the beautiful lines of his mouth took instant
prominence in the smile that flickered round it.

"I think that Battista makes a very excellent watchdog," he said, and
you would have thought him amused, as if at the foolish subterfuge of
some little child. "You may be right to dislike him. He knows no French,
so that it may not be yours to pervert and bribe him with promises of
what you will do if he assists you to escape; but you will see that this
very quality which renders him detestable to you renders him invaluable
to us."

He laughed softly, as one well pleased with his own astuteness, doffed
his hat with a politeness almost exaggerated, and whistling his dog he
abruptly left her.

Thus were Marius and his mother--to whom he bore the tale of Valerie's
request--tricked further into reposing the very fullest trust in the
watchful, incorruptible "Battista." Realizing that this would be so,
Garnache now applied himself more unreservedly to putting into effect
the plans he had been maturing. And he went about it with a zest that
knew no flagging, with a relish that nothing could impair. Not that it
was other than usual for Garnache to fling himself whole-heartedly into
the conduct of any enterprise he might have upon his hands; but he
had come into this affair at Condillac against his will; stress of
circumstances it was had driven him on, step by step, to take a personal
hand in the actual deliverance of Valerie.

It was vanity and pride that had turned him back when already he was on
the road to Paris; not without yet a further struggle would he accept
defeat. To this end had he been driven, for the first time in his life,
to the indignity of his foul disguise; and he, whose methods had ever
been direct, had been forced to have recourse to the commonest of
subterfuges. It was with anger in his heart that he had proceeded to
play the part he had assumed. He felt it to be a thing unworthy of
him, a thing that derogated from his self-respect. Had he but had the
justification of some high political aim, he might have endured it
with a better resignation; the momentous end to be served might have
sanctioned the ignoble means adopted. But here was a task in itself
almost as unworthy of him as the methods by which he now set about
accomplishing it. He was to black his face and dye his beard and hair,
stain his skin and garb himself in filthy rags, for no better end than
that he might compass the enlargement of a girl fro