cles of crag,
the Roc Nantais and the Roc de Saint Alban--peaks each a rendezvous
just then for hosts of cloud that scowled forbiddingly down upon the
peaceful, sun-drenched valley.

Moreover, even from the terrasse of the cafe below, one needed only to
lift one's eyes to see, afar, perched high upon a smiling slope of
green, with the highway to Millau at its foot and a beetling cliff
behind, the Chateau de Montalais. Seated on that terrasse, late in the
afternoon of his second day in Nant, discussing a Picon and a
villainous caporal cigarette of the Regie (to whose products a rugged
constitution was growing slowly reconciled anew) Duchemin let his
vision dwell upon the distant chateau almost as constantly as his
thoughts.

He was to dine there that very evening. Even taking into account the
signal service Duchemin had rendered, this wasn't easy to believe when
one remembered the tradition of social conservatism among French
gentlefolk. Still, it was true: Duchemin of the open road was bidden to
dine en famille at the Chateau de Montalais. In his pocket lay the
invitation, penned in the crabbed antique hand of Madame de Sevenie and
fetched to the hotel by a servitor quite as crabbed and antique:
Monsieur Duchemin would confer a true pleasure by enabling the ladies
of the chateau to testify, even so inadequately, to their sense of
obligation, etc.; with a postscript to say that Monsieur d'Aubrac was
resting easily, his wound mending as rapidly as heart could wish.

Of course Duchemin was going, had in fact already despatched his
acceptance by the hand of the same messenger. Equally of course he knew
that he ought not to go. For a man of his years he was, as a matter of
training and habit, amazingly honest with himself. He knew quite well
what bent his inclination toward visiting the Chateau de Montalais just
once before effecting, what he was resolved upon, a complete
evanishment from the ken of its people. He had yet to hold one minute
of private conversation with Eve de Montalais, he had of her no sign to
warrant his thinking her anything but utterly indifferent to him; and
yet....

No; he wasn't ass enough to dream that he was in love with the woman;
to the contrary, he was wise enough, knew himself well enough, to know
that he could be, easily, and would be, given half a chance to lose his
head.

His warning had been clear beyond mistake, in that hour in the motor
car on the road from La Roque to Nant, when Na