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The stranger turned, and stared at Garnache with a look of wonder that artfully changed to one of disdainful recognition. "Ah?" said he, and his eyebrows went up. "The apologetic gentleman! You said?" Garnache approached him, followed a step not only by Rabecque, but also by Monsieur Gaubert, who had sauntered out a second earlier.
What he and Marius said, Rabecque could not make out, but he distinctly heard the landlord's answer delivered with a respectful bow to Marius: "Bien, Monsieur de Condillac. I would not interfere in your concerns not for the world. I will be blind and deaf."
The ostler took charge of the nags, and the landlord conducted them to a room above-stairs, which he placed at mademoiselle's disposal. That done, Garnache left Rabecque on guard, and proceeded to make the necessary arrangements for the journey that lay before them.
He set his back to the blaze, and smiled down upon her. "Nor do you know how powerful are we," he answered easily. "I have below six troopers and a sergeant of the Seneschal's regiment; with myself and Rabecque we are nine men in all. That should be a sufficient guard, mademoiselle. Nor do I think that with all their power the Condillacs will venture here to claim you at the sword point."
Rabecque, reflecting his master's mood as becomes a good lackey rode silent and gloomy a pace or two in the rear. By noon they had reached Voiron, and here, at a quiet hostelry, they descended to pause awhile for rest and refreshment. It was a chill, blustering day, and although the rain held off, the heavens were black with the promise of more to come.
Garnache's face was gloomy and his eyes sad, for his thoughts were all of Valerie, and he was prey to a hundred anxieties regarding her. They gained the heights at last, and Rabecque got down to beat with his whip upon the convent gates. A lay-brother came to open, and in reply to Garnache's request that he might have a word with the Father Abbot, invited him to enter.
Rabecque, very watchful, lounged in the doorway, betraying in his air none of the anxiety and impatience with which he looked for his master. At sight of Monsieur Gaubert, running so breathlessly, he started forward, wondering and uneasy. Across the street, from the Palais Seneschal, came at that same moment Monsieur de Tressan with rolling gait.
Sanguinetti stood apart, his manner haughty and impressive, his eye roaming scornfully through the ranks of what had by now become a crowd. Windows were opening in the street, and heads appearing, and across the way Garnache might have beheld the flabby face of Monsieur de Tressan among the spectators of that little scene. Rabecque drew near his master. "Have a care, monsieur," he implored him.
That this tatterdemalion, with the haughty voice, should demand to see him at that hour of the night, with such scant unconcern of how far he might incommode the great Monsieur Rabecque, earned for him too a certain measure of regard, though still alloyed with some suspicion. The landlord bade him enter.
But it begins to break upon my mind that what we have endured may be as nothing to what may lie before us. It is an ill thing to have to do with women. Yet you, Rabecque, would have deserted me for one of them!" Rabecque was silent.
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