At length he so far mastered
himself as to bow and make a sign to the coachman, who thereupon gathered
up his reins.
"You are going presumably to Blois?" he stammered with a nervous laugh, as
if the journey were a humorous proceeding.
"Yes, Monsieur," answered Genevi?ve, "we are going home."
"Why, then, it is possible that we shall meet again. I, too, am travelling
in that direction. A bient?t, Mesdemoiselles!"
The whip cracked, the coach began to move, and the creaking of its wheels
drowned, so far as I was concerned, the female voices that answered his
farewell. The coachman roused his horses into an amble; the amble became a
trot, and the vehicle vanished round a corner. Some few idlers stopped to
gaze stupidly after it, but not half so stupidly as did my poor Andrea,
standing bareheaded where the coach had left him.
I drew near, and laid my hand on his shoulder; at the touch he started like
one awakened suddenly, and looked up.
"Ah--you are returned, Gaston."
"To find that you have made a discovery, and are overwhelmed by your
error."
"My error?"
"Yes--that of falling in love with the wrong one.
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