“It is after midnight,” said Camus, “and I am off. Will you walk part of the way with me, for I have something particular to say to you?”
“Well, I don’t mind coming with you. I have won two hundred louis, and if I stay I will be sure to lose them again. What is this you wish to say?”
“Wait till we are in the street,” replied Camus.
They got their cloaks and hats and left the hôtel, crossing the courtyard thronged with carriages, and turning to the right down the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in the direction of the Rue St. Honoré.
“Look here,” said Camus, taking the other’s arm, “we have made a famous plan about the washerwoman.”
“Who else? Her presentation is as good as cancelled.”
“Nothing. But things are going to happen.”
“Explain yourself, my dear fellow; you are as mysterious as the Sibyl. Are you going to strangle the Comtesse de Béarn?”
“No, but we are going to steal Dubarry’s coach.”
“And not only her coach, but her gown and her hairdresser.”
“Perfectly. Is it not a splendid plan? It is all to take place at the last moment—that is to say, at six o’clock to-morrow, or rather, to-day, for it is now after midnight. Look you, this is the way of it.”
Camus, bursting with laughter, made a sketch of what he proposed to do. “I shall want five men at my back,” said he, “I have four; will you be the fifth?”
Rochefort made no reply for a moment. Then he said:
“You know I am no friend of the Dubarrys, and that I would give a good deal to see this shop-girl in her proper place. Yet what you propose to me does not seem a work I would care to put my hand to. I would carry off the Comtesse with pleasure, but to steal her carriage—well—to that I can only reply, I am not a thief.”
Camus withdrew his arm from that of Rochefort. He knew Rochefort as a man who cared absolutely nothing for consequences—as a gambler, a drinker, and a fighter who could have given points to most men and beaten them at those amusements. He had failed to take into his calculations the fact that Rochefort was a man of honour. This desperado of a Rochefort had mired his clothes with all sorts of filth, but his skin was clean. He always fought fair, and he never cheated at play. Even in love, though his record was bad enough, he played the game without any of those tricks with which men cheat women of their honour.