They have kept the faith. I am for the habitant, for the land
of his faith and love, first and last and all the time."
He sat down in a tumult of cheering. Many present remarked that no two
men they had ever heard spoke so much alike, and kept their attacks so
free from personal things.
There had been at this public meeting two intense supporters of Carnac,
who waited for him at the exit from the main doorway. They were Fabian's
wife and Junia.
Barode Barouche came out of the hall before Carnac. His quick eye saw the
two ladies, and he raised his broad-brimmed hat like a Stuart cavalier,
and smiled.
"Waiting for your champion, eh?" he asked with cynical friendliness.
"Well, work hard, because that will soften his fall." He leaned over, as
it were confidentially, to them, while his friends craned their necks to
hear what he said: "If I were you I'd prepare him. He's beaten as sure as
the sun shines."
Junia was tempted to say what was in her mind, but her sister Sibyl, who
resented Barouche's patronage, said:
"There's an old adage about the slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, Monsieur
Barouche. He's young, and he's got a better policy than yours."
"And he's unmarried, eh!" Barouche remarked.
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