For a time this did not suggest anything to me. But when we had
all taken our seats for supper, there came an addition to the
party. The door opened, and the fellow whom I had seen the night
before with Madame de Cocheforet entered and took a stool by the
fire. I felt sure that he was one of the servants at the
Chateau; and in a flash his presence inspired me with the most
feasible plan for obtaining admission which I had yet hit upon.
I felt myself grow hot at the thought--it seemed so full of
promise, yet so doubtful--and, on the instant, without giving
myself time to think too much, I began to carry it into effect.
I called for two or three bottles of better wine, and, assuming a
jovial air, passed it round the table. When we had drunk a few
glasses I fell to talking, and, choosing politics, took the side
of the Languedoc party and the malcontents in so reckless a
fashion that the innkeeper was beside himself at my imprudence.
The merchants, who belonged to the class with whom the Cardinal
was always most popular, looked first astonished and then
enraged. But I was not to be checked; hints and sour looks were
lost upon me.
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