I fancied that the innkeeper shared this opinion which he attributed to the grumblers, and took satisfaction in getting it expressed, though too cautious to father it himself.
"Then he has no great reputation for benevolence?"
"Oh, I don't say that. We must take what we hear, with a grain of salt. He is certainly one of the great noblemen of this neighbourhood; certainly a brave man. You will hear silly talk, of course: how that he is a man whose laugh makes one think of dungeon chains and the rack. But some people will give vent to their envy of the great."
I shuddered inwardly, to think that my undertaking might bring me across the path of a man as sinister and formidable as these bits of description seemed to indicate.
"What family has he?" I asked, trying the more to seem indifferent as I came closer to the point.
"No family. His children are all dead. Some foolish folk say he expected too much of them, and tried to bring them up too severely, as if they had been Spartans. But that is certainly a slander, for his eldest son was killed in battle in the last civil war."
"Then he has no daughter--or grand-daughter--or niece, perhaps?"
"Not that I know of. Why do you ask, Monsieur?"
"I thought I saw a lady at one of the windows," said I, inventing.
"No doubt. It must have been his wife. She would be the only lady there."
"Oh, but this was surely a young lady," I said, clinging to my preconceptions.
"Certainly. His new wife is young. The children I spoke of were by his first wife, poor woman! Oh, yes, his new wife is young--beautiful too, they say."
"And how do she and the Count agree together, being rather unevenly matched?"
"That is the question. Nobody sees much of their life. She never comes out of the grounds of the chateau, except to church sometimes, when she looks neither to the right nor to the left."
"But who are her people, to have arranged her marriage with such a man?"
"Oh. I believe she has no people. An orphan, whom he took out of a convent. A gentlewoman, yes, but of obscure family."
"Who knows, Monsieur? They do say the old wolf--I mean the Count, Monsieur,--we are sometimes playful in our talk here at Montoire,--they say he is terribly jealous. They say that is why he keeps her so close. Of course I know nothing of it.--You noticed, perhaps, that the moat was full of water. The drawbridge is up half the time. One would suppose the Civil wars were back again. To be sure, some people hint that there may be another reason for all that: but I, for one, take no interest in politics."