Moreover, even from the terrasse of the café 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 Château 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 Régie (to whose products a rugged
constitution was growing slowly reconciled anew) Duchemin let his
vision dwell upon the distant château 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 Château de Montalais. In his pocket lay the
invitation, penned in the crabbed antique hand of Madame de Sévénié 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 château 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 Château 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