. And then again, with
equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and perfectly master of
himself. Nay, never had he felt a confidence in himself so overwhelming
or a capacity so complete. The triumph of that which he had done, the
knowledge that of so many he, almost alone, had escaped, filled his brain
with a delicious and intoxicating vanity. When the door opened, and
Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he advanced holding out his
arms. He expected that she would fall into them.
But Madame only backed and curtseyed, a mischievous light in her eyes.
"A thousand thanks, Monsieur!" she said, "but you are more ready than I!"
And she remained by the door.
"I have come to you through all!" he cried, speaking loudly because of a
humming in his ears. "They are lying in the streets! They are dying,
are dead, are hunted, are pursued, are perishing! But I have come
through all to you!"
She curtseyed anew. "So I see, Monsieur!" she answered. "I am
flattered!" But she did not advance, and gradually, light-headed as he
was, he began to see that she looked at him with an odd closeness. And
he took offence.
"I say, Madame, I have come to you!" he repeated. "And you do not seem
pleased!"
She came forward a step and looked at him still more oddly.
"Oh yes," she said. "I am pleased, M. de Tignonville. It is what I
intended. But tell me how you have fared. You are not hurt?"
"Not a hair!" he cried boastfully. And he told her in a dozen windy
sentences of the adventure of the haycart and his narrow escape. He
wound up with a foolish meaningless laugh.
"Then you have not eaten for thirty-six hours?" she said. And when he
did not answer, "I understand," she continued, nodding and speaking as to
a child. And she rang a silver handbell and gave an order.
She addressed the servant in her usual tone, but to Tignonville's ear her
voice seemed to fall to a whisper. Her figure--she was small and fairy-
like--began to sway before him; and then in a moment, as it seemed to
him, she was gone, and he was seated at a table, his trembling fingers
grasping a cup of wine which the elderly servant who had admitted him was
holding to his lips. On the table before him were a spit of partridges
and a cake of white bread. When he had swallowed a second mouthful of
wine--which cleared his eyes as by magic--the man urged him to eat. And
he fell to with an appetite that grew as he ate.