"
"_My_ infatuation!" he repeated, and then he laughed. "My very knowing
lackey, if you were better informed of my affairs, you would know that an
infatuation for Mlle. de Varion is a luxury that I cannot at present
afford. A man who has lost his estates, his money, his king's favor, and
who has fled from his creditors in Paris to prey on the provinces, thinks
not of love, but of how to refill his pockets."
"Then it is not for love that you pursue Mile, de Varion?" I said. I
now believed, as I had first thought, that the governor had changed his
mind after ordering mademoiselle to leave the province, had decided to
hold her in durance, and had commissioned De Berquin to detain her, as
well as to hunt down me. But I put the question in order to get further
time for thought.
"For love, yes; but not for mine!" was the answer.
This startled me. "For that of M. de la Chatre?" I asked, quickly.
"You seem to be curious on this point," said De Berquin, derisively.
"If I am to die," I replied, "you can lose nothing by gratifying my
curiosity. If I am to live, I may be the better able to serve you if you
gratify it."
"I am not one to refuse the request of a man about to die," he said, with
a self-amused look. "It is not La Chatre, the superb, whose _amour_ I
have come into this cursed wilderness to serve."
"Then who--?" But I stopped at the beginning of the question, as a new
thought came to me.
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