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"I am as the good God made me, and a little worse," returned Susini. "That is your road." And so they parted. Lory rode on, happy in that he was called upon to act without too much thought. For those who think most, laugh least. De Vasselot's life had been empty enough until the outbreak of the war, and now it was full to overflowing.
He pulled up slowly, and, drawing aside, allowed the lady's companion to pass him at a steady gallop after the Arab. The lady was now in a dead faint, her dark red hair hanging like a rope across de Vasselot's arm. She was, fortunately, not a big woman; for it was no easy position to find one's self in, on the top, thus, of a large horse with a senseless burden and no help in sight.
"I met the Abbe Susini at Olmeta," she said to Mademoiselle Brun, a few minutes later in the great bare drawing-room of the Casa Perucca. "And he transmitted the Count de Vasselot's command that we should leave the Casa Perucca to-night for France. I suggested that the order should be given to the Chateau de Vasselot instead of the Casa Perucca, and the abbe took me at my word.
For the schoolgirl in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was quite right when she had pounced upon Mademoiselle Brun's secret, which, however, lay safely dead and buried on that battlefield. And Mademoiselle Brun had taught, had shaped Henri de Melide; and Henri de Melide had always been Lory de Vasselot's best friend.
"That story was buried with Perucca," he said, after a long pause. "Perhaps the Abbe Susini knows it. Who can tell what a priest knows? There were two Peruccas once fine, big men and neither married. The other Andrei Perucca who has been in hell these thirty years, made sheep's eyes, they told me, at de Vasselot's young wife. She was French, and willing enough, no doubt.
Florent, and only the back windows look out upon the quay and across the bay. It was at one of these windows that Colonel Gilbert was enjoying a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and the loafers on the quay were unaware of his presence there. And for the sixth time at least, the story of Lory de Vasselot's arrival at St. Florent and departure for Olmeta was told and patiently heard.
"An arm and a leg, eh?" said the man, seeking in the pocket indicated by Lory, for the neat silver cigarette-case, which he handled with a sort of grand air this gentleman of the mountain side. "You will smoke also?" And with his own brown fingers he was kind enough to place a cigarette between de Vasselot's lips.
It led out to a small terrace no larger than a verandah, and every inch of earth was occupied by the pale green of carnation-spikes. Some were budding, some in bloom. But there was not a flower among them at which a modern gardener would not have laughed aloud. And there were tears in Lory de Vasselot's eyes as he looked at them.
If you wish to answer no questions, ask none. The horse presently appeared, a little thin beast, all wires, carrying its head too high, boring impatiently masterful, intractable. "He wants riding," said the man who led him to the door, half sailor, half stableman, who made fast de Vasselot's portmanteau to the front of the high Spanish saddle with a piece of tarry rope and simple nautical knots.
There was a light in his tired eyes, and he sighed as he passed his hand across them, for the thought of further action was like wine to him. "But I must sleep, Jean, I must sleep," he said, lightly. "You can do that in Casablanda's boat." Answered Jean, who was already changing de Vasselot's good saddle to the back of his own fresher horse.
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