"You remember me at thesiege? Why, what is your age?"
"Oh, I am no particular age," replied the guest, holding up his glass to be filled by Andrea's fair hand.
The host interpreted that his guest did not care to tell his years.
"My lord, allow me to say that you do not seem to have been a soldier, then, as it is twenty-eight years ago, and you are hardly over thirty."
Andrea regarded the stranger with the steadfastness of deep curiosity; he came out in a different light every instant.
"I know what I am talking about the famous siege, where the Duke of Richelieu killed in a duel his cousin the Prince of Lixen. The encounter came off on the highway, by my fay! on our return from the outposts; on the embankment, to the left, he ran him through the body. I came up as Prince Deux-ponts held the dying man in his arms. He was seated on the ditch bank, while Richelieu tranquilly wiped his steel."
"On my honor, my lord, you astound me. Things passed as you describe."
"Stay, you wore a captain's uniform then, in the Queen's Light Horse Guards, so badly cut up at Fontenoy?"
"Were you in that battle, too?" jeered the baron.
"No, I was dead at that time," replied the stranger, calmly.
The baron stared, Andrea shuddered, and Nicole made the sign of the cross.
"To resume the subject, I recall you clearly now, as you held your horse and the duke's while he fought. I went up to you for an account and you gave it. They called you the Little Chevalier. Excuse me not remembering before, but thirty years change a man. To the health of Marshal Richelieu, my dear baron!"
"But, according to this, you would be upward of fifty."
"I am of the age to have witnessed that affair."
The baron dropped back in the chair so vexed that Nicole could not help laughing. But Andrea, instead of laughing, mused with her looks on the mysterious guest. He seemed to await this chance to dart two or three flaming glances at her, which thrilled her like an electrical discharge. Her arms stiffened, her neck bent, she smiled against her will on the hypnotizer, and closed her eyes. He managed to touch her arm, and again she quivered.
"Do you think I tell a fib in asserting I was at Philipsburg?" he demanded.
"No, I believe you," she replied with a great effort.
"I am in my dotage," muttered Taverney, "unless we have a ghost here."
"Who can tell?" returned Balsamo, with so grave an accent that he subjugated the lady and made Nicole stare.
"But if you were living at the Siege, you were a child of four orfive."
"I was over forty."
The baron laughed and Nicole echoed him.
"You do not believe me. It is plain, though, for I was not the man I am."
"This is a bit of antiquity," said the French noble. "Was there not a Greek philosopher—these vile philosophers seem to be of all ages—who would not eat beans because they contained souls, like the negress, according to my son? What the deuse was his name?"
"That is the gentleman."
"Why may I not be Pythagoras?"
"Pythagoras," prompted Andrea.
"I do not deny that, but he was not at Philipsburg; or, at any rate, I did not see him there."
"But you saw Viscount Jean Barreaux, one of the Black Horse Musketeers?"
"Rather; the musketeers and the light cavalry took turns in guarding the trenches."
"The day after the Richelieu duel, Barreaux and you were in the trenches when he asked you for a pinch of snuff, which you offered in a gold box, ornamented with the portrait of a belle, but in the act a cannon ball hit him in the throat, as happened the Duke of Berwick aforetimes, and carried away his head."
"Gad! just so! poor Barreaux!"
"This proves that we were acquainted there, for I am Barreaux," said the foreigner.
The host shrank back in fright or stupefaction.
"This is magic," he gasped; "you would have been burnt at the stake a hundred years ago, my dear guest. I seem to smell brimstone!"
"My dear baron, note that a true magician is never burnt or hanged. Only fools are led to the gibbet or pyre. But here is your daughter sent to sleep by our discussions on metaphysics and occult sciences, not calculated to interest a lady."
Indeed, Andrea nodded under irresistible force like a lily on the stalk. At these words she made an effort to repel the subtle fluid which overwhelmed her; she shook her head energetically, rose and tottered out of the room, sustained by Nicole. At the same time disappeared the face glued so often to the window glass on the outside, which Balsamo had recognized as Gilbert's.
"Eureka!" exclaimed Balsamo triumphantly, as she vanished. "I can say it like Archimedes."
"Who is he?" inquired the baron.
"A very good fellow for a wizard, whom I knew over two thousand years ago," replied the guest.
Whether the baron thought this boast rather too preposterous, or he did not hear it, or hearing it, wanted the more to be rid of his odd guest, he proposed lending him a horse to get to the nearest posting house.
"What, force me to ride when I am dying to stretch my legs in bed? Do not exaggerate your mediocrity so as to make me believe in a personal ill will."
"On the contrary, I treat you as a friend, knowing what you will incur here. But since you put it this way, remain. Labrie, is the Red-Room habitable?"
"Certainly, my lord, as it is Master Philip's when he ishere."
"Give it to the gentleman, since he is bent on being disgusted with Taverney."
"I want to be here to-morrow to testify to my gratitude."
"You can do that easily, as you are so friendly with Old Nick that you can ask him for the stone which turns all things to gold."
"If that is what you want, apply to me direct."
"Labrie, you old rogue, get a candle and light the gentleman to bed," said the baron, beginning to find such a dialogue dangerous at the late hour.
Labrie ordered Nicole to air the Red Room while he hastened to obey. Nicole left Andrea alone, the latter eager for the solitude to nurse her thoughts. Taverney bade the guest good-night, and went to bed.
Balsamo took out his watch, for he recalled his promise to awake Althotas after two hours, and it was a half-hour more. He asked the servant if his coach was still out in the yard, and Labrie answered in the affirmative—unless it had run off of its own volition. As for Gilbert, he had been abed most likely since an hour.
Balsamo went to Althotas after studying the way to the Red Room. Labrie was tidying up the sordid apartment, after Nicole had aired it, when the guest returned.
He had paused at Andrea's room to listen at her door to her playing on the harpsichord to dispel the burden of the influence the stranger had imposed upon her. In a while he waved his hands as in throwing a magic spell, and so it was, for Andrea slowly stopped playing, let her hands drop by her sides, and turned rigidly and slowly toward the door, like one who obeys an influence foreign to will.
Balsamo smiled in the darkness as though he could see through the panels. This was all he wanted to do, for he groped for the banister rail, and went up stairs to his room.
As he departed, Andrea turned away from the door andresumed playing, so that the mesmerist heard the air again from where she had been made to leave off.
Entering the Red Room, he dismissed Labrie; but the latter lingered, feeling in the depths of his pocket till at last he managed to say:
"My lord, you made a mistake this evening, in giving me gold for the piece of silver you intended."
Balsamo looked on the old servingman with admiration, showing that he had not a high opinion of the honesty of most men.
"'And honest,'" he muttered in the words of Hamlet, as he took out a second gold coin to place it beside the other in the old man's hand.
The latter's delight at this splendid generosity may be imagined, for he had not seen so much gold in twenty years. He was retiring, bowing to the floor, when the donor checked him.
"What are the morning habits of the house?" he asked.
"My lord stays abed late, my lord; but Mademoiselle Andrea is up betimes, about six."
"Who sleeps overhead?"
"I, my lord; but nobody beneath, as the vestibule is under us."
"Oh, by the way, do not be alarmed if you see a light in mycoach, asan old impotent servant inhabits it. Ask Master Gilbert to let me see him in the morning."
"Is my lord going away so soon?"
"It depends," replied Balsamo, with a smile. "I ought to be at Bar-le-Duc tomorrow evening."
Labrie sighed with resignation, and was about to set fire to some old papers to warm the room, which was damp and there was no wood, when Balsamo stayed him.
"No, let them be; I might want to read them, for I may not sleep."
Balsamo went to the door to listen to the servant's departing steps making the stairs creak till they sounded overhead; Labrie was in his own room. Then he went to the window. In the other wing was a lighted window, with half-drawn curtains, facing him. Legay was leisurely taking off her neckerchief, often peeping down into the yard.
"Striking resemblance," muttered the baron.
The light went out though the girl had not gone to rest. The watcher stood up against the wall. The harpsichord still sounded, with no other noise. He opened his door, went down stairs with caution, and opened the door of Andrea's sitting-room.
Suddenly she stopped in the melancholy strain, although she had not heard the intruder. As she was trying to recall the thrill which had mastered her, it came anew. She shivered allover. In the mirror she saw movement. The shadow in the doorway could only be her father or a servant. Nothing more natural.
But she saw with spiritual eyes that it was none of these.
"My lord," she faltered, "in heaven's name, what want you?"
It was the stranger, in the black velvet riding coat, for he had discarded his silken suit, in which a mesmerist cannot well work his power.
She tried to rise, but could not; she tried to open her mouth to scream, but with a pass of both hands Balsamo froze the sound on her lips.
With no strength or will, Andrea let her head sink on her shoulder.
At this juncture Balsamo believed he heard a noise at the window. Quickly turning, he caught sight of a man's face beyond. He frowned, and, strangely enough, the same impression flitted across the medium's face.
"Sleep!" he commanded, lowering the hands he had held above her head with a smooth gesture, and persevering in filling her with the mesmeric fluid in crushing columns. "I will you to sleep."
All yielded to this mighty will. Andrea leaned her elbow on the musical-instrument case, her head on her hand, and slept.
The mesmerist retired backward, drew the door to, and went back to his room. As soon as the door closed, the face he had seen reappeared at the window; it was Gilbert's.
Excluded from the parlor by his inferior position in Taverney Castle, he had watched all the persons through the evening whose rank allowed them to figure in it. During the supper he had noticed Baron Balsamo gesticulate and smile, and his peculiar attention bestowed on the lady of the house; the master's unheard-of affability to him, and Labrie's respectful eagerness.
Later on, when they rose from table, he hid in a clump of lilacs and snowballs, for fear that Nicole, closing the blinds or in going to her room, should catch him eavesdropping.
But Gilbert had other designs this evening than spying. He waited, without clearly knowing for what. When he saw the light in the maid's window, he crossed the yard on tiptoe and crouched down in the gloom to peer in at the window at Andrea playing the harpsichord.
This was the moment when the mesmerist entered the room.
At this sight, Gilbert started and his ardent gaze covered the magician and his victim.
But he imagined that Balsamo complimented the lady on her musical talent, to which she replied with her customary coldness; but he had persisted with a smile so that she suspended her practice and answered. He admired the grace with which the visitor retired.
Of all the interview which he fancied he read aright, he had understood nothing, for what really happened was in the mind, in silence.
However keen an observer he was, he could not divine a mystery, where everything had passed quite naturally.
Balsamo gone, Gilbert remained, not watching, but contemplating Andrea, lovely in her thoughtful pose, till he perceived with astonishment that she was slumbering. When convinced of this, he grasped his head between his hands like one who fears his brain will burst from the overflow of emotions.
"Oh, to kiss her hand!" he murmured, in a gush of fury. "Oh, Gilbert, let us approach her—I so long to do it."
Hardly had he entered the room than he felt the importance of his intrusion. The timid if not respectful son of a farmer to dare to raise his eyes on that proud daughter of the peers. If he should touch the hem of her dress she would blast him with a glance.
The floor boards creaked under his wary tread, but she did not move, though he was bathed in cold perspiration.
"She sleeps—oh, happiness, she sleeps!" he panted, drawing with irresistible attraction within a yard of the statue, of which he took the sleeve and kissed it.
Holding his breath, slowly he raised his eyes, seeking hers. They were wide open, but still saw not. Intoxicated by the delusion that she expected his visit and her silence was consent, her quiet a favor, he lifted her hand to his lips and impressed a long and feverish kiss.
She shuddered and repulsed him.
"I am lost!" he gasped, dropping the hand and beating the floor with his forehead.
Andrea rose as though moved by a spring under her feet, passed by Gilbert, crushed by shame and terror and with no power to crave pardon, and proceeded to the door. With high-held head andoutstretched neck, as if drawn by a secret power toward an invisible goal, she opened the door and walked out on the landing.
The youth rose partly and watched her take the stairs. He crawled after her, pale, trembling and astonished.
"She is going to tell the baron and have me scourged out of the house—no, she goes up to where the guest is lodged. For she would have rung, or called, if she wanted Labrie."
He clenched his fists at the bare idea that Andrea was going into the strange gentleman's room. All this seemed monstrous. And yet that was her end.
That door was ajar. She pushed it open without knocking; the lamplight streamed on her pure profile and whirled golden reflections into her wildly open eyes.
In the center of the room Gilbert saw the baron standing, with fixed gaze and wrinkled brow, and his hand extended in gesture of command, ere the door swung to.
Gilbert's forces failed him; he wheeled round on the stairs, clinging to the rail, but slid down, with his eyes fastened to the last on the cursed panel, behind which was sealed up all his vanished dream, present happiness and future hope.
Balsamohad gone up to the young lady, whose appearance in his chamber was not strange to him.
"I bade you sleep. Do you sleep?"
Andrea sighed and nodded with an effort.
"It is well. Sit here," and he led her by the hand the youth had kissed to a chair, which she took.
"Now, see!"
Her eyes dilated as though to collect all the luminous rays in the room.
"I did not tell you to see with your eyes," said he, "but with those of the soul."
He touched her with a steel rod which he drew from under his waistcoat. She started as though a fiery dart had transfixed her and her eyes closed instantly; her darkening face expressed the sharpest astonishment.
"Tell me where you are."
"In the Red Room, with you, and I am ashamed and afraid."
"What of? Are we not in sympathy, and do you not know that my intentions are pure, and that I respect you like a sister?"
"You may not mean evil to me, but it is not so as regards others."
"Possibly," said the magician; "but do not heed that," he added in a tone of command. "Are all asleep under this roof?"
"All, save my father who is reading one of those bad books, which he pesters me to read, but I will not."
"Good; we are safe in that quarter. Look where Nicole is."
"She is in her room, in the dark, but I need not the light to see that she is slipping out of it to go and hide behind the yard door to watch."
"To watch you?"
"No."
"Then, it matters not. When a girl is safe from her father and her attendant, she has nothing to fear, unless she is in love——"
"I, love?" she said sneeringly. And shaking her head, she added sadly: "My heart is free."
Such an expression of candor and virginal modesty embellished her features that Balsamo radiantly muttered:
"A lily—a pupil—a seer!" clasping his hands in delight. "But, without loving, you may be loved?"
"I know not; and yet, since I returned from school, a youth has watched me, and even now he is weeping at the foot of the stairs."
"See his face!"
"He hides it in his hands."
"See through them."
"Gilbert!" she uttered with an effort. "Impossible that he would presume to love me!"
Balsamo smiled at her deep disdain, like one who knew that love will leap any distance.
"What is he doing now?"
"He puts down his hands, he musters up courage to mount hither—no, he has not the courage—he flees."
She smiled with scorn.
"Cease to look that way. Speak of the Baron of Taverney. He is too poor to give you any amusements?"
"None."
"You are dying of tedium here; for you have ambition?"
"No."
"Love for your father?"
"Yes; though I bear him a grudge for squandering my mother's fortune so that poor Redcastle pines in the garrison and cannot wear our name handsomely."
"Who is Redcastle?"
"My brother Philip is called the Knight of Redcastle from a property of the eldest son, and will wear it till father's death entitles him to be 'Taverney.'"
"Do you love your brother?"
"Dearly, above all else; because he has a noble heart, and would give his life for me."
"More than your father would. Where is Redcastle?"
"At Strasburg in the garrison; no, he has gone—oh, dear Philip!" continued the medium with sparkling eyes in joy. "I see him riding through a town I know. It is Nancy, where I was at the convent school. The torches round him light up his darling face."
"Why torches?" asked Balsamo in amaze.
"They are around him on horseback, and a handsome gilded carriage."
Balsamo appeared to have a guess at this, for he only said:
"Who is in the coach?"
"A lovely, graceful, majestic woman, but I seem to have seen her before—how strange! no, I am wrong—she looks likeour Nicole; but as the lily is like the jessamine. She leans out of the coach window and beckons Philip to draw near. He takes his hat off with respect as she orders him, with a smile, to hurry on the horses. She says that the escort must be ready at six in the morning, as she wishes to take a rest in the daytime—oh, it is at Taverney that she means to stop. She wants to see my father! So grand a princess stop at our shabby house! What shall we do without linen or plate?"
"Be of good cheer. We will provide all that."
"Oh, thank you!"
The girl, who had partly risen, fell back in the chair, uttering a profound sigh.
"Regain your strength," said the magician, drawing the excess of magnetism from the beautiful body, which bent as if broken, and the fair head heavily resting on the heaving bosom. "I shall require all your lucidity presently. O, Science! you alone never deceive man. To none other ought man sacrifice his all. This is a lovely woman, a pure angel as Thou knowest who created angels. But what is this beauty and this innocence to me now?—only worth what information they afford. I care not though this fair darling dies, as long as she tells me what I seek. Let all worldly delights perish—love, passion and ecstasy, if I may tread the path surely and well lighted. Now, maiden, that, in a few seconds, my power has given you the repose of ages, plunge once more into your mesmeric slumber. This time, speak for myself alone."
He made the passes which replaced Andrea in repose. From his bosom he drew the folded paper containing the tress of black hair, from which the perfume had made the paper transparent. He laid it in Andrea's hand, saying:
"See!"
"Yes, a woman!"
"Joy!" cried Balsamo. "Science is not a mere name like virtue. Mesmer has vanquished Brutus. Depict this woman, that I may recognize her."
"Tall, dark, but with blue eyes, her hair like this, her arms sinewy."
"What is she doing?"
"Racing as though carried off on a fine black horse, flecked with foam. She takes the road yonder to Chalons."
"Good! my own road," said Balsamo. "I was going to Paris, and there we shall meet. You may repose now," and he took back the lock of hair.
Andrea's arms fell motionless again along her body.
"Recover strength, and go back to your harpsichord," said the mesmerist, enveloping her, as she rose, with a fresh supply of magnetism.
Andrea acted like the racehorse which overtaxes itself toaccomplish the master's will, however unfair. She walked through the doorway, where he had opened the door, and, still asleep, descended the stairs slowly.
Gilberthad passed this time in unspeakable anguish. Balsamo was but a man, but he was a strong one, and the youth was weak: He had attempted twenty times to mount to the assault of the guest room, but his trembling limbs gave way under him and he fell on his knees.
Then the idea struck him to get the gardener's ladder and by its means climb up outside to thewindow, and listen and spy. But as he stooped to pick up this ladder, lying on the grass where he remembered, he heard a rustling noise by the house, and he turned.
He let the ladder fall, for he fancied he saw a shade flit across the doorway. His terror made him believe it, not a ghost—he was a budding philosopher who did not credit them—but Baron Taverney. His conscience whispered another name, and he looked up to the second floor. But Nicole had put out her light, and not another, or a sound came from all over the house—the guest's room excepted.
Seeing and hearing nothing, convinced that he had deluded himself, Gilbert took up the ladder and had set foot on it to climb where he placed it, when Andrea came down from Balsamo's room. With a lacerated heart, Gilbert forgot all to follow her into the parlor where again she sat at the instrument; her candle still burned beside it.
Gilbert tore his bosom with his nails to think that here he had kissed the hem of her robe with such reverence. Her condescension must spring from one of those fits of corruption recorded in the vile books which he had read—some freak of the senses.
But as he was going to invade the room again, a hand came out of the darkness and energetically grasped him by the arm.
"So I have caught you, base deceiver! Try to deny again that you love her and have an appointment with her!"
Gilbert had not the power to break from the clutch, though he might readily have done so, for it was only a girl's. Nicole Legay held him a prisoner.
"What do you want?" he said testily.
"Do you want me to speak out aloud?"
"No, no; be quiet," he stammered, dragging her out of the antechamber.
"Then follow me!" which was what Gilbert wanted, as this was removing Nicole from her mistress.
He could with a word have proved that while he might beguilty of loving the lady, the latter was not an accomplice; but the secret of Andrea was one that enriches a man, whether with love or lucre.
"Come to my room," she said; "who would surprise us there! Not my young lady, though she may well be jealous of her fine gallant! But folks in the secret are not to be dreaded. The honorable lady jealous of the servant,—I never expected such anhonor! It is I who am jealous, for you love me no more."
In plainness, Nicole's bedroom did not differ from the others in that dwelling. She sat on the edge of the bed, and Gilbert on the dressing-case, which Andrea had given her maid.
Coming up the stairs, Nicole had calmed herself, but the youth felt anger rise as it cooled in the girl.
"So you love our young lady," began Nicole with a kindling eye. "You have love-trysts with her; or will you pretend you went only to consult the magician?"
"Perhaps so, for you know I feel ambition——"
"Greed, you mean?"
"It is the same thing, as you take it."
"Don't let us bandy words: you avoid me lately."
"I seek solitude——"
"And you want to go up into solitude by a ladder? Beg pardon, I did not know that was the way to it."
Gilbert was beaten in the first defenses.
"You had better out with it, that you love me no longer, or love us both."
"That would only be an error of society, for in some countries men have several wives."
"Savages!" exclaimed the servant, testily.
"Philosophers!" retorted Gilbert.
"But you would not like me to have two beaux on my string?"
"I do not wish tyrannically and unjustly to restrain the impulses of your heart. Liberty consists in respecting free will. So, change your affection, for fidelity is not natural—to some."
Discussion was the youth's strong point; he knew little, but more than the girl. So he began to regain coolness.
"Have you a good memory, Master Philosopher?" said Nicole. "Do you remember when I came back from the nunnery with mistress, and you consoled me, and taking me in your arms, said: 'You are an orphan like me; let us be brother and sister through similar misfortune.' Did you mean what you said?"
"Yes, then; but five months have changed me; I think otherwise at present."
"You mean you will not wed me? Yet Nicole Legay is worth a Gilbert, it seems to me."
"All men are equal; but nature or education improves or depreciates them. As their faculties or acquirements expand, they part from one another."
"I understand that we must part, and that you are a scamp. How ever could I fancy such a fellow?"
"Nicole, I am never going to marry, but be a learned man or a philosopher. Learning requires the isolation of the mind; philosophy that of the body."
"Master Gilbert, you are a scoundrel, and not worth a girl like me. But you laugh," she continued, with a dry smile more ominous than his satirical laugh; "do not make war with me; for I shall do such deeds that you will be sorry, for they will fall on your head, for having turned me astray."
"You are growing wiser; and I am convinced now that you would refuse me if I sued you."
Nicole reflected, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth.
"I believe you are right, Gilbert," she said; "I, too, see my horizon enlarge, and believe I am fated for better things than to be so mean as a philosopher's wife. Go back to your ladder, sirrah, and try not to break your neck, though I believe it would be a blessing to others, and may be for yourself."
Gilbert hesitated for a space in indecision, for Nicole, excited by love and spite, was a ravishing creature; but he had determined to break with her, as she hampered his passion and his aspirations.
"Gone," murmured Nicole in a few seconds.
She ran to the window, but all was dark. She went to her mistress' door, where she listened.
"She is asleep; but I will know all about it to-morrow."
It was broad day when Andrea de Taverney awoke.
In trying to rise, she felt such lassitude and sharp pain that she fell back on the pillow uttering a groan.
"Goodness, what is the matter?" cried Nicole, who had opened the curtains.
"I do not know. I feel lame all over; my chest seems broken in."
"It is the outbreak of the cold you caught last night," said the maid.
"Last night?" repeated the surprised lady; but she remarked the disorder of her room, and added: "Stay, I remember that I felt very tired—exhausted—it must have been the storm. I fell to sleep over my music. I recall nothing further. I went up hither half asleep, and must have thrown myself on the bed without undressingproperly."
"You must have stayed very late at the music, then," observed Nicole, "for, before you retired to your bedroom I came down, having heard steps about——"
"But I did not stir from the parlor."
"Oh, of course, you know better than me," said Nicole.
"You must mistake," replied the other with the utmost sweetness: "I never left the seat; but I remember that I was cold, for I walked quite swiftly."
"When I saw you in the garden, however, you walked very freely."
"I, in the grounds?—you know I never go out after dark."
"I should think I knew my mistress by sight," said the maid, doubling her scrutiny; "I thought that you were taking a stroll with somebody."
"With whom would I be taking a stroll?" demanded Andrea, without seeing that her servant was putting her to an examination.
Nicole did not think it prudent to proceed, for the coolness of the hypocrite, as she considered her, frightened her. So she changed the subject.
"I hope you are not going to be sick, either with fatigue or sorrow. Both have the same effect. Ah, well I know how sorrows undermine!"
"You do? Have you sorrows, Nicole?"
"Indeed; I was coming to tell my mistress, when I was frightened to see how queer you looked; no doubt, we both are upset."
"Really!" queried Andrea, offended at the "we both."
"I am thinking of getting married."
"Why, you are not yet seventeen——"
"But you are sixteen and——"
She was going to say something saucy, but she knew Andrea too well to risk it, and cut short the explanation.
"Indeed, I cannot know what my mistress thinks, but I am low-born and I act according to my nature. It is natural to have a sweetheart."
"Oh, you have a loverthen! You seem to make good use of your time here."
"I must look forward. You are a lady and have expectations from rich kinsfolks going off; but I have no family and must get into one."
As all thisseemed straightforward enough, Andrea forgot what had been offensive in tone, and said, with her kindness taking the reins:
"Is it any one I know? Speak out, as it is the duty of masters to interest themselves in the fate of their servants, and I am pleased with you."
"That is very kind. It is—Gilbert!"
To her high amaze, Andrea did not wince.
"As he loves you, marry him," she replied, easily. "He is an orphan, too, so you are both your own masters. Only, you are both rather young."
"We shall have the longer life together."
"You are penniless."
"We can work."
"What can he do, who is good for nothing?"
"He is good to catch game for master's table, anyway; you slander poor Gilbert, who is full of attention for you."
"He does his duty as a servant——"
"Nay; he is not a servant; he is never paid."
"He is son of a farmer of ours; he is kept and does nothing for it; so, he steals his support. But what are you aiming at to defend so warmly a boy whom nobody attacks?"
"I never thought you would attack him! it is just the other way about!" with a bitter smile.
"Something more I do not understand."
"Because you do not want to."
"Enough! I have no leisure for your riddles. You want my consent to this marriage?"
"If you please; and I hope you will bear Gilbert no ill will."
"What is it to me whether he loves you or not? You burden me, miss."
"I daresay," said Nicole, bursting out in anger at last; "you have said the same thing to Gilbert."
"I speak to your Gilbert! You are mad, girl; leave me in peace."
"If you do not speak to him now, I believe the silence will not last long."
"Lord forgive her—the silly jade is jealous!" exclaimed Andrea, covering her with a disdainful look, and laughing. "Cheer up, little Legay! I never looked at your pretty Gilbert, and I do not so much as know the color of his eyes."
Andrea was quite ready to overlook what seemed folly and not pertness; but Nicole felt offended, and did not want pardon.
"I can quite believe that—for one cannot get a good look in the nighttime."
"Take care to make yourself clear at once," said Andrea, very pale.
"Last night, I saw——"
"Andrea!" came a voice from below, in the garden.
"My lord your father," said Nicole, "with the stranger who passed the night here."
"Go down, and say that I cannot answer, as I am not well. I have a stiff neck; and return to finish this odd debate."
Nicole obeyed, as Andrea was always obeyed when commanding, without reply or wavering. Her mistress felt something unusual; though resolved not to show herself, she was constrained to go to the window left open by Legay, through a superior and resistless power.
Thetraveler had risen early to look to his coach and learn how Althotas was faring.
All were still sleeping but Gilbert, who peeped through a window of his room over the doorway and spied all the stranger's movements.
The latter was struck by the change which day brought on the scene so gloomy overnight. The domain of Taverney did not lack dignity or grace. The old house resembled a cavern which nature embellishes with flowers, creepers and capricious rookeries, although at night it would daunt a traveler seeking shelter.
When Balsamo returned after an hour's stroll to the Red Castle ruins, he saw the lord of it all leave the house by a side door to cull roses and crush snails. His slender person was wrapped in his flowered dressing-gown.
"My lord," said Balsamo, with the more courtesy as he had been sounding his host's poverty, "allow my excuses with my respects. I ought to wait your coming down, but the aspect of Taverney tempted me, and I yearned to view the imposing ruins and pretty garden."
"The ruins are rather fine," returned the baron; "about all here worth looking at. The castle was my ancestors'; it is called the Red Castle, and we long have borne its name together with Taverney, it being the same barony. Oh, my lord, as you are a magician," continued the nobleman, "you ought with a wave of your wand uprear again the old Red Castle, as well as restore the two thousand odd acres around it. But I suppose you wanted all your art to make that beastly bed comfortable. It is my son's, and he growled enough at it."
"I protest it is excellent, and I want to prove it by doing you some service in return."
Labrie was bringing to his master a glass of spring water on a splendid china platter.
"Here's your chance," said the baron, always jeering; "turn that into wine as the greatest service of all."
Balsamo smiling, the old lord thought it was backing out and took the glass, swallowing the contents at a gulp.
"Excellent specific," said the mesmerist. "Water is the noblest of the elements, baron. Nothing resists it; it pierces stone now, and one of these days will dissolve diamonds."
"It is dissolving me. Will you drink with me. It has the advantage over wine of running freely here. Not like my liquor."
"I might make one useful to you."
"Labrie, a glass of water for the baron. How can the water which I drink daily comprise properties never suspected by me? As the fellow in the play talked prose all his life without knowing it, have I been practising magic for ten years without an idea of it?"
"I do not know about your lordship, but I do know about myself," was the other's grave reply.
Taking the glass from Labrie, who had displayed marvelous celerity, he looked at it steadily.
"What do you see in it, my dear guest?" the baron continued to mock. "I am dying with eagerness. Come, come! a windfall to me, another Red Castle to set me on my legs again."
"I see the advice here to prepare for a visit. A personage of high distinction is coming, self-invited, conducted by your son Philip, who is even now near us."
"My dear lord, my son is on military duty at Strasburg, and he will not be bringing guests at the risk of being punished as a deserter."
"He is none the less bringing a lady, a mighty dame—and, by the way, you had better keep that pretty Abigail of yours at a distance while she stays, as there is a close likeness between them."
"The promised lady guest bears a likeness to my servant Legay? What contradiction!"
"Why not? Once I bought a slave so like Cleopatra that the Romans talked of palming her off for the genuine queen in the triumph in their capital."
"So you are at your old tricks again?" laughed the baron.
"How would you like it, were you a princess, for instance, to see behind your chair a maid who looked your picture, in short petticoats and linen neckerchief."
"Well, we will protect her against that. But I am very pleased with this boy of mine who brings guests without forewarningus!"
"I am glad my forecast affords you pleasure, my dear baron; and, if you meant to properly greet the coming guest, you have not a minute to lose."
The baron shook his head like the most incredulous of beings, and as the two were near the dwelling part of the baron's daughter, he called out to her to impart the stranger's predictions.
This was the call which brought her to the window despite herself, and she saw Balsamo. He bowed deeply to her while fixing his eyes upon her. She reeled and had to catch the sill not to fall.
"Good-morning, my lord," she answered.
She uttered these words at the very moment when Nicole,telling the baron that his daughter would not come, stopped stupefied and with gaping mouth at this capricious contradiction.
Instantly Andrea fell on a chair, all her powers quitting her. Balsamo had gazed on her to the last.
"This is deusedly hard to believe," remarked the baron, "and seeing is believing——"
"Then, see!" said the wonder-worker, pointing up the avenue, from the end of which came galloping at full speed a rider whose steed made the stones rattle under its hoofs.
"Oh, it is indeed——" began the baron.
"Master Philip!" screamed Nicole, standing on tiptoe, while Labrie grunted in pleasure.
"My brother!" cried out Andrea, thrusting her hands through the window.
"This is the commencement," said Balsamo.
"Decidedly you are a magician," said the baron.
A smile of triumph appeared on the mesmerist's lips.
Soon the horse approached plainly, reeking with sweat and smoking, and the rider, a young man in an officer's uniform, splashed with mud up to the countenance, animated by the speed, leaped off and hurried to embrace his father.
"It is I," said Philip of Taverney, seeing the doubt. "I bear a great honor for our house. In an hour Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and bride of the Dauphin of France, will be here."
The baron dropped his arms with as much humility as he had shown sarcasm and irony, and turned to Balsamo for his forgiveness.
"My lord," said the latter, bowing, "I leave you with your son, from whom you have been long separated and to whom you must have a great deal to say."
Saluting Andrea, who rushed to meet her brother in high delight, Balsamo drew off, beckoning Nicole and Labrie, who disappeared with him under the trees.
Philip of Taverney, Knight of Redcastle, did not resemble his sister, albeit he was as handsome for a man as she was lovely for a woman.
Andrea's embrace of him was accompanied by sobs revealing all the importance of this union to her chaste heart. He took her hand and his father's, and led them into the parlor, where he sat by their sides.
"You are incredulous, father, and you, sister, surprised. But nothing can be more true than that this illustrious princess will be here shortly. You know that the Archduchessmade her entry into our realm at Strasburg? As we did not know the exact hour of her arrival, the troops were under arms early, and I was sent out to scout. When I came up with the royal party, the lady herself put her head out of the coach window, and hailed me. My fatigue vanished as by enchantment. The dauphiness is young like you, dear, and beautiful as the angels."
"Tell me, you enthusiast," interrupted the baron, "does she resemble any one you have seen here before?"
"No one could resemble her—stay, come to think of it—why, Nicole has a faint likeness—but what led you to suggest that?"
"I had it from a magician, who at the same time foretold your coming."
"The guest?" timidly inquired Andrea.
"Is he the stranger who discreetly withdrew when I arrived?"
"The same; but continue your story, Philip."
"Perhaps we had better make something ready," hinted the lady.
"No," said her father, staying her; "the more we do, the more ridiculous we shall appear."
"I returned to the city with the news, and all the military marched to receive the new princess. She listened absently to the governor's speech and said suddenly: 'What is the name of this young gentleman who was sent to meet me?' And her governess wrote on her tablets my name, Chevalier Philip Taverney Redcastle. 'Sir,' she said, 'if you have no repugnance to accompany me to Paris, your superior will oblige me by relieving you of your military duties here, for I made a vow to attach to my service the first French gentleman met by me in setting foot in France; and to make him happy, and his family the same, in case princes have the power to do so.'"
"What delightful words!" said Andrea, rubbing her hands.
"Hence, I rode at the princess's coach door to Nancy, through which we marched by torchlight. She called me to her to say that she meant to stop a while at Taverney, though I said our house was not fit to receive so mighty aprincess.
"'The sweeter will be the welcome, then, the more plain but the morecordial,' she replied. 'Poor though Taverney may be, it can supply a bowl of milk to the friend who wishes to forget for a time that she is the Princess of Austria and the Bride of France.' Respect prevented me debating further. So I have ridden ahead."
"Impossible," said Andrea; "however kind the princess may be, she would never be content with a glass of milk and a bunch of flowers."
"And if she were," went on Taverney, "she would nottolerate my chairs which break one's back, and my ragged tapestry offending the sight. Devil take capricious women! France will be prettily governed by a featherbrain, who has such whims. Plague take such a token of a singular reign!"
"Oh, father! how can you talk so of a princess who floods our house with favors?"
"Who dishonors me!" returned the old noble. "Who was thinking about Taverney?—not a soul. My name slept under Redcastle ruins not to come forth till I arranged the fit time; and here comes the freak of a royal babe to pull us out into public, dusty, tattered and beggarly. The newspapers, always on the lookout for food for fun, will make a pretty comic talk of the brilliant princess's visit to the Taverney hovel. But, death of my life! an idea strikes me. I know history, and of the Count of Medina setting fire to his palace to win a queen's attention. I will burn down my kennel for a bonfire to the Dauphin's bride."
As nimble as though twenty once more, the old peer ran into the kitchen and plucking a brand, hurried out and over to the barn, but as he was nearing the trusses of forage, Balsamo sprang forth and clutched his arm.
"What are you about, my lord?" he asked, wrenching away the flambeau. "The Archduchess of Austria is no Constable of Bourbon, a traitor, whose presence so fouls a dwelling that it must be purified by fire."
The old noble paused, pale and trembling and not smiling as usual.
"Go and change your gown, my lord, for something more seemly," continued the mysterious guest. "When I knew the Baron of Taverney at Philipsburg Siege, he wore the Grand Cross of St. Louis. I know not of any suit that does not become rich and stylish under the ribbon of that order. Take it coolly: her highness will be kept so busy that she will not notice whether your house be new or old, dull or dazzling. Be hospitable, as a noble is bound to be. Never forestall vexations, my lord. Every dog has his day."
Taverney obeyed with the resignation he had previously shown and went to join his children, who were hunting for him, uneasy at his absence. The magician silently retired like one engaged in a piece of work.
AsBalsamo had warned them, there was no time to lose. On the high road, commonly so peaceful, resounded a great tumult of coaches, horses and voices.
Three carriages stopped at the door, held open by Gilbert, whose distended eyes and feverish tremor denoted the sharpestemotion at so much magnificence. The principal coach, loaded with gilding and mythological carvings, was no less mud-spattered and dusty than the others.
A score of brilliant young noblemen ranked themselves near this coach, out of which was assisted a girl of sixteen by a gentleman clad in black, with the grand sash of the St. Louis order under his coat. She wore no hair powder, but this plainness had not prevented the hairdresser building up her tresses a foot above her forehead.
Marie Antoinette Josepha, for it was she, brought into France a fame for beauty not always owned by princesses destined to share the throne of that realm. Without being fine, her eyes took any expression she liked; but particularly those so opposite as mildness and scorn; her nose was well shaped; her upper lip pretty; but the lower one, the aristocratic inheritance of seventeen kaisers, too thick and protruding, even drooping, did not suit the pretty visage, except when it wanted to show ire or indignation.
On this occasion, Marie Antoinette wore her womanly look and womanly smile, more, that of a happy woman. If possible, she did not mean to be the royal princess till the following day. The sweetest calm reigned on her face; the most charming kindness enlivened her eyes.
She was robed in white silk, and her handsome bare arms supported a heavy lace mantle.
She refused the arm of the gentleman in black, and freely advanced, snuffing the air, and casting glances around as though wishful to enjoy brief liberty.
"Oh, the lovely site! What fine old trees! and the pretty little house!" she ejaculated. "How happy they must dwell in this nice air and under these trees which hide us in so well."
Philip Taverney appeared, followed by Andrea, giving her arm to her father, wearing a fine royal blue velvet coat, last vestige of former splendor. Andrea wore a ruddy gray silk dress and had her hair in long plaits. Following Balsamo's hint, the baron had donned the insignia of the Knightly Order.
"Your highness," said Philip, pale with emotion and noble in his sorrow, "allow me the honor to present Baron de Taverney, Red Castle, my sire, and Mademoiselle Claire Andrea, my sister."
The old noble bowed low with the style of one who knew how queens should be saluted; his daughter displayed all the grace of elegant timidity, and the most flattering politeness of sincere respect.
Regarding the pair, and recalling what Philip had stated on their poverty, Marie Antoinette felt with them in their suffering.
"Your highness does Taverney Castle too much honor," saidthe baron; "so humble a place is nowise worthy to harbor such beauty and nobility."
"I know that I am at the doors of an old soldier of France," was the royal response, "and my mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, who often went to the wars, says that in your kingdom the richest in glory are oft the poorest in gold."
With ineffable grace she held out her hand to Andrea, who knelt to kiss it.
The dauphiness suddenly extricated the baron from his terror about harboring the great number of the retinue.
"My lords and gentlemen," she said, "it is not for you to bear the fatigue of my whims or enjoy the privileges of a royal princess. Pray, await me here; in half an hour I shall return. Come with me, Langenshausen," she said to the countess of that house who was her duenna. "Follow me, my lord," she added to the gentleman in black.
His plain attire was of remarkable style; he was a handsome person of thirty years and smooth manners; he stood aside to let the princess go by. She took Andrea to her side and motioned Philip to follow. The baron fell into place next the fashionable gentleman.
"So you are a Taverney of Redcastle?" queried this fop, as he preened his fine honiton lace ruffles with aristocratic impertinence.
"Am I to answer a gentleman or a nobleman?" returned the baron with equal sauciness.
"Prince will do," said the other, "or eminence."
"Well, yes, your eminence, I am a real Taverney," replied the poor nobleman, without dropping the insolent tone he usually kept.
The prince had the tact of great lords, for he readily perceived that he was not dealing with a rustic hobbledehoy.
"I suppose this is your summer residence?" he continued.
"My residence in all seasons," replied the baron, desiring to finish with this examination, but accompanying his answers with deep bows.
Philip kept turning round to his father with uneasiness; the house seemed towering up to exhibit more and more of their penury. The baron was just holding his hand toward the sill, deserted by visitors, when the dauphiness turned to him, saying:
"Excuse me not going indoors, but these shady spots are so pleasant that I could pass my life beneath them. I am rather weary of interiors. For a fortnight I have been received under roofs—and I like open air, flowers and the shade of foliage. Might I not have a drink of milk in this bower?"
"What a mean refreshment, your highness!" faltered the baron.