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“Oh! Don’t worry, madame. One of the smugglers scratched me with his dagger.”

Geneviève went pale as she took his hand.

“Forgive me,” she murmured, “for the wrong they have done you; you saved my life and I nearly brought about your death.”

“Don’t I have my reward in finding you again? You didn’t think for a moment that I was looking for anyone else, did you?”

“Come with me,” Geneviève broke in. “I’ll get you some linen.… Our guests must not see you in this state. It would be too terrible a reproach to them.”

“I really am imposing on you, aren’t I?” Maurice replied with a sigh. “Not at all; I’m just doing my duty.” She added: “And doing it with great pleasure.”

Geneviève led Maurice to a great linen cupboard of an elegance and distinction he wasn’t expecting to find in the house of a master tanner. True, this particular master tanner seemed to be a millionaire. She flung open the cupboard doors. “Help yourself,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”

And with that, she withdrew.

When Maurice reappeared, he found Dixmer back on deck.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Dinner’s ready! We’re only waiting for you.”

9

SUPPER

When Maurice entered the dining room along with Dixmer and Geneviève, the table had been set and dinner laid out, but the room, which was in the main building, where he had first been conducted, was still empty.

He watched each guest file in one by one; there were six of them. They all looked nice enough on the outside, most of them young and dressed in the fashion of the day. Two or three even sported the carmagnole and red cap. Dixmer introduced Maurice around, grandly announcing his title and credentials. Then he turned to Maurice.

“You see before you, citizen Lindey, all the men who help me in my business. Thanks to the times in which we live, thanks to the revolutionary principles that have eliminated distance, we all live on a footing of the most sacred equality. The same table brings us together and

I’m glad you agreed to share our family meal with us. So please sit down, citizen, and eat!”

“What about … Monsieur Morand,” Geneviève timidly ventured. “Aren’t we waiting for him?”

“Oh yes, right,” replied Dixmer. “Citizen Morand, of whom I’ve already spoken to you, citizen Lindey, is my partner. He is the one charged with the moral side of the business, if I may use that term. He does all the bookkeeping, does the accounts, pays the bills, doles out and receives the money. Of all of us, he definitely has the most to do. The result is that he is sometimes late. I’ll go and alert him.”

At that very moment, the door opened and in came citizen Morand.

He was a short man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows; green glasses, the sort worn by people who work so hard their eyes get tired, screened his black eyes but did not obscure their twinkle. At his first words, Maurice recognized the voice, at once gentle and imperious, that had consistently urged clemency in the terrible deliberations of which he had been the victim. Morand was dressed in a brown suit with great big buttons and a vest of white silk. His rather fine jabot was often agitated over dinner, tormented by a hand whose whiteness and delicacy Maurice was impressed by, no doubt because it belonged to a merchant tanner.

Everyone took their place. Citizen Morand was seated on Gene-viève’s right, Maurice on her left; Dixmer sat down opposite his wife and the other guests sat anywhere they liked around the rectangular table.

The supper was refined. Dixmer had the appetite of an industrialist and did the honors of his table with a heavy dose of jollity. The workers, or those who passed for workers, made him good cheery company as such. Citizen Morand spoke little, ate even less, scarcely drank a drop, and laughed rarely. Maurice, perhaps because of the memories his voice recalled to mind, soon felt a strong liking for him. But he couldn’t figure out the man’s age and this gnawed at him. At times, Morand looked to him to be in his early forties; at other times, he seemed very young.

Dixmer,