“Where does this diligence run?”
“To Andelys.”
“Then that is where Marius is going?”
“Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way.
I get down at Vernon, in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon.
I know nothing of Marius’ plan of travel.”
“Marius! what an ugly name! what possessed them to name him Marius?
While you, at least, are called Theodule.”
“I would rather be called Alfred,” said the officer.
“Listen, Theodule.”
“I am listening, aunt.”
“Pay attention.”
“I am paying attention.”
“You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Marius absents himself!”
“Eh! eh!”
“He travels.”
“Ah! ah!”
“He spends the night out.”
“Oh! oh!”
“We should like to know what there is behind all this.”
Theodule replied with the composure of a man of bronze:— “Some petticoat or other.” And with that inward laugh which denotes certainty, he added:— “A lass.”
“That is evident,” exclaimed his aunt, who thought she heard M. Gillenormand speaking, and who felt her conviction become irresistible at that word fillette, accentuated in almost the very same fashion by the granduncle and the grandnephew.
She resumed:— “Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little.
He does not know you, it will be easy.
Since a lass there is, try to get a sight of her.
You must write us the tale.
It will amuse his grandfather.”
Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort of spying; but he was much touched by the ten louis, and he thought he saw a chance for a possible sequel.
He accepted the commission and said:
“As you please, aunt.” And he added in an aside, to himself:
“Here I am a duenna.”
Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him.
“You are not the man to play such pranks, Theodule.
You obey discipline, you are the slave of orders, you are a man of scruples and duty, and you would not quit your family to go and see a creature.”
The lancer made the pleased grimace of Cartouche when praised for his probity.
Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence without suspecting that he was watched.
As for the watcher, the first thing he did was to fall asleep. His slumber was complete and conscientious. Argus snored all night long.
At daybreak, the conductor of the diligence shouted: “Vernon! relay of Vernon! Travellers for Vernon!”
And Lieutenant Theodule woke.
“Good,” he growled, still half asleep, “this is where I get out.”
Then, as his memory cleared by degrees, the effect of waking, he recalled his aunt, the ten louis, and the account which he had undertaken to render of the deeds and proceedings of Marius.
This set him to laughing.
“Perhaps he is no longer in the coach,” he thought, as he rebuttoned the waistcoat of his undress uniform.
“He may have stopped at Poissy; he may have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have got out at Mantes, unless he got out at Rolleboise, or if he did not go on as far as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the left at Evreus, or to the right at Laroche-Guyon.
Run after him, aunty.
What the devil am I to write to that good old soul?”
At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, made its appearance at the window of the coupe.
“Can that be Marius?” said the lieutenant.