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So they acclaimed the happy pair, with the exception of poor Leandre, whose eyes were more melancholy than ever. They were a happy family that night in the upstairs room of their inn on the Quai La Fosse the same inn from which Andre-Louis had set out some weeks ago to play a vastly different role before an audience of Nantes. Yet was it so different, he wondered?
He could not have told you why, but he was conscious that it aggrieved him to find her so intimate with this pretty young fellow, who was partly clad, as it appeared, in the cast-offs of a nobleman. He could not guess her station, but the speech that reached him was cultured in tone and word. He strained to listen. "I shall know no peace, Leandre, until we are safely wedded," she was saying.
But it was not a result that he intended or even foresaw. So much was this the case that in the interval after the second act, he sought the dressing-room shared by Polichinelle and Rhodomont. Polichinelle was in the act of changing. "I shouldn't trouble to change," he said. "The piece isn't likely to go beyond my opening scene of the next act with Leandre." "What do you mean?" "You'll see."
He was in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin, trailing an enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad felt hat with a draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his great voice and roared out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle sat Leandre alone.
True to that resolve, he now played his part as the friend and hired ally of the lovesick Leandre, on whose behalf he came for news of Climene, seizing the opportunity to further his own amour with Columbine and his designs upon the money-bags of Pantaloon.
Hitherto the attitude of each of these men towards the other had been one of mutual contempt. The phenomenon has frequently been observed in like cases. Now, what appeared to be a common misfortune brought them into a sort of alliance. So, at least, it seemed to Leandre when he went in quest of Andre-Louis, who with apparent unconcern was smoking a pipe upon the quay immediately facing the inn.
Their brother, Leandre, had known more of it all than Pauline, and not so much as Pelagie. He had left the management of the big plantation with all its memories and traditions to his older sister, and had gone away to dwell in cities. That was many years ago.
Her only answer was a timid timid and yet alluring glance from under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young man who played lovers "You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you should practise." Leandre raised languid eyebrows. "That?" quoth he, and shrugged. "The merest commonplace." Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you concede.
Trembling a little, his bewilderment at first increasing, he stood there to receive that rolling tribute to his absurdity. Climene was eyeing him with expectant mockery, savouring in advance his humiliation; Leandre regarded him in consternation, whilst behind the scenes, M. Binet was dancing in fury.
"My father!" she exclaimed, turning distractedly from one to the other of those two. "He is coming! We are lost!" "You must fly, Climene!" said M. Leandre. "Too late!" she sobbed. "Too late! He is here." "Calm, mademoiselle, calm!" the subtle friend was urging her. "Keep calm and trust to me. I promise you that all shall be well." "Oh!" cried M. Leandre, limply.
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