"The count had gone to bed; but as soon as he received the letter he got up.He is now dressing himself; and they are putting the horse in the tilbury.The count is to spend the night at Cinq-Cygne.""He must be some great personage."
"Oh, yes, monsieur; for Gothard, the steward of Cinq-Cygne, came this morning to see his brother-in-law Poupart, and warned him to be very discreet about the gentleman and to serve him like a king.""Vinet must be right," thought the sub-prefect."Can there be some cabal on foot?""It was Duc Georges de Maufrigneuse who sent Gothard to the Mulet.
Poupart came to the meeting here this morning only because the gentleman wished him to do so; if he had sent him to Paris, he'd go.
Gothard told Poupart to keep silent about the gentleman, and to fool all inquisitive people.""If you can get Anicette here, don't fail to let me know," said Antonin.
"But I could see her at Cinq-Cygne if monsieur would send me to his house at Val-Preux.""That's an idea.You might profit by the chariot to get there.But what reason could you give to the little groom?""He's a madcap, that boy, monsieur.Would you believe it, drunk as he is, he has just mounted his master's thoroughbred, a horse that can do twenty miles an hour, and started for Troyes with a letter in order that it may reach Paris to-morrow! And only nine years and a half old!
What will he be at twenty?"
The sub-prefect listened mechanically to these remarks.Julien gossiped on, his master listening, absorbed in thought about the stranger.
"Wait here," he said to the man as he turned with slow steps to re-enter the salon."What a mess!" he thought to himself,--"a man who dines at Gondreville and spends the night at Cinq-Cygnes! Mysteries indeed!""Well?" cried the circle around Mademoiselle Beauvisage as soon as he reappeared.
"He is a count, and vieille roche, I answer for it.""Oh! how I should like to see him!" cried Cecile.
"Mademoiselle," said Antonin, smiling and looking maliciously at Madame Mollot, "he is tall and well-made and does not wear a wig.His little groom was as drunk as the twenty-four cantons; they filled him with champagne at Gondreville and that little scamp, only nine years old, answered my man Julien, who asked him about his master's wig, with all the assumption of an old valet: 'My master! wear a wig!--if he did I'd leave him.He dyes his hair and that's bad enough.'""Your opera-glass magnifies," said Achille Pigoult to Madame Mollot, who laughed.
"Well, the tiger of the handsome count, drunk as he is, is now riding to Troyes to post a letter, and he'll get there, as they say, in five-quarters of an hour."
"I'd like to have that tiger," said Vinet.
"If the count dined at Gondreville we shall soon know all about him,"remarked Cecile; "for my grandpapa is going there to-morrow morning.""What will strike you as very strange," said Antonin Goulard, "is that the party at Cinq-Cygne have just sent Mademoiselle Anicette, the maid of the Princesse de Cadignan, in the Cinq-Cygne carriage, with a note to the stranger, and he is going now to pass the night there.""Ah ca!" said Olivier Vinet, "then he is not a man; he's a devil, a phoenix, he will poculate--""Ah, fie! monsieur," said Madame Mollot, "you use words that are really--""'Poculate' is a word of the highest latinity, madame," replied Vinet, gravely."So, as I said, he will poculate with Louis Philippe in the morning, and banquet at the Holy-Rood with Charles the Tenth at night.
