“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.
Cleaning the razor-blade (one of a set of twelve in a case) he had a vision of a brilliantly hazy ocean and an English Indiaman with her yards braced all ways, her canvas blowing loose above her bloodstained decks overrun by a lot of privateersmen and with the island of Ceylon swelling like a thin blue cloud on the far horizon. He had always wished to own a set of English blades and there he had got it, fell over it as it were, lying on the floor of a cabin which had been already ransacked. “For good steel — it was good steel,” he thought looking at the blade fixedly. And there it was, nearly worn out. The others too. That steel! And here he was holding the case in his hand as though he had just picked it up from the floor. Same case. Same man. And the steel worn out.
He shut the case brusquely, flung it into his sea-chest which was standing open, and slammed the lid down. The feeling which was in his breast and had been known to more articulate men than himself, was that life was a dream less substantial than the vision of Ceylon lying like a cloud on the sea. Dream left astern. Dream straight ahead. This disenchanted philosophy took the shape of fierce swearing. “Sacré nom de nom de nom. . . . Tonnerre de bon Dieu!”
While tying his neckcloth he handled it with fury as though he meant to strangle himself with it. He rammed a soft cap on to his venerable locks recklessly, seized his cudgel — but before leaving the room walked up to the window giving on the east. He could not see the Petite Passe on account of the lookout hill, but to the left a great portion of the Hyères roadstead lay spread out before him, pale grey in the morning light, with the land about Cape Blanc swelling in the distance with all its details blurred as yet and only one conspicuous object presenting to his sight something that might have been a lighthouse by its shape, but which Peyrol knew very well was the English corvette already under way and with all her canvas set.
This sight pleased Peyrol mainly because he had expected it. The Englishman was doing exactly what he had expected he would do, and Peyrol looked towards the English cruiser with a smile of malicious triumph as if he were confronting her captain. For some reason or other he imagined Captain Vincent as long-faced, with yellow teeth and a wig, whereas that officer wore his own hair and had a set of teeth which would have done honour to a London belle and was really the hidden cause of Captain Vincent appearing so often wreathed in smiles.
That ship at this great distance and steering in his direction held Peyrol at the window long enough for the increasing light of the morning to burst into sunshine, colouring and filling-in the flat outline of the land with tints of wood and rock and field, with clear dots of buildings enlivening the view. The sun threw a sort of halo around the ship. Recollecting himself, Peyrol left the room and shut the door quietly. Quietly too he descended the stairs from his garret. On the landing he underwent a short inward struggle, at the end of which he approached the door of Catherine's room and opening it a little, put his head in. Across the whole width of it he saw Arlette fast asleep. Her aunt had thrown a light coverlet over her. Her low shoes stood at the foot of the bed. Her black hair lay loose on the pillow; and Peyrol's gaze became arrested by the long eyelashes on her pale cheek. Suddenly he fancied she moved, and he withdrew his head sharply, pulling the door to. He listened for a moment as if tempted to open it again, but judging it too risky, continued on his way downstairs. At his reappearance in the kitchen Catherine turned sharply. She was dressed for the day, with a big white cap on her head, a black bodice and a brown skirt with ample folds. She had a pair of varnished sabots on her feet over her shoes.
“No signs of Scevola,” she said, advancing towards Peyrol. “And Michel too has not been here yet.”
Peyrol thought that if she had been only shorter, what with her black eyes and slightly curved nose she would have looked like a witch. But witches can read people's thoughts, and he looked openly at Catherine with the pleasant conviction that she could not read his thoughts. He said:
“I took good care not to make any noise upstairs, Mademoiselle Catherine. When I am gone the house will be empty and quiet enough.”
She had a curious expression. She struck Peyrol suddenly as if she were lost in that kitchen in which A she had reigned for many years. He continued:
“You will be alone all the morning.”
She seemed to be listening to some distant sound, and after Peyrol had added, “Everything is all right now,” she nodded and after a moment said in a manner that for her was unexpectedly impulsive:
“Monsieur Peyrol, I am tired of life.”
He shrugged his shoulders and with somewhat sinister jocosity remarked:
“I will tell you what it is; you ought to have been married.”
She turned her back on him abruptly.
“No offence,” Peyrol excused himself in a tone of gloom rather than of apology. “It is no use to attach any importance to things. What is this life? Phew! Nobody can remember one-tenth of it. Here I am; and, you know, I would bet that if one of my old-time chums came along and saw me like this, here with you — I mean one of those chums that stand up for a fellow in a scrimmage and look after him should he be hurt — well, I bet,” he repeated, “he wouldn't know me. He would say to himself perhaps, `Hullo! here's a comfortable married couple.' ”
He paused. Catherine, with