Having completed his letter he was anxious to get a reply to it as speedily as possible. On inquiring at the Hotel des Postes he learned that his missive might take anything up to a month to reach England, but that if he sent it by express it should get there, depending on the state of the weather, in a week to ten days; so he spent his last two crowns in sending it by the faster service.
His father having so recently been made a Rear-Admiral could be taken as a sure sign that he would be fairly speedily re-posted, so Roger felt that all the odds were on his parent being already once more at sea. It had cost him a lot to propose returning, as he would still have to face a possibly scornful Georgina and tell her what a poor figure he had cut in the matter of her jewels. But now that he had taken the decision he was glad of it and, much comforted by the thought that he would, almost certainly, be back in his own comfortable home by the end of November, he returned to face his daily drudgery and Hutot's outrageous demands with a more cheerful countenance than he had been able to put upon them for some time.
It was eight days after he had written and despatched his letter that he again saw Athenais. His flair for foreign languages made his study of German sufficiently interesting for him to continue working at it after lunch each day, although he now counted on getting home in the near future; and, having left the Jardin des Plantes, he was on his way back through the Rue St. Mélaine when he recognised her coach. He knew it at once from the liveries of the servants, and as it passed him a moment later at a fast trot he caught sight of her inside. She did not see him, as she was sitting bolt upright, beside Madame Marie-Ange Velot, staring straight in front of her, but the one glimpse of her lovely and imperious profile was enough to set his heart thumping like a sledge-hammer.
As he turned to gape after the coach he felt that she was ten, nay a hundred, times more beautiful than the picture he had kept of her in his memory; a little goddess who had descended to this sordid earth on which no mortal was even fitted to be a footstool for her feet. Yet, before the coach had turned the corner of the street he had determined that he must kiss her hand that very night.
That afternoon, for the first time, Monsieur Ruttot had to upbraid him severely for really slipshod work in his copying, but he simply could not keep his mind on his task and, that evening, having smartened himself up as well as he could, he bolted his dinner with the avidity of the other apprentices in order the more quickly to get out of the house.
On his arriving at the Hotel de Rochambeau one of the footmen answered the door to him and went to summon Monsieur Aldegonde. The major-domo greeted him with his usual look of haughty disapproval and when Roger asked for his name to be taken up to Mademoiselle de
Rochambeau replied that Mademoiselle could not be disturbed at present as she was still at dinner.
His ardour somewhat damped by this rebuff Roger set to slowly pacing back and forth across the great marble-floored hall, while Aldegonde reascended the staircase to resume supervising the service of the meal. For over half an hour he waited, at first somewhat consoled for the delay from having learned that his divinity was definitely at home and had not merely been in Rennes on a flying visit that afternoon; then with ever-growing impatience to have sight of her.
At last footsteps sounded again at the top of the stairs and, to his surprise, he saw young Count Lucien, followed by Aldegonde, coming down towards him. Ceasing his pacing he greeted the Count with a smile and made him a low bow.
The little Count halted two steps from the bottom of the staircase and returned the bow only with the faintest inclination of the head, then he said in a shrill voice:
"I am told that you have requested an audience with Mademoiselle, my sister, Monsieur. For what purpose do you require it?"
"Why, Monsieur le Count, to pay my respects to her," Roger replied a trifle uneasily.
"Is it true that you have become a clerk in our lawyer's office?"
"Yes, and I do not seek to bide it. But 'tis only a temporary measure. You will recall, no doubt, the straits in which I was left on the death of Doctor Aristotle Fenelon, and I was forced to take the only employment that offered, or starve."
"I care not if you starve or no," cried the young Count, giving vent to his anger. "How dare you presume on the fact that Mademoiselle de Rochambeau was impulsive enough to bring you here one night out of charity. You were then naught but a penniless vagabond, and you are little better now. The de Rochambeaux do not consort with lawyer's clerks and your request to wait upon Mademoiselle is an outrageous insult."
Roger had gone pale to the lips. "You stuck-up little fool!" he suddenly burst out. "Whatever work I may do I'm as much a gentleman as you any day. Keep your tongue between your teeth, or 'twill be the worse for you!"
Count Lucien's hand shot out, and he shrilled to Aldegonde: "Seize that impudent upstart and throw him out!"
At Aldegonde's signal the tall footman advanced upon Roger, grasped him by the shoulders and, swivelling him round, thrust him towards the door.
"By God!" he shouted over his shoulder, "I'll get even with you for this!"
Next moment he was at the top of the steps. He heard Count Lucien cry: "If you dare to show your face here again I'll have you whipped by my lackeys."
Then the footman's knee caught Roger a hefty biff on the behind. He pitched forward down the short flight of steps and fell sprawling in the courtyard; the door was slammed to behind him.
Picking himself up he turned round and shook his fist in impotent fury at the dark facade of the mansion; then, literally sobbing with rage, he staggered out into the street.
For a week he could scarcely think of anything but the abominable humiliation to which he had been subjected. He came from a country where there were still very marked class distinctions, but in which there had grown up during the centuries a feeling that all classes were necessary to a well-ordered society, and that each was worthy of respect from the others as long as in the main its representatives contributed their quota to the common good. The better educated and more fortunately placed planned and ordered the way of life of the majority. They gave of their blood unstintingly in leading the defence of the country in time of war, meted out impartial, unbribable justice to their equals and inferiors alike, and tided the country people over times of difficulty whenever there was a failure of the crops. The others gave loyal service in peace and war and did not question the wisdom of their intellectual superiors in directing the affairs of the nation. Yet all stood fairly on their own feet with a true sense of their own dignity as individuals and proper rights as free men; and all had a ready word of good cheer for the others in their daily lives. The humblest labourer would talk as an equal about the prospects of crops or village affairs with his landlord and the noblest in the land was not ashamed to crack a joke with the yokels over a cup of ale in the village inn.
Here in France everything was utterly different. The country people lived in the direst poverty and were treated, not like human beings but like animals, by a stupid, hidebound and stony-hearted nobility of whom, Roger felt, little Count Lucien was a typical representative. Even the townsfolk were a race apart, despising the peasants and in turn despised by the aristocracy. Owing to the decay of feudalism the whole system had become hideously false and distorted so that the links binding one class to another had now utterly disappeared, leaving gaping voids of hatred and envy where good will, trust and mutual service had once held sway.
In this week of personal bitterness he became an inarticulate but fervid revolutionary; and, while quite illegally divorcing Athenais de Rochambeau from her caste, hoped that the day would soon come when the whole decadent French nobility might be stripped of its antiquated privileges and thrown upon a dungheap. Yet, beyond all, he longed as he had never longed before to return to the green and smiling fields of England.