“Your words are written there,” said Christophe, touching his forehead.
Chaudieu embraced his child with singular religious effusion; he was proud of him.
“God keep thee!” he said, pointing to the ruddy light of the sinking sun, which was touching the old roofs covered with shingles and sending its gleams slantwise through the forest of piles among which the water was rippling.
“You belong to the race of the Jacques Bonhomme,” said La Renaudie, pressing Christophe’s hand.
“We shall meet again, _monsieur_,” said the prince, with a gesture of infinite grace, in which there was something that seemed almost friendship.
With a stroke of his oars La Renaudie put the boat at the lower step of the stairway which led to the house. Christophe landed, and the boat disappeared instantly beneath the arches of the pont au Change.
Christophe shook the iron railing which closed the stairway on the river, and called. His mother heard him, opened one of the windows of the back shop, and asked what he was doing there. Christophe answered that he was cold and wanted to get in.
“Ha! my master,” said the Burgundian maid, “you went out by the street-door, and you return by the water-gate. Your father will be fine and angry.”
Christophe, bewildered by a confidence which had just brought him into communication with the Prince de Conde, La Renaudie, and Chaudieu, and still more moved at the prospect of impending civil war, made no answer; he ran hastily up from the kitchen to the back shop; but his mother, a rabid Catholic, could not control her anger.
“I’ll wager those three men I saw you talking with are Ref--”
“Hold your tongue, wife!” said the cautious old man with white hair who was turning over a thick ledger. “You dawdling fellows,” he went on, addressing three journeymen, who had long finished their suppers, “why don’t you go to bed? It is eight o’clock, and you have to be up at five; besides, you must carry home to-night President de Thou’s cap and mantle. All three of you had better go, and take your sticks and rapiers; and then, if you meet scamps like yourselves, at least you’ll be in force.”
“Are we going to take the ermine surcoat the young queen has ordered to be sent to the hotel des Soissons? there’s an express going from there to Blois for the queen-mother,” said one of the clerks.