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He caught the sound of a faint outcry from Aline; he saw the sudden recoil of M. de Kercadiou. And then he plunged headlong into the explanation that he deemed necessary.
"At M. de Kercadiou's request, I come instead." "You! You are sent to rescue us!" The note of amazement in her voice was stronger than that of her relief. "That, and to make your acquaintance, madame." "To make my acquaintance? But what do you mean, Andre-Louis?" "This letter from M. de Kercadiou will tell you." Intrigued by his odd words and odder manner, she took the folded sheet.
And M. de Kercadiou, startled in such an hour by this sudden apparition, of one against whom he nursed a bitter grievance, greeted him in terms almost identical with those in which in that same room he had greeted him on a similar occasion once before. "What do you want here, sir?" "To serve you if possible, my godfather," was the disarming answer. But it did not disarm M. de Kercadiou.
What he assumed to be anxiety on the score of the predestined victim had irritated him in M. de Kercadiou; in Aline it filled him with a cold anger; he argued from it that she had hardly been frank with him; that ambition was urging her to consider with favour the suit of M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
"You have stayed away so long that I hoped you would not again disturb me." "I should not have ventured to disobey you now were it not for the hope that I can be of service. I have seen Rougane, the mayor..." "What's that you say about not venturing to disobey?" "You forbade me your house, monsieur." M. de Kercadiou stared at him helplessly.
M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. "You say the academy flourishes?" he asked presently. "It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could employ a third. It is hard work." "That should mean that your circumstances are affluent." "I have reason to be satisfied. I have far more than I need."
Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands with attractive wives. He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast.
He had gone to play tennis beyond the frontier and there consummate the work of ruining the French monarchy upon which he and those others had been engaged in France. With him, amongst several members of his household went Etienne de Kercadiou, and with Etienne de Kercadiou went his family, a wife and four children.
It is not, perhaps, a denial to which one would attach too much importance in all the circumstances. Yet I have never known M de Kercadiou for other than a man of strictest honour, and I should hesitate to disbelieve him particularly when his statement leaps with my own instincts. He assured me that he did not know who my father was." "And your mother, was she equally ignorant?"
He waved a hand towards the inner room, whence proceeded the click-click of blades, the quick moving of feet, and the voice of the instructor, Le Duc. "Well, well, that is your own affair. You are busy. I leave you now. Let us dine this evening at the Café de Foy. Kersain will be of the party." "A moment!" Andre-Louis' voice arrested him on the threshold. "Is Mlle. de Kercadiou with her uncle?"
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