"THE BEST OF FRIENDS MUST PART"  
Monsieur d'Argentan felt a twofold satisfaction when he heard that Mademoiselle Rotrou intended to stop at Angers. A man had to be as finished a rider as was Monsieur d'Argentan to take a ride like that which he had just taken, from Paris to Angers—even supposing that he had not come a greater distance than Paris—without a halt. He therefore resolved to stop at Angers also, both to seek the needed rest and to improve his acquaintance with his new friend.
Monsieur d'Argentan, notwithstanding the fact that his passport indicated a provincial residence, was so perfect a specimen of refinement that the Parisian stood revealed in him, and not only of Paris, but of the aristocratic quarters of Paris.
His astonishment, therefore, had been great, although he had not betrayed it, when, after exchanging a few words with so beautiful a creature, who was travelling alone under a passport signed by Barras (which was in itself a significant fact), he found that the conversation did not bring them into more intimate relations, and that the acquaintance went no further.
When he left the police commissioner's office and had ridden on ahead, knowing that he was going in the same direction as the traveller whose passport he had heard read aloud, though he did not know how she was travelling, he had promised himself that he would make the journey in her company. But when in the morning he had been overtaken by a luxurious travelling-carriage, and found that it contained the nest of the charming bird of passage whom[Pg 483] he had left behind, he had repeated the promise to himself, doubly resolved to keep it.
But, as we have seen, Mademoiselle de Fargas, while responding civilly to his advances, had not permitted him to put the toe of his boot upon the step of the carriage into which he had had the idea of introducing his whole body.
Angers and a night's rest, therefore, came in very comfortably to remove a little of his fatigue, and to permit him, if it were possible, to advance a step further in the intimacy of this unapproachable post-mistress, before the journey should end.
They reached Angers about five o'clock in the evening. About three miles out from the town, the rider approached the carriage, and, bowing to his saddle-bow, he said: "Would it be indiscreet to ask if you are hungry?"
Diane, who divined her travelling-companion's aim, made a motion of the lips which resembled a smile.
"Yes, sir, it would be indiscreet," she replied.
"Indeed, and why?"
"I will tell you. Because I should no sooner have told you that I was hungry than you would have asked permission to go and order my dinner. No sooner would I have given you permission to do so than you would have requested to have it served at the same table with yours. In other words, you would have invited me to take dinner with you, which, as you see, would be an indiscretion."
"Really, mademoiselle," said d'Argentan, "your logic is terrible, and, if I may say so, bears little resemblance to the period in which we live."
"That," retorted Diane with a frown, "is because few women find themselves in the same position as I am in. You see, sir, that I am in deep mourning."
"Are you in mourning for a husband? Your passport describes you as unmarried and not as a widow."
"I am unmarried, and a young girl, sir, if one can remain so after five years of solitude and misfortune. My last relative, he who was everything in the world to me, has just[Pg 484] died. Reassure yourself, sir, you have not, in leaving Paris, lost your seductive powers, but I cannot consistently consent to recognize the merits of those who address me, and who see that in spite of my mourning I am young, and that in spite of my grief I am fair. And now I am as hungry as one can be who drinks tears, and who lives on memories instead of hopes. I will dine as usual in the same room with you, assuring you that under any other circumstances, were it only out of gratitude to you for your attentions during the journey, I would have dined at the same table with you."
The young man rode up as close to her as the rapid motion of the carriage would permit.
"Madame," said he, "after your frank avowal, it remains for me to assure you that if, in your unprotected state, you should need a friend, you have one at hand, and though it be only a friend of the highroad, he is as true as any you will find."
Then setting off at a gallop, he went, as he had suggested, to order dinner for two.
But as the hour of Mademoiselle Rotrou's arrival coincided with that of the table d'h?te, Monsieur d'Argentan had the delicacy to say that his companion would dine in her own room, even at the risk of not seeing her again. At the table nothing was talked of except the six thousand men whom the Directory had sent to bring Cadouda............