"Come, you are ambitious, so
you must be daring. I tell you that it means the secretaryship of an
embassy before two years are over. By the way, Madame and Mademoiselle de
Jonquiere are in the white train which we are waiting for. Make up your
mind and pay your court at once."
"No, no! Later on. I want to think it over."
At this moment they were interrupted, for Baron Suire, who had already
once gone by without perceiving them, so completely did the darkness
enshroud them in that retired corner, had just recognised the ex-public
prosecutor's good-natured laugh. And, thereupon, with the volubility of a
man whose head is easily unhinged, he gave him several orders respecting
the vehicles and the transport service, deploring the circumstance that
it would be impossible to conduct the patients to the Grotto immediately
on their arrival, as it was yet so extremely early. It had therefore been
decided that they should in the first instance be taken to the Hospital
of Our Lady of Dolours, where they would be able to rest awhile after
their trying journey.
Whilst the Baron and the superintendent were thus settling what measures
should be adopted, Gerard shook hands with a priest who had sat down
beside him. This was the Abbe des Hermoises, who was barely
eight-and-thirty years of age and had a superb head--such a head as one
might expect to find on the shoulders of a worldly priest. With his hair
well combed, and his person perfumed, he was not unnaturally a great
favourite among women.
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