CHAPTER XIX. THE FLINT AND THE STEEL
"Mademoiselle will see you, monsieur," said Anatole at last.
Twice already had he carried unavailingly my request that Roxalanneshould accord me an interview ere I departed. On this the third occasionI had bidden him say that I would not stir from Lavedan until she haddone me the honour of hearing me. Seemingly that threat had prevailedwhere entreaties had been scorned.
I followed Anatole from the half-light of the hall in which I had beenpacing into the salon overlooking the terraces and the river, whereRoxalanne awaited me. She was standing at the farther end of the room byone of the long windows, which was open, for, although we were alreadyin the first week of October, the air of Languedoc was as warm and balmyas that of Paris or Picardy is in summer.
I advanced to the centre of the chamber, and there I paused and waiteduntil it should please her to acknowledge my presence and turn to faceme. I was no fledgling. I had seen much, I had learnt much and been inmany places, and my bearing was wont to convey it. Never in my lifehad I been gauche, for which I thank my parents, and if years ago--longyears ago--a certain timidity had marked my first introductions to theLouvre and the Luxembourg, that timidity was something from which I hadlong since parted company. And yet it seemed to me, as I stood in thatpretty, sunlit room awaiting the pleasure of that child, scarce out ofher teens, that some of the awkwardness I had escaped in earlier years,some of the timidity of long ago, came to me then. I shifted the weightof my body from one leg to the other; I fingered the table by which Istood; I pulled at the hat I held; my colour came and went; I lookedat her furtively from under bent brows, and I thanked God that her backbeing towards me she might not see the clown I must have seemed.
At length, unable longer to brook that discomposing silence--
"Mademoiselle!" I called softly. The sound of my own voice seemed toinvigorate me, to strip me of my awkwardness and self-consciousness. Itbroke the spell that for a moment had been over me, and brought me backto myself--to the vain, self-confident, flamboyant Bardelys that perhapsyou have pictured from my writings.
"I hope, monsieur," she answered, without turning, "that what youmay have to say may justify in some measure your very importunateinsistence."
On my life, this was not encouraging. But now that I was master ofmyself, I was not again so easily to be disconcerted. My eyes restedupon her as she stood almost framed in the opening of that long window.How straight and supple she was, yet how dainty and slight withal! Shewas far from being a tall woman, but her clean length of limb, her veryslightness, and the high-bred poise of her shapely head, conveyed anillusion of height unless you stood beside her. The illusion did notsway me then. I saw only a child; but a child with a great spirit, witha great soul that seemed to accentuate her physical helplessness. Thathelplessness, which I felt rather than saw, wove into the warp of mylove. She was in grief just then--in grief at the arrest of her father,and at the dark fate that threatened him; in grief at the unworthinessof a lover. Of the two which might be the more bitter it was not mine tojudge, but I burned to gather her to me, to comfort and cherish her, tomake her one with me, and thus, whilst giving her something of my man'sheight and strength, cull from her something of that pure, noble spirit,and thus sanctify my own.
I had a moment's weakness when she spoke. I was within an ace ofadvancing and casting myself upon my knees like any Lenten penitent, tosue forgiveness. But I set the inclination down betimes. Such expedientswould not avail me here.
"What I have to say, mademoiselle," I answered after a pause, "wouldjustify a saint descending into, hell; or, rather, to make my metaphormore apt, would warrant a sinner's intrusion into heaven."
I spoke solemnly, yet not too solemnly; the least slur of a sardonichumour was in my tones.
She moved her head upon the white column of her neck, and with thegesture one of her brown curls became disordered. I could fancy theupward tilt of her delicate nose, the scornful curve of her lip as sheanswered shortly "Then say it quickly, monsieur."
And, being thus bidden, I said quickly "I love you, Roxalanne."
Her heel beat the shimmering parquet of the floor; she half turnedtowards me, her cheek flushed, her lip tremulous with anger.
"Will you say what you have to say, monsieur?" she demanded in aconcentrated voice, "and having said it, will you go?"
"Mademoiselle, I have already said it," I answered, with a wistfulsmile.
"Oh!" she gasped. Then suddenly facing round upon me, a world of angerin her blue eyes--eyes that I had known dreamy, but which were nowvery wide awake. "Was it to offer me this last insult you forced yourpresence upon me? Was it to mock me with those words, me--a woman, withno man about me to punish you? Shame, sir! Yet it is no more than Imight look for in you."
"Mademoiselle, you do me grievous wrong--" I began.
"I do you no wrong," she answered hotly, then stopped, unwilling haplyto be drawn into contention with me. "Enfin, since you have said whatyou came to say will you go?" And she pointed to the door.
"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle--" I began in a voice of earnestintercession.
"Go!" she interrupted angrily, and for a second the violence of hervoice and gesture almost reminded me of the Vicomtesse. "I will hear nomore from you."
"Mademoiselle, you shall," I answered no whit less firmly.
"I will not listen to you. Talk if you will. You shall have the wallsfor audience." And she moved towards the door, but I barred her passage.I was courteous to the last degree; I bowed low before her as I putmyself in her way.
"It is all that was wanting--that you should offer me violence!" sheexclaimed.
"God forbid!" said I.
"Then let me pass."
"Aye, when you have heard me."
"I do not wish to hear you. Nothing that you may say can matter to me.Oh, monsieur, if you have any instincts of gentility, if you have anypretension to be accounted anything but a mauvais sujet, I beg of you torespect my grief. You witnessed, yourself, the arrest of my father. Thisis no season for such as scene as you are creating."
"Pardon! It is in such a season as this that you need the comfort andsupport that the man you love alone can give you."
"The man I love?" she echoed, and from flushed that they had been, hercheeks went very pale. Her eyes fell for an instant, then--they wereraised again, and their blue depths were offered me. "I think, sir," shesaid, through her teeth, "that your insolence transcends all belief."
"Can you deny it?" I cried. "Can you deny that you love me? If youcan--why, then, you lied to me three nights ago at Toulouse!"
That smote her hard--so hard that she forgot her assurance that shewould not listen to me--her promise to herself that she would stoop tono contention with me.
"If, in a momentary weakness, in my nescience of you as you truly are,I did make some such admission, I did entertain such feelings foryou, things have come to my knowledge since then, monsieur, that haverevealed you to me as another man; I have learnt something that hasutterly withered such love as I then confessed. Now, monsieur, are yousatisfied, and will you let me pass?" She said the last words with areturn of her imperiousness, already angry at having been drawn so far.
"I am satisfied, mademoiselle," I answered brutally, "that you did notspeak the truth three nights ago. You never loved me. It was pity thatdeluded you, shame that urged you--shame at the Delilah part you hadplayed and at your betrayal of me. Now, mademoiselle, you may pass,"said I.
And I stood aside, assured that as she was a woman she would not passme now. Nor did she. She recoiled a step instead. Her lip quivered. Thenshe recovered quickly. Her mother might have told her that she was afool for engaging herself in such a duel with me--me, the veteran ofa hundred amorous combats. Yet though I doubt not it was her firstassault-at-arms of this description, she was more than a match for me,as her next words proved.
"Monsieur, I thank you for enlightening me. I cannot, indeed, havespoken the truth three nights ago. You are right
, I do not doubt it now,and you lift from me a load of shame."
Dieu! It was like a thrust in the high lines, and its hurtful violencestaggered me. I was finished, it seemed. The victory was hers, and shebut a child with no practice of Cupid's art of fence!
"Now, monsieur," she added, "now that you are satisfied that youdid wrong to say I loved you, now that we have disposed of thatquestion--adieu!"
"A moment yet!" I cried. "We have disposed of that, but there wasanother point, an earlier one, which for the moment we have disregarded.We have--you have disproved the love I was so presumptuous as to believeyou fostered for me. We have yet to reckon with the love I bear you,mademoiselle, and of that we shall not be able to dispose so readily."
With a gesture of weariness or of impatience, she turned aside. "What isit you want? What do you seek to gain by thus provoking me? To win yourwager?" Her voice was cold. Who to have looked upon that childlike face,upon those meek, pondering eyes, could have believed her capable of somuch cruelty?
"There can no longer be any question of my wager; I have lost and paidit," said I.
She looked up suddenly. Her brows met in a frown of bewilderment.Clearly this interested her. Again was she drawn.
"How?" she asked. "You have lost and paid it?"
"Even so. That odious, cursed, infamous wager, was the something whichI hinted at so often as standing between you and me. The confession thatso often I was on the point of making--that so often you urged me tomake--concerned that wager. Would to God, Roxalanne, that I had toldyou!" I cried, and it seemed to me that the sincerity ringing in myvoice drove some of the harshness from her countenance, some of thecoldness from her glance.
"Unfortunately," I pursued, "it always seemed to me either not yet time,or already too late. Yet so soon as I regained my liberty, my firstthought was of that. While the wager existed I might not ask you tobecome my wife, lest I should seem to be carrying out the originalintention which embarked me upon the business of wooing you, and broughtme here to Languedoc. And so my first step was to seek out Chatelleraultand deliver him my note of hand for my Picardy possessions, the bulk--byfar the greater bulk--of all my fortune. My second step was to repair toyou at the Hotel de l'Epee.
"At last I could approach you with clean hands; I could confess whatI had done; and since it seemed to me that I had made the utmostatonement, I was confident of success. Alas! I came too late. In theporch of the auberge I met you as you came forth. From my talkativeintendant you had learnt already the story of that bargain into whichBardelys had entered. You had learnt who I was, and you thought that youhad learnt why I wooed you. Accordingly you could but despise me."
She had sunk into a chair. Her hands were folded in a listless manner inher lap, and her eyes were lowered, her cheeks pale. But the swift heaveof her bosom told me that my words were not without effect. "Do you knownothing of the bargain that I made with Chatellerault?" she asked in avoice that held, I thought, some trace of misery.
"Chatellerault was a cheat!" I cried. "No man of honour in France wouldhave accounted himself under obligation to pay that wager. I paid it,not because I thought the payment due, but that by its payment I mightoffer you a culminating proof of my sincerity."
"Be that as it may," said she, "I passed him my word to--to marry him,if he set you at liberty."
"The promise does not hold, for when you made it I was at libertyalready. Besides, Chatellerault is dead by now--or very near it."
"Dead?" she echoed, looking up.
"Yes, dead. We fought--" The ghost of a smile, of sudden, of scornfulunderstanding, passed like a ray of light across her face. "Pardieu!" Icried, "you do me a wrong there. It was not by my hands that he fell. Itwas not by me that the duel was instigated."
And with that I gave her the whole details of the affair, including theinformation that Chatellerault had been no party to my release, and thatfor his attempted judicial murder of me the King would have dealtvery hardly with him had he not saved the King the trouble by throwinghimself upon his sword:
There was a silence when I had done. Roxalanne sat on, and seemed toponder. To let all that I had said sink in and advocate my cause, asto me was very clear it must, I turned aside and moved to one of thewindows.
"Why did you not tell me before?" she asked suddenly. "Why--oh, why--didyou not confess to me the whole infamous affair as soon as you came tolove me, as you say you did?"
"As I say I did?" I repeated after her. "Do you doubt it? Can you doubtit in the face of what I have done?"
"Oh, I don't know what to believe!" she cried, a sob in her voice. "Youhave deceived me so far, so often. Why did you not tell me that nighton the river? Or later, when I pressed you in this very house? Or again,the other night in the prison of Toulouse?"
"You ask me why. Can you not answer the question for yourself? Can younot conceive the fear that was in me that you should shrink away from mein loathing? The fear that if you cared a little, I might for all timestifle such affection as you bore me? The fear that I must ruin yourtrust in me? Oh, mademoiselle, can you not see how my only hope lay infirst owning defeat to Chatellerault, in first paying the wager?"
"How could you have lent yourself to such a bargain?" was her nextquestion.
"How, indeed?" I asked in my turn. "From your mother you have heardsomething of the reputation that attaches to Bardelys. I was a man ofcareless ways, satiated with all the splendours life could give me,nauseated by all its luxuries. Was it wonderful that I allowed myselfto be lured into this affair? It promised some excitement, a certainnovelty, difficulties in a path that I had--alas!--ever found alltoo smooth--for Chatellerault had made your reputed coldness the chiefbolster of his opinion that I should not win.
"Again, I was not given to over-nice scruples. I make no secret of myinfirmities, but do not blame me too much. If you could see the finedemoiselles we have in Paris, if you could listen to their tenets andtake a deep look into their lives, you would not marvel at me. I hadnever known any but these. On the night of my coming to Lavedan, yoursweetness, your pure innocence, your almost childish virtue, dazed me bytheir novelty. From that first moment I became your slave. Then I was inyour garden day by day. And here, in this old Languedoc garden with youand your roses, during the languorous days of my convalescence, is itwonderful that some of the purity, some of the sweetness that was ofyou and of your roses, should have crept into my heart and cleansed ita little? Ah, mademoiselle!" I cried--and, coming close to her, I wouldhave bent my knee in intercession but that she restrained me.
"Monsieur," she interrupted, "we harass ourselves in vain. This can havebut one ending."
Her tones were cold, but the coldness I knew was forced--else had shenot said "we harass ourselves." Instead of quelling my ardour, it gaveit fuel.
"True, mademoiselle," I cried, almost exultantly. "It can end but oneway!"
She caught my meaning, and her frown deepened. I went too fast, itseemed.
"It had better end now, monsieur. There is too much between us. Youwagered to win me to wife." She shuddered. "I could never forget it."
"Mademoiselle," I denied stoutly, "I did not."
"How?" She caught her breath. "You did not?"
"No," I pursued boldly. "I did not wager to win you. I wagered to wina certain Mademoiselle de Lavedan, who was unknown to me--but not you,not you."
She smiled, with never so slight a touch of scorn.
"Your distinctions are very fine--too fine for me, monsieur."
"I implore you to be reasonable. Think reasonably."
"Am I not reasonable? Do I not think? But there is so much to thinkof!" she sighed. "You carried your deception so far. You came here, forinstance, as Monsieur de Lesperon. Why that duplicity?"
"Again, mademoiselle, I did not," said I.
She glanced at me with pathetic disdain.
"Indeed, indeed, monsieur, you deny things very bravely."
"Did I tell you that my name was Lesperon? Did I present myself tomonsieur your father as
Lesperon?"
"Surely--yes."
"Surely no; a thousand times no. I was the victim of circumstances inthat, and if I turned them to my own account after they had beenforced upon me, shall I be blamed and accounted a cheat? Whilst I wasunconscious, your father, seeking for a clue to my identity, made aninspection of my clothes.
"In the pocket of my doublet they found some papers addressed to Rene deLesperon--some love letters, a communication from the Duc d'Orleans,and a woman's portrait. From all of this it was assumed that I wasthat Lesperon. Upon my return to consciousness your father greeted meeffusively, whereat I wondered; he passed on to discuss--nay, to tell meof--the state of the province and of his own connection with the rebels,until I lay gasping at his egregious temerity. Then, when he greetedme as Monsieur de Lesperon, I had the explanation of it, but too late.Could I deny the identity then? Could I tell him that I was Bardelys,the favourite of the King himself? What would have occurred? I ask you,mademoiselle. Would I not have been accounted a spy, and would they nothave made short work of me here at your chateau?"
"No, no; they would have done no murder."
"Perhaps not, but I could not be sure just then. Most men situated asyour father was would have despatched me. Ah, mademoiselle, have you notproofs enough? Do you not believe me now?"
"Yes, monsieur," she answered simply, "I believe you."
"Will you not believe, then, in the sincerity of my love?"
She made no rely. Her face was averted, but from her silence I tookheart. I drew close to her. I set my hand upon the tall back of herchair, and, leaning towards her, I spoke with passionate heat as musthave melted, I thought, any woman who had not a loathing for me.
"Mademoiselle; I am a poor man now," I ended. "I am no longer thatmagnificent gentleman whose wealth and splendour were a byword. Yet am Ino needy adventurer. I have a little property at Beaugency--a very spotfor happiness, mademoiselle. Paris shall know me no more. At BeaugencyI shall live at peace, in seclusion, and, so that you come with me, insuch joy as in all my life I have done nothing to deserve. I have nolonger an army of retainers. A couple of men and a maid or two shallconstitute our household. Yet I shall account my wealth well lost if forlove's sake you'll share with me the peace of my obscurity. I am poor,mademoiselle yet no poorer even now than that Gascon gentleman, Rene deLesperon, for whom you held me, and on whom you bestowed the pricelesstreasure of your heart."
"Oh, might it have pleased God that you had remained that poor Gascongentleman!" she cried.
"In what am I different, Roxalanne?"
"In that he had laid no wager," she answered, rising suddenly.
My hopes were withering. She was not angry. She was pale, and her gentleface was troubled--dear God! how sorely troubled! To me it almost seemedthat I had lost.
She flashed me a glance of her blue eyes, and I thought that tearsimpended.
"Roxalanne!" I supplicated.
But she recovered the control that for a moment she had appeared uponthe verge of losing. She put forth her hand.
"Adieu, monsieur!" said she.
I glanced from her hand to her face. Her attitude began to anger me, forI saw that she was not only resisting me, but resisting herself. In herheart the insidious canker of doubt persisted. She knew--or should haveknown--that it no longer should have any place there, yet obstinatelyshe refrained from plucking it out. There was that wager. But for thatsame obstinacy she must have realized the reason of my arguments, theirrefutable logic of my payment. She denied me, and in denying me shedenied herself, for that she had loved me she had herself told me, andthat she could love me again I was assured, if she would but see thething in the light of reason and of justice.
"Roxalanne, I did not come to Lavedan to say 'Good-bye' to you. I seekfrom you a welcome, not a dismissal."
"Yet my dismissal is all that I can give. Will you not take my hand? Maywe not part in friendly spirit?"
"No, we may not; for we do not part at all."
It was as the steel of my determination striking upon the flint of hers.She looked up to my face for an instant; she raised her eyebrows indeprecation; she sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and, turning on herheel, moved towards the door.
"Anatole shall bring you refreshment ere you go," she said in a verypolite and formal voice.
Then I played my last card. Was it for nothing that I had flung awaymy wealth? If she would not give herself, by God, I would compel herto sell herself. And I took no shame in doing it, for by doing it I wassaving her and saving myself from a life of unhappiness.
"Roxalanne!" I cried. The imperiousness of my voice arrested andcompelled her perhaps against her very will.
"Monsieur?" said she, as demurely as you please.
"Do you know what you are doing?".
"But yes--perfectly."
"Pardieu, you do not. I will tell you. You are sending your father tothe scaffold."
She turned livid, her step faltered, and she leant against the frame ofthe doorway for support. Then she stared at me, wide-eyed in horror.
"That is not true," she pleaded, yet without conviction. "He is notin danger of his life. They can prove nothing against him. Monsieur deSaint-Eustache could find no evidence here--nothing."
"Yet there is Monsieur de Saint-Eustache's word; there is the fact--thesignificant fact--that your father did not take up arms for the King,to afford the Chevalier's accusation some measure of corroboration. AtToulouse in these times they are not particular. Remember how it hadfared with me but for the King's timely arrival."
That smote home. The last shred of her strength fell from her. A greatsob shook her, then covering her face with her hands "Mother in heaven,have pity on me!" she cried. "Oh, it cannot be, it cannot be!"
Her distress touched me sorely. I would have consoled her, I would havebidden her have no fear, assuring her that I would save her father.But for my own ends, I curbed the mood. I would use this as a cudgel toshatter her obstinacy, and I prayed that God might forgive me if I didaught that a gentleman should account unworthy. My need was urgent, mylove all-engrossing; winning her meant winning life and happiness, andalready I had sacrificed so much. Her cry rang still in my ears, "Itcannot be, it cannot be!"
I trampled my nascent tenderness underfoot, and in its room I set aharshness that I did not feel--a harshness of defiance and menace.
"It can be, it will be, and, as God lives, it shall be, if you persistin your unreasonable attitude."
"Monsieur, have mercy!"
"Yes, when you shall be pleased to show me the way to it by having mercyupon me. If I have sinned, I have atoned. But that is a closed questionnow; to reopen it were futile. Take heed of this, Roxalanne: there isone thing--one only in all France can save your father."
"That is, monsieur?" she inquired breathlessly.
"My word against that of Saint-Eustache. My indication to His Majestythat your father's treason is not to be accepted on the accusation ofSaint-Eustache. My information to the King of what I know touching thisgentleman."
"You will go, monsieur?" she implored me. "Oh, you will save him! MonDieu, to think of the time that we have wasted here, you and I, whilsthe is being carried to the scaffold! Oh, I did not dream it was soperilous with him! I was desolated by his arrest; I thought of somemonths' imprisonment, perhaps. But that he should die--! Monsieur deBardelys, you will save him! Say that you will do this for me!"
She was on her knees to me now, her arms clasping my boots, her eyesraised in entreaty--God, what entreaty!--to my own.
"Rise, mademoiselle, I beseech you," I said, with a quiet I was far fromfeeling. "There is no need for this. Let us be calm. The danger to yourfather is not so imminent. We may have some days yet--three or four,perhaps."
I lifted her gently and led her to a chair. I was hard put to it not tohold her supported in my arms. But I might not cull that advantage fromher distress. A singular niceness, you will say, perhaps, as in yourscorn you laugh at me. Perhaps you are right to laugh--yet are you no
taltogether right.
"You will go to Toulouse, monsieur?" she begged.
I took a turn in the room, then halting before her "Yes," I answered, "Iwill go."
The gratitude that leapt to her eyes smote me hard, for my sentence wasunfinished.
"I will go," I continued quickly, "when you shall have promised tobecome my wife."
The joy passed from her face. She glanced at me a moment as if withoutunderstanding.
"I came to Lavedan to win you, Roxalanne, and from Lavedan I shall notstir until I have accomplished my design," I said very quietly. "Youwill therefore see that it rests with you how soon I may set out."
She fell to weeping softly, but answered nothing. At last I turned fromher and moved towards the door.
"Where are you going?" she cried.
"To take the air, mademoiselle. If upon deliberation you can bringyourself to marry me, send me word by Anatole or one of the others, andI shall set out at once for Toulouse."
"Stop!" she cried. Obediently I stopped, my hand already upon thedoorknob. "You are cruel, monsieur!" she complained.
"I love you," said I, by way of explaining it. "To be cruel seems to bethe way of love. You have been cruel to me."
"Would you--would you take what is not freely given?"
"I have the hope that when you see that you must give, you will givefreely."
"If--if I make you this promise--"
"Yes?" I was growing white with eagerness.
"You will fulfil your part of the bargain?"
"It is a habit of mine, mademoiselle--as witnesses the case ofChatellerault." She shivered at the mention of his name. It reminded herof precisely such another bargain that three nights ago she had made.Precisely, did I say? Well, not quite precisely.
"I--I promise to marry you, then," said she in a choking voice,"whenever you choose, after my father shall have been set at liberty."
I bowed. "I shall start at once," said I.
And perhaps out of shame, perhaps out of--who shall say whatsentiments?--I turned without another word and left her.
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