She was very gracious to the old lawyer during the afternoon.
"Do you know," she said, "I can't quite make up my mind whether to be fond or frightened of you."
"Be fond of me," said Pierre Lamont, with a queer look.
"I shall see how you behave. I am afraid you are very clever. I don't like clever people, they are so suspicious, pretending to know everything always."
"I am very simple," said Pierre Lamont, laughing inwardly. He knew that she wanted to propitiate him; "and beauty can lead me by a silken thread."
"Is that another of your compliments? I declare, you speak as if you were a young man."
She did, indeed, desire to win Pierre Lamont entirely to her, and she would have endured much to make him her friend instead of her enemy. Christian Almer had told her that the old lawyer had slept in the next room to his, and she had set herself the task of sounding the old fellow to ascertain whether his suspicions were aroused, and whether she had anything to fear from him. She could not help saying to herself what a fool Mother Denise--who looked after the household arrangements--was to put him so close to Christian.
"I do believe," thought Adelaide, "that she did it to spite me."
Her mind, however, was quite at ease after chatting with the old lawyer.
"I am so glad we are friends," she said to him; "it is altogether so much nicer."
Pierre Lamont looked reproachfully at her, and asked how she could ever have supposed he was anything but her most devoted admirer.
"Lawyers are so fond of mischief," she replied, "that if it does not come to them ready-made they manufacture it for themselves."
"I am no longer a lawyer," he said; "if I were twenty years younger I should call myself a lover."
"If you were twenty years younger," she rejoined gaily, "I should not sit and listen to your nonsense."
Being called from his side she turned and gave him an arch look.
"All that only makes the case stronger, my lady," he said inwardly. "You cannot deceive me with your wiles."
During the chief part of the day Gautran concealed himself in the woods. Twice had he ventured to present himself to his fellow--creatures. He was hungry, and in sore need of food, and he went to a wayside inn, and called for cold meat and bread and brandy.