Roncherolle

“ During the day, Roncherolle ascended the single flight of stairs which separated him from the flower girl. He found the door open, and entered the room of the sick girl, who was then alone, the concierge having just gone down because she had heard Mirontaine bark.
Roncherolle approached the bed softly; Violette was not asleep and the return of health could already be read in her eyes. At nineteen, sickness often disappears as rapidly as it comes; it is simply the storm which disturbs the tranquillity of a beautiful day, but leaves no traces behind. ”

“ Roncherolle, for his part, having recognized the man of letters at the first glance, smiled slyly as he submitted to be stared at, and continued to be most attentive to his fair neighbor, who said to him, eating for four all the while:
"You please me, you do! you're a good fellow! you're worth a deal more than all these youngsters! you're as young as they are, only you've been so longer!" ”

“ You make me sick!"
"And so do you me, you beast!"
"Par la mordieu! and you're a beast yourself!" cried Roncherolle, sitting up in his chair and grasping his cane again and hammering on the partition and on the floor. "Ah! you have the effrontery to keep on with your parrot lessons! Dare to begin again, and I will twist your pupil's neck, and throw his master out of the window! What a house! What service they have! Here I've been pounding and ringing for an hour, and no one comes! I say there! waiter! chambermaid!"
Again Saint-Arthur and his parrot held their peace. ”

“ At the end of three days, all that Roncherolle could do was to lie at full length in his reclining chair, with his foot on cushions; then, as he could not hope to leave the house for some time, he sent the young man of the house, Beauvinet, to bring his usual messenger; and Chicotin soon appeared before him.
"Look you, my boy," said Roncherolle, "I have been shrewder than you—I have discovered Madame de Grangeville's address."
"The deuce you have! however did you do it? You can hardly walk!" ”

“ Roncherolle dissembled his agony and tried to smile at Violette, as he said to her:
"How good you are, my child! how kind to a person whom you hardly know, and who has no claim upon your interest!"
"No claim! well, upon my word! when I was sick, didn't you come to see me? And you didn't know me at all! I should be very ungrateful if I did not do for you what you did for me."
"But such a difference; in the first place, you were hardly sick at all; and then it is always a pleasure to make oneself useful to a young lady; whereas a sick old man is not an agreeable object." ”

“ Roncherolle, being forced to keep his room, was not sorry someone should come to visit him; the nonsense of his little messenger made him laugh; the story of his new friend's bonnes fortunes diverted him mightily; and when Saint-Arthur said to him: "Don't you think that I am a fortunate mortal with the ladies?" he would reply with a slight shrug: "It's a fact that the ladies are very fond of men like you." ”

“ Saint-Arthur asked his neighbor several times to teach him some of his methods of drinking champagne; but Roncherolle simply smiled and replied:
"Those things can't be taught except at the table."
At last the gout entirely disappeared, and one day Saint-Arthur failed to find Roncherolle in his room; he was sorely disappointed, for his neighbor's witty conversation had become necessary to him; he retained some scraps of it now and then. It is always well to frequent people of intelligence, they allow themselves to be robbed so readily! ”

“ In the first place, Roncherolle is not a coward, as we all know; if he runs away from you, it isn't because he's afraid of death. Mon Dieu! he told you so himself; ruined, suffering torture in his bed three-fourths of the time, do you think that you would punish him by depriving him of life? No. You will kill him, for you know very well that he will never aim his weapon at you; you will kill him—you have a right to, and no one would consider it a crime on your part ”

“ Roncherolle continued his narrative, with his eyes still fastened upon him.
"Behold then our flower girl in the young man's room, which she had entered without suspicion, for a woman had opened the door. But soon he who has been persecuting her with his addresses appears; he is alone with her, he no longer conceals his purpose to triumph over her resistance; the girl sees her danger, summons all her courage, and resists so effectively that the enterprising gentleman receives upon his face the marks of that stout defence—indeed, they have not altogether disappeared yet ”

“ As for Bill Gregg, he brooded for a time on what he had heard, then he shook his head and sighed. "I'd be a mighty helpless kid in this here town if I didn't have you along, Ronicky," he said.
"Nope," insisted Ronicky. "Long as you use another gent for a sort of guide you feel kind of helpless. But, when you step off for yourself, everything is pretty easy. You just were waiting for me to take the lead, or you'd have done just as much by yourself."
Again Bill Gregg sighed, as he shook his head. "If this is what New York is like," he said, "we're in for a pretty bad time. ”

“ The General's companion chanced to be a man for whom he felt a kind of repulsion whenever he met him in other houses. This was the Marquis de Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more—courageous; he set the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of gallantry, his success and experience were equally matters of envy; and neither fortune nor birth was wanting in his case, qualifications which add such lustre in Paris to a reputation as a leader of fashion. ”

“ I shall not tell you who will watch you, or who in turn will watch him; but it will save possible trouble if you should understand that from the moment at which you leave, until the Count Rossano is in our hands, you will be under my observation and control as definitely as you are at this moment.”
“All this,” replied Roncivalli, “is a waste of words. I have undertaken this piece of work for my own purpose, and for my own purpose I shall carry it through. When the work is done I shall go my own way, as I have always told you. ”

“ He looked across the street to the veranda of the hotel, as he passed through the gate of the corral. The men were standing in a long and awe-stricken line, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Whoever Ronicky Doone might be, he was certainly a man who had won the respect of this town. The men on the veranda looked at Bill Gregg as though he were already a ghost. He waved his hand defiantly at them and the mare, at a word from him, sprang into a long-striding gallop that whirled them rapidly down the street and out of the village. ”

“ Geste obscène, œil sanglant, front d'anthropopithèque,
L'homme ne s'est jamais plus hideusement peint.
Mais Roncevaux n'a rien de plus beau, sous son Pin,.
Rien de plus pur, sous son Laurier, la fable Grecque,
Que ce jeune Monarque et son vieil Archevêque:
C'est Achille et Nestor, c'est Roland et Turpin.
Roi, d'un juste reflux puissions-nous voir la vague!
Et toi, puisque ta main éleva dans sa bague
Le seul reflet de ciel qui bénit cet Enfer,
Que la pourpre sur toi soit plus cardinalice. ”

“ For there was an utter surety about this man's handling of the weapon. The heavy gun balanced and steadied in his slim fingers, as if it were no more than a feather's weight.
"I'm talking straight, lady," said Ronicky Doone. "Sit down—pronto!"
In the very act of obedience she straightened again. "It's bluff," she said. "I'm going through that door!" Straight for the door she went, and Ronicky Doone set his teeth.
"Go back!" he commanded. He glided to the door and blocked her way, but the gun hung futile in his hand.
"It's easy to pull a gun, eh?" said the girl, with something of a sneer. ”

“ It required all of Fernand's long habits of self control to keep him from gasping. He managed to look Ronicky Doone fairly in the eyes. What did the youngster know? What had he guessed?
"Suppose I get down to cases and name names? The gent that talked to you about me was John Mark. Am I right?" asked Ronicky.
"Sir," said Fernand, thinking that the world was tumbling about his ears, "what infernal—"
"I'm right," said Ronicky. "I can tell when I've hurt a gent by the way his face wrinkles up. I sure hurt you that time, Fernand. John Mark it was, eh?" ”

“ The gates of Roncesvalles stood open, and, passing through one of the archways, Ronald asked the first person he met whether there was an inn, café, taberna, or any house of entertainment, where he could procure refreshment for himself and horse, but was informed that the wretched mountain-village could boast of none. The man to whom he spoke was a miserably-clad peasant, and, like most Spanish villagers, appeared to belong to no trade or profession. ”

“ Suppose I have my freedom, and I tell the police that in this house a girl against her will—"
"Tush, my dear! You really do not know me at all. Do you think they can reach me? She may be a hundred miles away before you have spoken ten words to the authorities."
"But I warn you that all your holds on her are broken. She knows that you have no holds over her brother. She knows that Ronicky Doone has broken them all—that Jerry is free of you!"
"Ronicky Doone," said Mark, his face turning gray, "is a talented man. No doubt of it; his is a very peculiar and incisive talent, I admit. ”

“ He knew instantly that it was Ronicky Doone. The man had come to recapture his horse and had taken the short cut across the mountain to come up with her. Just by a fraction of a minute Doone would be too late, for, by the time he came down onto the trail, the bay would be well ahead, and certainly no horse lived in those mountains capable of overtaking her when she felt like running. Gregg touched her again with the spurs, but this time she reared straight up and, whirling to the side, faced steadily toward her onrushing master. ”

“ She nodded.
"First off, what's the way John Mark uses you?"
She clenched her hands. "If I tell you that, you will both despise me."
"Try us," said Ronicky. "And you can lay to this, lady, that, when a gent out of the West says 'partner' to a girl or a man, he means it. What you do may be bad; what you are is all right. We both know it. The inside of you is right, lady, no matter what John Mark makes you do. But tell us straight, what is it?"
"He has made me," said the girl, her head falling, "a thief!"
Ronicky saw Bill Gregg wince, as if someone had struck him in the face. ”

“ He was a professional optimist. "We had a picture of a girl, and we knew she was on a certain train bound East, three or four weeks ago. That's all we knew. Now we know her name is Caroline Smith, and that she lives where she can see the East River out of her back window. I guess that narrows it down pretty close, doesn't it, Bill?"
"Close?" asked Bill. "Close, did you say?" "Well, we know the trail," said Ronicky cheerily. "All we've got to do is to locate the shack that stands beside that trail. For old mountain men like us that ought to be nothing. ”

“ The dark flush and the uneasy flicker of Gregg's glance gave a sufficient answer. Ronicky Doone sighed and shook his head, but not in anger.
"You don't have to talk," he said. "I see that I'm right. And I don't blame you, Bill, because, maybe, I've spoiled things pretty generally for you."
At first the silence of Bill Gregg admitted that he felt the same way about the matter, yet he finally said aloud: "I don't blame you. Maybe you thought I was a hoss thief. But the thing is done, Ronicky, and it won't never be undone!" ”

“ Ronicky Doone stared at her, with a strange blending of pity and admiration. He knew that the danger was not over by any means, but he began to forget that.
"This way!" called the girl and led toward an opposite door, very low in the wall.
"Lady," said Ronicky gently, "will you hold on one minute? They won't start to go through the smoke for a while. They'll think they've choked us, when we don't come out on the rush, shooting. But they'll wait quite a time to make sure. They don't like my style so well that they'll hurry me." ”

“ Both she and Bill Gregg looked apprehensively at the dark face of
Ronicky Doone, where a storm was gathering.
But he restrained his anger with a mighty effort. "She was going to cut away from that life and start over—is that straight, Caroline?"
"Yes."
"Get the police, Ronicky," said Bill Gregg. "They sure can't hold no woman agin' her will in this country."
"Don't you see that it is her will?" asked Ronicky Doone darkly. "Ain't she made a bargain? Don't you think she's ready and willing to live up to it? She sure is, son, and she'll go the limit to do what she's said she'll do. ”

“ After that I'm coming back here, Ronicky Doone, and I'm going to try to get an opportunity for you to talk to Caroline Smith."
"I knew you'd change your mind," said Ronicky Doone.
"I'll even tell you why," she said. "It isn't for your friend who's asleep, but it's to give you a chance to finish this business and come to the end of this trail and go back to your own country. Because, if you stay around here long, there'll be trouble, a lot of trouble, Ronicky Doone. Now stay here and wait for me. If anyone taps at the door, you'd better slip into that closet in the corner. Will you wait?" ”

“ Go tell Caroline what I've said," he went on to the girl. "Let her know that they's no chain on anybody, and, if she wants to find Bill Gregg, all she's got to do is go across the street. You understand?"
"But, even if I were to tell her, how could she go, Ronicky Doone, when she's watched?"
"If she can't make a start and get to a man that loves her and is waiting for her, right across the street, she ain't worth worrying about," said Ronicky sternly. "Do we go this way?" ”