His hollow voice betrayed no emotion, and his green eyes, shaded by thick gray eyebrows, bore Corentin’s piercing glance without flinching.
“Nonsense, my good man, you are not here to sell butter; you are talking to a lady who never bargained for a thing in her life. The trade you run, old fellow, will shorten you by a head in a very few days”; and Corentin, with a friendly tap on the man’s shoulder, added, “you can’t keep up being a spy of the Blues and a spy of the Chouans very long.”
Galope-Chopine needed all his presence of mind to subdue his rage, and not deny the accusation which his avarice had made a just one. He contented himself with saying:--
Corentin turned his back on the Chouan, but, while bowing to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose heart stood still, he watched him in the mirror behind her. Galope-Chopine, unaware of this, gave a glance to Francine, to which she replied by pointing to the door, and saying, “Come with me, my man, and we will settle the matter between us.”
Nothing escaped Corentin, neither the fear which Mademoiselle de Verneuil could not conceal under a smile, nor her color and the contraction of her features, nor the Chouan’s sign and Francine’s reply; he had seen all. Convinced that Galope-Chopine was sent by the marquis, he caught the man by the long hairs of his goatskin as he was leaving the room, turned him round to face him, and said with a keen look: “Where do you live, my man? I want butter, too.”
“My good monsieur,” said the Chouan, “all Fougeres knows where I live. I am--”
“Corentin!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil, interrupting Galope-Chopine. “Why do you come here at this time of day? I am scarcely dressed. Let that peasant alone; he does not understand your tricks any more than I understand the motive of them. You can go, my man.”
Galope-Chopine hesitated a moment. The indecision, real or feigned, of the poor devil, who knew not which to obey, deceived even Corentin; but the Chouan, finally, after an imperative gesture from the lady, left the room with a dragging step. Mademoiselle de Verneuil and Corentin looked at each other in silence. This time Marie’s limpid eyes could not endure the gleam of cruel fire in the man’s look. The resolute manner in which the spy had forced his way into her room, an expression on his face which Marie had never seen there before, the deadened tones of his shrill voice, his whole demeanor,--all these things alarmed her; she felt that a secret struggle was about to take place between them, and that he meant to employ against her all the powers of his evil influence. But though she had at this moment a full and distinct view of the gulf into which she was plunging, she gathered strength from her love to shake off the icy chill of these presentiments.