Laigle de Meaux

So. Bahorel had advised--Staub's finest and tightest, a notion that had met Bossuet's unvoiced support. And then word had come that Musichetta, through unknowable feminine channels, had been returned to a state of--well, call it clemency. All of this when Lesgle was conveniently free of classes, so it was no trouble at all to murmur something to Joly about longing for the noble sights of Meaux and vanish for a few days, and then to pass another day or two with Grantaire, with Bahorel, with a remarkable poet or perhaps visionary he'd met at Bahorel's place--

One week, he thinks, for Joly and Musichetta to get reacquainted, and another week for them to remember why they keep their own rooms, and then say another day or two for good measure.

He manages to be arriving at the Musain just as Joly is leaving, and gives him a quick, friendly, searching look. "On your way home?"


((After this.))

"Lovely day for a stroll in the woods," says Bossuet. "Nothing I like better than wandering under trees in a cold, raw November drizzle, with just a hint of a knife-like wind at my neck. --No, no, it's all right, it isn't really raining and there is such a thing as an umbrella, and we are servants to a high calling. That of science. Or cartography."

Don't mind him, he's just grumbling. He's never really minded the rain before and he doesn't really mind it now. He hefts his satchel up to his shoulder and gives Joly a questioning look: ready to head out?