The Regent's Daughter Part 60

"D'Argenson; pardieu, the authority is good; and do you know what he told me?"

"No."

"That you had denounced me."

"Monsieur!"

"Well; what then? Are we to cut each other's throats because the police has followed out its trade and lied?"

"But how could he discover?"

"I ask the same of you. But one thing is certain; if I had told anything, I should not be here. You have not seen much of me, but you ought to know that I should not be fool enough to give information gratis; revelations are bought and sold, monsieur, and I know that Dubois pays high for them."

"Perhaps you are right," said Gaston; "but at least let us bless the chance which brings us together."

"Certainly."

"You do not appear enchanted, nevertheless."

"I am only moderately so, I confess."

"Captain!"

"Ah, monsieur, how bad-tempered you are."

"I?"

"Yes; you are always getting angry. I like my solitude; that does not speak."

"Monsieur!"

"Again. Now listen. Do you believe, as you say, that chance has brought us together?"

"What should it be?"

"Some combination of our jailers--of D'Argenson's, or perhaps Dubois's."

"Did you not write to me?"

"I?"

"Telling me to feign illness from ennui."

"And how should I have written?--on what?--by whom?"

Gaston reflected; and this time it was La Jonquiere who watched him.

"Then," said the captain presently, "I think, on the contrary, that it is to you we owe the pleasure of meeting in the Bastille."

"To me, monsieur?"

"Yes, chevalier; you are too confiding. I give you that information in case you leave here; but more particularly in case you remain here."

"Thank you."

"Have you noticed if you were followed?"

"No."

"A conspirator should never look before, but always behind him."

Gaston confessed that he had not taken this precaution.

"And the duke," asked La Jonquiere, "is he arrested?"

"I know not; I was going to ask you."

"Peste! that is disagreeable. You took a young woman to him?"

"You know that."

"Ah! my dear fellow, everything becomes known. Did not she give the information? Ah! woman, woman!"

"This was a brave girl, monsieur; I would answer for her discretion, courage, and devotion."

"Yes, I understand. We love her--so she is honey and gold. What an idea of a conspiracy you must have to take a woman to the chief of the plot!"

"But I told her nothing; and she could know no secrets of mine but such as she may have surprised."

"She has a keen eye."

"And if she knew my projects, I am convinced she would never have spoken."

"Oh, monsieur, without counting her natural disposition to that exercise, can we not always make a woman speak? Some one might have said, without any preparation 'Your love for M. de Chanlay will lose your head'--I will wager that she will speak."

"There is no danger--she loves me too much."

"That is the very reason, pardieu! that she would chatter like a magpie, and that we are both caged up. However, let us drop this. What do you do here?"

"Amuse myself."

"Amuse yourself--how?"

"With making verses, eating sweets, and making holes in the floor."

"Holes in the king's boards?" said La Jonquiere. "Oh, oh! that is good to know. Does not M. de Launay scold?"

"He does not know it; besides, I am not singular--everybody makes a hole in something; one his floor, the other his chimney, the next his wall.

Do you not make holes in something?"