“Mon Dieu!” he thought. “He has no more expression on his silly face than has a fish in a bowl!”
He said, aloud, moving restlessly on his pillows: “You never understood that rascal, Arsène. Perhaps you are incapable of such understanding, Louis. Arsène is gay, delightful. He has a heart of gold. He is amusing. He is elegant. He is liked by every one. Perhaps you are jealous.”
A faint spasm touched Louis’ wide and chiselled lips. But he said, quietly: “He is a dancer. He is frivolous, adventurous. He loves danger for its own sake. He is foolish and vivacious, and too carefree. He is not very intelligent.”
There was now a faint tremor in his voice, as though some emotion had touched him, and he turned aside his head.
Armand laughed thinly, and with malevolence. He waved his saturated kerchief languidly in front of his nose, narrowing his eyes to peer at his son. He shrugged, stared pointedly.
“Nevertheless, His Majesty likes him. More than he does you, my dear Louis. Only yesterday he sent me a billet, in which he said: ‘Where is that amusing blackguard, Arsène? We miss him sorely.’”
Again, the spasm touched Louis’ smooth, marble-like lips.
“Once,” continued Armand, with enjoyment, “His Majesty said to me: ‘His Eminence would like Arsène to be Captain of his Guards. But I would prefer him under my own standard, if he would remain long enough in one spot to listen to the proposal.’”
A strange, faintly eager look flashed over Louis’ eyes.
“His Eminence said precisely that to me, only yesterday. He would welcome Arsène as Captain of his Musketeers. But when did Arsène ever listen to anything but his own desires, for all he is such an excellent swordsman?”
Armand stared dreamily, with a pleasant smile, through the casement.
“He could be another M. de Bassompierre, if he willed. He is also a clever chess player. His Eminence mentioned this. But he cares nothing for all that. He is too independent—”
“Too intent upon his own ridiculous pleasures,” interrupted Louis, with a darkening eye.
Armand was angered. “I repeat, you are prejudiced. Such a serious absurdity as Paul de Vitry is his devoted friend. De Vitry sees more in Arsène than you do, my surly priest.”
Louis stood up abruptly. He moved, with his curiously slow but light tread, to the crucifix. He stood, looking down at it, his hands involuntarily clasped in an attitude of prayer. When he spoke, his voice was strange:
“My father, have you ever heard of Les Blanches?”
Armand jerked his head, and his eyes peered with sudden terror at Louis’ tall and handsome back. He sat upright, clutching the arms of his chair. His knuckles turned white, the tendons strained torturously. His color became ghastly.
“Les Blanches,” he repeated in a voice so dwindled that it squeaked. He moistened lips that had dried under the thick red rouge. “No. No! I have not heard. What is this Les Blanches?”
Louis, though he tried to prevent it, felt a suffering pang at the terror in his father’s voice. He could not endure it. He came with unusual swiftness back to his chair. He leaned towards Armand, and his hand reached involuntarily to touch his father’s hand. But he recovered himself almost instantly.
“Nothing,” he murmured, soothingly. “Nothing at all. Except that M. de Vitry is suspected of being the organizer, the head, of Les Blanches. It is reputed to be a Huguenot society, bent on treachery, murder, the overthrow of His Majesty’s Most Catholic government.” He breathed, as if with sudden difficulty, tried to smile. It was a painful and pathetic smile. Armand glared at him, with distended eyes of fear, like an animal.
“I was only thinking,” Louis continued, “that such as M. de Vitry is no safe friend for Arsène, who is your son, and my brother.”
Armand continued to sit upright in his chair, clutching the arms. Pale drops stood on his forehead.
“Nonsense,” he whispered, for he could not speak aloud. He swallowed, convulsively, then, recovering his voice, he cried shrewishly, out of his fright: “It is a lie! One of your sanctimonious lies, Louis! I know M. de Vitry and his dead father. Besides, Arsène is too clever to have anything to do with this—this Les Blanches—”
“I did not say he had anything to do with this,” said Louis, gently. He closed his eyes a moment, as if in pain. “I said, it was suspected that de Vitry has organized this. Arsène—probably knows nothing of it. De Vitry is too shrewd. But if de Vitry were apprehended, it would not look well for Arsène, who is his dear friend. We cannot bear suspicion, we who have so lately returned to Mother Church.”
“I shall speak to Arsène, when he returns,” said Armand. He fell back on his cushions. He held his kerchief to his nose, and then surreptitiously wiped his brow. His hand visibly shook. His face wrinkled. He simulated anger.
“That Arsène! When will he cease being embroiled in some brothel fracas! I have warned him. This must be serious, this time, or he would not be so long absent.” He hesitated, then lied: “I have made inquiries. I know where he is. It was some woman, the mistress, it is alleged of—of—” His mind faltered as it sought for a name sufficiently impressive, yet convincing.
“It is disgraceful,” agreed Louis, with severity.
Armand, at ease now, smiled roguishly. But the spasms continued about his lips and the corners of his eyes.
“Ah, what a dog he is! My grandfather was such another. No woman was safe, not even the nurse who attended my grandmother when her twelfth child was born.” He began to babble, incoherently. His voice was like the vibrating wings of a mother bird, who flutters before a weasel, seeking to lead it away from its young. “You may not have heard, Louis, that I caught that wretch, Arsène, in a most compromising position with a housemaid when he was barely fourteen. Reprehensible! Unspeakably scandalous!”
“Disgusting,” murmured Louis, looking away from his father.
Armand chuckled, and the sound was hoarse. “True, very true. But what can one do with a libertine like that? I whipped him soundly, and M. le Archbishop himself reprimanded him, imposed penances upon him. Nothing is efficacious. Ah, well, he is still young. Sobriety comes with age, wisdom with failing virility—”
Louis might have remarked that such was not the case with his own father, but he only regarded Armand with gentle compassion.
“Let us pray this is so,” he said.
Armand chuckled again, stared delightedly at the ceiling. “Arsène is a rival in virility of His Unholy Eminence, himself!”
He recalled what Louis was too late. He brought back his eyes to his son’s face in deep alarm, cursing himself. But Louis’ countenance was only grave and remote, and his eyes were too piercing. The young priest said nothing.
Armand rang furiously for his valet. “The lout!” he exclaimed frantically. “It is time for my bath, and he delays in the scullery with the wenches! This is too much!”
The door opened, and Armand began a string of shrill foul curses. But it was not the valet who stood there, in response to the frenzied summons. It was Arsène, himself, smiling, pale and at ease.
CHAPTER X
Armand stared, blinking and paling, at this apparition, unable to speak. Louis rose involuntarily, with a kind of convulsive haste, seizing the back of his gilt chair, his black robes falling about him, a dim spasm passing over his cold and stately face.
Then Armand, with a cry, burst into tears. He held out his arms to Arsène, the hands making frenzied and urgent movements, such as a mother makes to her child who is in danger, his features working and twisting.
“You hound of lubricity!” he cried, choking over his tears. “Where have you been hiding yourself, in what wicked boudoir? Come to me at once, and kiss me! Mon Dieu, how I have missed your foul face! I loathe you, I spurn you, I disown you! Kiss me at once!”
There was more than passionate love, more than passionate relief and joy, in his trembling voice. Arsène, laughing loudly, came to his father, suffered the convulsive embraces, the quivering kisse
s, which were too vehement even for Armand’s fatuous adoration. In the midst of all this vehemence, Armand’s painted lips touched Arsène’s ear, and there was a smothered whisper: “Beware! Les Blanches! Louis!” Then the cries, the wild kisses, the embraces, were renewed.
Arsène’s expression showed nothing of what he had heard. He finally freed himself from his father’s clutches, stood up, and held his father’s jerking hand tightly, his own warm and strong with affection and reassurance. He turned to Louis.
“Bon jour, Monsieur le Curé,” he said, lightly, in a humorous but affectionate voice, which had in it, for Louis, a familiar touch of mockery and satire. “You are looking well, as usual.”
The brothers regarded each other in a swift silence, Arsène smiling, Louis cold and remote, his large blue eyes fixed and gleaming. Then Louis said, in a controlled and dignified tone:
“It is well you have returned, Arsène. My father has been ill with anxiety. Do you not think you owe us an explanation for this long absence, and an accounting of this escapade?”
Armand exclaimed, with some incoherence: “Mais oui! Most certainly! But he is ashamed, the dog! Certes, he is ashamed, or he would not have sent that miserable old abbé to you, Louis, with a mealy explanation of some ‘accident’! Ah,” he said, shaking a lean dark finger at Arsène with a terrified archness: “That was a fine, hypocritical touch! An abbé, you libertine! Where did you find the innocent? In your lady’s boudoir? Or had he come to shrive you when her husband discovered you in her arms?”
Arsène laughed again, loudly. But Louis merely gazed at him. Arsène touched his cheek, and winked.
“Regard this scar. Is it not becoming? But you must let me have my secrets, my father. It would be ungallant to tell, would it not? When there is a lady involved, one is silent. Is that not so?”
Armand became aware, for the first time, of the crimson and jagged line on his son’s cheek, and he regarded it with dread, for he saw that it was no mean injury. He also saw that Arsène was much thinner, much paler, and that he appeared exhausted, even emaciated. His craven heart, his adoring heart, plunged, sickened, rose on a wing of terror and grief.
“Was there a lady?” asked Louis, coldly.
Arsène shrugged. “Why do you ask that, Louis? Have you not, yourself, given me a wanton reputation? It is strange how perspicacious you are, for a chaste priest. Or do priests usually expect and suspect the obscene? It is very odd, for such celibates.”
For the first time a flush appeared on Louis’ pale cheek, and it was like the icy flush of sunset on snow. Arsène, above all men, always had the power to disconcert and enrage him. He looked at his brother with a long stare, lifeless yet somehow virulent.
“Do you not think it time to take a more sober view of life, Arsène? Have you considered Mademoiselle de Tremblant, who took to her bed upon your prolonged disappearance? I have attended her frequently, consoling her.”
Arsène grinned evilly. “Without a stir of those frigid pulses, Louis? How could you gaze on such beauty, such white sloping shoulders, such a neck, without a movement of your ice-bound heart?”
Louis said nothing. He continued to gaze steadfastly at his brother, but he became mortally pale, as if a violating hand had touched him.
“You are ill!” cried Armand. “You must go to your bed instantly. Reach for the bell-rope, you stinking blackguard, and call Pierre to assist you to your chamber.”
Arsène negligently lifted the perfume bottle from the table at his father’s elbow. He removed the stopper, and sniffed deeply, consideringly. He cocked his head, stared into space. He frowned, pursed his lips, smiled, shook his head a little. Even in the midst of his fright, anxiety and agitation, Armand was struck, and waited for an explanation of these antics.
“Marvelous,” said Arsène. His hand trembled with weakness as he replaced the bottle. “I think this is the best you have concocted. But is there not a trifle too much musk? I believe it detracts from a really exquisite subtlety.”
Armand wet his lips. He bridled. He followed Arsène’s cue with a hysterical eagerness, not untouched by pride and annoyance. His glittering black eyes roved, jerked, could not keep still.
“You coarse reprobate! How can you appreciate delicacy? There is not too much musk! There is barely enough.” He seized the bottle, sniffed it critically, adoringly, his eyes fixed restlessly on Arsène. “This is my best. I have sent a vial of it to His Majesty, and one to Monsieur le Cardinal. They are appreciative. They have no taste for the barnyard, such as you have, you miserable scoundrel. I call it Fleur d’Amour.”
“Banal,” said Arsène, shaking his head. “Unimaginative. Why not call it ‘Her Majesty’? That will be a delicate hint, and might induce Her Most Illustrious Majesty, the queen mother, to take a bath more than once in six months.”
Armand laughed with convulsive shrillness, but Louis’ fair brows knotted together with disgust.
“You consider that pleasantry respectful?” he asked.
“I insist there is too much musk,” said Arsène, to his father.
Louis moved slightly. He turned towards the door. “I shall wait in the Rose Room for you, Arsène. I must have a few words with you.”
Armand was again seized with terror. He clutched Arsène’s hand, and glared with distended hatred at Louis.
“You have no heart, Louis! Can you not easily discern that Arsène is weak, ill, and must rest? I insist he go to his chambers at once! There will be plenty of time for inconsequential chatter.”
“Nevertheless,” said Louis, standing in the distant doorway, “I will, and must, speak to Arsène.”
“Go to hell!” screamed Armand, losing control of himself.
Arsène, smiling, laid his hand on his father’s shoulder, and pressed it deeply. “I wish to speak to Louis, also,” he said, in a peculiar voice.
Armand, panting, looked up at his son with dilated and burning eyes, full of fearful warning. Arsène shook his head slightly, still smiling. Armand was only a little relieved. He was trembling visibly.
The door closed behind Louis. There was a silence in the room. Then, moving as lightly as a cat, Arsène went to the door, opened it. The sunny corridor outside was empty. Arsène felt some embarrassment. He had known that Louis, the immaculate, the loftily proud, would never, even in the interests of all that he held holy, have eavesdropped.
Laughing to himself, Arsène came back to his father, who sat upright in his chair, rigid, the spots of rouge standing out on his withered dark cheeks. Fright had him again. He shook his head at his son, and lifted his glittering and attenuated hand.
“No,” he whispered. “I wish to know nothing. You must tell me nothing.”
Arsène sat down negligently in the chair which Louis had vacated. He pulled it into the sunlight.
“I have suffered,” said Armand. And now, there was a moving dignity about his elegant frivolity. “But what I have suffered is nothing, now that you have returned safely.” He clasped his hands together, as if enduring a spasm of pain. “No man, no woman, no torment of my own, have caused me such distress as you have caused me, Arsène. Perhaps it is because I have loved no one but you.”
Tears rose to his eyes, and there was nothing maudlin in them, but only the most moving sincerity. Arsène was unbearably touched. He took his father’s shaking hand and kissed it gently.
“I beg your forgiveness, my father,” he said, and there was no lightness, no gaiety, in his voice. “I must always beg your forgiveness. I am not worthy of your love. But what I do I must do.”
The tears fell from Armand’s eyes, streaked the rouge. But he only looked at Arsène with despair. Finally, he said, with difficulty, and even with an imploring note:
“There was a woman, Arsène?”
Arsène hesitated. Then he lifted his head and gazed dreamily through the casement. The golden sun was heavy with warmth and dust. From the busy street came the movement of many feet, the sound of many voices, the rumble of many carriages on
the rough stones.
“Yes,” said Arsène softly, “there was a woman.”
Armand sighed. He leaned back in his chair, his hand still held in his son’s. He closed his wrinkled eyes, exhausted. The kohl was blackly visible in their wrinkles, and on the lashes.
“And Mademoiselle de Tremblant?” he asked, faintly.
“Clarisse has nothing to do with this,” said Arsène. “She is my betrothed. We shall be married in June, as planned. This—this woman has no part in my life. She is very young, very sweet, very beautiful. She is my friend. And chaste as crystal. No, she has nothing to do with this. She is not for me. I would not dare to touch her.”
His mobile face saddened; the scar on his cheek puckered angrily.
“Nevertheless,” he continued, almost inaudibly, “I know, for the first time in my life, what love is, what love can be. I feel no regret, no desire. I doubt if I shall see her again.”
“Ah, l’amour!” said Armand, without opening his eyes, and sighing sentimentally. But there was a mechanical quality in his voice as if he were indifferent. “You cannot make her your mistress? Who can resist you, you lewd reprobate?” Now he opened his eyes and smiled roguishly.
But Arsène, grave and quiet, stood up, and looked down at his father.
“You whispered something to me? What is the meaning?”
Stark, ghastly with increased fright, Armand whispered: “Louis—before you entered, he asked me if I knew of—of one Les Blanches.” He seized Arsène’s hand again, and his own was cold, rigorous. “He did not accuse you of belonging to such, Arsène! But he did say that your friend, Paul de Vitry, was the organizer—”
Arsène started. He compressed his lips, gazed at his father piercingly.
“Did Louis say how he knew this?”
“No. No! I would not listen. Arsène, I dare listen to nothing, nothing!
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