Then, in the midst of
the rain and the wind, my quick ear caught a sound of drums and bugles,
and I knew the King was come. Monsieur Maurice evidently heard nothing;
but I could see by Hartmann's face (he was laying the cloth and making a
noise with the glasses) that he knew all, and was listening.
After this I heard no more. The wind raved; the rain pattered; the gloom
thickened; and at half-past seven, when the soup was brought to table, it
was so dark that Monsieur Maurice called for lights. He would not, however,
allow the curtains to be drawn. He liked, he said, to sit and watch the
storm.
A cover was laid for me at his right hand; but my supper hour was past, and
what with the storm without, the heaviness in the air, and the excitement
of the day, I was no longer hungry. So, having eaten a little soup and
sipped some wine from Monsieur Maurice's glass, I went and curled myself up
in an easy chair close to the window, and watched the driving mists as they
swept across the park, and the tossing of the treetops against the sky.
It was a wild evening, lit by lurid gleams and openings in the clouds; and
it seemed all the wilder by contrast with the quiet room and the dim
radiance of the wax lights on the table.
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