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By openly protecting her, his honor became concerned in compelling respect to her person; and he went from group to group assuring his friends, in the tone of a man whom it was dangerous to contradict, that the lady was really Mademoiselle de Verneuil. The doubts and gossip ceased at once.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking herself how it was possible for human beings to live in such habitual filth, when a ragged boy about eight or nine years old suddenly presented his fresh and rosy face, with a pair of fat cheeks, lively eyes, ivory teeth, and a mass of fair hair, which fell in curls upon his half-naked shoulders.
In spite of his sudden passion the unnamed lover had the strength to distrust a woman thus bent on forcing from him a secret of life and death. "Why has my rash indiscretion, which sought to give a future to our present meeting, destroyed the happiness of it?" he said, taking her hand, which she left in his unconsciously. Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed to be in real distress, was silent.
"And regret the time lost," added the Duc de Verneuil, with courteous admiration. "Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie," said the grand equerry, taking the colonel by the arm and presenting him to the duke and duchess, with an air of respect in his tone and gesture. "I am glad to welcome you, Monsieur le comte!" said Monsieur de Verneuil.
Then she said, in a low voice, to her son: "'Perilous times, 'devotion, 'madame, 'servant'! that is not Mademoiselle de Verneuil; it is some girl sent here by Fouche." The guests were about to sit down when Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed Corentin, who was still employed in a close scrutiny of the mother and son, who were showing some annoyance at his glances.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil shuddered; raising a trembling hand she made the oath required by the man whose tone to her had changed so suddenly. "You can command me," he said; "don't deceive me again, and you shall have reason to bless me to-night." "I will trust you, Corentin," cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil, much moved.
As regards Marie de Medicis herself, she had long ceased to derive any gratification from the splendid festivities of which she was one of the brightest ornaments; her ill-judged indulgence, far from exciting the gratitude of Madame de Verneuil, having rendered the insolent favourite still more arrogant and overbearing.
Nonancourt is a kind of little village upon this route, at nineteen leagues from Paris; between Dreux, three leagues further, and Verneuil au Perche, four leagues this side.
The fact of the forms of life changing simultaneously in the above large sense, at distant parts of the world, has greatly struck those admirable observers, MM. de Verneuil and d'Archiac.
Francine herself told the astute spy, whose suspicions she changed into certainty, of her mistress's departure. Inquiring of the post guard at the Porte Saint-Leonard, he learned that Mademoiselle de Verneuil had passed that way. Rushing to the Promenade, he was, unfortunately, in time to see her movements.
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