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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Scaramouche
+       A Romance of the French Revolution
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: November, 1999  [Etext #1947]
+Posting Date: August 13, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCARAMOUCHE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+SCARAMOUCHE
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ BOOK I.
+
+	  CHAPTER I. 	THE REPUBLICAN
+	  CHAPTER II. 	THE ARISTOCRAT
+	  CHAPTER III. 	THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
+	  CHAPTER IV. 	THE HERITAGE
+	  CHAPTER V. 	THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
+	  CHAPTER VI. 	THE WINDMILL
+	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE WIND
+	  CHAPTER VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
+	  CHAPTER IX. 	THE AFTERMATH
+
+ BOOK II. 	  
+
+	  CHAPTER I. 	THE TRESPASSERS
+	  CHAPTER II. 	THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
+	  CHAPTER II. 	THE COMIC MUSE
+	  CHAPTER IV. 	EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
+	  CHAPTER V. 	ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
+	  CHAPTER VI. 	CLIMENE
+	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
+	  CHAPTER VIII. THE DREAM
+	  CHAPTER IX. 	THE AWAKENING
+	  CHAPTER X. 	CONTRITION
+	  CHAPTER XI. 	THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
+
+ BOOK III. 	  
+
+	  CHAPTER I. 	TRANSITION
+	  CHAPTER II. 	QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
+	  CHAPTER III. 	PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
+	  CHAPTER IV. 	AT MEUDON
+	  CHAPTER V. 	MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
+	  CHAPTER VI. 	POLITICIANS
+	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE SPADASSINICIDES
+	  CHAPTER VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
+	  CHAPTER IX. 	TORN PRIDE
+	  CHAPTER X. 	THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
+	  CHAPTER XI. 	INFERENCES
+	  CHAPTER XII. 	THE OVERWHELMING REASON
+	  CHAPTER XIII. SANCTUARY
+	  CHAPTER XIV. 	THE BARRIER
+	  CHAPTER XV. 	SAFE-CONDUCT
+	  CHAPTER XVI. 	SUNRISE
+
+
+
+SCARAMOUCHE
+
+
+
+BOOK I: THE ROBE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE REPUBLICAN
+
+He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
+And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although
+the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery
+that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to
+be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess
+the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason,
+announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence,
+and thereafter cares for the lad's rearing and education, the most
+unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And
+so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the
+score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau--as the lad had
+been named--and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the
+big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering
+below.
+
+Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the
+while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal
+intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at
+the age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of
+Louis Le Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise
+in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his
+godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the
+tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making
+provision for his future.
+
+Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You
+behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough
+to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of
+his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from
+Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction
+his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own
+species. Nor can I discover that anything in his eventful life ever
+afterwards caused him to waver in that opinion.
+
+In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height,
+with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and
+with lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth
+was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from
+ugliness by the splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so
+dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and
+his rare gift of graceful expression, his writings--unfortunately but too
+scanty--and particularly his Confessions, afford us very ample evidence.
+Of his gift of oratory he was hardly conscious yet, although he had
+already achieved a certain fame for it in the Literary Chamber of
+Rennes--one of those clubs by now ubiquitous in the land, in which the
+intellectual youth of France foregathered to study and discuss the
+new philosophies that were permeating social life. But the fame he had
+acquired there was hardly enviable. He was too impish, too caustic,
+too much disposed--so thought his colleagues--to ridicule their sublime
+theories for the regeneration of mankind. Himself he protested that
+he merely held them up to the mirror of truth, and that it was not his
+fault if when reflected there they looked ridiculous.
+
+All that he achieved by this was to exasperate; and his expulsion from a
+society grown mistrustful of him must already have followed but for
+his friend, Philippe de Vilmorin, a divinity student of Rennes, who,
+himself, was one of the most popular members of the Literary Chamber.
+
+Coming to Gavrillac on a November morning, laden with news of the
+political storms which were then gathering over France, Philippe found
+in that sleepy Breton village matter to quicken his already lively
+indignation. A peasant of Gavrillac, named Mabey, had been shot dead
+that morning in the woods of Meupont, across the river, by a gamekeeper
+of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr. The unfortunate fellow had been caught
+in the act of taking a pheasant from a snare, and the gamekeeper had
+acted under explicit orders from his master.
+
+Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. de
+Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou. Mabey was a
+vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin hoped to move the Lord of Gavrillac to
+demand at least some measure of reparation for the widow and the three
+orphans which that brutal deed had made.
+
+But because Andre-Louis was Philippe's dearest friend--indeed, his almost
+brother--the young seminarist sought him out in the first instance. He
+found him at breakfast alone in the long, low-ceilinged, white-panelled
+dining-room at Rabouillet's--the only home that Andre-Louis had ever
+known--and after embracing him, deafened him with his denunciation of M.
+de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+"I have heard of it already," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"You speak as if the thing had not surprised you," his friend reproached
+him.
+
+"Nothing beastly can surprise me when done by a beast. And La Tour
+d'Azyr is a beast, as all the world knows. The more fool Mabey for
+stealing his pheasants. He should have stolen somebody else's."
+
+"Is that all you have to say about it?"
+
+"What more is there to say? I've a practical mind, I hope."
+
+"What more there is to say I propose to say to your godfather, M. de
+Kercadiou. I shall appeal to him for justice."
+
+"Against M. de La Tour d'Azyr?" Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"My dear ingenuous Philippe, dog doesn't eat dog."
+
+"You are unjust to your godfather. He is a humane man."
+
+"Oh, as humane as you please. But this isn't a question of humanity.
+It's a question of game-laws."
+
+M. de Vilmorin tossed his long arms to Heaven in disgust. He was a tall,
+slender young gentleman, a year or two younger than Andre-Louis. He was
+very soberly dressed in black, as became a seminarist, with white bands
+at wrists and throat and silver buckles to his shoes. His neatly clubbed
+brown hair was innocent of powder.
+
+"You talk like a lawyer," he exploded.
+
+"Naturally. But don't waste anger on me on that account. Tell me what
+you want me to do."
+
+"I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to use your
+influence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking too much."
+
+"My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile
+quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your
+orders."
+
+M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth,
+on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst
+he waited now he gave his friend the latest news of the events in
+Rennes. Young, ardent, enthusiastic, and inspired by Utopian ideals, he
+passionately denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.
+
+Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in the ranks of
+an order in whose deliberations he took part as the representative of
+a nobleman, was not at all surprised by what he heard. M. de Vilmorin
+found it exasperating that his friend should apparently decline to share
+his own indignation.
+
+"Don't you see what it means?" he cried. "The nobles, by disobeying the
+King, are striking at the very foundations of the throne. Don't they
+perceive that their very existence depends upon it; that if the throne
+falls over, it is they who stand nearest to it who will be crushed?
+Don't they see that?"
+
+"Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I never heard of
+governing classes that had eyes for anything but their own profit."
+
+"That is our grievance. That is what we are going to change."
+
+"You are going to abolish governing classes? An interesting experiment.
+I believe it was the original plan of creation, and it might have
+succeeded but for Cain."
+
+"What we are going to do," said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
+exasperation, "is to transfer the government to other hands."
+
+"And you think that will make a difference?"
+
+"I know it will."
+
+"Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
+confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention
+of changing the pattern of mankind."
+
+M. de Vilmorin's fine ascetic face grew overcast. "You are profane,
+Andre," he reproved his friend.
+
+"I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
+require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
+systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber
+of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
+government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say
+of any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My
+dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the
+past. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always
+greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the
+bulk."
+
+"Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
+people?" M. de Vilmorin challenged him.
+
+"When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
+abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as
+it remains populace its lot will be damnation."
+
+"You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural, I
+suppose." M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.
+
+"On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us
+test these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A
+republic, it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have
+it already. France in reality is a republic to-day."
+
+Philippe stared at him. "You are being paradoxical, I think. What of the
+King?"
+
+"The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since
+Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the
+crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little he really
+counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the
+people of France harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers.
+That is why I say that France is a republic; she is a republic built
+on the best pattern--the Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great
+patrician families in luxury, preserving for themselves power and
+wealth, and what else is accounted worth possessing; and there was
+the populace crushed and groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and
+perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we
+have seen."
+
+Philippe strove with his impatience. "At least you will admit--you have,
+in fact, admitted it--that we could not be worse governed than we are?"
+
+"That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we
+replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of
+that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what
+guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I
+will tell you. The bourgeoisie."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn't
+thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes
+manifesto. Who are the authors of it?"
+
+"I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to
+send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen--shipwrights, weavers,
+labourers, and artisans of every kind."
+
+"Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the wealthy traders
+and shipowners of that city," Andre-Louis replied. "I have a habit of
+observing things at close quarters, which is why our colleagues of the
+Literary Chamber dislike me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they
+but skim. Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling
+them, urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their blood
+in pursuit of the will o' the wisp of freedom, are the sail-makers, the
+spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The
+men who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in
+the colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name
+of liberty! Don't you see that the whole movement is a movement of
+hucksters and traders and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy
+of the power that lies in birth alone? The money-changers in Paris
+who hold the bonds in the national debt, seeing the parlous financial
+condition of the State, tremble at the thought that it may lie in
+the power of a single man to cancel the debt by bankruptcy. To secure
+themselves they are burrowing underground to overthrow a state and build
+upon its ruins a new one in which they shall be the masters. And to
+accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny we have
+seen blood run like water--the blood of the populace, always the blood of
+the populace. Now in Brittany we may see the like. And if in the end the
+new ideas prevail? if the seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then?
+You will have exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth
+while? Do you 'think that under money-changers and slave-traders and
+men who have waxed rich in other ways by the ignoble arts of buying
+and selling, the lot of the people will be any better than under their
+priests and nobles? Has it ever occurred to you, Philippe, what it
+is that makes the rule of the nobles so intolerable? Acquisitiveness.
+Acquisitiveness is the curse of mankind. And shall you expect less
+acquisitiveness in men who have built themselves up by acquisitiveness?
+Oh, I am ready to admit that the present government is execrable,
+unjust, tyrannical--what you will; but I beg you to look ahead, and to
+see that the government for which it is aimed at exchanging it may be
+infinitely worse."
+
+Philippe sat thoughtful a moment. Then he returned to the attack.
+
+"You do not speak of the abuses, the horrible, intolerable abuses of
+power under which we labour at present."
+
+"Where there is power there will always be the abuse of it."
+
+"Not if the tenure of power is dependent upon its equitable
+administration."
+
+"The tenure of power is power. We cannot dictate to those who hold it."
+
+"The people can--the people in its might."
+
+"Again I ask you, when you say the people do you mean the populace? You
+do. What power can the populace wield? It can run wild. It can burn
+and slay for a time. But enduring power it cannot wield, because power
+demands qualities which the populace does not possess, or it would
+not be populace. The inevitable, tragic corollary of civilization is
+populace. For the rest, abuses can be corrected by equity; and equity,
+if it is not found in the enlightened, is not to be found at all. M.
+Necker is to set about correcting abuses, and limiting privileges. That
+is decided. To that end the States General are to assemble."
+
+"And a promising beginning we have made in Brittany, as Heaven hears
+me!" cried Philippe.
+
+"Pooh! That is nothing. Naturally the nobles will not yield without a
+struggle. It is a futile and ridiculous struggle--but then... it is human
+nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous."
+
+M. de Vilmorin became witheringly sarcastic. "Probably you will also
+qualify the shooting of Mabey as futile and ridiculous. I should even be
+prepared to hear you argue in defence of the Marquis de La Tour
+d'Azyr that his gamekeeper was merciful in shooting Mabey, since the
+alternative would have been a life-sentence to the galleys."
+
+Andre-Louis drank the remainder of his chocolate; set down his cup, and
+pushed back his chair, his breakfast done.
+
+"I confess that I have not your big charity, my dear Philippe. I am
+touched by Mabey's fate. But, having conquered the shock of this news to
+my emotions, I do not forget that, after all, Mabey was thieving when he
+met his death."
+
+M. de Vilmorin heaved himself up in his indignation.
+
+"That is the point of view to be expected in one who is the assistant
+fiscal intendant of a nobleman, and the delegate of a nobleman to the
+States of Brittany."
+
+"Philippe, is that just? You are angry with me!" he cried, in real
+solicitude.
+
+"I am hurt," Vilmorin admitted. "I am deeply hurt by your attitude. And
+I am not alone in resenting your reactionary tendencies. Do you know
+that the Literary Chamber is seriously considering your expulsion?"
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged. "That neither surprises nor troubles me."
+
+M. de Vilmorin swept on, passionately: "Sometimes I think that you have
+no heart. With you it is always the law, never equity. It occurs to me,
+Andre, that I was mistaken in coming to you. You are not likely to be of
+assistance to me in my interview with M. de Kercadiou." He took up his
+hat, clearly with the intention of departing.
+
+Andre-Louis sprang up and caught him by the arm.
+
+"I vow," said he, "that this is the last time ever I shall consent to
+talk law or politics with you, Philippe. I love you too well to quarrel
+with you over other men's affairs."
+
+"But I make them my own," Philippe insisted vehemently.
+
+"Of course you do, and I love you for it. It is right that you should.
+You are to be a priest; and everybody's business is a priest's business.
+Whereas I am a lawyer--the fiscal intendant of a nobleman, as you
+say--and a lawyer's business is the business of his client. That is the
+difference between us. Nevertheless, you are not going to shake me off."
+
+"But I tell you frankly, now that I come to think of it, that I should
+prefer you did not see M. de Kercadiou with me. Your duty to your client
+cannot be a help to me."
+
+His wrath had passed; but his determination remained firm, based upon
+the reason he gave.
+
+"Very well," said Andre-Louis. "It shall be as you please. But nothing
+shall prevent me at least from walking with you as far as the chateau,
+and waiting for you while you make your appeal to M. de Kercadiou."
+
+And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M. de
+Vilmorin's nature did not admit of rancour, and together they took their
+way up the steep main street of Gavrillac.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE ARISTOCRAT
+
+The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
+road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world's traffic, lay
+in a curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway up the
+slope, of the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor. By the
+time Gavrillac had paid tribute to its seigneur--partly in money and
+partly in service--tithes to the Church, and imposts to the King, it was
+hard put to it to keep body and soul together with what remained. Yet,
+hard as conditions were in Gavrillac, they were not so hard as in many
+other parts of France, not half so hard, for instance, as with the
+wretched feudatories of the great Lord of La Tour d'Azyr, whose vast
+possessions were at one point separated from this little village by the
+waters of the Meu.
+
+The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
+for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any
+feature of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac,
+though mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat,
+flat-fronted edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with
+external wooden shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers
+or pavilions under extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden,
+denuded now, but very pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a
+fine sweep of balustraded terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and
+always had been, the residence of unpretentious folk who found more
+interest in husbandry than in adventure.
+
+Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac--Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
+the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
+derived no man knew whence or how--confirmed the impression that his
+house conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the
+experience of courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his
+King. He left it to his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the
+family in those exalted spheres. His own interests from earliest years
+had been centred in his woods and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated
+his acres, and superficially he appeared to be little better than any of
+his rustic metayers. He kept no state, or at least no state commensurate
+with his position or with the tastes of his niece Aline de Kercadiou.
+Aline, having spent some two years in the court atmosphere of Versailles
+under the aegis of her uncle Etienne, had ideas very different from
+those of her uncle Quintin of what was befitting seigneurial dignity.
+But though this only child of a third Kercadiou had exercised, ever
+since she was left an orphan at the early age of four, a tyrannical rule
+over the Lord of Gavrillac, who had been father and mother to her, she
+had never yet succeeded in beating down his stubbornness on that
+score. She did not yet despair--persistence being a dominant note in
+her character--although she had been assiduously and fruitlessly at work
+since her return from the great world of Versailles some three months
+ago.
+
+She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin
+arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against the chill air in a white
+pelisse; her head was encased in a close-fitting bonnet, edged with
+white fur. It was caught tight in a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the
+right of her chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had
+been permitted to escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks
+as was presented to it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that
+were of darkest blue.
+
+Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood. The
+three had been playmates once, and Andre-Louis--in view of his spiritual
+relationship with her uncle--she called her cousin. The cousinly
+relations had persisted between these two long after Philippe de
+Vilmorin had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her
+Monsieur de Vilmorin.
+
+She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced, and stood--an
+entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it--to await them at the end
+of the terrace nearest the short avenue by which they approached.
+
+"If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inopportunely,
+messieurs," she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. "He is
+closely--oh, so very closely--engaged."
+
+"We will wait, mademoiselle," said M. de Vilmorin, bowing gallantly over
+the hand she extended to him. "Indeed, who would haste to the uncle that
+may tarry a moment with the niece?"
+
+"M. l'abbe," she teased him, "when you are in orders I shall take you
+for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding."
+
+"But no curiosity," said Andre-Louis. "You haven't thought of that."
+
+"I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre."
+
+"Well you may," laughed Philippe. "For no one ever knows." And then,
+his glance straying across the terrace settled upon a carriage that was
+drawn up before the door of the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was
+often to be seen in the streets of a great city, but rarely in the
+country. It was a beautifully sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut,
+with a varnish upon it like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes
+exquisitely painted on the panels of the door. It was built to carry two
+persons, with a box in front for the coachman, and a stand behind for
+the footman. This stand was empty, but the footman paced before the
+door, and as he emerged now from behind the vehicle into the range of M.
+de Vilmorin's vision, he displayed the resplendent blue-and-gold livery
+of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed. "Is it M. de La Tour d'Azyr who is with your
+uncle?"
+
+"It is, monsieur," said she, a world of mystery in voice and eyes, of
+which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.
+
+"Ah, pardon!" he bowed low, hat in hand. "Serviteur, mademoiselle," and
+he turned to depart towards the house.
+
+"Shall I come with you, Philippe?" Andre-Louis called after him.
+
+"It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer it," said M. de
+Vilmorin, with a glance at mademoiselle. "Nor do I think it would serve.
+If you will wait..."
+
+M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment's blank pause,
+laughed ripplingly. "Now where is he going in such a hurry?"
+
+"To see M. de La Tour d'Azyr as well as your uncle, I should say."
+
+"But he cannot. They cannot see him. Did I not say that they are
+very closely engaged? You don't ask me why, Andre." There was an arch
+mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation
+or amusement, or perhaps both. Andre-Louis could not determine it.
+
+"Since obviously you are all eagerness to tell, why should I ask?" quoth
+he.
+
+"If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh, yes, I
+will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that is my due."
+
+"I hope I shall never fail in that."
+
+"Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely concerned in the
+visit of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. I am the object of this visit." And she
+looked at him with sparkling eyes and lips parted in laughter.
+
+"The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I am a dolt, if you
+please; for it is not obvious to me."
+
+"Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage."
+
+"Good God!" said Andre-Louis, and stared at her, chapfallen.
+
+She drew back from him a little with a frown and an upward tilt of her
+chin. "It surprises you?"
+
+"It disgusts me," said he, bluntly. "In fact, I don't believe it. You
+are amusing yourself with me."
+
+For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts.
+"I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle
+this morning from M. de La Tour d'Azyr, announcing the visit and its
+object. I will not say that it did not surprise us a little..."
+
+"Oh, I see," cried Andre-Louis, in relief. "I understand. For a moment I
+had almost feared..." He broke off, looked at her, and shrugged.
+
+"Why do you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted
+upon me. That I should permit the court-ship of me to be conducted like
+that of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in
+proper form, at my uncle's hands."
+
+"Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to Versailles?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+"There is your own."
+
+She laughed. "I am a dutiful niece... when it suits me."
+
+"And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts this monstrous
+proposal?"
+
+"Monstrous!" She bridled. "And why monstrous, if you please?"
+
+"For a score of reasons," he answered irritably.
+
+"Give me one," she challenged him.
+
+"He is twice your age."
+
+"Hardly so much," said she.
+
+"He is forty-five, at least."
+
+"But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome--so much you will
+admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the
+greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady."
+
+"God made you that, Aline."
+
+"Come, that's better. Sometimes you can almost be polite." And she moved
+along the terrace, Andre-Louis pacing beside her.
+
+"I can be more than that to show reason why you should not let this
+beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has made."
+
+She frowned, and her lips tightened. "You are speaking of my future
+husband," she reproved him.
+
+His lips tightened too; his pale face grew paler.
+
+"And is it so? It is settled, then? Your uncle is to agree? You are to
+be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man you do not know. I had
+dreamed of better things for you, Aline."
+
+"Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr?"
+
+He made a gesture of exasperation. "Are men and women nothing more than
+names? Do the souls of them count for nothing? Is there no joy in life,
+no happiness, that wealth and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles
+are to be its only aims? I had set you high--so high, Aline--a thing
+scarce earthly. There is joy in your heart, intelligence in your mind;
+and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks and shams to claim the
+core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender all for a parcel of
+make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to be Marquise de La
+Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"You are indelicate," said she, and though she frowned her eyes laughed.
+"And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to more
+than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my
+uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip."
+
+He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his
+pale cheeks.
+
+"You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!" he cried. "Ah, well, I
+forgive you out of my relief."
+
+"Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre I have permitted my uncle to
+consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look
+of the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his
+eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le
+Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting
+to be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and
+I think, when all is considered, that I shall probably--very
+probably--decide to do so."
+
+He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that
+childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the
+life seemed to go out of his own countenance.
+
+"God help you, Aline!" he groaned.
+
+She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating, and something
+presumptuous too, she thought.
+
+"You are insolent, monsieur."
+
+"It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than pray, as I
+shall continue to do. You'll need my prayers, I think."
+
+"You are insufferable!" She was growing angry, as he saw by the
+deepening frown, the heightened colour.
+
+"That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think well of what
+you do; think well of the realities you will be bartering for these
+shams--the realities that you will never know, because these cursed shams
+will block your way to them. When M. de La Tour d'Azyr comes to make his
+court, study him well; consult your fine instincts; leave your own noble
+nature free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider that..."
+
+"I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness I have always
+shown you. You abuse the position of toleration in which you stand. Who
+are you? What are you, that you should have the insolence to take this
+tone with me?"
+
+He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and resumed the
+mockery that was his natural habit.
+
+"My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you
+begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play."
+
+"Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur," she retorted angrily, and turned
+her shoulder to him.
+
+"To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I
+hope I shall know my place in future."
+
+The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that
+her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him
+was quenched in contrition.
+
+"Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!" he cried, as he advanced. "Forgive me
+if you can."
+
+Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition
+removed the need.
+
+"I'll try," said she, "provided that you undertake not to offend again."
+
+"But I shall," said he. "I am like that. I will fight to save you, from
+yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not."
+
+They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a
+little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.
+
+First came the Marquis of La Tour d'Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the
+Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies
+of the King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of
+carriage, with his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was
+magnificently dressed in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was
+laced with gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden
+apricot colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his
+lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair
+was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered silk; he carried a little
+three-cornered hat under his arm, and a gold-hilted slender dress-sword
+hung at his side.
+
+Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence
+of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so
+extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre-Louis trembled
+for Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes
+fortunes were become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair
+of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands
+with attractive wives.
+
+He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast.
+On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at
+forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head
+containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance
+was pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost
+extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point
+of untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never
+married--disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself
+with an heir--he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by
+the countryside.
+
+After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and self-contained,
+with tight lips and an overcast brow.
+
+To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young
+gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d'Azyr's
+cousin, who whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable
+interest--his own presence unsuspected--the perambulations of Andre-Louis
+and mademoiselle.
+
+Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d'Azyr detached himself from the others,
+and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.
+
+To Andre-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of
+courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer
+stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he
+ranked neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the
+two classes, and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly
+by both. Coldly now he returned M. de La Tour d'Azyr's greeting, and
+discreetly removed himself to go and join his friend.
+
+The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing
+over it, bore it to his lips.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that
+met his gaze smiling and untroubled, "monsieur your uncle does me the
+honour to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle,
+do me the honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have
+something of great importance for your ear."
+
+"Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me." But there was
+no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not
+for nothing that she had graduated in the Versailles school of
+artificialities.
+
+"That," said he, "is very far from my design."
+
+"But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?"
+
+"To us both, I hope," he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine,
+ardent eyes.
+
+"You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece.
+It follows that I shall be honoured to receive you."
+
+"Not honoured, mademoiselle; you will confer the honour. To-morrow at
+this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait upon you."
+
+He bowed again; and again he bore her fingers to his lips, what time she
+curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this formal breaking of the ice,
+they parted.
+
+She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the
+man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate.
+Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic--the lean and
+impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and steel-buckled shoes--and
+she felt guilty of an unpardonable offence in having permitted even one
+word of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M. le Marquis would
+come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And already she had
+derogated from the increase of dignity accruing to her from his very
+intention to translate her to so great an eminence. Not again would
+she suffer it; not again would she be so weak and childish as to permit
+Andre-Louis to utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with
+whom he was no better than a lackey.
+
+Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self and to her vast
+annoyance her better self would not admit entire conviction.
+
+Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was climbing into his carriage. He had
+spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou, and he had also had a
+word for M. de Vilmorin in reply to which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in
+assenting silence. The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in
+blue-and-gold very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowing to
+mademoiselle, who waved to him in answer.
+
+Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of Andre Louis, and said to
+him, "Come, Andre."
+
+"But you'll stay to dine, both of you!" cried the hospitable Lord of
+Gavrillac. "We'll drink a certain toast," he added, winking an eye that
+strayed towards mademoiselle, who was approaching. He had no subtleties,
+good soul that he was.
+
+M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented him doing himself
+the honour. He was very stiff and formal.
+
+"And you, Andre?"
+
+"I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather," he lied, "and I have a
+superstition against toasts." He had no wish to remain. He was angry
+with Aline for her smiling reception of M. de La Tour d'Azyr and the
+sordid bargain he saw her set on making. He was suffering from the loss
+of an illusion.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
+
+As they walked down the hill together, it was now M. de Vilmorin who
+was silent and preoccupied, Andre-Louis who was talkative. He had
+chosen Woman as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed--quite
+unjustifiably--to have discovered Woman that morning; and the things he
+had to say of the sex were unflattering, and occasionally almost gross.
+M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained the subject, did not listen. Singular
+though it may seem in a young French abbe of his day, M. de Vilmorin was
+not interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways exceptional.
+Opposite the Breton arme--the inn and posting-house at the entrance of
+the village of Gavrillac--M. de Vilmorin interrupted his companion just
+as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic invective, and
+Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the carriage of
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.
+
+"I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
+
+"Had you been less interested in what you were saying, you might have
+observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is, you disappoint
+me, Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for. I have an
+appointment here with M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in
+the matter. Up there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time
+was ill-chosen as it happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis."
+
+"Hopes of what?"
+
+"That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the
+widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?"
+
+"Unusual condescension," said Andre-Louis, and quoted "Timeo Danaos et
+dona ferentes."
+
+"Why?" asked Philippe.
+
+"Let us go and discover--unless you consider that I shall be in the way."
+
+Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long
+as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host.
+A fire of logs was burning brightly at the room's far end, and by
+this sat now M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de
+Chabrillane. Both rose as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following,
+paused to close the door.
+
+"You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin," said the
+Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words.
+"A chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?" The note was frigidly interrogative. "He
+accompanies you, monsieur?" he asked.
+
+"If you please, M. le Marquis."
+
+"Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau." He spoke over his shoulder as
+to a lackey.
+
+"It is good of you, monsieur," said Philippe, "to have offered me this
+opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it
+happens, to Gavrillac."
+
+The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the
+blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was
+slightly behind him.
+
+"The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the
+moment," said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis
+thought him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
+
+"But I am grateful," Philippe insisted, "that you should condescend to
+hear me plead their cause."
+
+The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. "Whose cause?" quoth he.
+
+"Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey."
+
+The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the
+Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
+
+"I think," said M. de La Tour d'Azyr, slowly, "that we are at
+cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Chateau de
+Gavrillac was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion
+further, and because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you
+should come all the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain
+expressions that you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those
+expressions, monsieur, that I would hear you further--if you will honour
+me."
+
+Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the
+air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de
+Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
+
+"I am at a loss, monsieur," said he. "To what expressions does monsieur
+allude?"
+
+"It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory." The Marquis
+crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he
+directly faced M. de Vilmorin. "You spoke, monsieur--and however mistaken
+you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it
+seemed to me--of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice
+upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was
+the precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the
+honour to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet
+proceeded as he did."
+
+"If," said M. de Vilmorin, "the deed was infamous, its infamy is not
+modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather
+is it aggravated."
+
+"Ah!" said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket. "You
+say, 'if the deed was infamous,' monsieur. Am I to understand that you
+are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?"
+
+M. de Vilmorin's fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not
+understand the drift of this.
+
+"It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in view of your readiness to assume
+responsibility, that you must believe justification for the deed which
+is not apparent to myself."
+
+"That is better. That is distinctly better." The Marquis took snuff
+delicately, dusting the fragments from the fine lace at his throat. "You
+realize that with an imperfect understanding of these matters, not being
+yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable conclusions.
+That is indeed the case. May it be a warning to you, monsieur. When
+I tell you that for months past I have been annoyed by similar
+depredations, you will perhaps understand that it had become necessary
+to employ a deterrent sufficiently strong to put an end to them. Now
+that the risk is known, I do not think there will be any more prowling
+in my coverts. And there is more in it than that, M. de Vilmorin. It is
+not the poaching that annoys me so much as the contempt for my absolute
+and inviolable rights. There is, monsieur, as you cannot fail to have
+observed, an evil spirit of insubordination in the air, and there is
+one only way in which to meet it. To tolerate it, in however slight
+a degree, to show leniency, however leniently disposed, would entail
+having recourse to still harsher measures to-morrow. You understand me,
+I am sure, and you will also, I am sure, appreciate the condescension
+of what amounts to an explanation from me where I cannot admit that any
+explanations were due. If anything in what I have said is still obscure
+to you, I refer you to the game laws, which your lawyer friend there
+will expound for you at need."
+
+With that the gentleman swung round again to face the fire. It appeared
+to convey the intimation that the interview was at an end. And yet this
+was not by any means the intimation that it conveyed to the watchful,
+puzzled, vaguely uneasy Andre-Louis. It was, thought he, a very curious,
+a very suspicious oration. It affected to explain, with a politeness of
+terms and a calculated insolence of tone; whilst in fact it could only
+serve to stimulate and goad a man of M. de Vilmorin's opinions. And that
+is precisely what it did. He rose.
+
+"Are there in the world no laws but game laws?" he demanded, angrily.
+"Have you never by any chance heard of the laws of humanity?"
+
+The Marquis sighed wearily. "What have I to do with the laws of
+humanity?" he wondered.
+
+M. de Vilmorin looked at him a moment in speechless amazement.
+
+"Nothing, M. le Marquis. That is--alas!--too obvious. I hope you will
+remember it in the hour when you may wish to appeal to those laws which
+you now deride."
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr threw back his head sharply, his high-bred face
+imperious.
+
+"Now what precisely shall that mean? It is not the first time to-day
+that you have made use of dark sayings that I could almost believe to
+veil the presumption of a threat."
+
+"Not a threat, M. le Marquis--a warning. A warning that such deeds as
+these against God's creatures... Oh, you may sneer, monsieur, but they
+are God's creatures, even as you or I--neither more nor less, deeply
+though the reflection may wound your pride, In His eyes..."
+
+"Of your charity, spare me a sermon, M. l'abbe!"
+
+"You mock, monsieur. You laugh. Will you laugh, I wonder, when God
+presents His reckoning to you for the blood and plunder with which your
+hands are full?"
+
+"Monsieur!" The word, sharp as the crack of a whip, was from M.
+de Chabrillane, who bounded to his feet. But instantly the Marquis
+repressed him.
+
+"Sit down, Chevalier. You are interrupting M. l'abbe, and I should like
+to hear him further. He interests me profoundly."
+
+In the background Andre-Louis, too, had risen, brought to his feet by
+alarm, by the evil that he saw written on the handsome face of M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr. He approached, and touched his friend upon the arm.
+
+"Better be going, Philippe," said he.
+
+But M. de Vilmorin, caught in the relentless grip of passions long
+repressed, was being hurried by them recklessly along.
+
+"Oh, monsieur," said he, "consider what you are and what you will be.
+Consider how you and your kind live by abuses, and consider the harvest
+that abuses must ultimately bring."
+
+"Revolutionist!" said M. le Marquis, contemptuously. "You have the
+effrontery to stand before my face and offer me this stinking cant of
+your modern so-called intellectuals!"
+
+"Is it cant, monsieur? Do you think--do you believe in your soul--that
+it is cant? Is it cant that the feudal grip is on all things that live,
+crushing them like grapes in the press, to its own profit? Does it not
+exercise its rights upon the waters of the river, the fire that bakes
+the poor man's bread of grass and barley, on the wind that turns the
+mill? The peasant cannot take a step upon the road, cross a crazy bridge
+over a river, buy an ell of cloth in the village market, without meeting
+feudal rapacity, without being taxed in feudal dues. Is not that enough,
+M. le Marquis? Must you also demand his wretched life in payment for the
+least infringement of your sacred privileges, careless of what widows
+or orphans you dedicate to woe? Will naught content you but that your
+shadow must lie like a curse upon the land? And do you think in your
+pride that France, this Job among the nations, will suffer it forever?"
+
+He paused as if for a reply. But none came. The Marquis considered him,
+strangely silent, a half smile of disdain at the corners of his lips, an
+ominous hardness in his eyes.
+
+Again Andre-Louis tugged at his friend's sleeve.
+
+"Philippe."
+
+Philippe shook him off, and plunged on, fanatically.
+
+"Do you see nothing of the gathering clouds that herald the coming of
+the storm? You imagine, perhaps, that these States General summoned
+by M. Necker, and promised for next year, are to do nothing but devise
+fresh means of extortion to liquidate the bankruptcy of the State?
+You delude yourselves, as you shall find. The Third Estate, which you
+despise, will prove itself the preponderating force, and it will find
+a way to make an end of this canker of privilege that is devouring the
+vitals of this unfortunate country."
+
+M. le Marquis shifted in his chair, and spoke at last.
+
+"You have, monsieur," said he, "a very dangerous gift of eloquence. And
+it is of yourself rather than of your subject. For after all, what
+do you offer me? A rechauffe of the dishes served to out-at-elbow
+enthusiasts in the provincial literary chambers, compounded of the
+effusions of your Voltaires and Jean-Jacques and such dirty-fingered
+scribblers. You have not among all your philosophers one with the wit to
+understand that we are an order consecrated by antiquity, that for our
+rights and privileges we have behind us the authority of centuries."
+
+"Humanity, monsieur," Philippe replied, "is more ancient than nobility.
+Human rights are contemporary with man."
+
+The Marquis laughed and shrugged.
+
+"That is the answer I might have expected. It has the right note of cant
+that distinguishes the philosophers."
+
+And then M. de Chabrillane spoke.
+
+"You go a long way round," he criticized his cousin, on a note of
+impatience.
+
+"But I am getting there," he was answered. "I desired to make quite
+certain first."
+
+"Faith, you should have no doubt by now."
+
+"I have none." The Marquis rose, and turned again to M. de Vilmorin, who
+had understood nothing of that brief exchange. "M. l'abbe," said he once
+more, "you have a very dangerous gift of eloquence. I can conceive of
+men being swayed by it. Had you been born a gentleman, you would not so
+easily have acquired these false views that you express."
+
+M. de Vilmorin stared blankly, uncomprehending.
+
+"Had I been born a gentleman, do you say?" quoth he, in a slow,
+bewildered voice. "But I was born a gentleman. My race is as old, my
+blood as good as yours, monsieur."
+
+From M. le Marquis there was a slight play of eyebrows, a vague,
+indulgent smile. His dark, liquid eyes looked squarely into the face of
+M. de Vilmorin.
+
+"You have been deceived in that, I fear."
+
+"Deceived?"
+
+"Your sentiments betray the indiscretion of which madame your mother
+must have been guilty."
+
+The brutally affronting words were sped beyond recall, and the lips that
+had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been the merest commonplace,
+remained calm and faintly sneering.
+
+A dead silence followed. Andre-Louis' wits were numbed. He stood aghast,
+all thought suspended in him, what time M. de Vilmorin's eyes continued
+fixed upon M. de La Tour d'Azyr's, as if searching there for a meaning
+that eluded him. Quite suddenly he understood the vile affront. The
+blood leapt to his face, fire blazed in his gentle eyes. A convulsive
+quiver shook him. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he leaned forward, and
+with his open hand struck M. le Marquis full and hard upon his sneering
+face.
+
+In a flash M. de Chabrillane was on his feet, between the two men.
+
+Too late Andre-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour d'Azyr's words were but
+as a move in a game of chess, calculated to exasperate his opponent into
+some such counter-move as this--a counter-move that left him entirely at
+the other's mercy.
+
+M. le Marquis looked on, very white save where M. de Vilmorin's
+finger-prints began slowly to colour his face; but he said nothing more.
+Instead, it was M. de Chabrillane who now did the talking, taking up his
+preconcerted part in this vile game.
+
+"You realize, monsieur, what you have done," said he, coldly, to
+Philippe. "And you realize, of course, what must inevitably follow."
+
+M. de Vilmorin had realized nothing. The poor young man had acted upon
+impulse, upon the instinct of decency and honour, never counting the
+consequences. But he realized them now at the sinister invitation of M.
+de Chabrillane, and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was
+out of respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such
+adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly thrusting upon
+him.
+
+He drew back. "Let one affront wipe out the other," said he, in a dull
+voice. "The balance is still in M. le Marquis's favour. Let that content
+him."
+
+"Impossible." The Chevalier's lips came together tightly. Thereafter he
+was suavity itself, but very firm. "A blow has been struck, monsieur. I
+think I am correct in saying that such a thing has never happened before
+to M. le Marquis in all his life. If you felt yourself affronted, you
+had but to ask the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. Your
+action would seem to confirm the assumption that you found so
+offensive. But it does not on that account render you immune from the
+consequences."
+
+It was, you see, M. de Chabrillane's part to heap coals upon this fire,
+to make quite sure that their victim should not escape them.
+
+"I desire no immunity," flashed back the young seminarist, stung by
+this fresh goad. After all, he was nobly born, and the traditions of his
+class were strong upon him--stronger far than the seminarist schooling in
+humility. He owed it to himself, to his honour, to be killed rather than
+avoid the consequences of the thing he had done.
+
+"But he does not wear a sword, messieurs!" cried Andre Louis, aghast.
+
+"That is easily amended. He may have the loan of mine."
+
+"I mean, messieurs," Andre-Louis insisted, between fear for his friend
+and indignation, "that it is not his habit to wear a sword, that he has
+never worn one, that he is untutored in its uses. He is a seminarist--a
+postulant for holy orders, already half a priest, and so forbidden from
+such an engagement as you propose."
+
+"All that he should have remembered before he struck a blow," said M. de
+Chabrillane, politely.
+
+"The blow was deliberately provoked," raged Andre-Louis. Then he
+recovered himself, though the other's haughty stare had no part in
+that recovery. "O my God, I talk in vain! How is one to argue against a
+purpose formed! Come away, Philippe. Don't you see the trap..."
+
+M. de Vilmorin cut him short, and flung him off. "Be quiet, Andre. M. le
+Marquis is entirely in the right."
+
+"M. le Marquis is in the right?" Andre-Louis let his arms fall
+helplessly. This man he loved above all other living men was caught in
+the snare of the world's insanity. He was baring his breast to the knife
+for the sake of a vague, distorted sense of the honour due to himself.
+It was not that he did not see the trap. It was that his honour
+compelled him to disdain consideration of it. To Andre-Louis in that
+moment he seemed a singularly tragic figure. Noble, perhaps, but very
+pitiful.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HERITAGE
+
+It was M. de Vilmorin's desire that the matter should be settled out
+of hand. In this he was at once objective and subjective. A prey to
+emotions sadly at conflict with his priestly vocation, he was above
+all in haste to have done, so that he might resume a frame of mind more
+proper to it. Also he feared himself a little; by which I mean that his
+honour feared his nature. The circumstances of his education, and the
+goal that for some years now he had kept in view, had robbed him of much
+of that spirited brutality that is the birthright of the male. He had
+grown timid and gentle as a woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the
+heat of his passion was spent he might betray a dishonouring weakness,
+in the ordeal.
+
+M. le Marquis, on his side, was no less eager for an immediate
+settlement; and since they had M. de Chabrillane to act for his cousin,
+and Andre-Louis to serve as witness for M. de Vilmorin, there was
+nothing to delay them.
+
+And so, within a few minutes, all arrangements were concluded, and you
+behold that sinisterly intentioned little group of four assembled in
+the afternoon sunshine on the bowling-green behind the inn. They were
+entirely private, screened more or less from the windows of the house by
+a ramage of trees, which, if leafless now, was at least dense enough to
+provide an effective lattice.
+
+There were no formalities over measurements of blades or selection
+of ground. M. le Marquis removed his sword-belt and scabbard, but
+declined--not considering it worth while for the sake of so negligible an
+opponent--to divest himself either of his shoes or his coat. Tall, lithe,
+and athletic, he stood to face the no less tall, but very delicate and
+frail, M. de Vilmorin. The latter also disdained to make any of the
+usual preparations. Since he recognized that it could avail him nothing
+to strip, he came on guard fully dressed, two hectic spots above the
+cheek-bones burning on his otherwise grey face.
+
+M. de Chabrillane, leaning upon a cane--for he had relinquished his sword
+to M. de Vilmorin--looked on with quiet interest. Facing him on the
+other side of the combatants stood Andre-Louis, the palest of the four,
+staring from fevered eyes, twisting and untwisting clammy hands.
+
+His every instinct was to fling himself between the antagonists, to
+protest against and frustrate this meeting. That sane impulse was
+curbed, however, by the consciousness of its futility. To calm him, he
+clung to the conviction that the issue could not really be very serious.
+If the obligations of Philippe's honour compelled him to cross swords
+with the man he had struck, M. de La Tour d'Azyr's birth compelled him
+no less to do no serious hurt to the unfledged lad he had so grievously
+provoked. M. le Marquis, after all, was a man of honour. He could intend
+no more than to administer a lesson; sharp, perhaps, but one by which
+his opponent must live to profit. Andre-Louis clung obstinately to that
+for comfort.
+
+Steel beat on steel, and the men engaged. The Marquis presented to his
+opponent the narrow edge of his upright body, his knees slightly flexed
+and converted into living springs, whilst M. de Vilmorin stood squarely,
+a full target, his knees wooden. Honour and the spirit of fair play
+alike cried out against such a match.
+
+The encounter was very short, of course. In youth, Philippe had received
+the tutoring in sword-play that was given to every boy born into his
+station of life. And so he knew at least the rudiments of what was
+now expected of him. But what could rudiments avail him here? Three
+disengages completed the exchanges, and then without any haste the
+Marquis slid his right foot along the moist turf, his long, graceful
+body extending itself in a lunge that went under M. de Vilmorin's clumsy
+guard, and with the utmost deliberation he drove his blade through the
+young man's vitals.
+
+Andre-Louis sprang forward just in time to catch his friend's body under
+the armpits as it sank. Then, his own legs bending beneath the weight of
+it, he went down with his burden until he was kneeling on the damp turf.
+Philippe's limp head lay against Andre-Louis' left shoulder; Philippe's
+relaxed arms trailed at his sides; the blood welled and bubbled from the
+ghastly wound to saturate the poor lad's garments.
+
+With white face and twitching lips, Andre-Louis looked up at M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr, who stood surveying his work with a countenance of grave
+but remorseless interest.
+
+"You have killed him!" cried Andre-Louis.
+
+"Of course."
+
+The Marquis ran a lace handkerchief along his blade to wipe it. As he
+let the dainty fabric fall, he explained himself. "He had, as I told
+him, a too dangerous gift of eloquence."
+
+And he turned away, leaving completest understanding with Andre-Louis.
+Still supporting the limp, draining body, the young man called to him.
+
+"Come back, you cowardly murderer, and make yourself quite safe by
+killing me too!"
+
+The Marquis half turned, his face dark with anger. Then M. de
+Chabrillane set a restraining hand upon his arm. Although a party
+throughout to the deed, the Chevalier was a little appalled now that it
+was done. He had not the high stomach of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and he
+was a good deal younger.
+
+"Come away," he said. "The lad is raving. They were friends."
+
+"You heard what he said?" quoth the Marquis.
+
+"Nor can he, or you, or any man deny it," flung back Andre-Louis.
+"Yourself, monsieur, you made confession when you gave me now the reason
+why you killed him. You did it because you feared him."
+
+"If that were true--what, then?" asked the great gentleman.
+
+"Do you ask? Do you understand of life and humanity nothing but how to
+wear a coat and dress your hair--oh, yes, and to handle weapons against
+boys and priests? Have you no mind to think, no soul into which you can
+turn its vision? Must you be told that it is a coward's part to kill the
+thing he fears, and doubly a coward's part to kill in this way? Had you
+stabbed him in the back with a knife, you would have shown the courage
+of your vileness. It would have been a vileness undisguised. But you
+feared the consequences of that, powerful as you are; and so you shelter
+your cowardice under the pretext of a duel."
+
+The Marquis shook off his cousin's hand, and took a step forward,
+holding now his sword like a whip. But again the Chevalier caught and
+held him.
+
+"No, no, Gervais! Let be, in God's name!"
+
+"Let him come, monsieur," raved Andre-Louis, his voice thick and
+concentrated. "Let him complete his coward's work on me, and thus make
+himself safe from a coward's wages."
+
+M. de Chabrillane let his cousin go. He came white to the lips, his eyes
+glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him. And then he checked.
+It may be that he remembered suddenly the relationship in which this
+young man was popularly believed to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac,
+and the well-known affection in which the Seigneur held him. And so he
+may have realized that if he pushed this matter further, he might find
+himself upon the horns of a dilemma. He would be confronted with the
+alternatives of shedding more blood, and so embroiling himself with the
+Lord of Gavrillac at a time when that gentleman's friendship was of the
+first importance to him, or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his
+dignity as must impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.
+
+Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then,
+with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed
+his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.
+
+When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms
+about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf
+ear that rested almost against his lips:
+
+"Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe... Don't you hear me? O God
+of Heaven! Philippe!"
+
+At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail.
+The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis's was leaden-hued, the half-open
+eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the
+vacuously parted lips.
+
+Half blinded by tears Andre-Louis stumbled after them when they bore the
+body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room to which they conveyed
+it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead man's hand in both his
+own, he swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d'Azyr
+should pay a bitter price for this.
+
+"It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe," he said. "Then if I can
+get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The
+thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be
+swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men
+shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall
+be my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters nothing
+that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I know it--every word of
+it; that is all that matters to our purpose, yours and mine. If all else
+fails, your thoughts shall find expression in my living tongue. Thus
+at least we shall have frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he
+feared. It shall profit him nothing to have your blood upon his soul.
+That voice in you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him and
+his as it shall in me--if all else fails."
+
+It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief, and he
+began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as he considered
+that Philippe, a man of peace, almost a priest, an apostle of
+Christianity, had gone to his Maker with the sin of anger on his soul.
+It was horrible. Yet God would see the righteousness of that anger. And
+in no case--be man's interpretation of Divinity what it might--could that
+one sin outweigh the loving good that Philippe had ever practised, the
+noble purity of his great heart. God after all, reflected Andre-Louis,
+was not a grand-seigneur.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
+
+For the second time that day Andre-Louis set out for the chateau,
+walking briskly, and heeding not at all the curious eyes that followed
+him through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passage
+through the people, all agog by now with that day's event in which he
+had been an actor.
+
+He was ushered by Benoit, the elderly body-servant, rather
+grandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor room known
+traditionally as the library. It still contained several shelves of
+neglected volumes, from which it derived its title, but implements
+of the chase--fowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags,
+sheath-knives--obtruded far more prominently than those of study. The
+furniture was massive, of oak richly carved, and belonging to another
+age. Great massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashed
+ceiling.
+
+Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing when
+Andre-Louis was introduced. He was already informed, as he announced at
+once, of what had taken place at the Breton arme. M. de Chabrillane
+had just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply
+perplexed.
+
+"The pity of it!" he said. "The pity of it!" He bowed his enormous head.
+"So estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tour
+d'Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters.
+He may be right. I don't know. I have never killed a man for holding
+different views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all.
+It isn't in my nature. I shouldn't sleep of nights if I did. But men are
+differently made."
+
+"The question, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis, "is what is to
+be done." He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.
+
+M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.
+
+"Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin went
+so far as to strike M. le Marquis."
+
+"Under the very grossest provocation."
+
+"Which he himself provoked by his revolutionary language. The poor
+lad's head was full of this encyclopaedist trash. It comes of too much
+reading. I have never set much store by books, Andre; and I have never
+known anything but trouble to come out of learning. It unsettles a man.
+It complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes
+for peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warning
+to you, Andre. You are, yourself, too prone to these new-fashioned
+speculations upon a different constitution of the social order. You
+see what comes of it. A fine, estimable young man, the only prop of
+his widowed mother too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to that
+mother--everything; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It is
+infernally sad. On my soul it is sad." He produced a handkerchief, and
+blew his nose with vehemence.
+
+Andre-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the hopes,
+never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his godfather.
+
+"Your criticisms," he said, "are all for the conduct of the dead, and
+none for that of the murderer. It does not seem possible that you should
+be in sympathy with such a crime."
+
+"Crime?" shrilled M. de Kercadiou. "My God, boy, you are speaking of M.
+de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"I am, and of the abominable murder he has committed..."
+
+"Stop!" M. de Kercadiou was very emphatic. "I cannot permit that you
+apply such terms to him. I cannot permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend,
+and is likely very soon to stand in a still closer relationship."
+
+"Notwithstanding this?" asked Andre-Louis.
+
+M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.
+
+"Why, what has this to do with it? I may deplore it. But I have no
+right to condemn it. It is a common way of adjusting differences between
+gentlemen."
+
+"You really believe that?"
+
+"What the devil do you imply, Andre? Should I say a thing that I don't
+believe? You begin to make me angry."
+
+"'Thou shalt not kill,' is the King's law as well as God's."
+
+"You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was a duel..."
+
+Andre-Louis interrupted him. "It is no more a duel than if it had been
+fought with pistols of which only M. le Marquis's was loaded. He invited
+Philippe to discuss the matter further, with the deliberate intent of
+forcing a quarrel upon him and killing him. Be patient with me, monsieur
+my god-father. I am not telling you of what I imagine but what M. le
+Marquis himself admitted to me."
+
+Dominated a little by the young man's earnestness, M. de Kercadiou's
+pale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug, and sauntered over to the
+window.
+
+"It would need a court of honour to decide such an issue. And we have no
+courts of honour," he said.
+
+"But we have courts of justice."
+
+With returning testiness the seigneur swung round to face him again.
+"And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea as
+you appear to have in mind?"
+
+"There is the court of the King's Lieutenant at Rennes."
+
+"And do you think the King's Lieutenant would listen to you?"
+
+"Not to me, perhaps, Monsieur. But if you were to bring the plaint..."
+
+"I bring the plaint?" M. de Kercadiou's pale eyes were wide with horror
+of the suggestion.
+
+"The thing happened here on your domain."
+
+"I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d'Azyr! You are out of your
+senses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yours
+who has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him.
+The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was
+of the most offensive. Perhaps you didn't know that. It does not at all
+surprise me that the Marquis should have desired satisfaction."
+
+"I see," said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.
+
+"You see? What the devil do you see?"
+
+"That I shall have to depend upon myself alone."
+
+"And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please?"
+
+"I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King's Lieutenant."
+
+"He'll be too busy to see you." And M. de Kercadiou's mind swung a
+trifle inconsequently, as weak minds will. "There is trouble enough in
+Rennes already on the score of these crazy States General, with which
+the wonderful M. Necker is to repair the finances of the kingdom. As
+if a peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a damned Protestant, could
+succeed where such men as Calonne and Brienne have failed."
+
+"Good-afternoon, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"Where are you going?" was the querulous demand.
+
+"Home at present. To Rennes in the morning."
+
+"Wait, boy, wait!" The squat little man rolled forward, affectionate
+concern on his great ugly face, and he set one of his podgy hands on
+his godson's shoulder. "Now listen to me, Andre," he reasoned. "This is
+sheer knight-errantry--moonshine, lunacy. You'll come to no good by it if
+you persist. You've read 'Don Quixote,' and what happened to him when
+he went tilting against windmills. It's what will happen to you, neither
+more nor less. Leave things as they are, my boy. I wouldn't have a
+mischief happen to you."
+
+Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.
+
+"I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to break."
+
+"You mean that you'll go in spite of anything that I may say?" Impetuous
+as he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou was bristling again. "Very well,
+then, go... Go to the devil!"
+
+"I will begin with the King's Lieutenant."
+
+"And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don't come whimpering
+to me for assistance," the seigneur stormed. He was very angry now.
+"Since you choose to disobey me, you can break your empty head against
+the windmill, and be damned to you."
+
+Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the door.
+
+"If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he, from the
+threshold, "I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye, monsieur
+my godfather."
+
+He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzling
+out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind,
+either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He was
+disposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful
+men who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing and
+irritating. Himself he loved his ease, and to be at peace with his
+neighbours; and that seemed to him so obviously the supreme good of life
+that he was disposed to brand them as fools who troubled to seek other
+things.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE WINDMILL
+
+There was between Nantes and Rennes an established service of three
+stage-coaches weekly in each direction, which for a sum of twenty-four
+livres--roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea--would carry you the
+seventy and odd miles of the journey in some fourteen hours. Once a week
+one of the diligences going in each direction would swerve aside
+from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters,
+newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by this coach
+that Andre-Louis came and went when the occasion offered. At present,
+however, he was too much in haste to lose a day awaiting the passing of
+that diligence. So it was on a horse hired from the Breton arme that he
+set out next morning; and an hour's brisk ride under a grey wintry sky,
+by a half-ruined road through ten miles of flat, uninteresting country,
+brought him to the city of Rennes.
+
+He rode across the main bridge over the Vilaine, and so into the upper
+and principal part of that important city of some thirty thousand
+souls, most of whom, he opined from the seething, clamant crowds that
+everywhere blocked his way, must on this day have taken to the streets.
+Clearly Philippe had not overstated the excitement prevailing there.
+
+He pushed on as best he could, and so came at last to the Place Royale,
+where he found the crowd to be most dense. From the plinth of the
+equestrian statue of Louis XV, a white-faced young man was excitedly
+addressing the multitude. His youth and dress proclaimed the student,
+and a group of his fellows, acting as a guard of honour to him, kept the
+immediate precincts of the statue.
+
+Over the heads of the crowd Andre-Louis caught a few of the phrases
+flung forth by that eager voice.
+
+"It was the promise of the King... It is the King's authority they
+flout... They arrogate to themselves the whole sovereignty in Brittany.
+The King has dissolved them... These insolent nobles defying their
+sovereign and the people..."
+
+Had he not known already, from what Philippe had told him, of the events
+which had brought the Third Estate to the point of active revolt, those
+few phrases would fully have informed him. This popular display of
+temper was most opportune to his need, he thought. And in the hope that
+it might serve his turn by disposing to reasonableness the mind of the
+King's Lieutenant, he pushed on up the wide and well-paved Rue Royale,
+where the concourse of people began to diminish. He put up his hired
+horse at the Come de Cerf, and set out again, on foot, to the Palais de
+Justice.
+
+There was a brawling mob by the framework of poles and scaffoldings
+about the building cathedral, upon which work had been commenced a year
+ago. But he did not pause to ascertain the particular cause of that
+gathering. He strode on, and thus came presently to the handsome
+Italianate palace that was one of the few public edifices that had
+survived the devastating fire of sixty years ago.
+
+He won through with difficulty to the great hall, known as the Salle
+des Pas Perdus, where he was left to cool his heels for a full half-hour
+after he had found an usher so condescending as to inform the god who
+presided over that shrine of Justice that a lawyer from Gavrillac humbly
+begged an audience on an affair of gravity.
+
+That the god condescended to see him at all was probably due to the
+grave complexion of the hour. At long length he was escorted up the
+broad stone staircase, and ushered into a spacious, meagrely furnished
+anteroom, to make one of a waiting crowd of clients, mostly men.
+
+There he spent another half-hour, and employed the time in considering
+exactly what he should say. This consideration made him realize the
+weakness of the case he proposed to set before a man whose views of law
+and morality were coloured by his social rank.
+
+At last he was ushered through a narrow but very massive and richly
+decorated door into a fine, well-lighted room furnished with enough gilt
+and satin to have supplied the boudoir of a lady of fashion.
+
+It was a trivial setting for a King's Lieutenant, but about the King's
+Lieutenant there was--at least to ordinary eyes--nothing trivial. At the
+far end of the chamber, to the right of one of the tall windows that
+looked out over the inner court, before a goat-legged writing-table with
+Watteau panels, heavily encrusted with ormolu, sat that exalted being.
+Above a scarlet coat with an order flaming on its breast, and a billow
+of lace in which diamonds sparkled like drops of water, sprouted the
+massive powdered head of M. de Lesdiguieres. It was thrown back to scowl
+upon this visitor with an expectant arrogance that made Andre-Louis
+wonder almost was a genuflexion awaited from him.
+
+Perceiving a lean, lantern-jawed young man, with straight, lank black
+hair, in a caped riding-coat of brown cloth, and yellow buckskin
+breeches, his knee-boots splashed with mud, the scowl upon that august
+visage deepened until it brought together the thick black eyebrows above
+the great hooked nose.
+
+"You announce yourself as a lawyer of Gavrillac with an important
+communication," he growled. It was a peremptory command to make this
+communication without wasting the valuable time of a King's Lieutenant,
+of whose immense importance it conveyed something more than a hint. M.
+de Lesdiguieres accounted himself an imposing personality, and he had
+every reason to do so, for in his time he had seen many a poor devil
+scared out of all his senses by the thunder of his voice.
+
+He waited now to see the same thing happen to this youthful lawyer from
+Gavrillac. But he waited in vain.
+
+Andre-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentiousness for the
+mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here he beheld pretentiousness
+incarnate. It was to be read in that arrogant poise of the head, that
+scowling brow, the inflexion of that reverberating voice. Even more
+difficult than it is for a man to be a hero to his valet--who has
+witnessed the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole--is
+it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man who has witnessed the
+same in a different sense.
+
+Andre-Louis stood forward boldly--impudently, thought M. de Lesdiguieres.
+
+"You are His Majesty's Lieutenant here in Brittany," he said--and it
+almost seemed to the august lord of life and death that this fellow had
+the incredible effrontery to address him as one man speaking to another.
+"You are the dispenser of the King's high justice in this province."
+
+Surprise spread on that handsome, sallow face under the heavily powdered
+wig.
+
+"Is your business concerned with this infernal insubordination of the
+canaille?" he asked.
+
+"It is not, monsieur."
+
+The black eyebrows rose. "Then what the devil do you mean by intruding
+upon me at a time when all my attention is being claimed by the obvious
+urgency of this disgraceful affair?"
+
+"The affair that brings me is no less disgraceful and no less urgent."
+
+"It will have to wait!" thundered the great man in a passion, and
+tossing back a cloud of lace from his hand, he reached for the little
+silver bell upon his table.
+
+"A moment, monsieur!" Andre-Louis' tone was peremptory. M. de
+Lesdiguieres checked in sheer amazement at its impudence. "I can state
+it very briefly..."
+
+"Haven't I said already..."
+
+"And when you have heard it," Andre-Louis went on, relentlessly,
+interrupting the interruption, "you will agree with me as to its
+character."
+
+M. de Lesdiguieres considered him very sternly.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked.
+
+"Andre-Louis Moreau."
+
+"Well, Andre-Louis Moreau, if you can state your plea briefly, I will
+hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to
+justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment."
+
+"You shall be the judge of that, monsieur," said Andre-Louis, and he
+proceeded at once to state his case, beginning with the shooting of
+Mabey, and passing thence to the killing of M. de Vilmorin. But he
+withheld until the end the name of the great gentleman against whom he
+demanded justice, persuaded that did he introduce it earlier he would
+not be allowed to proceed.
+
+He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself hardly
+conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so. He told his story
+well, without exaggeration, yet with a force of simple appeal that was
+irresistible. Gradually the great man's face relaxed from its forbidding
+severity. Interest, warming almost to sympathy, came to be reflected on
+it.
+
+"And who, sir, is the man you charge with this?"
+
+"The Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dismayed anger, and an
+arrogance more utter than before, took the place of the sympathy he had
+been betrayed into displaying.
+
+"Who?" he shouted, and without waiting for an answer, "Why, here's
+impudence," he stormed on, "to come before me with such a charge against
+a gentleman of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's eminence! How dare you speak of
+him as a coward...."
+
+"I speak of him as a murderer," the young man corrected. "And I demand
+justice against him."
+
+"You demand it, do you? My God, what next?"
+
+"That is for you to say, monsieur."
+
+It surprised the great gentleman into a more or less successful effort
+of self-control.
+
+"Let me warn you," said he, acidly, "that it is not wise to make
+wild accusations against a nobleman. That, in itself, is a punishable
+offence, as you may learn. Now listen to me. In this matter of
+Mabey--assuming your statement of it to be exact--the gamekeeper may have
+exceeded his duty; but by so little that it is hardly worth comment.
+Consider, however, that in any case it is not a matter for the King's
+Lieutenant, or for any court but the seigneurial court of M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr himself. It is before the magistrates of his own appointing that
+such a matter must be laid, since it is matter strictly concerning his
+own seigneurial jurisdiction. As a lawyer you should not need to be told
+so much."
+
+"As a lawyer, I am prepared to argue the point. But, as a lawyer I also
+realize that if that case were prosecuted, it could only end in the
+unjust punishment of a wretched gamekeeper, who did no more than carry
+out his orders, but who none the less would now be made a scapegoat,
+if scapegoat were necessary. I am not concerned to hang Benet on the
+gallows earned by M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+M. de Lesdiguieres smote the table violently. "My God!" he cried out, to
+add more quietly, on a note of menace, "You are singularly insolent, my
+man."
+
+"That is not my intention, sir, I assure you. I am a lawyer, pleading a
+case--the case of M. de Vilmorin. It is for his assassination that I have
+come to beg the King's justice."
+
+"But you yourself have said that it was a duel!" cried the Lieutenant,
+between anger and bewilderment.
+
+"I have said that it was made to appear a duel. There is a distinction,
+as I shall show, if you will condescend to hear me out."
+
+"Take your own time, sir!" said the ironical M. de Lesdiguieres, whose
+tenure of office had never yet held anything that remotely resembled
+this experience.
+
+Andre-Louis took him literally. "I thank you, sir," he answered,
+solemnly, and submitted his argument. "It can be shown that M. de
+Vilmorin never practised fencing in all his life, and it is notorious
+that M. de La Tour d'Azyr is an exceptional swordsman. Is it a duel,
+monsieur, where one of the combatants alone is armed? For it amounts to
+that on a comparison of their measures of respective skill."
+
+"There has scarcely been a duel fought on which the same trumpery
+argument might not be advanced."
+
+"But not always with equal justice. And in one case, at least, it was
+advanced successfully."
+
+"Successfully? When was that?"
+
+"Ten years ago, in Dauphiny. I refer to the case of M. de Gesvres,
+a gentleman of that province, who forced a duel upon M. de la Roche
+Jeannine, and killed him. M. de Jeannine was a member of a powerful
+family, which exerted itself to obtain justice. It put forward just
+such arguments as now obtain against M. de La Tour d'Azyr. As you will
+remember, the judges held that the provocation had proceeded of intent
+from M. de Gesvres; they found him guilty of premeditated murder, and he
+was hanged."
+
+M. de Lesdiguieres exploded yet again. "Death of my life!" he cried.
+"Have you the effrontery to suggest that M. de La Tour d'Azyr should be
+hanged? Have you?"
+
+"But why not, monsieur, if it is the law, and there is precedent for it,
+as I have shown you, and if it can be established that what I state is
+the truth--as established it can be without difficulty?"
+
+"Do you ask me, why not? Have you temerity to ask me that?"
+
+"I have, monsieur. Can you answer me? If you cannot, monsieur, I shall
+understand that whilst it is possible for a powerful family like that
+of La Roche Jeannine to set the law in motion, the law must remain inert
+for the obscure and uninfluential, however brutally wronged by a great
+nobleman."
+
+M. de Lesdiguieres perceived that in argument he would accomplish
+nothing against this impassive, resolute young man. The menace of him
+grew more fierce.
+
+"I should advise you to take yourself off at once, and to be thankful
+for the opportunity to depart unscathed."
+
+"I am, then, to understand, monsieur, that there will be no inquiry into
+this case? That nothing that I can say will move you?"
+
+"You are to understand that if you are still there in two minutes it
+will be very much the worse for you." And M. de Lesdiguieres tinkled the
+silver hand-bell upon his table.
+
+"I have informed you, monsieur, that a duel--so-called--has been fought,
+and a man killed. It seems that I must remind you, the administrator of
+the King's justice, that duels are against the law, and that it is
+your duty to hold an inquiry. I come as the legal representative of the
+bereaved mother of M. de Vilmorin to demand of you the inquiry that is
+due."
+
+The door behind Andre-Louis opened softly. M. de Lesdiguieres, pale with
+anger, contained himself with difficulty.
+
+"You seek to compel us, do you, you impudent rascal?" he growled. "You
+think the King's justice is to be driven headlong by the voice of any
+impudent roturier? I marvel at my own patience with you. But I give you
+a last warning, master lawyer; keep a closer guard over that insolent
+tongue of yours, or you will have cause very bitterly to regret its
+glibness." He waved a jewelled, contemptuous hand, and spoke to the
+usher standing behind Andre. "To the door!" he said, shortly.
+
+Andre-Louis hesitated a second. Then with a shrug he turned. This was
+the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To
+attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on
+the threshold he turned again.
+
+"M. de Lesdiguieres," said he, "may I recite to you an interesting fact
+in natural history? The tiger is a great lord in the jungle, and was
+for centuries the terror of lesser beasts, including the wolf. The wolf,
+himself a hunter, wearied of being hunted. He took to associating
+with other wolves, and then the wolves, driven to form packs for
+self-protection, discovered the power of the pack, and took to hunting
+the tiger, with disastrous results to him. You should study Buffon, M.
+de Lesdiguieres."
+
+"I have studied a buffoon this morning, I think," was the punning sneer
+with which M. de Lesdiguieres replied. But that he conceived himself
+witty, it is probable he would not have condescended to reply at all. "I
+don't understand you," he added.
+
+"But you will, M. de Lesdiguieres. You will," said Andre-Louis, and so
+departed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE WIND
+
+He had broken his futile lance with the windmill--the image suggested by
+M. de Kercadiou persisted in his mind--and it was, he perceived, by sheer
+good fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There remained the wind
+itself--the whirlwind. And the events in Rennes, reflex of the graver
+events in Nantes, had set that wind blowing in his favour.
+
+He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place Royale, where
+the gathering of the populace was greatest, where, as he judged, lay the
+heart and brain of this commotion that was exciting the city.
+
+But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to the commotion
+which he found on his return. Then there had been a comparative hush
+to listen to the voice of a speaker who denounced the First and Second
+Estates from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air was
+vibrant with the voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Here
+and there men were fighting with canes and fists; everywhere a
+fierce excitement raged, and the gendarmes sent thither by the King's
+Lieutenant to restore and maintain order were so much helpless flotsam
+in that tempestuous human ocean.
+
+There were cries of "To the Palais! To the Palais! Down with the
+assassins! Down with the nobles! To the Palais!"
+
+An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the press
+enlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased excitement.
+
+"They've shot him dead. His body is lying there where it fell at the
+foot of the statue. And there was another student killed not an hour ago
+over there by the cathedral works. Pardi! If they can't prevail in one
+way they'll prevail in another." The man was fiercely emphatic. "They'll
+stop at nothing. If they can't overawe us, by God, they'll assassinate
+us. They are determined to conduct these States of Brittany in their own
+way. No interests but their own shall be considered."
+
+Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way through that
+human press.
+
+At the statue's base he came upon a little cluster of students about the
+body of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear and helplessness.
+
+"You here, Moreau!" said a voice.
+
+He looked round to find himself confronted by a slight, swarthy man
+of little more than thirty, firm of mouth and impertinent of nose,
+who considered him with disapproval. It was Le Chapelier, a lawyer
+of Rennes, a prominent member of the Literary Chamber of that city, a
+forceful man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional gift
+of eloquence.
+
+"Ah, it is you, Chapelier! Why don't you speak to them? Why don't you
+tell them what to do? Up with you, man!" And he pointed to the plinth.
+
+Le Chapelier's dark, restless eyes searched the other's impassive face
+for some trace of the irony he suspected. They were as wide asunder
+as the poles, these two, in their political views; and mistrusted as
+Andre-Louis was by all his colleagues of the Literary Chamber of Rennes,
+he was by none mistrusted so thoroughly as by this vigorous republican.
+Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the influence of
+the seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long since have found himself
+excluded from that assembly of the intellectual youth of Rennes, which
+he exasperated by his eternal mockery of their ideals.
+
+So now Le Chapelier suspected mockery in that invitation, suspected it
+even when he failed to find traces of it on Andre-Louis' face, for he
+had learnt by experience that it was a face not often to be trusted for
+an indication of the real thoughts that moved behind it.
+
+"Your notions and mine on that score can hardly coincide," said he.
+
+"Can there be two opinions?" quoth Andre-Louis.
+
+"There are usually two opinions whenever you and I are together,
+Moreau--more than ever now that you are the appointed delegate of a
+nobleman. You see what your friends have done. No doubt you approve
+their methods." He was coldly hostile.
+
+Andre-Louis looked at him without surprise. So invariably opposed to
+each other in academic debates, how should Le Chapelier suspect his
+present intentions?
+
+"If you won't tell them what is to be done, I will," said he.
+
+"Nom de Dieu! If you want to invite a bullet from the other side, I
+shall not hinder you. It may help to square the account."
+
+Scarcely were the words out than he repented them; for as if in answer
+to that challenge Andre-Louis sprang up on to the plinth. Alarmed now,
+for he could only suppose it to be Andre-Louis' intention to speak
+on behalf of Privilege, of which he was a publicly appointed
+representative, Le Chapelier clutched him by the leg to pull him down
+again.
+
+"Ah, that, no!" he was shouting. "Come down, you fool. Do you think we
+will let you ruin everything by your clowning? Come down!"
+
+Andre-Louis, maintaining his position by clutching one of the legs of
+the bronze horse, flung his voice like a bugle-note over the heads of
+that seething mob.
+
+"Citizens of Rennes, the motherland is in danger!"
+
+The effect was electric. A stir ran, like a ripple over water, across
+that froth of upturned human faces, and completest silence followed.
+In that great silence they looked at this slim young man, hatless,
+long wisps of his black hair fluttering in the breeze, his neckcloth in
+disorder, his face white, his eyes on fire.
+
+Andre-Louis felt a sudden surge of exaltation as he realized by instinct
+that at one grip he had seized that crowd, and that he held it fast in
+the spell of his cry and his audacity.
+
+Even Le Chapelier, though still clinging to his ankle, had ceased to
+tug. The reformer, though unshaken in his assumption of Andre-Louis'
+intentions, was for a moment bewildered by the first note of his appeal.
+
+And then, slowly, impressively, in a voice that travelled clear to the
+ends of the square, the young lawyer of Gavrillac began to speak.
+
+"Shuddering in horror of the vile deed here perpetrated, my voice
+demands to be heard by you. You have seen murder done under your
+eyes--the murder of one who nobly, without any thought of self, gave
+voice to the wrongs by which we are all oppressed. Fearing that voice,
+shunning the truth as foul things shun the light, our oppressors sent
+their agents to silence him in death."
+
+Le Chapelier released at last his hold of Andre-Louis' ankle, staring
+up at him the while in sheer amazement. It seemed that the fellow was in
+earnest; serious for once; and for once on the right side. What had come
+to him?
+
+"Of assassins what shall you look for but assassination? I have a
+tale to tell which will show that this is no new thing that you have
+witnessed here to-day; it will reveal to you the forces with which you
+have to deal. Yesterday..."
+
+There was an interruption. A voice in the crowd, some twenty paces,
+perhaps, was raised to shout:
+
+"Yet another of them!"
+
+Immediately after the voice came a pistol-shot, and a bullet flattened
+itself against the bronze figure just behind Andre-Louis.
+
+Instantly there was turmoil in the crowd, most intense about the spot
+whence the shot had been fired. The assailant was one of a considerable
+group of the opposition, a group that found itself at once beset on
+every side, and hard put to it to defend him.
+
+From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students making chorus
+to Le Chapelier, who was bidding Andre-Louis to seek shelter.
+
+"Come down! Come down at once! They'll murder you as they murdered La
+Riviere."
+
+"Let them!" He flung wide his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical,
+and laughed. "I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will, add
+mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them. Let them
+assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until they do so,
+they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you what
+is to be looked for in them." And again he laughed, not merely in
+exaltation as they supposed who watched him from below, but also in
+amusement. And his amusement had two sources. One was to discover how
+glibly he uttered the phrases proper to whip up the emotions of a crowd:
+the other was in the remembrance of how the crafty Cardinal de Retz, for
+the purpose of inflaming popular sympathy on his behalf, had been in the
+habit of hiring fellows to fire upon his carriage. He was in just such
+case as that arch-politician. True, he had not hired the fellow to fire
+that pistol-shot; but he was none the less obliged to him, and ready to
+derive the fullest, advantage from the act.
+
+The group that sought to protect that man was battling on, seeking to
+hew a way out of that angry, heaving press.
+
+"Let them go!" Andre-Louis called down..."What matters one assassin more
+or less? Let them go, and listen to me, my countrymen!"
+
+And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he began his
+tale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence and directness
+that drove home every point, he tore their hearts with the story of
+yesterday's happenings at Gavrillac. He drew tears from them with
+the pathos of his picture of the bereaved widow Mabey and her three
+starving, destitute children--"orphaned to avenge the death of a
+pheasant"--and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin, a student of
+Rennes, known here to many of them, who had met his death in a noble
+endeavour to champion the cause of an esurient member of their afflicted
+order.
+
+"The Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr said of him that he had too dangerous a
+gift of eloquence. It was to silence his brave voice that he killed
+him. But he has failed of his object. For I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin's
+friend, have assumed the mantle of his apostleship, and I speak to you
+with his voice to-day."
+
+It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to understand, at
+least in part, this bewildering change in Andre-Louis, which rendered
+him faithless to the side that employed him.
+
+"I am not here," continued Andre-Louis, "merely to demand at your hands
+vengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin's murderers. I am here to tell you
+the things he would to-day have told you had he lived."
+
+So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they were things
+he did not himself believe, things that he accounted the cant by which
+an ambitious bourgeoisie--speaking through the mouths of the lawyers, who
+were its articulate part--sought to overthrow to its own advantage the
+present state of things. He left his audience in the natural belief that
+the views he expressed were the views he held.
+
+And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed himself,
+he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where the great are the
+offenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that he spoke of their King's
+Lieutenant, M. de Lesdiguieres.
+
+"Do you wonder," he asked them, "that M. de Lesdiguieres should
+administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our great
+nobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he should
+otherwise administer it?" He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink
+in. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier's doubts, and checking
+his dawning conviction in Andre-Louis' sincerity. Whither was he going
+now?
+
+He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he
+conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often
+argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary
+Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers--that was yet true in
+substance--at his fingers' ends.
+
+"Consider, after all, the composition of this France of ours. A million
+of its inhabitants are members of the privileged classes. They compose
+France. They are France. For surely you cannot suppose the remainder
+to be anything that matters. It cannot be pretended that twenty-four
+million souls are of any account, that they can be representative of
+this great nation, or that they can exist for any purpose but that of
+servitude to the million elect."
+
+Bitter laughter shook them now, as he desired it should. "Seeing their
+privileges in danger of invasion by these twenty-four millions--mostly
+canailles; possibly created by God, it is true, but clearly so created
+to be the slaves of Privilege--does it surprise you that the dispensing
+of royal justice should be placed in the stout hands of these
+Lesdiguieres, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched?
+Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of us
+others--canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are in
+danger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to the
+commands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal vote
+with themselves.
+
+"What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere on
+the fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvees by which
+they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the
+first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own
+advantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the last
+liard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulent
+estate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the value
+of the land, the blairee, which must be paid before herds can feed on
+communal lands, the pulverage to indemnify them for the dust raised on
+their roads by the herds that go to market, the sextelage on everything
+offered for sale in the public markets, the etalonnage, and all the
+rest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, of
+ferries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of
+warren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax on
+every peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of
+hunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?
+
+"And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives and
+bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have never
+been rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the hunt were to
+slay two of his serfs to bathe and refresh his feet in their blood, he
+could still claim in his sufficient defence that it was his absolute
+feudal right to do so.
+
+"Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls and bodies
+of twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing but for their own
+pleasure. Woe betide him who so much as raises his voice in protest
+in the name of humanity against an excess of these already excessive
+abuses. I have told you of one remorselessly slain in cold blood for
+doing no more than that. Your own eyes have witnessed the assassination
+of another here upon this plinth, of yet another over there by the
+cathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.
+
+"Between them and the justice due to them in such cases stand these
+Lesdiguieres, these King's Lieutenants; not instruments of justice, but
+walls erected for the shelter of Privilege and Abuse whenever it exceeds
+its grotesquely excessive rights.
+
+"Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will resist
+the election of a Third Estate with the voting power to sweep all these
+privileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit themselves to a just
+equality in the eyes of the law with the meanest of the canaille they
+trample underfoot, to provide that the moneys necessary to save this
+state from the bankruptcy into which they have all but plunged it shall
+be raised by taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportion
+as by others?
+
+"Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the royal
+command."
+
+A phrase occurred to him used yesterday by Vilmorin, a phrase to which
+he had refused to attach importance when uttered then. He used it now.
+"In doing this they are striking at the very foundations of the throne.
+These fools do not perceive that if that throne falls over, it is they
+who stand nearest to it who will be crushed."
+
+A terrific roar acclaimed that statement. Tense and quivering with the
+excitement that was flowing through him, and from him out into that
+great audience, he stood a moment smiling ironically. Then he waved
+them into silence, and saw by their ready obedience how completely he
+possessed them. For in the voice with which he spoke each now recognized
+the voice of himself, giving at last expression to the thoughts that for
+months and years had been inarticulately stirring in each simple mind.
+
+Presently he resumed, speaking more quietly, that ironic smile about the
+corner of his mouth growing more marked:
+
+"In taking my leave of M. de Lesdiguieres I gave him warning out of a
+page of natural history. I told him that when the wolves, roaming singly
+through the jungle, were weary of being hunted by the tiger, they banded
+themselves into packs, and went a-hunting the tiger in their turn. M. de
+Lesdiguieres contemptuously answered that he did not understand me. But
+your wits are better than his. You understand me, I think? Don't you?"
+
+Again a great roar, mingled now with some approving laughter, was his
+answer. He had wrought them up to a pitch of dangerous passion, and they
+were ripe for any violence to which he urged them. If he had failed with
+the windmill, at least he was now master of the wind.
+
+"To the Palais!" they shouted, waving their hands, brandishing canes,
+and--here and there--even a sword. "To the Palais! Down with M. de
+Lesdiguieres! Death to the King's Lieutenant!"
+
+He was master of the wind, indeed. His dangerous gift of oratory--a
+gift nowhere more powerful than in France, since nowhere else are men's
+emotions so quick to respond to the appeal of eloquence--had given him
+this mastery. At his bidding now the gale would sweep away the
+windmill against which he had flung himself in vain. But that, as he
+straightforwardly revealed it, was no part of his intent.
+
+"Ah, wait!" he bade them. "Is this miserable instrument of a corrupt
+system worth the attention of your noble indignation?"
+
+He hoped his words would be reported to M. de Lesdiguieres. He thought
+it would be good for the soul of M. de Lesdiguieres to hear the
+undiluted truth about himself for once.
+
+"It is the system itself you must attack and overthrow; not a mere
+instrument--a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy will
+spoil everything. Above all, my children, no violence!"
+
+My children! Could his godfather have heard him!
+
+"You have seen often already the result of premature violence elsewhere
+in Brittany, and you have heard of it elsewhere in France. Violence on
+your part will call for violence on theirs. They will welcome the chance
+to assert their mastery by a firmer grip than heretofore. The military
+will be sent for. You will be faced by the bayonets of mercenaries. Do
+not provoke that, I implore you. Do not put it into their power, do not
+afford them the pretext they would welcome to crush you down into the
+mud of your own blood."
+
+Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke now the cry of
+
+"What else, then? What else?"
+
+"I will tell you," he answered them. "The wealth and strength of
+Brittany lies in Nantes--a bourgeois city, one of the most prosperous in
+this realm, rendered so by the energy of the bourgeoisie and the toil of
+the people. It was in Nantes that this movement had its beginning, and
+as a result of it the King issued his order dissolving the States as now
+constituted--an order which those who base their power on Privilege and
+Abuse do not hesitate to thwart. Let Nantes be informed of the precise
+situation, and let nothing be done here until Nantes shall have given us
+the lead. She has the power--which we in Rennes have not--to make her will
+prevail, as we have seen already. Let her exert that power once more,
+and until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes. Thus shall you
+triumph. Thus shall the outrages that are being perpetrated under your
+eyes be fully and finally avenged."
+
+As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now leap down from
+it. He had finished. He had said all--perhaps more than all--that could
+have been said by the dead friend with whose voice he spoke. But it was
+not their will that he should thus extinguish himself. The thunder of
+their acclamations rose deafeningly upon the air. He had played upon
+their emotions--each in turn--as a skilful harpist plays upon the strings
+of his instrument. And they were vibrant with the passions he had
+aroused, and the high note of hope on which he had brought his symphony
+to a close.
+
+A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung him to their
+shoulders, where again he came within view of all the acclaiming crowd.
+
+The delicate Le Chapelier pressed alongside of him with flushed face and
+shining eyes.
+
+"My lad," he said to him, "you have kindled a fire to-day that will
+sweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty." And then to the
+students he issued a sharp command. "To the Literary Chamber--at once. We
+must concert measures upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatched
+to Nantes forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of the
+people of Rennes."
+
+The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the students bore
+the hero of the hour. Waving his hands to them, he called upon them to
+disperse to their homes, and await there in patience what must follow
+very soon.
+
+"You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is a pattern to
+the world," he flattered them. "Endure a little longer yet. The end, my
+friends, is well in sight at last."
+
+They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale to an old
+house, one of the few old houses surviving in that city that had risen
+from its ashes, where in an upper chamber lighted by diamond-shaped
+panes of yellow glass the Literary Chamber usually held its meetings.
+Thither in his wake the members of that chamber came hurrying, summoned
+by the messages that Le Chapelier had issued during their progress.
+
+Behind closed doors a flushed and excited group of some fifty men, the
+majority of whom were young, ardent, and afire with the illusion of
+liberty, hailed Andre-Louis as the strayed sheep who had returned to the
+fold, and smothered him in congratulations and thanks.
+
+Then they settled down to deliberate upon immediate measures, whilst the
+doors below were kept by a guard of honour that had improvised itself
+from the masses. And very necessary was this. For no sooner had the
+Chamber assembled than the house was assailed by the gendarmerie of M.
+de Lesdiguieres, dispatched in haste to arrest the firebrand who was
+inciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force consisted of fifty
+men. Five hundred would have been too few. The mob broke their carbines,
+broke some of their heads, and would indeed have torn them into pieces
+had they not beaten a timely and well-advised retreat before a form of
+horseplay to which they were not at all accustomed.
+
+And whilst that was taking place in the street below, in the room
+abovestairs the eloquent Le Chapelier was addressing his colleagues
+of the Literary Chamber. Here, with no bullets to fear, and no one
+to report his words to the authorities, Le Chapelier could permit his
+oratory a full, unintimidated flow. And that considerable oratory was as
+direct and brutal as the man himself was delicate and elegant.
+
+He praised the vigour and the greatness of the speech they had heard
+from their colleague Moreau. Above all he praised its wisdom. Moreau's
+words had come as a surprise to them. Hitherto they had never known
+him as other than a bitter critic of their projects of reform and
+regeneration; and quite lately they had heard, not without misgivings,
+of his appointment as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany.
+But they held the explanation of his conversion. The murder of their
+dear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change. In that brutal deed
+Moreau had beheld at last in true proportions the workings of that evil
+spirit which they were vowed to exorcise from France. And to-day he had
+proven himself the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith. He had
+pointed out to them the only sane and useful course. The illustration he
+had borrowed from natural history was most apt. Above all, let them pack
+like the wolves, and to ensure this uniformity of action in the people
+of all Brittany, let a delegate at once be sent to Nantes, which had
+already proved itself the real seat of Brittany's power. It but remained
+to appoint that delegate, and Le Chapelier invited them to elect him.
+
+Andre-Louis, on a bench near the window, a prey now to some measure of
+reaction, listened in bewilderment to that flood of eloquence.
+
+As the applause died down, he heard a voice exclaiming:
+
+"I propose to you that we appoint our leader here, Le Chapelier, to be
+that delegate."
+
+Le Chapelier reared his elegantly dressed head, which had been bowed
+in thought, and it was seen that his countenance was pale. Nervously he
+fingered a gold spy-glass.
+
+"My friends," he said, slowly, "I am deeply sensible of the honour
+that you do me. But in accepting it I should be usurping an honour
+that rightly belongs elsewhere. Who could represent us better, who more
+deserving to be our representative, to speak to our friends of Nantes
+with the voice of Rennes, than the champion who once already to-day has
+so incomparably given utterance to the voice of this great city? Confer
+this honour of being your spokesman where it belongs--upon Andre-Louis
+Moreau."
+
+Rising in response to the storm of applause that greeted the proposal,
+Andre-Louis bowed and forthwith yielded. "Be it so," he said, simply.
+"It is perhaps fitting that I should carry out what I have begun, though
+I too am of the opinion that Le Chapelier would have been a worthier
+representative. I will set out to-night."
+
+"You will set out at once, my lad," Le Chapelier informed him, and now
+revealed what an uncharitable mind might account the true source of his
+generosity. "It is not safe after what has happened for you to linger an
+hour in Rennes. And you must go secretly. Let none of you allow it to
+be known that he has gone. I would not have you come to harm over this,
+Andre-Louis. But you must see the risks you run, and if you are to be
+spared to help in this work of salvation of our afflicted motherland,
+you must use caution, move secretly, veil your identity even. Or else
+M. de Lesdiguieres will have you laid by the heels, and it will be
+good-night for you."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
+
+Andre-Louis rode forth from Rennes committed to a deeper adventure than
+he had dreamed of when he left the sleepy village of Gavrillac. Lying
+the night at a roadside inn, and setting out again early in the morning,
+he reached Nantes soon after noon of the following day.
+
+Through that long and lonely ride through the dull plains of Brittany,
+now at their dreariest in their winter garb, he had ample leisure in
+which to review his actions and his position. From one who had taken
+hitherto a purely academic and by no means friendly interest in the new
+philosophies of social life, exercising his wits upon these new ideas
+merely as a fencer exercises his eye and wrist with the foils, without
+ever suffering himself to be deluded into supposing the issue a real
+one, he found himself suddenly converted into a revolutionary firebrand,
+committed to revolutionary action of the most desperate kind. The
+representative and delegate of a nobleman in the States of Brittany, he
+found himself simultaneously and incongruously the representative and
+delegate of the whole Third Estate of Rennes.
+
+It is difficult to determine to what extent, in the heat of passion and
+swept along by the torrent of his own oratory, he might yesterday have
+succeeded in deceiving himself. But it is at least certain that, looking
+back in cold blood now, he had no single delusion on the score of what
+he had done. Cynically he had presented to his audience one side only of
+the great question that he propounded.
+
+But since the established order of things in France was such as to make
+a rampart for M. de La Tour d'Azyr, affording him complete immunity for
+this and any other crimes that it pleased him to commit, why, then the
+established order must take the consequences of its wrong-doing. Therein
+he perceived his clear justification.
+
+And so it was without misgivings that he came on his errand of sedition
+into that beautiful city of Nantes, rendered by its spacious streets and
+splendid port the rival in prosperity of Bordeaux and Marseilles.
+
+He found an inn on the Quai La Fosse, where he put up his horse, and
+where he dined in the embrasure of a window that looked out over the
+tree-bordered quay and the broad bosom of the Loire, on which argosies
+of all nations rode at anchor. The sun had again broken through the
+clouds, and shed its pale wintry light over the yellow waters and the
+tall-masted shipping.
+
+Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen
+on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish garments and of
+harsh-sounding, outlandish speech, stalwart fishwives with baskets of
+herrings on their heads, voluminous of petticoat above bare legs and
+bare feet, calling their wares shrilly and almost inarticulately,
+watermen in woollen caps and loose trousers rolled to the knees,
+peasants in goatskin coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the
+round kidney-stones, shipwrights and labourers from the dockyards,
+bellows-menders, rat-catchers, water-carriers, ink-sellers, and other
+itinerant pedlars. And, sprinkled through this proletariat mass that
+came and went in constant movement, Andre-Louis beheld tradesmen in
+sober garments, merchants in long, fur-lined coats; occasionally
+a merchant-prince rolling along in his two-horse cabriolet to the
+whip-crackings and shouts of "Gare!" from his coachman; occasionally a
+dainty lady carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a mincing abbe
+from the episcopal court tripping along in attendance; occasionally an
+officer in scarlet riding disdainfully; and once the great carriage of
+a nobleman, with escutcheoned panels and a pair of white-stockinged,
+powdered footmen in gorgeous liveries hanging on behind. And there were
+Capuchins in brown and Benedictines in black, and secular priests in
+plenty--for God was well served in the sixteen parishes of Nantes--and
+by way of contrast there were lean-jawed, out-at-elbow adventurers, and
+gendarmes in blue coats and gaitered legs, sauntering guardians of the
+peace.
+
+Representatives of every class that went to make up the seventy thousand
+inhabitants of that wealthy, industrious city were to be seen in
+the human stream that ebbed and flowed beneath the window from which
+Andre-Louis observed it.
+
+Of the waiter who ministered to his humble wants with soup and bouilli,
+and a measure of vin gris, Andre-Louis enquired into the state of public
+feeling in the city. The waiter, a staunch supporter of the privileged
+orders, admitted regretfully that an uneasiness prevailed. Much would
+depend upon what happened at Rennes. If it was true that the King had
+dissolved the States of Brittany, then all should be well, and the
+malcontents would have no pretext for further disturbances. There had
+been trouble and to spare in Nantes already. They wanted no repetition
+of it. All manner of rumours were abroad, and since early morning there
+had been crowds besieging the portals of the Chamber of Commerce for
+definite news. But definite news was yet to come. It was not even known
+for a fact that His Majesty actually had dissolved the States.
+
+It was striking two, the busiest hour of the day upon the Bourse, when
+Andre-Louis reached the Place du Commerce. The square, dominated by the
+imposing classical building of the Exchange, was so crowded that he
+was compelled almost to fight his way through to the steps of the
+magnificent Ionic porch. A word would have sufficed to have opened a way
+for him at once. But guile moved him to keep silent. He would come upon
+that waiting multitude as a thunderclap, precisely as yesterday he
+had come upon the mob at Rennes. He would lose nothing of the surprise
+effect of his entrance.
+
+The precincts of that house of commerce were jealously kept by a line
+of ushers armed with staves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the
+merchants as it was evidently necessary. One of these now effectively
+barred the young lawyer's passage as he attempted to mount the steps.
+
+Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.
+
+The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he passed and
+went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top, on the threshold
+of the chamber, he paused, and stayed his guide.
+
+"I will wait here," he announced. "Bring the president to me."
+
+"Your name, monsieur?"
+
+Almost had Andre-Louis answered him when he remembered Le Chapelier's
+warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le
+Chapelier's parting admonition to conceal his identity.
+
+"My name is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece of a
+people, no more. Go."
+
+The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared portico
+Andre-Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon to survey that
+spread of upturned faces immediately below him.
+
+Soon the president came, others following, crowding out into the
+portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.
+
+"You are a messenger from Rennes?"
+
+"I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber of that city to inform
+you here in Nantes of what is taking place."
+
+"Your name?"
+
+Andre-Louis paused. "The less we mention names perhaps the better."
+
+The president's eyes grew big with gravity. He was a corpulent, florid
+man, purse-proud, and self-sufficient.
+
+He hesitated a moment. Then--"Come into the Chamber," said he.
+
+"By your leave, monsieur, I will deliver my message from here--from these
+steps."
+
+"From here?" The great merchant frowned.
+
+"My message is for the people of Nantes, and from here I can speak
+at once to the greatest number of Nantais of all ranks, and it is my
+desire--and the desire of those whom I represent--that as great a number
+as possible should hear my message at first hand."
+
+"Tell me, sir, is it true that the King has dissolved the States?"
+
+Andre-Louis looked at him. He smiled apologetically, and waved a hand
+towards the crowd, which by now was straining for a glimpse of this slim
+young man who had brought forth the president and more than half the
+numbers of the Chamber, guessing already, with that curious instinct of
+crowds, that he was the awaited bearer of tidings.
+
+"Summon the gentlemen of your Chamber, monsieur," said he, "and you
+shall hear all."
+
+"So be it."
+
+A word, and forth they came to crowd upon the steps, but leaving clear
+the topmost step and a half-moon space in the middle.
+
+To the spot so indicated, Andre-Louis now advanced very deliberately.
+He took his stand there, dominating the entire assembly. He removed
+his hat, and launched the opening bombshell of that address which
+is historic, marking as it does one of the great stages of France's
+progress towards revolution.
+
+"People of this great city of Nantes, I have come to summon you to
+arms!"
+
+In the amazed and rather scared silence that followed he surveyed them
+for a moment before resuming.
+
+"I am a delegate of the people of Rennes, charged to announce to you
+what is taking place, and to invite you in this dreadful hour of our
+country's peril to rise and march to her defence."
+
+"Name! Your name!" a voice shouted, and instantly the cry was taken up
+by others, until the multitude rang with the question.
+
+He could not answer that excited mob as he had answered the president.
+It was necessary to compromise, and he did so, happily. "My name," said
+he, "is Omnes Omnibus--all for all. Let that suffice you now. I am a
+herald, a mouthpiece, a voice; no more. I come to announce to you that
+since the privileged orders, assembled for the States of Brittany in
+Rennes, resisted your will--our will--despite the King's plain hint to
+them, His Majesty has dissolved the States."
+
+There was a burst of delirious applause. Men laughed and shouted, and
+cries of "Vive le Roi!" rolled forth like thunder. Andre-Louis waited,
+and gradually the preternatural gravity of his countenance came to be
+observed, and to beget the suspicion that there might be more to follow.
+Gradually silence was restored, and at last Andre Louis was able to
+proceed.
+
+"You rejoice too soon. Unfortunately, the nobles, in their insolent
+arrogance, have elected to ignore the royal dissolution, and in despite
+of it persist in sitting and in conducting matters as seems good to
+them."
+
+A silence of utter dismay greeted that disconcerting epilogue to
+the announcement that had been so rapturously received. Andre-Louis
+continued after a moment's pause:
+
+"So that these men who were already rebels against the people, rebels,
+against justice and equity, rebels against humanity itself, are now
+also rebels against their King. Sooner than yield an inch of the
+unconscionable privileges by which too long already they have
+flourished, to the misery of a whole nation, they will make a mock
+of royal authority, hold up the King himself to contempt. They are
+determined to prove that there is no real sovereignty in France but the
+sovereignty of their own parasitic faineantise."
+
+There was a faint splutter of applause, but the majority of the audience
+remained silent, waiting.
+
+"This is no new thing. Always has it been the same. No minister in
+the last ten years, who, seeing the needs and perils of the State,
+counselled the measures that we now demand as the only means of
+arresting our motherland in its ever-quickening progress to the abyss,
+but found himself as a consequence cast out of office by the influence
+which Privilege brought to bear against him. Twice already has M. Necker
+been called to the ministry, to be twice dismissed when his insistent
+counsels of reform threatened the privileges of clergy and nobility. For
+the third time now has he been called to office, and at last it seems
+we are to have States General in spite of Privilege. But what the
+privileged orders can no longer prevent, they are determined to
+stultify. Since it is now a settled thing that these States General are
+to meet, at least the nobles and the clergy will see to it--unless we
+take measures to prevent them--by packing the Third Estate with their
+own creatures, and denying it all effective representation, that they
+convert the States General into an instrument of their own will for the
+perpetuation of the abuses by which they live. To achieve this end they
+will stop at nothing. They have flouted the authority of the King, and
+they are silencing by assassination those who raise their voices to
+condemn them. Yesterday in Rennes two young men who addressed the people
+as I am addressing you were done to death in the streets by assassins at
+the instigation of the nobility. Their blood cries out for vengeance."
+
+Beginning in a sullen mutter, the indignation that moved his hearers
+swelled up to express itself in a roar of anger.
+
+"Citizens of Nantes, the motherland is in peril. Let us march to her
+defence. Let us proclaim it to the world that we recognize that the
+measures to liberate the Third Estate from the slavery in which for
+centuries it has groaned find only obstacles in those orders whose
+phrenetic egotism sees in the tears and suffering of the unfortunate
+an odious tribute which they would pass on to their generations still
+unborn. Realizing from the barbarity of the means employed by our
+enemies to perpetuate our oppression that we have everything to fear
+from the aristocracy they would set up as a constitutional principle for
+the governing of France, let us declare ourselves at once enfranchised
+from it.
+
+"The establishment of liberty and equality should be the aim of every
+citizen member of the Third Estate; and to this end we should stand
+indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous, especially those
+who have had the good fortune to be born late enough to be able to
+gather for themselves the precious fruits of the philosophy of this
+eighteenth century."
+
+Acclamations broke out unstintedly now. He had caught them in the snare
+of his oratory. And he pressed his advantage instantly.
+
+"Let us all swear," he cried in a great voice, "to raise up in the name
+of humanity and of liberty a rampart against our enemies, to oppose to
+their bloodthirsty covetousness the calm perseverance of men whose cause
+is just. And let us protest here and in advance against any tyrannical
+decrees that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure and
+just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honour of our motherland that
+should any of us be seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us
+one of those acts termed of political expediency--which are, in effect,
+but acts of despotism--let us swear, I say, to give a full expression
+to the strength that is in us and do that in self-defence which nature,
+courage, and despair dictate to us."
+
+Loud and long rolled the applause that greeted his conclusion, and he
+observed with satisfaction and even some inward grim amusement that the
+wealthy merchants who had been congregated upon the steps, and who now
+came crowding about him to shake him by the hand and to acclaim him,
+were not merely participants in, but the actual leaders of, this
+delirium of enthusiasm.
+
+It confirmed him, had he needed confirmation, in his conviction that
+just as the philosophies upon which this new movement was based had
+their source in thinkers extracted from the bourgeoisie, so the need
+to adopt those philosophies to the practical purposes of life was most
+acutely felt at present by those bourgeois who found themselves debarred
+by Privilege from the expansion their wealth permitted them. If it might
+be said of Andre-Louis that he had that day lighted the torch of the
+Revolution in Nantes, it might with even greater truth be said that the
+torch itself was supplied by the opulent bourgeoisie.
+
+I need not dwell at any length upon the sequel. It is a matter of
+history how that oath which Omnes Omnibus administered to the citizens
+of Nantes formed the backbone of the formal protest which they drew up
+and signed in their thousands. Nor were the results of that powerful
+protest--which, after all, might already be said to harmonize with the
+expressed will of the sovereign himself--long delayed. Who shall say how
+far it may have strengthened the hand of Necker, when on the 27th of
+that same month of November he compelled the Council to adopt the most
+significant and comprehensive of all those measures to which clergy and
+nobility had refused their consent? On that date was published the royal
+decree ordaining that the deputies to be elected to the States General
+should number at least one thousand, and that the deputies of the
+Third Estate should be fully representative by numbering as many as the
+deputies of clergy and nobility together.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE AFTERMATH
+
+Dusk of the following day was falling when the homing Andre-Louis
+approached Gavrillac. Realizing fully what a hue and cry there would
+presently be for the apostle of revolution who had summoned the people
+of Nantes to arms, he desired as far as possible to conceal the fact
+that he had been in that maritime city. Therefore he made a wide detour,
+crossing the river at Bruz, and recrossing it a little above Chavagne,
+so as to approach Gavrillac from the north, and create the impression
+that he was returning from Rennes, whither he was known to have gone two
+days ago.
+
+Within a mile or so of the village he caught in the fading light his
+first glimpse of a figure on horseback pacing slowly towards him. But
+it was not until they had come within a few yards of each other, and he
+observed that this cloaked figure was leaning forward to peer at him,
+that he took much notice of it. And then he found himself challenged
+almost at once by a woman's voice.
+
+"It is you, Andre--at last!"
+
+He drew rein, mildly surprised, to be assailed by another question,
+impatiently, anxiously asked.
+
+"Where have you been?"
+
+"Where have I been, Cousin Aline? Oh... seeing the world."
+
+"I have been patrolling this road since noon to-day waiting for
+you." She spoke breathlessly, in haste to explain. "A troop of the
+marechaussee from Rennes descended upon Gavrillac this morning in quest
+of you. They turned the chateau and the village inside out, and at
+last discovered that you were due to return with a horse hired from the
+Breton arme. So they have taken up their quarters at the inn to wait
+for you. I have been here all the afternoon on the lookout to warn you
+against walking into that trap."
+
+"My dear Aline! That I should have been the cause of so much concern and
+trouble!"
+
+"Never mind that. It is not important."
+
+"On the contrary; it is the most important part of what you tell me. It
+is the rest that is unimportant."
+
+"Do you realize that they have come to arrest you?" she asked him, with
+increasing impatience. "You are wanted for sedition, and upon a warrant
+from M. de Lesdiguieres."
+
+"Sedition?" quoth he, and his thoughts flew to that business at Nantes.
+It was impossible they could have had news of it in Rennes and acted
+upon it in so short a time.
+
+"Yes, sedition. The sedition of that wicked speech of yours at Rennes on
+Wednesday."
+
+"Oh, that!" said he. "Pooh!" His note of relief might have told her,
+had she been more attentive, that he had to fear the consequences of a
+greater wickedness committed since. "Why, that was nothing."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"I almost suspect that the real intentions of these gentlemen of the
+marechaussee have been misunderstood. Most probably they have come to
+thank me on M. de Lesdiguieres' behalf. I restrained the people when
+they would have burnt the Palais and himself inside it."
+
+"After you had first incited them to do it. I suppose you were afraid of
+your work. You drew back at the last moment. But you said things of
+M. de Lesdiguieres, if you are correctly reported, which he will never
+forgive."
+
+"I see," said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought.
+
+But Mlle. de Kercadiou had already done what thinking was necessary, and
+her alert young mind had settled all that was to be done.
+
+"You must not go into Gavrillac," she told him, "and you must get down
+from your horse, and let me take it. I will stable it at the chateau
+to-night. And sometime to-morrow afternoon, by when you should be well
+away, I will return it to the Breton arme."
+
+"Oh, but that is impossible."
+
+"Impossible? Why?"
+
+"For several reasons. One of them is that you haven't considered what
+will happen to you if you do such a thing."
+
+"To me? Do you suppose I am afraid of that pack of oafs sent by M.
+Lesdiguieres? I have committed no sedition."
+
+"But it is almost as bad to give aid to one who is wanted for the crime.
+That is the law."
+
+"What do I care for the law? Do you imagine that the law will presume to
+touch me?"
+
+"Of course there is that. You are sheltered by one of the abuses I
+complained of at Rennes. I was forgetting."
+
+"Complain of it as much as you please, but meanwhile profit by it. Come,
+Andre, do as I tell you. Get down from your horse." And then, as he
+still hesitated, she stretched out and caught him by the arm. Her voice
+was vibrant with earnestness. "Andre, you don't realize how serious is
+your position. If these people take you, it is almost certain that you
+will be hanged. Don't you realize it? You must not go to Gavrillac.
+You must go away at once, and lie completely lost for a time until this
+blows over. Indeed, until my uncle can bring influence to bear to obtain
+your pardon, you must keep in hiding."
+
+"That will be a long time, then," said Andre-Louis. "M. de Kercadiou has
+never cultivated friends at court."
+
+"There is M. de La Tour d'Azyr," she reminded him, to his astonishment.
+
+"That man!" he cried, and then he laughed. "But it was chiefly against
+him that I aroused the resentment of the people of Rennes. I should have
+known that all my speech was not reported to you."
+
+"It was, and that part of it among the rest."
+
+"Ah! And yet you are concerned to save me, the man who seeks the life of
+your future husband at the hands either of the law or of the people? Or
+is it, perhaps, that since you have seen his true nature revealed in the
+murder of poor Philippe, you have changed your views on the subject of
+becoming Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr?"
+
+"You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning."
+
+"Perhaps. But hardly to the extent of imagining that M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr will ever lift a finger to do as you suggest."
+
+"In which, as usual, you are wrong. He will certainly do so if I ask
+him."
+
+"If you ask him?" Sheer horror rang in his voice.
+
+"Why, yes. You see, I have not yet said that I will be Marquise de
+La Tour d'Azyr. I am still considering. It is a position that has
+its advantages. One of them is that it ensures a suitor's complete
+obedience."
+
+"So, so. I see the crooked logic of your mind. You might go so far as
+to say to him: 'Refuse me this, and I shall refuse to be your marquise.'
+You would go so far as that?"
+
+"At need, I might."
+
+"And do you not see the converse implication? Do you not see that
+your hands would then be tied, that you would be wanting in honour if
+afterwards you refused him? And do you think that I would consent to
+anything that could so tie your hands? Do you think I want to see you
+damned, Aline?"
+
+Her hand fell away from his arm.
+
+"Oh, you are mad!" she exclaimed, quite out of patience.
+
+"Possibly. But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to
+such sanity as yours. By your leave, Aline, I think I will ride on to
+Gavrillac."
+
+"Andre, you must not! It is death to you!" In her alarm she backed her
+horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.
+
+It was almost completely night by now; but from behind the wrack of
+clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.
+
+"Come, now," she enjoined him. "Be reasonable. Do as I bid you. See,
+there is a carriage coming up behind you. Do not let us be found here
+together thus."
+
+He made up his mind quickly. He was not the man to be actuated by false
+heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever for the gallows of M.
+de Lesdiguieres' providing. The immediate task that he had set himself
+might be accomplished. He had made heard--and ringingly--the voice that
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was very far from
+having done with life.
+
+"Aline, on one condition only."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"That you swear to me you will never seek the aid of M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr on my behalf."
+
+"Since you insist, and as time presses, I consent. And now ride on with
+me as far as the lane. There is that carriage coming up."
+
+The lane to which she referred was one that branched off the road some
+three hundred yards nearer the village and led straight up the hill
+to the chateau itself. In silence they rode together towards it, and
+together they turned into that thickly hedged and narrow bypath. At a
+depth of fifty yards she halted him.
+
+"Now!" she bade him.
+
+Obediently he swung down from his horse, and surrendered the reins to
+her.
+
+"Aline," he said, "I haven't words in which to thank you."
+
+"It isn't necessary," said she.
+
+"But I shall hope to repay you some day."
+
+"Nor is that necessary. Could I do less than I am doing? I do not want
+to hear of you hanged, Andre; nor does my uncle, though he is very angry
+with you."
+
+"I suppose he is."
+
+"And you can hardly be surprised. You were his delegate, his
+representative. He depended upon you, and you have turned your coat. He
+is rightly indignant, calls you a traitor, and swears that he will never
+speak to you again. But he doesn't want you hanged, Andre."
+
+"Then we are agreed on that at least, for I don't want it myself."
+
+"I'll make your peace with him. And now--good-bye, Andre. Send me a word
+when you are safe."
+
+She held out a hand that looked ghostly in the faint light. He took it
+and bore it to his lips.
+
+"God bless you, Aline."
+
+She was gone, and he stood listening to the receding clopper-clop of
+hooves until it grew faint in the distance. Then slowly, with shoulders
+hunched and head sunk on his breast, he retraced his steps to the
+main road, cogitating whither he should go. Quite suddenly he checked,
+remembering with dismay that he was almost entirely without money. In
+Brittany itself he knew of no dependable hiding-place, and as long as
+he was in Brittany his peril must remain imminent. Yet to leave the
+province, and to leave it as quickly as prudence dictated, horses would
+be necessary. And how was he to procure horses, having no money beyond a
+single louis d'or and a few pieces of silver?
+
+There was also the fact that he was very weary. He had had little sleep
+since Tuesday night, and not very much then; and much of the time had
+been spent in the saddle, a wearing thing to one so little accustomed
+to long rides. Worn as he was, it was unthinkable that he should go far
+to-night. He might get as far as Chavagne, perhaps. But there he must
+sup and sleep; and what, then, of to-morrow?
+
+Had he but thought of it before, perhaps Aline might have been able to
+assist him with the loan of a few louis. His first impulse now was to
+follow her to the chateau. But prudence dismissed the notion. Before he
+could reach her, he must be seen by servants, and word of his presence
+would go forth.
+
+There was no choice for him; he must tramp as far as Chavagne, find a
+bed there, and leave to-morrow until it dawned. On the resolve he set
+his face in the direction whence he had come. But again he paused.
+Chavagne lay on the road to Rennes. To go that way was to plunge further
+into danger. He would strike south again. At the foot of some meadows on
+this side of the village there was a ferry that would put him across the
+river. Thus he would avoid the village; and by placing the river between
+himself and the immediate danger, he would obtain an added sense of
+security.
+
+A lane, turning out of the highroad, a quarter of a mile this side of
+Gavrillac, led down to that ferry. By this lane some twenty minutes
+later came Andre-Louis with dragging feet. He avoided the little cottage
+of the ferryman, whose window was alight, and in the dark crept down to
+the boat, intending if possible to put himself across. He felt for the
+chain by which the boat was moored, and ran his fingers along this to
+the point where it was fastened. Here to his dismay he found a padlock.
+
+He stood up in the gloom and laughed silently. Of course he might have
+known it. The ferry was the property of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and not
+likely to be left unfastened so that poor devils might cheat him of
+seigneurial dues.
+
+There being no possible alternative, he walked back to the cottage, and
+rapped on the door. When it opened, he stood well back, and aside, out
+of the shaft of light that issued thence.
+
+"Ferry!" he rapped out, laconically.
+
+The ferryman, a burly scoundrel well known to him, turned aside to pick
+up a lantern, and came forth as he was bidden. As he stepped from the
+little porch, he levelled the lantern so that its light fell on the face
+of this traveller.
+
+"My God!" he ejaculated.
+
+"You realize, I see, that I am pressed," said Andre-Louis, his eyes on
+the fellow's startled countenance.
+
+"And well you may be with the gallows waiting for you at Rennes,"
+growled the ferryman. "Since you've been so foolish as to come back to
+Gavrillac, you had better go again as quickly as you can. I will say
+nothing of having seen you."
+
+"I thank you, Fresnel. Your advice accords with my intention. That is
+why I need the boat."
+
+"Ah, that, no," said Fresnel, with determination. "I'll hold my peace,
+but it's as much as my skin is worth to help you.
+
+"You need not have seen my face. Forget that you have seen it."
+
+"I'll do that, monsieur. But that is all I will do. I cannot put you
+across the river."
+
+"Then give me the key of the boat, and I will put myself across."
+
+"That is the same thing. I cannot. I'll hold my tongue, but I will not--I
+dare not--help you."
+
+Andre-Louis looked a moment into that sullen, resolute face, and
+understood. This man, living under the shadow of La Tour d'Azyr, dared
+exercise no will that might be in conflict with the will of his dread
+lord.
+
+"Fresnel," he said, quietly, "if, as you say, the gallows claim me, the
+thing that has brought me to this extremity arises out of the shooting
+of Mabey. Had not Mabey been murdered there would have been no need
+for me to have raised my voice as I have done. Mabey was your friend, I
+think. Will you for his sake lend me the little help I need to save my
+neck?"
+
+The man kept his glance averted, and the cloud of sullenness deepened on
+his face.
+
+"I would if I dared, but I dare not." Then, quite suddenly he became
+angry. It was as if in anger he sought support. "Don't you understand
+that I dare not? Would you have a poor man risk his life for you? What
+have you or yours ever done for me that you should ask that? You do not
+cross to-night in my ferry. Understand that, monsieur, and go at once--go
+before I remember that it may be dangerous even to have talked to you
+and not give information. Go!"
+
+He turned on his heel to reenter his cottage, and a wave of hopelessness
+swept over Andre-Louis.
+
+But in a second it was gone. The man must be compelled, and he had the
+means. He bethought him of a pistol pressed upon him by Le Chapelier at
+the moment of his leaving Rennes, a gift which at the time he had almost
+disdained. True, it was not loaded, and he had no ammunition. But how
+was Fresnel to know that?
+
+He acted quickly. As with his right hand he pulled it from his pocket,
+with his left he caught the ferryman by the shoulder, and swung him
+round.
+
+"What do you want now?" Fresnel demanded angrily. "Haven't I told you
+that I..."
+
+He broke off short. The muzzle of the pistol was within a foot of his
+eyes.
+
+"I want the key of the boat. That is all, Fresnel. And you can either
+give it me at once, or I'll take it after I have burnt your brains. I
+should regret to kill you, but I shall not hesitate. It is your life
+against mine, Fresnel; and you'll not find it strange that if one of us
+must die I prefer that it shall be you."
+
+Fresnel dipped a hand into his pocket, and fetched thence a key. He held
+it out to Andre-Louis in fingers that shook--more in anger than in fear.
+
+"I yield to violence," he said, showing his teeth like a snarling dog.
+"But don't imagine that it will greatly profit you."
+
+Andre-Louis took the key. His pistol remained levelled.
+
+"You threaten me, I think," he said. "It is not difficult to read your
+threat. The moment I am gone, you will run to inform against me. You
+will set the marechaussee on my heels to overtake me."
+
+"No, no!" cried the other. He perceived his peril. He read his doom in
+the cold, sinister note on which Andre-Louis addressed him, and grew
+afraid. "I swear to you, monsieur, that I have no such intention."
+
+"I think I had better make quite sure of you."
+
+"O my God! Have mercy, monsieur!" The knave was in a palsy of terror. "I
+mean you no harm--I swear to Heaven I mean you no harm. I will not say a
+word. I will not..."
+
+"I would rather depend upon your silence than your assurances.
+Still, you shall have your chance. I am a fool, perhaps, but I have a
+reluctance to shed blood. Go into the house, Fresnel. Go, man. I follow
+you."
+
+In the shabby main room of that dwelling, Andre-Louis halted him again.
+"Get me a length of rope," he commanded, and was readily obeyed.
+
+Five minutes later Fresnel was securely bound to a chair, and
+effectively silenced by a very uncomfortable gag improvised out of a
+block of wood and a muffler.
+
+On the threshold the departing Andre-Louis turned.
+
+"Good-night, Fresnel," he said. Fierce eyes glared mute hatred at him.
+"It is unlikely that your ferry will be required again to-night. But
+some one is sure to come to your relief quite early in the morning.
+Until then bear your discomfort with what fortitude you can,
+remembering that you have brought it entirely upon yourself by your
+uncharitableness. If you spend the night considering that, the lesson
+should not be lost upon you. By morning you may even have grown so
+charitable as not to know who it was that tied you up. Good-night."
+
+He stepped out and closed the door.
+
+To unlock the ferry, and pull himself across the swift-running waters,
+on which the faint moonlight was making a silver ripple, were matters
+that engaged not more than six or seven minutes. He drove the nose of
+the boat through the decaying sedges that fringed the southern bank
+of the stream, sprang ashore, and made the little craft secure. Then,
+missing the footpath in the dark, he struck out across a sodden meadow
+in quest of the road.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II: THE BUSKIN
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE TRESPASSERS
+
+Coming presently upon the Redon road, Andre-Louis, obeying instinct
+rather than reason, turned his face to the south, and plodded wearily
+and mechanically forward. He had no clear idea of whither he was going,
+or of whither he should go. All that imported at the moment was to put
+as great a distance as possible between Gavrillac and himself.
+
+He had a vague, half-formed notion of returning to Nantes; and there, by
+employing the newly found weapon of his oratory, excite the people into
+sheltering him as the first victim of the persecution he had foreseen,
+and against which he had sworn them to take up arms. But the idea was
+one which he entertained merely as an indefinite possibility upon which
+he felt no real impulse to act.
+
+Meanwhile he chuckled at the thought of Fresnel as he had last seen him,
+with his muffled face and glaring eyeballs. "For one who was anything
+but a man of action," he writes, "I felt that I had acquitted myself
+none so badly." It is a phrase that recurs at intervals in his sketchy
+"Confessions." Constantly is he reminding you that he is a man of mental
+and not physical activities, and apologizing when dire necessity
+drives him into acts of violence. I suspect this insistence upon
+his philosophic detachment--for which I confess he had justification
+enough--to betray his besetting vanity.
+
+With increasing fatigue came depression and self-criticism. He had
+stupidly overshot his mark in insultingly denouncing M. de Lesdiguieres.
+"It is much better," he says somewhere, "to be wicked than to be stupid.
+Most of this world's misery is the fruit not as priests tell us of
+wickedness, but of stupidity." And we know that of all stupidities he
+considered anger the most deplorable. Yet he had permitted himself to
+be angry with a creature like M. de Lesdiguieres--a lackey, a fribble,
+a nothing, despite his potentialities for evil. He could perfectly have
+discharged his self-imposed mission without arousing the vindictive
+resentment of the King's Lieutenant.
+
+He beheld himself vaguely launched upon life with the riding-suit in
+which he stood, a single louis d'or and a few pieces of silver for all
+capital, and a knowledge of law which had been inadequate to preserve
+him from the consequences of infringing it.
+
+He had, in addition--but these things that were to be the real salvation
+of him he did not reckon--his gift of laughter, sadly repressed of late,
+and the philosophic outlook and mercurial temperament which are the
+stock-in-trade of your adventurer in all ages.
+
+Meanwhile he tramped mechanically on through the night, until he felt
+that he could tramp no more. He had skirted the little township of
+Guichen, and now within a half-mile of Guignen, and with Gavrillac a
+good seven miles behind him, his legs refused to carry him any farther.
+
+He was midway across the vast common to the north of Guignen when
+he came to a halt. He had left the road, and taken heedlessly to
+the footpath that struck across the waste of indifferent pasture
+interspersed with clumps of gorse. A stone's throw away on his right the
+common was bordered by a thorn hedge. Beyond this loomed a tall building
+which he knew to be an open barn, standing on the edge of a long stretch
+of meadowland. That dark, silent shadow it may have been that had
+brought him to a standstill, suggesting shelter to his subconsciousness.
+A moment he hesitated; then he struck across towards a spot where a gap
+in the hedge was closed by a five-barred gate. He pushed the gate open,
+went through the gap, and stood now before the barn. It was as big as
+a house, yet consisted of no more than a roof carried upon half a dozen
+tall, brick pillars. But densely packed under that roof was a great
+stack of hay that promised a warm couch on so cold a night. Stout
+timbers had been built into the brick pillars, with projecting ends to
+serve as ladders by which the labourer might climb to pack or withdraw
+hay. With what little strength remained him, Andre-Louis climbed by one
+of these and landed safely at the top, where he was forced to kneel, for
+lack of room to stand upright. Arrived there, he removed his coat and
+neckcloth, his sodden boots and stockings. Next he cleared a trough for
+his body, and lying down in it, covered himself to the neck with the hay
+he had removed. Within five minutes he was lost to all worldly cares and
+soundly asleep.
+
+When next he awakened, the sun was already high in the heavens, from
+which he concluded that the morning was well advanced; and this before
+he realized quite where he was or how he came there. Then to his
+awakening senses came a drone of voices close at hand, to which at first
+he paid little heed. He was deliciously refreshed, luxuriously drowsy
+and luxuriously warm.
+
+But as consciousness and memory grew more full, he raised his head clear
+of the hay that he might free both ears to listen, his pulses faintly
+quickened by the nascent fear that those voices might bode him no good.
+Then he caught the reassuring accents of a woman, musical and silvery,
+though laden with alarm.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu, Leandre, let us separate at once. If it should be my
+father..."
+
+And upon this a man's voice broke in, calm and reassuring:
+
+"No, no, Climene; you are mistaken. There is no one coming. We are quite
+safe. Why do you start at shadows?"
+
+"Ah, Leandre, if he should find us here together! I tremble at the very
+thought."
+
+More was not needed to reassure Andre-Louis. He had overheard enough to
+know that this was but the case of a pair of lovers who, with less to
+fear of life, were yet--after the manner of their kind--more timid of
+heart than he. Curiosity drew him from his warm trough to the edge of
+the hay. Lying prone, he advanced his head and peered down.
+
+In the space of cropped meadow between the barn and the hedge stood a
+man and a woman, both young. The man was a well-set-up, comely fellow,
+with a fine head of chestnut hair tied in a queue by a broad bow of
+black satin. He was dressed with certain tawdry attempts at ostentatious
+embellishments, which did not prepossess one at first glance in his
+favour. His coat of a fashionable cut was of faded plum-coloured velvet
+edged with silver lace, whose glory had long since departed. He affected
+ruffles, but for want of starch they hung like weeping willows over
+hands that were fine and delicate. His breeches were of plain black
+cloth, and his black stockings were of cotton--matters entirely out of
+harmony with his magnificent coat. His shoes, stout and serviceable,
+were decked with buckles of cheap, lack-lustre paste. But for his
+engaging and ingenuous countenance, Andre-Louis must have set him down
+as a knight of that order which lives dishonestly by its wits. As it
+was, he suspended judgment whilst pushing investigation further by a
+study of the girl. At the outset, be it confessed that it was a study
+that attracted him prodigiously. And this notwithstanding the fact that,
+bookish and studious as were his ways, and in despite of his years, it
+was far from his habit to waste consideration on femininity.
+
+The child--she was no more than that, perhaps twenty at the
+most--possessed, in addition to the allurements of face and shape that
+went very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity and a grace of movement
+the like of which Andre-Louis did not remember ever before to have
+beheld assembled in one person. And her voice too--that musical, silvery
+voice that had awakened him--possessed in its exquisite modulations an
+allurement of its own that must have been irresistible, he thought, in
+the ugliest of her sex. She wore a hooded mantle of green cloth, and the
+hood being thrown back, her dainty head was all revealed to him. There
+were glints of gold struck by the morning sun from her light nut-brown
+hair that hung in a cluster of curls about her oval face. Her complexion
+was of a delicacy that he could compare only with a rose petal. He could
+not at that distance discern the colour of her eyes, but he guessed them
+blue, as he admired the sparkle of them under the fine, dark line of
+eyebrows.
+
+He could not have told you why, but he was conscious that it aggrieved
+him to find her so intimate with this pretty young fellow, who was
+partly clad, as it appeared, in the cast-offs of a nobleman. He could
+not guess her station, but the speech that reached him was cultured in
+tone and word. He strained to listen.
+
+"I shall know no peace, Leandre, until we are safely wedded," she was
+saying. "Not until then shall I count myself beyond his reach. And yet
+if we marry without his consent, we but make trouble for ourselves, and
+of gaining his consent I almost despair."
+
+Evidently, thought Andre-Louis, her father was a man of sense, who saw
+through the shabby finery of M. Leandre, and was not to be dazzled by
+cheap paste buckles.
+
+"My dear Climene," the young man was answering her, standing squarely
+before her, and holding both her hands, "you are wrong to despond. If I
+do not reveal to you all the stratagem that I have prepared to win the
+consent of your unnatural parent, it is because I am loath to rob you of
+the pleasure of the surprise that is in store. But place your faith in
+me, and in that ingenious friend of whom I have spoken, and who should
+be here at any moment."
+
+The stilted ass! Had he learnt that speech by heart in advance, or was
+he by nature a pedantic idiot who expressed himself in this set and
+formal manner? How came so sweet a blossom to waste her perfumes on such
+a prig? And what a ridiculous name the creature owned!
+
+Thus Andre-Louis to himself from his observatory. Meanwhile, she was
+speaking.
+
+"That is what my heart desires, Leandre, but I am beset by fears lest
+your stratagem should be too late. I am to marry this horrible Marquis
+of Sbrufadelli this very day. He arrives by noon. He comes to sign the
+contract--to make me the Marchioness of Sbrufadelli. Oh!" It was a cry of
+pain from that tender young heart. "The very name burns my lips. If it
+were mine I could never utter it--never! The man is so detestable. Save
+me, Leandre. Save me! You are my only hope."
+
+Andre-Louis was conscious of a pang of disappointment. She failed to
+soar to the heights he had expected of her. She was evidently infected
+by the stilted manner of her ridiculous lover. There was an atrocious
+lack of sincerity about her words. They touched his mind, but left his
+heart unmoved. Perhaps this was because of his antipathy to M. Leandre
+and to the issue involved.
+
+So her father was marrying her to a marquis! That implied birth on
+her side. And yet she was content to pair off with this dull young
+adventurer in the tarnished lace! It was, he supposed, the sort of thing
+to be expected of a sex that all philosophy had taught him to regard as
+the maddest part of a mad species.
+
+"It shall never be!" M. Leandre was storming passionately. "Never! I
+swear it!" And he shook his puny fist at the blue vault of heaven--Ajax
+defying Jupiter. "Ah, but here comes our subtle friend..." (Andre-Louis
+did not catch the name, M. Leandre having at that moment turned to face
+the gap in the hedge.) "He will bring us news, I know."
+
+Andre-Louis looked also in the direction of the gap. Through it emerged
+a lean, slight man in a rusty cloak and a three-cornered hat worn well
+down over his nose so as to shade his face. And when presently he
+doffed this hat and made a sweeping bow to the young lovers, Andre-Louis
+confessed to himself that had he been cursed with such a hangdog
+countenance he would have worn his hat in precisely such a manner, so
+as to conceal as much of it as possible. If M. Leandre appeared to
+be wearing, in part at least, the cast-offs of nobleman, the newcomer
+appeared to be wearing the cast-offs of M. Leandre. Yet despite his vile
+clothes and viler face, with its three days' growth of beard, the
+fellow carried himself with a certain air; he positively strutted as he
+advanced, and he made a leg in a manner that was courtly and practised.
+
+"Monsieur," said he, with the air of a conspirator, "the time for action
+has arrived, and so has the Marquis... That is why."
+
+The young lovers sprang apart in consternation; Climene with clasped
+hands, parted lips, and a bosom that raced distractingly under its white
+fichu-menteur; M. Leandre agape, the very picture of foolishness and
+dismay.
+
+Meanwhile the newcomer rattled on. "I was at the inn an hour ago when
+he descended there, and I studied him attentively whilst he was at
+breakfast. Having done so, not a single doubt remains me of our success.
+As for what he looks like, I could entertain you at length upon the
+fashion in which nature has designed his gross fatuity. But that is no
+matter. We are concerned with what he is, with the wit of him. And I
+tell you confidently that I find him so dull and stupid that you may be
+confident he will tumble headlong into each and all of the traps I have
+so cunningly prepared for him."
+
+"Tell me, tell me! Speak!" Climene implored him, holding out her hands
+in a supplication no man of sensibility could have resisted. And then
+on the instant she caught her breath on a faint scream. "My father!" she
+exclaimed, turning distractedly from one to the other of those two. "He
+is coming! We are lost!"
+
+"You must fly, Climene!" said M. Leandre.
+
+"Too late!" she sobbed. "Too late! He is here."
+
+"Calm, mademoiselle, calm!" the subtle friend was urging her. "Keep calm
+and trust to me. I promise you that all shall be well."
+
+"Oh!" cried M. Leandre, limply. "Say what you will, my friend, this is
+ruin--the end of all our hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from
+this. Never!"
+
+Through the gap strode now an enormous man with an inflamed moon
+face and a great nose, decently dressed after the fashion of a solid
+bourgeois. There was no mistaking his anger, but the expression that it
+found was an amazement to Andre-Louis.
+
+"Leandre, you're an imbecile! Too much phlegm, too much phlegm! Your
+words wouldn't convince a ploughboy! Have you considered what they mean
+at all? Thus," he cried, and casting his round hat from him in a broad
+gesture, he took his stand at M. Leandre's side, and repeated the very
+words that Leandre had lately uttered, what time the three observed him
+coolly and attentively.
+
+"Oh, say what you will, my friend, this is ruin--the end of all our
+hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from this. Never!"
+
+A frenzy of despair vibrated in his accents. He swung again to face M.
+Leandre. "Thus," he bade him contemptuously. "Let the passion of your
+hopelessness express itself in your voice. Consider that you are not
+asking Scaramouche here whether he has put a patch in your breeches. You
+are a despairing lover expressing..."
+
+He checked abruptly, startled. Andre-Louis, suddenly realizing what was
+afoot, and how duped he had been, had loosed his laughter. The sound
+of it pealing and booming uncannily under the great roof that so
+immediately confined him was startling to those below.
+
+The fat man was the first to recover, and he announced it after his own
+fashion in one of the ready sarcasms in which he habitually dealt.
+
+"Hark!" he cried, "the very gods laugh at you, Leandre." Then he
+addressed the roof of the barn and its invisible tenant. "Hi! You
+there!"
+
+Andre-Louis revealed himself by a further protrusion of his tousled
+head.
+
+"Good-morning," said he, pleasantly. Rising now on his knees, his
+horizon was suddenly extended to include the broad common beyond the
+hedge. He beheld there an enormous and very battered travelling chaise,
+a cart piled up with timbers partly visible under the sheet of oiled
+canvas that covered them, and a sort of house on wheels equipped with
+a tin chimney, from which the smoke was slowly curling. Three heavy
+Flemish horses and a couple of donkeys--all of them hobbled--were
+contentedly cropping the grass in the neighbourhood of these vehicles.
+These, had he perceived them sooner, must have given him the clue to the
+queer scene that had been played under his eyes. Beyond the hedge other
+figures were moving. Three at that moment came crowding into the
+gap--a saucy-faced girl with a tip-tilted nose, whom he supposed to be
+Columbine, the soubrette; a lean, active youngster, who must be the
+lackey Harlequin; and another rather loutish youth who might be a zany
+or an apothecary.
+
+All this he took in at a comprehensive glance that consumed no more
+time than it had taken him to say good-morning. To that good-morning
+Pantaloon replied in a bellow:
+
+"What the devil are you doing up there?"
+
+"Precisely the same thing that you are doing down there," was the
+answer. "I am trespassing."
+
+"Eh?" said Pantaloon, and looked at his companions, some of the
+assurance beaten out of his big red face. Although the thing was one
+that they did habitually, to hear it called by its proper name was
+disconcerting.
+
+"Whose land is this?" he asked, with diminishing assurance.
+
+Andre-Louis answered, whilst drawing on his stockings. "I believe it to
+be the property of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"That's a high-sounding name. Is the gentleman severe?"
+
+"The gentleman," said Andre-Louis, "is the devil; or rather, I should
+prefer to say upon reflection, that the devil is a gentleman by
+comparison."
+
+"And yet," interposed the villainous-looking fellow who played
+Scaramouche, "by your own confessing you don't hesitate, yourself, to
+trespass upon his property."
+
+"Ah, but then, you see, I am a lawyer. And lawyers are notoriously
+unable to observe the law, just as actors are notoriously unable to act.
+Moreover, sir, Nature imposes her limits upon us, and Nature conquers
+respect for law as she conquers all else. Nature conquered me last night
+when I had got as far as this. And so I slept here without regard for
+the very high and puissant Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr. At the same time,
+M. Scaramouche, you'll observe that I did not flaunt my trespass quite
+as openly as you and your companions."
+
+Having donned his boots, Andre-Louis came nimbly to the ground in his
+shirt-sleeves, his riding-coat over his arm. As he stood there to don
+it, the little cunning eyes of the heavy father conned him in detail.
+Observing that his clothes, if plain, were of a good fashion, that his
+shirt was of fine cambric, and that he expressed himself like a man
+of culture, such as he claimed to be, M. Pantaloon was disposed to be
+civil.
+
+"I am very grateful to you for the warning, sir..." he was beginning.
+
+"Act upon it, my friend. The gardes-champetres of M. d'Azyr have orders
+to fire on trespassers. Imitate me, and decamp."
+
+They followed him upon the instant through that gap in the hedge to the
+encampment on the common. There Andre-Louis took his leave of them.
+But as he was turning away he perceived a young man of the company
+performing his morning toilet at a bucket placed upon one of the wooden
+steps at the tail of the house on wheels. A moment he hesitated, then he
+turned frankly to M. Pantaloon, who was still at his elbow.
+
+"If it were not unconscionable to encroach so far upon your hospitality,
+monsieur," said he, "I would beg leave to imitate that very excellent
+young gentleman before I leave you."
+
+"But, my dear sir!" Good-nature oozed out of every pore of the fat
+body of the master player. "It is nothing at all. But, by all means.
+Rhodomont will provide what you require. He is the dandy of the company
+in real life, though a fire-eater on the stage. Hi, Rhodomont!"
+
+The young ablutionist straightened his long body from the right angle in
+which it had been bent over the bucket, and looked out through a foam
+of soapsuds. Pantaloon issued an order, and Rhodomont, who was indeed as
+gentle and amiable off the stage as he was formidable and terrible upon
+it, made the stranger free of the bucket in the friendliest manner.
+
+So Andre-Louis once more removed his neckcloth and his coat, and rolled
+up the sleeves of his fine shirt, whilst Rhodomont procured him soap,
+a towel, and presently a broken comb, and even a greasy hair-ribbon,
+in case the gentleman should have lost his own. This last Andre-Louis
+declined, but the comb he gratefully accepted, and having presently
+washed himself clean, stood, with the towel flung over his left
+shoulder, restoring order to his dishevelled locks before a broken piece
+of mirror affixed to the door of the travelling house.
+
+He was standing thus, the gentle Rhodomont babbled aimlessly at his
+side, when his ears caught the sound of hooves. He looked over his
+shoulder carelessly, and then stood frozen, with uplifted comb and
+loosened mouth. Away across the common, on the road that bordered it, he
+beheld a party of seven horsemen in the blue coats with red facings of
+the marechaussee.
+
+Not for a moment did he doubt what was the quarry of this prowling
+gendarmerie. It was as if the chill shadow of the gallows had fallen
+suddenly upon him.
+
+And then the troop halted, abreast with them, and the sergeant leading
+it sent his bawling voice across the common.
+
+"Hi, there! Hi!" His tone rang with menace.
+
+Every member of the company--and there were some twelve in all--stood at
+gaze. Pantaloon advanced a step or two, stalking, his head thrown back,
+his manner that of a King's Lieutenant.
+
+"Now, what the devil's this?" quoth he, but whether of Fate or Heaven or
+the sergeant, was not clear.
+
+There was a brief colloquy among the horsemen, then they came trotting
+across the common straight towards the players' encampment.
+
+Andre-Louis had remained standing at the tail of the travelling
+house. He was still passing the comb through his straggling hair,
+but mechanically and unconsciously. His mind was all intent upon the
+advancing troop, his wits alert and gathered together for a leap in
+whatever direction should be indicated.
+
+Still in the distance, but evidently impatient, the sergeant bawled a
+question.
+
+"Who gave you leave to encamp here?"
+
+It was a question that reassured Andre-Louis not at all. He was not
+deceived by it into supposing or even hoping that the business of these
+men was merely to round up vagrants and trespassers. That was no part of
+their real duty; it was something done in passing--done, perhaps, in the
+hope of levying a tax of their own. It was very long odds that they
+were from Rennes, and that their real business was the hunting down of
+a young lawyer charged with sedition. Meanwhile Pantaloon was shouting
+back.
+
+"Who gave us leave, do you say? What leave? This is communal land, free
+to all."
+
+The sergeant laughed unpleasantly, and came on, his troop following.
+
+"There is," said a voice at Pantaloon's elbow, "no such thing as
+communal land in the proper sense in all M. de La Tour d'Azyr's vast
+domain. This is a terre censive, and his bailiffs collect his dues from
+all who send their beasts to graze here."
+
+Pantaloon turned to behold at his side Andre-Louis in his shirt-sleeves,
+and without a neckcloth, the towel still trailing over his left
+shoulder, a comb in his hand, his hair half dressed.
+
+"God of God!" swore Pantaloon. "But it is an ogre, this Marquis de La
+Tour d'Azyr!"
+
+"I have told you already what I think of him," said Andre-Louis. "As for
+these fellows you had better let me deal with them. I have experience
+of their kind." And without waiting for Pantaloon's consent, Andre-Louis
+stepped forward to meet the advancing men of the marechaussee. He had
+realized that here boldness alone could save him.
+
+When a moment later the sergeant pulled up his horse alongside of this
+half-dressed young man, Andre-Louis combed his hair what time he looked
+up with a half smile, intended to be friendly, ingenuous, and disarming.
+
+In spite of it the sergeant hailed him gruffly: "Are you the leader of
+this troop of vagabonds?"
+
+"Yes... that is to say, my father, there, is really the leader." And he
+jerked a thumb in the direction of M. Pantaloon, who stood at gaze out
+of earshot in the background. "What is your pleasure, captain?"
+
+"My pleasure is to tell you that you are very likely to be gaoled for
+this, all the pack of you." His voice was loud and bullying. It carried
+across the common to the ears of every member of the company, and
+brought them all to stricken attention where they stood. The lot of
+strolling players was hard enough without the addition of gaolings.
+
+"But how so, my captain? This is communal land free to all."
+
+"It is nothing of the kind."
+
+"Where are the fences?" quoth Andre-Louis, waving the hand that held the
+comb, as if to indicate the openness of the place.
+
+"Fences!" snorted the sergeant. "What have fences to do with the matter?
+This is terre censive. There is no grazing here save by payment of dues
+to the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"But we are not grazing," quoth the innocent Andre-Louis.
+
+"To the devil with you, zany! You are not grazing! But your beasts are
+grazing!"
+
+"They eat so little," Andre-Louis apologized, and again essayed his
+ingratiating smile.
+
+The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. "That is not the point. The
+point is that you are committing what amounts to a theft, and there's
+the gaol for thieves."
+
+"Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed Andre-Louis, and fell to
+combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant's face. "But
+we have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning."
+He passed the comb into his left hand, and with his right fumbled in
+his breeches' pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. "We are
+desolated to have brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble
+your men would honour us by stopping at the next inn to drink the health
+of... of this M. de La Tour d' Azyr, or any other health that they think
+proper."
+
+Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But not yet all.
+
+"Well, well," said he, gruffly. "But you must decamp, you understand."
+He leaned from the saddle to bring his recipient hand to a convenient
+distance. Andre-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.
+
+"In half an hour," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"Why in half an hour? Why not at once?"
+
+"Oh, but time to break our fast."
+
+They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece
+of silver in his palm. Then at last his features relaxed from their
+sternness.
+
+"After all," said he, "it is none of our business to play the tipstaves
+for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. We are of the marechaussee from Rennes."
+Andre-Louis' eyelids played him false by flickering. "But if you linger,
+look out for the gardes-champetres of the Marquis. You'll find them not
+at all accommodating. Well, well--a good appetite to you, monsieur," said
+he, in valediction.
+
+"A pleasant ride, my captain," answered Andre-Louis.
+
+The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his troop wheeled with him. They
+were starting off, when he reined up again.
+
+"You, monsieur!" he called over his shoulder. In a bound Andre-Louis was
+beside his stirrup. "We are in quest of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis
+Moreau, from Gavrillac, a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows
+on a matter of sedition. You've seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose
+movements seemed to you suspicious?"
+
+"Indeed, we have," said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his face eager with
+consciousness of the ability to oblige.
+
+"You have?" cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice. "Where? When?"
+
+"Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen..."
+
+"Yes, yes," the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.
+
+"There was a fellow who seemed very fearful of being recognized ... a
+man of fifty or thereabouts..."
+
+"Fifty!" cried the sergeant, and his face fell. "Bah! This man of ours
+is no older than yourself, a thin wisp of a fellow of about your own
+height and of black hair, just like your own, by the description. Keep a
+lookout on your travels, master player. The King's Lieutenant in Rennes
+has sent us word this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one
+giving information that will lead to this scoundrel's arrest. So there's
+ten louis to be earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending word to
+the nearest justices. It would be a fine windfall for you, that."
+
+"A fine windfall, indeed, captain," answered Andre-Louis, laughing.
+
+But the sergeant had touched his horse with the spur, and was already
+trotting off in the wake of his men. Andre-Louis continued to laugh,
+quite silently, as he sometimes did when the humour of a jest was
+peculiarly keen.
+
+Then he turned slowly about, and came back towards Pantaloon and the
+rest of the company, who were now all grouped together, at gaze.
+
+Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both hands out-held. For a moment
+Andre-Louis thought he was about to be embraced.
+
+"We hail you our saviour!" the big man declaimed. "Already the shadow
+of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For
+though we be poor, yet are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever
+suffered the indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive
+it. But for you, my friend, it might have happened. What magic did you
+work?"
+
+"The magic that is to be worked in France with a King's portrait. The
+French are a very loyal nation, as you will have observed. They love
+their King--and his portrait even better than himself, especially when it
+is wrought in gold. But even in silver it is respected. The sergeant
+was so overcome by the sight of that noble visage--on a three-livre
+piece--that his anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to
+depart in peace."
+
+"Ah, true! He said we must decamp. About it, my lads! Come, come..."
+
+"But not until after breakfast," said Andre-Louis. "A half-hour for
+breakfast was conceded us by that loyal fellow, so deeply was he
+touched. True, he spoke of possible gardes-champetres. But he knows as
+well as I do that they are not seriously to be feared, and that if
+they came, again the King's portrait--wrought in copper this time--would
+produce the same melting effect upon them. So, my dear M. Pantaloon,
+break your fast at your ease. I can smell your cooking from here,
+and from the smell I argue that there is no need to wish you a good
+appetite."
+
+"My friend, my saviour!" Pantaloon flung a great arm about the young
+man's shoulders. "You shall stay to breakfast with us."
+
+"I confess to a hope that you would ask me," said Andre-Louis.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
+
+They were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat down to breakfast with them
+behind the itinerant house, in the bright sunshine that tempered the
+cold breath of that November morning, an odd and yet an attractive crew.
+An air of gaiety pervaded them. They affected to have no cares, and made
+merry over the trials and tribulations of their nomadic life. They
+were curiously, yet amiably, artificial; histrionic in their manner
+of discharging the most commonplace of functions; exaggerated in their
+gestures; stilted and affected in their speech. They seemed, indeed, to
+belong to a world apart, a world of unreality which became real only
+on the planks of their stage, in the glare of their footlights.
+Good-fellowship bound them one to another; and Andre-Louis reflected
+cynically that this harmony amongst them might be the cause of their
+apparent unreality. In the real world, greedy striving and the emulation
+of acquisitiveness preclude such amity as was present here.
+
+They numbered exactly eleven, three women and eight men; and they
+addressed each other by their stage names: names which denoted their
+several types, and never--or only very slightly--varied, no matter what
+might be the play that they performed.
+
+"We are," Pantaloon informed him, "one of those few remaining staunch
+bands of real players, who uphold the traditions of the old Italian
+Commedia dell' Arte. Not for us to vex our memories and stultify our
+wit with the stilted phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author's
+lucubrations. Each of us is in detail his own author in a measure as he
+develops the part assigned to him. We are improvisers--improvisers of the
+old and noble Italian school."
+
+"I had guessed as much," said Andre-Louis, "when I discovered you
+rehearsing your improvisations."
+
+Pantaloon frowned.
+
+"I have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines to the pungent,
+not to say the acrid. It is very well. It is I suppose, the humour that
+should go with such a countenance. But it may lead you astray, as
+in this instance. That rehearsal--a most unusual thing with us--was
+necessitated by the histrionic rawness of our Leandre. We are seeking
+to inculcate into him by training an art with which Nature neglected to
+endow him against his present needs. Should he continue to fail in doing
+justice to our schooling... But we will not disturb our present harmony
+with the unpleasant anticipation of misfortunes which we still hope
+to avert. We love our Leandre, for all his faults. Let me make you
+acquainted with our company."
+
+And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed out the long and
+amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis already knew.
+
+"His length of limb and hooked nose were his superficial qualifications
+to play roaring captains," Pantaloon explained. "His lungs have
+justified our choice. You should hear him roar. At first we called him
+Spavento or Epouvapte. But that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not
+since the superb Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been
+seen upon the stage. So we conferred upon him the name of Rhodomont
+that Mondor made famous; and I give you my word, as an actor and a
+gentleman--for I am a gentleman, monsieur, or was--that he has justified
+us."
+
+His little eyes beamed in his great swollen face as he turned their gaze
+upon the object of his encomium. The terrible Rhodomont, confused by so
+much praise, blushed like a schoolgirl as he met the solemn scrutiny of
+Andre-Louis.
+
+"Then here we have Scaramouche, whom also you already know. Sometimes he
+is Scapin and sometimes Coviello, but in the main Scaramouche, to which
+let me tell you he is best suited--sometimes too well suited, I think.
+For he is Scaramouche not only on the stage, but also in the world. He
+has a gift of sly intrigue, an art of setting folk by the ears, combined
+with an impudent aggressiveness upon occasion when he considers himself
+safe from reprisals. He is Scaramouche, the little skirmisher, to the
+very life. I could say more. But I am by disposition charitable and
+loving to all mankind."
+
+"As the priest said when he kissed the serving-wench," snarled
+Scaramouche, and went on eating.
+
+"His humour, like your own, you will observe, is acrid," said Pantaloon.
+He passed on. "Then that rascal with the lumpy nose and the grinning
+bucolic countenance is, of course, Pierrot. Could he be aught else?"
+
+"I could play lovers a deal better," said the rustic cherub.
+
+"That is the delusion proper to Pierrot," said Pantaloon,
+contemptuously. "This heavy, beetle-browed ruffian, who has grown old in
+sin, and whose appetite increases with his years, is Polichinelle. Each
+one, as you perceive, is designed by Nature for the part he plays. This
+nimble, freckled jackanapes is Harlequin; not your spangled Harlequin
+into which modern degeneracy has debased that first-born of Momus,
+but the genuine original zany of the Commedia, ragged and patched, an
+impudent, cowardly, blackguardly clown."
+
+"Each one of us, as you perceive," said Harlequin, mimicking the leader
+of the troupe, "is designed by Nature for the part he plays."
+
+"Physically, my friend, physically only, else we should not have so much
+trouble in teaching this beautiful Leandre to become a lover. Then
+we have Pasquariel here, who is sometimes an apothecary, sometimes a
+notary, sometimes a lackey--an amiable, accommodating fellow. He is also
+an excellent cook, being a child of Italy, that land of gluttons. And
+finally, you have myself, who as the father of the company very properly
+play as Pantaloon the roles of father. Sometimes, it is true, I am a
+deluded husband, and sometimes an ignorant, self-sufficient doctor.
+But it is rarely that I find it necessary to call myself other than
+Pantaloon. For the rest, I am the only one who has a name--a real name.
+It is Binet, monsieur.
+
+"And now for the ladies... First in order of seniority we have Madame
+there." He waved one of his great hands towards a buxom, smiling blonde
+of five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps of the
+travelling house. "She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case
+requires. She is known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she ever
+had a name in the world, she has long since forgotten it, which is
+perhaps as well. Then we have this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose
+and the wide mouth, who is of course our soubrette Columbine, and
+lastly, my daughter Climene, an amoureuse of talents not to be matched
+outside the Comedie Francaise, of which she has the bad taste to aspire
+to become a member."
+
+The lovely Climene--and lovely indeed she was--tossed her nut-brown
+curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes, he had
+perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
+
+"Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I prefer to be queen
+here rather than a slave in Paris."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, "will be queen
+wherever she condescends to reign."
+
+Her only answer was a timid--timid and yet alluring--glance from under
+fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young
+man who played lovers--"You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you
+should practise."
+
+Leandre raised languid eyebrows. "That?" quoth he, and shrugged. "The
+merest commonplace."
+
+Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you
+concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle.
+Climene a queen."
+
+Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
+
+"You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all
+unconscious."
+
+The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet
+there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to
+Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on
+Monday next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at
+noon, and setting up their stage in the old market, they would give
+their first performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas--or
+scenario--of M. Binet's own, which should set the rustics gaping. And
+then M. Binet fetched a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly,
+swarthy, beetle-browed Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
+
+"But we shall miss Felicien," said he. "Indeed, I do not know what we
+shall do without him."
+
+"Oh, we shall contrive," said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.
+
+"So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in any case the
+contriving will not fall upon yourself."
+
+"He should not be difficult to replace," said Harlequin.
+
+"True, if we were in a civilized land. But where among the rustics
+of Brittany are we to find a fellow of even his poor parts?" M. Binet
+turned to Andre-Louis. "He was our property-man, our machinist, our
+stage-carpenter, our man of affairs, and occasionally he acted."
+
+"The part of Figaro, I presume," said Andre-Louis, which elicited a
+laugh.
+
+"So you are acquainted with Beaumarchais!" Binet eyed the young man with
+fresh interest.
+
+"He is tolerably well known, I think."
+
+"In Paris, to be sure. But I had not dreamt his fame had reached the
+wilds of Brittany."
+
+"But then I was some years in Paris--at the Lycee of Louis le Grand. It
+was there I made acquaintance with his work."
+
+"A dangerous man," said Polichinelle, sententiously.
+
+"Indeed, and you are right," Pantaloon agreed. "Clever--I do not deny him
+that, although myself I find little use for authors. But of a sinister
+cleverness responsible for the dissemination of many of these subversive
+new ideas. I think such writers should be suppressed."
+
+"M. de La Tour d'Azyr would probably agree with you--the gentleman who
+by the simple exertion of his will turns this communal land into his own
+property." And Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been filled with
+the poor vin gris that was the players' drink.
+
+It was a remark that might have precipitated an argument had it not also
+reminded M. Binet of the terms on which they were encamped there, and
+of the fact that the half-hour was more than past. In a moment he was on
+his feet, leaping up with an agility surprising in so corpulent a man,
+issuing his commands like a marshal on a field of battle.
+
+"Come, come, my lads! Are we to sit guzzling here all day? Time flees,
+and there's a deal to be done if we are to make our entry into Guichen
+at noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir,
+ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best.
+Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your
+interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior
+to-day. Away! Away!"
+
+The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them in a whirl.
+Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains
+of their meagre feast. In an instant the ground was cleared, and the
+three ladies had taken their departure to the chaise, which was set
+apart for their use. The men were already climbing into the house on
+wheels, when Binet turned to Andre-Louis.
+
+"We part here, sir," said he, dramatically, "the richer by your
+acquaintance; your debtors and your friends." He put forth his podgy
+hand.
+
+Slowly Andre-Louis took it in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in
+the last few moments. And remembering the safety he had found from his
+pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him that nowhere
+could he be better hidden for the present, until the quest for him
+should have died down.
+
+"Sir," he said, "the indebtedness is on my side. It is not every day
+one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious and engaging a
+company."
+
+Binet's little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in quest of
+irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.
+
+"I part from you reluctantly," Andre-Louis continued. "The more
+reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting."
+
+"How?" quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the
+other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.
+
+"Thus," Andre-Louis explained himself. "You may set me down as a sort
+of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed
+purpose in life at present. You will not marvel that what I have seen of
+yourself and your distinguished troupe should inspire me to desire your
+better acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of
+some one to replace your Figaro--your Felicien, I think you called him.
+Whilst it may be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an
+office so varied and so onerous..."
+
+"You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my friend," Binet
+interrupted him. "Excepting for that," he added, slowly, meditatively,
+his little eyes screwed up, "we might discuss this proposal that you
+seem to be making."
+
+"Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What
+else is possible? As for this humour--such as it is--which you decry, you
+might turn it to profitable account."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love."
+
+Pantaloon burst into laughter. "You do not lack confidence in your
+powers. Modesty does not afflict you."
+
+"Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor."
+
+"Can you act?"
+
+"Upon occasion, I think," said Andre-Louis, his thoughts upon his
+performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his
+histrionic career Pantaloon's improvisations had so rent the heart of
+mobs.
+
+M. Binet was musing. "Do you know much of the theatre?" quoth he.
+
+"Everything," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
+
+"But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier,
+Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of
+course, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
+writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi,
+Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto,
+and Fedini. Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of
+Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus..."
+
+"Enough!" roared Pantaloon.
+
+"I am not nearly through with my list," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven's name, what can have
+induced you to read so many dramatic authors?"
+
+"In my humble way I am a student of man, and some years ago I made the
+discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of
+him provided for the theatre."
+
+"That is a very original and profound discovery," said Pantaloon, quite
+seriously. "It had never occurred to me. Yet is it true. Sir, it is a
+truth that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear to
+me. It has been clear since first I met you. I can read a man. I knew
+you from the moment that you said 'good-morning.' Tell me, now: Do
+you think you could assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a
+scenario? My mind, fully engaged as it is with a thousand details of
+organization, is not always as clear as I would have it for such work.
+Could you assist me there, do you think?"
+
+"I am quite sure I could."
+
+"Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties that were
+Felicien's you would soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing, you may
+come along with us. You'd want some salary, I suppose?"
+
+"If it is usual," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"What should you say to ten livres a month?"
+
+"I should say that it isn't exactly the riches of Peru."
+
+"I might go as far as fifteen," said Binet, reluctantly. "But times are
+bad."
+
+"I'll make them better for you."
+
+"I've no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Andre-Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the
+service of Thespis.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE COMIC MUSE
+
+The company's entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactly
+triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at
+least sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping.
+To them these fantastic creatures appeared--as indeed they were--beings
+from another world.
+
+First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on its
+way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was Pantaloon who drove it,
+an obese and massive Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet under
+a long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard
+nose. Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves
+that completely covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black
+skull-cap. He had whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous
+noises with a trumpet.
+
+On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche,
+Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet
+cut in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a
+white frill round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his
+face, stood in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly
+and viciously banging a big drum. The other three were seated each at
+one of the corners of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche,
+all in black in the Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his
+face adorned with a pair of mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly.
+Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with his
+leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smeared
+in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently. Pasquariel, as an
+apothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of the
+onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when pumped a
+dolorous squeak.
+
+Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,
+and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the
+company. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin,
+her own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked
+so much the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she was
+doing in that fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressed
+with splendour, but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdress
+was a monstrous structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed by
+little ostrich plumes. Columbine sat facing them, her back to the
+horses, falsely demure, in milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a
+striped gown of green and blue.
+
+The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may have
+served to carry some dignitary of the Church, did not founder instead of
+merely groaning under that excessive and ribald load.
+
+Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean Rhodomont, who
+had daubed his face red, and increased the terror of it by a pair of
+formidable mostachios. He was in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin,
+trailing an enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad
+felt hat with a draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his great
+voice and roared out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butchery
+to be performed upon all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle sat
+Leandre alone. He was in blue satin, with ruffles, small sword,
+powdered hair, patches and spy-glass, and red-heeled shoes: the
+complete courtier, looking very handsome. The women of Guichen ogled
+him coquettishly. He took the ogling as a proper tribute to his personal
+endowments, and returned it with interest. Like Climene, he looked out
+of place amid the bandits who composed the remainder of the company.
+
+Bringing up the rear came Andre-Louis leading the two donkeys that
+dragged the property-cart. He had insisted upon assuming a false nose,
+representing as for embellishment that which he intended for disguise.
+For the rest, he had retained his own garments. No one paid
+any attention to him as he trudged along beside his donkeys, an
+insignificant rear guard, which he was well content to be.
+
+They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was already
+above the normal in preparation for next week's fair. At intervals
+they halted, the cacophony would cease abruptly, and Polichinelle would
+announce in a stentorian voice that at five o'clock that evening in the
+old market, M. Binet's famous company of improvisers would perform a new
+comedy in four acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."
+
+Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the groundfloor of
+the town hall, and open to the four winds by two archways on each
+side of its length, and one archway on each side of its breadth. These
+archways, with two exceptions, had been boarded up. Through those
+two, which gave admission to what presently would be the theatre, the
+ragamuffins of the town, and the niggards who were reluctant to spend
+the necessary sous to obtain proper admission, might catch furtive
+glimpses of the performance.
+
+That afternoon was the most strenuous of Andre-Louis' life, unaccustomed
+as he was to any sort of manual labour. It was spent in erecting and
+preparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began to
+realize how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres. At first
+there were four of them to the task--or really three, for Pantaloon did
+no more than bawl directions. Stripped of their finery, Rhodomont and
+Leandre assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the other
+four were at dinner with the ladies. When a half-hour or so later they
+came to carry on the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine
+in their turn, leaving Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as
+assist in them.
+
+They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken up
+their quarters. In the narrow passage Andre-Louis came face to face
+with Climene, her fine feathers cast, and restored by now to her normal
+appearance.
+
+"And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.
+
+He looked her in the eyes. "It has its compensations," quoth he, in that
+curious cold tone of his that left one wondering whether he meant or not
+what he seemed to mean.
+
+She knit her brows. "You... you feel the need of compensations already?"
+
+"Faith, I felt it from the beginning," said he. "It was the perception
+of them allured me."
+
+They were quite alone, the others having gone on into the room set apart
+for them, where food was spread. Andre-Louis, who was as unlearned in
+Woman as he was learned in Man, was not to know, upon feeling himself
+suddenly extraordinarily aware of her femininity, that it was she who in
+some subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
+
+"What," she asked him, with demurest innocence, "are these
+compensations?"
+
+He caught himself upon the brink of the abyss.
+
+"Fifteen livres a month," said he, abruptly.
+
+A moment she stared at him bewildered. He was very disconcerting. Then
+she recovered.
+
+"Oh, and bed and board," said she. "Don't be leaving that from the
+reckoning, as you seem to be doing; for your dinner will be going cold.
+Aren't you coming?"
+
+"Haven't you dined?" he cried, and she wondered had she caught a note of
+eagerness.
+
+"No," she answered, over her shoulder. "I waited."
+
+"What for?" quoth his innocence, hopefully.
+
+"I had to change, of course, zany," she answered, rudely. Having dragged
+him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not refrain from
+chopping. But then he was of those who must be chopping back.
+
+"And you left your manners upstairs with your grand-lady clothes,
+mademoiselle. I understand."
+
+A scarlet flame suffused her face. "You are very insolent," she said,
+lamely.
+
+"I've often been told so. But I don't believe it." He thrust open the
+door for her, and bowing with an air which imposed upon her, although it
+was merely copied from Fleury of the Comedie Francaise, so often visited
+in the Louis le Grand days, he waved her in. "After you, ma demoiselle."
+For greater emphasis he deliberately broke the word into its two
+component parts.
+
+"I thank you, monsieur," she answered, frostily, as near sneering as was
+possible to so charming a person, and went in, nor addressed him again
+throughout the meal. Instead, she devoted herself with an unusual and
+devastating assiduity to the suspiring Leandre, that poor devil who
+could not successfully play the lover with her on the stage because of
+his longing to play it in reality.
+
+Andre-Louis ate his herrings and black bread with a good appetite
+nevertheless. It was poor fare, but then poor fare was the common lot of
+poor people in that winter of starvation, and since he had cast in his
+fortunes with a company whose affairs were not flourishing, he must
+accept the evils of the situation philosophically.
+
+"Have you a name?" Binet asked him once in the course of that repast and
+during a pause in the conversation.
+
+"It happens that I have," said he. "I think it is Parvissimus."
+
+"Parvissimus?" quoth Binet. "Is that a family name?"
+
+"In such a company, where only the leader enjoys the privilege of a
+family name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I take
+the name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus--the very
+least."
+
+Binet was amused. It was droll; it showed a ready fancy. Oh, to be sure,
+they must get to work together on those scenarios.
+
+"I shall prefer it to carpentering," said Andre-Louis. Nevertheless he
+had to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously until
+four o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself
+satisfied with the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help of
+Andre-Louis, to prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow
+candles and partly by lamps burning fish-oil.
+
+At five o'clock that evening the three knocks were sounded, and the
+curtain rose on "The Heartless Father."
+
+Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the departed Felicien
+whom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he discharged
+dressed in a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It was
+an arrangement mutually agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet--who
+had taken the further precaution of retaining Andre-Louis' own
+garments--was thereby protected against the risk of his latest recruit
+absconding with the takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions on the score
+of Pantaloon's real object, agreed to it willingly enough, since it
+protected him from the chance of recognition by any acquaintance who
+might possibly be in Guichen.
+
+The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre and
+unenthusiastic. The benches provided in the front half of the market
+contained some twenty-seven persons: eleven at twenty sous a head and
+sixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others at
+six sous apiece. Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, and
+two sous. By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, his
+lights, and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, there
+was not likely to be very much left towards the wages of his players. It
+is not surprising, therefore, that M. Binet's bonhomie should have been
+a trifle overcast that evening.
+
+"And what do you think of it?" he asked Andre-Louis, as they were
+walking back to the inn after the performance.
+
+"Possibly it could have been worse; probably it could not," said he.
+
+In sheer amazement M. Binet checked in his stride, and turned to look at
+his companion.
+
+"Huh!" said he. "Dieu de Dien! But you are frank."
+
+"An unpopular form of service among fools, I know."
+
+"Well, I am not a fool," said Binet.
+
+"That is why I am frank. I pay you the compliment of assuming
+intelligence in you, M. Binet."
+
+"Oh, you do?" quoth M. Binet. "And who the devil are you to assume
+anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And with that he
+lapsed into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up his
+accounts.
+
+But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.
+
+"Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "has
+the impudence to tell me that possibly our comedy could have been worse,
+but that probably it could not." And he blew out his great round cheeks
+to invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.
+
+"That's bad," said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He was
+grave as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment. "That's bad. But what is
+infinitely worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of the
+same mind."
+
+"An ignorant pack of clods," sneered Leandre, with a toss of his
+handsome head.
+
+"You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, not
+criticism."
+
+Leandre--a dull dog, as you will have conceived--looked contemptuously
+down upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?" he
+wondered.
+
+"Nobody knows," was the candid admission. "Nor yet why. It is the case
+of many of us, my dear, believe me."
+
+"But why"--M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the beginnings of a very
+pretty quarrel--"why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"
+
+"To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because I
+judge the audience of Guichen to be too sophisticated for 'The Heartless
+Father.'"
+
+"You would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis--who was the
+cause of this discussion--"if you said that 'The Heartless Father' is too
+unsophisticated for the audience of Guichen."
+
+"Why, what's the difference?" asked Leandre.
+
+"I didn't imply a difference. I merely suggested that it is a happier
+way to express the fact."
+
+"The gentleman is being subtle," sneered Binet.
+
+"Why happier?" Harlequin demanded.
+
+"Because it is easier to bring 'The Heartless Father' to the
+sophistication of the Guichen audience, than the Guichen audience to the
+unsophistication of 'The Heartless Father.'"
+
+"Let me think it out," groaned Polichinelle, and he took his head in his
+hands.
+
+But from the tail of the table Andre-Louis was challenged by Climene who
+sat there between Columbine and Madame.
+
+"You would alter the comedy, would you, M. Parvissimus?" she cried.
+
+He turned to parry her malice.
+
+"I would suggest that it be altered," he corrected, inclining his head.
+
+"And how would you alter it, monsieur?"
+
+"I? Oh, for the better."
+
+"But of course!" She was sleekest sarcasm. "And how would you do it?"
+
+"Aye, tell us that," roared M. Binet, and added: "Silence, I pray you,
+gentlemen and ladies. Silence for M. Parvissimus."
+
+Andre-Louis looked from father to daughter, and smiled. "Pardi!" said
+he. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape with my life, I shall
+be fortunate. Why, then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell
+you what I should do. I should go back to the original and help myself
+more freely from it."
+
+"The original?" questioned M. Binet--the author.
+
+"It is called, I believe, 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' and was written by
+Moliere."
+
+Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet. He had been
+touched on the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the fact
+that his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
+
+"You charge me with plagiarism," he said at last; "with filching the
+ideas of Moliere."
+
+"There is always, of course," said Andre-Louis, unruffled, "the
+alternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines."
+
+M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him bland
+and inscrutable, and decided to pin him down.
+
+"Then you do not imply that I have been stealing from Moliere?"
+
+"I advise you to do so, monsieur," was the disconcerting reply.
+
+M. Binet was shocked.
+
+"You advise me to do so! You advise me, me, Antoine Binet, to turn thief
+at my age!"
+
+"He is outrageous," said mademoiselle, indignantly.
+
+"Outrageous is the word. I thank you for it, my dear. I take you on
+trust, sir. You sit at my table, you have the honour to be included in
+my company, and to my face you have the audacity to advise me to
+become a thief--the worst kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief of
+spiritual things, a thief of ideas! It is insufferable, intolerable! I
+have been, I fear, deeply mistaken in you, monsieur; just as you appear
+to have been mistaken in me. I am not the scoundrel you suppose me, sir,
+and I will not number in my company a man who dares to suggest that I
+should become one. Outrageous!"
+
+He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little room, and the
+company sat hushed and something scared, their eyes upon Andre-Louis,
+who was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuous
+indignation.
+
+"You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insulting
+the memory of the illustrious dead?"
+
+"Eh?" said Binet.
+
+Andre-Louis developed his sophistries.
+
+"You insult the memory of Moliere, the greatest ornament of our stage,
+one of the greatest ornaments of our nation, when you suggest that there
+is vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no great
+author yet has hesitated to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere ever
+troubled himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You cannot
+suppose that the stories he tells in his plays have never been told
+before. They were culled, as you very well know--though you seem
+momentarily to have forgotten it, and it is therefore necessary that
+I should remind you--they were culled, many of them, from the Italian
+authors, who themselves had culled them Heaven alone knows where.
+Moliere took those old stories and retold them in his own language. That
+is precisely what I am suggesting that you should do. Your company is a
+company of improvisers. You supply the dialogue as you proceed, which
+is rather more than Moliere ever attempted. You may, if you prefer
+it--though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple--go
+straight to Boccaccio or Sacchetti. But even then you cannot be sure
+that you have reached the sources."
+
+Andre-Louis came off with flying colours after that. You see what a
+debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making white
+look black. The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet,
+who found himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who in
+future might tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly
+perpetrated. He retired in the best order he could from the position he
+had taken up at the outset.
+
+"So that you think," he said, at the end of a long outburst of
+agreement, "you think that our story of 'The Heartless Father' could be
+enriched by dipping into 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' to which I confess
+upon reflection that it may present certain superficial resemblances?"
+
+"I do; most certainly I do--always provided that you do so judiciously.
+Times have changed since Moliere." It was as a consequence of this that
+Binet retired soon after, taking Andre-Louis with him. The pair sat
+together late that night, and were again in close communion throughout
+the whole of Sunday morning.
+
+After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the amended and
+amplified canevas of "The Heartless Father," which, acting upon the
+advice of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare. The
+company had few doubts as to the real authorship before he began to
+read; none at all when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about this
+story; and, what was more, those of them who knew their Moliere realized
+that far from approaching the original more closely, this canevas had
+drawn farther away from it. Moliere's original part--the title role--had
+dwindled into insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to
+whom it fell. But the other parts had all been built up into importance,
+with the exception of Leandre, who remained as before. The two
+great roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguing
+Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father. There was, too, a comical part
+for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by Polichinelle to cut Leandre
+into ribbons. And in view of the importance now of Scaramouche, the play
+had been rechristened "Figaro-Scaramouche."
+
+This last had not been without a deal of opposition from M. Binet. But
+his relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author--drawing
+shamelessly, but practically at last upon his great store of reading--had
+overborne him.
+
+"You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris Beaumarchais is the
+rage. 'Figaro' is known to-day throughout the world. Let us borrow a
+little of his glory. It will draw the people in. They will come to
+see half a 'Figaro' when they will not come to see a dozen 'Heartless
+Fathers.' Therefore let us cast the mantle of Figaro upon some one, and
+proclaim it in our title."
+
+"But as I am the head of the company..." began M. Binet, weakly.
+
+"If you will be blind to your interests, you will presently be a head
+without a body. And what use is that? Can the shoulders of Pantaloon
+carry the mantle of Figaro? You laugh. Of course you laugh. The notion
+is absurd. The proper person for the mantle of Figaro is Scaramouche,
+who is naturally Figaro's twin-brother."
+
+Thus tyrannized, the tyrant Binet gave way, comforted by the reflection
+that if he understood anything at all about the theatre, he had for
+fifteen livres a month acquired something that would presently be
+earning him as many louis.
+
+The company's reception of the canevas now confirmed him, if we
+except Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost half his part in the
+alterations, declared the new scenario fatuous.
+
+"Ah! You call my work fatuous, do you?" M. Binet hectored him.
+
+"Your work?" said Polichinelle, to add with his tongue in his cheek:
+"Ah, pardon. I had not realized that you were the author."
+
+"Then realize it now."
+
+"You were very close with M. Parvissimus over this authorship," said
+Polichinelle, with impudent suggestiveness.
+
+"And what if I was? What do you imply?"
+
+"That you took him to cut quills for you, of course."
+
+"I'll cut your ears for you if you're not civil," stormed the infuriated
+Binet.
+
+Polichinelle got up slowly, and stretched himself.
+
+"Dieu de Dieu!" said he. "If Pantaloon is to play Rhodomont, I think
+I'll leave you. He is not amusing in the part." And he swaggered out
+before M. Binet had recovered from his speechlessness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
+
+Ar four o'clock on Monday afternoon the curtain rose on
+"Figaro-Scaramouche" to an audience that filled three quarters of the
+market-hall. M. Binet attributed this good attendance to the influx of
+people to Guichen for the fair, and to the magnificent parade of his
+company through the streets of the township at the busiest time of
+the day. Andre-Louis attributed it entirely to the title. It was the
+"Figaro" touch that had fetched in the better-class bourgeoisie, which
+filled more than half of the twenty-sous places and three quarters
+of the twelve-sous seats. The lure had drawn them. Whether it was to
+continue to do so would depend upon the manner in which the canevas
+over which he had laboured to the glory of Binet was interpreted by
+the company. Of the merits of the canevas itself he had no doubt. The
+authors upon whom he had drawn for the elements of it were sound, and he
+had taken of their best, which he claimed to be no more than the justice
+due to them.
+
+The company excelled itself. The audience followed with relish the sly
+intriguings of Scaramouche, delighted in the beauty and freshness of
+Climene, was moved almost to tears by the hard fate which through four
+long acts kept her from the hungering arms of the so beautiful Leandre,
+howled its delight over the ignominy of Pantaloon, the buffooneries of
+his sprightly lackey Harlequin, and the thrasonical strut and bellowing
+fierceness of the cowardly Rhodomont.
+
+The success of the Binet troupe in Guichen was assured. That night the
+company drank Burgundy at M. Binet's expense. The takings reached the
+sum of eight louis, which was as good business as M. Binet had ever done
+in all his career. He was very pleased. Gratification rose like steam
+from his fat body. He even condescended so far as to attribute a share
+of the credit for the success to M. Parvissimus.
+
+"His suggestion," he was careful to say, by way of properly delimiting
+that share, "was most valuable, as I perceived at the time."
+
+"And his cutting of quills," growled Polichinelle. "Don't forget that.
+It is most important to have by you a man who understands how to cut a
+quill, as I shall remember when I turn author."
+
+But not even that gibe could stir M. Binet out of his lethargy of
+content.
+
+On Tuesday the success was repeated artistically and augmented
+financially. Ten louis and seven livres was the enormous sum that
+Andre-Louis, the doorkeeper, counted over to M. Binet after the
+performance. Never yet had M. Binet made so much money in one
+evening--and a miserable little village like Guichen was certainly the
+last place in which he would have expected this windfall.
+
+"Ah, but Guichen in time of fair," Andre-Louis reminded him. "There are
+people here from as far as Nantes and Rennes to buy and sell. To-morrow,
+being the last day of the fair, the crowds will be greater than ever. We
+should better this evening's receipts."
+
+"Better them? I shall be quite satisfied if we do as well, my friend."
+
+"You can depend upon that," Andre-Louis assured him. "Are we to have
+Burgundy?"
+
+And then the tragedy occurred. It announced itself in a succession of
+bumps and thuds, culminating in a crash outside the door that brought
+them all to their feet in alarm.
+
+Pierrot sprang to open, and beheld the tumbled body of a man lying
+at the foot of the stairs. It emitted groans, therefore it was alive.
+Pierrot went forward to turn it over, and disclosed the fact that
+the body wore the wizened face of Scaramouche, a grimacing, groaning,
+twitching Scaramouche.
+
+The whole company, pressing after Pierrot, abandoned itself to laughter.
+
+"I always said you should change parts with me," cried Harlequin.
+"You're such an excellent tumbler. Have you been practising?"
+
+"Fool!" Scaramouche snapped. "Must you be laughing when I've all but
+broken my neck?"
+
+"You are right. We ought to be weeping because you didn't break it.
+Come, man, get up," and he held out a hand to the prostrate rogue.
+
+Scaramouche took the hand, clutched it, heaved himself from the ground,
+then with a scream dropped back again.
+
+"My foot!" he complained.
+
+Binet rolled through the group of players, scattering them to right and
+left. Apprehension had been quick to seize him. Fate had played him such
+tricks before.
+
+"What ails your foot?" quoth he, sourly.
+
+"It's broken, I think," Scaramouche complained.
+
+"Broken? Bah! Get up, man." He caught him under the armpits and hauled
+him up.
+
+Scaramouche came howling to one foot; the other doubled under him when
+he attempted to set it down, and he must have collapsed again but that
+Binet supported him. He filled the place with his plaint, whilst Binet
+swore amazingly and variedly.
+
+"Must you bellow like a calf, you fool? Be quiet. A chair here, some
+one."
+
+A chair was thrust forward. He crushed Scaramouche down into it.
+
+"Let us look at this foot of yours."
+
+Heedless of Scaramouche's howls of pain, he swept away shoe and
+stocking.
+
+"What ails it?" he asked, staring. "Nothing that I can see." He seized
+it, heel in one hand, instep in the other, and gyrated it. Scaramouche
+screamed in agony, until Climene caught Binet's arm and made him stop.
+
+"My God, have you no feelings?" she reproved her father. "The lad has
+hurt his foot. Must you torture him? Will that cure it?"
+
+"Hurt his foot!" said Binet. "I can see nothing the matter with his
+foot--nothing to justify all this uproar. He has bruised it, maybe..."
+
+"A man with a bruised foot doesn't scream like that," said Madame over
+Climene's shoulder. "Perhaps he has dislocated it."
+
+"That is what I fear," whimpered Scaramouche.
+
+Binet heaved himself up in disgust.
+
+"Take him to bed," he bade them, "and fetch a doctor to see him."
+
+It was done, and the doctor came. Having seen the patient, he reported
+that nothing very serious had happened, but that in falling he had
+evidently sprained his foot a little. A few days' rest and all would be
+well.
+
+"A few days!" cried Binet. "God of God! Do you mean that he can't walk?"
+
+"It would be unwise, indeed impossible for more than a few steps."
+
+M. Binet paid the doctor's fee, and sat down to think. He filled himself
+a glass of Burgundy, tossed it off without a word, and sat thereafter
+staring into the empty glass.
+
+"It is of course the sort of thing that must always be happening to me,"
+he grumbled to no one in particular. The members of the company were all
+standing in silence before him, sharing his dismay. "I might have known
+that this--or something like it--would occur to spoil the first vein of
+luck that I have found in years. Ah, well, it is finished. To-morrow we
+pack and depart. The best day of the fair, on the crest of the wave of
+our success--a good fifteen louis to be taken, and this happens! God of
+God!"
+
+"Do you mean to abandon to-morrow's performance?"
+
+All turned to stare with Binet at Andre-Louis.
+
+"Are we to play 'Figaro-Scaramouche' without Scaramouche?" asked Binet,
+sneering.
+
+"Of course not." Andre-Louis came forward. "But surely some
+rearrangement of the parts is possible. For instance, there is a fine
+actor in Polichinelle."
+
+Polichinelle swept him a bow. "Overwhelmed," said he, ever sardonic.
+
+"But he has a part of his own," objected Binet.
+
+"A small part, which Pasquariel could play."
+
+"And who will play Pasquariel?"
+
+"Nobody. We delete it. The play need not suffer."
+
+"He thinks of everything," sneered Polichinelle. "What a man!"
+
+But Binet was far from agreement. "Are you suggesting that Polichinelle
+should play Scaramouche?" he asked, incredulously.
+
+"Why not? He is able enough!"
+
+"Overwhelmed again," interjected Polichinelle.
+
+"Play Scaramouche with that figure?" Binet heaved himself up to point a
+denunciatory finger at Polichinelle's sturdy, thick-set shortness.
+
+"For lack of a better," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"Overwhelmed more than ever." Polichinelle's bow was superb this time.
+"Faith, I think I'll take the air to cool me after so much blushing."
+
+"Go to the devil," Binet flung at him.
+
+"Better and better." Polichinelle made for the door. On the threshold he
+halted and struck an attitude. "Understand me, Binet. I do not now play
+Scaramouche in any circumstances whatever." And he went out. On the
+whole, it was a very dignified exit.
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged, threw out his arms, and let them fall to his sides
+again. "You have ruined everything," he told M. Binet. "The matter could
+easily have been arranged. Well, well, it is you are master here;
+and since you want us to pack and be off, that is what we will do, I
+suppose."
+
+He went out, too. M. Binet stood in thought a moment, then followed him,
+his little eyes very cunning. He caught him up in the doorway. "Let us
+take a walk together, M. Parvissimus," said he, very affably.
+
+He thrust his arm through Andre-Louis', and led him out into the street,
+where there was still considerable movement. Past the booths that ranged
+about the market they went, and down the hill towards the bridge. "I
+don't think we shall pack to-morrow," said M. Binet, presently. "In
+fact, we shall play to-morrow night."
+
+"Not if I know Polichinelle. You have..."
+
+"I am not thinking of Polichinelle."
+
+"Of whom, then?"
+
+"Of yourself."
+
+"I am flattered, sir. And in what capacity are you thinking of me?"
+There was something too sleek and oily in Binet's voice for Andre-Louis'
+taste.
+
+"I am thinking of you in the part of Scaramouche."
+
+"Day-dreams," said Andre-Louis. "You are amusing yourself, of course."
+
+"Not in the least. I am quite serious."
+
+"But I am not an actor."
+
+"You told me that you could be."
+
+"Oh, upon occasion... a small part, perhaps..."
+
+"Well, here is a big part--the chance to arrive at a single stride. How
+many men have had such a chance?"
+
+"It is a chance I do not covet, M. Binet. Shall we change the subject?"
+He was very frosty, as much perhaps because he scented in M. Binet's
+manner something that was vaguely menacing as for any other reason.
+
+"We'll change the subject when I please," said M. Binet, allowing a
+glimpse of steel to glimmer through the silk of him. "To-morrow night
+you play Scaramouche. You are ready enough in your wits, your figure is
+ideal, and you have just the kind of mordant humour for the part. You
+should be a great success."
+
+"It is much more likely that I should be an egregious failure."
+
+"That won't matter," said Binet, cynically, and explained himself.
+"The failure will be personal to yourself. The receipts will be safe by
+then."
+
+"Much obliged," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"We should take fifteen louis to-morrow night."
+
+"It is unfortunate that you are without a Scaramouche," said
+Andre-Louis.
+
+"It is fortunate that I have one, M. Parvissimus."
+
+Andre-Louis disengaged his arm. "I begin to find you tiresome," said he.
+"I think I will return."
+
+"A moment, M. Parvissimus. If I am to lose that fifteen louis... you'll
+not take it amiss that I compensate myself in other ways?"
+
+"That is your own concern, M. Binet."
+
+"Pardon, M. Parvissimus. It may possibly be also yours." Binet took his
+arm again. "Do me the kindness to step across the street with me. Just
+as far as the post-office there. I have something to show you."
+
+Andre-Louis went. Before they reached that sheet of paper nailed upon
+the door, he knew exactly what it would say. And in effect it was, as he
+had supposed, that twenty louis would be paid for information leading to
+the apprehension of one Andre-Louis Moreau, lawyer of Gavrillac, who was
+wanted by the King's Lieutenant in Rennes upon a charge of sedition.
+
+M. Binet watched him whilst he read. Their arms were linked, and Binet's
+grip was firm and powerful.
+
+"Now, my friend," said he, "will you be M. Parvissimus and play
+Scaramouche to-morrow, or will you be Andre-Louis Moreau of Gavrillac
+and go to Rennes to satisfy the King's Lieutenant?"
+
+"And if it should happen that you are mistaken?" quoth Andre-Louis, his
+face a mask.
+
+"I'll take the risk of that," leered M. Binet. "You mentioned, I think,
+that you were a lawyer. An indiscretion, my dear. It is unlikely that
+two lawyers will be in hiding at the same time in the same district. You
+see it is not really clever of me. Well, M. Andre-Louis Moreau, lawyer
+of Gavrillac, what is it to be?"
+
+"We will talk it over as we walk back," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"What is there to talk over?"
+
+"One or two things, I think. I must know where I stand. Come, sir, if
+you please."
+
+"Very well," said M. Binet, and they turned up the street again, but M.
+Binet maintained a firm hold of his young friend's arm, and kept himself
+on the alert for any tricks that the young gentleman might be disposed
+to play. It was an unnecessary precaution. Andre-Louis was not the man
+to waste his energy futilely. He knew that in bodily strength he was no
+match at all for the heavy and powerful Pantaloon.
+
+"If I yield to your most eloquent and seductive persuasions, M. Binet,"
+said he, sweetly, "what guarantee do you give me that you will not sell
+me for twenty louis after I shall have served your turn?"
+
+"You have my word of honour for that." M. Binet was emphatic.
+
+Andre-Louis laughed. "Oh, we are to talk of honour, are we? Really, M.
+Binet? It is clear you think me a fool."
+
+In the dark he did not see the flush that leapt to M. Binet's round
+face. It was some moments before he replied.
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he growled. "What guarantee do you want?"
+
+"I do not know what guarantee you can possibly give."
+
+"I have said that I will keep faith with you."
+
+"Until you find it more profitable to sell me."
+
+"You have it in your power to make it more profitable always for me
+to keep faith with you. It is due to you that we have done so well in
+Guichen. Oh, I admit it frankly."
+
+"In private," said Andre-Louis.
+
+M. Binet left the sarcasm unheeded.
+
+"What you have done for us here with 'Figaro-Scaramouche,' you can do
+elsewhere with other things. Naturally, I shall not want to lose you.
+That is your guarantee."
+
+"Yet to-night you would sell me for twenty louis."
+
+"Because--name of God!--you enrage me by refusing me a service well within
+your powers. Don't you think, had I been entirely the rogue you think
+me, I could have sold you on Saturday last? I want you to understand me,
+my dear Parvissimus."
+
+"I beg that you'll not apologize. You would be more tiresome than ever."
+
+"Of course you will be gibing. You never miss a chance to gibe. It'll
+bring you trouble before you're done with life. Come; here we are back
+at the inn, and you have not yet given me your decision."
+
+Andre-Louis looked at him. "I must yield, of course. I can't help
+myself."
+
+M. Binet released his arm at last, and slapped him heartily upon the
+back. "Well declared, my lad. You'll never regret it. If I know anything
+of the theatre, I know that you have made the great decision of your
+life. To-morrow night you'll thank me."
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged, and stepped out ahead towards the inn. But M.
+Binet called him back.
+
+"M. Parvissimus!"
+
+He turned. There stood the man's great bulk, the moonlight beating down
+upon that round fat face of his, and he was holding out his hand.
+
+"M. Parvissimus, no rancour. It is a thing I do not admit into my life.
+You will shake hands with me, and we will forget all this."
+
+Andre-Louis considered him a moment with disgust. He was growing
+angry. Then, realizing this, he conceived himself ridiculous, almost as
+ridiculous as that sly, scoundrelly Pantaloon. He laughed and took the
+outstretched hand. "No rancour?" M. Binet insisted.
+
+"Oh, no rancour," said Andre-Louis.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
+
+Dressed in the close-fitting suit of a bygone age, all black, from flat
+velvet cap to rosetted shoes, his face whitened and a slight up-curled
+moustache glued to his upper lip, a small-sword at his side and a guitar
+slung behind him, Scaramouche surveyed himself in a mirror, and was
+disposed to be sardonic--which was the proper mood for the part.
+
+He reflected that his life, which until lately had been of a stagnant,
+contemplative quality, had suddenly become excessively active. In the
+course of one week he had been lawyer, mob-orator, outlaw, property-man,
+and finally buffoon. Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving
+an audience of Rennes to anger; on this Wednesday he was to move an
+audience of Guichen to mirth. Then he had been concerned to draw tears;
+to-day it was his business to provoke laughter. There was a difference,
+and yet there was a parallel. Then as now he had been a comedian; and
+the part that he had played then was, when you came to think of it, akin
+to the part he was to play this evening. For what had he been at Rennes
+but a sort of Scaramouche--the little skirmisher, the astute intriguer,
+spattering the seed of trouble with a sly hand? The only difference
+lay in the fact that to-day he went forth under the name that properly
+described his type, whereas last week he had been disguised as a
+respectable young provincial attorney.
+
+He bowed to his reflection in the mirror.
+
+"Buffoon!" he apostrophized it. "At last you have found yourself. At
+last you have come into your heritage. You should be a great success."
+
+Hearing his new name called out by M. Binet, he went below to find the
+company assembled, and waiting in the entrance corridor of the inn.
+
+He was, of course, an object of great interest to all the company. Most
+critically was he conned by M. Binet and mademoiselle; by the former
+with gravely searching eyes, by the latter with a curl of scornful lip.
+
+"You'll do," M. Binet commended his make-up. "At least you look the
+part."
+
+"Unfortunately men are not always what they look," said Climene, acidly.
+
+"That is a truth that does not at present apply to me," said
+Andre-Louis. "For it is the first time in my life that I look what I
+am."
+
+Mademoiselle curled her lip a little further, and turned her shoulder
+to him. But the others thought him very witty--probably because he was
+obscure. Columbine encouraged him with a friendly smile that displayed
+her large white teeth, and M. Binet swore yet once again that he would
+be a great success, since he threw himself with such spirit into the
+undertaking. Then in a voice that for the moment he appeared to have
+borrowed from the roaring captain, M. Binet marshalled them for the
+short parade across to the market-hall.
+
+The new Scaramouche fell into place beside Rhodomont. The old one,
+hobbling on a crutch, had departed an hour ago to take the place of
+doorkeeper, vacated of necessity by Andre-Louis. So that the exchange
+between those two was a complete one.
+
+Headed by Polichinelle banging his great drum and Pierrot blowing his
+trumpet, they set out, and were duly passed in review by the ragamuffins
+drawn up in files to enjoy so much of the spectacle as was to be
+obtained for nothing.
+
+Ten minutes later the three knocks sounded, and the curtains were drawn
+aside to reveal a battered set that was partly garden, partly forest, in
+which Climene feverishly looked for the coming of Leandre. In the wings
+stood the beautiful, melancholy lover, awaiting his cue, and immediately
+behind him the unfledged Scaramouche, who was anon to follow him.
+
+Andre-Louis was assailed with nausea in that dread moment. He attempted
+to take a lightning mental review of the first act of this scenario of
+which he was himself the author-in-chief; but found his mind a complete
+blank. With the perspiration starting from his skin, he stepped back to
+the wall, where above a dim lantern was pasted a sheet bearing the
+brief outline of the piece. He was still studying it, when his arm
+was clutched, and he was pulled violently towards the wings. He had a
+glimpse of Pantaloon's grotesque face, its eyes blazing, and he caught a
+raucous growl:
+
+"Climene has spoken your cue three times already."
+
+Before he realized it, he had been bundled on to the stage, and stood
+there foolishly, blinking in the glare of the footlights, with their tin
+reflectors. So utterly foolish and bewildered did he look that volley
+upon volley of laughter welcomed him from the audience, which this
+evening packed the hall from end to end. Trembling a little, his
+bewilderment at first increasing, he stood there to receive that rolling
+tribute to his absurdity. Climene was eyeing him with expectant
+mockery, savouring in advance his humiliation; Leandre regarded him in
+consternation, whilst behind the scenes, M. Binet was dancing in fury.
+
+"Name of a name," he groaned to the rather scared members of the company
+assembled there, "what will happen when they discover that he isn't
+acting?"
+
+But they never did discover it. Scaramouche's bewildered paralysis
+lasted but a few seconds. He realized that he was being laughed at, and
+remembered that his Scaramouche was a creature to be laughed with, and
+not at. He must save the situation; twist it to his own advantage as
+best he could. And now his real bewilderment and terror was succeeded by
+acted bewilderment and terror far more marked, but not quite so funny.
+He contrived to make it clearly appear that his terror was of some one
+off the stage. He took cover behind a painted shrub, and thence, the
+laughter at last beginning to subside, he addressed himself to Climene
+and Leandre.
+
+"Forgive me, beautiful lady, if the abrupt manner of my entrance
+startled you. The truth is that I have never been the same since that
+last affair of mine with Almaviva. My heart is not what it used to be.
+Down there at the end of the lane I came face to face with an elderly
+gentleman carrying a heavy cudgel, and the horrible thought entered my
+mind that it might be your father, and that our little stratagem to get
+you safely married might already have been betrayed to him. I think it
+was the cudgel put such notion in my head. Not that I am afraid. I am
+not really afraid of anything. But I could not help reflecting that, if
+it should really have been your father, and he had broken my head with
+his cudgel, your hopes would have perished with me. For without me, what
+should you have done, my poor children?"
+
+A ripple of laughter from the audience had been steadily enheartening
+him, and helping him to recover his natural impudence. It was clear they
+found him comical. They were to find him far more comical than ever he
+had intended, and this was largely due to a fortuitous circumstance upon
+which he had insufficiently reckoned. The fear of recognition by some
+one from Gavrillac or Rennes had been strong upon him. His face was
+sufficiently made up to baffle recognition; but there remained his
+voice. To dissemble this he had availed himself of the fact that Figaro
+was a Spaniard. He had known a Spaniard at Louis le Grand who spoke
+a fluent but most extraordinary French, with a grotesque excess of
+sibilant sounds. It was an accent that he had often imitated, as youths
+will imitate characteristics that excite their mirth. Opportunely he had
+bethought him of that Spanish student, and it was upon his speech
+that to-night he modelled his own. The audience of Guichen found it as
+laughable on his lips as he and his fellows had found it formerly on the
+lips of that derided Spaniard.
+
+Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Binet--listening to that glib impromptu of
+which the scenario gave no indication--had recovered from his fears.
+
+"Dieu de Dieu!" he whispered, grinning. "Did he do it, then, on
+purpose?"
+
+It seemed to him impossible that a man who had been so terror-stricken
+as he had fancied Andre-Louis, could have recovered his wits so quickly
+and completely. Yet the doubt remained.
+
+To resolve it after the curtain had fallen upon a first act that had
+gone with a verve unrivalled until this hour in the annals of the
+company, borne almost entirely upon the slim shoulders of the new
+Scaramouche, M. Binet bluntly questioned him.
+
+They were standing in the space that did duty as green-room, the company
+all assembled there, showering congratulations upon their new recruit.
+Scaramouche, a little exalted at the moment by his success, however
+trivial he might consider it to-morrow, took then a full revenge upon
+Climene for the malicious satisfaction with which she had regarded his
+momentary blank terror.
+
+"I do not wonder that you ask," said he. "Faith, I should have warned
+you that I intended to do my best from the start to put the audience
+in a good humour with me. Mademoiselle very nearly ruined everything by
+refusing to reflect any of my terror. She was not even startled.
+Another time, mademoiselle, I shall give you full warning of my every
+intention."
+
+She crimsoned under her grease-paint. But before she could find an
+answer of sufficient venom, her father was rating her soundly for her
+stupidity--the more soundly because himself he had been deceived by
+Scaramouche's supreme acting.
+
+Scaramouche's success in the first act was more than confirmed as
+the performance proceeded. Completely master of himself by now, and
+stimulated as only success can stimulate, he warmed to his work.
+Impudent, alert, sly, graceful, he incarnated the very ideal of
+Scaramouche, and he helped out his own native wit by many a remembered
+line from Beaumarchais, thereby persuading the better informed among the
+audience that here indeed was something of the real Figaro, and bringing
+them, as it were, into touch with the great world of the capital.
+
+When at last the curtain fell for the last time, it was Scaramouche
+who shared with Climene the honours of the evening, his name that was
+coupled with hers in the calls that summoned them before the curtains.
+
+As they stepped back, and the curtains screened them again from the
+departing audience, M. Binet approached them, rubbing his fat hands
+softly together. This runagate young lawyer, whom chance had blown into
+his company, had evidently been sent by Fate to make his fortune for
+him. The sudden success at Guichen, hitherto unrivalled, should be
+repeated and augmented elsewhere. There would be no more sleeping under
+hedges and tightening of belts. Adversity was behind him. He placed a
+hand upon Scaramouche's shoulder, and surveyed him with a smile whose
+oiliness not even his red paint and colossal false nose could dissemble.
+
+"And what have you to say to me now?" he asked him. "Was I wrong when
+I assured you that you would succeed? Do you think I have followed my
+fortunes in the theatre for a lifetime without knowing a born actor when
+I see one? You are my discovery, Scaramouche. I have discovered you
+to yourself. I have set your feet upon the road to fame and fortune. I
+await your thanks."
+
+Scaramouche laughed at him, and his laugh was not altogether pleasant.
+
+"Always Pantaloon!" said he.
+
+The great countenance became overcast. "I see that you do not yet
+forgive me the little stratagem by which I forced you to do justice to
+yourself. Ungrateful dog! As if I could have had any purpose but to make
+you; and I have done so. Continue as you have begun, and you will end in
+Paris. You may yet tread the stage of the Comedie Francaise, the rival
+of Talma, Fleury, and Dugazon. When that happens to you perhaps you will
+feel the gratitude that is due to old Binet, for you will owe it all to
+this soft-hearted old fool."
+
+"If you were as good an actor on the stage as you are in private," said
+Scaramouche, "you would yourself have won to the Comedie Francaise long
+since. But I bear no rancour, M. Binet." He laughed, and put out his
+hand.
+
+Binet fell upon it and wrung it heartily.
+
+"That, at least, is something," he declared. "My boy, I have great plans
+for you--for us. To-morrow we go to Maure; there is a fair there to the
+end of this week. Then on Monday we take our chances at Pipriac, and
+after that we must consider. It may be that I am about to realize the
+dream of my life. There must have been upwards of fifteen louis taken
+to-night. Where the devil is that rascal Cordemais?"
+
+Cordemais was the name of the original Scaramouche, who had so
+unfortunately twisted his ankle. That Binet should refer to him by his
+secular designation was a sign that in the Binet company at least he had
+fallen for ever from the lofty eminence of Scaramouche.
+
+"Let us go and find him, and then we'll away to the inn and crack a
+bottle of the best Burgundy, perhaps two bottles."
+
+But Cordemais was not readily to be found. None of the company had
+seen him since the close of the performance. M. Binet went round to the
+entrance. Cordemais was not there. At first he was annoyed; then as he
+continued in vain to bawl the fellow's name, he began to grow uneasy;
+lastly, when Polichinelle, who was with them, discovered Cordemais'
+crutch standing discarded behind the door, M. Binet became alarmed.
+A dreadful suspicion entered his mind. He grew visibly pale under his
+paint.
+
+"But this evening he couldn't walk without the crutch!" he exclaimed.
+"How then does he come to leave it there and take himself off?"
+
+"Perhaps he has gone on to the inn," suggested some one.
+
+"But he couldn't walk without his crutch," M. Binet insisted.
+
+Nevertheless, since clearly he was not anywhere about the market-hall,
+to the inn they all trooped, and deafened the landlady with their
+inquiries.
+
+"Oh, yes, M. Cordemais came in some time ago."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"He went away again at once. He just came for his bag."
+
+"For his bag!" Binet was on the point of an apoplexy. "How long ago was
+that?"
+
+She glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. "It would be about half
+an hour ago. It was a few minutes before the Rennes diligence passed
+through."
+
+"The Rennes diligence!" M. Binet was almost inarticulate. "Could he...
+could he walk?" he asked, on a note of terrible anxiety.
+
+"Walk? He ran like a hare when he left the inn. I thought, myself, that
+his agility was suspicious, seeing how lame he had been since he fell
+downstairs yesterday. Is anything wrong?"
+
+M. Binet had collapsed into a chair. He took his head in his hands, and
+groaned.
+
+"The scoundrel was shamming all the time!" exclaimed Climene. "His fall
+downstairs was a trick. He was playing for this. He has swindled us."
+
+"Fifteen louis at least--perhaps sixteen!" said M. Binet. "Oh, the
+heartless blackguard! To swindle me who have been as a father to him--and
+to swindle me in such a moment."
+
+From the ranks of the silent, awe-stricken company, each member of
+which was wondering by how much of the loss his own meagre pay would be
+mulcted, there came a splutter of laughter.
+
+M. Binet glared with blood-injected eyes.
+
+"Who laughs?" he roared. "What heartless wretch has the audacity to
+laugh at my misfortune?"
+
+Andre-Louis, still in the sable glories of Scaramouche, stood forward.
+He was laughing still.
+
+"It is you, is it? You may laugh on another note, my friend, if I choose
+a way to recoup myself that I know of."
+
+"Dullard!" Scaramouche scorned him. "Rabbit-brained elephant! What if
+Cordemais has gone with fifteen louis? Hasn't he left you something
+worth twenty times as much?"
+
+M. Binet gaped uncomprehending.
+
+"You are between two wines, I think. You've been drinking," he
+concluded.
+
+"So I have--at the fountain of Thalia. Oh, don't you see? Don't you see
+the treasure that Cordemais has left behind him?"
+
+"What has he left?"
+
+"A unique idea for the groundwork of a scenario. It unfolds itself all
+before me. I'll borrow part of the title from Moliere. We'll call it
+'Les Fourberies de Scaramouche,' and if we don't leave the audiences of
+Maure and Pipriac with sides aching from laughter I'll play the dullard
+Pantaloon in future."
+
+Polichinelle smacked fist into palm. "Superb!" he said, fiercely. "To
+cull fortune from misfortune, to turn loss into profit, that is to have
+genius."
+
+Scaramouche made a leg. "Polichinelle, you are a fellow after my own
+heart. I love a man who can discern my merit. If Pantaloon had half
+your wit, we should have Burgundy to-night in spite of the flight of
+Cordemais."
+
+"Burgundy?" roared M. Binet, and before he could get farther Harlequin
+had clapped his hands together.
+
+"That is the spirit, M. Binet. You heard him, landlady. He called for
+Burgundy."
+
+"I called for nothing of the kind."
+
+"But you heard him, dear madame. We all heard him."
+
+The others made chorus, whilst Scaramouche smiled at him, and patted his
+shoulder.
+
+"Up, man, a little courage. Did you not say that fortune awaits us? And
+have we not now the wherewithal to constrain fortune? Burgundy, then,
+to... to toast 'Les Fourberies de Scaramouche.'"
+
+And M. Binet, who was not blind to the force of the idea, yielded, took
+courage, and got drunk with the rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. CLIMENE
+
+Diligent search among the many scenarios of the improvisers which have
+survived their day, has failed to bring to light the scenario of "Les
+Fourberies de Scaramouche," upon which we are told the fortunes of the
+Binet troupe came to be soundly established. They played it for the
+first time at Maure in the following week, with Andre-Louis--who was
+known by now as Scaramouche to all the company, and to the public
+alike--in the title-role. If he had acquitted himself well as
+Figaro-Scaramouche, he excelled himself in the new piece, the scenario
+of which would appear to be very much the better of the two.
+
+After Maure came Pipriac, where four performances were given, two
+of each of the scenarios that now formed the backbone of the Binet
+repertoire. In both Scaramouche, who was beginning to find himself,
+materially improved his performances. So smoothly now did the two pieces
+run that Scaramouche actually suggested to Binet that after Fougeray,
+which they were to visit in the following week, they should tempt
+fortune in a real theatre in the important town of Redon. The notion
+terrified Binet at first, but coming to think of it, and his ambition
+being fanned by Andre-Louis, he ended by allowing himself to succumb to
+the temptation.
+
+It seemed to Andre-Louis in those days that he had found his real
+metier, and not only was he beginning to like it, but actually to look
+forward to a career as actor-author that might indeed lead him in the
+end to that Mecca of all comedians, the Comedie Francaise. And there
+were other possibilities. From the writing of skeleton scenarios for
+improvisers, he might presently pass to writing plays of dialogue, plays
+in the proper sense of the word, after the manner of Chenier, Eglantine,
+and Beaumarchais.
+
+The fact that he dreamed such dreams shows us how very kindly he had
+taken to the profession into which Chance and M. Binet between them had
+conspired to thrust him. That he had real talent both as author and
+as actor I do not doubt, and I am persuaded that had things fallen out
+differently he would have won for himself a lasting place among French
+dramatists, and thus fully have realized that dream of his.
+
+Now, dream though it was, he did not neglect the practical side of it.
+
+"You realize," he told M. Binet, "that I have it in my power to make
+your fortune for you."
+
+He and Binet were sitting alone together in the parlour of the inn at
+Pipriac, drinking a very excellent bottle of Volnay. It was on the night
+after the fourth and last performance there of "Les Feurberies." The
+business in Pipriac had been as excellent as in Maure and Guichen. You
+will have gathered this from the fact that they drank Volnay.
+
+"I will concede it, my dear Scaramouche, so that I may hear the sequel."
+
+"I am disposed to exercise this power if the inducement is sufficient.
+You will realize that for fifteen livres a month a man does not sell
+such exceptional gifts as mine.
+
+"There is an alternative," said M. Binet, darkly.
+
+"There is no alternative. Don't be a fool, Binet."
+
+Binet sat up as if he had been prodded. Members of his company did not
+take this tone of direct rebuke with him.
+
+"Anyway, I make you a present of it," Scaramouche pursued, airily.
+"Exercise it if you please. Step outside and inform the police that they
+can lay hands upon one Andre-Louis Moreau. But that will be the end of
+your fine dreams of going to Redon, and for the first time in your life
+playing in a real theatre. Without me, you can't do it, and you know
+it; and I am not going to Redon or anywhere else, in fact I am not even
+going to Fougeray, until we have an equitable arrangement."
+
+"But what heat!" complained Binet, "and all for what? Why must you
+assume that I have the soul of a usurer? When our little arrangement was
+made, I had no idea how could I?--that you would prove as valuable to me
+as you are? You had but to remind me, my dear Scaramouche. I am a just
+man. As from to-day you shall have thirty livres a month. See, I double
+it at once. I am a generous man."
+
+"But you are not ambitious. Now listen to me, a moment."
+
+And he proceeded to unfold a scheme that filled Binet with a paralyzing
+terror.
+
+"After Redon, Nantes," he said. "Nantes and the Theatre Feydau."
+
+M. Binet choked in the act of drinking. The Theatre Feydau was a sort
+of provincial Comedie Francaise. The great Fleury had played there to
+an audience as critical as any in France. The very thought of Redon,
+cherished as it had come to be by M. Binet, gave him at moments a cramp
+in the stomach, so dangerously ambitious did it seem to him. And Redon
+was a puppet-show by comparison with Nantes. Yet this raw lad whom
+he had picked up by chance three weeks ago, and who in that time had
+blossomed from a country attorney into author and actor, could talk of
+Nantes and the Theatre Feydau without changing colour.
+
+"But why not Paris and the Comedie Francaise?" wondered M. Binet, with
+sarcasm, when at last he had got his breath.
+
+"That may come later," says impudence.
+
+"Eh? You've been drinking, my friend."
+
+But Andre-Louis detailed the plan that had been forming in his mind.
+Fougeray should be a training-ground for Redon, and Redon should be a
+training-ground for Nantes. They would stay in Redon as long as Redon
+would pay adequately to come and see them, working hard to perfect
+themselves the while. They would add three or four new players of talent
+to the company; he would write three or four fresh scenarios, and these
+should be tested and perfected until the troupe was in possession of at
+least half a dozen plays upon which they could depend; they would lay
+out a portion of their profits on better dresses and better scenery, and
+finally in a couple of months' time, if all went well, they should be
+ready to make their real bid for fortune at Nantes. It was quite true
+that distinction was usually demanded of the companies appearing at
+the Feydau, but on the other hand Nantes had not seen a troupe of
+improvisers for a generation and longer. They would be supplying a
+novelty to which all Nantes should flock provided that the work were
+really well done, and Scaramouche undertook--pledged himself--that
+if matters were left in his own hands, his projected revival of
+the Commedia dell' Arte in all its glories would exceed whatever
+expectations the public of Nantes might bring to the theatre.
+
+"We'll talk of Paris after Nantes," he finished, supremely
+matter-of-fact, "just as we will definitely decide on Nantes after
+Redon."
+
+The persuasiveness that could sway a mob ended by sweeping M. Binet off
+his feet. The prospect which Scaramouche unfolded, if terrifying, was
+also intoxicating, and as Scaramouche delivered a crushing answer to
+each weakening objection in a measure as it was advanced, Binet ended by
+promising to think the matter over.
+
+"Redon will point the way," said Andre-Louis, "and I don't doubt which
+way Redon will point."
+
+Thus the great adventure of Redon dwindled to insignificance. Instead
+of a terrifying undertaking in itself, it became merely a rehearsal for
+something greater. In his momentary exaltation Binet proposed another
+bottle of Volnay. Scaramouche waited until the cork was drawn before he
+continued.
+
+"The thing remains possible," said he then, holding his glass to the
+light, and speaking casually, "as long as I am with you."
+
+"Agreed, my dear Scaramouche, agreed. Our chance meeting was a fortunate
+thing for both of us."
+
+"For both of us," said Scaramouche, with stress. "That is as I would
+have it. So that I do not think you will surrender me just yet to the
+police."
+
+"As if I could think of such a thing! My dear Scaramouche, you amuse
+yourself. I beg that you will never, never allude to that little joke of
+mine again."
+
+"It is forgotten," said Andre-Louis. "And now for the remainder of my
+proposal. If I am to become the architect of your fortunes, if I am to
+build them as I have planned them, I must also and in the same degree
+become the architect of my own."
+
+"In the same degree?" M. Binet frowned.
+
+"In the same degree. From to-day, if you please, we will conduct
+the affairs of this company in a proper manner, and we will keep
+account-books."
+
+"I am an artist," said M. Binet, with pride. "I am not a merchant."
+
+"There is a business side to your art, and that shall be conducted in
+the business manner. I have thought it all out for you. You shall not
+be troubled with details that might hinder the due exercise of your art.
+All that you have to do is to say yes or no to my proposal."
+
+"Ah? And the proposal?"
+
+"Is that you constitute me your partner, with an equal share in the
+profits of your company."
+
+Pantaloon's great countenance grew pale, his little eyes widened to
+their fullest extent as he conned the face of his companion. Then he
+exploded.
+
+"You are mad, of course, to make me a proposal so monstrous."
+
+"It has its injustices, I admit. But I have provided for them. It would
+not, for instance, be fair that in addition to all that I am proposing
+to do for you, I should also play Scaramouche and write your scenarios
+without any reward outside of the half-profit which would come to me as
+a partner. Thus before the profits come to be divided, there is a salary
+to be paid me as actor, and a small sum for each scenario with which I
+provide the company; that is a matter for mutual agreement. Similarly,
+you shall be paid a salary as Pantaloon. After those expenses are
+cleared up, as well as all the other salaries and disbursements, the
+residue is the profit to be divided equally between us."
+
+It was not, as you can imagine, a proposal that M. Binet would swallow
+at a draught. He began with a point-blank refusal to consider it.
+
+"In that case, my friend," said Scaramouche, "we part company at once.
+To-morrow I shall bid you a reluctant farewell."
+
+Binet fell to raging. He spoke of ingratitude in feeling terms; he
+even permitted himself another sly allusion to that little jest of his
+concerning the police, which he had promised never again to mention.
+
+"As to that, you may do as you please. Play the informer, by all
+means. But consider that you will just as definitely be deprived of
+my services, and that without me you are nothing--as you were before I
+joined your company."
+
+M. Binet did not care what the consequences might be. A fig for the
+consequences! He would teach this impudent young country attorney that
+M. Binet was not the man to be imposed upon.
+
+Scaramouche rose. "Very well," said he, between indifference and
+resignation. "As you wish. But before you act, sleep on the matter. In
+the cold light of morning you may see our two proposals in their proper
+proportions. Mine spells fortune for both of us. Yours spells ruin for
+both of us. Good-night, M. Binet. Heaven help you to a wise decision."
+
+The decision to which M. Binet finally came was, naturally, the only one
+possible in the face of so firm a resolve as that of Andre-Louis, who
+held the trumps. Of course there were further discussions, before all
+was settled, and M. Binet was brought to an agreement only after an
+infinity of haggling surprising in one who was an artist and not a
+man of business. One or two concessions were made by Andre-Louis; he
+consented, for instance, to waive his claim to be paid for scenarios,
+and he also consented that M. Binet should appoint himself a salary that
+was out of all proportion to his deserts.
+
+Thus in the end the matter was settled, and the announcement duly
+made to the assembled company. There were, of course, jealousies and
+resentments. But these were not deep-seated, and they were readily
+swallowed when it was discovered that under the new arrangement the lot
+of the entire company was to be materially improved from the point
+of view of salaries. This was a matter that had met with considerable
+opposition from M. Binet. But the irresistible Scaramouche swept away
+all objections.
+
+"If we are to play at the Feydau, you want a company of self-respecting
+comedians, and not a pack of cringing starvelings. The better we pay
+them in reason, the more they will earn for us."
+
+Thus was conquered the company's resentment of this too swift promotion
+of its latest recruit. Cheerfully now--with one exception--they accepted
+the dominance of Scaramouche, a dominance soon to be so firmly
+established that M. Binet himself came under it.
+
+The one exception was Climene. Her failure to bring to heel this
+interesting young stranger, who had almost literally dropped into their
+midst that morning outside Guichen, had begotten in her a malice which
+his persistent ignoring of her had been steadily inflaming. She had
+remonstrated with her father when the new partnership was first formed.
+She had lost her temper with him, and called him a fool, whereupon M.
+Binet--in Pantaloon's best manner--had lost his temper in his turn and
+boxed her ears. She piled it up to the account of Scaramouche, and
+spied her opportunity to pay off some of that ever-increasing score. But
+opportunities were few. Scaramouche was too occupied just then. During
+the week of preparation at Fougeray, he was hardly seen save at the
+performances, whilst when once they were at Redon, he came and went like
+the wind between the theatre and the inn.
+
+The Redon experiment had justified itself from the first. Stimulated and
+encouraged by this, Andre-Louis worked day and night during the month
+that they spent in that busy little town. The moment had been well
+chosen, for the trade in chestnuts of which Redon is the centre was just
+then at its height. And every afternoon the little theatre was packed
+with spectators. The fame of the troupe had gone forth, borne by the
+chestnut-growers of the district, who were bringing their wares to Redon
+market, and the audiences were made up of people from the surrounding
+country, and from neighbouring villages as far out as Allaire,
+Saint-Perrieux and Saint-Nicholas. To keep the business from slackening,
+Andre-Louis prepared a new scenario every week. He wrote three in
+addition to those two with which he had already supplied the company;
+these were "The Marriage of Pantaloon," "The Shy Lover," and "The
+Terrible Captain." Of these the last was the greatest success. It was
+based upon the "Miles Gloriosus" of Plautus, with great opportunities
+for Rhodomont, and a good part for Scaramouche as the roaring captain's
+sly lieutenant. Its success was largely due to the fact that Andre-Louis
+amplified the scenario to the extent of indicating very fully in places
+the lines which the dialogue should follow, whilst here and there he
+had gone so far as to supply some of the actual dialogue to be spoken,
+without, however, making it obligatory upon the actors to keep to the
+letter of it.
+
+And meanwhile as the business prospered, he became busy with tailors,
+improving the wardrobe of the company, which was sorely in need of
+improvement. He ran to earth a couple of needy artists, lured them into
+the company to play small parts--apothecaries and notaries--and set them
+to beguile their leisure in painting new scenery, so as to be ready
+for what he called the conquest of Nantes, which was to come in the new
+year. Never in his life had he worked so hard; never in his life had he
+worked at all by comparison with his activities now. His fund of energy
+and enthusiasm was inexhaustible, like that of his good humour. He came
+and went, acted, wrote, conceived, directed, planned, and executed,
+what time M. Binet took his ease at last in comparative affluence, drank
+Burgundy every night, ate white bread and other delicacies, and began
+to congratulate himself upon his astuteness in having made this
+industrious, tireless fellow his partner. Having discovered how idle
+had been his fears of performing at Redon, he now began to dismiss the
+terrors with which the notion of Nantes had haunted him.
+
+And his happiness was reflected throughout the ranks of his company,
+with the single exception always of Climene. She had ceased to sneer at
+Scaramouche, having realized at last that her sneers left him untouched
+and recoiled upon herself. Thus her almost indefinable resentment of him
+was increased by being stifled, until, at all costs, an outlet for it
+must be found.
+
+One day she threw herself in his way as he was leaving the theatre after
+the performance. The others had already gone, and she had returned upon
+pretence of having forgotten something.
+
+"Will you tell me what I have done to you?" she asked him, point-blank.
+
+"Done to me, mademoiselle?" He did not understand.
+
+She made a gesture of impatience. "Why do you hate me?"
+
+"Hate you, mademoiselle? I do not hate anybody. It is the most stupid of
+all the emotions. I have never hated--not even my enemies."
+
+"What Christian resignation!"
+
+"As for hating you, of all people! Why... I consider you adorable. I
+envy Leandre every day of my life. I have seriously thought of setting
+him to play Scaramouche, and playing lovers myself."
+
+"I don't think you would be a success," said she.
+
+"That is the only consideration that restrains me. And yet, given
+the inspiration that is given Leandre, it is possible that I might be
+convincing."
+
+"Why, what inspiration do you mean?"
+
+"The inspiration of playing to so adorable a Climene."
+
+Her lazy eyes were now alert to search that lean face of his.
+
+"You are laughing at me," said she, and swept past him into the theatre
+on her pretended quest. There was nothing to be done with such a fellow.
+He was utterly without feeling. He was not a man at all.
+
+Yet when she came forth again at the end of some five minutes, she found
+him still lingering at the door.
+
+"Not gone yet?" she asked him, superciliously.
+
+"I was waiting for you, mademoiselle. You will be walking to the inn. If
+I might escort you..."
+
+"But what gallantry! What condescension!"
+
+"Perhaps you would prefer that I did not?"
+
+"How could I prefer that, M. Scaramouche? Besides, we are both going the
+same way, and the streets are common to all. It is that I am overwhelmed
+by the unusual honour."
+
+He looked into her piquant little face, and noted how obscured it was by
+its cloud of dignity. He laughed.
+
+"Perhaps I feared that the honour was not sought."
+
+"Ah, now I understand," she cried. "It is for me to seek these honours.
+I am to woo a man before he will pay me the homage of civility. It must
+be so, since you, who clearly know everything, have said so. It remains
+for me to beg your pardon for my ignorance."
+
+"It amuses you to be cruel," said Scaramouche. "No matter. Shall we
+walk?"
+
+They set out together, stepping briskly to warm their blood against
+the wintry evening air. Awhile they went in silence, yet each furtively
+observing the other.
+
+"And so, you find me cruel?" she challenged him at length, thereby
+betraying the fact that the accusation had struck home.
+
+He looked at her with a half smile. "Will you deny it?"
+
+"You are the first man that ever accused me of that."
+
+"I dare not suppose myself the first man to whom you have been cruel.
+That were an assumption too flattering to myself. I must prefer to think
+that the others suffered in silence."
+
+"Mon Dieu! Have you suffered?" She was between seriousness and raillery.
+
+"I place the confession as an offering on the altar of your vanity."
+
+"I should never have suspected it."
+
+"How could you? Am I not what your father calls a natural actor? I was
+an actor long before I became Scaramouche. Therefore I have laughed. I
+often do when I am hurt. When you were pleased to be disdainful, I acted
+disdain in my turn."
+
+"You acted very well," said she, without reflecting.
+
+"Of course. I am an excellent actor."
+
+"And why this sudden change?"
+
+"In response to the change in you. You have grown weary of your part of
+cruel madam--a dull part, believe me, and unworthy of your talents. Were
+I a woman and had I your loveliness and your grace, Climene, I should
+disdain to use them as weapons of offence."
+
+"Loveliness and grace!" she echoed, feigning amused surprise. But the
+vain baggage was mollified. "When was it that you discovered this beauty
+and this grace, M. Scaramouche?"
+
+He looked at her a moment, considering the sprightly beauty of her, the
+adorable femininity that from the first had so irresistibly attracted
+him.
+
+"One morning when I beheld you rehearsing a love-scene with Leandre."
+
+He caught the surprise that leapt to her eyes, before she veiled them
+under drooping lids from his too questing gaze.
+
+"Why, that was the first time you saw me."
+
+"I had no earlier occasion to remark your charms."
+
+"You ask me to believe too much," said she, but her tone was softer than
+he had ever known it yet.
+
+"Then you'll refuse to believe me if I confess that it was this grace
+and beauty that determined my destiny that day by urging me to join your
+father's troupe."
+
+At that she became a little out of breath. There was no longer any
+question of finding an outlet for resentment. Resentment was all
+forgotten.
+
+"But why? With what object?"
+
+"With the object of asking you one day to be my wife."
+
+She halted under the shock of that, and swung round to face him. Her
+glance met his own without, shyness now; there was a hardening glitter
+in her eyes, a faint stir of colour in her cheeks. She suspected him of
+an unpardonable mockery.
+
+"You go very fast, don't you?" she asked him, with heat.
+
+"I do. Haven't you observed it? I am a man of sudden impulses. See what
+I have made of the Binet troupe in less than a couple of months. Another
+might have laboured for a year and not achieved the half of it. Shall I
+be slower in love than in work? Would it be reasonable to expect it? I
+have curbed and repressed myself not to scare you by precipitancy. In
+that I have done violence to my feelings, and more than all in using the
+same cold aloofness with which you chose to treat me. I have waited--oh!
+so patiently--until you should tire of that mood of cruelty."
+
+"You are an amazing man," said she, quite colourlessly.
+
+"I am," he agreed with her. "It is only the conviction that I am not
+commonplace that has permitted me to hope as I have hoped."
+
+Mechanically, and as if by tacit consent, they resumed their walk.
+
+"And I ask you to observe," he said, "when you complain that I go very
+fast, that, after all, I have so far asked you for nothing."
+
+"How?" quoth she, frowning.
+
+"I have merely told you of my hopes. I am not so rash as to ask at once
+whether I may realize them."
+
+"My faith, but that is prudent," said she, tartly.
+
+"Of course."
+
+It was his self-possession that exasperated her; for after that she
+walked the short remainder of the way in silence, and so, for the
+moment, the matter was left just there.
+
+But that night, after they had supped, it chanced that when Climene was
+about to retire, he and she were alone together in the room abovestairs
+that her father kept exclusively for his company. The Binet Troupe, you
+see, was rising in the world.
+
+As Climene now rose to withdraw for the night, Scaramouche rose with her
+to light her candle. Holding it in her left hand, she offered him her
+right, a long, tapering, white hand at the end of a softly rounded arm
+that was bare to the elbow.
+
+"Good-night, Scaramouche," she said, but so softly, so tenderly, that he
+caught his breath, and stood conning her, his dark eyes aglow.
+
+Thus a moment, then he took the tips of her fingers in his grasp, and
+bowing over the hand, pressed his lips upon it. Then he looked at
+her again. The intense femininity of her lured him on, invited him,
+surrendered to him. Her face was pale, there was a glitter in her eyes,
+a curious smile upon her parted lips, and under its fichu-menteur her
+bosom rose and fell to complete the betrayal of her.
+
+By the hand he continued to hold, he drew her towards him. She came
+unresisting. He took the candle from her, and set it down on the
+sideboard by which she stood. The next moment her slight, lithe body was
+in his arms, and he was kissing her, murmuring her name as if it were a
+prayer.
+
+"Am I cruel now?" she asked him, panting. He kissed her again for only
+answer. "You made me cruel because you would not see," she told him next
+in a whisper.
+
+And then the door opened, and M. Binet came in to have his paternal eyes
+regaled by this highly indecorous behaviour of his daughter.
+
+He stood at gaze, whilst they quite leisurely, and in a self-possession
+too complete to be natural, detached each from the other.
+
+"And what may be the meaning of this?" demanded M. Binet, bewildered and
+profoundly shocked.
+
+"Does it require explaining?" asked Scaramouche. "Doesn't it speak for
+itself--eloquently? It means that Climene and I have taken it into our
+heads to be married."
+
+"And doesn't it matter what I may take into my head?"
+
+"Of course. But you could have neither the bad taste nor the bad heart
+to offer any obstacle."
+
+"You take that for granted? Aye, that is your way, to be sure--to take
+things for granted. But my daughter is not to be taken for granted.
+I have very definite views for my daughter. You have done an unworthy
+thing, Scaramouche. You have betrayed my trust in you. I am very angry
+with you."
+
+He rolled forward with his ponderous yet curiously noiseless gait.
+Scaramouche turned to her, smiling, and handed her the candle.
+
+"If you will leave us, Climene, I will ask your hand of your father in
+proper form."
+
+She vanished, a little fluttered, lovelier than ever in her mixture
+of confusion and timidity. Scaramouche closed the door and faced the
+enraged M. Binet, who had flung himself into an armchair at the head
+of the short table, faced him with the avowed purpose of asking for
+Climene's hand in proper form. And this was how he did it:
+
+"Father-in-law," said he, "I congratulate you. This will certainly mean
+the Comedie Francaise for Climene, and that before long, and you shall
+shine in the glory she will reflect. As the father of Madame Scaramouche
+you may yet be famous."
+
+Binet, his face slowly empurpling, glared at him in speechless
+stupefaction. His rage was the more utter from his humiliating
+conviction that whatever he might say or do, this irresistible fellow
+would bend him to his will. At last speech came to him.
+
+"You're a damned corsair," he cried, thickly, banging his ham-like fist
+upon the table. "A corsair! First you sail in and plunder me of half my
+legitimate gains; and now you want to carry off my daughter. But I'll be
+damned if I'll give her to a graceless, nameless scoundrel like you, for
+whom the gallows are waiting already."
+
+Scaramouche pulled the bell-rope, not at all discomposed. He smiled.
+There was a flush on his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes. He was very
+pleased with the world that night. He really owed a great debt to M. de
+Lesdiguieres.
+
+"Binet," said he, "forget for once that you are Pantaloon, and behave
+as a nice, amiable father-in-law should behave when he has secured a
+son-in-law of exceptionable merits. We are going to have a bottle of
+Burgundy at my expense, and it shall be the best bottle of Burgundy
+to be found in Redon. Compose yourself to do fitting honour to it.
+Excitations of the bile invariably impair the fine sensitiveness of the
+palate."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
+
+The Binet Troupe opened in Nantes--as you may discover in surviving
+copies of the "Courrier Nantais"--on the Feast of the Purification with
+"Les Fourberies de Scaramouche." But they did not come to Nantes
+as hitherto they had gone to little country villages and townships,
+unheralded and depending entirely upon the parade of their entrance
+to attract attention to themselves. Andre-Louis had borrowed from the
+business methods of the Comedie Francaise. Carrying matters with a high
+hand entirely in his own fashion, he had ordered at Redon the printing
+of playbills, and four days before the company's descent upon Nantes,
+these bills were pasted outside the Theatre Feydau and elsewhere
+about the town, and had attracted--being still sufficiently unusual
+announcements at the time--considerable attention. He had entrusted the
+matter to one of the company's latest recruits, an intelligent young man
+named Basque, sending him on ahead of the company for the purpose.
+
+You may see for yourself one of these playbills in the Carnavalet
+Museum. It details the players by their stage names only, with the
+exception of M. Binet and his daughter, and leaving out of account that
+he who plays Trivelin in one piece appears as Tabarin in another, it
+makes the company appear to be at least half as numerous again as it
+really was. It announces that they will open with "Les Fourberies de
+Scaramouche," to be followed by five other plays of which it gives the
+titles, and by others not named, which shall also be added should the
+patronage to be received in the distinguished and enlightened city of
+Nantes encourage the Binet Troupe to prolong its sojourn at the Theatre
+Feydau. It lays great stress upon the fact that this is a company of
+improvisers in the old Italian manner, the like of which has not been
+seen in France for half a century, and it exhorts the public of Nantes
+not to miss this opportunity of witnessing these distinguished mimes who
+are reviving for them the glories of the Comedie de l'Art. Their visit
+to Nantes--the announcement proceeds--is preliminary to their visit to
+Paris, where they intend to throw down the glove to the actors of the
+Comedie Francaise, and to show the world how superior is the art of the
+improviser to that of the actor who depends upon an author for what he
+shall say, and who consequently says always the same thing every time
+that he plays in the same piece.
+
+It is an audacious bill, and its audacity had scared M. Binet out of
+the little sense left him by the Burgundy which in these days he could
+afford to abuse. He had offered the most vehement opposition. Part of
+this Andre-Louis had swept aside; part he had disregarded.
+
+"I admit that it is audacious," said Scaramouche. "But at your time of
+life you should have learnt that in this world nothing succeeds like
+audacity."
+
+"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it," M. Binet insisted.
+
+"I knew you would. Just as I know that you'll be very grateful to me
+presently for not obeying you."
+
+"You are inviting a catastrophe."
+
+"I am inviting fortune. The worst catastrophe that can overtake you
+is to be back in the market-halls of the country villages from which I
+rescued you. I'll have you in Paris yet in spite of yourself. Leave this
+to me."
+
+And he went out to attend to the printing. Nor did his preparations
+end there. He wrote a piquant article on the glories of the Comedie de
+l'Art, and its resurrection by the improvising troupe of the great mime
+Florimond Binet. Binet's name was not Florimond; it was just Pierre.
+But Andre-Louis had a great sense of the theatre. That article was an
+amplification of the stimulating matter contained in the playbills;
+and he persuaded Basque, who had relations in Nantes, to use all the
+influence he could command, and all the bribery they could afford, to
+get that article printed in the "Courrier Nantais" a couple of days
+before the arrival of the Binet Troupe.
+
+Basque had succeeded, and, considering the undoubted literary merits and
+intrinsic interest of the article, this is not at all surprising.
+
+And so it was upon an already expectant city that Binet and his company
+descended in that first week of February. M. Binet would have made his
+entrance in the usual manner--a full-dress parade with banging drums and
+crashing cymbals. But to this Andre-Louis offered the most relentless
+opposition.
+
+"We should but discover our poverty," said he. "Instead, we will creep
+into the city unobserved, and leave ourselves to the imagination of the
+public."
+
+He had his way, of course. M. Binet, worn already with battling against
+the strong waters of this young man's will, was altogether unequal to
+the contest now that he found Climene in alliance with Scaramouche,
+adding her insistence to his, and joining with him in reprobation of her
+father's sluggish and reactionary wits. Metaphorically, M. Binet threw
+up his arms, and cursing the day on which he had taken this young man
+into his troupe, he allowed the current to carry him whither it would.
+He was persuaded that he would be drowned in the end. Meanwhile he
+would drown his vexation in Burgundy. At least there was abundance of
+Burgundy. Never in his life had he found Burgundy so plentiful. Perhaps
+things were not as bad as he imagined, after all. He reflected that,
+when all was said, he had to thank Scaramouche for the Burgundy. Whilst
+fearing the worst, he would hope for the best.
+
+And it was very much the worst that he feared as he waited in the wings
+when the curtain rose on that first performance of theirs at the Theatre
+Feydau to a house that was tolerably filled by a public whose curiosity
+the preliminary announcements had thoroughly stimulated.
+
+Although the scenario of "Lee Fourberies de Scaramouche" has not
+apparently survived, yet we know from Andre-Louis' "Confessions" that it
+is opened by Polichinelle in the character of an arrogant and fiercely
+jealous lover shown in the act of beguiling the waiting-maid, Columbine,
+to play the spy upon her mistress, Climene. Beginning with cajolery, but
+failing in this with the saucy Columbine, who likes cajolers to be at
+least attractive and to pay a due deference to her own very piquant
+charms, the fierce humpbacked scoundrel passes on to threats of the
+terrible vengeance he will wreak upon her if she betrays him or neglects
+to obey him implicitly; failing here, likewise, he finally has recourse
+to bribery, and after he has bled himself freely to the very expectant
+Columbine, he succeeds by these means in obtaining her consent to spy
+upon Climene, and to report to him upon her lady's conduct.
+
+The pair played the scene well together, stimulated, perhaps, by their
+very nervousness at finding themselves before so imposing an audience.
+Polichinelle was everything that is fierce, contemptuous, and insistent.
+Columbine was the essence of pert indifference under his cajolery,
+saucily mocking under his threats, and finely sly in extorting the very
+maximum when it came to accepting a bribe. Laughter rippled through
+the audience and promised well. But M. Binet, standing trembling in the
+wings, missed the great guffaws of the rustic spectators to whom they
+had played hitherto, and his fears steadily mounted.
+
+Then, scarcely has Polichinelle departed by the door than Scaramouche
+bounds in through the window. It was an effective entrance, usually
+performed with a broad comic effect that set the people in a roar. Not
+so on this occasion. Meditating in bed that morning, Scaramouche had
+decided to present himself in a totally different aspect. He would cut
+out all the broad play, all the usual clowning which had delighted
+their past rude audiences, and he would obtain his effects by subtlety
+instead. He would present a slyly humorous rogue, restrained, and of a
+certain dignity, wearing a countenance of complete solemnity, speaking
+his lines drily, as if unconscious of the humour with which he intended
+to invest them. Thus, though it might take the audience longer to
+understand and discover him, they would like him all the better in the
+end.
+
+True to that resolve, he now played his part as the friend and hired
+ally of the lovesick Leandre, on whose behalf he came for news of
+Climene, seizing the opportunity to further his own amour with Columbine
+and his designs upon the money-bags of Pantaloon. Also he had taken
+certain liberties with the traditional costume of Scaramouche; he had
+caused the black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the
+doublet to be cut more to a peak, a la Henri III. The conventional black
+velvet cap he had replaced by a conical hat with a turned-up brim, and a
+tuft of feathers on the left, and he had discarded the guitar.
+
+M. Binet listened desperately for the roar of laughter that usually
+greeted the entrance of Scaramouche, and his dismay increased when
+it did not come. And then he became conscious of something alarmingly
+unusual in Scaramouche's manner. The sibilant foreign accent was there,
+but none of the broad boisterousness their audiences had loved.
+
+He wrung his hands in despair. "It is all over!" he said. "The fellow
+has ruined us! It serves me right for being a fool, and allowing him to
+take control of everything!"
+
+But he was profoundly mistaken. He began to have an inkling of this when
+presently himself he took the stage, and found the public attentive,
+remarked a grin of quiet appreciation on every upturned face. It was
+not, however, until the thunders of applause greeted the fall of the
+curtain on the first act that he felt quite sure they would be allowed
+to escape with their lives.
+
+Had the part of Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of
+a blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his
+apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they
+did the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part,
+contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than
+justified all the heralding of which Scaramouche had been guilty.
+
+For Scaramouche himself this success was not confined to the public. At
+the end of the play a great reception awaited him from his companions
+assembled in the green-room of the theatre. His talent, resource, and
+energy had raised them in a few weeks from a pack of vagrant mountebanks
+to a self-respecting company of first-rate players. They acknowledged it
+generously in a speech entrusted to Polichinelle, adding the tribute to
+his genius that, as they had conquered Nantes, so would they conquer the
+world under his guidance.
+
+In their enthusiasm they were a little neglectful of the feelings of
+M. Binet. Irritated enough had he been already by the overriding of
+his every wish, by the consciousness of his weakness when opposed
+to Scaramouche. And, although he had suffered the gradual process of
+usurpation of authority because its every step had been attended by
+his own greater profit, deep down in him the resentment abode to stifle
+every spark of that gratitude due from him to his partner. To-night
+his nerves had been on the rack, and he had suffered agonies of
+apprehension, for all of which he blamed Scaramouche so bitterly that
+not even the ultimate success--almost miraculous when all the elements
+are considered--could justify his partner in his eyes.
+
+And now, to find himself, in addition, ignored by this company--his own
+company, which he had so laboriously and slowly assembled and selected
+among the men of ability whom he had found here and there in the
+dregs of cities--was something that stirred his bile, and aroused the
+malevolence that never did more than slumber in him. But deeply though
+his rage was moved, it did not blind him to the folly of betraying it.
+Yet that he should assert himself in this hour was imperative unless he
+were for ever to become a thing of no account in this troupe over which
+he had lorded it for long months before this interloper came amongst
+them to fill his purse and destroy his authority.
+
+So he stepped forward now when Polichinelle had done. His make-up
+assisting him to mask his bitter feelings, he professed to add his own
+to Polichinelle's acclamations of his dear partner. But he did it in
+such a manner as to make it clear that what Scaramouche had done, he
+had done by M. Binet's favour, and that in all M. Binet's had been the
+guiding hand. In associating himself with Polichinelle, he desired to
+thank Scaramouche, much in the manner of a lord rendering thanks to his
+steward for services diligently rendered and orders scrupulously carried
+out.
+
+It neither deceived the troupe nor mollified himself. Indeed, his
+consciousness of the mockery of it but increased his bitterness. But at
+least it saved his face and rescued him from nullity--he who was their
+chief.
+
+To say, as I have said, that it did not deceive them, is perhaps to say
+too much, for it deceived them at least on the score of his feelings.
+They believed, after discounting the insinuations in which he took all
+credit to himself, that at heart he was filled with gratitude, as they
+were. That belief was shared by Andre-Louis himself, who in his brief,
+grateful answer was very generous to M. Binet, more than endorsing the
+claims that M. Binet had made.
+
+And then followed from him the announcement that their success in Nantes
+was the sweeter to him because it rendered almost immediately attainable
+the dearest wish of his heart, which was to make Climene his wife.
+It was a felicity of which he was the first to acknowledge his utter
+unworthiness. It was to bring him into still closer relations with
+his good friend M. Binet, to whom he owed all that he had achieved for
+himself and for them. The announcement was joyously received, for the
+world of the theatre loves a lover as dearly as does the greater world.
+So they acclaimed the happy pair, with the exception of poor Leandre,
+whose eyes were more melancholy than ever.
+
+They were a happy family that night in the upstairs room of their inn on
+the Quai La Fosse--the same inn from which Andre-Louis had set out some
+weeks ago to play a vastly different role before an audience of Nantes.
+Yet was it so different, he wondered? Had he not then been a sort of
+Scaramouche--an intriguer, glib and specious, deceiving folk, cynically
+misleading them with opinions that were not really his own? Was it at
+all surprising that he should have made so rapid and signal a success
+as a mime? Was not this really all that he had ever been, the thing for
+which Nature had designed him?
+
+On the following night they played "The Shy Lover" to a full house, the
+fame of their debut having gone abroad, and the success of Monday was
+confirmed. On Wednesday they gave "Figaro-Scaramouche," and on Thursday
+morning the "Courrier Nantais" came out with an article of more than
+a column of praise of these brilliant improvisers, for whom it claimed
+that they utterly put to shame the mere reciters of memorized parts.
+
+Andre-Louis, reading the sheet at breakfast, and having no delusions
+on the score of the falseness of that statement, laughed inwardly. The
+novelty of the thing, and the pretentiousness in which he had swaddled
+it, had deceived them finely. He turned to greet Binet and Climene, who
+entered at that moment. He waved the sheet above his head.
+
+"It is settled," he announced, "we stay in Nantes until Easter."
+
+"Do we?" said Binet, sourly. "You settle everything, my friend."
+
+"Read for yourself." And he handed him the paper.
+
+Moodily M. Binet read. He set the sheet down in silence, and turned his
+attention to his breakfast.
+
+"Was I justified or not?" quoth Andre-Louis, who found M. Binet's
+behaviour a thought intriguing.
+
+"In what?"
+
+"In coming to Nantes?"
+
+"If I had not thought so, we should not have come," said Binet, and he
+began to eat.
+
+Andre-Louis dropped the subject, wondering.
+
+After breakfast he and Climene sallied forth to take the air upon the
+quays. It was a day of brilliant sunshine and less cold than it had
+lately been. Columbine tactlessly joined them as they were setting out,
+though in this respect matters were improved a little when Harlequin
+came running after them, and attached himself to Columbine.
+
+Andre-Louis, stepping out ahead with Climene, spoke of the thing that
+was uppermost in his mind at the moment.
+
+"Your father is behaving very oddly towards me," said he. "It is almost
+as if he had suddenly become hostile."
+
+"You imagine it," said she. "My father is very grateful to you, as we
+all are."
+
+"He is anything but grateful. He is infuriated against me; and I think I
+know the reason. Don't you? Can't you guess?"
+
+"I can't, indeed."
+
+"If you were my daughter, Climene, which God be thanked you are not, I
+should feel aggrieved against the man who carried you away from me. Poor
+old Pantaloon! He called me a corsair when I told him that I intend to
+marry you."
+
+"He was right. You are a bold robber, Scaramouche."
+
+"It is in the character," said he. "Your father believes in having
+his mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit their natural
+temperaments."
+
+"Yes, you take everything you want, don't you?" She looked up at him,
+half adoringly, half shyly.
+
+"If it is possible," said he. "I took his consent to our marriage by
+main force from him. I never waited for him to give it. When, in fact,
+he refused it, I just snatched it from him, and I'll defy him now to win
+it back from me. I think that is what he most resents."
+
+She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer. But he did not hear
+a word of it. Through the bustle of traffic on the quay a cabriolet, the
+upper half of which was almost entirely made of glass, had approached
+them. It was drawn by two magnificent bay horses and driven by a
+superbly livened coachman.
+
+In the cabriolet alone sat a slight young girl wrapped in a lynx-fur
+pelisse, her face of a delicate loveliness. She was leaning forward, her
+lips parted, her eyes devouring Scaramouche until they drew his gaze.
+When that happened, the shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumfounded
+halt.
+
+Climene, checking in the middle of a sentence, arrested by his own
+sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
+
+"What is it, Scaramouche?"
+
+But he made no attempt to answer her, and at that moment the coachman,
+to whom the little lady had already signalled, brought the carriage to a
+standstill beside them. Seen in the gorgeous setting of that coach with
+its escutcheoned panels, its portly coachman and its white-stockinged
+footman--who swung instantly to earth as the vehicle stopped--its dainty
+occupant seemed to Climene a princess out of a fairy-tale. And this
+princess leaned forward, with eyes aglow and cheeks aflush, stretching
+out a choicely gloved hand to Scaramouche.
+
+"Andre-Louis!" she called him.
+
+And Scaramouche took the hand of that exalted being, just as he might
+have taken the hand of Climene herself, and with eyes that reflected the
+gladness of her own, in a voice that echoed the joyous surprise of hers,
+he addressed her familiarly by name, just as she had addressed him.
+
+"Aline!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE DREAM
+
+"The door," Aline commanded her footman, and "Mount here beside me," she
+commanded Andre-Louis, in the same breath.
+
+"A moment, Aline."
+
+He turned to his companion, who was all amazement, and to Harlequin
+and Columbine, who had that moment come up to share it. "You permit
+me, Climene?" said he, breathlessly. But it was more a statement than
+a question. "Fortunately you are not alone. Harlequin will take care of
+you. Au revoir, at dinner."
+
+With that he sprang into the cabriolet without waiting for a reply. The
+footman closed the door, the coachman cracked his whip, and the regal
+equipage rolled away along the quay, leaving the three comedians staring
+after it, open-mouthed... Then Harlequin laughed.
+
+"A prince in disguise, our Scaramouche!" said he.
+
+Columbine clapped her hands and flashed her strong teeth. "But what a
+romance for you, Climene! How wonderful!"
+
+The frown melted from Climene's brow. Resentment changed to
+bewilderment.
+
+"But who is she?"
+
+"His sister, of course," said Harlequin, quite definitely.
+
+"His sister? How do you know?"
+
+"I know what he will tell you on his return."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because you wouldn't believe him if he said she was his mother."
+
+Following the carriage with their glance, they wandered on in the
+direction it had taken. And in the carriage Aline was considering
+Andre-Louis with grave eyes, lips slightly compressed, and a tiny frown
+between her finely drawn eyebrows.
+
+"You have taken to queer company, Andre," was the first thing she said
+to him. "Or else I am mistaken in thinking that your companion was Mlle.
+Binet of the Theatre Feydau."
+
+"You are not mistaken. But I had not imagined Mlle. Binet so famous
+already."
+
+"Oh, as to that..." mademoiselle shrugged, her tone quietly scornful.
+And she explained. "It is simply that I was at the play last night. I
+thought I recognized her."
+
+"You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw you!"
+
+"Were you there, too?"
+
+"Was I there!" he cried. Then he checked, and abruptly changed his tone.
+"Oh, yes, I was there," he said, as commonplace as he could, beset by a
+sudden reluctance to avow that he had so willingly descended to depths
+that she must account unworthy, and grateful that his disguise of face
+and voice should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him so
+very well.
+
+"I understand," said she, and compressed her lips a little more tightly.
+
+"But what do you understand?"
+
+"The rare attractions of Mlle. Binet. Naturally you would be at the
+theatre. Your tone conveyed it very clearly. Do you know that you
+disappoint me, Andre? It is stupid of me, perhaps; it betrays, I
+suppose, my imperfect knowledge of your sex. I am aware that most young
+men of fashion find an irresistible attraction for creatures who parade
+themselves upon the stage. But I did not expect you to ape the ways of
+a man of fashion. I was foolish enough to imagine you to be different;
+rather above such trivial pursuits. I conceived you something of an
+idealist."
+
+"Sheer flattery."
+
+"So I perceive. But you misled me. You talked so much morality of a
+kind, you made philosophy so readily, that I came to be deceived. In
+fact, your hypocrisy was so consummate that I never suspected it. With
+your gift of acting I wonder that you haven't joined Mlle. Binet's
+troupe."
+
+"I have," said he.
+
+It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice of the lesser
+of the two evils with which she confronted him.
+
+He saw first incredulity, then consternation, and lastly disgust
+overspread her face.
+
+"Of course," said she, after a long pause, "that would have the
+advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer."
+
+"That was only one of the inducements. There was another. Finding myself
+forced to choose between the stage and the gallows, I had the incredible
+weakness to prefer the former. It was utterly unworthy of a man of my
+lofty ideals, but--what would you? Like other ideologists, I find it
+easier to preach than to practise. Shall I stop the carriage and remove
+the contamination of my disgusting person? Or shall I tell you how it
+happened?"
+
+"Tell me how it happened first. Then we will decide."
+
+He told her how he met the Binet Troupe, and how the men of the
+marechaussee forced upon him the discovery that in its bosom he could
+lie safely lost until the hue and cry had died down. The explanation
+dissolved her iciness.
+
+"My poor Andre, why didn't you tell me this at first?"
+
+"For one thing, you didn't give me time; for another, I feared to shock
+you with the spectacle of my degradation."
+
+She took him seriously. "But where was the need of it? And why did you
+not send us word as I required you of your whereabouts?"
+
+"I was thinking of it only yesterday. I have hesitated for several
+reasons."
+
+"You thought it would offend us to know what you were doing?"
+
+"I think that I preferred to surprise you by the magnitude of my
+ultimate achievements."
+
+"Oh, you are to become a great actor?" She was frankly scornful.
+
+"That is not impossible. But I am more concerned to become a great
+author. There is no reason why you should sniff. The calling is an
+honourable one. All the world is proud to know such men as Beaumarchais
+and Chenier."
+
+"And you hope to equal them?"
+
+"I hope to surpass them, whilst acknowledging that it was they who
+taught me how to walk. What did you think of the play last night?"
+
+"It was amusing and well conceived."
+
+"Let me present you to the author."
+
+"You? But the company is one of the improvisers."
+
+"Even improvisers require an author to write their scenarios. That is
+all I write at present. Soon I shall be writing plays in the modern
+manner."
+
+"You deceive yourself, my poor Andre. The piece last night would
+have been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your
+Scaramouche."
+
+"In confidence--I present you to him."
+
+"You--Scaramouche? You?" She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his
+close-lipped smile that made wrinkles like gashes in his cheeks. He
+nodded. "And I didn't recognize you!"
+
+"I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a
+scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac?
+What of my godfather?"
+
+He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant with
+Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his behalf.
+
+"I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you."
+
+"Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say no more. Do not
+tell him what I am doing. He has his prejudices too. Besides, it might
+not be prudent. And now the question I have been burning to ask ever
+since I entered your carriage. Why are you in Nantes, Aline?"
+
+"I am on a visit to my aunt, Mme. de Sautron. It was with her that I
+came to the play yesterday. We have been dull at the chateau; but
+it will be different now. Madame my aunt is receiving several guests
+to-day. M. de La Tour d'Azyr is to be one of them."
+
+Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. "Did you ever hear, Aline, how poor
+Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end?"
+
+"Yes; I was told, first by my uncle; then by M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
+himself."
+
+"Did not that help you to decide this marriage question?"
+
+"How could it? You forget that I am but a woman. You don't expect me to
+judge between men in matters such as these?"
+
+"Why not? You are well able to do so. The more since you have heard two
+sides. For my godfather would tell you the truth. If you cannot judge,
+it is that you do not wish to judge." His tone became harsh. "Wilfully
+you close your eyes to justice that might check the course of your
+unhealthy, unnatural ambition."
+
+"Excellent!" she exclaimed, and considered him with amusement and
+something else. "Do you know that you are almost droll? You rise
+unblushing from the dregs of life in which I find you, and shake off the
+arm of that theatre girl, to come and preach to me."
+
+"If these were the dregs of life I might still speak from them to
+counsel you out of my respect and devotion, Aline." He was very, stiff
+and stern. "But they are not the dregs of life. Honour and virtue are
+possible to a theatre girl; they are impossible to a lady who sells
+herself to gratify ambition; who for position, riches, and a great title
+barters herself in marriage."
+
+She looked at him breathlessly. Anger turned her pale. She reached for
+the cord.
+
+"I think I had better let you alight so that you may go back to practise
+virtue and honour with your theatre wench."
+
+"You shall not speak so of her, Aline."
+
+"Faith, now we are to have heat on her behalf. You think I am too
+delicate? You think I should speak of her as a..."
+
+"If you must speak of her at all," he interrupted, hotly, "you'll speak
+of her as my wife."
+
+Amazement smothered her anger. Her pallor deepened. "My God!" she said,
+and looked at him in horror. And in horror she asked him presently: "You
+are married--married to that--?"
+
+"Not yet. But I shall be, soon. And let me tell you that this girl whom
+you visit with your ignorant contempt is as good and pure as you are,
+Aline. She has wit and talent which have placed her where she is and
+shall carry her a deal farther. And she has the womanliness to be guided
+by natural instincts in the selection of her mate."
+
+She was trembling with passion. She tugged the cord.
+
+"You will descend this instant!" she told him fiercely. "That you should
+dare to make a comparison between me and that..."
+
+"And my wife-to-be," he interrupted, before she could speak the infamous
+word. He opened the door for himself without waiting for the footman,
+and leapt down. "My compliments," said he, furiously, "to the assassin
+you are to marry." He slammed the door. "Drive on," he bade the
+coachman.
+
+The carriage rolled away up the Faubourg Gigan, leaving him standing
+where he had alighted, quivering with rage. Gradually, as he walked back
+to the inn, his anger cooled. Gradually, as he cooled, he perceived her
+point of view, and in the end forgave her. It was not her fault that she
+thought as she thought. Her rearing had been such as to make her look
+upon every actress as a trull, just as it had qualified her calmly
+to consider the monstrous marriage of convenience into which she was
+invited.
+
+He got back to the inn to find the company at table. Silence fell when
+he entered, so suddenly that of necessity it must be supposed he was
+himself the subject of the conversation. Harlequin and Columbine had
+spread the tale of this prince in disguise caught up into the chariot
+of a princess and carried off by her; and it was a tale that had lost
+nothing in the telling.
+
+Climene had been silent and thoughtful, pondering what Columbine had
+called this romance of hers. Clearly her Scaramouche must be vastly
+other than he had hitherto appeared, or else that great lady and he
+would never have used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him
+no better than he was, Climene had made him her own. And now she was to
+receive the reward of disinterested affection.
+
+Even old Binet's secret hostility towards Andre-Louis melted before
+this astounding revelation. He had pinched his daughter's ear quite
+playfully. "Ah, ah, trust you to have penetrated his disguise, my
+child!"
+
+She shrank resentfully from that implication.
+
+"But I did not. I took him for what he seemed."
+
+Her father winked at her very solemnly and laughed. "To be sure, you
+did. But like your father, who was once a gentleman, and knows the ways
+of gentlemen, you detected in him a subtle something different from
+those with whom misfortune has compelled you hitherto to herd. You knew
+as well as I did that he never caught that trick of haughtiness, that
+grand air of command, in a lawyer's musty office, and that his speech
+had hardly the ring or his thoughts the complexion of the bourgeois that
+he pretended to be. And it was shrewd of you to have made him yours. Do
+you know that I shall be very proud of you yet, Climene?"
+
+She moved away without answering. Her father's oiliness offended her.
+Scaramouche was clearly a great gentleman, an eccentric if you please,
+but a man born. And she was to be his lady. Her father must learn to
+treat her differently.
+
+She looked shyly--with a new shyness--at her lover when he came into the
+room where they were dining. She observed for the first time that proud
+carriage of the head, with the chin thrust forward, that was a trick of
+his, and she noticed with what a grace he moved--the grace of one who in
+youth has had his dancing-masters and fencing-masters.
+
+It almost hurt her when he flung himself into a chair and exchanged
+a quip with Harlequin in the usual manner as with an equal, and it
+offended her still more that Harlequin, knowing what he now knew, should
+use him with the same unbecoming familiarity.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE AWAKENING
+
+"Do you know," said Climene, "that I am waiting for the explanation
+which I think you owe me?"
+
+They were alone together, lingering still at the table to which
+Andre-Louis had come belatedly, and Andre-Louis was loading himself a
+pipe. Of late--since joining the Binet Troupe--he had acquired the habit
+of smoking. The others had gone, some to take the air and others, like
+Binet and Madame, because they felt that it were discreet to leave
+those two to the explanations that must pass. It was a feeling that
+Andre-Louis did not share. He kindled a light and leisurely applied it
+to his pipe. A frown came to settle on his brow.
+
+"Explanation?" he questioned presently, and looked at her. "But on what
+score?"
+
+"On the score of the deception you have practised on us--on me."
+
+"I have practised none," he assured her.
+
+"You mean that you have simply kept your own counsel, and that in
+silence there is no deception. But it is deceitful to withhold facts
+concerning yourself and your true station from your future wife. You
+should not have pretended to be a simple country lawyer, which, of
+course, any one could see that you are not. It may have been very
+romantic, but... Enfin, will you explain?"
+
+"I see," he said, and pulled at his pipe. "But you are wrong, Climene.
+I have practised no deception. If there are things about me that I have
+not told you, it is that I did not account them of much importance.
+But I have never deceived you by pretending to be other than I am. I am
+neither more nor less than I have represented myself."
+
+This persistence began to annoy her, and the annoyance showed on her
+winsome face, coloured her voice.
+
+"Ha! And that fine lady of the nobility with whom you are so intimate,
+who carried you off in her cabriolet with so little ceremony towards
+myself? What is she to you?"
+
+"A sort of sister," said he.
+
+"A sort of sister!" She was indignant. "Harlequin foretold that you
+would say so; but he was amusing himself. It was not very funny. It
+is less funny still from you. She has a name, I suppose, this sort of
+sister?"
+
+"Certainly she has a name. She is Mlle. Aline de Kercadiou, the niece of
+Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac."
+
+"Oho! That's a sufficiently fine name for your sort of sister. What sort
+of sister, my friend?"
+
+For the first time in their relationship he observed and deplored the
+taint of vulgarity, of shrewishness, in her manner.
+
+"It would have been more accurate in me to have said a sort of reputed
+left-handed cousin."
+
+"A reputed left-handed cousin! And what sort of relationship may that
+be? Faith, you dazzle me with your lucidity."
+
+"It requires to be explained."
+
+"That is what I have been telling you. But you seem very reluctant with
+your explanations."
+
+"Oh, no. It is only that they are so unimportant. But be you the judge.
+Her uncle, M. de Kercadiou, is my godfather, and she and I have been
+playmates from infancy as a consequence. It is popularly believed in
+Gavrillac that M. de Kercadiou is my father. He has certainly cared for
+my rearing from my tenderest years, and it is entirely owing to him
+that I was educated at Louis le Grand. I owe to him everything that I
+have--or, rather, everything that I had; for of my own free will I have
+cut myself adrift, and to-day I possess nothing save what I can earn for
+myself in the theatre or elsewhere."
+
+She sat stunned and pale under that cruel blow to her swelling pride.
+Had he told her this but yesterday, it would have made no impression
+upon her, it would have mattered not at all; the event of to-day coming
+as a sequel would but have enhanced him in her eyes. But coming now,
+after her imagination had woven for him so magnificent a background,
+after the rashly assumed discovery of his splendid identity had made
+her the envied of all the company, after having been in her own eyes and
+theirs enshrined by marriage with him as a great lady, this disclosure
+crushed and humiliated her. Her prince in disguise was merely the
+outcast bastard of a country gentleman! She would be the laughing-stock
+of every member of her father's troupe, of all those who had so lately
+envied her this romantic good fortune.
+
+"You should have told me this before," she said, in a dull voice that
+she strove to render steady.
+
+"Perhaps I should. But does it really matter?"
+
+"Matter?" She suppressed her fury to ask another question. "You say
+that this M. de Kercadiou is popularly believed to be your father. What
+precisely do you mean?"
+
+"Just that. It is a belief that I do not share. It is a matter of
+instinct, perhaps, with me. Moreover, once I asked M. de Kercadiou
+point-blank, and I received from him a denial. It is not, perhaps,
+a denial to which one would attach too much importance in all the
+circumstances. Yet I have never known M de Kercadiou for other than
+a man of strictest honour, and I should hesitate to disbelieve
+him--particularly when his statement leaps with my own instincts. He
+assured me that he did not know who my father was."
+
+"And your mother, was she equally ignorant?" She was sneering, but he
+did not remark it. Her back was to the light.
+
+"He would not disclose her name to me. He confessed her to be a dear
+friend of his."
+
+She startled him by laughing, and her laugh was not pleasant.
+
+"A very dear friend, you may be sure, you simpleton. What name do you
+bear?"
+
+He restrained his own rising indignation to answer her question calmly:
+"Moreau. It was given me, so I am told, from the Brittany village in
+which I was born. But I have no claim to it. In fact I have no name,
+unless it be Scaramouche, to which I have earned a title. So that you
+see, my dear," he ended with a smile, "I have practised no deception
+whatever."
+
+"No, no. I see that now." She laughed without mirth, then drew a deep
+breath and rose. "I am very tired," she said.
+
+He was on his feet in an instant, all solicitude. But she waved him
+wearily back.
+
+"I think I will rest until it is time to go to the theatre." She moved
+towards the door, dragging her feet a little. He sprang to open it, and
+she passed out without looking at him.
+
+Her so brief romantic dream was ended. The glorious world of fancy which
+in the last hour she had built with such elaborate detail, over which it
+should be her exalted destiny to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its
+debris so many stumbling-blocks that prevented her from winning back to
+her erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he really was.
+
+Andre-Louis sat in the window embrasure, smoking and looking idly out
+across the river. He was intrigued and meditative. He had shocked her.
+The fact was clear; not so the reason. That he should confess himself
+nameless should not particularly injure him in the eyes of a girl
+reared amid the surroundings that had been Climene's. And yet that his
+confession had so injured him was fully apparent.
+
+There, still at his brooding, the returning Columbine discovered him a
+half-hour later.
+
+"All alone, my prince!" was her laughing greeting, which suddenly threw
+light upon his mental darkness. Climene had been disappointed of hopes
+that the wild imagination of these players had suddenly erected upon the
+incident of his meeting with Aline. Poor child! He smiled whimsically at
+Columbine.
+
+"I am likely to be so for some little time," said he, "until it becomes
+a commonplace that I am not, after all, a prince.
+
+"Not a prince? Oh, but a duke, then--at least a marquis."
+
+"Not even a chevalier, unless it be of the order of fortune. I am just
+Scaramouche. My castles are all in Spain."
+
+Disappointment clouded the lively, good-natured face.
+
+"And I had imagined you..."
+
+"I know," he interrupted. "That is the mischief." He might have gauged
+the extent of that mischief by Climene's conduct that evening towards
+the gentlemen of fashion who clustered now in the green-room between the
+acts to pay their homage to the incomparable amoureuse. Hitherto she had
+received them with a circumspection compelling respect. To-night she was
+recklessly gay, impudent, almost wanton.
+
+He spoke of it gently to her as they walked home together, counselling
+more prudence in the future.
+
+"We are not married yet," she told him, tartly. "Wait until then before
+you criticize my conduct."
+
+"I trust that there will be no occasion then," said he.
+
+"You trust? Ah, yes. You are very trusting."
+
+"Climene, I have offended you. I am sorry."
+
+"It is nothing," said she. "You are what you are." Still was he not
+concerned. He perceived the source of her ill-humour; understood, whilst
+deploring it; and, because he understood, forgave. He perceived also
+that her ill-humour was shared by her father, and by this he was frankly
+amused. Towards M. Binet a tolerant contempt was the only feeling that
+complete acquaintance could beget. As for the rest of the company, they
+were disposed to be very kindly towards Scaramouche. It was almost as
+if in reality he had fallen from the high estate to which their own
+imaginations had raised him; or possibly it was because they saw the
+effect which that fall from his temporary and fictitious elevation had
+produced upon Climene.
+
+Leandre alone made himself an exception. His habitual melancholy
+seemed to be dispelled at last, and his eyes gleamed now with malicious
+satisfaction when they rested upon Scaramouche, whom occasionally he
+continued to address with sly mockery as "mon prince."
+
+On the morrow Andre-Louis saw but little of Climene. This was not
+in itself extraordinary, for he was very hard at work again, with
+preparations now for "Figaro-Scaramouche" which was to be played on
+Saturday. Also, in addition to his manifold theatrical occupations, he
+now devoted an hour every morning to the study of fencing in an academy
+of arms. This was done not only to repair an omission in his education,
+but also, and chiefly, to give him added grace and poise upon the stage.
+He found his mind that morning distracted by thoughts of both Climene
+and Aline. And oddly enough it was Aline who provided the deeper
+perturbation. Climene's attitude he regarded as a passing phase which
+need not seriously engage him. But the thought of Aline's conduct
+towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply rankled the thought of
+her possible betrothal to M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+This it was that brought forcibly to his mind the self-imposed but by
+now half-forgotten mission that he had made his own. He had boasted that
+he would make the voice which M. de La Tour d'Azyr had sought to silence
+ring through the length and breadth of the land. And what had he done of
+all this that he had boasted? He had incited the mob of Rennes and the
+mob of Nantes in such terms as poor Philippe might have employed, and
+then because of a hue and cry he had fled like a cur and taken shelter
+in the first kennel that offered, there to lie quiet and devote himself
+to other things--self-seeking things. What a fine contrast between the
+promise and the fulfilment!
+
+Thus Andre-Louis to himself in his self-contempt. And whilst he trifled
+away his time and played Scaramouche, and centred all his hopes in
+presently becoming the rival of such men as Chenier and Mercier, M. de
+La Tour d'Azyr went his proud ways unchallenged and wrought his will.
+It was idle to tell himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit.
+That the demands he had voiced in Nantes for the Third Estate had
+been granted by M. Necker, thanks largely to the commotion which his
+anonymous speech had made. That was not his concern or his mission. It
+was no part of his concern to set about the regeneration of mankind, or
+even the regeneration of the social structure of France. His concern
+was to see that M. de La Tour d'Azyr paid to the uttermost liard for the
+brutal wrong he had done Philippe de Vilmorin. And it did not increase
+his self-respect to find that the danger in which Aline stood of
+being married to the Marquis was the real spur to his rancour and to
+remembrance of his vow. He was--too unjustly, perhaps--disposed to dismiss
+as mere sophistries his own arguments that there was nothing he could
+do; that, in fact, he had but to show his head to find himself going to
+Rennes under arrest and making his final exit from the world's stage by
+way of the gallows.
+
+It is impossible to read that part of his "Confessions" without feeling
+a certain pity for him. You realize what must have been his state of
+mind. You realize what a prey he was to emotions so conflicting, and
+if you have the imagination that will enable you to put yourself in his
+place, you will also realize how impossible was any decision save the
+one to which he says he came, that he would move, at the first moment
+that he perceived in what direction it would serve his real aims to
+move.
+
+It happened that the first person he saw when he took the stage on
+that Thursday evening was Aline; the second was the Marquis de La Tour
+d'Azyr. They occupied a box on the right of, and immediately above, the
+stage. There were others with them--notably a thin, elderly, resplendent
+lady whom Andre-Louis supposed to be Madame la Comtesse de Sautron. But
+at the time he had no eyes for any but those two, who of late had
+so haunted his thoughts. The sight of either of them would have been
+sufficiently disconcerting. The sight of both together very nearly made
+him forget the purpose for which he had come upon the stage. Then he
+pulled himself together, and played. He played, he says, with an unusual
+nerve, and never in all that brief but eventful career of his was he
+more applauded.
+
+That was the evening's first shock. The next came after the second act.
+Entering the green-room he found it more thronged than usual, and at the
+far end with Climene, over whom he was bending from his fine height, his
+eyes intent upon her face, what time his smiling lips moved in talk, M.
+de La Tour d'Azyr. He had her entirely to himself, a privilege none of
+the men of fashion who were in the habit of visiting the coulisse
+had yet enjoyed. Those lesser gentlemen had all withdrawn before the
+Marquis, as jackals withdraw before the lion.
+
+Andre-Louis stared a moment, stricken. Then recovering from his surprise
+he became critical in his study of the Marquis. He considered the
+beauty and grace and splendour of him, his courtly air, his complete
+and unshakable self-possession. But more than all he considered the
+expression of the dark eyes that were devouring Climene's lovely face,
+and his own lips tightened.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr never heeded him or his stare; nor, had he done
+so, would he have known who it was that looked at him from behind the
+make-up of Scaramouche; nor, again, had he known, would he have been in
+the least troubled or concerned.
+
+Andre-Louis sat down apart, his mind in turmoil. Presently he found a
+mincing young gentleman addressing him, and made shift to answer as
+was expected. Climene having been thus sequestered, and Columbine being
+already thickly besieged by gallants, the lesser visitors had to content
+themselves with Madame and the male members of the troupe. M. Binet,
+indeed, was the centre of a gay cluster that shook with laughter at his
+sallies. He seemed of a sudden to have emerged from the gloom of the
+last two days into high good-humour, and Scaramouche observed how
+persistently his eyes kept flickering upon his daughter and her splendid
+courtier.
+
+That night there, were high words between Andre-Louis and Climene, the
+high words proceeding from Climene. When Andre-Louis again, and more
+insistently, enjoined prudence upon his betrothed, and begged her to
+beware how far she encouraged the advances of such a man as M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr, she became roundly abusive. She shocked and stunned him
+by her virulently shrewish tone, and her still more unexpected force of
+invective.
+
+He sought to reason with her, and finally she came to certain terms with
+him.
+
+"If you have become betrothed to me simply to stand as an obstacle in my
+path, the sooner we make an end the better."
+
+"You do not love me then, Climene?"
+
+"Love has nothing to do with it. I'll not tolerate your insensate
+jealousy. A girl in the theatre must make it her business to accept
+homage from all."
+
+"Agreed; and there is no harm, provided she gives nothing in exchange."
+
+White-faced, with flaming eyes she turned on him at that.
+
+"Now, what exactly do you mean?"
+
+"My meaning is clear. A girl in your position may receive all the homage
+that is offered, provided she receives it with a dignified aloofness
+implying clearly that she has no favours to bestow in return beyond the
+favour of her smile. If she is wise she will see to it that the homage
+is always offered collectively by her admirers, and that no single one
+amongst them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone. If
+she is wise she will give no encouragement, nourish no hopes that it may
+afterwards be beyond her power to deny realization."
+
+"How? You dare?"
+
+"I know my world. And I know M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he answered her. "He
+is a man without charity, without humanity almost; a man who takes what
+he wants wherever he finds it and whether it is given willingly or
+not; a man who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his
+self-indulgent way; a man whose only law is force. Ponder it, Climene,
+and ask yourself if I do you less than honour in warning you."
+
+He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing the subject.
+
+The days that followed were unhappy days for him, and for at least
+one other. That other was Leandre, who was cast into the profoundest
+dejection by M. de La Tour d'Azyr's assiduous attendance upon Climene.
+The Marquis was to be seen at every performance; a box was perpetually
+reserved for him, and invariably he came either alone or else with his
+cousin M. de Chabrillane.
+
+On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went out alone early in
+the morning. He was out of temper, fretted by an overwhelming sense of
+humiliation, and he hoped to clear his mind by walking. In turning
+the corner of the Place du Bouffay he ran into a slightly built,
+sallow-complexioned gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a
+tie-wig under a round hat. The man fell back at sight of him, levelling
+a spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang with amazement.
+
+"Moreau! Where the devil have you been hiding your-self these months?"
+
+It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer, the leader of the Literary Chamber of
+Rennes.
+
+"Behind the skirts of Thespis," said Scaramouche.
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"I didn't intend that you should. What of yourself, Isaac? And what of
+the world which seems to have been standing still of late?"
+
+"Standing still!" Le Chapelier laughed. "But where have you been, then?
+Standing still!" He pointed across the square to a café under the shadow
+of the gloomy prison. "Let us go and drink a bavaroise. You are of
+all men the man we want, the man we have been seeking everywhere,
+and--behold!--you drop from the skies into my path."
+
+They crossed the square and entered the café.
+
+"So you think the world has been standing still! Dieu de Dieu! I suppose
+you haven't heard of the royal order for the convocation of the States
+General, or the terms of them--that we are to have what we demanded, what
+you demanded for us here in Nantes! You haven't heard that the order has
+gone forth for the primary elections--the elections of the electors. You
+haven't heard of the fresh uproar in Rennes, last month. The order was
+that the three estates should sit together at the States General of
+the bailliages, but in the bailliage of Rennes the nobles must ever be
+recalcitrant. They took up arms actually--six hundred of them with their
+valetaille, headed by your old friend M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and they
+were for slashing us--the members of the Third Estate--into ribbons so as
+to put an end to our insolence." He laughed delicately. "But, by God, we
+showed them that we, too, could take up arms. It was what you yourself
+advocated here in Nantes, last November. We fought them a pitched
+battle in the streets, under the leadership of your namesake Moreau, the
+provost, and we so peppered them that they were glad to take shelter in
+the Cordelier Convent. That is the end of their resistance to the royal
+authority and the people's will."
+
+He ran on at great speed detailing the events that had taken place, and
+finally came to the matter which had, he announced, been causing him to
+hunt for Andre-Louis until he had all but despaired of finding him.
+
+Nantes was sending fifty delegates to the assembly of Rennes which was
+to select the deputies to the Third Estate and edit their cahier of
+grievances. Rennes itself was being as fully represented, whilst such
+villages as Gavrillac were sending two delegates for every two hundred
+hearths or less. Each of these three had clamoured that Andre-Louis
+Moreau should be one of its delegates. Gavrillac wanted him because he
+belonged to the village, and it was known there what sacrifices he had
+made in the popular cause; Rennes wanted him because it had heard
+his spirited address on the day of the shooting of the students; and
+Nantes--to whom his identity was unknown--asked for him as the speaker who
+had addressed them under the name of Omnes Omnibus and who had framed
+for them the memorial that was believed so largely to have influenced M.
+Necker in formulating the terms of the convocation.
+
+Since he could not be found, the delegations had been made up without
+him. But now it happened that one or two vacancies had occurred in
+the Nantes representation; and it was the business of filling these
+vacancies that had brought Le Chapelier to Nantes.
+
+Andre-Louis firmly shook his head in answer to Le Chapelier's proposal.
+
+"You refuse?" the other cried. "Are you mad? Refuse, when you are
+demanded from so many sides? Do you realize that it is more than
+probable you will be elected one of the deputies, that you will be sent
+to the States General at Versailles to represent us in this work of
+saving France?"
+
+But Andre-Louis, we know, was not concerned to save France. At the
+moment he was concerned to save two women, both of whom he loved, though
+in vastly different ways, from a man he had vowed to ruin. He stood firm
+in his refusal until Le Chapelier dejectedly abandoned the attempt to
+persuade him.
+
+"It is odd," said Andre-Louis, "that I should have been so deeply
+immersed in trifles as never to have perceived that Nantes is being
+politically active."
+
+"Active! My friend, it is a seething cauldron of political emotions. It
+is kept quiet on the surface only by the persuasion that all goes well.
+At a hint to the contrary it would boil over."
+
+"Would it so?" said Scaramouche, thoughtfully. "The knowledge may be
+useful." And then he changed the subject. "You know that La Tour d'Azyr
+is here?"
+
+"In Nantes? He has courage if he shows himself. They are not a docile
+people, these Nantais, and they know his record and the part he played
+in the rising at Rennes. I marvel they haven't stoned him. But they
+will, sooner or later. It only needs that some one should suggest it."
+
+"That is very likely," said Andre-Louis, and smiled. "He doesn't show
+himself much; not in the streets, at least. So that he has not the
+courage you suppose; nor any kind of courage, as I told him once. He has
+only insolence."
+
+At parting Le Chapelier again exhorted him to give thought to what he
+proposed. "Send me word if you change your mind. I am lodged at the
+Cerf, and I shall be here until the day after to-morrow. If you have
+ambition, this is your moment."
+
+"I have no ambition, I suppose," said Andre-Louis, and went his way.
+
+That night at the theatre he had a mischievous impulse to test what Le
+Chapelier had told him of the state of public feeling in the city. They
+were playing "The Terrible Captain," in the last act of which the empty
+cowardice of the bullying braggart Rhodomont is revealed by Scaramouche.
+
+After the laughter which the exposure of the roaring captain invariably
+produced, it remained for Scaramouche contemptuously to dismiss him in a
+phrase that varied nightly, according to the inspiration of the moment.
+This time he chose to give his phrase a political complexion:
+
+"Thus, O thrasonical coward, is your emptiness exposed. Because of your
+long length and the great sword you carry and the angle at which you
+cock your hat, people have gone in fear of you, have believed in you,
+have imagined you to be as terrible and as formidable as you insolently
+make yourself appear. But at the first touch of true spirit you crumple
+up, you tremble, you whine pitifully, and the great sword remains in
+your scabbard. You remind me of the Privileged Orders when confronted by
+the Third Estate."
+
+It was audacious of him, and he was prepared for anything--a laugh,
+applause, indignation, or all together. But he was not prepared for what
+came. And it came so suddenly and spontaneously from the groundlings and
+the body of those in the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it--as
+a boy may be scared who has held a match to a sun-scorched hayrick. It
+was a hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their feet, sprang up
+on to the benches, waving their hats in the air, deafening him with
+the terrific uproar of their acclamations. And it rolled on and on, nor
+ceased until the curtain fell.
+
+Scaramouche stood meditatively smiling with tight lips. At the last
+moment he had caught a glimpse of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's face thrust
+farther forward than usual from the shadows of his box, and it was a
+face set in anger, with eyes on fire.
+
+"Mon Dieu!" laughed Rhodomont, recovering from the real scare that had
+succeeded his histrionic terror, "but you have a great trick of tickling
+them in the right place, Scaramouche."
+
+Scaramouche looked up at him and smiled. "It can be useful upon
+occasion," said he, and went off to his dressing-room to change.
+
+But a reprimand awaited him. He was delayed at the theatre by matters
+concerned with the scenery of the new piece they were to mount upon the
+morrow. By the time he was rid of the business the rest of the company
+had long since left. He called a chair and had himself carried back
+to the inn in solitary state. It was one of many minor luxuries his
+comparatively affluent present circumstances permitted.
+
+Coming into that upstairs room that was common to all the troupe, he
+found M. Binet talking loudly and vehemently. He had caught sounds of
+his voice whilst yet upon the stairs. As he entered Binet broke off
+short, and wheeled to face him.
+
+"You are here at last!" It was so odd a greeting that Andre-Louis did
+no more than look his mild surprise. "I await your explanations of the
+disgraceful scene you provoked to-night."
+
+"Disgraceful? Is it disgraceful that the public should applaud me?"
+
+"The public? The rabble, you mean. Do you want to deprive us of the
+patronage of all gentlefolk by vulgar appeals to the low passions of the
+mob?"
+
+Andre-Louis stepped past M. Binet and forward to the table. He shrugged
+contemptuously. The man offended him, after all.
+
+"You exaggerate grossly--as usual."
+
+"I do not exaggerate. And I am the master in my own theatre. This is the
+Binet Troupe, and it shall be conducted in the Binet way."
+
+"Who are the gentlefolk the loss of whose patronage to the Feydau will
+be so poignantly felt?" asked Andre-Louis.
+
+"You imply that there are none? See how wrong you are. After the play
+to-night M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr came to me, and spoke to me
+in the severest terms about your scandalous outburst. I was forced to
+apologize, and..."
+
+"The more fool you," said Andre-Louis. "A man who respected himself
+would have shown that gentleman the door." M. Binet's face began to
+empurple. "You call yourself the head of the Binet Troupe, you boast
+that you will be master in your own theatre, and you stand like a
+lackey to take the orders of the first insolent fellow who comes to your
+green-room to tell you that he does not like a line spoken by one of
+your company! I say again that had you really respected yourself you
+would have turned him out."
+
+There was a murmur of approval from several members of the company, who,
+having heard the arrogant tone assumed by the Marquis, were filled with
+resentment against the slur cast upon them all.
+
+"And I say further," Andre-Louis went on, "that a man who respects
+himself, on quite other grounds, would have been only too glad to have
+seized this pretext to show M. de La Tour d'Azyr the door."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" There was a rumble of thunder in the
+question.
+
+Andre-Louis' eyes swept round the company assembled at the supper-table.
+"Where is Climene?" he asked, sharply.
+
+Leandre leapt up to answer him, white in the face, tense and quivering
+with excitement.
+
+"She left the theatre in the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr's carriage
+immediately after the performance. We heard him offer to drive her to
+this inn."
+
+Andre-Louis glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. He seemed
+unnaturally calm.
+
+"That would be an hour ago--rather more. And she has not yet arrived?"
+
+His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet's eyes eluded his glance. Again it
+was Leandre who answered him.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Ah!" Andre-Louis sat down, and poured himself wine. There was an
+oppressive silence in the room. Leandre watched him expectantly,
+Columbine commiseratingly. Even M. Binet appeared to be waiting for a
+cue from Scaramouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him. "Have you left
+me anything to eat?" he asked.
+
+Platters were pushed towards him. He helped himself calmly to food,
+and ate in silence, apparently with a good appetite. M. Binet sat
+down, poured himself wine, and drank. Presently he attempted to
+make conversation with one and another. He was answered curtly, in
+monosyllables. M. Binet did not appear to be in favour with his troupe
+that night.
+
+At long length came a rumble of wheels below and a rattle of halting
+hooves. Then voices, the high, trilling laugh of Climene floating
+upwards. Andre-Louis went on eating unconcernedly.
+
+"What an actor!" said Harlequin under his breath to Polichinelle, and
+Polichinelle nodded gloomily.
+
+She came in, a leading lady taking the stage, head high, chin thrust
+forward, eyes dancing with laughter; she expressed triumph and
+arrogance. Her cheeks were flushed, and there was some disorder in
+the mass of nut-brown hair that crowned her head. In her left hand she
+carried an enormous bouquet of white camellias. On its middle finger a
+diamond of great price drew almost at once by its effulgence the eyes of
+all.
+
+Her father sprang to meet her with an unusual display of paternal
+tenderness. "At last, my child!"
+
+He conducted her to the table. She sank into a chair, a little wearily,
+a little nervelessly, but the smile did not leave her face, not even
+when she glanced across at Scaramouche. It was only Leandre, observing
+her closely, with hungry, scowling stare, who detected something as of
+fear in the hazel eyes momentarily seen between the fluttering of her
+lids.
+
+Andre-Louis, however, still went on eating stolidly, without so much as
+a look in her direction. Gradually the company came to realize that
+just as surely as a scene was brooding, just so surely would there be no
+scene as long as they remained. It was Polichinelle, at last, who
+gave the signal by rising and withdrawing, and within two minutes none
+remained in the room but M. Binet, his daughter, and Andre-Louis. And
+then, at last, Andre-Louis set down knife and fork, washed his throat
+with a draught of Burgundy, and sat back in his chair to consider
+Climene.
+
+"I trust," said he, "that you had a pleasant ride, mademoiselle."
+
+"Most pleasant, monsieur." Impudently she strove to emulate his
+coolness, but did not completely succeed.
+
+"And not unprofitable, if I may judge that jewel at this distance.
+It should be worth at least a couple of hundred louis, and that is a
+formidable sum even to so wealthy a nobleman as M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
+Would it be impertinent in one who has had some notion of becoming your
+husband, to ask you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?"
+
+M. Binet uttered a gross laugh, a queer mixture of cynicism and
+contempt.
+
+"I have given nothing," said Climene, indignantly.
+
+"Ah! Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in advance."
+
+"My God, man, you're not decent!" M. Binet protested.
+
+"Decent?" Andre-Louis' smouldering eyes turned to discharge upon M.
+Binet such a fulmination of contempt that the old scoundrel shifted
+uncomfortably in his chair. "Did you mention decency, Binet? Almost
+you make me lose my temper, which is a thing that I detest above all
+others!" Slowly his glance returned to Climene, who sat with elbows on
+the table, her chin cupped in her palms, regarding him with something
+between scorn and defiance. "Mademoiselle," he said, slowly, "I desire
+you purely in your own interests to consider whither you are going."
+
+"I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide without advice
+from you, monsieur."
+
+"And now you've got your answer," chuckled Binet. "I hope you like it."
+
+Andre-Louis had paled a little; there was incredulity in his great
+sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard her. Of M. Binet he
+took no notice.
+
+"Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean that willingly, with open
+eyes and a full understanding of what you do, you would exchange an
+honourable wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr may have in store for you?"
+
+M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him,
+the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that marriage
+with him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the
+inconvenient husband--to mar your every chance, my girl."
+
+She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father. "I begin to
+find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a
+husband I am afraid he would be impossible."
+
+Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But--always the actor--he
+showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and
+rose.
+
+"I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not regret it."
+
+"Regret it?" cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved to see his
+daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had never approved, if we
+except those few hours when he really believed him to be an eccentric
+of distinction. "And what shall she regret? That she accepted the
+protection of a nobleman so powerful and wealthy that as a mere trinket
+he gives her a jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year at the
+Comedie Francaise?" He got up, and advanced towards Andre-Louis. His
+mood became conciliatory. "Come, come, my friend, no rancour now. What
+the devil! You wouldn't stand in the girl's way? You can't really blame
+her for making this choice? Have you thought what it means to her? Have
+you thought that under the protection of such a gentleman there are no
+heights which she may not reach? Don't you see the wonderful luck of
+it? Surely, if you're fond of her, particularly being of a jealous
+temperament, you wouldn't wish it otherwise?"
+
+Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment. Then he laughed
+again. "Oh, you are fantastic," he said. "You are not real." He turned
+on his heel and strode to the door.
+
+The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and words stung M.
+Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.
+
+"Fantastic, are we?" he cried, turning to follow the departing
+Scaramouche with his little eyes that now were inexpressibly evil.
+"Fantastic that we should prefer the powerful protection of this great
+nobleman to marriage with a beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are
+fantastic!"
+
+Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. "No," he said, "I was
+mistaken. You are not fantastic. You are just vile--both of you." And he
+went out.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. CONTRITION
+
+Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the bright morning sunshine
+of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
+
+For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been oddly
+irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldliness, which
+convinced Mme. de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin
+had scandalously conducted the child's education. She appeared to be
+instructed in all the things of which a girl is better ignorant, and
+ignorant of all the things that a girl should know. That at least was
+the point of view of Mme. de Sautron.
+
+"Tell me, madame," quoth Aline, "are all men beasts?" Unlike her
+brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and majestically built. In the days
+before her marriage with M. de Sautron, ill-natured folk described her
+as the only man in the family. She looked down now from her noble height
+upon her little niece with startled eyes.
+
+"Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most disconcerting and
+improper questions."
+
+"Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper."
+
+"Life? A young girl should not discuss life."
+
+"Why not, since I am alive? You do not suggest that it is an impropriety
+to be alive?"
+
+"It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek to know too
+much about life. As for your absurd question about men, when I remind
+you that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you will consider
+yourself answered."
+
+Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de
+Kercadiou's outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
+
+"That being so," said she, "will you tell me why they find such an
+overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?"
+
+Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her
+handsome, high-bridged nose.
+
+"Sometimes--often, in fact, my dear Aline--you pass all understanding.
+I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the better it
+will be for all."
+
+"Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding," Aline reminded
+her.
+
+"That," said madame with complete conviction, "is the last and most
+outrageous of his errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide
+the matter of her own marriage? It is... indelicate almost to expose her
+to thoughts of such things." Mme. de Sautron shuddered. "Quintin is a
+boor. His conduct is unheard of. That M. de La Tour d'Azyr should parade
+himself before you so that you may make up your mind whether he is the
+proper man for you!" Again she shuddered. "It is of a grossness, of...
+of a prurience almost... Mon Dieu! When I married your uncle, all this
+was arranged between our parents. I first saw him when he came to sign
+the contract. I should have died of shame had it been otherwise. And
+that is how these affairs should be conducted."
+
+"You are no doubt right, madame. But since that is not how my own case
+is being conducted, you will forgive me if I deal with it apart from
+others. M. de La Tour d'Azyr desires to marry me. He has been permitted
+to pay his court. I should be glad to have him informed that he may
+cease to do so."
+
+Mme. de Sautron stood still, petrified by amazement. Her long face
+turned white; she seemed to breathe with difficulty.
+
+"But... but... what are you saying?" she gasped.
+
+Quietly Aline repeated her statement.
+
+"But this is outrageous! You cannot be permitted to play fast-and-loose
+with a gentleman of M. le Marquis' quality! Why, it is little more than
+a week since you permitted him to be informed that you would become his
+wife!"
+
+"I did so in a moment of... rashness. Since then M. le Marquis' own
+conduct has convinced me of my error."
+
+"But--mon Dieu!" cried the Countess. "Are you blind to the great honour
+that is being paid you? M. le Marquis will make you the first lady in
+Brittany. Yet, little fool that you are, and greater fool that Quintin
+is, you trifle with this extraordinary good fortune! Let me warn you."
+She raised an admonitory forefinger. "If you continue in this stupid
+humour M. de La Tour d'Azyr may definitely withdraw his offer and depart
+in justified mortification."
+
+"That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you, is what I most
+desire."
+
+"Oh, you are mad."
+
+"It may be, madame, that I am sane in preferring to be guided by my
+instincts. It may be even that I am justified in resenting that the man
+who aspires to become my husband should at the same time be paying such
+assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau."
+
+"Aline!"
+
+"Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find it strange that M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?"
+
+"Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me by
+the indecency of your expressions; at others you amaze me by the excess
+of your prudery. You have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I
+think. Yes, that is it--a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something
+of a shopkeeper at heart."
+
+"I was asking your opinion on the conduct of M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
+madame. Not on my own."
+
+"But it is an indelicacy in you to observe such things. You should be
+ignorant of them, and I can't think who is so... so unfeeling as to
+inform you. But since you are informed, at least you should be modestly
+blind to things that take place outside the... orbit of a properly
+conducted demoiselle."
+
+"Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married?"
+
+"If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge of them. It... it
+deflowers your innocence. I would not for the world that M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr should know you so extraordinarily instructed. Had you been
+properly reared in a convent this would never have happened to you."
+
+"But you do not answer me, madame!" cried Aline in despair. "It is not
+my chastity that is in question; but that of M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"Chastity!" Madame's lips trembled with horror. Horror overspread her
+face. "Wherever did you learn that dreadful, that so improper word?"
+
+And then Mme. de Sautron did violence to her feelings. She realized that
+here great calm and prudence were required. "My child, since you know so
+much that you ought not to know, there can be no harm in my adding that
+a gentleman must have these little distractions."
+
+"But why, madame? Why is it so?"
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu, you are asking me riddles of nature. It is so because it
+is so. Because men are like that."
+
+"Because men are beasts, you mean--which is what I began by asking you."
+
+"You are incorrigibly stupid, Aline."
+
+"You mean that I do not see things as you do, madame. I am not
+over-expectant as you appear to think; yet surely I have the right to
+expect that whilst M. de La Tour d'Azyr is wooing me, he shall not be
+wooing at the same time a drab of the theatre. I feel that in this there
+is a subtle association of myself with that unspeakable creature which
+soils and insults me. The Marquis is a dullard whose wooing takes the
+form at best of stilted compliments, stupid and unoriginal. They gain
+nothing when they fall from lips still warm from the contamination of
+that woman's kisses."
+
+So utterly scandalized was madame that for a moment she remained
+speechless. Then--
+
+"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed. "I should never have suspected you of so
+indelicate an imagination."
+
+"I cannot help it, madame. Each time his lips touch my fingers I find
+myself thinking of the last object that they touched. I at once retire
+to wash my hands. Next time, madame, unless you are good enough to
+convey my message to him, I shall call for water and wash them in his
+presence."
+
+"But what am I to tell him? How... in what words can I convey such a
+message?" Madame was aghast.
+
+"Be frank with him, madame. It is easiest in the end. Tell him that
+however impure may have been his life in the past, however impure he
+intend that it shall be in the future, he must at least study purity
+whilst approaching with a view to marriage a virgin who is herself pure
+and without stain."
+
+Madame recoiled, and put her hands to her ears, horror stamped on her
+handsome face. Her massive bosom heaved.
+
+"Oh, how can you?" she panted. "How can you make use of such terrible
+expressions? Wherever have you learnt them?"
+
+"In church," said Aline.
+
+"Ah, but in church many things are said that... that one would not dream
+of saying in the world. My dear child, how could I possibly say such a
+thing to M. le Marquis? How could I possibly?"
+
+"Shall I say it?"
+
+"Aline!"
+
+"Well, there it is," said Aline. "Something must be done to shelter me
+from insult. I am utterly disgusted with M. le Marquis--a disgusting man.
+And however fine a thing it may be to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr,
+why, frankly, I'd sooner marry a cobbler who practised decency."
+
+Such was her vehemence and obvious determination that Mme. de Sautron
+fetched herself out of her despair to attempt persuasion. Aline was her
+niece, and such a marriage in the family would be to the credit of the
+whole of it. At all costs nothing must frustrate it.
+
+"Listen, my dear," she said. "Let us reason. M. le Marquis is away and
+will not be back until to-morrow."
+
+"True. And I know where he has gone--or at least whom he has gone with.
+Mon Dieu, and the drab has a father and a lout of a fellow who intends
+to make her his wife, and neither of them chooses to do anything. I
+suppose they agree with you, madame, that a great gentleman must have
+his little distractions." Her contempt was as scorching as a thing of
+fire. "However, madame, you were about to say?"
+
+"That on the day after to-morrow you are returning to Gavrillac. M. de
+La Tour d'Azyr will most likely follow at his leisure."
+
+"You mean when this dirty candle is burnt out?"
+
+"Call it what you will." Madame, you see, despaired by now of
+controlling the impropriety of her niece's expressions. "At Gavrillac
+there will be no Mlle. Binet. This thing will be in the past. It is
+unfortunate that he should have met her at such a moment. The chit is
+very attractive, after all. You cannot deny that. And you must make
+allowances."
+
+"M. le Marquis formally proposed to me a week ago. Partly to satisfy the
+wishes of the family, and partly..." She broke off, hesitating a moment,
+to resume on a note of dull pain, "Partly because it does not seem
+greatly to matter whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent,
+for the reasons I have given you, madame, I desire now definitely to
+withdraw."
+
+Madame fell into agitation of the wildest. "Aline, I should never
+forgive you! Your uncle Quintin would be in despair. You do not know
+what you are saying, what a wonderful thing you are refusing. Have you
+no sense of your position, of the station into which you were born?"
+
+"If I had not, madame, I should have made an end long since. If I have
+tolerated this suit for a single moment, it is because I realize the
+importance of a suitable marriage in the worldly sense. But I ask of
+marriage something more; and Uncle Quintin has placed the decision in my
+hands."
+
+"God forgive him!" said madame. And then she hurried on: "Leave this
+to me now, Aline. Be guided by me--oh, be guided by me!" Her tone was
+beseeching. "I will take counsel with your uncle Charles. But do not
+definitely decide until this unfortunate affair has blown over. Charles
+will know how to arrange it. M. le Marquis shall do penance, child,
+since your tyranny demands it; but not in sackcloth and ashes. You'll
+not ask so much?"
+
+Aline shrugged. "I ask nothing at all," she said, which was neither
+assent nor dissent.
+
+So Mme. de Sautron interviewed her husband, a slight, middle-aged man,
+very aristocratic in appearance and gifted with a certain shrewd sense.
+She took with him precisely the tone that Aline had taken with herself
+and which in Aline she had found so disconcertingly indelicate. She even
+borrowed several of Aline's phrases.
+
+The result was that on the Monday afternoon when at last M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr's returning berline drove up to the chateau, he was met by M. le
+Comte de Sautron who desired a word with him even before he changed.
+
+"Gervais, you're a fool," was the excellent opening made by M. le Comte.
+
+"Charles, you give me no news," answered M. le Marquis. "Of what
+particular folly do you take the trouble to complain?"
+
+He flung himself wearily upon a sofa, and his long graceful body
+sprawling there he looked up at his friend with a tired smile on that
+nobly handsome pale face that seemed to defy the onslaught of age.
+
+"Of your last. This Binet girl."
+
+"That! Pooh! An incident; hardly a folly."
+
+"A folly--at such a time," Sautron insisted. The Marquis looked a
+question. The Count answered it. "Aline," said he, pregnantly. "She
+knows. How she knows I can't tell you, but she knows, and she is deeply
+offended."
+
+The smile perished on the Marquis' face. He gathered himself up.
+
+"Offended?" said he, and his voice was anxious.
+
+"But yes. You know what she is. You know the ideals she has formed. It
+wounds her that at such a time--whilst you are here for the purpose of
+wooing her--you should at the same time be pursuing this affair with that
+chit of a Binet girl."
+
+"How do you know?" asked La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+"She has confided in her aunt. And the poor child seems to have some
+reason. She says she will not tolerate that you should come to kiss her
+hand with lips that are still contaminated from... Oh, you understand.
+You appreciate the impression of such a thing upon a pure, sensitive
+girl such as Aline. She said--I had better tell you--that the next
+time you kiss her hand, she will call for water and wash it in your
+presence."
+
+The Marquis' face flamed scarlet. He rose. Knowing his violent,
+intolerant spirit, M. de Sautron was prepared for an outburst. But no
+outburst came. The Marquis turned away from him, and paced slowly to
+the window, his head bowed, his hands behind his back. Halted there he
+spoke, without turning, his voice was at once scornful and wistful.
+
+"You are right, Charles, I am a fool--a wicked fool! I have just enough
+sense left to perceive it. It is the way I have lived, I suppose. I have
+never known the need to deny myself anything I wanted." Then suddenly he
+swung round, and the outburst came. "But, my God, I want Aline as I
+have never wanted anything yet! I think I should kill myself in rage if
+through my folly I should have lost her." He struck his brow with his
+hand. "I am a beast!" he said. "I should have known that if that sweet
+saint got word of these petty devilries of mine she would despise me;
+and I tell you, Charles, I'd go through fire to regain her respect."
+
+"I hope it is to be regained on easier terms," said Charles; and then
+to ease the situation which began to irk him by its solemnity, he made
+a feeble joke. "It is merely asked of you that you refrain from going
+through certain fires that are not accounted by mademoiselle of too
+purifying a nature."
+
+"As to that Binet girl, it is finished--finished," said the Marquis.
+
+"I congratulate you. When did you make that decision?"
+
+"This moment. I would to God I had made it twenty-four hours ago. As it
+is--" he shrugged--"why, twenty-four hours of her have been enough for
+me as they would have been for any man--a mercenary, self-seeking little
+baggage with the soul of a trull. Bah!" He shuddered in disgust of
+himself and her.
+
+"Ah! That makes it easier for you," said M. de Sautron, cynically.
+
+"Don't say it, Charles. It is not so. Had you been less of a fool, you
+would have warned me sooner."
+
+"I may prove to have warned you soon enough if you'll profit by the
+warning."
+
+"There is no penance I will not do. I will prostrate myself at her feet.
+I will abase myself before her. I will make confession in the proper
+spirit of contrition, and Heaven helping me, I'll keep to my purpose of
+amendment for her sweet sake." He was tragically in earnest.
+
+To M. de Sautron, who had never seen him other than self-contained,
+supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing revelation. He shrank
+from it almost; it gave him the feeling of prying, of peeping through a
+keyhole. He slapped his friend's shoulder.
+
+"My dear Gervais, here is a magnificently romantic mood. Enough said.
+Keep to it, and I promise you that all will presently be well. I will be
+your ambassador, and you shall have no cause to complain."
+
+"But may I not go to her myself?"
+
+"If you are wise you will at once efface yourself. Write to her if you
+will--make your act of contrition by letter. I will explain why you have
+gone without seeing her. I will tell her that you did so upon my advice,
+and I will do it tactfully. I am a good diplomat, Gervais. Trust me."
+
+M. le Marquis raised his head, and showed a face that pain was searing.
+He held out his hand. "Very well, Charles. Serve me in this, and count
+me your friend in all things."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
+
+Leaving his host to act as his plenipotentiary with Mademoiselle de
+Kercadiou, and to explain to her that it was his profound contrition
+that compelled him to depart without taking formal leave of her, the
+Marquis rolled away from Sautron in a cloud of gloom. Twenty-four hours
+with La Binet had been more than enough for a man of his fastidious
+and discerning taste. He looked back upon the episode with nausea--the
+inevitable psychological reaction--marvelling at himself that until
+yesterday he should have found her so desirable, and cursing himself
+that for the sake of that ephemeral and worthless gratification he
+should seriously have imperilled his chances of winning Mademoiselle de
+Kercadiou to wife. There is, after all, nothing very extraordinary in
+his frame of mind, so that I need not elaborate it further. It resulted
+from the conflict between the beast and the angel that go to make up the
+composition of every man.
+
+The Chevalier de Chabrillane--who in reality occupied towards the Marquis
+a position akin to that of gentleman-in-waiting--sat opposite to him in
+the enormous travelling berline. A small folding table had been erected
+between them, and the Chevalier suggested piquet. But M. le Marquis was
+in no humour for cards. His thoughts absorbed him. As they were rattling
+over the cobbles of Nantes' streets, he remembered a promise to La Binet
+to witness her performance that night in "The Faithless Lover." And now
+he was running away from her. The thought was repugnant to him on two
+scores. He was breaking his pledged word, and he was acting like a
+coward. And there was more than that. He had led the mercenary little
+strumpet--it was thus he thought of her at present, and with some
+justice--to expect favours from him in addition to the lavish awards
+which already he had made her. The baggage had almost sought to drive a
+bargain with him as to her future. He was to take her to Paris, put her
+into her own furniture--as the expression ran, and still runs--and under
+the shadow of his powerful protection see that the doors of the great
+theatres of the capital should be opened to her talents. He had not--he
+was thankful to reflect--exactly committed himself. But neither had
+he definitely refused her. It became necessary now to come to an
+understanding, since he was compelled to choose between his trivial
+passion for her--a passion quenched already--and his deep, almost
+spiritual devotion to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
+
+His honour, he considered, demanded of him that he should at once
+deliver himself from a false position. La Binet would make a scene, of
+course; but he knew the proper specific to apply to hysteria of that
+nature. Money, after all, has its uses.
+
+He pulled the cord. The carriage rolled to a standstill; a footman
+appeared at the door.
+
+"To the Theatre Feydau," said he.
+
+The footman vanished and the berline rolled on. M. de Chabrillane
+laughed cynically.
+
+"I'll trouble you not to be amused," snapped the Marquis. "You
+don't understand." Thereafter he explained himself. It was a rare
+condescension in him. But, then, he could not bear to be misunderstood
+in such a matter. Chabrillane grew serious in reflection of the Marquis'
+extreme seriousness.
+
+"Why not write?" he suggested. "Myself, I confess that I should find it
+easier."
+
+Nothing could better have revealed M. le Marquis' state of mind than his
+answer.
+
+"Letters are liable both to miscarriage and to misconstruction. Two
+risks I will not run. If she did not answer, I should never know which
+had been incurred. And I shall have no peace of mind until I know that I
+have set a term to this affair. The berline can wait while we are at
+the theatre. We will go on afterwards. We will travel all night if
+necessary."
+
+"Peste!" said M. de Chabrillane with a grimace. But that was all.
+
+The great travelling carriage drew up at the lighted portals of the
+Feydau, and M. le Marquis stepped out. He entered the theatre with
+Chabrillane, all unconsciously to deliver himself into the hands of
+Andre-Louis.
+
+Andre-Louis was in a state of exasperation produced by Climene's long
+absence from Nantes in the company of M. le Marquis, and fed by the
+unspeakable complacency with which M. Binet regarded that event of quite
+unmistakable import.
+
+However much he might affect the frame of mind of the stoics, and
+seek to judge with a complete detachment, in the heart and soul of him
+Andre-Louis was tormented and revolted. It was not Climene he blamed.
+He had been mistaken in her. She was just a poor weak vessel driven
+helplessly by the first breath, however foul, that promised her
+advancement. She suffered from the plague of greed; and he congratulated
+himself upon having discovered it before making her his wife. He felt
+for her now nothing but a deal of pity and some contempt. The pity was
+begotten of the love she had lately inspired in him. It might be likened
+to the dregs of love, all that remained after the potent wine of it had
+been drained off. His anger he reserved for her father and her seducer.
+
+The thoughts that were stirring in him on that Monday morning, when it
+was discovered that Climene had not yet returned from her excursion
+of the previous day in the coach of M. le Marquis, were already wicked
+enough without the spurring they received from the distraught Leandre.
+
+Hitherto the attitude of each of these men towards the other had been
+one of mutual contempt. The phenomenon has frequently been observed in
+like cases. Now, what appeared to be a common misfortune brought them
+into a sort of alliance. So, at least, it seemed to Leandre when he went
+in quest of Andre-Louis, who with apparent unconcern was smoking a pipe
+upon the quay immediately facing the inn.
+
+"Name of a pig!" said Leandre. "How can you take your ease and smoke at
+such a time?"
+
+Scaramouche surveyed the sky. "I do not find it too cold," said he. "The
+sun is shining. I am very well here."
+
+"Do I talk of the weather?" Leandre was very excited.
+
+"Of what, then?"
+
+"Of Climene, of course."
+
+"Oh! The lady has ceased to interest me," he lied.
+
+Leandre stood squarely in front of him, a handsome figure handsomely
+dressed in these days, his hair well powdered, his stockings of silk.
+His face was pale, his large eyes looked larger than usual.
+
+"Ceased to interest you? Are you not to marry her?"
+
+Andre-Louis expelled a cloud of smoke. "You cannot wish to be offensive.
+Yet you almost suggest that I live on other men's leavings."
+
+"My God!" said Leandre, overcome, and he stared awhile. Then he burst
+out afresh. "Are you quite heartless? Are you always Scaramouche?"
+
+"What do you expect me to do?" asked Andre-Louis, evincing surprise in
+his own turn, but faintly.
+
+"I do not expect you to let her go without a struggle."
+
+"But she has gone already." Andre-Louis pulled at his pipe a moment,
+what time Leandre clenched and unclenched his hands in impotent rage.
+"And to what purpose struggle against the inevitable? Did you struggle
+when I took her from you?"
+
+"She was not mine to be taken from me. I but aspired, and you won the
+race. But even had it been otherwise where is the comparison? That was a
+thing in honour; this--this is hell."
+
+His emotion moved Andre-Louis. He took Leandre's arm. "You're a good
+fellow, Leandre. I am glad I intervened to save you from your fate."
+
+"Oh, you don't love her!" cried the other, passionately. "You never did.
+You don't know what it means to love, or you'd not talk like this. My
+God! if she had been my affianced wife and this had happened, I should
+have killed the man--killed him! Do you hear me? But you... Oh, you, you
+come out here and smoke, and take the air, and talk of her as another
+man's leavings. I wonder I didn't strike you for the word."
+
+He tore his arm from the other's grip, and looked almost as if he would
+strike him now.
+
+"You should have done it," said Andre-Louis. "It's in your part."
+
+With an imprecation Leandre turned on his heel to go. Andre-Louis
+arrested his departure.
+
+"A moment, my friend. Test me by yourself. Would you marry her now?"
+
+"Would I?" The young man's eyes blazed with passion. "Would I? Let her
+say that she will marry me, and I am her slave."
+
+"Slave is the right word--a slave in hell."
+
+"It would never be hell to me where she was, whatever she had done. I
+love her, man, I am not like you. I love her, do you hear me?"
+
+"I have known it for some time," said Andre-Louis. "Though I didn't
+suspect your attack of the disease to be quite so violent. Well, God
+knows I loved her, too, quite enough to share your thirst for killing.
+For myself, the blue blood of La Tour d'Azyr would hardly quench this
+thirst. I should like to add to it the dirty fluid that flows in the
+veins of the unspeakable Binet."
+
+For a second his emotion had been out of hand, and he revealed to
+Leandre in the mordant tone of those last words something of the fires
+that burned under his icy exterior. The young man caught him by the
+hand.
+
+"I knew you were acting," said he. "You feel--you feel as I do."
+
+"Behold us, fellows in viciousness. I have betrayed myself, it seems.
+Well, and what now? Do you want to see this pretty Marquis torn limb
+from limb? I might afford you the spectacle."
+
+"What?" Leandre stared, wondering was this another of Scaramouche's
+cynicisms.
+
+"It isn't really difficult provided I have aid. I require only a little.
+Will you lend it me?"
+
+"Anything you ask," Leandre exploded. "My life if you require it."
+
+Andre-Louis took his arm again. "Let us walk," he said. "I will instruct
+you."
+
+When they came back the company was already at dinner. Mademoiselle had
+not yet returned. Sullenness presided at the table. Columbine and Madame
+wore anxious expressions. The fact was that relations between Binet and
+his troupe were daily growing more strained.
+
+Andre-Louis and Leandre went each to his accustomed place. Binet's
+little eyes followed them with a malicious gleam, his thick lips pouted
+into a crooked smile.
+
+"You two are grown very friendly of a sudden," he mocked.
+
+"You are a man of discernment, Binet," said Scaramouche, the cold
+loathing of his voice itself an insult. "Perhaps you discern the
+reason?"
+
+"It is readily discerned."
+
+"Regale the company with it!" he begged; and waited. "What? You
+hesitate? Is it possible that there are limits to your shamelessness?"
+
+Binet reared his great head. "Do you want to quarrel with me,
+Scaramouche?" Thunder was rumbling in his deep voice.
+
+"Quarrel? You want to laugh. A man doesn't quarrel with creatures like
+you. We all know the place held in the public esteem by complacent
+husbands. But, in God's name, what place is there at all for complacent
+fathers?"
+
+Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood. Violently he
+shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot who sat on his left.
+
+"A thousand devils!" he roared; "if you take that tone with me, I'll
+break every bone in your filthy body."
+
+"If you were to lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the only
+provocation I still need to kill you." Andre-Louis was as calm as ever,
+and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the company. He protruded
+from his pocket the butt of a pistol--newly purchased. "I go armed,
+Binet. It is only fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have
+suggested, and I'll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill
+a slug, which after all is the thing you most resemble--a slug, Binet; a
+fat, slimy body; foulness without soul and without intelligence. When I
+come to think of it I can't suffer to sit at table with you. It turns my
+stomach."
+
+He pushed away his platter and got up. "I'll go and eat at the ordinary
+below stairs."
+
+Thereupon up jumped Columbine.
+
+"And I'll come with you, Scaramouche!" cried she.
+
+It acted like a signal. Had the thing been concerted it couldn't
+have fallen out more uniformly. Binet, in fact, was persuaded of a
+conspiracy. For in the wake of Columbine went Leandre, in the wake of
+Leandre, Polichinelle and then all the rest together, until Binet found
+himself sitting alone at the head of an empty table in an empty room--a
+badly shaken man whose rage could afford him no support against the
+dread by which he was suddenly invaded.
+
+He sat down to think things out, and he was still at that melancholy
+occupation when perhaps a half-hour later his daughter entered the room,
+returned at last from her excursion.
+
+She looked pale, even a little scared--in reality excessively
+self-conscious now that the ordeal of facing all the company awaited
+her.
+
+Seeing no one but her father in the room, she checked on the threshold.
+
+"Where is everybody?" she asked, in a voice rendered natural by effort.
+
+M. Binet reared his great head and turned upon her eyes that were
+blood-injected. He scowled, blew out his thick lips and made harsh
+noises in his throat. Yet he took stock of her, so graceful and comely
+and looking so completely the lady of fashion in her long fur-trimmed
+travelling coat of bottle green, her muff and her broad hat adorned by
+a sparkling Rhinestone buckle above her adorably coiffed brown hair. No
+need to fear the future whilst he owned such a daughter, let Scaramouche
+play what tricks he would.
+
+He expressed, however, none of these comforting reflections.
+
+"So you're back at last, little fool," he growled in greeting. "I was
+beginning to ask myself if we should perform this evening. It wouldn't
+greatly have surprised me if you had not returned in time. Indeed,
+since you have chosen to play the fine hand you held in your own way and
+scorning my advice, nothing can surprise me."
+
+She crossed the room to the table, and leaning against it, looked down
+upon him almost disdainfully.
+
+"I have nothing to regret," she said.
+
+"So every fool says at first. Nor would you admit it if you had. You
+are like that. You go your own way in spite of advice from older heads.
+Death of my life, girl, what do you know of men?"
+
+"I am not complaining," she reminded him.
+
+"No, but you may be presently, when you discover that you would have
+done better to have been guided by your old father. So long as your
+Marquis languished for you, there was nothing you could not have done
+with the fool. So long as you let him have no more than your fingertips
+to kiss... ah, name of a name! that was the time to build your future.
+If you live to be a thousand you'll never have such a chance again, and
+you've squandered it, for what?"
+
+Mademoiselle sat down.--"You're sordid," she said, with disgust.
+
+"Sordid, am I?" His thick lips curled again. "I have had enough of the
+dregs of life, and so I should have thought have you. You held a hand
+on which to have won a fortune if you had played it as I bade you. Well,
+you've played it, and where's the fortune? We can whistle for that as
+a sailor whistles for wind. And, by Heaven, we'll need to whistle
+presently if the weather in the troupe continues as it's set in. That
+scoundrel Scaramouche has been at his ape's tricks with them. They've
+suddenly turned moral. They won't sit at table with me any more." He
+was spluttering between anger and sardonic mirth. "It was your friend
+Scaramouche set them the example of that. He threatened my life
+actually. Threatened my life! Called me... Oh, but what does that
+matter? What matters is that the next thing to happen to us will be that
+the Binet Troupe will discover it can manage without M. Binet and his
+daughter. This scoundrelly bastard I've befriended has little by little
+robbed me of everything. It's in his power to-day to rob me of my
+troupe, and the knave's ungrateful enough and vile enough to make use of
+his power.
+
+"Let him," said mademoiselle contemptuously.
+
+"Let him?" He was aghast. "And what's to become of us?"
+
+"In no case will the Binet Troupe interest me much longer," said she. "I
+shall be going to Paris soon. There are better theatres there than the
+Feydau. There's Mlle. Montansier's theatre in the Palais Royal; there's
+the Ambigu Comique; there's the Comedie Francaise; there's even a
+possibility I may have a theatre of my own."
+
+His eyes grew big for once. He stretched out a fat hand, and placed it
+on one of hers. She noticed that it trembled.
+
+"Has he promised that? Has he promised?"
+
+She looked at him with her head on one side, eyes sly and a queer little
+smile on her perfect lips.
+
+"He did not refuse me when I asked it," she answered, with conviction
+that all was as she desired it.
+
+"Bah!" He withdrew his hand, and heaved himself up. There was disgust
+on his face. "He did not refuse!" he mocked her; and then with passion:
+"Had you acted as I advised you, he would have consented to anything
+that you asked, and what is more he would have provided anything
+that you asked--anything that lay within his means, and they are
+inexhaustible. You have changed a certainty into a possibility, and
+I hate possibilities--God of God! I have lived on possibilities, and
+infernally near starved on them."
+
+Had she known of the interview taking place at that moment at the
+Chateau de Sautron she would have laughed less confidently at her
+father's gloomy forebodings. But she was destined never to know, which
+indeed was the cruellest punishment of all. She was to attribute all the
+evil that of a sudden overwhelmed her, the shattering of all the future
+hopes she had founded upon the Marquis and the sudden disintegration
+of the Binet Troupe, to the wicked interference of that villain
+Scaramouche.
+
+She had this much justification that possibly, without the warning
+from M. de Sautron, the Marquis would have found in the events of
+that evening at the Theatre Feydau a sufficient reason for ending an
+entanglement that was fraught with too much unpleasant excitement,
+whilst the breaking-up of the Binet Troupe was most certainly the result
+of Andre-Louis' work. But it was not a result that he intended or even
+foresaw.
+
+So much was this the case that in the interval after the second act,
+he sought the dressing-room shared by Polichinelle and Rhodomont.
+Polichinelle was in the act of changing.
+
+"I shouldn't trouble to change," he said. "The piece isn't likely to go
+beyond my opening scene of the next act with Leandre."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You'll see." He put a paper on Polichinelle's table amid the
+grease-paints. "Cast your eye over that. It's a sort of last will and
+testament in favour of the troupe. I was a lawyer once; the document
+is in order. I relinquish to all of you the share produced by my
+partnership in the company."
+
+"But you don't mean that you are leaving us?" cried Polichinelle in
+alarm, whilst Rhodomont's sudden stare asked the same question.
+
+Scaramouche's shrug was eloquent. Polichinelle ran on gloomily: "Of
+course it was to have been foreseen. But why should you be the one to
+go? It is you who have made us; and it is you who are the real head
+and brains of the troupe; it is you who have raised it into a real
+theatrical company. If any one must go, let it be Binet--Binet and his
+infernal daughter. Or if you go, name of a name! we all go with you!"
+
+"Aye," added Rhodomont, "we've had enough of that fat scoundrel."
+
+"I had thought of it, of course," said Andre-Louis. "It was not vanity,
+for once; it was trust in your friendship. After to-night we may
+consider it again, if I survive."
+
+"If you survive?" both cried.
+
+Polichinelle got up. "Now, what madness have you in mind?" he asked.
+
+"For one thing I think I am indulging Leandre; for another I am pursuing
+an old quarrel."
+
+The three knocks sounded as he spoke.
+
+"There, I must go. Keep that paper, Polichinelle. After all, it may not
+be necessary."
+
+He was gone. Rhodomont stared at Polichinelle. Polichinelle stared at
+Rhodomont.
+
+"What the devil is he thinking of?" quoth the latter.
+
+"That is most readily ascertained by going to see," replied
+Polichinelle. He completed changing in haste, and despite what
+Scaramouche had said; and then followed with Rhodomont.
+
+As they approached the wings a roar of applause met them coming from
+the audience. It was applause and something else; applause on an unusual
+note. As it faded away they heard the voice of Scaramouche ringing clear
+as a bell:
+
+"And so you see, my dear M. Leandre, that when you speak of the Third
+Estate, it is necessary to be more explicit. What precisely is the Third
+Estate?"
+
+"Nothing," said Leandre.
+
+There was a gasp from the audience, audible in the wings, and then
+swiftly followed Scaramouche's next question:
+
+"True. Alas! But what should it be?"
+
+"Everything," said Leandre.
+
+The audience roared its acclamations, the more violent because of the
+unexpectedness of that reply.
+
+"True again," said Scaramouche. "And what is more, that is what it will
+be; that is what it already is. Do you doubt it?"
+
+"I hope it," said the schooled Leandre.
+
+"You may believe it," said Scaramouche, and again the acclamations
+rolled into thunder.
+
+Polichinelle and Rhodomont exchanged glances: indeed, the former winked,
+not without mirth.
+
+"Sacred name!" growled a voice behind them. "Is the scoundrel at his
+political tricks again?"
+
+They turned to confront M. Binet. Moving with that noiseless tread of
+his, he had come up unheard behind them, and there he stood now in his
+scarlet suit of Pantaloon under a trailing bedgown, his little eyes
+glaring from either side of his false nose. But their attention was held
+by the voice of Scaramouche. He had stepped to the front of the stage.
+
+"He doubts it," he was telling the audience. "But then this M. Leandre
+is himself akin to those who worship the worm-eaten idol of Privilege,
+and so he is a little afraid to believe a truth that is becoming
+apparent to all the world. Shall I convince him? Shall I tell him how a
+company of noblemen backed by their servants under arms--six hundred men
+in all--sought to dictate to the Third Estate of Rennes a few short weeks
+ago? Must I remind him of the martial front shown on that occasion by
+the Third Estate, and how they swept the streets clean of that rabble of
+nobles--cette canaille noble..."
+
+Applause interrupted him. The phrase had struck home and caught. Those
+who had writhed under that infamous designation from their betters leapt
+at this turning of it against the nobles themselves.
+
+"But let me tell you of their leader--le pins noble de cette canaille,
+ou bien le plus canaille de ces nobles! You know him--that one. He fears
+many things, but the voice of truth he fears most. With such as him the
+eloquent truth eloquently spoken is a thing instantly to be silenced.
+So he marshalled his peers and their valetailles, and led them out to
+slaughter these miserable bourgeois who dared to raise a voice. But
+these same miserable bourgeois did not choose to be slaughtered in the
+streets of Rennes. It occurred to them that since the nobles decreed
+that blood should flow, it might as well be the blood of the nobles.
+They marshalled themselves too--this noble rabble against the rabble of
+nobles--and they marshalled themselves so well that they drove M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr and his warlike following from the field with broken
+heads and shattered delusions. They sought shelter at the hands of
+the Cordeliers; and the shavelings gave them sanctuary in their
+convent--those who survived, among whom was their proud leader, M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr. You have heard of this valiant Marquis, this great lord of
+life and death?"
+
+The pit was in an uproar a moment. It quieted again as Scaramouche
+continued:
+
+"Oh, it was a fine spectacle to see this mighty hunter scuttling to
+cover like a hare, going to earth in the Cordelier Convent. Rennes has
+not seen him since. Rennes would like to see him again. But if he is
+valorous, he is also discreet. And where do you think he has taken
+refuge, this great nobleman who wanted to see the streets of Rennes
+washed in the blood of its citizens, this man who would have butchered
+old and young of the contemptible canaille to silence the voice of
+reason and of liberty that presumes to ring through France to-day? Where
+do you think he hides himself? Why, here in Nantes."
+
+Again there was uproar.
+
+"What do you say? Impossible? Why, my friends, at this moment he is here
+in this theatre--skulking up there in that box. He is too shy to
+show himself--oh, a very modest gentleman. But there he is behind the
+curtains. Will you not show yourself to your friends, M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr, Monsieur le Marquis who considers eloquence so very dangerous a
+gift? See, they would like a word with you; they do not believe me when
+I tell them that you are here."
+
+Now, whatever he may have been, and whatever the views held on the
+subject by Andre-Louis, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was certainly not a coward.
+To say that he was hiding in Nantes was not true. He came and went
+there openly and unabashed. It happened, however, that the Nantais were
+ignorant until this moment of his presence among them. But then he
+would have disdained to have informed them of it just as he would have
+disdained to have concealed it from them.
+
+Challenged thus, however, and despite the ominous manner in which the
+bourgeois element in the audience had responded to Scaramouche's appeal
+to its passions, despite the attempts made by Chabrillane to restrain
+him, the Marquis swept aside the curtain at the side of the box, and
+suddenly showed himself, pale but self-contained and scornful as he
+surveyed first the daring Scaramouche and then those others who at sight
+of him had given tongue to their hostility.
+
+Hoots and yells assailed him, fists were shaken at him, canes were
+brandished menacingly.
+
+"Assassin! Scoundrel! Coward! Traitor!"
+
+But he braved the storm, smiling upon them his ineffable contempt. He
+was waiting for the noise to cease; waiting to address them in his turn.
+But he waited in vain, as he very soon perceived.
+
+The contempt he did not trouble to dissemble served but to goad them on.
+
+In the pit pandemonium was already raging. Blows were being freely
+exchanged; there were scuffling groups, and here and there swords were
+being drawn, but fortunately the press was too dense to permit of their
+being used effectively. Those who had women with them and the timid by
+nature were making haste to leave a house that looked like becoming a
+cockpit, where chairs were being smashed to provide weapons, and parts
+of chandeliers were already being used as missiles.
+
+One of these hurled by the hand of a gentleman in one of the boxes
+narrowly missed Scaramouche where he stood, looking down in a sort of
+grim triumph upon the havoc which his words had wrought. Knowing of
+what inflammable material the audience was composed, he had deliberately
+flung down amongst them the lighted torch of discord, to produce this
+conflagration.
+
+He saw men falling quickly into groups representative of one side or the
+other of this great quarrel that already was beginning to agitate the
+whole of France. Their rallying cries were ringing through the theatre.
+
+"Down with the canaille!" from some.
+
+"Down with the privileged!" from others.
+
+And then above the general din one cry rang out sharply and insistently:
+
+"To the box! Death to the butcher of Rennes! Death to La Tour d'Azyr who
+makes war upon the people!"
+
+There was a rush for one of the doors of the pit that opened upon the
+staircase leading to the boxes.
+
+And now, whilst battle and confusion spread with the speed of fire,
+overflowing from the theatre into the street itself, La Tour d'Azyr's
+box, which had become the main object of the attack of the bourgeoisie,
+had also become the rallying ground for such gentlemen as were present
+in the theatre and for those who, without being men of birth themselves,
+were nevertheless attached to the party of the nobles.
+
+La Tour d'Azyr had quitted the front of the box to meet those who came
+to join him. And now in the pit one group of infuriated gentlemen, in
+attempting to reach the stage across the empty orchestra, so that they
+might deal with the audacious comedian who was responsible for this
+explosion, found themselves opposed and held back by another group
+composed of men to whose feelings Andre-Louis had given expression.
+
+Perceiving this, and remembering the chandelier, he turned to Leandre,
+who had remained beside him.
+
+"I think it is time to be going," said he.
+
+Leandre, looking ghastly under his paint, appalled by the storm which
+exceeded by far anything that his unimaginative brain could have
+conjectured, gurgled an inarticulate agreement. But it looked as if
+already they were too late, for in that moment they were assailed from
+behind.
+
+M. Binet had succeeded at last in breaking past Polichinelle and
+Rhodomont, who in view of his murderous rage had been endeavouring to
+restrain him. Half a dozen gentlemen, habitues of the green-room, had
+come round to the stage to disembowel the knave who had created this
+riot, and it was they who had flung aside those two comedians who hung
+upon Binet. After him they came now, their swords out; but after them
+again came Polichinelle, Rhodomont, Harlequin, Pierrot, Pasquariel,
+and Basque the artist, armed with such implements as they could hastily
+snatch up, and intent upon saving the man with whom they sympathized in
+spite of all, and in whom now all their hopes were centred.
+
+Well ahead rolled Binet, moving faster than any had ever seen him move,
+and swinging the long cane from which Pantaloon is inseparable.
+
+"Infamous scoundrel!" he roared. "You have ruined me! But, name of a
+name, you shall pay!"
+
+Andre-Louis turned to face him. "You confuse cause with effect," said
+he. But he got no farther... Binet's cane, viciously driven, descended
+and broke upon his shoulder. Had he not moved swiftly aside as the blow
+fell it must have taken him across the head, and possibly stunned him.
+As he moved, he dropped his hand to his pocket, and swift upon the
+cracking of Binet's breaking cane came the crack of the pistol with
+which Andre-Louis replied.
+
+"You had your warning, you filthy pander!" he cried. And on the word he
+shot him through the body.
+
+Binet went down screaming, whilst the fierce Polichinelle, fiercer than
+ever in that moment of fierce reality, spoke quickly into Andre-Louis'
+ear:
+
+"Fool! So much was not necessary! Away with you now, or you'll leave
+your skin here! Away with you!"
+
+Andre-Louis thought it good advice, and took it. The gentlemen who had
+followed Binet in that punitive rush upon the stage, partly held in
+check by the improvised weapons of the players, partly intimidated by
+the second pistol that Scaramouche presented, let him go. He gained
+the wings, and here found himself faced by a couple of sergeants of the
+watch, part of the police that was already invading the theatre with a
+view to restoring order. The sight of them reminded him unpleasantly
+of how he must stand towards the law for this night's work, and more
+particularly for that bullet lodged somewhere in Binet's obese body. He
+flourished his pistol.
+
+"Make way, or I'll burn your brains!" he threatened them, and
+intimidated, themselves without firearms, they fell back and let him
+pass. He slipped by the door of the green-room, where the ladies of the
+company had shut themselves in until the storm should be over, and so
+gained the street behind the theatre. It was deserted. Down this he went
+at a run, intent on reaching the inn for clothes and money, since it was
+impossible that he should take the road in the garb of Scaramouche.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III: THE SWORD
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. TRANSITION
+
+"You may agree," wrote Andre-Louis from Paris to Le Chapelier, in a
+letter which survives, "that it is to be regretted I should definitely
+have discarded the livery of Scaramouche, since clearly there could be
+no livery fitter for my wear. It seems to be my part always to stir up
+strife and then to slip away before I am caught in the crash of the
+warring elements I have aroused. It is a humiliating reflection. I seek
+consolation in the reminder of Epictetus (do you ever read Epictetus?)
+that we are but actors in a play of such a part as it may please the
+Director to assign us. It does not, however, console me to have been
+cast for a part so contemptible, to find myself excelling ever in the
+art of running away. But if I am not brave, at least I am prudent; so
+that where I lack one virtue I may lay claim to possessing another
+almost to excess. On a previous occasion they wanted to hang me for
+sedition. Should I have stayed to be hanged? This time they may want to
+hang me for several things, including murder; for I do not know whether
+that scoundrel Binet be alive or dead from the dose of lead I pumped
+into his fat paunch. Nor can I say that I very greatly care. If I have a
+hope at all in the matter it is that he is dead--and damned. But I am
+really indifferent. My own concerns are troubling me enough. I have all
+but spent the little money that I contrived to conceal about me before I
+fled from Nantes on that dreadful night; and both of the only two
+professions of which I can claim to know anything--the law and the
+stage--are closed to me, since I cannot find employment in either without
+revealing myself as a fellow who is urgently wanted by the hangman. As
+things are it is very possible that I may die of hunger, especially
+considering the present price of victuals in this ravenous city. Again I
+have recourse to Epictetus for comfort. 'It is better,' he says, 'to die
+of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a
+troubled spirit amid abundance.' I seem likely to perish in the estate
+that he accounts so enviable. That it does not seem exactly enviable to
+me merely proves that as a Stoic I am not a success."
+
+There is also another letter of his written at about the same time
+to the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr--a letter since published by M. Emile
+Quersac in his "Undercurrents of the Revolution in Brittany," unearthed
+by him from the archives of Rennes, to which it had been consigned by
+M. de Lesdiguieres, who had received it for justiciary purposes from the
+Marquis.
+
+"The Paris newspapers," he writes in this, "which have reported in
+considerable detail the fracas at the Theatre Feydau and disclosed the
+true identity of the Scaramouche who provoked it, inform me also that
+you have escaped the fate I had intended for you when I raised that
+storm of public opinion and public indignation. I would not have you
+take satisfaction in the thought that I regret your escape. I do not. I
+rejoice in it. To deal justice by death has this disadvantage that the
+victim has no knowledge that justice has overtaken him. Had you died,
+had you been torn limb from limb that night, I should now repine in the
+thought of your eternal and untroubled slumber. Not in euthanasia, but
+in torment of mind should the guilty atone. You see, I am not sure that
+hell hereafter is a certainty, whilst I am quite sure that it can be a
+certainty in this life; and I desire you to continue to live yet awhile
+that you may taste something of its bitterness.
+
+"You murdered Philippe de Vilmorin because you feared what you described
+as his very dangerous gift of eloquence, I took an oath that day that
+your evil deed should be fruitless; that I would render it so; that the
+voice you had done murder to stifle should in spite of that ring like
+a trumpet through the land. That was my conception of revenge. Do you
+realize how I have been fulfilling it, how I shall continue to fulfil
+it as occasion offers? In the speech with which I fired the people of
+Rennes on the very morrow of that deed, did you not hear the voice of
+Philippe de Vilmorin uttering the ideas that were his with a fire and a
+passion greater than he could have commanded because Nemesis lent me
+her inflaming aid? In the voice of Omnes Omnibus at Nantes my voice
+again--demanding the petition that sounded the knell of your hopes of
+coercing the Third Estate, did you not hear again the voice of Philippe
+de Vilmorin? Did you not reflect that it was the mind of the man you had
+murdered, resurrected in me his surviving friend, which made necessary
+your futile attempt under arms last January, wherein your order, finally
+beaten, was driven to seek sanctuary in the Cordelier Convent? And
+that night when from the stage of the Feydau you were denounced to the
+people, did you not hear yet again, in the voice of Scaramouche, the
+voice of Philippe de Vilmorin, using that dangerous gift of eloquence
+which you so foolishly imagined you could silence with a sword-thrust?
+It is becoming a persecution--is it not?--this voice from the grave that
+insists upon making itself heard, that will not rest until you have been
+cast into the pit. You will be regretting by now that you did not kill
+me too, as I invited you on that occasion. I can picture to myself
+the bitterness of this regret, and I contemplate it with satisfaction.
+Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can
+inhabit, particularly such a soul as yours. It is because of this that
+I am glad to know that you survived the riot at the Feydau, although at
+the time it was no part of my intention that you should. Because of this
+I am content that you should live to enrage and suffer in the shadow of
+your evil deed, knowing at last--since you had not hitherto the wit to
+discern it for yourself--that the voice of Philippe de Vilmorin will
+follow you to denounce you ever more loudly, ever more insistently,
+until having lived in dread you shall go down in blood under the just
+rage which your victim's dangerous gift of eloquence is kindling against
+you."
+
+I find it odd that he should have omitted from this letter all mention
+of Mlle. Binet, and I am disposed to account it at least a partial
+insincerity that he should have assigned entirely to his self-imposed
+mission, and not at all to his lacerated feelings in the matter of
+Climene, the action which he had taken at the Feydau.
+
+Those two letters, both written in April of that year 1789, had for only
+immediate effect to increase the activity with which Andre-Louis Moreau
+was being sought.
+
+Le Chapelier would have found him so as to lend him assistance, to
+urge upon him once again that he should take up a political career. The
+electors of Nantes would have found him--at least, they would have
+found Omnes Omnibus, of whose identity with himself they were still in
+ignorance--on each of the several occasions when a vacancy occurred in
+their body. And the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr and M. de Lesdiguieres
+would have found him that they might send him to the gallows.
+
+With a purpose no less vindictive was he being sought by M. Binet, now
+unhappily recovered from his wound to face completest ruin. His troupe
+had deserted him during his illness, and reconstituted under the
+direction of Polichinelle it was now striving with tolerable success to
+continue upon the lines which Andre-Louis had laid down. M. le Marquis,
+prevented by the riot from expressing in person to Mlle. Binet his
+purpose of making an end of their relations, had been constrained to
+write to her to that effect from Azyr a few days later. He tempered the
+blow by enclosing in discharge of all liabilities a bill on the Caisse
+d'Escompte for a hundred louis. Nevertheless it almost crushed the
+unfortunate and it enabled her father when he recovered to enrage her
+by pointing out that she owed this turn of events to the premature
+surrender she had made in defiance of his sound worldly advice. Father
+and daughter alike were left to assign the Marquis' desertion, naturally
+enough, to the riot at the Feydau. They laid that with the rest to the
+account of Scaramouche, and were forced in bitterness to admit that the
+scoundrel had taken a superlative revenge. Climene may even have come
+to consider that it would have paid her better to have run a straight
+course with Scaramouche and by marrying him to have trusted to his
+undoubted talents to place her on the summit to which her ambition
+urged her, and to which it was now futile for her to aspire. If so, that
+reflection must have been her sufficient punishment. For, as Andre-Louis
+so truly says, there is no worse hell than that provided by the regrets
+for wasted opportunities.
+
+Meanwhile the fiercely sought Andre-Louis Moreau had gone to earth
+completely for the present. And the brisk police of Paris, urged on by
+the King's Lieutenant from Rennes, hunted for him in vain. Yet he might
+have been found in a house in the Rue du Hasard within a stone's throw
+of the Palais Royal, whither purest chance had conducted him.
+
+That which in his letter to Le Chapelier he represents as a contingency
+of the near future was, in fact, the case in which already he found
+himself. He was destitute. His money was exhausted, including that
+procured by the sale of such articles of adornment as were not of
+absolute necessity.
+
+So desperate was his case that strolling one gusty April morning down
+the Rue du Hasard with his nose in the wind looking for what might be
+picked up, he stopped to read a notice outside the door of a house on
+the left side of the street as you approach the Rue de Richelieu. There
+was no reason why he should have gone down the Rue du Hasard. Perhaps
+its name attracted him, as appropriate to his case.
+
+The notice written in a big round hand announced that a young man of
+good address with some knowledge of swordsmanship was required by M.
+Bertrand des Amis on the second floor. Above this notice was a black
+oblong board, and on this a shield, which in vulgar terms may be
+described as red charged with two swords crossed and four fleurs de lys,
+one in each angle of the saltire. Under the shield, in letters of gold,
+ran the legend:
+
+
+                     BERTRAND DES AMIS
+
+        Maitre en fait d'Armes des Academies du Roi
+
+Andre-Louis stood considering. He could claim, he thought, to possess
+the qualifications demanded. He was certainly young and he believed of
+tolerable address, whilst the fencing-lessons he had received in Nantes
+had given him at least an elementary knowledge of swordsmanship. The
+notice looked as if it had been pinned there some days ago, suggesting
+that applicants for the post were not very numerous. In that case
+perhaps M. Bertrand des Amis would not be too exigent. And anyway,
+Andre-Louis had not eaten for four-and-twenty hours, and whilst the
+employment here offered--the precise nature of which he was yet to
+ascertain--did not appear to be such as Andre-Louis would deliberately
+have chosen, he was in no case now to be fastidious.
+
+Then, too, he liked the name of Bertrand des Amis. It felicitously
+combined suggestions of chivalry and friendliness. Also the man's
+profession being of a kind that is flavoured with romance it was
+possible that M. Bertrand des Amis would not ask too many questions.
+
+In the end he climbed to the second floor. On the landing he paused
+outside a door, on which was written "Academy of M. Bertrand des
+Amis." He pushed this open, and found himself in a sparsely furnished,
+untenanted antechamber. From a room beyond, the door of which was
+closed, came the stamping of feet, the click and slither of steel upon
+steel, and dominating these sounds a vibrant sonorous voice speaking a
+language that was certainly French; but such French as is never heard
+outside a fencing-school.
+
+"Coulez! Mais, coulez donc!.... So! Now the flanconnade--en carte.... And
+here is the riposte.... Let us begin again. Come! The ward of fierce....
+Make the coupe, and then the quinte par dessus les armes.... O, mais
+allongez! Allongez! Allez au fond!" the voice cried in expostulation.
+"Come, that was better." The blades ceased.
+
+"Remember: the hand in pronation, the elbow not too far out. That will
+do for to-day. On Wednesday we shall see you tirer au mur. It is more
+deliberate. Speed will follow when the mechanism of the movements is
+more assured."
+
+Another voice murmured in answer. The steps moved aside. The lesson was
+at an end. Andre-Louis tapped on the door.
+
+It was opened by a tall, slender, gracefully proportioned man of perhaps
+forty. Black silk breeches and stockings ending in light shoes clothed
+him from the waist down. Above he was encased to the chin in a closely
+fitting plastron of leather, His face was aquiline and swarthy, his eyes
+full and dark, his mouth firm and his clubbed hair was of a lustrous
+black with here and there a thread of silver showing.
+
+In the crook of his left arm he carried a fencing-mask, a thing of
+leather with a wire grating to protect the eyes. His keen glance played
+over Andre-Louis from head to foot.
+
+"Monsieur?" he inquired, politely.
+
+It was clear that he mistook Andre-Louis' quality, which is not
+surprising, for despite his sadly reduced fortunes, his exterior was
+irreproachable, and M. des Amis was not to guess that he carried upon
+his back the whole of his possessions.
+
+"You have a notice below, monsieur," he said, and from the swift
+lighting of the fencing-master's eyes he saw that he had been correct
+in his assumption that applicants for the position had not been jostling
+one another on his threshold. And then that flash of satisfaction was
+followed by a look of surprise.
+
+"You are come in regard to that?"
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged and half smiled. "One must live," said he.
+
+"But come in. Sit down there. I shall be at your.... I shall be free to
+attend to you in a moment."
+
+Andre-Louis took a seat on the bench ranged against one of the
+whitewashed walls. The room was long and low, its floor entirely bare.
+Plain wooden forms such as that which he occupied were placed here and
+there against the wall. These last were plastered with fencing trophies,
+masks, crossed foils, stuffed plastrons, and a variety of swords,
+daggers, and targets, belonging to a variety of ages and countries.
+There was also a portrait of an obese, big-nosed gentleman in an
+elaborately curled wig, wearing the blue ribbon of the Saint Esprit,
+in whom Andre-Louis recognized the King. And there was a framed
+parchment--M. des Amis' certificate from the King's Academy. A bookcase
+occupied one corner, and near this, facing the last of the four windows
+that abundantly lighted the long room, there was a small writing-table
+and an armchair. A plump and beautifully dressed young gentleman stood
+by this table in the act of resuming coat and wig. M. des Amis sauntered
+over to him--moving, thought Andre-Louis, with extraordinary grace and
+elasticity--and stood in talk with him whilst also assisting him to
+complete his toilet.
+
+At last the young gentleman took his departure, mopping himself with
+a fine kerchief that left a trail of perfume on the air. M. des Amis
+closed the door, and turned to the applicant, who rose at once.
+
+"Where have you studied?" quoth the fencing-master abruptly.
+
+"Studied?" Andre-Louis was taken aback by the question. "Oh, at Louis Le
+Grand."
+
+M. des Amis frowned, looking up sharply as if to see whether his
+applicant was taking the liberty of amusing himself.
+
+"In Heaven's name! I am not asking you where you did your humanities,
+but in what academy you studied fencing."
+
+"Oh--fencing!" It had hardly ever occurred to Andre-Louis that the sword
+ranked seriously as a study. "I never studied it very much. I had some
+lessons in... in the country once."
+
+The master's eyebrows went up. "But then?" he cried. "Why trouble to
+come up two flights of stairs?" He was impatient.
+
+"The notice does not demand a high degree of proficiency. If I am not
+proficient enough, yet knowing the rudiments I can easily improve. I
+learn most things readily," Andre-Louis commended himself. "For the
+rest: I possess the other qualifications. I am young, as you observe:
+and I leave you to judge whether I am wrong in assuming that my address
+is good. I am by profession a man of the robe, though I realize that the
+motto here is cedat toga armis."
+
+M. des Amis smiled approvingly. Undoubtedly the young man had a good
+address, and a certain readiness of wit, it would appear. He ran a
+critical eye over his physical points. "What is your name?" he asked.
+
+Andre-Louis hesitated a moment. "Andre-Louis," he said.
+
+The dark, keen eyes conned him more searchingly.
+
+"Well? Andre-Louis what?"
+
+"Just Andre-Louis. Louis is my surname."
+
+"Oh! An odd surname. You come from Brittany by your accent. Why did you
+leave it?"
+
+"To save my skin," he answered, without reflecting. And then made haste
+to cover the blunder. "I have an enemy," he explained.
+
+M. des Amis frowned, stroking his square chin. "You ran away?"
+
+"You may say so.
+
+"A coward, eh?"
+
+"I don't think so." And then he lied romantically. Surely a man who
+lived by the sword should have a weakness for the romantic. "You see, my
+enemy is a swordsman of great strength--the best blade in the province,
+if not the best blade in France. That is his repute. I thought I would
+come to Paris to learn something of the art, and then go back and kill
+him. That, to be frank, is why your notice attracted me. You see, I have
+not the means to take lessons otherwise. I thought to find work here in
+the law. But I have failed. There are too many lawyers in Paris as it
+is, and whilst waiting I have consumed the little money that I had, so
+that... so that, enfin, your notice seemed to me something to which a
+special providence had directed me."
+
+M. des Amis gripped him by the shoulders, and looked into his face.
+
+"Is this true, my friend?" he asked.
+
+"Not a word of it," said Andre-Louis, wrecking his chances on an
+irresistible impulse to say the unexpected. But he didn't wreck them.
+M. des Amis burst into laughter; and having laughed his fill, confessed
+himself charmed by his applicant's fundamental honesty.
+
+"Take off your coat," he said, "and let us see what you can do. Nature,
+at least, designed you for a swordsman. You are light, active, and
+supple, with a good length of arm, and you seem intelligent. I may make
+something of you, teach you enough for my purpose, which is that you
+should give the elements of the art to new pupils before I take them in
+hand to finish them. Let us try. Take that mask and foil, and come over
+here."
+
+He led him to the end of the room, where the bare floor was scored with
+lines of chalk to guide the beginner in the management of his feet.
+
+At the end of a ten minutes' bout, M. des Amis offered him the
+situation, and explained it. In addition to imparting the rudiments
+of the art to beginners, he was to brush out the fencing-room every
+morning, keep the foils furbished, assist the gentlemen who came for
+lessons to dress and undress, and make himself generally useful. His
+wages for the present were to be forty livres a month, and he might
+sleep in an alcove behind the fencing-room if he had no other lodging.
+
+The position, you see, had its humiliations. But, if Andre-Louis would
+hope to dine, he must begin by eating his pride as an hors d'oeuvre.
+
+"And so," he said, controlling a grimace, "the robe yields not only to
+the sword, but to the broom as well. Be it so. I stay."
+
+It is characteristic of him that, having made that choice, he should
+have thrown himself into the work with enthusiasm. It was ever his way
+to do whatever he did with all the resources of his mind and energies
+of his body. When he was not instructing very young gentlemen in
+the elements of the art, showing them the elaborate and intricate
+salute--which with a few days' hard practice he had mastered to
+perfection--and the eight guards, he was himself hard at work on those
+same guards, exercising eye, wrist, and knees.
+
+Perceiving his enthusiasm, and seeing the obvious possibilities it
+opened out of turning him into a really effective assistant, M. des Amis
+presently took him more seriously in hand.
+
+"Your application and zeal, my friend, are deserving of more than forty
+livres a month," the master informed him at the end of a week. "For
+the present, however, I will make up what else I consider due to you by
+imparting to you secrets of this noble art. Your future depends upon
+how you profit by your exceptional good fortune in receiving instruction
+from me."
+
+Thereafter every morning before the opening of the academy, the master
+would fence for half an hour with his new assistant. Under this really
+excellent tuition Andre-Louis improved at a rate that both astounded
+and flattered M. des Amis. He would have been less flattered and more
+astounded had he known that at least half the secret of Andre-Louis'
+amazing progress lay in the fact that he was devouring the contents of
+the master's library, which was made up of a dozen or so treatises on
+fencing by such great masters as La Bessiere, Danet, and the syndic
+of the King's Academy, Augustin Rousseau. To M. des Amis, whose
+swordsmanship was all based on practice and not at all on theory, who
+was indeed no theorist or student in any sense, that little library
+was merely a suitable adjunct to a fencing-academy, a proper piece of
+decorative furniture. The books themselves meant nothing to him in any
+other sense. He had not the type of mind that could have read them with
+profit nor could he understand that another should do so. Andre-Louis,
+on the contrary, a man with the habit of study, with the acquired
+faculty of learning from books, read those works with enormous profit,
+kept their precepts in mind, critically set off those of one master
+against those of another, and made for himself a choice which he
+proceeded to put into practice.
+
+At the end of a month it suddenly dawned upon M. des Amis that his
+assistant had developed into a fencer of very considerable force, a man
+in a bout with whom it became necessary to exert himself if he were to
+escape defeat.
+
+"I said from the first," he told him one day, "that Nature designed you
+for a swordsman. See how justified I was, and see also how well I have
+known how to mould the material with which Nature has equipped you."
+
+"To the master be the glory," said Andre-Louis.
+
+His relations with M. des Amis had meanwhile become of the friendliest,
+and he was now beginning to receive from him other pupils than mere
+beginners. In fact Andre-Louis was becoming an assistant in a much
+fuller sense of the word. M. des Amis, a chivalrous, open-handed fellow,
+far from taking advantage of what he had guessed to be the young man's
+difficulties, rewarded his zeal by increasing his wages to four louis a
+month.
+
+From the earnest and thoughtful study of the theories of others, it
+followed now--as not uncommonly happens--that Andre-Louis came to develop
+theories of his own. He lay one June morning on his little truckle bed
+in the alcove behind the academy, considering a passage that he had read
+last night in Danet on double and triple feints. It had seemed to him
+when reading it that Danet had stopped short on the threshold of a great
+discovery in the art of fencing. Essentially a theorist, Andre-Louis
+perceived the theory suggested, which Danet himself in suggesting it
+had not perceived. He lay now on his back, surveying the cracks in the
+ceiling and considering this matter further with the lucidity that early
+morning often brings to an acute intelligence. You are to remember that
+for close upon two months now the sword had been Andre-Louis' daily
+exercise and almost hourly thought. Protracted concentration upon
+the subject was giving him an extraordinary penetration of vision.
+Swordsmanship as he learnt and taught and saw it daily practised
+consisted of a series of attacks and parries, a series of disengages
+from one line into another. But always a limited series. A half-dozen
+disengages on either side was, strictly speaking, usually as far as any
+engagement went. Then one recommenced. But even so, these disengages
+were fortuitous. What if from first to last they should be calculated?
+
+That was part of the thought--one of the two legs on which his theory was
+to stand; the other was: what would happen if one so elaborated Danet's
+ideas on the triple feint as to merge them into a series of actual
+calculated disengages to culminate at the fourth or fifth or even sixth
+disengage? That is to say, if one were to make a series of attacks
+inviting ripostes again to be countered, each of which was not intended
+to go home, but simply to play the opponent's blade into a line that
+must open him ultimately, and as predetermined, for an irresistible
+lunge. Each counter of the opponent's would have to be preconsidered in
+this widening of his guard, a widening so gradual that he should himself
+be unconscious of it, and throughout intent upon getting home his own
+point on one of those counters.
+
+Andre-Louis had been in his time a chess-player of some force, and at
+chess he had excelled by virtue of his capacity for thinking ahead. That
+virtue applied to fencing should all but revolutionize the art. It
+was so applied already, of course, but only in an elementary and very
+limited fashion, in mere feints, single, double, or triple. But even the
+triple feint should be a clumsy device compared with this method upon
+which he theorized.
+
+He considered further, and the conviction grew that he held the key of a
+discovery. He was impatient to put his theory to the test.
+
+That morning he was given a pupil of some force, against whom usually
+he was hard put to it to defend himself. Coming on guard, he made up his
+mind to hit him on the fourth disengage, predetermining the four passes
+that should lead up to it. They engaged in tierce, and Andre-Louis
+led the attack by a beat and a straightening of the arm. Came the
+demi-contre he expected, which he promptly countered by a thrust in
+quinte; this being countered again, he reentered still lower, and being
+again correctly parried, as he had calculated, he lunged swirling his
+point into carte, and got home full upon his opponent's breast. The ease
+of it surprised him.
+
+They began again. This time he resolved to go in on the fifth disengage,
+and in on that he went with the same ease. Then, complicating the matter
+further, he decided to try the sixth, and worked out in his mind the
+combination of the five preliminary engages. Yet again he succeeded as
+easily as before.
+
+The young gentleman opposed to him laughed with just a tinge of
+mortification in his voice.
+
+"I am all to pieces this morning," he said.
+
+"You are not of your usual force," Andre-Louis politely agreed. And then
+greatly daring, always to test that theory of his to the uttermost: "So
+much so," he added, "that I could almost be sure of hitting you as and
+when I declare."
+
+The capable pupil looked at him with a half-sneer. "Ah, that, no," said
+he.
+
+"Let us try. On the fourth disengage I shall touch you. Allons! En
+garde!"
+
+And as he promised, so it happened.
+
+The young gentleman who, hitherto, had held no great opinion of
+Andre-Louis' swordsmanship, accounting him well enough for purposes of
+practice when the master was otherwise engaged, opened wide his eyes. In
+a burst of mingled generosity and intoxication, Andre-Louis was almost
+for disclosing his method--a method which a little later was to become a
+commonplace of the fencing-rooms. Betimes he checked himself. To reveal
+his secret would be to destroy the prestige that must accrue to him from
+exercising it.
+
+At noon, the academy being empty, M. des Amis called Andre-Louis to one
+of the occasional lessons which he still received. And for the first
+time in all his experience with Andre-Louis, M. des Amis received
+from him a full hit in the course of the first bout. He laughed, well
+pleased, like the generous fellow he was.
+
+"Aha! You are improving very fast, my friend." He still laughed, though
+not so well pleased, when he was hit in the second bout. After that he
+settled down to fight in earnest with the result that Andre-Louis
+was hit three times in succession. The speed and accuracy of the
+fencing-master when fully exerting himself disconcerted Andre-Louis'
+theory, which for want of being exercised in practice still demanded too
+much consideration.
+
+But that his theory was sound he accounted fully established, and with
+that, for the moment, he was content. It remained only to perfect by
+practice the application of it. To this he now devoted himself with
+the passionate enthusiasm of the discoverer. He confined himself to a
+half-dozen combinations, which he practised assiduously until each had
+become almost automatic. And he proved their infallibility upon the best
+among M. des Amis' pupils.
+
+Finally, a week or so after that last bout of his with des Amis, the
+master called him once more to practice.
+
+Hit again in the first bout, the master set himself to exert all his
+skill against his assistant. But to-day it availed him nothing before
+Andre-Louis' impetuous attacks.
+
+After the third hit, M. des Amis stepped back and pulled off his mask.
+
+"What's this?" he asked. He was pale, and his dark brows were contracted
+in a frown. Not in years had he been so wounded in his self-love. "Have
+you been taught a secret botte?"
+
+He had always boasted that he knew too much about the sword to believe
+any nonsense about secret bottes; but this performance of Andre-Louis'
+had shaken his convictions on that score.
+
+"No," said Andre-Louis. "I have been working hard; and it happens that I
+fence with my brains."
+
+"So I perceive. Well, well, I think I have taught you enough, my friend.
+I have no intention of having an assistant who is superior to myself."
+
+"Little danger of that," said Andre-Louis, smiling pleasantly. "You have
+been fencing hard all morning, and you are tired, whilst I, having
+done little, am entirely fresh. That is the only secret of my momentary
+success."
+
+His tact and the fundamental good-nature of M. des Amis prevented the
+matter from going farther along the road it was almost threatening
+to take. And thereafter, when they fenced together, Andre-Louis, who
+continued daily to perfect his theory into an almost infallible system,
+saw to it that M. des Amis always scored against him at least two hits
+for every one of his own. So much he would grant to discretion, but no
+more. He desired that M. des Amis should be conscious of his strength,
+without, however, discovering so much of its real extent as would have
+excited in him an unnecessary degree of jealousy.
+
+And so well did he contrive that whilst he became ever of greater
+assistance to the master--for his style and general fencing, too, had
+materially improved--he was also a source of pride to him as the most
+brilliant of all the pupils that had ever passed through his academy.
+Never did Andre-Louis disillusion him by revealing the fact that his
+skill was due far more to M. des Amis' library and his own mother wit
+than to any lessons received.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
+
+Once again, precisely as he had done when he joined the Binet troupe,
+did Andre-Louis now settle down whole-heartedly to the new profession
+into which necessity had driven him, and in which he found effective
+concealment from those who might seek him to his hurt. This profession
+might--although in fact it did not--have brought him to consider himself
+at last as a man of action. He had not, however, on that account ceased
+to be a man of thought, and the events of the spring and summer months
+of that year 1789 in Paris provided him with abundant matter for
+reflection. He read there in the raw what is perhaps the most amazing
+page in the history of human development, and in the end he was forced
+to the conclusion that all his early preconceptions had been at fault,
+and that it was such exalted, passionate enthusiasts as Vilmorin who had
+been right.
+
+I suspect him of actually taking pride in the fact that he had been
+mistaken, complacently attributing his error to the circumstance that he
+had been, himself, of too sane and logical a mind to gauge the depths of
+human insanity now revealed.
+
+He watched the growth of hunger, the increasing poverty and distress of
+Paris during that spring, and assigned it to its proper cause, together
+with the patience with which the people bore it. The world of France was
+in a state of hushed, of paralyzed expectancy, waiting for the States
+General to assemble and for centuries of tyranny to end. And because of
+this expectancy, industry had come to a standstill, the stream of trade
+had dwindled to a trickle. Men would not buy or sell until they clearly
+saw the means by which the genius of the Swiss banker, M. Necker, was to
+deliver them from this morass. And because of this paralysis of affairs
+the men of the people were thrown out of work and left to starve with
+their wives and children.
+
+Looking on, Andre-Louis smiled grimly. So far he was right. The
+sufferers were ever the proletariat. The men who sought to make
+this revolution, the electors--here in Paris as elsewhere--were men
+of substance, notable bourgeois, wealthy traders. And whilst these,
+despising the canaille, and envying the privileged, talked largely of
+equality--by which they meant an ascending equality that should confuse
+themselves with the gentry--the proletariat perished of want in its
+kennels.
+
+At last with the month of May the deputies arrived, Andre-Louis'
+friend Le Chapelier prominent amongst them, and the States General were
+inaugurated at Versailles. It was then that affairs began to become
+interesting, then that Andre-Louis began seriously to doubt the
+soundness of the views he had held hitherto.
+
+When the royal proclamation had gone forth decreeing that the deputies
+of the Third Estate should number twice as many as those of the other
+two orders together, Andre-Louis had believed that the preponderance of
+votes thus assured to the Third Estate rendered inevitable the reforms
+to which they had pledged themselves.
+
+But he had reckoned without the power of the privileged orders over
+the proud Austrian queen, and her power over the obese, phlegmatic,
+irresolute monarch. That the privileged orders should deliver battle
+in defence of their privileges, Andre-Louis could understand. Man being
+what he is, and labouring under his curse of acquisitiveness, will never
+willingly surrender possessions, whether they be justly or unjustly
+held. But what surprised Andre-Louis was the unutterable crassness of
+the methods by which the Privileged ranged themselves for battle. They
+opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign
+mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets!
+
+The war between the Privileged and the Court on one side, and the
+Assembly and the People on the other had begun.
+
+The Third Estate contained itself, and waited; waited with the patience
+of nature; waited a month whilst, with the paralysis of business now
+complete, the skeleton hand of famine took a firmer grip of Paris;
+waited a month whilst Privilege gradually assembled an army in
+Versailles to intimidate it--an army of fifteen regiments, nine of
+which were Swiss and German--and mounted a park of artillery before
+the building in which the deputies sat. But the deputies refused to be
+intimidated; they refused to see the guns and foreign uniforms; they
+refused to see anything but the purpose for which they had been brought
+together by royal proclamation.
+
+Thus until the 10th of June, when that great thinker and metaphysician,
+the Abbe Sieyes, gave the signal: "It is time," said he, "to cut the
+cable."
+
+And the opportunity came soon, at the very beginning of July. M. du
+Chatelet, a harsh, haughty disciplinarian, proposed to transfer the
+eleven French Guards placed under arrest from the military gaol of the
+Abbaye to the filthy prison of Bicetre reserved for thieves and felons
+of the lowest order. Word of that intention going forth, the people at
+last met violence with violence. A mob four thousand strong broke into
+the Abbaye, and delivered thence not only the eleven guardsmen, but all
+the other prisoners, with the exception of one whom they discovered to
+be a thief, and whom they put back again.
+
+That was open revolt at last, and with revolt Privilege knew how to
+deal. It would strangle this mutinous Paris in the iron grip of the
+foreign regiments. Measures were quickly concerted. Old Marechal de
+Broglie, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, imbued with a soldier's
+contempt for civilians, conceiving that the sight of a uniform would
+be enough to restore peace and order, took control with Besenval as his
+second-in-command. The foreign regiments were stationed in the
+environs of Paris, regiments whose very names were an irritation to the
+Parisians, regiments of Reisbach, of Diesbach, of Nassau, Esterhazy, and
+Roehmer. Reenforcements of Swiss were sent to the Bastille between whose
+crenels already since the 30th of June were to be seen the menacing
+mouths of loaded cannon.
+
+On the 10th of July the electors once more addressed the King to request
+the withdrawal of the troops. They were answered next day that the
+troops served the purpose of defending the liberties of the Assembly!
+And on the next day to that, which was a Sunday, the philanthropist Dr.
+Guillotin--whose philanthropic engine of painless death was before very
+long to find a deal of work--came from the Assembly, of which he was a
+member, to assure the electors of Paris that all was well, appearances
+notwithstanding, since Necker was more firmly in the saddle than ever.
+He did not know that at the very moment in which he was speaking so
+confidently, the oft-dismissed and oft-recalled M. Necker had just been
+dismissed yet again by the hostile cabal about the Queen. Privilege
+wanted conclusive measures, and conclusive measures it would
+have--conclusive to itself.
+
+And at the same time yet another philanthropist, also a doctor, one
+Jean-Paul Mara, of Italian extraction--better known as Marat, the
+gallicized form of name he adopted--a man of letters, too, who had spent
+some years in England, and there published several works on sociology,
+was writing:
+
+"Have a care! Consider what would be the fatal effect of a seditious
+movement. If you should have the misfortune to give way to that, you
+will be treated as people in revolt, and blood will flow."
+
+Andre-Louis was in the gardens of the Palais Royal, that place of shops
+and puppet-shows, of circus and cafes, of gaming houses and brothels,
+that universal rendezvous, on that Sunday morning when the news of
+Necker's dismissal spread, carrying with it dismay and fury. Into
+Necker's dismissal the people read the triumph of the party hostile to
+themselves. It sounded the knell of all hope of redress of their wrongs.
+
+He beheld a slight young man with a pock-marked face, redeemed from
+utter ugliness by a pair of magnificent eyes, leap to a table outside
+the Café de Foy, a drawn sword in his hand, crying, "To arms!" And then
+upon the silence of astonishment that cry imposed, this young man
+poured a flood of inflammatory eloquence, delivered in a voice marred at
+moments by a stutter. He told the people that the Germans on the Champ
+de Mars would enter Paris that night to butcher the inhabitants. "Let
+us mount a cockade!" he cried, and tore a leaf from a tree to serve his
+purpose--the green cockade of hope.
+
+Enthusiasm swept the crowd, a motley crowd made up of men and women of
+every class, from vagabond to nobleman, from harlot to lady of fashion.
+Trees were despoiled of their leaves, and the green cockade was flaunted
+from almost every head.
+
+"You are caught between two fires," the incendiary's stuttering voice
+raved on. "Between the Germans on the Champ de Mars and the Swiss in the
+Bastille. To arms, then! To arms!"
+
+Excitement boiled up and over. From a neighbouring waxworks show came
+the bust of Necker, and presently a bust of that comedian the Duke
+of Orleans, who had a party and who was as ready as any other of the
+budding opportunists of those days to take advantage of the moment for
+his own aggrandizement. The bust of Necker was draped with crepe.
+
+Andre-Louis looked on, and grew afraid. Marat's pamphlet had impressed
+him. It had expressed what himself he had expressed more than half a
+year ago to the mob at Rennes. This crowd, he felt must be restrained.
+That hot-headed, irresponsible stutterer would have the town in a blaze
+by night unless something were done. The young man, a causeless advocate
+of the Palais named Camille Desmoulins, later to become famous, leapt
+down from his table still waving his sword, still shouting, "To arms!
+Follow me!" Andre-Louis advanced to occupy the improvised rostrum, which
+the stutterer had just vacated, to make an effort at counteracting that
+inflammatory performance. He thrust through the crowd, and came suddenly
+face to face with a tall man beautifully dressed, whose handsome
+countenance was sternly set, whose great sombre eyes mouldered as if
+with suppressed anger.
+
+Thus face to face, each looking into the eyes of the other, they stood
+for a long moment, the jostling crowd streaming past them, unheeded.
+Then Andre-Louis laughed.
+
+"That fellow, too, has a very dangerous gift of eloquence, M. le
+Marquis," he said. "In fact there are a number of such in France to-day.
+They grow from the soil, which you and yours have irrigated with the
+blood of the martyrs of liberty. Soon it may be your blood instead. The
+soil is parched, and thirsty for it."
+
+"Gallows-bird!" he was answered. "The police will do your affair for
+you. I shall tell the Lieutenant-General that you are to be found in
+Paris."
+
+"My God, man!" cried Andre-Louis, "will you never get sense? Will you
+talk like that of Lieutenant-Generals when Paris itself is likely to
+tumble about your ears or take fire under your feet? Raise your voice,
+M. le Marquis. Denounce me here, to these. You will make a hero of me in
+such an hour as this. Or shall I denounce you? I think I will. I think
+it is high time you received your wages. Hi! You others, listen to me!
+Let me present you to..."
+
+A rush of men hurtled against him, swept him along with them, do what he
+would, separating him from M. de La Tour d'Azyr, so oddly met. He sought
+to breast that human torrent; the Marquis, caught in an eddy of it,
+remained where he had been, and Andre-Louis' last glimpse of him was of
+a man smiling with tight lips, an ugly smile.
+
+Meanwhile the gardens were emptying in the wake of that stuttering
+firebrand who had mounted the green cockade. The human torrent poured
+out into the Rue de Richelieu, and Andre-Louis perforce must suffer
+himself to be borne along by it, at least as far as the Rue du Hasard.
+There he sidled out of it, and having no wish to be crushed to death or
+to take further part in the madness that was afoot, he slipped down
+the street, and so got home to the deserted academy. For there were no
+pupils to-day, and even M. des Amis, like Andre-Louis, had gone out to
+seek for news of what was happening at Versailles.
+
+This was no normal state of things at the Academy of Bertrand des Amis.
+Whatever else in Paris might have been at a standstill lately, the
+fencing academy had flourished as never hitherto. Usually both the
+master and his assistant were busy from morning until dusk, and already
+Andre-Louis was being paid now by the lessons that he gave, the
+master allowing him one half of the fee in each case for himself, an
+arrangement which the assistant found profitable. On Sundays the
+academy made half-holiday; but on this Sunday such had been the state of
+suspense and ferment in the city that no one having appeared by eleven
+o'clock both des Amis and Andre-Louis had gone out. Little they thought
+as they lightly took leave of each other--they were very good friends by
+now--that they were never to meet again in this world.
+
+Bloodshed there was that day in Paris. On the Place Vendome a detachment
+of dragoons awaited the crowd out of which Andre-Louis had slipped. The
+horsemen swept down upon the mob, dispersed it, smashed the waxen effigy
+of M. Necker, and killed one man on the spot--an unfortunate French Guard
+who stood his ground. That was a beginning. As a consequence Besenval
+brought up his Swiss from the Champ de Mars and marshalled them in
+battle order on the Champs Elysees with four pieces of artillery. His
+dragoons he stationed in the Place Louis XV. That evening an enormous
+crowd, streaming along the Champs Elysees and the Tuileries Gardens,
+considered with eyes of alarm that warlike preparation. Some insults
+were cast upon those foreign mercenaries and some stones were flung.
+Besenval, losing his head, or acting under orders, sent for his dragoons
+and ordered them to disperse the crowd, But that crowd was too dense to
+be dispersed in this fashion; so dense that it was impossible for the
+horsemen to move without crushing some one. There were several crushed,
+and as a consequence when the dragoons, led by the Prince de Lambesc,
+advanced into the Tuileries Gardens, the outraged crowd met them with a
+fusillade of stones and bottles. Lambesc gave the order to fire. There
+was a stampede. Pouring forth from the Tuileries through the city went
+those indignant people with their story of German cavalry trampling upon
+women and children, and uttering now in grimmest earnest the call to
+arms, raised at noon by Desmoulins in the Palais Royal.
+
+The victims were taken up and borne thence, and amongst them was
+Bertrand des Amis, himself--like all who lived by the sword--an ardent
+upholder of the noblesse, trampled to death under hooves of foreign
+horsemen launched by the noblesse and led by a nobleman.
+
+To Andre-Louis, waiting that evening on the second floor of No. 13
+Rue du Hasard for the return of his friend and master, four men of the
+people brought that broken body of one of the earliest victims of the
+Revolution that was now launched in earnest.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
+
+The ferment of Paris which, during the two following days, resembled an
+armed camp rather than a city, delayed the burial of Bertrand des Amis
+until the Wednesday of that eventful week. Amid events that were shaking
+a nation to its foundations the death of a fencing-master passed almost
+unnoticed even among his pupils, most of whom did not come to the
+academy during the two days that his body lay there. Some few, however,
+did come, and these conveyed the news to others, with the result that
+the master was followed to Pere Lachaise by a score of young men at the
+head of whom as chief mourner walked Andre-Louis.
+
+There were no relatives to be advised so far as Andre-Louis was aware,
+although within a week of M. des Amis' death a sister turned up from
+Passy to claim his heritage. This was considerable, for the master had
+prospered and saved money, most of which was invested in the Compagnie
+des Eaux and the National Debt. Andre-Louis consigned her to the
+lawyers, and saw her no more.
+
+The death of des Amis left him with so profound a sense of loneliness
+and desolation that he had no thought or care for the sudden access
+of fortune which it automatically procured him. To the master's sister
+might fall such wealth as he had amassed, but Andre-Louis succeeded
+to the mine itself from which that wealth had been extracted, the
+fencing-school in which by now he was himself so well established as an
+instructor that its numerous pupils looked to him to carry it forward
+successfully as its chief. And never was there a season in which
+fencing-academies knew such prosperity as in these troubled days, when
+every man was sharpening his sword and schooling himself in the uses of
+it.
+
+It was not until a couple of weeks later that Andre-Louis realized what
+had really happened to him, and he found himself at the same time an
+exhausted man, for during that fortnight he had been doing the work of
+two. If he had not hit upon the happy expedient of pairing-off his
+more advanced pupils to fence with each other, himself standing by to
+criticize, correct and otherwise instruct, he must have found the task
+utterly beyond his strength. Even so, it was necessary for him to fence
+some six hours daily, and every day he brought arrears of lassitude
+from yesterday until he was in danger of succumbing under the increasing
+burden of fatigue. In the end he took an assistant to deal with
+beginners, who gave the hardest work. He found him readily enough
+by good fortune in one of his own pupils named Le Duc. As the summer
+advanced, and the concourse of pupils steadily increased, it became
+necessary for him to take yet another assistant--an able young instructor
+named Galoche--and another room on the floor above.
+
+They were strenuous days for Andre-Louis, more strenuous than he had
+ever known, even when he had been at work to build up the Binet Company;
+but it follows that they were days of extraordinary prosperity. He
+comments regretfully upon the fact that Bertrand des Amis should
+have died by ill-chance on the very eve of so profitable a vogue of
+sword-play.
+
+The arms of the Academie du Roi, to which Andre-Louis had no title,
+still continued to be displayed outside his door. He had overcome the
+difficulty in a manner worthy of Scaramouche. He left the escutcheon and
+the legend "Academie de Bertrand des Amis, Maitre en fait d'Armes des
+Academies du Roi," appending to it the further legend: "Conducted by
+Andre-Louis."
+
+With little time now in which to go abroad it was from his pupils
+and the newspapers--of which a flood had risen in Paris with the
+establishment of the freedom of the Press--that he learnt of the
+revolutionary processes around him, following upon, as a measure of
+anticlimax, the fall of the Bastille. That had happened whilst M. des
+Amis lay dead, on the day before they buried him, and was indeed the
+chief reason of the delay in his burial. It was an event that had its
+inspiration in that ill-considered charge of Prince Lambesc in which the
+fencing-master had been killed.
+
+The outraged people had besieged the electors in the Hotel de Ville,
+demanding arms with which to defend their lives from these foreign
+murderers hired by despotism. And in the end the electors had consented
+to give them arms, or, rather--for arms it had none to give--to permit
+them to arm themselves. Also it had given them a cockade, of red and
+blue, the colours of Paris. Because these colours were also those of the
+liveries of the Duke of Orleans, white was added to them--the white of
+the ancient standard of France--and thus was the tricolour born. Further,
+a permanent committee of electors was appointed to watch over public
+order.
+
+Thus empowered the people went to work with such good effect that within
+thirty-six hours sixty thousand pikes had been forged. At nine o'clock
+on Tuesday morning thirty thousand men were before the Invalides. By
+eleven o'clock they had ravished it of its store of arms amounting to
+some thirty thousand muskets, whilst others had seized the Arsenal and
+possessed themselves of powder.
+
+Thus they prepared to resist the attack that from seven points was to
+be launched that evening upon the city. But Paris did not wait for the
+attack. It took the initiative. Mad with enthusiasm it conceived the
+insane project of taking that terrible menacing fortress, the Bastille,
+and, what is more, it succeeded, as you know, before five o'clock that
+night, aided in the enterprise by the French Guards with cannon.
+
+The news of it, borne to Versailles by Lambesc in flight with his
+dragoons before the vast armed force that had sprouted from the
+paving-stones of Paris, gave the Court pause. The people were in
+possession of the guns captured from the Bastille. They were erecting
+barricades in the streets, and mounting these guns upon them. The attack
+had been too long delayed. It must be abandoned since now it could lead
+only to fruitless slaughter that must further shake the already sorely
+shaken prestige of Royalty.
+
+And so the Court, growing momentarily wise again under the spur of fear,
+preferred to temporize. Necker should be brought back yet once again,
+the three orders should sit united as the National Assembly demanded. It
+was the completest surrender of force to force, the only argument. The
+King went alone to inform the National Assembly of that eleventh-hour
+resolve, to the great comfort of its members, who viewed with pain and
+alarm the dreadful state of things in Paris. "No force but the force of
+reason and argument" was their watchword, and it was so to continue for
+two years yet, with a patience and fortitude in the face of ceaseless
+provocation to which insufficient justice has been done.
+
+As the King was leaving the Assembly, a woman, embracing his knees, gave
+tongue to what might well be the question of all France:
+
+"Ah, sire, are you really sincere? Are you sure they will not make you
+change your mind?"
+
+Yet no such question was asked when a couple of days later the King,
+alone and unguarded save by the representatives of the Nation, came to
+Paris to complete the peacemaking, the surrender of Privilege. The Court
+was filled with terror by the adventure. Were they not the "enemy,"
+these mutinous Parisians? And should a King go thus among his enemies?
+If he shared some of that fear, as the gloom of him might lead us to
+suppose, he must have found it idle. What if two hundred thousand men
+under arms--men without uniforms and with the most extraordinary motley
+of weapons ever seen--awaited him? They awaited him as a guard of honour.
+
+Mayor Bailly at the barrier presented him with the keys of the city.
+"These are the same keys that were presented to Henri IV. He had
+reconquered his people. Now the people have reconquered their King."
+
+At the Hotel de Ville Mayor Bailly offered him the new cockade, the
+tricoloured symbol of constitutional France, and when he had given his
+royal confirmation to the formation of the Garde Bourgeoise and to the
+appointments of Bailly and Lafayette, he departed again for Versailles
+amid the shouts of "Vive le Roi!" from his loyal people.
+
+And now you see Privilege--before the cannon's mouth, as it
+were--submitting at last, where had they submitted sooner they might have
+saved oceans of blood--chiefly their own. They come, nobles and clergy,
+to join the National Assembly, to labour with it upon this constitution
+that is to regenerate France. But the reunion is a mockery--as much a
+mockery as that of the Archbishop of Paris singing the Te Deum for
+the fall of the Bastille--most grotesque and incredible of all these
+grotesque and incredible events. All that has happened to the National
+Assembly is that it has introduced five or six hundred enemies to hamper
+and hinder its deliberations.
+
+But all this is an oft-told tale, to be read in detail elsewhere. I
+give you here just so much of it as I have found in Andre-Louis' own
+writings, almost in his own words, reflecting the changes that were
+operated in his mind. Silent now, he came fully to believe in those
+things in which he had not believed when earlier he had preached them.
+
+Meanwhile together with the change in his fortune had come a change
+in his position towards the law, a change brought about by the other
+changes wrought around him. No longer need he hide himself. Who in these
+days would prefer against him the grotesque charge of sedition for
+what he had done in Brittany? What court would dare to send him to the
+gallows for having said in advance what all France was saying now? As
+for that other possible charge of murder, who should concern himself
+with the death of the miserable Binet killed by him--if, indeed, he had
+killed him, as he hoped--in self-defence.
+
+And so one fine day in early August, Andre-Louis gave himself a holiday
+from the academy, which was now working smoothly under his assistants,
+hired a chaise and drove out to Versailles to the Café d'Amaury, which
+he knew for the meeting-place of the Club Breton, the seed from which
+was to spring that Society of the Friends of the Constitution better
+known as the Jacobins. He went to seek Le Chapelier, who had been one
+of the founders of the club, a man of great prominence now, president of
+the Assembly in this important season when it was deliberating upon the
+Declaration of the Rights of Man.
+
+Le Chapelier's importance was reflected in the sudden servility of the
+shirt-sleeved, white-aproned waiter of whom Andre-Louis inquired for the
+representative.
+
+M. Le Chapelier was above-stairs with friends. The waiter desired to
+serve the gentleman, but hesitated to break in upon the assembly in
+which M. le Depute found himself.
+
+Andre-Louis gave him a piece of silver to encourage him to make the
+attempt. Then he sat down at a marble-topped table by the window looking
+out over the wide tree-encircled square. There, in that common-room of
+the café, deserted at this hour of mid-afternoon, the great man came to
+him. Less than a year ago he had yielded precedence to Andre-Louis in
+a matter of delicate leadership; to-day he stood on the heights, one
+of the great leaders of the Nation in travail, and Andre-Louis was deep
+down in the shadows of the general mass.
+
+The thought was in the minds of both as they scanned each other, each
+noting in the other the marked change that a few months had wrought.
+In Le Chapelier, Andre-Louis observed certain heightened refinements of
+dress that went with certain subtler refinements of countenance. He was
+thinner than of old, his face was pale and there was a weariness in the
+eyes that considered his visitor through a gold-rimmed spy-glass. In
+Andre-Louis those jaded but quick-moving eyes of the Breton deputy noted
+changes even more marked. The almost constant swordmanship of these
+last months had given Andre-Louis a grace of movement, a poise, and a
+curious, indefinable air of dignity, of command. He seemed taller by
+virtue of this, and he was dressed with an elegance which if quiet was
+none the less rich. He wore a small silver-hilted sword, and wore it as
+if used to it, and his black hair that Le Chapelier had never seen other
+than fluttering lank about his bony cheeks was glossy now and gathered
+into a club. Almost he had the air of a petit-maitre.
+
+In both, however, the changes were purely superficial, as each was
+soon to reveal to the other. Le Chapelier was ever the same direct and
+downright Breton, abrupt of manner and of speech. He stood smiling a
+moment in mingled surprise and pleasure; then opened wide his arms. They
+embraced under the awe-stricken gaze of the waiter, who at once effaced
+himself.
+
+"Andre-Louis, my friend! Whence do you drop?"
+
+"We drop from above. I come from below to survey at close quarters one
+who is on the heights."
+
+"On the heights! But that you willed it so, it is yourself might now be
+standing in my place."
+
+"I have a poor head for heights, and I find the atmosphere too rarefied.
+Indeed, you look none too well on it yourself, Isaac. You are pale."
+
+"The Assembly was in session all last night. That is all. These damned
+Privileged multiply our difficulties. They will do so until we decree
+their abolition."
+
+They sat down. "Abolition! You contemplate so much? Not that you
+surprise me. You have always been an extremist."
+
+"I contemplate it that I may save them. I seek to abolish them
+officially, so as to save them from abolition of another kind at the
+hands of a people they exasperate."
+
+"I see. And the King?"
+
+"The King is the incarnation of the Nation. We shall deliver him
+together with the Nation from the bondage of Privilege. Our constitution
+will accomplish it. You agree?"
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged. "Does it matter? I am a dreamer in politics, not
+a man of action. Until lately I have been very moderate; more moderate
+than you think. But now almost I am a republican. I have been watching,
+and I have perceived that this King is--just nothing, a puppet who dances
+according to the hand that pulls the string."
+
+"This King, you say? What other king is possible? You are surely not
+of those who weave dreams about Orleans? He has a sort of party, a
+following largely recruited by the popular hatred of the Queen and the
+known fact that she hates him. There are some who have thought of making
+him regent, some even more; Robespierre is of the number."
+
+"Who?" asked Andre-Louis, to whom the name was unknown.
+
+"Robespierre--a preposterous little lawyer who represents Arras, a
+shabby, clumsy, timid dullard, who will make speeches through his nose
+to which nobody listens--an ultra-royalist whom the royalists and the
+Orleanists are using for their own ends. He has pertinacity, and he
+insists upon being heard. He may be listened to some day. But that
+he, or the others, will ever make anything of Orleans... pish! Orleans
+himself may desire it, but the man is a eunuch in crime; he would, but
+he can't. The phrase is Mirabeau's."
+
+He broke off to demand Andre-Louis' news of himself.
+
+"You did not treat me as a friend when you wrote to me," he complained.
+"You gave me no clue to your whereabouts; you represented yourself as on
+the verge of destitution and withheld from me the means to come to your
+assistance. I have been troubled in mind about you, Andre. Yet to judge
+by your appearance I might have spared myself that. You seem prosperous,
+assured. Tell me of it."
+
+Andre-Louis told him frankly all that there was to tell. "Do you know
+that you are an amazement to me?" said the deputy. "From the robe to the
+buskin, and now from the buskin to the sword! What will be the end of
+you, I wonder?"
+
+"The gallows, probably."
+
+"Pish! Be serious. Why not the toga of the senator in senatorial France?
+It might be yours now if you had willed it so."
+
+"The surest way to the gallows of all," laughed Andre-Louis.
+
+At the moment Le Chapelier manifested impatience. I wonder did the
+phrase cross his mind that day four years later when himself he rode in
+the death-cart to the Greve.
+
+"We are sixty-six Breton deputies in the Assembly. Should a vacancy
+occur, will you act as suppleant? A word from me together with the
+influence of your name in Rennes and Nantes, and the thing is done."
+
+Andre-Louis laughed outright. "Do you know, Isaac, that I never meet you
+but you seek to thrust me into politics?"
+
+"Because you have a gift for politics. You were born for politics."
+
+"Ah, yes--Scaramouche in real life. I've played it on the stage. Let that
+suffice. Tell me, Isaac, what news of my old friend, La Tour d'Azyr?"
+
+"He is here in Versailles, damn him--a thorn in the flesh of the
+Assembly. They've burnt his chateau at La Tour d'Azyr. Unfortunately he
+wasn't in it at the time. The flames haven't even singed his insolence.
+He dreams that when this philosophic aberration is at an end, there will
+be serfs to rebuild it for him."
+
+"So there has been trouble in Brittany?" Andre-Louis had become suddenly
+grave, his thoughts swinging to Gavrillac.
+
+"An abundance of it, and elsewhere too. Can you wonder? These delays
+at such a time, with famine in the land? Chateaux have been going up in
+smoke during the last fortnight. The peasants took their cue from
+the Parisians, and treated every castle as a Bastille. Order is being
+restored, there as here, and they are quieter now."
+
+"What of Gavrillac? Do you know?"
+
+"I believe all to be well. M. de Kercadiou was not a Marquis de La Tour
+d'Azyr. He was in sympathy with his people. It is not likely that they
+would injure Gavrillac. But don't you correspond with your godfather?"
+
+"In the circumstances--no. What you tell me would make it now more
+difficult than ever, for he must account me one of those who helped to
+light the torch that has set fire to so much belonging to his class.
+Ascertain for me that all is well, and let me know."
+
+"I will, at once."
+
+At parting, when Andre-Louis was on the point of stepping into his
+cabriolet to return to Paris, he sought information on another matter.
+
+"Do you happen to know if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has married?" he asked.
+
+"I don't; which really means that he hasn't. One would have heard of it
+in the case of that exalted Privileged."
+
+"To be sure." Andre-Louis spoke indifferently. "Au revoir, Isaac! You'll
+come and see me--13 Rue du Hasard. Come soon."
+
+"As soon and as often as my duties will allow. They keep me chained here
+at present."
+
+"Poor slave of duty with your gospel of liberty!"
+
+"True! And because of that I will come. I have a duty to Brittany: to
+make Omnes Omnibus one of her representatives in the National Assembly."
+
+"That is a duty you will oblige me by neglecting," laughed Andre-Louis,
+and drove away.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. AT MEUDON
+
+Later in the week he received a visit from Le Chapelier just before
+noon.
+
+"I have news for you, Andre. Your godfather is at Meudon. He arrived
+there two days ago. Had you heard?"
+
+"But no. How should I hear? Why is he at Meudon?" He was conscious of a
+faint excitement, which he could hardly have explained.
+
+"I don't know. There have been fresh disturbances in Brittany. It may be
+due to that."
+
+"And so he has come for shelter to his brother?" asked Andre-Louis.
+
+"To his brother's house, yes; but not to his brother. Where do you live
+at all, Andre? Do you never hear any of the news? Etienne de Gavrillac
+emigrated years ago. He was of the household of M. d'Artois, and he
+crossed the frontier with him. By now, no doubt, he is in Germany with
+him, conspiring against France. For that is what the emigres are
+doing. That Austrian woman at the Tuileries will end by destroying the
+monarchy."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Andre-Louis impatiently. Politics interested him not at
+all this morning. "But about Gavrillac?"
+
+"Why, haven't I told you that Gavrillac is at Meudon, installed in the
+house his brother has left? Dieu de Dieu! Don't I speak French or don't
+you understand the language? I believe that Rabouillet, his intendant,
+is in charge of Gavrillac. I have brought you the news the moment I
+received it. I thought you would probably wish to go out to Meudon."
+
+"Of course. I will go at once--that is, as soon as I can. I can't to-day,
+nor yet to-morrow. I am too busy here." He waved a hand towards the
+inner room, whence proceeded the click-click of blades, the quick moving
+of feet, and the voice of the instructor, Le Duc.
+
+"Well, well, that is your own affair. You are busy. I leave you now. Let
+us dine this evening at the Café de Foy. Kersain will be of the party."
+
+"A moment!" Andre-Louis' voice arrested him on the threshold. "Is Mlle.
+de Kercadiou with her uncle?"
+
+"How the devil should I know? Go and find out."
+
+He was gone, and Andre-Louis stood there a moment deep in thought.
+Then he turned and went back to resume with his pupil, the Vicomte de
+Villeniort, the interrupted exposition of the demi-contre of Danet,
+illustrating with a small-sword the advantages to be derived from its
+adoption.
+
+Thereafter he fenced with the Vicomte, who was perhaps the ablest of his
+pupils at the time, and all the while his thoughts were on the heights
+of Meudon, his mind casting up the lessons he had to give that afternoon
+and on the morrow, and wondering which of these he might postpone
+without deranging the academy. When having touched the Vicomte three
+times in succession, he paused and wrenched himself back to the present,
+it was to marvel at the precision to be gained by purely mechanical
+action. Without bestowing a thought upon what he was doing, his wrist
+and arm and knees had automatically performed their work, like the
+accurate fighting engine into which constant practice for a year and
+more had combined them.
+
+Not until Sunday was Andre-Louis able to satisfy a wish which the
+impatience of the intervening days had converted into a yearning.
+Dressed with more than ordinary care, his head elegantly coiffed--by one
+of those hairdressers to the nobility of whom so many were being thrown
+out of employment by the stream of emigration which was now flowing
+freely--Andre-Louis mounted his hired carriage, and drove out to Meudon.
+
+The house of the younger Kercadiou no more resembled that of the head
+of the family than did his person. A man of the Court, where his brother
+was essentially a man of the soil, an officer of the household of M.
+le Comte d'Artois, he had built for himself and his family an imposing
+villa on the heights of Meudon in a miniature park, conveniently
+situated for him midway between Versailles and Paris, and easily
+accessible from either. M. d'Artois--the royal tennis-player--had been
+amongst the very first to emigrate. Together with the Condes, the
+Contis, the Polignacs, and others of the Queen's intimate council, old
+Marshal de Broglie and the Prince de Lambesc, who realized that their
+very names had become odious to the people, he had quitted France
+immediately after the fall of the Bastille. He had gone to play tennis
+beyond the frontier--and there consummate the work of ruining the French
+monarchy upon which he and those others had been engaged in France. With
+him, amongst several members of his household went Etienne de Kercadiou,
+and with Etienne de Kercadiou went his family, a wife and four children.
+Thus it was that the Seigneur de Gavrillac, glad to escape from a
+province so peculiarly disturbed as that of Brittany--where the nobles
+had shown themselves the most intransigent of all France--had come to
+occupy in his brother's absence the courtier's handsome villa at Meudon.
+
+That he was quite happy there is not to be supposed. A man of his almost
+Spartan habits, accustomed to plain fare and self-help, was a little
+uneasy in this sybaritic abode, with its soft carpets, profusion of
+gilding, and battalion of sleek, silent-footed servants--for Kercadiou
+the younger had left his entire household behind. Time, which at
+Gavrillac he had kept so fully employed in agrarian concerns, here hung
+heavily upon his hands. In self-defence he slept a great deal, and but
+for Aline, who made no attempt to conceal her delight at this proximity
+to Paris and the heart of things, it is possible that he would have beat
+a retreat almost at once from surroundings that sorted so ill with his
+habits. Later on, perhaps, he would accustom himself and grow resigned
+to this luxurious inactivity. In the meantime the novelty of it fretted
+him, and it was into the presence of a peevish and rather somnolent
+M. de Kercadiou that Andre-Louis was ushered in the early hours of the
+afternoon of that Sunday in June. He was unannounced, as had ever been
+the custom at Gavrillac. This because Benoit, M. de Kercadiou's old
+seneschal, had accompanied his seigneur upon this soft adventure, and
+was installed--to the ceaseless and but half-concealed hilarity of the
+impertinent valetaille that M. Etienne had left--as his maitre d'hotel
+here at Meudon.
+
+Benoit had welcomed M. Andre with incoherencies of delight; almost had
+he gambolled about him like some faithful dog, whilst conducting him to
+the salon and the presence of the Lord of Gavrillac, who would--in the
+words of Benoit--be ravished to see M. Andre again.
+
+"Monseigneur! Monseigneur!" he cried in a quavering voice, entering a
+pace or two in advance of the visitor. "It is M. Andre... M. Andre, your
+godson, who comes to kiss your hand. He is here... and so fine that you
+would hardly know him. Here he is, monseigneur! Is he not beautiful?"
+
+And the old servant rubbed his hands in conviction of the delight that
+he believed he was conveying to his master.
+
+Andre-Louis crossed the threshold of that great room, soft-carpeted to
+the foot, dazzling to the eye. It was immensely lofty, and its festooned
+ceiling was carried on fluted pillars with gilded capitals. The door by
+which he entered, and the windows that opened upon the garden, were of
+an enormous height--almost, indeed, the full height of the room itself.
+It was a room overwhelmingly gilded, with an abundance of ormolu
+encrustations on the furniture, in which it nowise differed from what
+was customary in the dwellings of people of birth and wealth. Never,
+indeed, was there a time in which so much gold was employed decoratively
+as in this age when coined gold was almost unprocurable, and paper money
+had been put into circulation to supply the lack. It was a saying of
+Andre-Louis' that if these people could only have been induced to put
+the paper on their walls and the gold into their pockets, the finances
+of the kingdom might soon have been in better case.
+
+The Seigneur--furbished and beruffled to harmonize with his
+surroundings--had risen, startled by this exuberant invasion on the part
+of Benoit, who had been almost as forlorn as himself since their coming
+to Meudon.
+
+"What is it? Eh?" His pale, short-sighted eyes peered at the visitor.
+"Andre!" said he, between surprise and sternness; and the colour
+deepened in his great pink face.
+
+Benoit, with his back to his master, deliberately winked and grinned at
+Andre-Louis to encourage him not to be put off by any apparent hostility
+on the part of his godfather. That done, the intelligent old fellow
+discreetly effaced himself.
+
+"What do you want here?" growled M. de Kercadiou.
+
+"No more than to kiss your hand, as Benoit has told you, monsieur my
+godfather," said Andre-Louis submissively, bowing his sleek black head.
+
+"You have contrived without kissing it for two years."
+
+"Do not, monsieur, reproach me with my misfortune."
+
+The little man stood very stiffly erect, his disproportionately large
+head thrown back, his pale prominent eyes very stern.
+
+"Did you think to make your outrageous offence any better by vanishing
+in that heartless manner, by leaving us without knowledge of whether you
+were alive or dead?"
+
+"At first it was dangerous--dangerous to my life--to disclose my
+whereabouts. Then for a time I was in need, almost destitute, and my
+pride forbade me, after what I had done and the view you must take of
+it, to appeal to you for help. Later..."
+
+"Destitute?" The Seigneur interrupted. For a moment his lip trembled.
+Then he steadied himself, and the frown deepened as he surveyed this
+very changed and elegant godson of his, noted the quiet richness of his
+apparel, the paste buckles and red heels to his shoes, the sword hilted
+in mother-o'-pearl and silver, and the carefully dressed hair that he
+had always seen hanging in wisps about his face. "At least you do not
+look destitute now," he sneered.
+
+"I am not. I have prospered since. In that, monsieur, I differ from the
+ordinary prodigal, who returns only when he needs assistance. I return
+solely because I love you, monsieur--to tell you so. I have come at the
+very first moment after hearing of your presence here." He advanced.
+"Monsieur my godfather!" he said, and held out his hand.
+
+But M. de Kercadiou remained unbending, wrapped in his cold dignity and
+resentment.
+
+"Whatever tribulations you may have suffered or consider that you may
+have suffered, they are far less than your disgraceful conduct deserved,
+and I observe that they have nothing abated your impudence. You think
+that you have but to come here and say, 'Monsieur my godfather!' and
+everything is to be forgiven and forgotten. That is your error. You have
+committed too great a wrong; you have offended against everything by
+which I hold, and against myself personally, by your betrayal of my
+trust in you. You are one of those unspeakable scoundrels who are
+responsible for this revolution."
+
+"Alas, monsieur, I see that you share the common delusion. These
+unspeakable scoundrels but demanded a constitution, as was promised them
+from the throne. They were not to know that the promise was insincere,
+or that its fulfilment would be baulked by the privileged orders. The
+men who have precipitated this revolution, monsieur, are the nobles and
+the prelates."
+
+"You dare--and at such a time as this--stand there and tell me such
+abominable lies! You dare to say that the nobles have made the
+revolution, when scores of them, following the example of M. le Duc
+d'Aiguillon, have flung their privileges, even their title-deeds, into
+the lap of the people! Or perhaps you deny it?"
+
+"Oh, no. Having wantonly set fire to their house, they now try to put
+it out by throwing water on it; and where they fail they put the entire
+blame on the flames."
+
+"I see that you have come here to talk politics."
+
+"Far from it. I have come, if possible, to explain myself. To understand
+is always to forgive. That is a great saying of Montaigne's. If I could
+make you understand..."
+
+"You can't. You'll never make me understand how you came to render
+yourself so odiously notorious in Brittany."
+
+"Ah, not odiously, monsieur!"
+
+"Certainly, odiously--among those that matter. It is said even that you
+were Omnes Omnibus, though that I cannot, will not believe."
+
+"Yet it is true."
+
+M. de Kercadiou choked. "And you confess it? You dare to confess it?"
+
+"What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess--unless he is a
+coward."
+
+"Oh, and to be sure you were very brave, running away each time after
+you had done the mischief, turning comedian to hide yourself, doing more
+mischief as a comedian, provoking a riot in Nantes, and then running
+away again, to become God knows what--something dishonest by the affluent
+look of you. My God, man, I tell you that in these past two years I have
+hoped that you were dead, and you profoundly disappoint me that you
+are not!" He beat his hands together, and raised his shrill voice to
+call--"Benoit!" He strode away towards the fireplace, scarlet in the
+face, shaking with the passion into which he had worked himself. "Dead,
+I might have forgiven you, as one who had paid for his evil, and his
+folly. Living, I never can forgive you. You have gone too far. God alone
+knows where it will end.
+
+"Benoit, the door. M. Andre-Louis Moreau to the door!" The tone argued
+an irrevocable determination. Pale and self-contained, but with a queer
+pain at his heart, Andre-Louis heard that dismissal, saw Benoit's
+white, scared face and shaking hands half-raised as if he were about
+to expostulate with his master. And then another voice, a crisp, boyish
+voice, cut in.
+
+"Uncle!" it cried, a world of indignation and surprise in its pitch,
+and then: "Andre!" And this time a note almost of gladness, certainly of
+welcome, was blended with the surprise that still remained.
+
+Both turned, half the room between them at the moment, and beheld Aline
+in one of the long, open windows, arrested there in the act of entering
+from the garden, Aline in a milk-maid bonnet of the latest mode, though
+without any of the tricolour embellishments that were so commonly to be
+seen upon them.
+
+The thin lips of Andre's long mouth twisted into a queer smile. Into his
+mind had flashed the memory of their last parting. He saw himself again,
+standing burning with indignation upon the pavement of Nantes, looking
+after her carriage as it receded down the Avenue de Gigan.
+
+She was coming towards him now with outstretched hands, a heightened
+colour in her cheeks, a smile of welcome on her lips. He bowed low and
+kissed her hand in silence.
+
+Then with a glance and a gesture she dismissed Benoit, and in her
+imperious fashion constituted herself Andre's advocate against that
+harsh dismissal which she had overheard.
+
+"Uncle," she said, leaving Andre and crossing to M. de Kercadiou, "you
+make me ashamed of you! To allow a feeling of peevishness to overwhelm
+all your affection for Andre!"
+
+"I have no affection for him. I had once. He chose to extinguish it.
+He can go to the devil; and please observe that I don't permit you to
+interfere."
+
+"But if he confesses that he has done wrong..."
+
+"He confesses nothing of the kind. He comes here to argue with me about
+these infernal Rights of Man. He proclaims himself unrepentant. He
+announces himself with pride to have been, as all Brittany says, the
+scoundrel who hid himself under the sobriquet of Omnes Omnibus. Is that
+to be condoned?"
+
+She turned to look at Andre across the wide space that now separated
+them.
+
+"But is this really so? Don't you repent, Andre--now that you see all the
+harm that has come?"
+
+It was a clear invitation to him, a pleading to him to say that he
+repented, to make his peace with his godfather. For a moment it almost
+moved him. Then, considering the subterfuge unworthy, he answered
+truthfully, though the pain he was suffering rang in his voice.
+
+"To confess repentance," he said slowly, "would be to confess to a
+monstrous crime. Don't you see that? Oh, monsieur, have patience
+with me; let me explain myself a little. You say that I am in part
+responsible for something of all this that has happened. My exhortations
+of the people at Rennes and twice afterwards at Nantes are said to have
+had their share in what followed there. It may be so. It would be beyond
+my power positively to deny it. Revolution followed and bloodshed. More
+may yet come. To repent implies a recognition that I have done wrong.
+How shall I say that I have done wrong, and thus take a share of the
+responsibility for all that blood upon my soul? I will be quite frank
+with you to show you how far, indeed, I am from repentance. What I did,
+I actually did against all my convictions at the time. Because there
+was no justice in France to move against the murderer of Philippe de
+Vilmorin, I moved in the only way that I imagined could make the evil
+done recoil upon the hand that did it, and those other hands that had
+the power but not the spirit to punish. Since then I have come to see
+that I was wrong, and that Philippe de Vilmorin and those who thought
+with him were in the right.
+
+"You must realize, monsieur, that it is with sincerest thankfulness
+that I find I have done nothing calling for repentance; that, on the
+contrary, when France is given the inestimable boon of a constitution,
+as will shortly happen, I may take pride in having played my part in
+bringing about the conditions that have made this possible."
+
+There was a pause. M. de Kercadiou's face turned from pink to purple.
+
+"You have quite finished?" he said harshly.
+
+"If you have understood me, monsieur."
+
+"Oh, I have understood you, and... and I beg that you will go."
+
+Andre-Louis shrugged his shoulders and hung his head. He had come there
+so joyously, in such yearning, merely to receive a final dismissal. He
+looked at Aline. Her face was pale and troubled; but her wit failed to
+show her how she could come to his assistance. His excessive honesty had
+burnt all his boats.
+
+"Very well, monsieur. Yet this I would ask you to remember after I am
+gone. I have not come to you as one seeking assistance, as one driven to
+you by need. I am no returning prodigal, as I have said. I am one who,
+needing nothing, asking nothing, master of his own destinies, has come
+to you driven by affection only, urged by the love and gratitude he
+bears you and will continue to bear you."
+
+"Ah, yes!" cried Aline, turning now to her uncle. Here at least was an
+argument in Andre's favour, thought she. "That is true. Surely that..."
+
+Inarticulately he hissed her into silence, exasperated.
+
+"Hereafter perhaps that will help you to think of me more kindly,
+monsieur."
+
+"I see no occasion, sir, to think of you at all. Again, I beg that you
+will go."
+
+Andre-Louis looked at Aline an instant, as if still hesitating.
+
+She answered him by a glance at her furious uncle, a faint shrug, and a
+lift of the eyebrows, dejection the while in her countenance.
+
+It was as if she said: "You see his mood. There is nothing to be done."
+
+He bowed with that singular grace the fencing-room had given him and
+went out by the door.
+
+"Oh, it is cruel!" cried Aline, in a stifled voice, her hands clenched,
+and she sprang to the window.
+
+"Aline!" her uncle's voice arrested her. "Where are you going?"
+
+"But we do not know where he is to be found."
+
+"Who wants to find the scoundrel?"
+
+"We may never see him again."
+
+"That is most fervently to be desired."
+
+Aline said "Ouf!" and went out by the window.
+
+He called after her, imperiously commanding her return. But
+Aline--dutiful child--closed her ears lest she must disobey him, and
+sped light-footed across the lawn to the avenue there to intercept the
+departing Andre-Louis.
+
+As he came forth wrapped in gloom, she stepped from the bordering trees
+into his path.
+
+"Aline!" he cried, joyously almost.
+
+"I did not want you to go like this. I couldn't let you," she explained
+herself. "I know him better than you do, and I know that his great soft
+heart will presently melt. He will be filled with regret. He will want
+to send for you, and he will not know where to send."
+
+"You think that?"
+
+"Oh, I know it! You arrive in a bad moment. He is peevish and
+cross-grained, poor man, since he came here. These soft surroundings
+are all so strange to him. He wearies himself away from his beloved
+Gavrillac, his hunting and tillage, and the truth is that in his mind he
+very largely blames you for what has happened--for the necessity, or at
+least, the wisdom, of this change. Brittany, you must know, was becoming
+too unsafe. The chateau of La Tour d'Azyr, amongst others, was burnt to
+the ground some months ago. At any moment, given a fresh excitement, it
+may be the turn of Gavrillac. And for this and his present discomfort he
+blames you and your friends. But he will come round presently. He will
+be sorry that he sent you away like this--for I know that he loves you,
+Andre, in spite of all. I shall reason with him when the time comes. And
+then we shall want to know where to find you."
+
+"At number 13, Rue du Hasard. The number is unlucky, the name of the
+street appropriate. Therefore both are easy to remember."
+
+She nodded. "I will walk with you to the gates." And side by side now
+they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the long avenue in the June
+sunshine dappled by the shadows of the bordering trees. "You are looking
+well, Andre; and do you know that you have changed a deal? I am glad
+that you have prospered." And then, abruptly changing the subject before
+he had time to answer her, she came to the matter uppermost in her mind.
+
+"I have so wanted to see you in all these months, Andre. You were the
+only one who could help me; the only one who could tell me the truth,
+and I was angry with you for never having written to say where you were
+to be found."
+
+"Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met in Nantes."
+
+"What? Still resentful?"
+
+"I am never resentful. You should know that." He expressed one of his
+vanities. He loved to think himself a Stoic. "But I still bear the scar
+of a wound that would be the better for the balm of your retraction."
+
+"Why, then, I retract, Andre. And now tell me."
+
+"Yes, a self-seeking retraction," said he. "You give me something that
+you may obtain something." He laughed quite pleasantly. "Well, well;
+command me."
+
+"Tell me, Andre." She paused, as if in some difficulty, and then went
+on, her eyes upon the ground: "Tell me--the truth of that event at the
+Feydau."
+
+The request fetched a frown to his brow. He suspected at once the
+thought that prompted it. Quite simply and briefly he gave her his
+version of the affair.
+
+She listened very attentively. When he had done she sighed; her face was
+very thoughtful.
+
+"That is much what I was told," she said. "But it was added that M.
+de La Tour d'Azyr had gone to the theatre expressly for the purpose of
+breaking finally with La Binet. Do you know if that was so?"
+
+"I don't; nor of any reason why it should be so. La Binet provided him
+the sort of amusement that he and his kind are forever craving..."
+
+"Oh, there was a reason," she interrupted him. "I was the reason.
+I spoke to Mme. de Sautron. I told her that I would not continue to
+receive one who came to me contaminated in that fashion." She spoke
+of it with obvious difficulty, her colour rising as he watched her
+half-averted face.
+
+"Had you listened to me..." he was beginning, when again she interrupted
+him.
+
+"M. de Sautron conveyed my decision to him, and afterwards represented
+him to me as a man in despair, repentant, ready to give proofs--any
+proofs--of his sincerity and devotion to me. He told me that M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr had sworn to him that he would cut short that affair, that
+he would see La Binet no more. And then, on the very next day I heard
+of his having all but lost his life in that riot at the theatre. He
+had gone straight from that interview with M. de Sautron, straight from
+those protestations of future wisdom, to La Binet. I was indignant. I
+pronounced myself finally. I stated definitely that I would not in any
+circumstances receive M. de La Tour d'Azyr again! And then they pressed
+this explanation upon me. For a long time I would not believe it."
+
+"So that you believe it now," said Andre quickly. "Why?"
+
+"I have not said that I believe it now. But... but... neither can I
+disbelieve. Since we came to Meudon M. de La Tour d'Azyr has been here,
+and himself he has sworn to me that it was so."
+
+"Oh, if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has sworn..." Andre-Louis was laughing on a
+bitter note of sarcasm.
+
+"Have you ever known him lie?" she cut in sharply. That checked him.
+"M. de La Tour d'Azyr is, after all, a man of honour, and men of honour
+never deal in falsehood. Have you ever known him do so, that you should
+sneer as you have done?"
+
+"No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that he should admit that
+virtue at least in his enemy. "I have not known him lie, it is true. His
+kind is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth.
+But I have known him do things as vile..."
+
+"Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the code by which
+she had been reared. "It is for liars only--who are first cousin to
+thieves--that there is no hope. It is in falsehood only that there is
+real loss of honour."
+
+"You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
+
+"I desire to be just."
+
+"Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last you shall
+have resolved yourself to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr." He spoke
+bitterly.
+
+"I don't think that I shall ever take that resolve."
+
+"But you are still not sure--in spite of everything."
+
+"Can one ever be sure of anything in this world?"
+
+"Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
+
+Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
+
+"You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not as M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr asserts--that he went to the Feydau that night?"
+
+"I don't," he admitted. "It is of course possible. But does it matter?"
+
+"It might matter. Tell me; what became of La Binet after all?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know?" She turned to consider him. "And you can say it with
+that indifference! I thought... I thought you loved her, Andre."
+
+"So did I, for a little while. I was mistaken. It required a La
+Tour d'Azyr to disclose the truth to me. They have their uses, these
+gentlemen. They help stupid fellows like myself to perceive important
+truths. I was fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I
+can now look back upon the episode with equanimity and thankfulness
+for my near escape from the consequences of what was no more than an
+aberration of the senses. It is a thing commonly confused with love. The
+experience, as you see, was very instructive."
+
+She looked at him in frank surprise.
+
+"Do you know, Andre, I sometimes think that you have no heart."
+
+"Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence. And what of
+yourself, Aline? What of your own attitude from the outset where M. de
+La Tour d'Azyr is concerned? Does that show heart? If I were to tell you
+what it really shows, we should end by quarrelling again, and God knows
+I can't afford to quarrel with you now. I... I shall take another way."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, nothing at the moment, for you are not in any danger of marrying
+that animal."
+
+"And if I were?"
+
+"Ah! In that case affection for you would discover to me some means of
+preventing it--unless..." He paused.
+
+"Unless?" she demanded, challengingly, drawn to the full of her short
+height, her eyes imperious.
+
+"Unless you could also tell me that you loved him," said he simply,
+whereat she was as suddenly and most oddly softened. And then he added,
+shaking his head: "But that of course is impossible."
+
+"Why?" she asked him, quite gently now.
+
+"Because you are what you are, Aline--utterly good and pure and adorable.
+Angels do not mate with devils. His wife you might become, but never his
+mate, Aline--never."
+
+They had reached the wrought-iron gates at the end of the avenue.
+Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought
+Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat
+of other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a
+stand-still beside the yellow chaise--a handsome equipage with polished
+mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed
+brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung to earth to throw wide the
+gates; but in that moment the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving
+Aline, waved to her and issued a command.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
+
+The postilion drew rein, and the footman opened the door, letting
+down the steps and proffering his arm to his mistress to assist her to
+alight, since that was the wish she had expressed. Then he opened
+one wing of the iron gates, and held it for her. She was a woman of
+something more than forty, who once must have been very lovely, who
+was very lovely still with the refining quality that age brings to some
+women. Her dress and carriage alike advertised great rank.
+
+"I take my leave here, since you have a visitor," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre. You remember Mme. la
+Comtesse de Plougastel?"
+
+He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now hastening forward
+to meet, and because she was named to him he recognized her. He must,
+he thought, had he but looked, have recognized her without prompting
+anywhere at any time, and this although it was some sixteen years since
+last he had seen her. The sight of her now brought it all back to him--a
+treasured memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid
+by subsequent events.
+
+When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes,
+she had come on a visit to his godfather, who was her cousin. It
+happened that at the time he was taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of
+Gavrillac, and there he had been presented to Mme. de Plougastel. The
+great lady, in all the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her
+gentle, cultured voice--so cultured that she had seemed to speak a
+language almost unknown to the little Breton lad--and her majestic air of
+the great world, had scared him a little at first. Very gently had she
+allayed those fears of his, and by some mysterious enchantment she had
+completely enslaved his regard. He recalled now the terror in which
+he had gone to the embrace to which he was bidden, and the subsequent
+reluctance with which he had left those soft round arms. He remembered,
+too, how sweetly she had smelled and the very perfume she had used, a
+perfume as of lilac--for memory is singularly tenacious in these matters.
+
+For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac, he had gone daily to
+the manor, and so had spent hours in her company. A childless woman with
+the maternal instinct strong within her, she had taken this precociously
+intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart.
+
+"Give him to me, Cousin Quintin," he remembered her saying on the
+last of those days to his godfather. "Let me take him back with me to
+Versailles as my adopted child."
+
+But the Seigneur had gravely shaken his head in silent refusal, and
+there had been no further question of such a thing. And then, when she
+said good-bye to him--the thing came flooding back to him now--there had
+been tears in her eyes.
+
+"Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis," had been her last words.
+
+He remembered how flattered he had been to have won within so short a
+time the affection of this great lady. The thing had given him a sense
+of importance that had endured for months thereafter, finally to fade
+into oblivion.
+
+But all was vividly remembered now upon beholding her again, after
+sixteen years, profoundly changed and matured, the girl--for she had been
+no more in those old days--sunk in this worldly woman with the air of
+calm dignity and complete self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he must
+have known her anywhere again.
+
+Aline embraced her affectionately, and then answering the questioning
+glance with faintly raised eyebrows that madame was directing towards
+Aline's companion--
+
+"This is Andre-Louis," she said. "You remember Andre-Louis, madame?"
+
+Madame checked. Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple over her face,
+taking with it some of her colour, leaving her for a moment breathless.
+
+And then the voice--the well-remembered rich, musical voice--richer and
+deeper now than of yore, repeated his name:
+
+"Andre-Louis!"
+
+Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened memories, memories
+perhaps of the departed youth with which it was associated. And she
+paused a long moment, considering him, a little wide-eyed, what time he
+bowed before her.
+
+"But of course I remember him," she said at last, and came towards
+him, putting out her hand. He kissed it dutifully, submissively,
+instinctively. "And this is what you have grown into?" She appraised
+him, and he flushed with pride at the satisfaction in her tone. He
+seemed to have gone back sixteen years, and to be again the little
+Breton lad at Gavrillac. She turned to Aline. "How mistaken Quintin was
+in his assumptions. He was pleased to see him again, was he not?"
+
+"So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"Ah!" She frowned, conning him still with those dark, wistful eyes of
+hers. "We must change that, Aline. He is of course very angry with
+you. But it is not the way to make converts. I will plead for you,
+Andre-Louis. I am a good advocate."
+
+He thanked her and took his leave.
+
+"I leave my case in your hands with gratitude. My homage, madame."
+
+And so it happened that in spite of his godfather's forbidding reception
+of him, the fragment of a song was on his lips as his yellow chaise
+whirled him back to Paris and the Rue du Hasard. That meeting with Mme.
+de Plougastel had enheartened him; her promise to plead his case in
+alliance with Aline gave him assurance that all would be well.
+
+That he was justified of this was proved when on the following Thursday
+towards noon his academy was invaded by M. de Kercadiou. Gilles, the
+boy, brought him word of it, and breaking off at once the lesson upon
+which he was engaged, he pulled off his mask, and went as he was--in a
+chamois waistcoat buttoned to the chin and with his foil under his arm
+to the modest salon below, where his godfather awaited him.
+
+The florid little Lord of Gavrillac stood almost defiantly to receive
+him.
+
+"I have been over-persuaded to forgive you," he announced aggressively,
+seeming thereby to imply that he consented to this merely so as to put
+an end to tiresome importunities.
+
+Andre-Louis was not misled. He detected a pretence adopted by the
+Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat in good order.
+
+"My blessings on the persuaders, whoever they may have been. You restore
+me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
+
+He took the hand that was proffered and kissed it, yielding to the
+impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days. It was an act
+symbolical of his complete submission, reestablishing between himself
+and his godfather the bond of protected and protector, with all the
+mutual claims and duties that it carries. No mere words could more
+completely have made his peace with this man who loved him.
+
+M. de Kercadiou's face flushed a deeper pink, his lip trembled, and
+there was a huskiness in the voice that murmured "My dear boy!" Then he
+recollected himself, threw back his great head and frowned. His voice
+resumed its habitual shrillness. "You realize, I hope, that you have
+behaved damnably... damnably, and with the utmost ingratitude?"
+
+"Does not that depend upon the point of view?" quoth Andre-Louis, but
+his tone was studiously conciliatory.
+
+"It depends upon a fact, and not upon any point of view. Since I have
+been persuaded to overlook it, I trust that at least you have some
+intention of reforming."
+
+"I... I will abstain from politics," said Andre-Louis, that being the
+utmost he could say with truth.
+
+"That is something, at least." His godfather permitted himself to be
+mollified, now that a concession--or a seeming concession--had been made
+to his just resentment.
+
+"A chair, monsieur."
+
+"No, no. I have come to carry you off to pay a visit with me. You owe
+it entirely to Mme. de Plougastel that I consent to receive you again. I
+desire that you come with me to thank her."
+
+"I have my engagements here..." began Andre-Louis, and then broke off.
+"No matter! I will arrange it. A moment." And he was turning away to
+reenter the academy.
+
+"What are your engagements? You are not by chance a fencing-instructor?"
+M. de Kercadiou had observed the leather waistcoat and the foil tucked
+under Andre-Louis' arm.
+
+"I am the master of this academy--the academy of the late Bertrand des
+Amis, the most flourishing school of arms in Paris to-day."
+
+M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
+
+"And you are master of it?"
+
+"Maitre en fait d'Armes. I succeeded to the academy upon the death of
+des Amis."
+
+He left M. Kercadiou to think it over, and went to make his arrangements
+and effect the necessary changes in his toilet.
+
+"So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword," said M. de
+Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
+
+"That and the need to guard one's self in these times."
+
+"And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what is after all
+an honourable profession, a profession mainly supported by the nobility,
+can at the same time associate himself with these peddling attorneys and
+low pamphleteers who are spreading dissension and insubordination?"
+
+"You forget that I am a peddling attorney myself, made so by your own
+wishes, monsieur."
+
+M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. "You say the academy
+flourishes?" he asked presently.
+
+"It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could employ a third. It
+is hard work."
+
+"That should mean that your circumstances are affluent."
+
+"I have reason to be satisfied. I have far more than I need."
+
+"Then you'll be able to do your share in paying off this national debt,"
+growled the nobleman, well content that--as he conceived it--some of the
+evil Andre-Louis had helped to sow should recoil upon him.
+
+Then the talk veered to Mme. de Plougastel. M. de Kercadiou, Andre-Louis
+gathered, but not the reason for it, disapproved most strongly of this
+visit. But then Madame la Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there was
+no denying, whom all the world obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present
+absent in Germany, but would shortly be returning. It was an indiscreet
+admission from which it was easy to infer that M. de Plougastel was one
+of those intriguing emissaries who came and went between the Queen of
+France and her brother, the Emperor of Austria.
+
+The carriage drew up before a handsome hotel in the Faubourg
+Saint-Denis, at the corner of the Rue Paradis, and they were ushered by
+a sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt and brocade, that opened
+upon a terrace above a garden that was a park in miniature. Here madame
+awaited them. She rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading
+to her, and came forward with both hands outheld to greet her cousin
+Kercadiou.
+
+"I almost feared you would not keep your word," she said. "It was
+unjust. But then I hardly hoped that you would succeed in bringing
+him." And her glance, gentle, and smiling welcome upon him, indicated
+Andre-Louis.
+
+The young man made answer with formal gallantry.
+
+"The memory of you, madame, is too deeply imprinted on my heart for any
+persuasions to have been necessary."
+
+"Ah, the courtier!" said madame, and abandoned him her hand. "We are to
+have a little talk, Andre-Louis," she informed him, with a gravity that
+left him vaguely ill at ease.
+
+They sat down, and for a while the conversation was of general matters,
+chiefly concerned, however, with Andre-Louis, his occupations and his
+views. And all the while madame was studying him attentively with those
+gentle, wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to
+pervade him. He realized instinctively that he had been brought here for
+some purpose deeper than that which had been avowed.
+
+At last, as if the thing were concerted--and the clumsy Lord of Gavrillac
+was the last man in the world to cover his tracks--his godfather rose
+and, upon a pretext of desiring to survey the garden, sauntered through
+the windows on to the terrace, over whose white stone balustrade the
+geraniums trailed in a scarlet riot. Thence he vanished among the
+foliage below.
+
+"Now we can talk more intimately," said madame. "Come here, and sit
+beside me." She indicated the empty half of the settee she occupied.
+
+Andre-Louis went obediently, but a little uncomfortably. "You know," she
+said gently, placing a hand upon his arm, "that you have behaved very
+ill, that your godfather's resentment is very justly founded?"
+
+"Madame, if I knew that, I should be the most unhappy, the most
+despairing of men." And he explained himself, as he had explained
+himself on Sunday to his godfather. "What I did, I did because it was
+the only means to my hand in a country in which justice was paralyzed by
+Privilege to make war upon an infamous scoundrel who had killed my best
+friend--a wanton, brutal act of murder, which there was no law to punish.
+And as if that were not enough--forgive me if I speak with the utmost
+frankness, madame--he afterwards debauched the woman I was to have
+married."
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu!" she cried out.
+
+"Forgive me. I know that it is horrible. You perceive, perhaps, what
+I suffered, how I came to be driven. That last affair of which I
+am guilty--the riot that began in the Feydau Theatre and afterwards
+enveloped the whole city of Nantes--was provoked by this."
+
+"Who was she, this girl?"
+
+It was like a woman, he thought, to fasten upon the unessential.
+
+"Oh, a theatre girl, a poor fool of whom I have no regrets. La Binet was
+her name. I was a player at the time in her father's troupe. That was
+after the Rennes business, when it was necessary to hide from such
+justice as exists in France--the gallows' justice for unfortunates
+who are not 'born.' This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the
+theatre."
+
+"Poor boy," she said tenderly. "Only a woman's heart can realize what
+you must have suffered; and because of that I can so readily forgive
+you. But now..."
+
+"Ah, but you don't understand, madame. If to-day I thought that I had
+none but personal grounds for having lent a hand in the holy work
+of abolishing Privilege, I think I should cut my throat. My true
+justification lies in the insincerity of those who intended that the
+convocation of the States General should be a sham, mere dust in the
+eyes of the nation."
+
+"Was it not, perhaps, wise to have been insincere in such a matter?"
+
+He looked at her blankly.
+
+"Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere?"
+
+"Oh, indeed it can; believe me, who am twice your age, and know my
+world."
+
+"I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence;
+and I know of nothing that so complicates it as insincerity. Consider a
+moment the complications that have arisen out of this."
+
+"But surely, Andre-Louis, your views have not been so perverted that you
+do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?"
+
+"Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one."
+
+"What else?"
+
+He answered her with an epigram. "Man, madame, is the child of his own
+work. Let there be no inheriting of rights but from such a parent. Thus
+a nation's best will always predominate, and such a nation will achieve
+greatly."
+
+"But do you account birth of no importance?"
+
+"Of none, madame--or else my own might trouble me." From the deep flush
+that stained her face, he feared that he had offended by what was almost
+an indelicacy. But the reproof that he was expecting did not come.
+Instead--
+
+"And does it not?" she asked. "Never, Andre?"
+
+"Never, madame. I am content."
+
+"You have never... never regretted your lack of parents' care?"
+
+He laughed, sweeping aside her sweet charitable concern that was so
+superfluous. "On the contrary, madame, I tremble to think what they
+might have made of me, and I am grateful to have had the fashioning of
+myself."
+
+She looked at him for a moment very sadly, and then, smiling, gently
+shook her head.
+
+"You do not want self-satisfaction... Yet I could wish that you saw
+things differently, Andre. It is a moment of great opportunities for
+a young man of talent and spirit. I could help you; I could help you,
+perhaps, to go very far if you would permit yourself to be helped after
+my fashion."
+
+"Yes," he thought, "help me to a halter by sending me on treasonable
+missions to Austria on the Queen's behalf, like M. de Plougastel. That
+would certainly end in a high position for me."
+
+Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted. "I am grateful, madame.
+But you will see that, holding the ideals I have expressed, I could not
+serve any cause that is opposed to their realization."
+
+"You are misled by prejudice, Andre-Louis, by personal grievances. Will
+you allow them to stand in the way of your advancement?"
+
+"If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be honest of me
+to run counter to them whilst holding them?"
+
+"If I could convince you that you are mistaken! I could help you so much
+to find a worthy employment for the talents you possess. In the
+service of the King you would prosper quickly. Will you think of it,
+Andre-Louis, and let us talk of this again?"
+
+He answered her with formal, chill politeness.
+
+"I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet your interest in me is very
+flattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate for me that I am so
+headstrong."
+
+"And now who deals in insincerity?" she asked him.
+
+"Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does not mislead."
+
+And then M. de Kercadiou came in through the window again, and announced
+fussily that he must be getting back to Meudon, and that he would take
+his godson with him and set him down at the Rue du Hasard.
+
+"You must bring him again, Quintin," the Countess said, as they took
+their leave of her.
+
+"Some day, perhaps," said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and swept his godson
+out.
+
+In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what madame had talked.
+
+"She was very kind--a sweet woman," said Andre-Louis pensively.
+
+"Devil take you, I didn't ask you the opinion that you presume to have
+formed of her. I asked you what she said to you."
+
+"She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She spoke of great
+things that I might do--to which she would very kindly help me--if I were
+to come to my senses. But as miracles do not happen, I gave her little
+encouragement to hope."
+
+"I see. I see. Did she say anything else?"
+
+He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at him.
+
+"What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+"Then she fulfilled your expectations."
+
+"Eh? Oh, a thousand devils, why can't you express yourself in a sensible
+manner that a plain man can understand without having to think about
+it?"
+
+He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard, or so it
+seemed to Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to
+judge by his expression.
+
+"You may come and see us soon again at Meudon," he told Andre-Louis at
+parting. "But please remember--no revolutionary politics in future, if we
+are to remain friends."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. POLITICIANS
+
+One morning in August the academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by Le
+Chapelier accompanied by a man of remarkable appearance, whose
+herculean stature and disfigured countenance seemed vaguely familiar
+to Andre-Louis. He was a man of little, if anything, over thirty, with
+small bright eyes buried in an enormous face. His cheek-bones were
+prominent, his nose awry, as if it had been broken by a blow, and his
+mouth was rendered almost shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A
+bull had horned him in the face when he was but a lad.) As if that were
+not enough to render his appearance terrible, his cheeks were deeply
+pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a long scarlet coat that
+descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin breeches and boots with
+reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open at the throat, the
+collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat, displaying fully the
+muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive shoulders. He
+swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and there was a
+cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself with an
+aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if he
+were eternally at defiance.
+
+Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.
+
+"This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of
+whom you will have heard."
+
+Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?
+
+Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that
+all, or nearly all the leading innovators, were pock-marked. Mirabeau,
+the journalist Desmoulins, the philanthropist Marat, Robespierre the
+little lawyer from Arras, this formidable fellow Danton, and several
+others he could call to mind all bore upon them the scars of smallpox.
+Almost he began to wonder was there any connection between the two.
+Did an attack of smallpox produce certain moral results which found
+expression in this way?
+
+He dismissed the idle speculation, or rather it was shattered by the
+startling thunder of Danton's voice.
+
+"This ------ Chapelier has told me of you. He says that you are a patriotic
+------."
+
+More than by the tone was Andre-Louis startled by the obscenities with
+which the Colossus did not hesitate to interlard his first speech to a
+total stranger. He laughed outright. There was nothing else to do.
+
+"If he has told you that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a
+patriot. The rest my modesty compels me to disavow."
+
+"You're a joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed
+nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no
+offence in me. I am like that."
+
+"What a pity," said Andre-Louis.
+
+It disconcerted the king of the markets. "Eh? what's this, Chapelier?
+Does he give himself airs, your friend here?"
+
+The spruce Breton, a very petit-maitre in appearance by contrast with
+his companion, but nevertheless of a down-right manner quite equal to
+Danton's in brutality, though dispensing with the emphasis of foulness,
+shrugged as he answered him:
+
+"It is merely that he doesn't like your manners, which is not at all
+surprising. They are execrable."
+
+"Ah, bah! You are all like that, you ------ Bretons. Let's come to
+business. You'll have heard what took place in the Assembly yesterday?
+You haven't? My God, where do you live? Have you heard that this
+scoundrel who calls himself King of France gave passage across French
+soil the other day to Austrian troops going to crush those who fight for
+liberty in Belgium? Have you heard that, by any chance?"
+
+"Yes," said Andre-Louis coldly, masking his irritation before the
+other's hectoring manner. "I have heard that."
+
+"Oh! And what do you think of it?" Arms akimbo, the Colossus towered
+above him.
+
+Andre-Louis turned aside to Le Chapelier.
+
+"I don't think I understand. Have you brought this gentleman here to
+examine my conscience?"
+
+"Name of a name! He's prickly as a ------ porcupine!" Danton protested.
+
+"No, no." Le Chapelier was conciliatory, seeking to provide an antidote
+to the irritant administered by his companion. "We require your help,
+Andre. Danton here thinks that you are the very man for us. Listen
+now..."
+
+"That's it. You tell him," Danton agreed. "You both talk the same
+mincing--sort of French. He'll probably understand you."
+
+Le Chapelier went on without heeding the interruption. "This violation
+by the King of the obvious rights of a country engaged in framing a
+constitution that shall make it free has shattered every philanthropic
+illusion we still cherished. There are those who go so far as to
+proclaim the King the vowed enemy of France. But that, of course, is
+excessive."
+
+"Who says so?" blazed Danton, and swore horribly by way of conveying his
+total disagreement.
+
+Le Chapelier waved him into silence, and proceeded.
+
+"Anyhow, the matter has been more than enough, added to all the rest,
+to set us by the ears again in the Assembly. It is open war between the
+Third Estate and the Privileged."
+
+"Was it ever anything else?"
+
+"Perhaps not; but it has assumed a new character. You'll have heard of
+the duel between Lameth and the Duc de Castries?"
+
+"A trifling affair."
+
+"In its results. But it might have been far other. Mirabeau is
+challenged and insulted now at every sitting. But he goes his way,
+cold-bloodedly wise. Others are not so circumspect; they meet insult
+with insult, blow with blow, and blood is being shed in private duels.
+The thing is reduced by these swordsmen of the nobility to a system."
+
+Andre-Louis nodded. He was thinking of Philippe de Vilmorin. "Yes," he
+said, "it is an old trick of theirs. It is so simple and direct--like
+themselves. I wonder only that they didn't hit upon this system sooner.
+In the early days of the States General, at Versailles, it might have
+had a better effect. Now, it comes a little late."
+
+"But they mean to make up for lost time--sacred name!" cried Danton.
+"Challenges are flying right and left between these bully-swordsmen,
+these spadassinicides, and poor devils of the robe who have never learnt
+to fence with anything but a quill. It's just ------ murder. Yet if I were
+to go amongst messieurs les nobles and crunch an addled head or two with
+this stick of mine, snap a few aristocratic necks between these fingers
+which the good God has given me for the purpose, the law would send
+me to atone upon the gallows. This in a land that is striving after
+liberty. Why, Dieu me damne! I am not even allowed to keep my hat on in
+the theatre. But they ------ these ------s!"
+
+"He is right," said Le Chapelier. "The thing has become unendurable,
+insufferable. Two days ago M. d'Ambly threatened Mirabeau with his
+cane before the whole Assembly. Yesterday M. de Faussigny leapt up and
+harangued his order by inviting murder. 'Why don't we fall on these
+scoundrels, sword in hand?' he asked. Those were his very words: 'Why
+don't we fall on these scoundrels, sword in hand.'"
+
+"It is so much simpler than lawmaking," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"Lagron, the deputy from Ancenis in the Loire, said something that
+we did not hear in answer. As he was leaving the Manege one of these
+bullies grossly insulted him. Lagron no more than used his elbow to push
+past when the fellow cried out that he had been struck, and issued his
+challenge. They fought this morning early in the Champs Elysees, and
+Lagron was killed, run through the stomach deliberately by a man who
+fought like a fencing-master, and poor Lagron did not even own a sword.
+He had to borrow one to go to the assignation."
+
+Andre-Louis--his mind ever on Vilmorin, whose case was here repeated,
+even to the details--was swept by a gust of passion. He clenched his
+hands, and his jaws set. Danton's little eyes observed him keenly.
+
+"Well? And what do you think of that? Noblesse oblige, eh? The thing is
+we must oblige them too, these -------s. We must pay them back in the
+same coin; meet them with the same weapons. Abolish them; tumble these
+assassinateurs into the abyss of nothingness by the same means."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"How? Name of God! Haven't I said it?"
+
+"That is where we require your help," Le Chapelier put in. "There must
+be men of patriotic feeling among the more advanced of your pupils.
+M. Danton's idea is that a little band of these--say a half-dozen, with
+yourself at their head--might read these bullies a sharp lesson."
+
+Andre-Louis frowned.
+
+"And how, precisely, had M. Danton thought that this might be done?"
+
+M. Danton spoke for himself, vehemently.
+
+"Why, thus: We post you in the Manege, at the hour when the Assembly is
+rising. We point out the six leading phlebotomists, and let you loose to
+insult them before they have time to insult any of the representatives.
+Then to-morrow morning, six ------ phlebotomists themselves phlebotomized
+secundum artem. That will give the others something to think about. It
+will give them a great deal to think about, by ----! If necessary the dose
+may be repeated to ensure a cure. If you kill the -------s, so much the
+better."
+
+He paused, his sallow face flushed with the enthusiasm of his idea.
+Andre-Louis stared at him inscrutably.
+
+"Well, what do you say to that?"
+
+"That it is most ingenious." And Andre-Louis turned aside to look out of
+the window.
+
+"And is that all you think of it?"
+
+"I will not tell you what else I think of it because you probably would
+not understand. For you, M. Danton, there is at least this excuse that
+you did not know me. But you, Isaac--to bring this gentleman here with
+such a proposal!"
+
+Le Chapelier was overwhelmed in confusion. "I confess I hesitated,"
+he apologized. "But M. Danton would not take my word for it that the
+proposal might not be to your taste."
+
+"I would not!" Danton broke in, bellowing. He swung upon Le Chapelier,
+brandishing his great arms. "You told me monsieur was a patriot.
+Patriotism knows no scruples. You call this mincing dancing-master a
+patriot?"
+
+"Would you, monsieur, out of patriotism consent to become an assassin?"
+
+"Of course I would. Haven't I told you so? Haven't I told you that
+I would gladly go among them with my club, and crack them like so
+many--fleas?"
+
+"Why not, then?"
+
+"Why not? Because I should get myself hanged. Haven't I said so?"
+
+"But what of that ------ being a patriot? Why not, like another Curtius,
+jump into the gulf, since you believe that your country would benefit by
+your death?"
+
+M. Danton showed signs of exasperation. "Because my country will benefit
+more by my life."
+
+"Permit me, monsieur, to suffer from a similar vanity."
+
+"You? But where would be the danger to you? You would do your work under
+the cloak of duelling--as they do."
+
+"Have you reflected, monsieur, that the law will hardly regard a
+fencing-master who kills his opponent as an ordinary combatant,
+particularly if it can be shown that the fencing-master himself provoked
+the attack?"
+
+"So! Name of a name!" M. Danton blew out his cheeks and delivered
+himself with withering scorn. "It comes to this, then: you are afraid!"
+
+"You may think so if you choose--that I am afraid to do slyly and
+treacherously that which a thrasonical patriot like yourself is afraid
+of doing frankly and openly. I have other reasons. But that one should
+suffice you."
+
+Danton gasped. Then he swore more amazingly and variedly than ever.
+
+"By ----! you are right," he admitted, to Andre-Louis' amazement. "You
+are right, and I am wrong. I am as bad a patriot as you are, and I am
+a coward as well." And he invoked the whole Pantheon to witness his
+self-denunciation. "Only, you see, I count for something: and if they
+take me and hang me, why, there it is! Monsieur, we must find some other
+way. Forgive the intrusion. Adieu!" He held out his enormous hand..
+
+Le Chapelier stood hesitating, crestfallen.
+
+"You understand, Andre? I am sorry that..."
+
+"Say no more, please. Come and see me soon again. I would press you to
+remain, but it is striking nine, and the first of my pupils is about to
+arrive."
+
+"Nor would I permit it," said Danton. "Between us we must resolve the
+riddle of how to extinguish M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his friends."
+
+"Who?"
+
+Sharp as a pistol-shot came that question, as Danton was turning away.
+The tone of it brought him up short. He turned again, Le Chapelier with
+him.
+
+"I said M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
+
+"What has he to do with the proposal you were making me?"
+
+"He? Why, he is the phlebotomist in chief."
+
+And Le Chapelier added. "It is he who killed Lagron."
+
+"Not a friend of yours, is he?" wondered Danton.
+
+"And it is La Tour d'Azyr you desire me to kill?" asked Andre-Louis very
+slowly, after the manner of one whose thoughts are meanwhile pondering
+the subject.
+
+"That's it," said Danton. "And not a job for a prentice hand, I can
+assure you."
+
+"Ah, but this alters things," said Andre-Louis, thinking aloud. "It
+offers a great temptation."
+
+"Why, then...?" The Colossus took a step towards him again.
+
+"Wait!" He put up his hand. Then with chin sunk on his breast, he paced
+away to the window, musing.
+
+Le Chapelier and Danton exchanged glances, then watched him, waiting,
+what time he considered.
+
+At first he almost wondered why he should not of his own accord have
+decided upon some such course as this to settle that long-standing
+account of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. What was the use of this great skill in
+fence that he had come to acquire, unless he could turn it to account
+to avenge Vilmorin, and to make Aline safe from the lure of her own
+ambition? It would be an easy thing to seek out La Tour d'Azyr, put a
+mortal affront upon him, and thus bring him to the point. To-day this
+would be murder, murder as treacherous as that which La Tour d'Azyr
+had done upon Philippe de Vilmorin; for to-day the old positions were
+reversed, and it was Andre-Louis who might go to such an assignation
+without a doubt of the issue. It was a moral obstacle of which he made
+short work. But there remained the legal obstacle he had expounded to
+Danton. There was still a law in France; the same law which he had
+found it impossible to move against La Tour d'Azyr, but which would move
+briskly enough against himself in like case. And then, suddenly, as if
+by inspiration, he saw the way--a way which if adopted would probably
+bring La Tour d'Azyr to a poetic justice, bring him, insolent,
+confident, to thrust himself upon Andre-Louis' sword, with all the odium
+of provocation on his own side.
+
+He turned to them again, and they saw that he was very pale, that his
+great dark eyes glowed oddly.
+
+"There will probably be some difficulty in finding a suppleant for this
+poor Lagron," he said. "Our fellow-countrymen will be none so eager to
+offer themselves to the swords of Privilege."
+
+"True enough," said Le Chapelier gloomily; and then, as if suddenly
+leaping to the thing in Andre-Louis' mind: "Andre!" he cried. "Would
+you..."
+
+"It is what I was considering. It would give me a legitimate place in
+the Assembly. If your Tour d'Azyrs choose to seek me out then, why,
+their blood be upon their own heads. I shall certainly do nothing to
+discourage them." He smiled curiously. "I am just a rascal who tries to
+be honest--Scaramouche always, in fact; a creature of sophistries. Do you
+think that Ancenis would have me for its representative?"
+
+"Will it have Omnes Omnibus for its representative?" Le Chapelier was
+laughing, his countenance eager. "Ancenis will be convulsed with pride.
+It is not Rennes or Nantes, as it might have been had you wished it. But
+it gives you a voice for Brittany."
+
+"I should have to go to Ancenis..."
+
+"No need at all. A letter from me to the Municipality, and the
+Municipality will confirm you at once. No need to move from here. In a
+fortnight at most the thing can be accomplished. It is settled, then?"
+
+Andre-Louis considered yet a moment. There was his academy. But he could
+make arrangements with Le Duc and Galoche to carry it on for him
+whilst himself directing and advising. Le Duc, after all, was become a
+thoroughly efficient master, and he was a trustworthy fellow. At need a
+third assistant could be engaged.
+
+"Be it so," he said at last.
+
+Le Chapelier clasped hands with him and became congratulatorily voluble,
+until interrupted by the red-coated giant at the door.
+
+"What exactly does it mean to our business, anyway?" he asked. "Does it
+mean that when you are a representative you will not scruple to skewer
+M. le Marquis?"
+
+"If M. le Marquis should offer himself to be skewered, as he no doubt
+will."
+
+"I perceive the distinction," said M. Danton, and sneered. "You've an
+ingenious mind." He turned to Le Chapelier. "What did you say he was to
+begin with--a lawyer, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I was a lawyer, and afterwards a mountebank."
+
+"And this is the result!"
+
+"As you say. And do you know that we are after all not so dissimilar,
+you and I?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Once like you I went about inciting other people to go and kill the man
+I wanted dead. You'll say I was a coward, of course."
+
+Le Chapelier prepared to slip between them as the clouds gathered on
+the giant's brow. Then these were dispelled again, and the great laugh
+vibrated through the long room.
+
+"You've touched me for the second time, and in the same place. Oh,
+you can fence, my lad. We should be friends. Rue des Cordeliers is my
+address. Any--scoundrel will tell you where Danton lodges. Desmoulins
+lives underneath. Come and visit us one evening. There's always a bottle
+for a friend."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE SPADASSINICIDES
+
+After an absence of rather more than a week, M. le Marquis de La Tour
+d'Azyr was back in his place on the Cote Droit of the National Assembly.
+Properly speaking, we should already at this date allude to him as the
+ci-devant Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr, for the time was September of 1790,
+two months after the passing--on the motion of that downright Breton
+leveller, Le Chapelier--of the decree that nobility should no more be
+hereditary than infamy; that just as the brand of the gallows must not
+defile the possibly worthy descendants of one who had been convicted
+of evil, neither should the blazon advertising achievement glorify the
+possibly unworthy descendants of one who had proved himself good. And so
+the decree had been passed abolishing hereditary nobility and consigning
+family escutcheons to the rubbish-heap of things no longer to be
+tolerated by an enlightened generation of philosophers. M. le Comte de
+Lafayette, who had supported the motion, left the Assembly as plain M.
+Motier, the great tribune Count Mirabeau became plain M. Riquetti, and
+M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr just simple M. Lesarques. The thing was
+done in one of those exaltations produced by the approach of the great
+National Festival of the Champ de Mars, and no doubt it was thoroughly
+repented on the morrow by those who had lent themselves to it. Thus,
+although law by now, it was a law that no one troubled just yet to
+enforce.
+
+That, however, is by the way. The time, as I have said, was September,
+the day dull and showery, and some of the damp and gloom of it seemed to
+have penetrated the long Hall of the Manege, where on their eight rows
+of green benches elliptically arranged in ascending tiers about
+the space known as La Piste, sat some eight or nine hundred of the
+representatives of the three orders that composed the nation.
+
+The matter under debate by the constitution-builders was whether the
+deliberating body to succeed the Constituent Assembly should work in
+conjunction with the King, whether it should be periodic or permanent,
+whether it should govern by two chambers or by one.
+
+The Abbe Maury, son of a cobbler, and therefore in these days of
+antitheses orator-in-chief of the party of the Right--the Blacks, as
+those who fought Privilege's losing battles were known--was in the
+tribune. He appeared to be urging the adoption of a two-chambers system
+framed on the English model. He was, if anything, more long-winded and
+prosy even than his habit; his arguments assumed more and more the form
+of a sermon; the tribune of the National Assembly became more and
+more like a pulpit; but the members, conversely, less and less like
+a congregation. They grew restive under that steady flow of pompous
+verbiage, and it was in vain that the four ushers in black satin
+breeches and carefully powdered heads, chain of office on their breasts,
+gilded sword at their sides, circulated in the Piste, clapping their
+hands, and hissing,
+
+"Silence! En place!"
+
+Equally vain was the intermittent ringing of the bell by the president
+at his green-covered table facing the tribune. The Abbe Maury had
+talked too long, and for some time had failed to interest the members.
+Realizing it at last, he ceased, whereupon the hum of conversation
+became general. And then it fell abruptly. There was a silence of
+expectancy, and a turning of heads, a craning of necks. Even the group
+of secretaries at the round table below the president's dais roused
+themselves from their usual apathy to consider this young man who was
+mounting the tribune of the Assembly for the first time.
+
+"M. Andre-Louis Moreau, deputy suppleant, vice Emmanuel Lagron,
+deceased, for Ancenis in the Department of the Loire."
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr shook himself out of the gloomy abstraction in
+which he had sat. The successor of the deputy he had slain must, in
+any event, be an object of grim interest to him. You conceive how that
+interest was heightened when he heard him named, when, looking across,
+he recognized indeed in this Andre-Louis Moreau the young scoundrel who
+was continually crossing his path, continually exerting against him a
+deep-moving, sinister influence to make him regret that he should have
+spared his life that day at Gavrillac two years ago. That he should thus
+have stepped into the shoes of Lagron seemed to M. de La Tour d'Azyr too
+apt for mere coincidence, a direct challenge in itself.
+
+He looked at the young man in wonder rather than in anger, and looking
+at him he was filled by a vague, almost a premonitory, uneasiness.
+
+At the very outset, the presence which in itself he conceived to be a
+challenge was to demonstrate itself for this in no equivocal terms.
+
+"I come before you," Andre-Louis began, "as a deputy-suppleant to fill
+the place of one who was murdered some three weeks ago."
+
+It was a challenging opening that instantly provoked an indignant outcry
+from the Blacks. Andre-Louis paused, and looked at them, smiling a
+little, a singularly self-confident young man.
+
+"The gentlemen of the Right, M. le President, do not appear to like
+my words. But that is not surprising. The gentlemen of the Right
+notoriously do not like the truth."
+
+This time there was uproar. The members of the Left roared with
+laughter, those of the Right thundered menacingly. The ushers circulated
+at a pace beyond their usual, agitated themselves, clapped their hands,
+and called in vain for silence.
+
+The President rang his bell.
+
+Above the general din came the voice of La Tour d'Azyr, who had
+half-risen from his seat: "Mountebank! This is not the theatre!"
+
+"No, monsieur, it is becoming a hunting-ground for bully-swordsmen," was
+the answer, and the uproar grew.
+
+The deputy-suppleant looked round and waited. Near at hand he met the
+encouraging grin of Le Chapelier, and the quiet, approving smile of
+Kersain, another Breton deputy of his acquaintance. A little farther off
+he saw the great head of Mirabeau thrown back, the great eyes regarding
+him from under a frown in a sort of wonder, and yonder, among all
+that moving sea of faces, the sallow countenance of the Arras' lawyer
+Robespierre--or de Robespierre, as the little snob now called himself,
+having assumed the aristocratic particle as the prerogative of a man of
+his distinction in the councils of his country. With his tip-tilted nose
+in the air, his carefully curled head on one side, the deputy for Arras
+was observing Andre-Louis attentively. The horn-rimmed spectacles he
+used for reading were thrust up on to his pale forehead, and it was
+through a levelled spy-glass that he considered the speaker, his
+thin-lipped mouth stretched a little in that tiger-cat smile that was
+afterwards to become so famous and so feared.
+
+Gradually the uproar wore itself out, and diminished so that at last
+the President could make himself heard. Leaning forward, he gravely
+addressed the young man in the tribune:
+
+"Monsieur, if you wish to be heard, let me beg of you not to be
+provocative in your language." And then to the others: "Messieurs, if
+we are to proceed, I beg that you will restrain your feelings until the
+deputy-suppleant has concluded his discourse."
+
+"I shall endeavour to obey, M. le President, leaving provocation to the
+gentlemen of the Right. If the few words I have used so far have been
+provocative, I regret it. But it was necessary that I should refer to
+the distinguished deputy whose place I come so unworthily to fill, and
+it was unavoidable that I should refer to the event which has procured
+us this sad necessity. The deputy Lagron was a man of singular nobility
+of mind, a selfless, dutiful, zealous man, inflamed by the high purpose
+of doing his duty by his electors and by this Assembly. He possessed
+what his opponents would call a dangerous gift of eloquence."
+
+La Tour d'Azyr writhed at the well-known phrase--his own phrase--the
+phrase that he had used to explain his action in the matter of Philippe
+de Vilmorin, the phrase that from time to time had been cast in his
+teeth with such vindictive menace.
+
+And then the crisp voice of the witty Canales, that very rapier of the
+Privileged party, cut sharply into the speaker's momentary pause.
+
+"M. le President," he asked with great solemnity, "has the
+deputy-suppleant mounted the tribune for the purpose of taking part in
+the debate on the constitution of the legislative assemblies, or for
+the purpose of pronouncing a funeral oration upon the departed deputy
+Lagron?"
+
+This time it was the Blacks who gave way to mirth, until checked by the
+deputy-suppleant.
+
+"That laughter is obscene!" In this truly Gallic fashion he flung his
+glove into the face of Privilege, determined, you see, upon no half
+measures; and the rippling laughter perished on the instant quenched in
+speechless fury.
+
+Solemnly he proceeded.
+
+"You all know how Lagron died. To refer to his death at all requires
+courage, to laugh in referring to it requires something that I will not
+attempt to qualify. If I have alluded to his decease, it is because my
+own appearance among you seemed to render some such allusion necessary.
+It is mine to take up the burden which he set down. I do not pretend
+that I have the strength, the courage, or the wisdom of Lagron; but with
+every ounce of such strength and courage and wisdom as I possess that
+burden will I bear. And I trust, for the sake of those who might attempt
+it, that the means taken to impose silence upon that eloquent voice will
+not be taken to impose silence upon mine."
+
+There was a faint murmur of applause from the Left, splutter of
+contemptuous laughter from the Right.
+
+"Rhodomont!" a voice called to him.
+
+He looked in the direction of that voice, proceeding from the group of
+spadassins amid the Blacks across the Piste, and he smiled. Inaudibly
+his lips answered:
+
+"No, my friend--Scaramouche; Scaramouche, the subtle, dangerous fellow
+who goes tortuously to his ends." Aloud, he resumed: "M. le President,
+there are those who will not understand that the purpose for which
+we are assembled here is the making of laws by which France may be
+equitably governed, by which France may be lifted out of the morass of
+bankruptcy into which she is in danger of sinking. For there are some
+who want, it seems, not laws, but blood; I solemnly warn them that this
+blood will end by choking them, if they do not learn in time to discard
+force and allow reason to prevail."
+
+Again in that phrase there was something that stirred a memory in
+La Tour d'Azyr. He turned in the fresh uproar to speak to his cousin
+Chabrillane who sat beside him.
+
+"A daring rogue, this bastard of Gavrillac's," said he.
+
+Chabrillane looked at him with gleaming eyes, his face white with anger.
+
+"Let him talk himself out. I don't think he will be heard again after
+to-day. Leave this to me."
+
+Hardly could La Tour have told you why, but he sank back in his seat
+with a sense of relief. He had been telling himself that here was matter
+demanding action, a challenge that he must take up. But despite his rage
+he felt a singular unwillingness. This fellow had a trick of reminding
+him, he supposed, too unpleasantly of that young abbe done to death in
+the garden behind the Breton arme at Gavrillac. Not that the death of
+Philippe de Vilmorin lay heavily upon M. de La Tour d'Azyr's conscience.
+He had accounted himself fully justified of his action. It was that the
+whole thing as his memory revived it for him made an unpleasant picture:
+that distraught boy kneeling over the bleeding body of the friend he
+had loved, and almost begging to be slain with him, dubbing the Marquis
+murderer and coward to incite him.
+
+Meanwhile, leaving now the subject of the death of Lagron, the
+deputy-suppleant had at last brought himself into order, and was
+speaking upon the question under debate. He contributed nothing of value
+to it; he urged nothing definite. His speech on the subject was very
+brief--that being the pretext and not the purpose for which he had
+ascended the tribune.
+
+When later he was leaving the hall at the end of the sitting, with Le
+Chapelier at his side, he found himself densely surrounded by deputies
+as by a body-guard. Most of them were Bretons, who aimed at screening
+him from the provocations which his own provocative words in the
+Assembly could not fail to bring down upon his head. For a moment the
+massive form of Mirabeau brought up alongside of him.
+
+"Felicitations, M. Moreau," said the great man. "You acquitted yourself
+very well. They will want your blood, no doubt. But be discreet,
+monsieur, if I may presume to advise you, and do not allow yourself to
+be misled by any false sense of quixotry. Ignore their challenges. I do
+so myself. I place each challenger upon my list. There are some fifty
+there already, and there they will remain. Refuse them what they are
+pleased to call satisfaction, and all will be well." Andre-Louis smiled
+and sighed.
+
+"It requires courage," said the hypocrite.
+
+"Of course it does. But you would appear to have plenty."
+
+"Hardly enough, perhaps. But I shall do my best."
+
+They had come through the vestibule, and although this was lined
+with eager Blacks waiting for the young man who had insulted them so
+flagrantly from the rostrum, Andre-Louis' body-guard had prevented any
+of them from reaching him.
+
+Emerging now into the open, under the great awning at the head of the
+Carriere, erected to enable carriages to reach the door under cover,
+those in front of him dispersed a little, and there was a moment as he
+reached the limit of the awning when his front was entirely uncovered.
+Outside the rain was falling heavily, churning the ground into thick
+mud, and for a moment Andre-Louis, with Le Chapelier ever at his side,
+stood hesitating to step out into the deluge.
+
+The watchful Chabrillane had seen his chance, and by a detour that
+took him momentarily out into the rain, he came face to face with the
+too-daring young Breton. Rudely, violently, he thrust Andre-Louis back,
+as if to make room for himself under the shelter.
+
+Not for a second was Andre-Louis under any delusion as to the man's
+deliberate purpose, nor were those who stood near him, who made a
+belated and ineffectual attempt to close about him. He was grievously
+disappointed. It was not Chabrillane he had been expecting. His
+disappointment was reflected on his countenance, to be mistaken for
+something very different by the arrogant Chevalier.
+
+But if Chabrillane was the man appointed to deal with him, he would make
+the best of it.
+
+"I think you are pushing against me, monsieur," he said, very civilly,
+and with elbow and shoulder he thrust M. de Chabrillane back into the
+rain.
+
+"I desire to take shelter, monsieur," the Chevalier hectored.
+
+"You may do so without standing on my feet. I have a prejudice against
+any one standing on my feet. My feet are very tender. Perhaps you did
+not know it, monsieur. Please say no more."
+
+"Why, I wasn't speaking, you lout!" exclaimed the Chevalier, slightly
+discomposed.
+
+"Were you not? I thought perhaps you were about to apologize."
+
+"Apologize?" Chabrillane laughed. "To you! Do you know that you are
+amusing?" He stepped under the awning for the second time, and again in
+view of all thrust Andre-Louis rudely back.
+
+"Ah!" cried Andre-Louis, with a grimace. "You hurt me, monsieur. I have
+told you not to push against me." He raised his voice that all might
+hear him, and once more impelled M. de Chabrillane back into the rain.
+
+Now, for all his slenderness, his assiduous daily sword-practice had
+given Andre-Louis an arm of iron. Also he threw his weight into the
+thrust. His assailant reeled backwards a few steps, and then his
+heel struck a baulk of timber left on the ground by some workmen that
+morning, and he sat down suddenly in the mud.
+
+A roar of laughter rose from all who witnessed the fine gentleman's
+downfall. He rose, mud-bespattered, in a fury, and in that fury sprang
+at Andre-Louis.
+
+Andre-Louis had made him ridiculous, which was altogether unforgivable.
+
+"You shall meet me for this!" he spluttered. "I shall kill you for it."
+
+His inflamed face was within a foot of Andre-Louis'. Andre-Louis
+laughed. In the silence everybody heard the laugh and the words that
+followed.
+
+"Oh, is that what you wanted? But why didn't you say so before? You
+would have spared me the trouble of knocking you down. I thought
+gentlemen of your profession invariably conducted these affairs with
+decency, decorum, and a certain grace. Had you done so, you might have
+saved your breeches."
+
+"How soon shall we settle this?" snapped Chabrillane, livid with very
+real fury.
+
+"Whenever you please, monsieur. It is for you to say when it will
+suit your convenience to kill me. I think that was the intention you
+announced, was it not?" Andre-Louis was suavity itself.
+
+"To-morrow morning, in the Bois. Perhaps you will bring a friend."
+
+"Certainly, monsieur. To-morrow morning, then. I hope we shall have fine
+weather. I detest the rain."
+
+Chabrillane looked at him almost with amazement. Andre-Louis smiled
+pleasantly.
+
+"Don't let me detain you now, monsieur. We quite understand each other.
+I shall be in the Bois at nine o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"That is too late for me, monsieur."
+
+"Any other hour would be too early for me. I do not like to have my
+habits disturbed. Nine o'clock or not at all, as you please."
+
+"But I must be at the Assembly at nine, for the morning session."
+
+"I am afraid, monsieur, you will have to kill me first, and I have a
+prejudice against being killed before nine o'clock."
+
+Now this was too complete a subversion of the usual procedure for M.
+de Chabrillane's stomach. Here was a rustic deputy assuming with him
+precisely the tone of sinister mockery which his class usually dealt out
+to their victims of the Third Estate. And to heighten the irritation,
+Andre-Louis--the actor, Scaramouche always--produced his snuffbox, and
+proffered it with a steady hand to Le Chapelier before helping himself.
+
+Chabrillane, it seemed, after all that he had suffered, was not even to
+be allowed to make a good exit.
+
+"Very well, monsieur," he said. "Nine o'clock, then; and we'll see if
+you'll talk as pertly afterwards."
+
+On that he flung away, before the jeers of the provincial deputies. Nor
+did it soothe his rage to be laughed at by urchins all the way down the
+Rue Dauphine because of the mud and filth that dripped from his satin
+breeches and the tails of his elegant, striped coat.
+
+But though the members of the Third had jeered on the surface, they
+trembled underneath with fear and indignation. It was too much. Lagron
+killed by one of these bullies, and now his successor challenged, and
+about to be killed by another of them on the very first day of his
+appearance to take the dead man's place. Several came now to implore
+Andre-Louis not to go to the Bois, to ignore the challenge and the whole
+affair, which was but a deliberate attempt to put him out of the way.
+He listened seriously, shook his head gloomily, and promised at last to
+think it over.
+
+He was in his seat again for the afternoon session as if nothing
+disturbed him.
+
+But in the morning, when the Assembly met, his place was vacant, and so
+was M. de Chabrillane's. Gloom and resentment sat upon the members
+of the Third, and brought a more than usually acrid note into their
+debates. They disapproved of the rashness of the new recruit to their
+body. Some openly condemned his lack of circumspection. Very few--and
+those only the little group in Le Chapelier's confidence--ever expected
+to see him again.
+
+It was, therefore, as much in amazement as in relief that at a few
+minutes after ten they saw him enter, calm, composed, and bland, and
+thread his way to his seat. The speaker occupying the rostrum at that
+moment--a member of the Privileged--stopped short to stare in incredulous
+dismay. Here was something that he could not understand at all. Then
+from somewhere, to satisfy the amazement on both sides of the assembly,
+a voice explained the phenomenon contemptuously.
+
+"They haven't met. He has shirked it at the last moment."
+
+It must be so, thought all; the mystification ceased, and men were
+settling back into their seats. But now, having reached his place,
+having heard the voice that explained the matter to the universal
+satisfaction, Andre-Louis paused before taking his seat. He felt it
+incumbent upon him to reveal the true fact.
+
+"M. le President, my excuses for my late arrival." There was no
+necessity for this. It was a mere piece of theatricality, such as it
+was not in Scaramouche's nature to forgo. "I have been detained by an
+engagement of a pressing nature. I bring you also the excuses of M. de
+Chabrillane. He, unfortunately, will be permanently absent from this
+Assembly in future."
+
+The silence was complete. Andre-Louis sat down.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
+
+M. Le Chevalier de Chabrillane had been closely connected, you will
+remember, with the iniquitous affair in which Philippe de Vilmorin
+had lost his life. We know enough to justify a surmise that he had not
+merely been La Tour d'Azyr's second in the encounter, but actually
+an instigator of the business. Andre-Louis may therefore have felt a
+justifiable satisfaction in offering up the Chevalier's life to the
+Manes of his murdered friend. He may have viewed it as an act of
+common justice not to be procured by any other means. Also it is to
+be remembered that Chabrillane had gone confidently to the meeting,
+conceiving that he, a practised ferailleur, had to deal with a bourgeois
+utterly unskilled in swordsmanship. Morally, then, he was little
+better than a murderer, and that he should have tumbled into the pit
+he conceived that he dug for Andre-Louis was a poetic retribution.
+Yet, notwithstanding all this, I should find the cynical note on which
+Andre-Louis announced the issue to the Assembly utterly detestable did
+I believe it sincere. It would justify Aline of the expressed opinion,
+which she held in common with so many others who had come into close
+contact with him, that Andre-Louis was quite heartless.
+
+You have seen something of the same heartlessness in his conduct when he
+discovered the faithlessness of La Binet although that is belied by the
+measures he took to avenge himself. His subsequent contempt of the woman
+I account to be born of the affection in which for a time he held her.
+That this affection was as deep as he first imagined, I do not believe;
+but that it was as shallow as he would almost be at pains to make it
+appear by the completeness with which he affects to have put her from
+his mind when he discovered her worthlessness, I do not believe; nor,
+as I have said, do his actions encourage that belief. Then, again,
+his callous cynicism in hoping that he had killed Binet is also an
+affectation. Knowing that such things as Binet are better out of the
+world, he can have suffered no compunction; he had, you must remember,
+that rarely level vision which sees things in their just proportions,
+and never either magnifies or reduces them by sentimental
+considerations. At the same time, that he should contemplate the
+taking of life with such complete and cynical equanimity, whatever the
+justification, is quite incredible.
+
+Similarly now, it is not to be believed that in coming straight from
+the Bois de Boulogne, straight from the killing of a man, he should be
+sincerely expressing his nature in alluding to the fact in terms of such
+outrageous flippancy. Not quite to such an extent was he the incarnation
+of Scaramouche. But sufficiently was he so ever to mask his true
+feelings by an arresting gesture, his true thoughts by an effective
+phrase. He was the actor always, a man ever calculating the effect he
+would produce, ever avoiding self-revelation, ever concerned to overlay
+his real character by an assumed and quite fictitious one. There was in
+this something of impishness, and something of other things.
+
+Nobody laughed now at his flippancy. He did not intend that anybody
+should. He intended to be terrible; and he knew that the more flippant
+and casual his tone, the more terrible would be its effect. He produced
+exactly the effect he desired.
+
+What followed in a place where feelings and practices had become what
+they had become is not difficult to surmise. When the session rose,
+there were a dozen spadassins awaiting him in the vestibule, and this
+time the men of his own party were less concerned to guard him. He
+seemed so entirely capable of guarding himself; he appeared, for all his
+circumspection, to have so completely carried the war into the enemy's
+camp, so completely to have adopted their own methods, that his fellows
+scarcely felt the need to protect him as yesterday.
+
+As he emerged, he scanned that hostile file, whose air and garments
+marked them so clearly for what they were. He paused, seeking the man
+he expected, the man he was most anxious to oblige. But M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr was absent from those eager ranks. This seemed to him odd. La
+Tour d'Azyr was Chabrillane's cousin and closest friend. Surely he
+should have been among the first to-day. The fact was that La Tour
+d'Azyr was too deeply overcome by amazement and grief at the utterly
+unexpected event. Also his vindictiveness was held curiously in leash.
+Perhaps he, too, remembered the part played by Chabrillane in the affair
+at Gavrillac, and saw in this obscure Andre-Louis Moreau, who had
+so persistently persecuted him ever since, an ordained avenger. The
+repugnance he felt to come to the point, with him, particularly after
+this culminating provocation, was puzzling even to himself. But it
+existed, and it curbed him now.
+
+To Andre-Louis, since La Tour was not one of that waiting pack, it
+mattered little on that Tuesday morning who should be the next. The
+next, as it happened, was the young Vicomte de La Motte-Royau, one of
+the deadliest blades in the group.
+
+On the Wednesday morning, coming again an hour or so late to the
+Assembly, Andre-Louis announced--in much the same terms as he had
+announced the death of Chabrillane--that M. de La Motte-Royau would
+probably not disturb the harmony of the Assembly for some weeks to come,
+assuming that he were so fortunate as to recover ultimately from the
+effects of an unpleasant accident with which he had quite unexpectedly
+had the misfortune to meet that morning.
+
+On Thursday he made an identical announcement with regard to the Vidame
+de Blavon. On Friday he told them that he had been delayed by M. de
+Troiscantins, and then turning to the members of the Cote Droit, and
+lengthening his face to a sympathetic gravity:
+
+"I am glad to inform you, messieurs, that M. des Troiscantins is in the
+hands of a very competent surgeon who hopes with care to restore him to
+your councils in a few weeks' time."
+
+It was paralyzing, fantastic, unreal; and friend and foe in that
+assembly sat alike stupefied under those bland daily announcements. Four
+of the most redoubtable spadassinicides put away for a time, one of
+them dead--and all this performed with such an air of indifference and
+announced in such casual terms by a wretched little provincial lawyer!
+
+He began to assume in their eyes a romantic aspect. Even that group of
+philosophers of the Cote Gauche, who refused to worship any force
+but the force of reason, began to look upon him with a respect and
+consideration which no oratorical triumphs could ever have procured him.
+
+And from the Assembly the fame of him oozed out gradually over Paris.
+Desmoulins wrote a panegyric upon him in his paper "Les Revolutions,"
+wherein he dubbed him the "Paladin of the Third Estate," a name
+that caught the fancy of the people, and clung to him for some time.
+Disdainfully was he mentioned in the "Actes des Apotres," the mocking
+organ of the Privileged party, so light-heartedly and provocatively
+edited by a group of gentlemen afflicted by a singular mental myopy.
+
+The Friday of that very busy week in the life of this young man who even
+thereafter is to persist in reminding us that he is not in any sense a
+man of action, found the vestibule of the Manege empty of swordsmen
+when he made his leisurely and expectant egress between Le Chapelier and
+Kersain.
+
+So surprised was he that he checked in his stride.
+
+"Have they had enough?" he wondered, addressing the question to Le
+Chapelier.
+
+"They have had enough of you, I should think," was the answer. "They
+will prefer to turn their attention to some one less able to take care
+of himself."
+
+Now this was disappointing. Andre-Louis had lent himself to this
+business with a very definite object in view. The slaying of Chabrillane
+had, as far as it went, been satisfactory. He had regarded that as a
+sort of acceptable hors d'oeuvre. But the three who had followed were
+no affair of his at all. He had met them with a certain amount of
+repugnance, and dealt with each as lightly as consideration of his own
+safety permitted. Was the baiting of him now to cease whilst the man
+at whom he aimed had not presented himself? In that case it would be
+necessary to force the pace!
+
+Out there under the awning a group of gentlemen stood in earnest talk.
+Scanning the group in a rapid glance, Andre-Louis perceived M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr amongst them. He tightened his lips. He must afford no
+provocation. It must be for them to fasten their quarrels upon him.
+Already the "Actes des Apotres" that morning had torn the mask from
+his face, and proclaimed him the fencing-master of the Rue du Hasard,
+successor to Bertrand des Amis. Hazardous as it had been hitherto for a
+man of his condition to engage in single combat it was rendered doubly
+so by this exposure, offered to the public as an aristocratic apologia.
+
+Still, matters could not be left where they were, or he should have had
+all his pains for nothing. Carefully looking away from that group of
+gentlemen, he raised his voice so that his words must carry to their
+ears.
+
+"It begins to look as if my fears of having to spend the remainder of my
+days in the Bois were idle."
+
+Out of the corner of his eye he caught the stir his words created in
+that group. Its members had turned to look at him; but for the moment
+that was all. A little more was necessary. Pacing slowly along between
+his friends he resumed:
+
+"But is it not remarkable that the assassin of Lagron should make
+no move against Lagron's successor? Or perhaps it is not remarkable.
+Perhaps there are good reasons. Perhaps the gentleman is prudent."
+
+He had passed the group by now, and he left that last sentence of his to
+trail behind him, and after it sent laughter, insolent and provoking.
+
+He had not long to wait. Came a quick step behind him, and a hand
+falling upon his shoulder, spun him violently round. He was brought face
+to face with M. de La Tour d'Azyr, whose handsome countenance was calm
+and composed, but whose eyes reflected something of the sudden blaze of
+passion stirring in him. Behind him several members of the group
+were approaching more slowly. The others--like Andre-Louis' two
+companions--remained at gaze.
+
+"You spoke of me, I think," said the Marquis quietly.
+
+"I spoke of an assassin--yes. But to these my friends." Andre-Louis'
+manner was no less quiet, indeed the quieter of the two, for he was the
+more experienced actor.
+
+"You spoke loudly enough to be overheard," said the Marquis, answering
+the insinuation that he had been eavesdropping.
+
+"Those who wish to overhear frequently contrive to do so."
+
+"I perceive that it is your aim to be offensive."
+
+"Oh, but you are mistaken, M. le Marquis. I have no wish to be
+offensive. But I resent having hands violently laid upon me, especially
+when they are hands that I cannot consider clean, In the circumstances I
+can hardly be expected to be polite."
+
+The elder man's eyelids flickered. Almost he caught himself admiring
+Andre-Louis' bearing. Rather, he feared that his own must suffer by
+comparison. Because of this, he enraged altogether, and lost control of
+himself.
+
+"You spoke of me as the assassin of Lagron. I do not affect to
+misunderstand you. You expounded your views to me once before, and I
+remember."
+
+"But what flattery, monsieur!"
+
+"You called me an assassin then, because I used my skill to dispose of a
+turbulent hot-head who made the world unsafe for me. But how much better
+are you, M. the fencing-master, when you oppose yourself to men whose
+skill is as naturally inferior to your own!"
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr's friends looked grave, perturbed. It was really
+incredible to find this great gentleman so far forgetting himself as to
+descend to argument with a canaille of a lawyer-swordsman. And what was
+worse, it was an argument in which he was being made ridiculous.
+
+"I oppose myself to them!" said Andre-Louis on a tone of amused protest.
+"Ah, pardon, M. le Marquis; it is they who chose to oppose themselves
+to me--and so stupidly. They push me, they slap my face, they tread on my
+toes, they call me by unpleasant names. What if I am a fencing-master?
+Must I on that account submit to every manner of ill-treatment from
+your bad-mannered friends? Perhaps had they found out sooner that I am a
+fencing-master their manners would have been better. But to blame me for
+that! What injustice!"
+
+"Comedian!" the Marquis contemptuously apostrophized him. "Does it alter
+the case? Are these men who have opposed you men who live by the sword
+like yourself?"
+
+"On the contrary, M. le Marquis, I have found them men who died by the
+sword with astonishing ease. I cannot suppose that you desire to add
+yourself to their number."
+
+"And why, if you please?" La Tour d'Azyr's face had flamed scarlet
+before that sneer.
+
+"Oh," Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, a man
+considering. He delivered himself slowly. "Because, monsieur, you prefer
+the easy victim--the Lagrons and Vilmorins of this world, mere sheep for
+your butchering. That is why."
+
+And then the Marquis struck him.
+
+Andre-Louis stepped back. His eyes gleamed a moment; the next they were
+smiling up into the face of his tall enemy.
+
+"No better than the others, after all! Well, well! Remark, I beg you,
+how history repeats itself--with certain differences. Because poor
+Vilmorin could not bear a vile lie with which you goaded him, he struck
+you. Because you cannot bear an equally vile truth which I have uttered,
+you strike me. But always is the vileness yours. And now as then for the
+striker there is..." He broke off. "But why name it? You will remember
+what there is. Yourself you wrote it that day with the point of your
+too-ready sword. But there. I will meet you if you desire it, monsieur."
+
+"What else do you suppose that I desire? To talk?"
+
+Andre-Louis turned to his friends and sighed. "So that I am to go
+another jaunt to the Bois. Isaac, perhaps you will kindly have a word
+with one of these friends of M. le Marquis', and arrange for nine
+o'clock to-morrow, as usual."
+
+"Not to-morrow," said the Marquis shortly to Le Chapeher. "I have an
+engagement in the country, which I cannot postpone."
+
+Le Chapelier looked at Andre-Louis.
+
+"Then for M. le Marquis' convenience, we will say Sunday at the same
+hour."
+
+"I do not fight on Sunday. I am not a pagan to break the holy day."
+
+"But surely the good God would not have the presumption to damn a
+gentleman of M. le Marquis' quality on that account? Ah, well, Isaac,
+please arrange for Monday, if it is not a feast-day or monsieur has not
+some other pressing engagement. I leave it in your hands."
+
+He bowed with the air of a man wearied by these details, and threading
+his arm through Kersain's withdrew.
+
+"Ah, Dieu de Dieu! But what a trick of it you have," said the Breton
+deputy, entirely unsophisticated in these matters.
+
+"To be sure I have. I have taken lessons at their hands." He laughed. He
+was in excellent good-humour. And Kersain was enrolled in the ranks of
+those who accounted Andre-Louis a man without heart or conscience.
+
+But in his "Confessions" he tells us--and this is one of the glimpses
+that reveal the true man under all that make-believe--that on that night
+he went down on his knees to commune with his dead friend Philippe, and
+to call his spirit to witness that he was about to take the last step
+in the fulfilment of the oath sworn upon his body at Gavrillac two years
+ago.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. TORN PRIDE
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr's engagement in the country on that Sunday was with
+M. de Kercadiou. To fulfil it he drove out early in the day to Meudon,
+taking with him in his pocket a copy of the last issue of "Les Actes des
+Apotres," a journal whose merry sallies at the expense of the innovators
+greatly diverted the Seigneur de Gavrillac. The venomous scorn it
+poured upon those worthless rapscallions afforded him a certain solatium
+against the discomforts of expatriation by which he was afflicted as a
+result of their detestable energies.
+
+Twice in the last month, had M. de La Tour d'Azyr gone to visit the Lord
+of Gavrillac at Meudon, and the sight of Aline, so sweet and fresh,
+so bright and of so lively a mind, had caused those embers smouldering
+under the ashes of the past, embers which until now he had believed
+utterly extinct, to kindle into flame once more. He desired her as we
+desire Heaven. I believe that it was the purest passion of his life;
+that had it come to him earlier he might have been a vastly different
+man. The cruelest wound that in all his selfish life he had taken was
+when she sent him word, quite definitely after the affair at the Feydau,
+that she could not again in any circumstances receive him. At one
+blow--through that disgraceful riot--he had been robbed of a mistress he
+prized and of a wife who had become a necessity to the very soul of him.
+The sordid love of La Binet might have consoled him for the compulsory
+renunciation of his exalted love of Aline, just as to his exalted love
+of Aline he had been ready to sacrifice his attachment to La Binet. But
+that ill-timed riot had robbed him at once of both. Faithful to his word
+to Sautron he had definitely broken with La Binet, only to find that
+Aline had definitely broken with him. And by the time that he had
+sufficiently recovered from his grief to think again of La Binet, the
+comedienne had vanished beyond discovery.
+
+For all this he blamed, and most bitterly blamed, Andre-Louis. That
+low-born provincial lout pursued him like a Nemesis, was become indeed
+the evil genius of his life. That was it--the evil genius of his life!
+And it was odds that on Monday... He did not like to think of Monday.
+He was not particularly afraid of death. He was as brave as his kind in
+that respect, too brave in the ordinary way, and too confident of his
+skill, to have considered even remotely such a possibility as that
+of dying in a duel. It was only that it would seem like a proper
+consummation of all the evil that he had suffered directly or indirectly
+through this Andre-Louis Moreau that he should perish ignobly by his
+hand. Almost he could hear that insolent, pleasant voice making the
+flippant announcement to the Assembly on Monday morning.
+
+He shook off the mood, angry with himself for entertaining it. It was
+maudlin. After all Chabrillane and La Motte-Royau were quite exceptional
+swordsmen, but neither of them really approached his own formidable
+calibre. Reaction began to flow, as he drove out through country
+lanes flooded with pleasant September sunshine. His spirits rose. A
+premonition of victory stirred within him. Far from fearing Monday's
+meeting, as he had so unreasonably been doing, he began to look forward
+to it. It should afford him the means of setting a definite term to
+this persecution of which he had been the victim. He would crush
+this insolent and persistent flea that had been stinging him at every
+opportunity. Borne upward on that wave of optimism, he took presently a
+more hopeful view of his case with Aline.
+
+At their first meeting a month ago he had used the utmost frankness with
+her. He had told her the whole truth of his motives in going that night
+to the Feydau; he had made her realize that she had acted unjustly
+towards him. True he had gone no farther.
+
+But that was very far to have gone as a beginning. And in their
+last meeting, now a fortnight old, she had received him with frank
+friendliness. True, she had been a little aloof. But that was to be
+expected until he quite explicitly avowed that he had revived the hope
+of winning her. He had been a fool not to have returned before to-day.
+
+Thus in that mood of new-born confidence--a confidence risen from the
+very ashes of despondency--came he on that Sunday morning to Meudon. He
+was gay and jovial with M. de Kercadiou what time he waited in the salon
+for mademoiselle to show herself. He pronounced with confidence on
+the country's future. There were signs already--he wore the rosiest
+spectacles that morning--of a change of opinion, of a more moderate note.
+The Nation began to perceive whither this lawyer rabble was leading it.
+He pulled out "The Acts of the Apostles" and read a stinging paragraph.
+Then, when mademoiselle at last made her appearance, he resigned the
+journal into the hands of M. de Kercadiou.
+
+M. de Kercadiou, with his niece's future to consider, went to read the
+paper in the garden, taking up there a position whence he could keep the
+couple within sight--as his obligations seemed to demand of him--whilst
+being discreetly out of earshot.
+
+The Marquis made the most of an opportunity that might be brief. He
+quite frankly declared himself, and begged, implored to be taken back
+into Aline's good graces, to be admitted at least to the hope that one
+day before very long she would bring herself to consider him in a nearer
+relationship.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he told her, his voice vibrating with a feeling that
+admitted of no doubt, "you cannot lack conviction of my utter sincerity.
+The very constancy of my devotion should afford you this. It is just
+that I should have been banished from you, since I showed myself so
+utterly unworthy of the great honour to which I aspired. But this
+banishment has nowise diminished my devotion. If you could conceive what
+I have suffered, you would agree that I have fully expiated my abject
+fault."
+
+She looked at him with a curious, gentle wistfulness on her lovely face.
+
+"Monsieur, it is not you whom I doubt. It is myself."
+
+"You mean your feelings towards me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But that I can understand. After what has happened..."
+
+"It was always so, monsieur," she interrupted quietly. "You speak of me
+as if lost to you by your own action. That is to say too much. Let me be
+frank with you. Monsieur, I was never yours to lose. I am conscious of
+the honour that you do me. I esteem you very deeply..."
+
+"But, then," he cried, on a high note of confidence, "from such a
+beginning..."
+
+"Who shall assure me that it is a beginning? May it not be the whole?
+Had I held you in affection, monsieur, I should have sent for you
+after the affair of which you have spoken. I should at least not have
+condemned you without hearing your explanation. As it was..." She
+shrugged, smiling gently, sadly. "You see..."
+
+But his optimism far from being crushed was stimulated. "But it is to
+give me hope, mademoiselle. If already I possess so much, I may look
+with confidence to win more. I shall prove myself worthy. I swear to
+do that. Who that is permitted the privilege of being near you could do
+other than seek to render himself worthy?"
+
+And then before she could add a word, M. de Kercadiou came blustering
+through the window, his spectacles on his forehead, his face inflamed,
+waving in his hand "The Acts of the Apostles," and apparently reduced to
+speechlessness.
+
+Had the Marquis expressed himself aloud he would have been profane. As
+it was he bit his lip in vexation at this most inopportune interruption.
+
+Aline sprang up, alarmed by her uncle's agitation.
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+"Happened?" He found speech at last. "The scoundrel! The faithless dog!
+I consented to overlook the past on the clear condition that he should
+avoid revolutionary politics in future. That condition he accepted, and
+now"--he smacked the news-sheet furiously--"he has played me false again.
+Not only has he gone into politics, once more, but he is actually
+a member of the Assembly, and what is worse he has been using
+his assassin's skill as a fencing-master, turning himself into a
+bully-swordsman. My God! Is there any law at all left in France?"
+
+One doubt M. de La Tour d'Azyr had entertained, though only faintly, to
+mar the perfect serenity of his growing optimism. That doubt concerned
+this man Moreau and his relations with M. de Kercadiou. He knew what
+once they had been, and how changed they subsequently were by the
+ingratitude of Moreau's own behavior in turning against the class
+to which his benefactor belonged. What he did not know was that a
+reconciliation had been effected. For in the past month--ever since
+circumstances had driven Andre-Louis to depart from his undertaking
+to steer clear of politics--the young man had not ventured to approach
+Meudon, and as it happened his name had not been mentioned in La Tour
+d'Azyr's hearing on the occasion of either of his own previous visits.
+He learnt of that reconciliation now; but he learnt at the same time
+that the breach was now renewed, and rendered wider and more impassable
+than ever. Therefore he did not hesitate to avow his own position.
+
+"There is a law," he answered. "The law that this rash young man himself
+evokes. The law of the sword." He spoke very gravely, almost sadly.
+For he realized that after all the ground was tender. "You are not to
+suppose that he is to continue indefinitely his career of evil and
+of murder. Sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the
+others. You have observed that my cousin Chabrillane is among the number
+of this assassin's victims; that he was killed on Tuesday last."
+
+"If I have not expressed my condolence, Azyr, it is because my
+indignation stifles at the moment every other feeling. The scoundrel!
+You say that sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the
+others. I pray that it may be soon."
+
+The Marquis answered him quietly, without anything but sorrow in his
+voice. "I think your prayer is likely to be heard. This wretched young
+man has an engagement for to-morrow, when his account may be definitely
+settled."
+
+He spoke with such calm conviction that his words had all the sound of
+a sentence of death. They suddenly stemmed the flow of M. de Kercadiou's
+anger. The colour receded from his inflamed face; dread looked out of
+his pale eyes, to inform M. de La Tour d'Azyr, more clearly than any
+words, that M. de Kercadiou's hot speech had been the expression of
+unreflecting anger, that his prayer that retribution might soon overtake
+his godson had been unconsciously insincere. Confronted now by the fact
+that this retribution was about to be visited upon that scoundrel, the
+fundamental gentleness and kindliness of his nature asserted itself; his
+anger was suddenly whelmed in apprehension; his affection for the lad
+beat up to the surface, making Andre-Louis' sin, however hideous, a
+thing of no account by comparison with the threatened punishment.
+
+M. de Kercadiou moistened his lips.
+
+"With whom is this engagement?" he asked in a voice that by an effort he
+contrived to render steady.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowed his handsome head, his eyes upon the gleaming
+parquetry of the floor. "With myself," he answered quietly, conscious
+already with a tightening of the heart that his answer must sow dismay.
+He caught the sound of a faint outcry from Aline; he saw the sudden
+recoil of M. de Kercadiou. And then he plunged headlong into the
+explanation that he deemed necessary.
+
+"In view of his relations with you, M. de Kercadiou, and because of my
+deep regard for you, I did my best to avoid this, even though as you
+will understand the death of my dear friend and cousin Chabrillane
+seemed to summon me to action, even though I knew that my circumspection
+was becoming matter for criticism among my friends. But yesterday this
+unbridled young man made further restraint impossible to me. He provoked
+me deliberately and publicly. He put upon me the very grossest affront,
+and... to-morrow morning in the Bois... we meet."
+
+He faltered a little at the end, fully conscious of the hostile
+atmosphere in which he suddenly found himself. Hostility from M. de
+Kercadiou, the latter's earlier change of manner had already led him
+to expect; the hostility of mademoiselle came more in the nature of a
+surprise.
+
+He began to understand what difficulties the course to which he was
+committed must raise up for him. A fresh obstacle was to be flung across
+the path which he had just cleared, as he imagined. Yet his pride and
+his sense of the justice due to be done admitted of no weakening.
+
+In bitterness he realized now, as he looked from uncle to niece--his
+glance, usually so direct and bold, now oddly furtive--that though
+to-morrow he might kill Andre-Louis, yet even by his death Andre-Louis
+would take vengeance upon him. He had exaggerated nothing in reaching
+the conclusion that this Andre-Louis Moreau was the evil genius of his
+life. He saw now that do what he would, kill him even though he
+might, he could never conquer him. The last word would always be with
+Andre-Louis Moreau. In bitterness, in rage, and in humiliation--a thing
+almost unknown to him--did he realize it, and the realization steeled his
+purpose for all that he perceived its futility.
+
+Outwardly he showed himself calm and self-contained, properly suggesting
+a man regretfully accepting the inevitable. It would have been as
+impossible to find fault with his bearing as to attempt to turn him from
+the matter to which he was committed. And so M. de Kercadiou perceived.
+
+"My God!" was all that he said, scarcely above his breath, yet almost in
+a groan.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr did, as always, the thing that sensibility demanded
+of him. He took his leave. He understood that to linger where his
+news had produced such an effect would be impossible, indecent. So he
+departed, in a bitterness comparable only with his erstwhile optimism,
+the sweet fruit of hope turned to a thing of gall even as it touched
+his lips. Oh, yes; the last word, indeed, was with Andre-Louis
+Moreau--always!
+
+Uncle and niece looked at each other as he passed out, and there was
+horror in the eyes of both. Aline's pallor was deathly almost, and
+standing there now she wrung her hands as if in pain.
+
+"Why did you not ask him--beg him..." She broke off.
+
+"To what end? He was in the right, and... and there are things one
+cannot ask; things it would be a useless humiliation to ask." He sat
+down, groaning. "Oh, the poor boy--the poor, misguided boy."
+
+In the mind of neither, you see, was there any doubt of what must be the
+issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled
+itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of
+what a force as a swordsman he was generally accounted.
+
+"What does humiliation matter? A life is at issue--Andre's life."
+
+"I know. My God, don't I know? And I would humiliate myself if by
+humiliating myself I could hope to prevail. But Azyr is a hard,
+relentless man, and..."
+
+Abruptly she left him.
+
+She overtook the Marquis as he was in the act of stepping his carriage.
+He turned as she called, and bowed.
+
+"Mademoiselle?"
+
+At once he guessed her errand, tasted in anticipation the unparalleled
+bitterness of being compelled to refuse her. Yet at her invitation he
+stepped back into the cool of the hall.
+
+In the middle of the floor of chequered marbles, black and white, stood
+a carved table of black oak. By this he halted, leaning lightly against
+it whilst she sat enthroned in the great crimson chair beside it.
+
+"Monsieur, I cannot allow you so to depart," she said. "You cannot
+realize, monsieur, what a blow would be dealt my uncle if... if evil,
+irrevocable evil were to overtake his godson to-morrow. The expressions
+that he used at first..."
+
+"Mademoiselle, I perceived their true value. Spare yourself. Believe me
+I am profoundly desolated by circumstances which I had not expected to
+find. You must believe me when I say that. It is all that I can say."
+
+"Must it really be all? Andre is very dear to his godfather."
+
+The pleading tone cut him like a knife; and then suddenly it aroused
+another emotion--an emotion which he realized to be utterly unworthy,
+an emotion which, in his overwhelming pride of race, seemed almost
+sullying, yet not to be repressed. He hesitated to give it utterance;
+hesitated even remotely to suggest so horrible a thing as that in a man
+of such lowly origin he might conceivably discover a rival. Yet that
+sudden pang of jealousy was stronger than his monstrous pride.
+
+"And to you, mademoiselle? What is this Andre-Louis Moreau to you? You
+will pardon the question. But I desire clearly to understand."
+
+Watching her he beheld the scarlet stain that overspread her face.
+He read in it at first confusion, until the gleam of her blue eyes
+announced its source to lie in anger. That comforted him; since he had
+affronted her, he was reassured. It did not occur to him that the anger
+might have another source.
+
+"Andre and I have been playmates from infancy. He is very dear to me,
+too; almost I regard him as a brother. Were I in need of help, and were
+my uncle not available, Andre would be the first man to whom I should
+turn. Are you sufficiently answered, monsieur? Or is there more of me
+you would desire revealed?"
+
+He bit his lip. He was unnerved, he thought, this morning; otherwise the
+silly suspicion with which he had offended could never have occurred to
+him.
+
+He bowed very low. "Mademoiselle, forgive that I should have troubled
+you with such a question. You have answered more fully than I could have
+hoped or wished."
+
+He said no more than that. He waited for her to resume. At a loss, she
+sat in silence awhile, a pucker on her white brow, her fingers nervously
+drumming on the table. At last she flung herself headlong against the
+impassive, polished front that he presented.
+
+"I have come, monsieur, to beg you to put off this meeting."
+
+She saw the faint raising of his dark eyebrows, the faintly regretful
+smile that scarcely did more than tinge his fine lips, and she hurried
+on. "What honour can await you in such an engagement, monsieur?"
+
+It was a shrewd thrust at the pride of race that she accounted his
+paramount sentiment, that had as often lured him into error as it had
+urged him into good.
+
+"I do not seek honour in it, mademoiselle, but--I must say it--justice.
+The engagement, as I have explained, is not of my seeking. It has been
+thrust upon me, and in honour I cannot draw back."
+
+"Why, what dishonour would there be in sparing him? Surely, monsieur,
+none would call your courage in question? None could misapprehend your
+motives."
+
+"You are mistaken, mademoiselle. My motives would most certainly be
+misapprehended. You forget that this young man has acquired in the past
+week a certain reputation that might well make a man hesitate to meet
+him."
+
+She brushed that aside almost contemptuously, conceiving it the merest
+quibble.
+
+"Some men, yes. But not you, M. le Marquis."
+
+Her confidence in him on every count was most sweetly flattering. But
+there was a bitterness behind the sweet.
+
+"Even I, mademoiselle, let me assure you. And there is more than that.
+This quarrel which M. Moreau has forced upon me is no new thing. It is
+merely the culmination of a long-drawn persecution..."
+
+"Which you invited," she cut in. "Be just, monsieur."
+
+"I hope that it is not in my nature to be otherwise, mademoiselle."
+
+"Consider, then, that you killed his friend."
+
+"I find in that nothing with which to reproach myself. My justification
+lay in the circumstances--the subsequent events in this distracted
+country surely confirm it."
+
+"And..." She faltered a little, and looked away from him for the first
+time. "And that you... that you... And what of Mademoiselle Binet, whom
+he was to have married?"
+
+He stared at her for a moment in sheer surprise. "Was to have married?"
+he repeated incredulously, dismayed almost.
+
+"You did not know that?"
+
+"But how do you?"
+
+"Did I not tell you that we are as brother and sister almost? I have his
+confidence. He told me, before... before you made it impossible."
+
+He looked away, chin in hand, his glance thoughtful, disturbed, almost
+wistful.
+
+"There is," he said slowly, musingly, "a singular fatality at work
+between that man and me, bringing us ever each by turns athwart the
+other's path..."
+
+He sighed; then swung to face her again, speaking more briskly:
+"Mademoiselle, until this moment I had no knowledge--no suspicion of
+this thing. But..." He broke off, considered, and then shrugged. "If
+I wronged him, I did so unconsciously. It would be unjust to blame me,
+surely. In all our actions it must be the intention alone that counts."
+
+"But does it make no difference?"
+
+"None that I can discern, mademoiselle. It gives me no justification
+to withdraw from that to which I am irrevocably committed. No
+justification, indeed, could ever be greater than my concern for the
+pain it must occasion my good friend, your uncle, and perhaps yourself,
+mademoiselle."
+
+She rose suddenly, squarely confronting him, desperate now, driven to
+play the only card upon which she thought she might count.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "you did me the honour to-day to speak in certain
+terms; to... to allude to certain hopes with which you honour me."
+
+He looked at her almost in fear. In silence, not daring to speak, he
+waited for her to continue.
+
+"I... I... Will you please to understand, monsieur, that if you persist
+in this matter, if... unless you can break this engagement of yours
+to-morrow morning in the Bois, you are not to presume to mention this
+subject to me again, or, indeed, ever again to approach me."
+
+To put the matter in this negative way was as far as she could possibly
+go. It was for him to make the positive proposal to which she had thus
+thrown wide the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle, you cannot mean..."
+
+"I do, monsieur... irrevocably, please to understand." He looked at her
+with eyes of misery, his handsome, manly face as pale as she had ever
+seen it. The hand he had been holding out in protest began to shake. He
+lowered it to his side again, lest she should perceive its tremor.
+Thus a brief second, while the battle was fought within him, the bitter
+engagement between his desires and what he conceived to be the demands
+of his honour, never perceiving how far his honour was buttressed by
+implacable vindictiveness. Retreat, he conceived, was impossible without
+shame; and shame was to him an agony unthinkable. She asked too much.
+She could not understand what she was asking, else she would never be
+so unreasonable, so unjust. But also he saw that it would be futile to
+attempt to make her understand.
+
+It was the end. Though he kill Andre-Louis Moreau in the morning as he
+fiercely hoped he would, yet the victory even in death must lie with
+Andre-Louis Moreau.
+
+He bowed profoundly, grave and sorrowful of face as he was grave and
+sorrowful of heart.
+
+"Mademoiselle, my homage," he murmured, and turned to go.
+
+"But you have not answered me!" she called after him in terror.
+
+He checked on the threshold, and turned; and there from the cool
+gloom of the hall she saw him a black, graceful silhouette against the
+brilliant sunshine beyond--a memory of him that was to cling as something
+sinister and menacing in the dread hours that were to follow.
+
+"What would you, mademoiselle? I but spared myself and you the pain of a
+refusal."
+
+He was gone leaving her crushed and raging. She sank down again into the
+great red chair, and sat there crumpled, her elbows on the table, her
+face in her hands--a face that was on fire with shame and passion. She
+had offered herself, and she had been refused! The inconceivable had
+befallen her. The humiliation of it seemed to her something that could
+never be effaced.
+
+Startled, appalled, she stepped back, her hand pressed to her tortured
+breast.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
+
+M. de Kercadiou wrote a letter.
+
+"Godson," he began, without any softening adjective, "I have learnt
+with pain and indignation that you have dishonoured yourself again by
+breaking the pledge you gave me to abstain from politics. With still
+greater pain and indignation do I learn that your name has become in a
+few short days a byword, that you have discarded the weapon of false,
+insidious arguments against my class--the class to which you owe
+everything--for the sword of the assassin. It has come to my knowledge
+that you have an assignation to-morrow with my good friend M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr. A gentleman of his station is under certain obligations imposed
+upon him by his birth, which do not permit him to draw back from an
+engagement. But you labour under no such disadvantages. For a man of
+your class to refuse an engagement of honour, or to neglect it when
+made, entails no sacrifice. Your peers will probably be of the opinion
+that you display a commendable prudence. Therefore I beg you, indeed,
+did I think that I still exercise over you any such authority as the
+favours you have received from me should entitle me to exercise, I would
+command you, to allow this matter to go no farther, and to refrain from
+rendering yourself to your assignation to-morrow morning. Having no such
+authority, as your past conduct now makes clear, having no reason to
+hope that a proper sentiment of gratitude to me will induce to give heed
+to this my most earnest request, I am compelled to add that should you
+survive to-morrow's encounter, I can in no circumstances ever again
+permit myself to be conscious of your existence. If any spark survives
+of the affection that once you expressed for me, or if you set any value
+upon the affection, which, in spite of all that you have done to forfeit
+it, is the chief prompter of this letter, you will not refuse to do as I
+am asking."
+
+It was not a tactful letter. M. de Kercadiou was not a tactful man. Read
+it as he would, Andre-Louis--when it was delivered to him on that Sunday
+afternoon by the groom dispatched with it into Paris--could read into it
+only concern for M. La Tour d'Azyr, M. de Kercadiou's good friend, as he
+called him, and prospective nephew-in-law.
+
+He kept the groom waiting a full hour while composing his answer.
+Brief though it was, it cost him very considerable effort and several
+unsuccessful attempts. In the end this is what he wrote:
+
+Monsieur my godfather--You make refusal singularly hard for me when you
+appeal to me upon the ground of affection. It is a thing of which all my
+life I shall hail the opportunity to give you proofs, and I am therefore
+desolated beyond anything I could hope to express that I cannot give you
+the proof you ask to-day. There is too much between M. de La Tour d'Azyr
+and me. Also you do me and my class--whatever it may be--less than justice
+when you say that obligations of honour are not binding upon us. So
+binding do I count them, that, if I would, I could not now draw back.
+
+If hereafter you should persist in the harsh intention you express, I
+must suffer it. That I shall suffer be assured.
+
+Your affectionate and grateful godson
+
+Andre-Louis
+
+He dispatched that letter by M. de Kercadiou's groom, and conceived this
+to be the end of the matter. It cut him keenly; but he bore the wound
+with that outward stoicism he affected.
+
+Next morning, at a quarter past eight, as with Le Chapelier--who had come
+to break his fast with him--he was rising from table to set out for
+the Bois, his housekeeper startled him by announcing Mademoiselle de
+Kercadiou.
+
+He looked at his watch. Although his cabriolet was already at the door,
+he had a few minutes to spare. He excused himself from Le Chapelier, and
+went briskly out to the anteroom.
+
+She advanced to meet him, her manner eager, almost feverish.
+
+"I will not affect ignorance of why you have come," he said quickly, to
+make short work. "But time presses, and I warn you that only the most
+solid of reasons can be worth stating."
+
+It surprised her. It amounted to a rebuff at the very outset, before she
+had uttered a word; and that was the last thing she had expected from
+Andre-Louis. Moreover, there was about him an air of aloofness that was
+unusual where she was concerned, and his voice had been singularly cold
+and formal.
+
+It wounded her. She was not to guess the conclusion to which he had
+leapt. He made with regard to her--as was but natural, after all--the
+same mistake that he had made with regard to yesterday's letter from his
+godfather. He conceived that the mainspring of action here was solely
+concern for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. That it might be concern for himself
+never entered his mind. So absolute was his own conviction of what must
+be the inevitable issue of that meeting that he could not conceive of
+any one entertaining a fear on his behalf.
+
+What he assumed to be anxiety on the score of the predestined victim
+had irritated him in M. de Kercadiou; in Aline it filled him with a cold
+anger; he argued from it that she had hardly been frank with him; that
+ambition was urging her to consider with favour the suit of M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr. And than this there was no spur that could have driven more
+relentlessly in his purpose, since to save her was in his eyes almost as
+momentous as to avenge the past.
+
+She conned him searchingly, and the complete calm of him at such a time
+amazed her. She could not repress the mention of it.
+
+"How calm you are, Andre!"
+
+"I am not easily disturbed. It is a vanity of mine."
+
+"But... Oh, Andre, this meeting must not take place!" She came close
+up to him, to set her hands upon his shoulders, and stood so, her face
+within a foot of his own.
+
+"You know, of course, of some good reason why it should not?" said he.
+
+"You may be killed," she answered him, and her eyes dilated as she
+spoke.
+
+It was so far from anything that he had expected that for a moment he
+could only stare at her. Then he thought he had understood. He laughed
+as he removed her hands from his shoulders, and stepped back. This was a
+shallow device, childish and unworthy in her.
+
+"Can you really think to prevail by attempting to frighten me?" he
+asked, and almost sneered.
+
+"Oh, you are surely mad! M. de La Tour d'Azyr is reputed the most
+dangerous sword in France."
+
+"Have you never noticed that most reputations are undeserved?
+Chabrillane was a dangerous swordsman, and Chabrillane is underground.
+La Motte-Royau was an even more dangerous swordsman, and he is in
+a surgeon's hands. So are the other spadassinicides who dreamt of
+skewering a poor sheep of a provincial lawyer. And here to-day comes
+the chief, the fine flower of these bully-swordsmen. He comes, for
+wages long overdue. Be sure of that. So if you have no other reason to
+urge..."
+
+It was the sarcasm of him that mystified her. Could he possibly be
+sincere in his assurance that he must prevail against M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr? To her in her limited knowledge, her mind filled with her
+uncle's contrary conviction, it seemed that Andre-Louis was only acting;
+he would act a part to the very end.
+
+Be that as it might, she shifted her ground to answer him.
+
+"You had my uncle's letter?"
+
+"And I answered it."
+
+"I know. But what he said, he will fulfil. Do not dream that he will
+relent if you carry out this horrible purpose."
+
+"Come, now, that is a better reason than the other," said he. "If there
+is a reason in the world that could move me it would be that. But there
+is too much between La Tour d'Azyr and me. There is an oath I swore on
+the dead hand of Philippe de Vilmorin. I could never have hoped that God
+would afford me so great an opportunity of keeping it."
+
+"You have not kept it yet," she warned him.
+
+He smiled at her. "True!" he said. "But nine o'clock will soon be here.
+Tell me," he asked her suddenly, "why did you not carry this request of
+yours to M. de La Tour d'Azyr?"
+
+"I did," she answered him, and flushed as she remembered her yesterday's
+rejection. He interpreted the flush quite otherwise.
+
+"And he?" he asked.
+
+"M. de La Tour d'Azyr's obligations..." she was beginning: then she
+broke off to answer shortly: "Oh, he refused."
+
+"So, so. He must, of course, whatever it may have cost him. Yet in his
+place I should have counted the cost as nothing. But men are different,
+you see." He sighed. "Also in your place, had that been so, I think I
+should have left the matter there. But then..."
+
+"I don't understand you, Andre."
+
+"I am not so very obscure. Not nearly so obscure as I can be. Turn it
+over in your mind. It may help to comfort you presently." He consulted
+his watch again. "Pray use this house as your own. I must be going."
+
+Le Chapelier put his head in at the door.
+
+"Forgive the intrusion. But we shall be late, Andre, unless you..."
+
+"Coming," Andre answered him. "If you will await my return, Aline, you
+will oblige me deeply. Particularly in view of your uncle's resolve."
+
+She did not answer him. She was numbed. He took her silence for assent,
+and, bowing, left her. Standing there she heard his steps going down the
+stairs together with Le Chapelier's. He was speaking to his friend, and
+his voice was calm and normal.
+
+Oh, he was mad--blinded by self-confidence and vanity. As his carriage
+rattled away, she sat down limply, with a sense of exhaustion and
+nausea. She was sick and faint with horror. Andre-Louis was going to his
+death. Conviction of it--an unreasoning conviction, the result, perhaps,
+of all M. de Kercadiou's rantings--entered her soul. Awhile she sat thus,
+paralyzed by hopelessness. Then she sprang up again, wringing her hands.
+She must do something to avert this horror. But what could she do? To
+follow him to the Bois and intervene there would be to make a scandal
+for no purpose. The conventions of conduct were all against her,
+offering a barrier that was not to be overstepped. Was there no one
+could help her?
+
+Standing there, half-frenzied by her helplessness, she caught again
+a sound of vehicles and hooves on the cobbles of the street below.
+A carriage was approaching. It drew up with a clatter before the
+fencing-academy. Could it be Andre-Louis returning? Passionately she
+snatched at that straw of hope. Knocking, loud and urgent, fell upon the
+door. She heard Andre-Louis' housekeeper, her wooden shoes clanking upon
+the stairs, hurrying down to open.
+
+She sped to the door of the anteroom, and pulling it wide stood
+breathlessly to listen. But the voice that floated up to her was not the
+voice she so desperately hoped to hear. It was a woman's voice asking in
+urgent tones for M. Andre-Louis--a voice at first vaguely familiar, then
+clearly recognized, the voice of Mme. de Plougastel.
+
+Excited, she ran to the head of the narrow staircase in time to hear
+Mme. de Plougastel exclaim in agitation:
+
+"He has gone already! Oh, but how long since? Which way did he take?"
+
+It was enough to inform Aline that Mme. de Plougastel's errand must be
+akin to her own. At the moment, in the general distress and confusion
+of her mind, her mental vision focussed entirely on the one vital
+point, she found in this no matter for astonishment. The singular regard
+conceived by Mme. de Plougastel for Andre-Louis seemed to her then a
+sufficient explanation.
+
+Without pausing to consider, she ran down that steep staircase, calling:
+
+"Madame! Madame!"
+
+The portly, comely housekeeper drew aside, and the two ladies faced each
+other on that threshold. Mme. de Plougastel looked white and haggard, a
+nameless dread staring from her eyes.
+
+"Aline! You here!" she exclaimed. And then in the urgency sweeping aside
+all minor considerations, "Were you also too late?" she asked.
+
+"No, madame. I saw him. I implored him. But he would not listen."
+
+"Oh, this is horrible!" Mme. de Plougastel shuddered as she spoke. "I
+heard of it only half an hour ago, and I came at once, to prevent it at
+all costs."
+
+The two women looked blankly, despairingly, at each other. In the
+sunshine-flooded street one or two shabby idlers were pausing to eye
+the handsome equipage with its magnificent bay horses, and the two great
+ladies on the doorstep of the fencing-academy. From across the way came
+the raucous voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the cry of
+his trade:
+
+"A raccommoder les vieux soufflets!"
+
+Madame swung to the housekeeper.
+
+"How long is it since monsieur left?"
+
+"Ten minutes, maybe; hardly more." Conceiving these great ladies to
+be friends of her invincible master's latest victim, the good woman
+preserved a decently stolid exterior.
+
+Madame wrung her hands. "Ten minutes! Oh!" It was almost a moan. "Which
+way did he go?"
+
+"The assignation is for nine o'clock in the Bois de Boulogne," Aline
+informed her. "Could we follow? Could we prevail if we did?"
+
+"Ah, my God! The question is should we come in time? At nine o'clock!
+And it wants but little more than a quarter of an hour. Mon Dieu! Mon
+Dieu!" Madame clasped and unclasped her hands in anguish. "Do you know,
+at least, where in the Bois they are to meet?"
+
+"No--only that it is in the Bois."
+
+"In the Bois!" Madame was flung into a frenzy. "The Bois is nearly half
+as large as Paris." But she swept breathlessly on, "Come, Aline: get in,
+get in!"
+
+Then to her coachman. "To the Bois de Boulogne by way of the Cours la
+Reine," she commanded, "as fast as you can drive. There are ten pistoles
+for you if we are in time. Whip up, man!"
+
+She thrust Aline into the carriage, and sprang after her with the
+energy of a girl. The heavy vehicle--too heavy by far for this race with
+time--was moving before she had taken her seat. Rocking and lurching
+it went, earning the maledictions of more than one pedestrian whom it
+narrowly avoided crushing against a wall or trampling underfoot.
+
+Madame sat back with closed eyes and trembling lips. Her face showed
+very white and drawn. Aline watched her in silence. Almost it seemed to
+her that Mme. de Plougastel was suffering as deeply as herself, enduring
+an anguish of apprehension as great as her own.
+
+Later Aline was to wonder at this. But at the moment all the thought of
+which her half-numbed mind was capable was bestowed upon their desperate
+errand.
+
+The carriage rolled across the Place Louis XV and out on to the Cours
+la Reine at last. Along that beautiful, tree-bordered avenue between the
+Champs Elysees and the Seine, almost empty at this hour of the day, they
+made better speed, leaving now a cloud of dust behind them.
+
+But fast to danger-point as was the speed, to the women in that carriage
+it was too slow. As they reached the barrier at the end of the Cours,
+nine o'clock was striking in the city behind them, and every stroke of
+it seemed to sound a note of doom.
+
+Yet here at the barrier the regulations compelled a momentary halt.
+Aline enquired of the sergeant-in-charge how long it was since a
+cabriolet such as she described had gone that way. She was answered that
+some twenty minutes ago a vehicle had passed the barrier containing the
+deputy M. le Chapelier and the Paladin of the Third Estate, M. Moreau.
+The sergeant was very well informed. He could make a shrewd guess, he
+said, with a grin, of the business that took M. Moreau that way so early
+in the day.
+
+They left him, to speed on now through the open country, following the
+road that continued to hug the river. They sat back mutely despairing,
+staring hopelessly ahead, Aline's hand clasped tight in madame's. In the
+distance, across the meadows on their right, they could see already the
+long, dusky line of trees of the Bois, and presently the carriage swung
+aside following a branch of the road that turned to the right, away from
+the river and heading straight for the forest.
+
+Mademoiselle broke at last the silence of hopelessness that had reigned
+between them since they had passed the barrier.
+
+"Oh, it is impossible that we should come in time! Impossible!"
+
+"Don't say it! Don't say it!" madame cried out.
+
+"But it is long past nine, madame! Andre would be punctual, and these...
+affairs do not take long. It... it will be all over by now."
+
+Madame shivered, and closed her eyes. Presently, however, she opened
+them again, and stirred. Then she put her head from the window. "A
+carriage is approaching," she announced, and her tone conveyed the thing
+she feared.
+
+"Not already! Oh, not already!" Thus Aline expressed the silently
+communicated thought. She experienced a difficulty in breathing, felt
+the sudden need of air. Something in her throat was throbbing as if it
+would suffocate her; a mist came and went before her eyes.
+
+In a cloud of dust an open caleche was speeding towards them, coming
+from the Bois. They watched it, both pale, neither venturing to speak,
+Aline, indeed, without breath to do so.
+
+As it approached, it slowed down, perforce, as they did, to effect a
+safe passage in that narrow road. Aline was at the window with Mme. de
+Plougastel, and with fearful eyes both looked into this open carriage
+that was drawing abreast of them.
+
+"Which of them is it, madame? Oh, which of them?" gasped Aline, scarce
+daring to look, her senses swimming.
+
+On the near side sat a swarthy young gentleman unknown to either of the
+ladies. He was smiling as he spoke to his companion. A moment later and
+the man sitting beyond came into view. He was not smiling. His face was
+white and set, and it was the face of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+For a long moment, in speechless horror, both women stared at him,
+until, perceiving them, blankest surprise invaded his stern face.
+
+In that moment, with a long shuddering sigh Aline sank swooning to the
+carriage floor behind Mme. de Plougastel.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. INFERENCES
+
+By fast driving Andre-Louis had reached the ground some minutes ahead
+of time, notwithstanding the slight delay in setting out. There he
+had found M. de La Tour d'Azyr already awaiting him, supported by a M.
+d'Ormesson, a swarthy young gentleman in the blue uniform of a captain
+in the Gardes du Corps.
+
+Andre-Louis had been silent and preoccupied throughout that drive. He
+was perturbed by his last interview with Mademoiselle de Kercadiou and
+the rash inferences which he had drawn as to her motives.
+
+"Decidedly," he had said, "this man must be killed."
+
+Le Chapelier had not answered him. Almost, indeed, had the Breton
+shuddered at his compatriot's cold-bloodedness. He had often of late
+thought that this fellow Moreau was hardly human. Also he had found him
+incomprehensibly inconsistent. When first this spadassinicide business
+had been proposed to him, he had been so very lofty and disdainful. Yet,
+having embraced it, he went about it at times with a ghoulish flippancy
+that was revolting, at times with a detachment that was more revolting
+still.
+
+Their preparations were made quickly and in silence, yet without undue
+haste or other sign of nervousness on either side. In both men the same
+grim determination prevailed. The opponent must be killed; there could
+be no half-measures here. Stripped each of coat and waistcoat, shoeless
+and with shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, they faced each other at
+last, with the common resolve of paying in full the long score that
+stood between them. I doubt if either of them entertained a misgiving as
+to what must be the issue.
+
+Beside them, and opposite each other, stood Le Chapelier and the young
+captain, alert and watchful.
+
+"Allez, messieurs!"
+
+The slender, wickedly delicate blades clashed together, and after a
+momentary glizade were whirling, swift and bright as lightnings, and
+almost as impossible to follow with the eye. The Marquis led the attack,
+impetuously and vigorously, and almost at once Andre-Louis realized that
+he had to deal with an opponent of a very different mettle from those
+successive duellists of last week, not excluding La Motte-Royau, of
+terrible reputation.
+
+Here was a man whom much and constant practice had given extraordinary
+speed and a technique that was almost perfect. In addition, he enjoyed
+over Andre-Louis physical advantages of strength and length of reach,
+which rendered him altogether formidable. And he was cool, too; cool and
+self-contained; fearless and purposeful. Would anything shake that calm,
+wondered Andre-Louis?
+
+He desired the punishment to be as full as he could make it. Not content
+to kill the Marquis as the Marquis had killed Philippe, he desired
+that he should first know himself as powerless to avert that death as
+Philippe had been. Nothing less would content Andre-Louis. M. le Marquis
+must begin by tasting of that cup of despair. It was in the account;
+part of the quittance due.
+
+As with a breaking sweep Andre-Louis parried the heavy lunge in which
+that first series of passes culminated, he actually laughed--gleefully,
+after the fashion of a boy at a sport he loves.
+
+That extraordinary, ill-timed laugh made M. de La Tour d'Azyr's recovery
+hastier and less correctly dignified than it would otherwise have been.
+It startled and discomposed him, who had already been discomposed by
+the failure to get home with a lunge so beautifully timed and so truly
+delivered.
+
+He, too, had realized that his opponent's force was above anything that
+he could have expected, fencing-master though he might be, and on that
+account he had put forth his utmost energy to make an end at once.
+
+More than the actual parry, the laugh by which it was accompanied seemed
+to make of that end no more than a beginning. And yet it was the end of
+something. It was the end of that absolute confidence that had hitherto
+inspired M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He no longer looked upon the issue as a
+thing forgone. He realized that if he was to prevail in this encounter,
+he must go warily and fence as he had never fenced yet in all his life.
+
+They settled down again; and again--on the principle this time that the
+soundest defence is in attack--it was the Marquis who made the game.
+Andre-Louis allowed him to do so, desired him to do so; desired him
+to spend himself and that magnificent speed of his against the greater
+speed that whole days of fencing in succession for nearly two years had
+given the master. With a beautiful, easy pressure of forte on foible
+Andre-Louis kept himself completely covered in that second bout, which
+once more culminated in a lunge.
+
+Expecting it now, Andre-Louis parried it by no more than a deflecting
+touch. At the same moment he stepped suddenly forward, right within the
+other's guard, thus placing his man so completely at his mercy that, as
+if fascinated, the Marquis did not even attempt to recover himself.
+
+This time Andre-Louis did not laugh: He just smiled into the dilating
+eyes of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and made no shift to use his advantage.
+
+"Come, come, monsieur!" he bade him sharply. "Am I to run my blade
+through an uncovered man?" Deliberately he fell back, whilst his shaken
+opponent recovered himself at last.
+
+M. d'Ormesson released the breath which horror had for a moment caught.
+Le Chapelier swore softly, muttering:
+
+"Name of a name! It is tempting Providence to play the fool in this
+fashion!"
+
+Andre-Louis observed the ashen pallor that now over spread the face of
+his opponent.
+
+"I think you begin to realize, monsieur, what Philippe de Vilmorin must
+have felt that day at Gavrillac. I desired that you should first do so.
+Since that is accomplished, why, here's to make an end."
+
+He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his point seemed to La
+Tour d'Azyr to be everywhere at once, and then from a low engagement
+in sixte, Andre-Louis stretched forward with swift and vigorous ease
+to lunge in tierce. He drove his point to transfix his opponent whom
+a series of calculated disengages uncovered in that line. But to his
+amazement and chagrin, La Tour d'Azyr parried the stroke; infinitely
+more to his chagrin La Tour d'Azyr parried it just too late. Had he
+completely parried it, all would yet have been well. But striking the
+blade in the last fraction of a second, the Marquis deflected the point
+from the line of his body, yet not so completely but that a couple
+of feet of that hard-driven steel tore through the muscles of his
+sword-arm.
+
+To the seconds none of these details had been visible. All that they
+had seen had been a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then Andre-Louis
+stretched almost to the ground in an upward lunge that had pierced the
+Marquis' right arm just below the shoulder.
+
+The sword fell from the suddenly relaxed grip of La Tour d'Azyr's
+fingers, which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed,
+his lip in his teeth, his face white, his chest heaving, before his
+opponent, who had at once recovered. With the blood-tinged tip of his
+sword resting on the ground, Andre-Louis surveyed him grimly, as we
+survey the prey that through our own clumsiness has escaped us at the
+last moment.
+
+In the Assembly and in the newspapers this might be hailed as another
+victory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know the
+extent and the bitternest of the failure.
+
+M. d'Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.
+
+"You are hurt!" he had cried stupidly.
+
+"It is nothing," said La Tour d'Azyr. "A scratch." But his lip writhed,
+and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.
+
+D'Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief,
+which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.
+
+Still Andre-Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused. He
+continued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm. Then at last he
+roused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor did
+he address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at
+once.
+
+As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejection
+towards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage,
+they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d'Azyr and his
+second--which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of the
+encounter. The Marquis' wounded arm was carried in a sling improvised
+from his companion's sword-belt. His sky-blue coat with three collars
+had been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty.
+Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his usual self.
+
+And now you understand how it was that he was the first to return,
+and that seeing him thus returning, apparently safe and sound, the two
+ladies, intent upon preventing the encounter, should have assumed that
+their worst fears were realized.
+
+Mme. de Plougastel attempted to call out, but her voice refused its
+office. She attempted to throw open the door of her own carriage; but
+her fingers fumbled clumsily and ineffectively with the handle. And
+meanwhile the caleche was slowly passing, La Tour d'Azyr's fine eyes
+sombrely yet intently meeting her own anguished gaze. And then she
+saw something else. M. d'Ormesson, leaning back again from the forward
+inclination of his body to join his own to his companion's salutation of
+the Countess, disclosed the empty right sleeve of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's
+blue coat. More, the near side of the coat itself turned back from the
+point near the throat where it was caught together by a single button,
+revealed the slung arm beneath in its blood-sodden cambric sleeve.
+
+Even now she feared to jump to the obvious conclusion--feared lest
+perhaps the Marquis, though himself wounded, might have dealt his
+adversary a deadlier wound.
+
+She found her voice at last, and at the same moment signalled to the
+driver of the caleche to stop.
+
+As it was pulled to a standstill, M. d'Ormesson alighted, and so met
+madame in the little space between the two carriages.
+
+"Where is M. Moreau?" was the question with which she surprised him.
+
+"Following at his leisure, no doubt, madame," he answered, recovering.
+
+"He is not hurt?"
+
+"Unfortunately it is we who..." M. d'Ormesson was beginning, when from
+behind him M. de La Tour d'Azyr's voice cut in crisply:
+
+"This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess..."
+
+He broke off, observing a vague challenge in the air with which she
+confronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing.
+
+There was a vaguely awkward pause. And then she looked at M. d'Ormesson.
+Her manner changed. She offered what appeared to be an explanation of
+her concern for M. Moreau.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Kercadiou is with me. The poor child has fainted."
+
+There was more, a deal more, she would have said just then, but for M.
+d'Ormesson's presence.
+
+Moved by a deep solicitude for Mademoiselle de Kertadiou, de La Tour
+d'Azyr sprang up despite his wound.
+
+"I am in poor case to render assistance, madame," he said, an apologetic
+smile on his pale face. "But..."
+
+With the aid of d'Ormesson, and in spite of the latter's protestations,
+he got down from the caleche, which then moved on a little way, so as to
+leave the road clear--for another carriage that was approaching from the
+direction of the Bois.
+
+And thus it happened that when a few moments later that approaching
+cabriolet overtook and passed the halted vehicles, Andre-Louis beheld a
+very touching scene. Standing up to obtain a better view, he saw Aline
+in a half-swooning condition--she was beginning to revive by now--seated
+in the doorway of the carriage, supported by Mme. de Plougastel. In
+an attitude of deepest concern, M. de La Tour d'Azyr, his wound
+notwithstanding, was bending over the girl, whilst behind him stood M.
+d'Ormesson and madame's footman.
+
+The Countess looked up and saw him as he was driven past. Her face
+lighted; almost it seemed to him she was about to greet him or to call
+him, wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of the presence there
+of his late antagonist, he anticipated her by bowing frigidly--for his
+mood was frigid, the more frigid by virtue of what he saw--and then
+resumed his seat with eyes that looked deliberately ahead.
+
+Could anything more completely have confirmed him in his conviction that
+it was on M. de La Tour d'Azyr's account that Aline had come to plead
+with him that morning? For what his eyes had seen, of course, was a lady
+overcome with emotion at the sight of blood of her dear friend, and that
+same dear friend restoring her with assurances that his hurt was very
+far from mortal. Later, much later, he was to blame his own perverse
+stupidity. Almost is he too severe in his self-condemnation. For how
+else could he have interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptions
+being what they were?
+
+That which he had already been suspecting, he now accounted proven to
+him. Aline had been wanting in candour on the subject of her feelings
+towards M. de La Tour d'Azyr. It was, he supposed, a woman's way to be
+secretive in such matters, and he must not blame her. Nor could he blame
+her in his heart for having succumbed to the singular charm of such a
+man as the Marquis--for not even his hostility could blind him to M. de
+La Tour d'Azyr's attractions. That she had succumbed was betrayed, he
+thought, by the weakness that had overtaken her upon seeing him wounded.
+
+"My God!" he cried aloud. "What must she have suffered, then, if I had
+killed him as I intended!"
+
+If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won his
+consent to the thing she asked. If only she had told him what now he
+saw, that she loved M. de La Tour d'Azyr, instead of leaving him to
+assume her only regard for the Marquis to be based on unworthy worldly
+ambition, he would at once have yielded.
+
+He fetched a sigh, and breathed a prayer for forgiveness to the shade of
+Vilmorin.
+
+"It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide," he said.
+
+"What do you mean?" wondered Le Chapelier.
+
+"That in this business I must relinquish all hope of recommencing."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE OVERWHELMING REASON
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr was seen no more in the Manege--or indeed in Paris
+at all--throughout all the months that the National Assembly remained in
+session to complete its work of providing France with a constitution.
+After all, though the wound to his body had been comparatively slight,
+the wound to such a pride as his had been all but mortal.
+
+The rumour ran that he had emigrated. But that was only half the truth.
+The whole of it was that he had joined that group of noble travellers
+who came and went between the Tuileries and the headquarters of the
+emigres at Coblenz. He became, in short, a member of the royalist secret
+service that in the end was to bring down the monarchy in ruins.
+
+As for Andre-Louis, his godfather's house saw him no more, as a result
+of his conviction that M. de Kercadiou would not relent from his written
+resolve never to receive him again if the duel were fought.
+
+He threw himself into his duties at the Assembly with such zeal and
+effect that when--its purpose accomplished--the Constituent was dissolved
+in September of the following year, membership of the Legislative, whose
+election followed immediately, was thrust upon him.
+
+He considered then, like many others, that the Revolution was a thing
+accomplished, that France had only to govern herself by the Constitution
+which had been given her, and that all would now be well. And so it
+might have been but that the Court could not bring itself to accept the
+altered state of things. As a result of its intrigues half Europe was
+arming to hurl herself upon France, and her quarrel was the quarrel of
+the French King with his people. That was the horror at the root of all
+the horrors that were to come.
+
+Of the counter-revolutionary troubles that were everywhere being stirred
+up by the clergy, none were more acute than those of Brittany, and,
+in view of the influence it was hoped he would wield in his native
+province, it was proposed to Andre-Louis by the Commission of Twelve,
+in the early days of the Girondin ministry, that he should go thither to
+combat the unrest. He was desired to proceed peacefully, but his powers
+were almost absolute, as is shown by the orders he carried--orders
+enjoining all to render him assistance and warning those who might
+hinder him that they would do so at their peril.
+
+He accepted the task, and he was one of the five plenipotentiaries
+despatched on the same errand in that spring of 1792. It kept him absent
+from Paris for four months and might have kept him longer but that at
+the beginning of August he was recalled. More imminent than any trouble
+in Brittany was the trouble brewing in Paris itself; when the political
+sky was blacker than it had been since '89. Paris realized that the hour
+was rapidly approaching which would see the climax of the long struggle
+between Equality and Privilege. And it was towards a city so disposed
+that Andre-Louis came speeding from the West, to find there also the
+climax of his own disturbed career.
+
+Mlle. de Kercadiou, too, was in Paris in those days of early August, on
+a visit to her uncle's cousin and dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel.
+And although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest
+that heralded the explosion to come, yet the air of gaiety, indeed of
+jocularity, prevailing at Court--whither madame and mademoiselle went
+almost daily--reassured them. M. de Plougastel had come and gone again,
+back to Coblenz on that secret business that kept him now almost
+constantly absent from his wife. But whilst with her he had positively
+assured her that all measures were taken, and that an insurrection was
+a thing to be welcomed, because it could have one only conclusion, the
+final crushing of the Revolution in the courtyard of the Tuileries.
+That, he added, was why the King remained in Paris. But for his
+confidence in that he would put himself in the centre of his Swiss and
+his knights of the dagger, and quit the capital. They would hack a way
+out for him easily if his departure were opposed. But not even that
+would be necessary.
+
+Yet in those early days of August, after her husband's departure the
+effect of his inspiring words was gradually dissipated by the march
+of events under madame's own eyes. And finally on the afternoon of the
+ninth, there arrived at the Hotel Plougastel a messenger from
+Meudon bearing a note from M. de Kercadiou in which he urgently
+bade mademoiselle join him there at once, and advised her hostess to
+accompany her.
+
+You may have realized that M. de Kercadiou was of those who make friends
+with men of all classes. His ancient lineage placed him on terms of
+equality with members of the noblesse; his simple manners--something
+between the rustic and the bourgeois--and his natural affability placed
+him on equally good terms with those who by birth were his inferiors.
+In Meudon he was known and esteemed of all the simple folk, and it was
+Rougane, the friendly mayor, who, informed on the 9th of August of the
+storm that was brewing for the morrow, and knowing of mademoiselle's
+absence in Paris, had warningly advised him to withdraw her from what in
+the next four-and-twenty hours might be a zone of danger for all persons
+of quality, particularly those suspected of connections with the Court
+party.
+
+Now there was no doubt whatever of Mme. de Plougastel's connection with
+the Court. It was not even to be doubted--indeed, measure of proof of
+it was to be forthcoming--that those vigilant and ubiquitous secret
+societies that watched over the cradle of the young revolution were
+fully informed of the frequent journeyings of M. de Plougastel to
+Coblenz, and entertained no illusions on the score of the reason for
+them. Given, then, a defeat of the Court party in the struggle that
+was preparing, the position in Paris of Mme. de Plougastel could not be
+other than fraught with danger, and that danger would be shared by any
+guest of birth at her hotel.
+
+M. de Kercadiou's affection for both those women quickened the fears
+aroused in him by Rougane's warning. Hence that hastily dispatched note,
+desiring his niece and imploring his friend to come at once to Meudon.
+
+The friendly mayor carried his complaisance a step farther, and
+dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an
+intelligent lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that
+perfect August day when young Rougane presented himself at the Hotel
+Plougastel.
+
+He was graciously received by Mme. de Plougastel in the salon, whose
+splendours, when combined with the great air of the lady herself,
+overwhelmed the lad's simple, unsophisticated soul. Madame made up her
+mind at once.
+
+M. de Kercadiou's urgent message no more than confirmed her own fears
+and inclinations. She decided upon instant departure.
+
+"Bien, madame," said the youth. "Then I have the honour to take my
+leave."
+
+But she would not let him go. First to the kitchen to refresh himself,
+whilst she and mademoiselle made ready, and then a seat for him in her
+carriage as far as Meudon. She could not suffer him to return on foot as
+he had come.
+
+Though in all the circumstances it was no more than his due, yet the
+kindliness that in such a moment of agitation could take thought for
+another was presently to be rewarded. Had she done less than this, she
+would have known--if nothing worse--at least some hours of anguish even
+greater than those that were already in store for her.
+
+It wanted, perhaps, a half-hour to sunset when they set out in her
+carriage with intent to leave Paris by the Porte Saint-Martin.
+They travelled with a single footman behind. Rougane--terrifying
+condescension--was given a seat inside the carriage with the ladies, and
+proceeded to fall in love with Mlle. de Kercadiou, whom he accounted the
+most beautiful being he had ever seen, yet who talked to him simply and
+unaffectedly as with an equal. The thing went to his head a little, and
+disturbed certain republican notions which he had hitherto conceived
+himself to have thoroughly digested.
+
+The carriage drew up at the barrier, checked there by a picket of the
+National Guard posted before the iron gates.
+
+The sergeant in command strode to the door of the vehicle. The Countess
+put her head from the window.
+
+"The barrier is closed, madame," she was curtly informed.
+
+"Closed!" she echoed. The thing was incredible. "But... but do you mean
+that we cannot pass?"
+
+"Not unless you have a permit, madame." The sergeant leaned nonchalantly
+on his pike. "The orders are that no one is to leave or enter without
+proper papers."
+
+"Whose orders?"
+
+"Orders of the Commune of Paris."
+
+"But I must go into the country this evening." Madame's voice was almost
+petulant. "I am expected."
+
+"In that case let madame procure a permit."
+
+"Where is it to be procured?"
+
+"At the Hotel de Ville or at the headquarters of madame's section."
+
+She considered a moment. "To the section, then. Be so good as to tell my
+coachman to drive to the Bondy Section."
+
+He saluted her and stepped back. "Section Bondy, Rue des Morts," he bade
+the driver.
+
+Madame sank into her seat again, in a state of agitation fully shared
+by mademoiselle. Rougane set himself to pacify and reassure them. The
+section would put the matter in order. They would most certainly be
+accorded a permit. What possible reason could there be for refusing
+them? A mere formality, after all!
+
+His assurance uplifted them merely to prepare them for a still more
+profound dejection when presently they met with a flat refusal from the
+president of the section who received the Countess.
+
+"Your name, madame?" he had asked brusquely. A rude fellow of the most
+advanced republican type, he had not even risen out of deference to
+the ladies when they entered. He was there, he would have told you, to
+perform the duties of his office, not to give dancing-lessons.
+
+"Plougastel," he repeated after her, without title, as if it had been
+the name of a butcher or baker. He took down a heavy volume from a shelf
+on his right, opened it and turned the pages. It was a sort of directory
+of his section. Presently he found what he sought. "Comte de Plougastel,
+Hotel Plougastel, Rue du Paradis. Is that it?"
+
+"That is correct, monsieur," she answered, with what civility she could
+muster before the fellow's affronting rudeness.
+
+There was a long moment of silence, during which he studied certain
+pencilled entries against the name. The sections had been working in the
+last few weeks much more systematically than was generally suspected.
+
+"Your husband is with you, madame?" he asked curtly, his eyes still
+conning that page.
+
+"M. le Comte is not with me," she answered, stressing the title.
+
+"Not with you?" He looked up suddenly, and directed upon her a glance in
+which suspicion seemed to blend with derision. "Where is he?"
+
+"He is not in Paris, monsieur.
+
+"Ah! Is he at Coblenz, do you think?"
+
+Madame felt herself turning cold. There was something ominous in all
+this. To what end had the sections informed themselves so thoroughly of
+the comings and goings of their inhabitants? What was preparing? She
+had a sense of being trapped, of being taken in a net that had been cast
+unseen.
+
+"I do not know, monsieur," she said, her voice unsteady.
+
+"Of course not." He seemed to sneer. "No matter. And you wish to leave
+Paris also? Where do you desire to go?"
+
+"To Meudon."
+
+"Your business there?"
+
+The blood leapt to her face. His insolence was unbearable to a woman who
+in all her life had never known anything but the utmost deference from
+inferiors and equals alike. Nevertheless, realizing that she was face
+to face with forces entirely new, she controlled herself, stifled her
+resentment, and answered steadily.
+
+"I wish to conduct this lady, Mlle. de Kercadiou, back to her uncle who
+resides there."
+
+"Is that all? Another day will do for that, madame. The matter is not
+pressing."
+
+"Pardon, monsieur, to us the matter is very pressing."
+
+"You have not convinced me of it, and the barriers are closed to all
+who cannot prove the most urgent and satisfactory reasons for wishing
+to pass. You will wait, madame, until the restriction is removed.
+Good-evening."
+
+"But, monsieur..."
+
+"Good-evening, madame," he repeated significantly, a dismissal more
+contemptuous and despotic than any royal "You have leave to go."
+
+Madame went out with Aline. Both were quivering with the anger that
+prudence had urged them to suppress. They climbed into the coach again,
+desiring to be driven home.
+
+Rougane's astonishment turned into dismay when they told him what had
+taken place. "Why not try the Hotel de Ville, madame?" he suggested.
+
+"After that? It would be useless. We must resign ourselves to remaining
+in Paris until the barriers are opened again."
+
+"Perhaps it will not matter to us either way by then, madame," said
+Aline.
+
+"Aline!" she exclaimed in horror.
+
+"Mademoiselle!" cried Rougane on the same note. And then, because he
+perceived that people detained in this fashion must be in some danger
+not yet discernible, but on that account more dreadful, he set his wits
+to work. As they were approaching the Hotel Plougastel once more, he
+announced that he had solved the problem.
+
+"A passport from without would do equally well," he announced. "Listen,
+now, and trust to me. I will go back to Meudon at once. My father
+shall give me two permits--one for myself alone, and another for three
+persons--from Meudon to Paris and back to Meudon. I reenter Paris with my
+own permit, which I then proceed to destroy, and we leave together,
+we three, on the strength of the other one, representing ourselves as
+having come from Meudon in the course of the day. It is quite simple,
+after all. If I go at once, I shall be back to-night."
+
+"But how will you leave?" asked Aline.
+
+"I? Pooh! As to that, have no anxiety. My father is Mayor of Meudon.
+There are plenty who know him. I will go to the Hotel de Ville, and tell
+them what is, after all, true--that I am caught in Paris by the closing
+of the barriers, and that my father is expecting me home this evening.
+They will pass me through. It is quite simple."
+
+His confidence uplifted them again. The thing seemed as easy as he
+represented it.
+
+"Then let your passport be for four, my friend," madame begged him.
+"There is Jacques," she explained, indicating the footman who had just
+assisted them to alight.
+
+Rougane departed confident of soon returning, leaving them to await him
+with the same confidence. But the hours succeeded one another, the night
+closed in, bedtime came, and still there was no sign of his return.
+
+They waited until midnight, each pretending for the other's sake to a
+confidence fully sustained, each invaded by vague premonitions of evil,
+yet beguiling the time by playing tric-trac in the great salon, as if
+they had not a single anxious thought between them.
+
+At last on the stroke of midnight, madame sighed and rose.
+
+"It will be for to-morrow morning," she said, not believing it.
+
+"Of course," Aline agreed. "It would really have been impossible for
+him to have returned to-night. And it will be much better to travel
+to-morrow. The journey at so late an hour would tire you so much, dear
+madame."
+
+Thus they made pretence.
+
+Early in the morning they were awakened by a din of bells--the tocsins
+of the sections ringing the alarm. To their startled ears came later the
+rolling of drums, and at one time they heard the sounds of a multitude
+on the march. Paris was rising. Later still came the rattle of
+small-arms in the distance and the deeper boom of cannon. Battle was
+joined between the men of the sections and the men of the Court. The
+people in arms had attacked the Tuileries. Wildest rumours flew in all
+directions, and some of them found their way through the servants to the
+Hotel Plougastel, of that terrible fight for the palace which was to end
+in the purposeless massacre of all those whom the invertebrate monarch
+abandoned there, whilst placing himself and his family under the
+protection of the Assembly. Purposeless to the end, ever adopting
+the course pointed out to him by evil counsellors, he prepared for
+resistance only until the need for resistance really arose, whereupon he
+ordered a surrender which left those who had stood by him to the last at
+the mercy of a frenzied mob.
+
+And while this was happening in the Tuileries, the two women at the
+Hotel Plougastel still waited for the return of Rougane, though now
+with ever-lessening hope. And Rougane did not return. The affair did
+not appear so simple to the father as to the son. Rougane the elder was
+rightly afraid to lend himself to such a piece of deception.
+
+He went with his son to inform M. de Kercadiou of what had happened, and
+told him frankly of the thing his son suggested, but which he dared not
+do.
+
+M. de Kercadiou sought to move him by intercessions and even by the
+offer of bribes. But Rougane remained firm.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "if it were discovered against me, as it inevitably
+would be, I should hang for it. Apart from that, and in spite of my
+anxiety to do all in my power to serve you, it would be a breach of
+trust such as I could not contemplate. You must not ask me, monsieur."
+
+"But what do you conceive is going to happen?" asked the half-demented
+gentleman.
+
+"It is war," said Rougane, who was well informed, as we have seen. "War
+between the people and the Court. I am desolated that my warning should
+have come too late. But, when all is said, I do not think that you need
+really alarm yourself. War will not be made on women." M. de Kercadiou
+clung for comfort to that assurance after the mayor and his son had
+departed. But at the back of his mind there remained the knowledge
+of the traffic in which M. de Plougastel was engaged. What if the
+revolutionaries were equally well informed? And most probably they were.
+The women-folk political offenders had been known aforetime to suffer
+for the sins of their men. Anything was possible in a popular upheaval,
+and Aline would be exposed jointly with Mme. de Plougastel.
+
+Late that night, as he sat gloomily in his brother's library, the pipe
+in which he had sought solace extinguished between his fingers, there
+came a sharp knocking at the door.
+
+To the old seneschal of Gavrillac who went to open there stood revealed
+upon the threshold a slim young man in a dark olive surcoat, the skirts
+of which reached down to his calves. He wore boots, buckskins, and a
+small-sword, and round his waist there was a tricolour sash, in his hat
+a tricolour cockade, which gave him an official look extremely sinister
+to the eyes of that old retainer of feudalism, who shared to the full
+his master's present fears.
+
+"Monsieur desires?" he asked, between respect and mistrust.
+
+And then a crisp voice startled him.
+
+"Why, Benoit! Name of a name! Have you completely forgotten me?"
+
+With a shaking hand the old man raised the lantern he carried so as to
+throw its light more fully upon that lean, wide-mouthed countenance.
+
+"M. Andre!" he cried. "M. Andre!" And then he looked at the sash and the
+cockade, and hesitated, apparently at a loss.
+
+But Andre-Louis stepped past him into the wide vestibule, with its
+tessellated floor of black-and-white marble.
+
+"If my godfather has not yet retired, take me to him. If he has retired,
+take me to him all the same."
+
+"Oh, but certainly, M. Andre--and I am sure he will be ravished to see
+you. No, he has not yet retired. This way, M. Andre; this way, if you
+please."
+
+The returning Andre-Louis, reaching Meudon a half-hour ago, had gone
+straight to the mayor for some definite news of what might be happening
+in Paris that should either confirm or dispel the ominous rumours that
+he had met in ever-increasing volume as he approached the capital.
+Rougane informed him that insurrection was imminent, that already the
+sections had possessed themselves of the barriers, and that it was
+impossible for any person not fully accredited to enter or leave the
+city.
+
+Andre-Louis bowed his head, his thoughts of the gravest. He had for
+some time perceived the danger of this second revolution from within the
+first, which might destroy everything that had been done, and give the
+reins of power to a villainous faction that would plunge the country
+into anarchy. The thing he had feared was more than ever on the point
+of taking place. He would go on at once, that very night, and see for
+himself what was happening.
+
+And then, as he was leaving, he turned again to Rougane to ask if M. de
+Kercadiou was still at Meudon.
+
+"You know him, monsieur?"
+
+"He is my godfather."
+
+"Your godfather! And you a representative! Why, then, you may be the
+very man he needs." And Rougane told him of his son's errand into Paris
+that afternoon and its result.
+
+No more was required. That two years ago his godfather should upon
+certain terms have refused him his house weighed for nothing at the
+moment. He left his travelling carriage at the little inn and went
+straight to M. de Kercadiou.
+
+And M. de Kercadiou, startled in such an hour by this sudden apparition,
+of one against whom he nursed a bitter grievance, greeted him in terms
+almost identical with those in which in that same room he had greeted
+him on a similar occasion once before.
+
+"What do you want here, sir?"
+
+"To serve you if possible, my godfather," was the disarming answer.
+
+But it did not disarm M. de Kercadiou. "You have stayed away so long
+that I hoped you would not again disturb me."
+
+"I should not have ventured to disobey you now were it not for the hope
+that I can be of service. I have seen Rougane, the mayor..."
+
+"What's that you say about not venturing to disobey?"
+
+"You forbade me your house, monsieur."
+
+M. de Kercadiou stared at him helplessly.
+
+"And is that why you have not come near me in all this time?"
+
+"Of course. Why else?"
+
+M. de Kercadiou continued to stare. Then he swore under his breath. It
+disconcerted him to have to deal with a man who insisted upon taking
+him so literally. He had expected that Andre-Louis would have come
+contritely to admit his fault and beg to be taken back into favour. He
+said so.
+
+"But how could I hope that you meant less than you said, monsieur?
+You were so very definite in your declaration. What expressions of
+contrition could have served me without a purpose of amendment? And I
+had no notion of amending. We may yet be thankful for that."
+
+"Thankful?"
+
+"I am a representative. I have certain powers. I am very opportunely
+returning to Paris. Can I serve you where Rougane cannot? The need,
+monsieur, would appear to be very urgent if the half of what I suspect
+is true. Aline should be placed in safety at once."
+
+M. de Kercadiou surrendered unconditionally. He came over and took
+Andre-Louis' hand.
+
+"My boy," he said, and he was visibly moved, "there is in you a certain
+nobility that is not to be denied. If I seemed harsh with you, then, it
+was because I was fighting against your evil proclivities. I desired
+to keep you out of the evil path of politics that have brought this
+unfortunate country into so terrible a pass. The enemy on the frontier;
+civil war about to flame out at home. That is what you revolutionaries
+have done."
+
+Andre-Louis did not argue. He passed on.
+
+"About Aline?" he asked. And himself answered his own question: "She is
+in Paris, and she must be brought out of it at once, before the place
+becomes a shambles, as well it may once the passions that have been
+brewing all these months are let loose. Young Rougane's plan is good. At
+least, I cannot think of a better one."
+
+"But Rougane the elder will not hear of it."
+
+"You mean he will not do it on his own responsibility. But he has
+consented to do it on mine. I have left him a note over my signature to
+the effect that a safe-conduct for Mlle. de Kercadiou to go to Paris and
+return is issued by him in compliance with orders from me. The powers I
+carry and of which I have satisfied him are his sufficient justification
+for obeying me in this. I have left him that note on the understanding
+that he is to use it only in an extreme case, for his own protection. In
+exchange he has given me this safe-conduct."
+
+"You already have it!"
+
+M. de Kercadiou took the sheet of paper that Andre-Louis held out. His
+hand shook. He approached it to the cluster of candles burning on the
+console and screwed up his short-sighted eyes to read.
+
+"If you send that to Paris by young Rougane in the morning," said
+Andre-Louis, "Aline should be here by noon. Nothing, of course, could
+be done to-night without provoking suspicion. The hour is too late. And
+now, monsieur my godfather, you know exactly why I intrude in violation
+of your commands. If there is any other way in which I can serve you,
+you have but to name it whilst I am here."
+
+"But there is, Andre. Did not Rougane tell you that there were
+others..."
+
+"He mentioned Mme. de Plougastel and her servant."
+
+"Then why...?" M. de Kercadiou broke off, looking his question.
+
+Very solemnly Andre-Louis shook his head.
+
+"That is impossible," he said.
+
+M. de Kercadiou's mouth fell open in astonishment. "Impossible!" he
+repeated. "But why?"
+
+"Monsieur, I can do what I am doing for Aline without offending my
+conscience. Besides, for Aline I would offend my conscience and do it.
+But Mme. de Plougastel is in very different case. Neither Aline nor any
+of hers have been concerned in counter-revolutionary work, which is the
+true source of the calamity that now threatens to overtake us. I can
+procure her removal from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I
+am doing nothing that any one could censure, or that might become the
+subject of enquiries. But Mme. de Plougastel is the wife of M. le Comte
+de Plougastel, whom all the world knows to be an agent between the Court
+and the emigres."
+
+"That is no fault of hers," cried M. de Kercadiou through his
+consternation.
+
+"Agreed. But she may be called upon at any moment to establish the fact
+that she is not a party to these manoeuvres. It is known that she was in
+Paris to-day. Should she be sought to-morrow and should it be found
+that she has gone, enquiries will certainly be made, from which it must
+result that I have betrayed my trust, and abused my powers to serve
+personal ends. I hope, monsieur, that you will understand that the risk
+is too great to be run for the sake of a stranger."
+
+"A stranger?" said the Seigneur reproachfully.
+
+"Practically a stranger to me," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"But she is not a stranger to me, Andre. She is my cousin and very dear
+and valued friend. And, mon Dieu, what you say but increases the
+urgency of getting her out of Paris. She must be rescued, Andre, at all
+costs--she must be rescued! Why, her case is infinitely more urgent than
+Aline's!"
+
+He stood a suppliant before his godson, very different now from the
+stern man who had greeted him on his arrival. His face was pale, his
+hands shook, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow.
+
+"Monsieur my godfather, I would do anything in reason. But I cannot do
+this. To rescue her might mean ruin for Aline and yourself as well as
+for me."
+
+"We must take the risk."
+
+"You have a right to speak for yourself, of course."
+
+"Oh, and for you, believe me, Andre, for you!" He came close to the
+young man. "Andre, I implore you to take my word for that, and to obtain
+this permit for Mme. de Plougastel."
+
+Andre looked at him mystified. "This is fantastic," he said. "I have
+grateful memories of the lady's interest in me for a few days once
+when I was a child, and again more recently in Paris when she sought to
+convert me to what she accounts the true political religion. But I do
+not risk my neck for her--no, nor yours, nor Aline's."
+
+"Ah! But, Andre..."
+
+"That is my last word, monsieur. It is growing late, and I desire to
+sleep in Paris."
+
+"No, no! Wait!" The Lord of Gavrillac was displaying signs of
+unspeakable distress. "Andre, you must!"
+
+There was in this insistence and, still more, in the frenzied manner of
+it, something so unreasonable that Andre could not fail to assume that
+some dark and mysterious motive lay behind it.
+
+"I must?" he echoed. "Why must I? Your reasons, monsieur?"
+
+"Andre, my reasons are overwhelming."
+
+"Pray allow me to be the judge of that." Andre-Louis' manner was almost
+peremptory.
+
+The demand seemed to reduce M. de Kercadiou to despair. He paced the
+room, his hands tight-clasped behind him, his brow wrinkled. At last he
+came to stand before his godson.
+
+"Can't you take my word for it that these reasons exist?" he cried in
+anguish.
+
+"In such a matter as this--a matter that may involve my neck? Oh,
+monsieur, is that reasonable?"
+
+"I violate my word of honour, my oath, if I tell you." M. de Kercadiou
+turned away, wringing his hands, his condition visibly piteous; then
+turned again to Andre. "But in this extremity, in this desperate
+extremity, and since you so ungenerously insist, I shall have to tell
+you. God help me, I have no choice. She will realize that when she
+knows. Andre, my boy..." He paused again, a man afraid. He set a hand
+on his godson's shoulder, and to his increasing amazement Andre-Louis
+perceived that over those pale, short-sighted eyes there was a film of
+tears. "Mme. de Plougastel is your mother."
+
+Followed, for a long moment, utter silence. This thing that he was
+told was not immediately understood. When understanding came at last
+Andre-Louis' first impulse was to cry out. But he possessed himself,
+and played the Stoic. He must ever be playing something. That was in his
+nature. And he was true to his nature even in this supreme moment. He
+continued silent until, obeying that queer histrionic instinct, he could
+trust himself to speak without emotion. "I see," he said, at last, quite
+coolly.
+
+His mind was sweeping back over the past. Swiftly he reviewed his
+memories of Mme. de Plougastel, her singular if sporadic interest in
+him, the curious blend of affection and wistfulness which her manner
+towards him had always presented, and at last he understood so much that
+hitherto had intrigued him.
+
+"I see," he said again; and added now, "Of course, any but a fool would
+have guessed it long ago."
+
+It was M. de Kercadiou who cried out, M. de Kercadiou who recoiled as
+from a blow.
+
+"My God, Andre, of what are you made? You can take such an announcement
+in this fashion?"
+
+"And how would you have me take it? Should it surprise me to discover
+that I had a mother? After all, a mother is an indispensable necessity
+to getting one's self born."
+
+He sat down abruptly, to conceal the too-revealing fact that his limbs
+were shaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop his
+brow, which had grown damp. And then, quite suddenly, he found himself
+weeping.
+
+At the sight of those tears streaming silently down that face that had
+turned so pale, M. de Kercadiou came quickly across to him. He sat down
+beside him and threw an arm affectionately over his shoulder.
+
+"Andre, my poor lad," he murmured. "I... I was fool enough to think you
+had no heart. You deceived me with your infernal pretence, and now I
+see... I see..." He was not sure what it was that he saw, or else he
+hesitated to express it.
+
+"It is nothing, monsieur. I am tired out, and... and I have a cold in
+the head." And then, finding the part beyond his power, he abruptly
+threw it up, utterly abandoned all pretence. "Why... why has there been
+all this mystery?" he asked. "Was it intended that I should never know?"
+
+"It was, Andre. It... it had to be, for prudence' sake."
+
+"But why? Complete your confidence, sir. Surely you cannot leave it
+there. Having told me so much, you must tell me all."
+
+"The reason, my boy, is that you were born some three years after your
+mother's marriage with M. de Plougastel, some eighteen months after M.
+de Plougastel had been away with the army, and some four months before
+his return to his wife. It is a matter that M. de Plougastel has never
+suspected, and for gravest family reasons must never suspect. That is
+why the utmost secrecy has been preserved. That is why none was ever
+allowed to know. Your mother came betimes into Brittany, and under an
+assumed name spent some months in the village of Moreau. It was while
+she was there that you were born."
+
+Andre-Louis turned it over in his mind. He had dried his tears. And sat
+now rigid and collected.
+
+"When you say that none was ever allowed to know, you are telling me, of
+course, that you, monsieur..."
+
+"Oh, mon Dieu, no!" The denial came in a violent outburst. M. de
+Kercadiou sprang to his feet propelled from Andre's side by the violence
+of his emotions. It was as if the very suggestion filled him with
+horror. "I was the only other one who knew. But it is not as you think,
+Andre. You cannot imagine that I should lie to you, that I should deny
+you if you were my son?"
+
+"If you say that I am not, monsieur, that is sufficient."
+
+"You are not. I was Therese's cousin and also, as she well knew, her
+truest friend. She knew that she could trust me; and it was to me she
+came for help in her extremity. Once, years before, I would have married
+her. But, of course, I am not the sort of man a woman could love. She
+trusted, however, to my love for her, and I have kept her trust."
+
+"Then, who was my father?"
+
+"I don't know. She never told me. It was her secret, and I did not pry.
+It is not in my nature, Andre."
+
+Andre-Louis got up, and stood silently facing M. de Kercadiou.
+
+"You believe me, Andre."
+
+"Naturally, monsieur; and I am sorry, I am sorry that I am not your
+son."
+
+M. de Kercadiou gripped his godson's hand convulsively, and held it
+a moment with no word spoken. Then as they fell away from each other
+again:
+
+"And now, what will you do, Andre?" he asked. "Now that you know?"
+
+Andre-Louis stood awhile, considering, then broke into laughter. The
+situation had its humours. He explained them.
+
+"What difference should the knowledge make? Is filial piety to be called
+into existence by the mere announcement of relationship? Am I to risk
+my neck through lack of circumspection on behalf of a mother so very
+circumspect that she had no intention of ever revealing herself? The
+discovery rests upon the merest chance, upon a fall of the dice of Fate.
+Is that to weigh with me?"
+
+"The decision is with you, Andre."
+
+"Nay, it is beyond me. Decide it who can, I cannot."
+
+"You mean that you refuse even now?"
+
+"I mean that I consent. Since I cannot decide what it is that I should
+do, it only remains for me to do what a son should. It is grotesque; but
+all life is grotesque."
+
+"You will never, never regret it."
+
+"I hope not," said Andre. "Yet I think it very likely that I shall.
+And now I had better see Rougane again at once, and obtain from him the
+other two permits required. Then perhaps it will be best that I take
+them to Paris myself, in the morning. If you will give me a bed,
+monsieur, I shall be grateful. I... I confess that I am hardly in case
+to do more to-night."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. SANCTUARY
+
+Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its perpetual
+alarms, its volleying musketry, rolling drums, and distant muttering
+of angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in that
+handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane they
+waited. They realized that, be the reason what it might--and by now many
+reasons must no doubt exist--this friendly messenger would not return.
+They waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever might
+betide.
+
+At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached them,
+racing swiftly in their direction, swelling each moment in volume and in
+horror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and
+bent on destruction. Near at hand that fierce wave of humanity checked
+in its turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door and
+imperious calls to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers,
+the shivering of glass, screams of terror blending with screams of rage,
+and, running through these shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial
+laughter.
+
+It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking blindly to escape.
+And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and there
+cruelly done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing accomplished, the
+hunters, male and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging down
+the Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles--a song new to Paris
+in those days:
+
+
+    Allons, enfants de la patrie!
+    Le jour de gloire est arrive
+    Contre nous de la tyrannie
+    L'etendard sanglant est leve.
+
+Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dread
+sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily
+the merry, trivial air of the "Ca ira!" which hitherto had been the
+revolutionary carillon. Instinctively Mme. de Plougastel and Aline clung
+to each other. They had heard the sound of the ravishing of that other
+house in the neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if now
+it should be the turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real
+cause to fear it, save that amid a turmoil imperfectly understood and
+therefore the more awe-inspiring, the worst must be feared always.
+
+The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shod
+feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded. They breathed
+again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm an
+instant later, when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trusted
+of her servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scared
+face, bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over the
+garden wall professed himself a friend of madame's, and desired to be
+brought immediately to her presence.
+
+"But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warned
+her.
+
+Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.
+
+"Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.
+
+Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in a
+long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was
+turned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade.
+This hat he removed as he entered.
+
+Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now
+in some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It was
+clubbed, and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young
+footman wondered what it was in the man's face, which was turned from
+him, that should cause his mistress to out and recoil. Then he found
+himself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.
+
+The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man
+exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, across
+which he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a
+strange horror in her eyes.
+
+In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline staring
+in bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable through
+the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And then
+the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis
+de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+"My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgive
+me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a
+manner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course
+of my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I
+thought of you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your
+house, I might find sanctuary."
+
+"You are in danger?"
+
+"In danger?" Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessary
+question. "If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, I
+might with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has
+been a massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end,
+to be hunted to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single
+Swiss survives. They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for us--my
+God! They hate us more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthy
+disguise."
+
+He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from him stepped
+forth in the black satin that had been the general livery of the hundred
+knights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that morning to
+the defence of their king.
+
+His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at his
+wrists were torn and bloodstained; with his smeared face and disordered
+headdress he was terrible to behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself
+with his habitual easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling hand
+which Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.
+
+"You did well to come to me, Gervais," she said. "Yes, here is sanctuary
+for the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as we are
+safe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me all."
+
+He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which she
+thrust forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by
+nerve-strain, or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped
+some of the blood and dirt from his face.
+
+"It is soon told." His tone was bitter with the bitterness of despair.
+"This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky in being across
+the frontier at such a time. Had I not been fool enough to trust those
+who to-day have proved themselves utterly unworthy of trust, that is
+where I should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning folly
+of a life full of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you in
+my hour of most urgent need adds point to it." He laughed in his
+bitterness.
+
+Madame moistened her dry lips. "And... and now?" she asked him.
+
+"It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is still possible.
+Here in France there is no longer any room for us--at least, not above
+ground. To-day has proved it." And then he looked up at her, standing
+there beside him so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the fine
+hand that rested upon the arm of his chair. "My dear Therese, unless you
+carry charitableness to the length of giving me to drink, you will
+see me perish of thirst under your eyes before ever the canaille has a
+chance to finish me."
+
+She started. "I should have thought of it!" she cried in self-reproach,
+and she turned quickly. "Aline," she begged, "tell Jacques to bring..."
+
+"Aline!" he echoed, interrupting, and swinging round in his turn. Then,
+as Aline rose into view, detaching from her background, and he at last
+perceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, and
+stood there stiffly bowing to her across the space of gleaming floor.
+"Mademoiselle, I had not suspected your presence," he said, and he
+seemed extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in an
+illicit act.
+
+"I perceived it, monsieur," she answered, as she advanced to do madame's
+commission. She paused before him. "From my heart, monsieur, I grieve
+that we should meet again in circumstances so very painful."
+
+Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis--the day which had seen
+the death and burial of his last hope of winning her--had they stood face
+to face.
+
+He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance strayed to
+Mme. de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one who could be very glib,
+he bowed in silence.
+
+"But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."
+
+"You are gracious to observe it. With your permission, then." And he
+resumed his seat. She continued on her way to the door and passed out
+upon her errand.
+
+When presently she returned they had almost unaccountably changed
+places. It was Mme. de Plougastel who was seated in that armchair of
+brocade and gilt, and M. de La Tour d'Azyr who, despite his lassitude,
+was leaning over the back of it talking earnestly, seeming by his
+attitude to plead with her. On Aline's entrance he broke off instantly
+and moved away, so that she was left with a sense of having intruded.
+Further she observed that the Countess was in tears.
+
+Following her came presently the diligent Jacques, bearing a tray laden
+with food and wine. Madame poured for her guest, and he drank a long
+draught of the Burgundy, then begged, holding forth his grimy hands,
+that he might mend his appearance before sitting down to eat.
+
+He was led away and valeted by Jacques, and when he returned he had
+removed from his person the last vestige of the rough handling he had
+received. He looked almost his normal self, the disorder in his attire
+repaired, calm and dignified and courtly in his bearing, but very pale
+and haggard of face, seeming suddenly to have increased in years, to
+have reached in appearance the age that was in fact his own.
+
+As he ate and drank--and this with appetite, for as he told them he had
+not tasted food since early morning--he entered into the details of the
+dreadful events of the day, and gave them the particulars of his own
+escape from the Tuileries when all was seen to be lost and when the
+Swiss, having burnt their last cartridge, were submitting to wholesale
+massacre at the hands of the indescribably furious mob.
+
+"Oh, it was all most ill done," he ended critically. "We were timid when
+we should have been resolute, and resolute at last when it was too late.
+That is the history of our side from the beginning of this accursed
+struggle. We have lacked proper leadership throughout, and now--as I have
+said already--there is an end to us. It but remains to escape, as soon as
+we can discover how the thing is to be accomplished."
+
+Madame told him of the hopes that she had centred upon Rougane.
+
+It lifted him out of his gloom. He was disposed to be optimistic.
+
+"You are wrong to have abandoned that hope," he assured her. "If this
+mayor is so well disposed, he certainly can do as his son promised. But
+last night it would have been too late for him to have reached you, and
+to-day, assuming that he had come to Paris, almost impossible for him
+to win across the streets from the other side. It is most likely that he
+will yet come. I pray that he may; for the knowledge that you and Mlle.
+de Kercadiou are out of this would comfort me above all."
+
+"We should take you with us," said madame.
+
+"Ah! But how?"
+
+"Young Rougane was to bring me permits for three persons--Aline, myself,
+and my footman, Jacques. You would take the place of Jacques."
+
+"Faith, to get out of Paris, madame, there is no man whose place I would
+not take." And he laughed.
+
+Their spirits rose with his and their flagging hopes revived. But as
+dusk descended again upon the city, without any sign of the deliverer
+they awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr at last pleaded weariness, and begged to be
+permitted to withdraw that he might endeavour to take some rest against
+whatever might have to be faced in the immediate future. When he had
+gone, madame persuaded Aline to go and lie down.
+
+"I will call you, my dear, the moment he arrives," she said, bravely
+maintaining that pretence of a confidence that had by now entirely
+evaporated.
+
+Aline kissed her affectionately, and departed, outwardly so calm and
+unperturbed as to leave the Countess wondering whether she realized the
+peril by which they were surrounded, a peril infinitely increased by the
+presence in that house of a man so widely known and detested as M. de La
+Tour d'Azyr, a man who was probably being sought for by his enemies at
+this moment.
+
+Left alone, madame lay down on a couch in the salon itself, to be
+ready for any emergency. It was a hot summer night, and the glass doors
+opening upon the luxuriant garden stood wide to admit the air. On that
+air came intermittently from the distance sounds of the continuing
+horrible activities of the populace, the aftermath of that bloody day.
+
+Mme. de Plougastel lay there, listening to those sounds for upwards of
+an hour, thanking Heaven that for the present at least the disturbances
+were distant, dreading lest at any moment they should occur nearer at
+hand, lest this Bondy section in which her hotel was situated should
+become the scene of horrors similar to those whose echoes reached her
+ears from other sections away to the south and west.
+
+The couch occupied by the Countess lay in shadow; for all the lights in
+that long salon had been extinguished with the exception of a cluster
+of candles in a massive silver candle branch placed on a round marquetry
+table in the middle of the room--an island of light in the surrounding
+gloom.
+
+The timepiece on the overmantel chimed melodiously the hour of ten,
+and then, startling in the suddenness with which it broke the immediate
+silence, another sound vibrated through the house, and brought madame
+to her feet, in a breathless mingling of hope and dread. Some one
+was knocking sharply on the door below. Followed moments of agonized
+suspense, culminating in the abrupt invasion of the room by the footman
+Jacques. He looked round, not seeing his mistress at first.
+
+"Madame! Madame!" he panted, out of breath.
+
+"What is it, Jacques!" Her voice was steady now that the need for
+self-control seemed thrust upon her. She advanced from the shadows
+into that island of light about the table. "There is a man below. He is
+asking... he is demanding to see you at once."
+
+"A man?" she questioned.
+
+"He... he seems to be an official; at least he wears the sash of office.
+And he refuses to give any name; he says that his name would convey
+nothing to you. He insists that he must see you in person and at once."
+
+"An official?" said madame.
+
+"An official," Jacques repeated. "I would not have admitted him, but
+that he demanded it in the name of the Nation. Madame, it is for you to
+say what shall be done. Robert is with me. If you wish it... whatever it
+may be..."
+
+"My good Jacques, no, no." She was perfectly composed. "If this man
+intended evil, surely he would not come alone. Conduct him to me, and
+then beg Mlle. de Kercadiou to join me if she is awake."
+
+Jacques departed, himself partly reassured. Madame seated herself in the
+armchair by the table well within the light. She smoothed her dress with
+a mechanical hand. If, as it would seem, her hopes had been futile, so
+had her momentary fears. A man on any but an errand of peace would have
+brought some following with him, as she had said.
+
+The door opened again, and Jacques reappeared; after him, stepping
+briskly past him, came a slight man in a wide-brimmed hat, adorned by a
+tricolour cockade. About the waist of an olive-green riding-coat he wore
+a broad tricolour sash; a sword hung at his side.
+
+He swept off his hat, and the candlelight glinted on the steel buckle in
+front of it. Madame found herself silently regarded by a pair of large,
+dark eyes set in a lean, brown face, eyes that were most singularly
+intent and searching.
+
+She leaned forward, incredulity swept across her countenance. Then her
+eyes kindled, and the colour came creeping back into her pale cheeks.
+She rose suddenly. She was trembling.
+
+"Andre-Louis!" she exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE BARRIER
+
+That gift of laughter of his seemed utterly extinguished. For once there
+was no gleam of humour in those dark eyes, as they continued to consider
+her with that queer stare of scrutiny. And yet, though his gaze was
+sombre, his thoughts were not. With his cruelly true mental vision which
+pierced through shams, and his capacity for detached observation--which
+properly applied might have carried him very far, indeed--he perceived
+the grotesqueness, the artificiality of the emotion which in that moment
+he experienced, but by which he refused to be possessed. It sprang
+entirely from the consciousness that she was his mother; as if, all
+things considered, the more or less accidental fact that she had brought
+him into the world could establish between them any real bond at this
+time of day! The motherhood that bears and forsakes is less than animal.
+He had considered this; he had been given ample leisure in which to
+consider it during those long, turbulent hours in which he had been
+forced to wait, because it would have been almost impossible to have won
+across that seething city, and certainly unwise to have attempted so to
+do.
+
+He had reached the conclusion that by consenting to go to her rescue
+at such a time he stood committed to a piece of purely sentimental
+quixotry. The quittances which the Mayor of Meudon had exacted from him
+before he would issue the necessary safe-conducts placed the whole of
+his future, perhaps his very life, in jeopardy. And he had consented to
+do this not for the sake of a reality, but out of regard for an idea--he
+who all his life had avoided the false lure of worthless and hollow
+sentimentality.
+
+Thus thought Andre-Louis as he considered her now so searchingly,
+finding it, naturally enough, a matter of extraordinary interest to
+look consciously upon his mother for the first time at the age of
+eight-and-twenty.
+
+From her he looked at last at Jacques, who remained at attention,
+waiting by the open door.
+
+"Could we be alone, madame?" he asked her.
+
+She waved the footman away, and the door closed. In agitated silence,
+unquestioning, she waited for him to account for his presence there at
+so extraordinary a time.
+
+"Rougane could not return," he informed her shortly. "At M. de
+Kercadiou's request, I come instead."
+
+"You! You are sent to rescue us!" The note of amazement in her voice was
+stronger than that of her relief.
+
+"That, and to make your acquaintance, madame."
+
+"To make my acquaintance? But what do you mean, Andre-Louis?"
+
+"This letter from M. de Kercadiou will tell you." Intrigued by his odd
+words and odder manner, she took the folded sheet. She broke the seal
+with shaking hands, and with shaking hands approached the written page
+to the light. Her eyes grew troubled as she read; the shaking of her
+hands increased, and midway through that reading a moan escaped her.
+One glance that was almost terror she darted at the slim, straight man
+standing so incredibly impassive upon the edge of the light, and
+then she endeavoured to read on. But the crabbed characters of M. de
+Kercadiou swam distortedly under her eyes. She could not read. Besides,
+what could it matter what else he said. She had read enough. The sheet
+fluttered from her hands to the table, and out of a face that was like a
+face of wax, she looked now with a wistfulness, a sadness indescribable,
+at Andre-Louis.
+
+"And so you know, my child?" Her voice was stifled to a whisper.
+
+"I know, madame my mother."
+
+The grimness, the subtle blend of merciless derision and reproach in
+which it was uttered completely escaped her. She cried out at the new
+name. For her in that moment time and the world stood still. Her peril
+there in Paris as the wife of an intriguer at Coblenz was blotted out,
+together with every other consideration--thrust out of a consciousness
+that could find room for nothing else beside the fact that she stood
+acknowledged by her only son, this child begotten in adultery, borne
+furtively and in shame in a remote Brittany village eight-and-twenty
+years ago. Not even a thought for the betrayal of that inviolable
+secret, or the consequences that might follow, could she spare in this
+supreme moment.
+
+She took one or two faltering steps towards him, hesitating. Then she
+opened her arms. Sobs suffocated her voice.
+
+"Won't you come to me, Andre-Louis?"
+
+A moment yet he stood hesitating, startled by that appeal, angered
+almost by his heart's response to it, reason and sentiment at grips
+in his soul. This was not real, his reason postulated; this poignant
+emotion that she displayed and that he experienced was fantastic. Yet he
+went. Her arms enfolded him; her wet cheek was pressed hard against his
+own; her frame, which the years had not yet succeeded in robbing of its
+grace, was shaken by the passionate storm within her.
+
+"Oh, Andre-Louis, my child, if you knew how I have hungered to hold you
+so! If you knew how in denying myself this I have atoned and suffered!
+Kercadiou should not have told you--not even now. It was wrong--most
+wrong, perhaps, to you. It would have been better that he should have
+left me here to my fate, whatever that may be. And yet--come what may of
+this--to be able to hold you so, to be able to acknowledge you, to hear
+you call me mother--oh! Andre-Louis, I cannot now regret it. I cannot...
+I cannot wish it otherwise."
+
+"Is there any need, madame?" he asked her, his stoicism deeply shaken.
+"There is no occasion to take others into our confidence. This is for
+to-night alone. To-night we are mother and son. To-morrow we resume our
+former places, and, outwardly at least, forget."
+
+"Forget? Have you no heart, Andre-Louis?"
+
+The question recalled him curiously to his attitude towards life--that
+histrionic attitude of his that he accounted true philosophy. Also he
+remembered what lay before them; and he realized that he must master not
+only himself but her; that to yield too far to sentiment at such a time
+might be the ruin of them all.
+
+"It is a question propounded to me so often that it must contain the
+truth," said he. "My rearing is to blame for that."
+
+She tightened her clutch about his neck even as he would have attempted
+to disengage himself from her embrace.
+
+"You do not blame me for your rearing? Knowing all, as you do,
+Andre-Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You must be merciful to me.
+You must forgive me. You must! I had no choice."
+
+"When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but
+forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever
+written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion--the noblest religion
+any man could have to guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my
+mother."
+
+She sprang away from him with a startled cry. Beyond him in the shadows
+by the door a pale figure shimmered ghostly. It advanced into the light,
+and resolved itself into Aline. She had come in answer to that forgotten
+summons madame had sent her by Jacques. Entering unperceived she had
+seen Andre-Louis in the embrace of the woman whom he addressed as
+"mother." She had recognized him instantly by his voice, and she could
+not have said what bewildered her more: his presence there or the thing
+she overheard.
+
+"You heard, Aline?" madame exclaimed.
+
+"I could not help it, madame. You sent for me. I am sorry if..." She
+broke off, and looked at Andre-Louis long and curiously. She was pale,
+but quite composed. She held out her hand to him. "And so you have come
+at last, Andre," said she. "You might have come before."
+
+"I come when I am wanted," was his answer. "Which is the only time in
+which one can be sure of being received." He said it without bitterness,
+and having said it stooped to kiss her hand.
+
+"You can forgive me what is past, I hope, since I failed of my purpose,"
+he said gently, half-pleading. "I could not have come to you pretending
+that the failure was intentional--a compromise between the necessities of
+the case and your own wishes. For it was not that. And yet, you do not
+seem to have profited by my failure. You are still a maid."
+
+She turned her shoulder to him.
+
+"There are things," she said, "that you will never understand."
+
+"Life, for one," he acknowledged. "I confess that I am finding it
+bewildering. The very explanations calculated to simplify it seem but to
+complicate it further." And he looked at Mme. de Plougastel.
+
+"You mean something, I suppose," said mademoiselle.
+
+"Aline!" It was the Countess who spoke. She knew the danger of
+half-discoveries. "I can trust you, child, I know, and Andre-Louis, I am
+sure, will offer no objection." She had taken up the letter to show it
+to Aline. Yet first her eyes questioned him.
+
+"Oh, none, madame," he assured her. "It is entirely a matter for
+yourself."
+
+Aline looked from one to the other with troubled eyes, hesitating to
+take the letter that was now proffered. When she had read it through,
+she very thoughtfully replaced it on the table. A moment she stood there
+with bowed head, the other two watching her. Then impulsively she ran to
+madame and put her arms about her.
+
+"Aline!" It was a cry of wonder, almost of joy. "You do not utterly
+abhor me!"
+
+"My dear," said Aline, and kissed the tear-stained face that seemed to
+have grown years older in these last few hours.
+
+In the background Andre-Louis, steeling himself against emotionalism,
+spoke with the voice of Scaramouche.
+
+"It would be well, mesdames, to postpone all transports until they can
+be indulged at greater leisure and in more security. It is growing late.
+If we are to get out of this shambles we should be wise to take the road
+without more delay."
+
+It was a tonic as effective as it was necessary. It startled them into
+remembrance of their circumstances, and under the spur of it they went
+at once to make their preparations.
+
+They left him for perhaps a quarter of an hour, to pace that long room
+alone, saved only from impatience by the turmoil of his mind. When
+at length they returned, they were accompanied by a tall man in a
+full-skirted shaggy greatcoat and a broad hat the brim of which was
+turned down all around. He remained respectfully by the door in the
+shadows.
+
+Between them the two women had concerted it thus, or rather the Countess
+had so concerted it when Aline had warned her that Andre-Louis' bitter
+hostility towards the Marquis made it unthinkable that he should move a
+finger consciously to save him.
+
+Now despite the close friendship uniting M. de Kercadiou and his niece
+with Mme. de Plougastel, there were several matters concerning them of
+which the Countess was in ignorance. One of these was the project at one
+time existing of a marriage between Aline and M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
+It was a matter that Aline--naturally enough in the state of her
+feelings--had never mentioned, nor had M. de Kercadiou ever alluded to it
+since his coming to Meudon, by when he had perceived how unlikely it was
+ever to be realized.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr's concern for Aline on that morning of the duel
+when he had found her half-swooning in Mme. de Plougastel's carriage had
+been of a circumspection that betrayed nothing of his real interest in
+her, and therefore had appeared no more than natural in one who must
+account himself the cause of her distress. Similarly Mme. de Plougastel
+had never realized nor did she realize now--for Aline did not trouble
+fully to enlighten her--that the hostility between the two men was other
+than political, the quarrel other than that which already had taken
+Andre-Louis to the Bois on every day of the preceding week. But, at
+least, she realized that even if Andre-Louis' rancour should have no
+other source, yet that inconclusive duel was cause enough for Aline's
+fears.
+
+And so she had proposed this obvious deception; and Aline had consented
+to be a passive party to it. They had made the mistake of not fully
+forewarning and persuading M. de La Tour d'Azyr. They had trusted
+entirely to his anxiety to escape from Paris to keep him rigidly within
+the part imposed upon him. They had reckoned without the queer sense
+of honour that moved such men as M. le Marquis, nurtured upon a code of
+shams.
+
+Andre-Louis, turning to scan that muffled figure, advanced from the
+dark depths of the salon. As the light beat on his white, lean face the
+pseudo-footman started. The next moment he too stepped forward into
+the light, and swept his broad-brimmed hat from his brow. As he did so
+Andre-Louis observed that his hand was fine and white and that a
+jewel flashed from one of the fingers. Then he caught his breath, and
+stiffened in every line as he recognized the face revealed to him.
+
+"Monsieur," that stern, proud man was saying, "I cannot take advantage
+of your ignorance. If these ladies can persuade you to save me, at least
+it is due to you that you shall know whom you are saving."
+
+He stood there by the table very erect and dignified, ready to perish as
+he had lived--if perish he must--without fear and without deception.
+
+Andre-Louis came slowly forward until he reached the table on the other
+side, and then at last the muscles of his set face relaxed, and he
+laughed.
+
+"You laugh?" said M. de La Tour d'Azyr, frowning, offended.
+
+"It is so damnably amusing," said Andre-Louis.
+
+"You've an odd sense of humour, M. Moreau."
+
+"Oh, admitted. The unexpected always moves me so. I have found you many
+things in the course of our acquaintance. To-night you are the one thing
+I never expected to find you: an honest man."
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr quivered. But he attempted no reply.
+
+"Because of that, monsieur, I am disposed to be clement. It is probably
+a foolishness. But you have surprised me into it. I give you three
+minutes, monsieur, in which to leave this house, and to take your own
+measures for your safety. What afterwards happens to you shall be no
+concern of mine."
+
+"Ah, no, Andre! Listen..." Madame began in anguish.
+
+"Pardon, madame. It is the utmost that I will do, and already I am
+violating what I conceive to be my duty. If M. de La Tour d'Azyr remains
+he not only ruins himself, but he imperils you. For unless he departs
+at once, he goes with me to the headquarters of the section, and the
+section will have his head on a pike inside the hour. He is a notorious
+counter-revolutionary, a knight of the dagger, one of those whom an
+exasperated populace is determined to exterminate. Now, monsieur, you
+know what awaits you. Resolve yourself and at once, for these ladies'
+sake."
+
+"But you don't know, Andre-Louis!" Mme. de Plougastel's condition was
+one of anguish indescribable. She came to him and clutched his arm. "For
+the love of Heaven, Andre-Louis, be merciful with him! You must!"
+
+"But that is what I am being, madame--merciful; more merciful than he
+deserves. And he knows it. Fate has meddled most oddly in our concerns
+to bring us together to-night. Almost it is as if Fate were forcing
+retribution at last upon him. Yet, for your sakes, I take no advantage
+of it, provided that he does at once as I have desired him."
+
+And now from beyond the table the Marquis spoke icily, and as he spoke
+his right hand stirred under the ample folds of his greatcoat.
+
+"I am glad, M. Moreau, that you take that tone with me. You relieve me
+of the last scruple. You spoke of Fate just now, and I must agree with
+you that Fate has meddled oddly, though perhaps not to the end that you
+discern. For years now you have chosen to stand in my path and thwart me
+at every turn, holding over me a perpetual menace. Persistently you have
+sought my life in various ways, first indirectly and at last directly.
+Your intervention in my affairs has ruined my highest hopes--more
+effectively, perhaps, than you suppose. Throughout you have been my evil
+genius. And you are even one of the agents of this climax of despair
+that has been reached by me to-night."
+
+"Wait! Listen!" Madame was panting. She flung away from Andre-Louis,
+as if moved by some premonition of what was coming. "Gervais! This is
+horrible!"
+
+"Horrible, perhaps, but inevitable. Himself he has invited it. I am a
+man in despair, the fugitive of a lost cause. That man holds the keys
+of escape. And, besides, between him and me there is a reckoning to be
+paid."
+
+His hand came from beneath the coat at last, and it came armed with a
+pistol.
+
+Mme. de Plougastel screamed, and flung herself upon him. On her knees
+now, she clung to his arm with all her strength and might.
+
+Vainly he sought to shake himself free of that desperate clutch.
+
+"Therese!" he cried. "Are you mad? Will you destroy me and yourself?
+This creature has the safe-conducts that mean our salvation. Himself, he
+is nothing."
+
+From the background Aline, a breathless, horror-stricken spectator
+of that scene, spoke sharply, her quick mind pointing out the line of
+checkmate.
+
+"Burn the safe-conducts, Andre-Louis. Burn them at once--in the candles
+there."
+
+But Andre-Louis had taken advantage of that moment of M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr's impotence to draw a pistol in his turn. "I think it will be
+better to burn his brains instead," he said. "Stand away from him,
+madame."
+
+Far from obeying that imperious command, Mme. de Plougastel rose to her
+feet to cover the Marquis with her body. But she still clung to his arm,
+clung to it with unsuspected strength that continued to prevent him from
+attempting to use the pistol.
+
+"Andre! For God's sake, Andre!" she panted hoarsely over her shoulder.
+
+"Stand away, madame," he commanded her again, more sternly, "and let
+this murderer take his due. He is jeopardizing all our lives, and his
+own has been forfeit these years. Stand away!" He sprang forward with
+intent now to fire at his enemy over her shoulder, and Aline moved too
+late to hinder him.
+
+"Andre! Andre!"
+
+Panting, gasping, haggard of face, on the verge almost of hysteria,
+the distracted Countess flung at last an effective, a terrible barrier
+between the hatred of those men, each intent upon taking the other's
+life.
+
+"He is your father, Andre! Gervais, he is your son--our son! The letter
+there... on the table... O my God!" And she slipped nervelessly to the
+ground, and crouched there sobbing at the feet of M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. SAFE-CONDUCT
+
+Across the body of that convulsively sobbing woman, the mother of one
+and the mistress of the other, the eyes of those mortal enemies met,
+invested with a startled, appalled interest that admitted of no words.
+
+Beyond the table, as if turned to stone by this culminating horror of
+revelation, stood Aline.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr was the first to stir. Into his bewildered mind
+came the memory of something that Mme. de Plougastel had said of
+a letter that was on the table. He came forward, unhindered. The
+announcement made, Mme. de Plougastel no longer feared the sequel, and
+so she let him go. He walked unsteadily past this new-found son of his,
+and took up the sheet that lay beside the candlebranch. A long moment
+he stood reading it, none heeding him. Aline's eyes were all on
+Andre-Louis, full of wonder and commiseration, whilst Andre-Louis was
+staring down, in stupefied fascination, at his mother.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr read the letter slowly through. Then very quietly
+he replaced it. His next concern, being the product of an artificial age
+sternly schooled in the suppression of emotion, was to compose himself.
+Then he stepped back to Mme. de Plougastel's side and stooped to raise
+her.
+
+"Therese," he said.
+
+Obeying, by instinct, the implied command, she made an effort to rise
+and to control herself in her turn. The Marquis half conducted, half
+carried her to the armchair by the table.
+
+Andre-Louis looked on. Still numbed and bewildered, he made no attempt
+to assist. He saw as in a dream the Marquis bending over Mme. de
+Plougastel. As in a dream he heard him ask:
+
+"How long have you known this, Therese?"
+
+"I... I have always known it... always. I confided him to Kercadiou. I
+saw him once as a child... Oh, but what of that?"
+
+"Why was I never told? Why did you deceive me? Why did you tell me that
+this child had died a few days after birth? Why, Therese? Why?"
+
+"I was afraid. I... I thought it better so--that nobody, nobody, not even
+you, should know. And nobody has known save Quintin until last night,
+when to induce him to come here and save me he was forced to tell him."
+
+"But I, Therese?" the Marquis insisted. "It was my right to know."
+
+"Your right? What could you have done? Acknowledge him? And then? Ha!"
+It was a queer, desperate note of laughter. "There was Plougastel; there
+was my family. And there was you... you, yourself, who had ceased to
+care, in whom the fear of discovery had stifled love. Why should I have
+told you, then? Why? I should not have told you now had there been
+any other way to... to save you both. Once before I suffered just such
+dreadful apprehensions when you and he fought in the Bois. I was on my
+way to prevent it when you met me. I would have divulged the truth, as
+a last resource, to avert that horror. But mercifully God spared me the
+necessity then."
+
+It had not occurred to any of them to doubt her statement, incredible
+though it might seem. Had any done so her present words must have
+resolved all doubt, explaining as they did much that to each of her
+listeners had been obscure until this moment.
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr, overcome, reeled away to a chair and sat down
+heavily. Losing command of himself for a moment, he took his haggard
+face in his hands.
+
+Through the windows open to the garden came from the distance the faint
+throbbing of a drum to remind them of what was happening around them.
+But the sound went unheeded. To each it must have seemed that here
+they were face to face with a horror greater than any that might be
+tormenting Paris. At last Andre-Louis began to speak, his voice level
+and unutterably cold.
+
+"M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he said, "I trust that you'll agree that this
+disclosure, which can hardly be more distasteful and horrible to you
+than it is to me, alters nothing, since it effaces nothing of all
+that lies between us. Or, if it alters anything, it is merely to add
+something to that score. And yet... Oh, but what can it avail to talk!
+Here, monsieur, take this safe-conduct which is made out for Mme. de
+Plougastel's footman, and with it make your escape as best you can. In
+return I will beg of you the favour never to allow me to see you or hear
+of you again."
+
+"Andre!" His mother swung upon him with that cry. And yet again that
+question. "Have you no heart? What has he ever done to you that you
+should nurse so bitter a hatred of him?"
+
+"You shall hear, madame. Once, two years ago in this very room I told
+you of a man who had brutally killed my dearest friend and debauched the
+girl I was to have married. M. de La Tour d'Azyr is that man."
+
+A moan was her only answer. She covered her face with her hands.
+
+The Marquis rose slowly to his feet again. He came slowly forward, his
+smouldering eyes scanning his son's face.
+
+"You are hard," he said grimly. "But I recognize the hardness. It
+derives from the blood you bear."
+
+"Spare me that," said Andre-Louis.
+
+The Marquis inclined his head. "I will not mention it again. But I
+desire that you should at least understand me, and you too, Therese. You
+accuse me, sir, of murdering your dearest friend. I will admit that the
+means employed were perhaps unworthy. But what other means were at my
+command to meet an urgency that every day since then proves to have
+existed? M. de Vilmorin was a revolutionary, a man of new ideas that
+should overthrow society and rebuild it more akin to the desires of such
+as himself. I belonged to the order that quite as justifiably desired
+society to remain as it was. Not only was it better so for me and mine,
+but I also contend, and you have yet to prove me wrong, that it is
+better so for all the world; that, indeed, no other conceivable society
+is possible. Every human society must of necessity be composed of
+several strata. You may disturb it temporarily into an amorphous whole
+by a revolution such as this; but only temporarily. Soon out of the
+chaos which is all that you and your kind can ever produce, order must
+be restored or life will perish; and with the restoration of order comes
+the restoration of the various strata necessary to organized society.
+Those that were yesterday at the top may in the new order of things find
+themselves dispossessed without any benefit to the whole. That change
+I resisted. The spirit of it I fought with whatever weapons were
+available, whenever and wherever I encountered it. M. de Vilmorin was
+an incendiary of the worst type, a man of eloquence full of false ideals
+that misled poor ignorant men into believing that the change proposed
+could make the world a better place for them. You are an intelligent
+man, and I defy you to answer me from your heart and conscience that
+such a thing was true or possible. You know that it is untrue; you know
+that it is a pernicious doctrine; and what made it worse on the lips
+of M. de Vilmorin was that he was sincere and eloquent. His voice was
+a danger that must be removed--silenced. So much was necessary in
+self-defence. In self-defence I did it. I had no grudge against M. de
+Vilmorin. He was a man of my own class; a gentleman of pleasant ways,
+amiable, estimable, and able.
+
+"You conceive me slaying him for the very lust of slaying, like some
+beast of the jungle flinging itself upon its natural prey. That has
+been your error from the first. I did what I did with the very heaviest
+heart--oh, spare me your sneer!--I do not lie, I have never lied. And I
+swear to you here and now, by my every hope of Heaven, that what I say
+is true. I loathed the thing I did. Yet for my own sake and the sake of
+my order I must do it. Ask yourself whether M. de Vilmorin would have
+hesitated for a moment if by procuring my death he could have brought
+the Utopia of his dreams a moment nearer realization.
+
+"After that. You determined that the sweetest vengeance would be to
+frustrate my ends by reviving in yourself the voice that I had silenced,
+by yourself carrying forward the fantastic apostleship of equality that
+was M. de Vilmorin's. You lacked the vision that would have shown you
+that God did not create men equals. Well, you are in case to-night to
+judge which of us was right, which wrong. You see what is happening here
+in Paris. You see the foul spectre of Anarchy stalking through a land
+fallen into confusion. Probably you have enough imagination to conceive
+something of what must follow. And do you deceive yourself that out of
+this filth and ruin there will rise up an ideal form of society? Don't
+you understand that society must re-order itself presently out of all
+this?
+
+"But why say more? I must have said enough to make you understand the
+only thing that really matters--that I killed M. de Vilmorin as a matter
+of duty to my order. And the truth--which though it may offend you should
+also convince you--is that to-night I can look back on the deed with
+equanimity, without a single regret, apart from what lies between you
+and me.
+
+"When, kneeling beside the body of your friend that day at Gavrillac,
+you insulted and provoked me, had I been the tiger you conceived me
+I must have killed you too. I am, as you may know, a man of quick
+passions. Yet I curbed the natural anger you aroused in me, because
+I could forgive an affront to myself where I could not overlook a
+calculated attack upon my order."
+
+He paused a moment. Andre-Louis stood rigid listening and wondering.
+So, too, the others. Then M. le Marquis resumed, on a note of less
+assurance. "In the matter of Mlle. Binet I was unfortunate. I wronged
+you through inadvertence. I had no knowledge of the relations between
+you."
+
+Andre-Louis interrupted him sharply at last with a question: "Would it
+have made a difference if you had?"
+
+"No," he was answered frankly. "I have the faults of my kind. I cannot
+pretend that any such scruple as you suggest would have weighed with me.
+But can you--if you are capable of any detached judgment--blame me very
+much for that?"
+
+"All things considered, monsieur, I am rapidly being forced to the
+conclusion that it is impossible to blame any man for anything in this
+world; that we are all of us the sport of destiny. Consider, monsieur,
+this gathering--this family gathering--here to-night, whilst out there...
+O my God, let us make an end! Let us go our ways and write 'finis' to
+this horrible chapter of our lives."
+
+M. le La Tour considered him gravely, sadly, in silence for a moment.
+
+"Perhaps it is best," he said, at length, in a small voice. He turned to
+Mme. de Plougastel. "If a wrong I have to admit in my life, a wrong
+that I must bitterly regret, it is the wrong that I have done to you, my
+dear..."
+
+"Not now, Gervais! Not now!" she faltered, interrupting him.
+
+"Now--for the first and the last time. I am going. It is not likely that
+we shall ever meet again--that I shall ever see any of you again--you who
+should have been the nearest and dearest to me. We are all, he says, the
+sport of destiny. Ah, but not quite. Destiny is an intelligent force,
+moving with purpose. In life we pay for the evil that in life we do.
+That is the lesson that I have learnt to-night. By an act of betrayal
+I begot unknown to me a son who, whilst as ignorant as myself of our
+relationship, has come to be the evil genius of my life, to cross
+and thwart me, and finally to help to pull me down in ruin. It is
+just--poetically just. My full and resigned acceptance of that fact is
+the only atonement I can offer you."
+
+He stooped and took one of madame's hands that lay limply in her lap.
+
+"Good-bye, Therese!" His voice broke. He had reached the end of his iron
+self-control.
+
+She rose and clung to him a moment, unashamed before them. The ashes of
+that dead romance had been deeply stirred this night, and deep down some
+lingering embers had been found that glowed brightly now before their
+final extinction. Yet she made no attempt to detain him. She understood
+that their son had pointed out the only wise, the only possible course,
+and was thankful that M. de La Tour d'Azyr accepted it.
+
+"God keep you, Gervais," she murmured. "You will take the safe-conduct,
+and... and you will let me know when you are safe?"
+
+He held her face between his hands an instant; then very gently kissed
+her and put her from him. Standing erect, and outwardly calm again, he
+looked across at Andre-Louis who was proffering him a sheet of paper.
+
+"It is the safe-conduct. Take it, monsieur. It is my first and last gift
+to you, and certainly the last gift I should ever have thought of making
+you--the gift of life. In a sense it makes us quits. The irony, sir, is
+not mine, but Fate's. Take it, monsieur, and go in peace."
+
+M. de La Tour d'Azyr took it. His eyes looked hungrily into the lean
+face confronting him, so sternly set. He thrust the paper into his
+bosom, and then abruptly, convulsively, held out his hand. His son's
+eyes asked a question.
+
+"Let there be peace between us, in God's name," said the Marquis
+thickly.
+
+Pity stirred at last in Andre-Louis. Some of the sternness left his
+face. He sighed. "Good-bye, monsieur," he said.
+
+"You are hard," his father told him, speaking wistfully. "But perhaps
+you are in the right so to be. In other circumstances I should have been
+proud to have owned you as my son. As it is..." He broke off abruptly,
+and as abruptly added, "Good-bye."
+
+He loosed his son's hand and stepped back. They bowed formally to each
+other. And then M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowed to Mlle. de Kercadiou in
+utter silence, a bow that contained something of utter renunciation, of
+finality.
+
+That done he turned and walked stiffly out of the room, and so out of
+all their lives. Months later they were to hear of him in the service of
+the Emperor of Austria.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. SUNRISE
+
+Andre-Louis took the air next morning on the terrace at Meudon. The hour
+was very early, and the newly risen sun was transmuting into diamonds
+the dewdrops that still lingered on the lawn. Down in the valley, five
+miles away, the morning mists were rising over Paris. Yet early as it
+was that house on the hill was astir already, in a bustle of preparation
+for the departure that was imminent.
+
+Andre-Louis had won safely out of Paris last night with his mother and
+Aline, and to-day they were to set out all of them for Coblenz.
+
+To Andre-Louis, sauntering there with hands clasped behind him and head
+hunched between his shoulders--for life had never been richer in material
+for reflection--came presently Aline through one of the glass doors from
+the library.
+
+"You're early astir," she greeted him.
+
+"Faith, yes. I haven't been to bed. No," he assured her, in answer to
+her exclamation. "I spent the night, or what was left of it, sitting at
+the window thinking."
+
+"My poor Andre!"
+
+"You describe me perfectly. I am very poor--for I know nothing,
+understand nothing. It is not a calamitous condition until it is
+realized. Then..." He threw out his arms, and let them fall again. His
+face she observed was very drawn and haggard.
+
+She paced with him along the old granite balustrade over which the
+geraniums flung their mantle of green and scarlet.
+
+"Have you decided what you are going to do?" she asked him.
+
+"I have decided that I have no choice. I, too, must emigrate. I am lucky
+to be able to do so, lucky to have found no one amid yesterday's chaos
+in Paris to whom I could report myself as I foolishly desired, else
+I might no longer be armed with these." He drew from his pocket the
+powerful passport of the Commission of Twelve, enjoining upon all
+Frenchmen to lend him such assistance as he might require, and warning
+those who might think of hindering him that they did so at their own
+peril. He spread it before her. "With this I conduct you all safely to
+the frontier. Over the frontier M. de Kercadiou and Mme. de Plougastel
+will have to conduct me; and then we shall be quits."
+
+"Quits?" quoth she. "But you will be unable to return!"
+
+"You conceive, of course, my eagerness to do so. My child, in a day or
+two there will be enquiries. It will be asked what has become of me.
+Things will transpire. Then the hunt will start. But by then we shall be
+well upon our way, well ahead of any possible pursuit. You don't imagine
+that I could ever give the government any satisfactory explanation of my
+absence--assuming that any government remains to which to explain it?"
+
+"You mean... that you will sacrifice your future, this career upon which
+you have embarked?" It took her breath away.
+
+"In the pass to which things have come there is no career for me down
+there--at least no honest one. And I hope you do not think that I could
+be dishonest. It is the day of the Dantons, and the Marats, the day of
+the rabble. The reins of government will be tossed to the populace, or
+else the populace, drunk with the conceit with which the Dantons and the
+Marats have filled it, will seize the reins by force. Chaos must follow,
+and a despotism of brutes and apes, a government of the whole by its
+lowest parts. It cannot endure, because unless a nation is ruled by its
+best elements it must wither and decay."
+
+"I thought you were a republican," said she.
+
+"Why, so I am. I am talking like one. I desire a society which selects
+its rulers from the best elements of every class and denies the right of
+any class or corporation to usurp the government to itself--whether it
+be the nobles, the clergy, the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat. For
+government by any one class is fatal to the welfare of the whole. Two
+years ago our ideal seemed to have been realized. The monopoly of power
+had been taken from the class that had held it too long and too unjustly
+by the hollow right of heredity. It had been distributed as evenly as
+might be throughout the State, and if men had only paused there, all
+would have been well. But our impetus carried us too far, the privileged
+orders goaded us on by their very opposition, and the result is the
+horror of which yesterday you saw no more than the beginnings. No,
+no," he ended. "Careers there may be for venal place-seekers, for
+opportunists; but none for a man who desires to respect himself. It is
+time to go. I make no sacrifice in going."
+
+"But where will you go? What will you do?"
+
+"Oh, something. Consider that in four years I have been lawyer,
+politician, swordsman, and buffoon--especially the latter. There is
+always a place in the world for Scaramouche. Besides, do you know that
+unlike Scaramouche I have been oddly provident? I am the owner of a
+little farm in Saxony. I think that agriculture might suit me. It is a
+meditative occupation; and when all is said, I am not a man of action. I
+haven't the qualities for the part."
+
+She looked up into his face, and there was a wistful smile in her deep
+blue eyes.
+
+"Is there any part for which you have not the qualities, I wonder?"
+
+"Do you really? Yet you cannot say that I have made a success of any
+of those which I have played. I have always ended by running away. I
+am running away now from a thriving fencing-academy, which is likely to
+become the property of Le Duc. That comes of having gone into politics,
+from which I am also running away. It is the one thing in which I really
+excel. That, too, is an attribute of Scaramouche."
+
+"Why will you always be deriding yourself?" she wondered.
+
+"Because I recognize myself for part of this mad world, I suppose. You
+wouldn't have me take it seriously? I should lose my reason utterly if I
+did; especially since discovering my parents."
+
+"Don't, Andre!" she begged him. "You are insincere, you know."
+
+"Of course I am. Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the
+very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in
+it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it. You have seen it rampant
+and out of hand in France during the past four years--cant and hypocrisy
+on the lips of the revolutionaries, cant and hypocrisy on the lips of
+the upholders of the old regime; a riot of hypocrisy out of which in
+the end is begotten chaos. And I who criticize it all on this beautiful
+God-given morning am the rankest and most contemptible hypocrite of all.
+It was this--the realization of this truth kept me awake all night. For
+two years I have persecuted by every means in my power... M. de La Tour
+d'Azyr."
+
+He paused before uttering the name, paused as if hesitating how to speak
+of him.
+
+"And in those two years I have deceived myself as to the motive that was
+spurring me. He spoke of me last night as the evil genius of his life,
+and himself he recognized the justice of this. It may be that he was
+right, and because of that it is probable that even had he not killed
+Philippe de Vilmorin, things would still have been the same. Indeed,
+to-day I know that they must have been. That is why I call myself a
+hypocrite, a poor, self-duping hypocrite."
+
+"But why, Andre?"
+
+He stood still and looked at her. "Because he sought you, Aline.
+Because in that alone he must have found me ranged against him, utterly
+intransigeant. Because of that I must have strained every nerve to bring
+him down--so as to save you from becoming the prey of your own ambition.
+
+"I wish to speak of him no more than I must. After this, I trust never
+to speak of him again. Before the lines of our lives crossed, I knew him
+for what he was, I knew the report of him that ran the countryside.
+Even then I found him detestable. You heard him allude last night to the
+unfortunate La Binet. You heard him plead, in extenuation of his fault,
+his mode of life, his rearing. To that there is no answer, I suppose. He
+conforms to type. Enough! But to me, he was the embodiment of evil, just
+as you have always been the embodiment of good; he was the embodiment
+of sin, just as you are the embodiment of purity. I had enthroned you so
+high, Aline, so high, and yet no higher than your place. Could I, then,
+suffer that you should be dragged down by ambition, could I suffer the
+evil I detested to mate with the good I loved? What could have come of
+it but your own damnation, as I told you that day at Gavrillac? Because
+of that my detestation of him became a personal, active thing. I
+resolved to save you at all costs from a fate so horrible. Had you
+been able to tell me that you loved him it would have been different.
+I should have hoped that in a union sanctified by love you would have
+raised him to your own pure heights. But that out of considerations of
+worldly advancement you should lovelessly consent to mate with him...
+Oh, it was vile and hopeless. And so I fought him--a rat fighting a
+lion--fought him relentlessly until I saw that love had come to take in
+your heart the place of ambition. Then I desisted."
+
+"Until you saw that love had taken the place of ambition!" Tears
+had been gathering in her eyes whilst he was speaking. Now amazement
+eliminated her emotion. "But when did you see that? When?"
+
+"I--I was mistaken. I know it now. Yet, at the time... surely, Aline,
+that morning when you came to beg me not to keep my engagement with him
+in the Bois, you were moved by concern for him?"
+
+"For him! It was concern for you," she cried, without thinking what she
+said.
+
+But it did not convince him. "For me? When you knew--when all the world
+knew what I had been doing daily for a week!"
+
+"Ah, but he, he was different from the others you had met. His
+reputation stood high. My uncle accounted him invincible; he persuaded
+me that if you met nothing could save you."
+
+He looked at her frowning.
+
+"Why this, Aline?" he asked her with some sternness. "I can understand
+that, having changed since then, you should now wish to disown those
+sentiments. It is a woman's way, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, what are you saying, Andre? How wrong you are! It is the truth I
+have told you!"
+
+"And was it concern for me," he asked her, "that laid you swooning when
+you saw him return wounded from the meeting? That was what opened my
+eyes."
+
+"Wounded? I had not seen his wound. I saw him sitting alive and
+apparently unhurt in his caleche, and I concluded that he had killed you
+as he had said he would. What else could I conclude?"
+
+He saw light, dazzling, blinding, and it scared him. He fell back,
+a hand to his brow. "And that was why you fainted?" he asked
+incredulously.
+
+She looked at him without answering. As she began to realize how much
+she had been swept into saying by her eagerness to make him realize his
+error, a sudden fear came creeping into her eyes.
+
+He held out both hands to her.
+
+"Aline! Aline!" His voice broke on the name. "It was I..."
+
+"O blind Andre, it was always you--always! Never, never did I think
+of him, not even for loveless marriage, save once for a little while,
+when... when that theatre girl came into your life, and then..." She
+broke off, shrugged, and turned her head away. "I thought of following
+ambition, since there was nothing left to follow."
+
+He shook himself. "I am dreaming, of course, or else I am mad," he said.
+
+"Blind, Andre; just blind," she assured him.
+
+"Blind only where it would have been presumption to have seen."
+
+"And yet," she answered him with a flash of the Aline he had known of
+old, "I have never found you lack presumption."
+
+M. de Kercadiou, emerging a moment later from the library window, beheld
+them holding hands and staring each at the other, beatifically, as if
+each saw Paradise in the other's face.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini
+
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