Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 12, 2025
The girl passed through the gates and up the gravelled drive to the house, when Le Pontois, turning upon his heel to return to the car, was met by the two men, who, he found, had walked closely behind him. "You are Paul Le Pontois?" inquired the elder of the pair brusquely. "Of course! Why do you ask that?" "Because it is necessary," was his businesslike reply.
As the party had a long distance to go, some twelve kilomètres, General Molon had lent Le Pontois his motor-car, which now stood awaiting him with glaring headlights in the barrack-square. As the hall emptied Paul glanced around him while awaiting Enid. On the walls the French tricolour was everywhere displayed, the revered drapeau under which he had so gallantly and nobly served against the Huns.
There were tennis parties, "fif' o'clocks," croquet and bridge-playing in the various military houses around, but beyond that nothing. They were too far from a big town ever to go there for recreation. Metz they seldom went to, and with Paris far off, Madame Le Pontois was quite content, just as she had been when Paul had been stationed in stifling Constantine, away in the interior of Algeria.
One of the men had pulled out a well-worn notebook and was with difficulty writing down the prisoner's words to be put in evidence against him. Le Pontois realised that; therefore his mouth closed with a snap, and, leaning back in the centre of the carriage, he closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to think.
Bitterly he smiled to himself as he gazed upon the faces of his three companions, hard and deep-shadowed beneath the uncertain light. Presently he made some inquiry of Jules Pierrepont, who had now assumed commandership of the party, as to the reason of his arrest. "I regret, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the quiet, affable man, "his Excellency does not give us reasons.
Louis was sent down to the east to govern Dauphiny; the lessons of the civil war were not lost on Charles; he crushed the freebooters of Champagne, drove the English out of Pontois in 1441, moved actively up and down France, reducing anarchy, restoring order, resisting English attacks. In the last he was loyally supported by the Dauphin, who was glad to find a field for his restless temper.
There was Lady Charlotte and Lady Stuart de Rothesay, who was many years ambassadress at Paris, and very agreeable. Then there was Dr. Holland and Mr. Stanley, the under- Secretary of State, etc. In the evening came quite an additional party, and I passed it most pleasantly. . . . Your father writes that on Friday he dined at Thiers' with Mignet, Cousin, Pontois, and Lord Normanby.
Within three kilomètres of the mouth of the pass at Haudiomont, at a short distance from the road and at the edge of a wood, stood the ancient Château de Lérouville, a small picturesque place of the days of Louis XIV., with pretty lawns and old-world gardens a château only in the sense of being a country house and the residence of Paul Le Pontois, once a captain in the French Army, but now retired.
There I had met all the chief members of the diplomatic corps, which consisted during my stay of two French ambassadors, succeeding each other, both of them instability personified one was Admiral Roussin, a distinguished sailor, the other M. de Pontois, a professional diplomat both of them very kind, but neither, as a result of their instability, having any real influence.
"But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being introduced to the Le Pontois family just now." The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response. She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain vague suspicions. Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking