CHAPTER XIMy house and all it holds is thine,But your deeds shall be no guests of mine.
My house and all it holds is thine,But your deeds shall be no guests of mine.
My house and all it holds is thine,But your deeds shall be no guests of mine.
Tverna,12th of May.My dear Régis,—I must apologize, and apologize humbly, for not having answered your letter sooner. To tell you the truth, we have “enjoyed”—as your Breton peasants say—some rather unquiet times here. When we first came, as you know, I found my “vassals” a trifle out of hand, but, after all, very reasonably so. Unfortunately the spirit of the age—or whatever you call it—has never ceased seeping through our marches—I should say marshes, the season being peculiarly rainy—and thus has my time been strenuously taken up by what I may term salvage-work, to the almost complete exclusion of any pleasanter occupation—this, of course, includes writing to those I love. In spite of the above-mentioned drawbacks, I am hale and hearty enough—that is to say that the years have not as yet left a serious mark upon me! Of course it is a great deprivation to abandon the sojourns abroad I used to delight in, but you see there is no choice in the matter. We spend a month or two every season in the Crimea, where the estates, of course, also demand the weary and wary eye of the master, but this cannot veraciously be described as a vacation, since work, work, work, is the keynote of my stay there. I wish I could have induced you to stop with us for a few weeks at least, during your trip around the world. How interested my cousin Marguerite must have been by this charming voyage. I hope she is well, and you also, my good Régis. Has she outgrown the “Gamin” stage? I can scarcely believe it of her—she is so essentially and delightfully young. And now I come to the heart of my letter, as it were. Laurence has for a long time, I fear, been homesick—Ibelieve she never was anything else—as it is quite natural she should be, at so grim a distance from her own country. She is planning an expedition to the banks of the Thames, and I would willingly accompany her, but duty forbids so unlandlordly a thought, and so she will probably travel with Tatiana and Salvières, arriving in “Europe”—she insists that Russia is in no wise included in that division of the globe—some time in late June. After much reflection I have decided to let the boy accompany his mother, in the care of hisniania, who has my absolute confidence. My occupations are such that I could not be much with him during Laurence’s absence. I am not certain whether a sojourn in England would suit him. He is, as you know, my treasure of treasures, and since you tell me that you intend leaving Paris for Plenhöel in June, could I, upon the strength of our long and loyal friendship, venture to impose yet another duty upon you? Perhaps you will think it pleasant. You are so kind-hearted. It is, namely, to accept my little Piotr as your guest, or rather charge, while Laurence visits her friends. Thenianiaand my faithful old Garrassime, who never leaves him, will be responsible for his behavior. Am I too indiscreet? I think not, provided my cousin Marguerite pleads my cause with you. Tell her that I send Piotr to her as a little messenger from afar, a playfellow, or a toy, according to choice. He is very advanced for his age (all paternal pride laid aside), even too much so—which is one of the reasons why I think that a thorough change will be good for him—very advanced indeed, and sometimes preternaturally solemn, as his eminently Slav nature inclines him to be, not to mention some decidedly British and splenetic strain, inherited, doubtless, from some maternal ancestor or other.I am waiting your reply very anxiously, and remain, my dear Régis,Your devoted friend and cousin,Basil.
Tverna,12th of May.
My dear Régis,—I must apologize, and apologize humbly, for not having answered your letter sooner. To tell you the truth, we have “enjoyed”—as your Breton peasants say—some rather unquiet times here. When we first came, as you know, I found my “vassals” a trifle out of hand, but, after all, very reasonably so. Unfortunately the spirit of the age—or whatever you call it—has never ceased seeping through our marches—I should say marshes, the season being peculiarly rainy—and thus has my time been strenuously taken up by what I may term salvage-work, to the almost complete exclusion of any pleasanter occupation—this, of course, includes writing to those I love. In spite of the above-mentioned drawbacks, I am hale and hearty enough—that is to say that the years have not as yet left a serious mark upon me! Of course it is a great deprivation to abandon the sojourns abroad I used to delight in, but you see there is no choice in the matter. We spend a month or two every season in the Crimea, where the estates, of course, also demand the weary and wary eye of the master, but this cannot veraciously be described as a vacation, since work, work, work, is the keynote of my stay there. I wish I could have induced you to stop with us for a few weeks at least, during your trip around the world. How interested my cousin Marguerite must have been by this charming voyage. I hope she is well, and you also, my good Régis. Has she outgrown the “Gamin” stage? I can scarcely believe it of her—she is so essentially and delightfully young. And now I come to the heart of my letter, as it were. Laurence has for a long time, I fear, been homesick—Ibelieve she never was anything else—as it is quite natural she should be, at so grim a distance from her own country. She is planning an expedition to the banks of the Thames, and I would willingly accompany her, but duty forbids so unlandlordly a thought, and so she will probably travel with Tatiana and Salvières, arriving in “Europe”—she insists that Russia is in no wise included in that division of the globe—some time in late June. After much reflection I have decided to let the boy accompany his mother, in the care of hisniania, who has my absolute confidence. My occupations are such that I could not be much with him during Laurence’s absence. I am not certain whether a sojourn in England would suit him. He is, as you know, my treasure of treasures, and since you tell me that you intend leaving Paris for Plenhöel in June, could I, upon the strength of our long and loyal friendship, venture to impose yet another duty upon you? Perhaps you will think it pleasant. You are so kind-hearted. It is, namely, to accept my little Piotr as your guest, or rather charge, while Laurence visits her friends. Thenianiaand my faithful old Garrassime, who never leaves him, will be responsible for his behavior. Am I too indiscreet? I think not, provided my cousin Marguerite pleads my cause with you. Tell her that I send Piotr to her as a little messenger from afar, a playfellow, or a toy, according to choice. He is very advanced for his age (all paternal pride laid aside), even too much so—which is one of the reasons why I think that a thorough change will be good for him—very advanced indeed, and sometimes preternaturally solemn, as his eminently Slav nature inclines him to be, not to mention some decidedly British and splenetic strain, inherited, doubtless, from some maternal ancestor or other.
I am waiting your reply very anxiously, and remain, my dear Régis,
Your devoted friend and cousin,Basil.
Marguerite, curled up on an uncompromisingly bamboo lounge in the flower-gallery of the Hôtel de Plenhöel—where five years before she had bidden Basil farewell—was reading for the tenth time at least Basil’s letter, received some days before. Her father had answered itby return post—of course in the affirmative—and ever since then Marguerite had been preparing to receive her youthful guest.
At twenty-one the “Gamin” was still the “Gamin” of yore. To the eye she had not changed at all, yet she was more than ever the “Moonglade” of her cousin’s fancy, by right of some quality as apparent as the path of its transmission to the observer was obscure. She was the picture of ethereal health—if one may thus express oneself—so delicately tinted was her little person, so gravely sweet her eyes. The rose hue of her skin was the exact color of those tiny waxen blossoms the Bretons callfleurs-de-Jesus, that have but the very faintest hint of a blush beneath their white surface. Her hair was the same pale-golden nimbus as when she left her convent, but she wore it differently now—more smoothly coiled around her small head. In one word, there was about her a sort of crystalline aureole that set her apart from other beings. “Antinoüs,” if questioned, would have asserted—and with truth—that she was the “jolliest little chap” in creation, though a finer observer might have maintained that her laughter was often from the lips only and not from the eyes—those eyes that at this moment, while she was alone with Basil’s letter, were not entirely dry. Once or twice she breathed quickly, impatiently, as she thought of all that had happened. Indeed, the past years had sometimes been hard to get through with. She knew without the possibility of a doubt that Basil was not happy. She had never been told so, but, nevertheless, she knew! Had it been otherwise the “Gamin,” the gay and brave according to Jean de Salvières, would have felt differently, and accepted life and its burdens easily enough. Unfortunately, it cost her, in the light of this intuitive knowledge, a good deal of energy to do so, and her oft-repeated silent vows to think no more about it were writ in water.
She was looking forward with suppressed delight to the arrival of Piotr. Was he like his father, or his beautiful mother? she wondered. Marguerite adored children—especially little boys—and here again she was swayed by a clear-sightedness far beyond her age, for the modern little girl did not please her, less because of what they really are than on account of what they are bound to become—pleasure-loving, noisy, untutored beings, now that the wholesome principles of other times have been trampled under foot, and the fad for feminine “emancipation” has become the most dangerous craze the world has ever known.
The Hôtel de Plenhöel wasen fête, and decked with flowers as for some royal reception; toys of superfine quality and astounding quantity were piled up in Marguerite’s personal salon to greet the baby prince, and all the morning Marguerite herself had flitted to and fro, up and down stairs, to arrange and prepare.
In an hour she would be with her father at the terminus, awaiting the private car attached to the express bringing Laurence and her suite, Piotr and his own. How large and magnificent that sounded! She suddenly laughed, pocketed Basil’s epistle, and jumped to her feet, ready for action. “Poor little boy!” she mechanically murmured. “I must hurry!” But why poor? She could not have said why, though instinctively she pitied the child—and pity is akin to love.
In her fresh summer frock of whitepiqué, a white-banded sailor-hat on her golden locks that seemed to shine as through a wash of silver, a knot of Malmaison carnations thrust through her waist-ribbon, she looked indeed exquisitely young as she stood beside “Antinoüs,” inside the station. He, too, had not altered, and was still thebeau garçon, full of chic and vim, who conquered all hearts at the point of his blond mustache. There was a white carnation in his coat, and his strawhat, set at the exactly correct angle, gave him an almost boyish appearance.
In a few minutes the corridor-train came puffing up the shining metals in the wake of its spick-and-span locomotive, and the doors of the waiting-rooms were thrown wide. Marguerite had paled a trifle as she advanced to the private car (beside which now stood a Kossàk of the Russian Embassy in his dressing-gown of a coat, all brilliant with silver, holding high his astrakhaned head), and saw a graceful, languid figure wrapped in diaphanous veils, assisted to alight. Behind her came the towering form of old Garrassime, carrying in his arms a boy of startling beauty. “Antinoüs,” hat in hand, was already bowing before Laurence, who, disentangling a slim, gloved hand from her many dust-draperies, allowed him to press it to his lips.
“And here is Marguerite!” she drawled, as if surprised to see her there. “Grown old and wise, eh?” she continued, shaking hands limply and taking Régis’s arm.
“How are you, Laurence?” replied the “Gamin,” quietly. “Can I be of any use?” She was burning to take hold of Piotr, whose great dark eyes were scanning her from head to foot, but she had long since learned how to restrain her first impulses.
“You are too kind!” Laurence said, speaking “from the top of the head” (du haut de la tête), as the French say. She wasthe Princessand no mistake—perhaps even a little too much so—the conventional Princess of comedy and fiction as ordinary people understand her; but, after all, a very gracious presentment thereof, and Marguerite studiously refrained from smiling. “Yes, if you don’t mind,ma cousine,” Laurence continued, dwelling heavily upon this badge of kinship. “Tell them to carry the boy to your carriage—you have one in waiting, I suppose, have you not, Marquis?” she asked, turning to Régis. “And since you are so kind as to receive him and hispeople, I will only trouble you to take me as far as the equipage from the Embassy that is here for me!”
“Will you not honor us by residing under our roof?” asked Régis, inwardly wondering how long he would find it possible to continue using such very lofty language.
“Oh, thanks muchly ... you are very thoughtful; but you see my stay here will be but a few days. I am going on to London almost at once. It would not be worth while disturbing you, and I assure you that your amiability to the boy will fully suffice. Besides, I have promised their Excellencies Count and Countess Melidóff to be their guest. I was to have traveled with my sister and brother-in-law de Salvières, and stayed with them here; but at the last they altered their plans, which altered mine also.”
Régis, snubbed and delighted, was about to walk on with her, when she turned her eyes royally toward the still-saluting Kossàk, and said a few words to him in vile Russian. The man’s impassive face did not indicate comprehension, and to Laurence’s evident amazement Marguerite fluently repeated the order.
“Marguerite speaks Russian?” she asked, acidly, dropping all her languor.
“At your service, madame,” Régis replied, laughing. “And so do I; but as to the ‘Gamin,’ she is the finest linguist in Europe, with all her little modest airs.”
Princess Laurence moved on in brisker fashion, barely replying to Marguerite’sau revoir, and then only did the girl turn to Garrassime and his charge.
“Oh, you beauty!” she said, in a slightly unsteady voice, holding out both arms to Basil’s son.
“I’ll come to you,” the child lisped in French (much to his stalwart attendant’s surprise, for he was not easy), and he allowed himself to be taken up by Marguerite and kissed over and over again.
Régis was already returning, curbing with considerable difficulty a violent desire to laugh.
“Qu’est-ce qu’elle a cette cruche?” he whispered to his daughter as they settled themselves in the victoria with Piotr enthroned between them; then, noticing the boy’s observant eye, he continued in Spanish—a language they were both fond of using: “No wonder Basil writes so mournfully! Poor devil! Did you ever see such insufferable airs as that girl thinks it necessary to put on?”
Marguerite gave him a supremely roguish glance, imperceptibly raised one shoulder, and resumed her contemplation of the “little messenger from afar,” whose presence near her was such a pleasure, and who, to give him his due, was doing everything in his unconscious power to get himself adored in short order.
She was not, however, at the end of her surprises, for next morning bright and early, while superintending Monsieur Piotr’s toilet, she received a hurried scrawl from Laurence’s Serene-Highness, declining rather curtly a formal invitation to dinner at the Hôtel de Plenhöel, but asking Marguerite if she could “lend” her one of her salons for that same night to receive a few intimate friends, “as,” she ingenuously added, “I will feel much freer there as a hostess than if using the suite placed at my disposal by the Russian Ambassador.” There was not a word for or about Piotr, and the reader’s brows came rather brusquely together as she read.
Though she had retained all the untouched innocence of a highly bred French girl, Marguerite was no fool, and instantly scented something or other behind this strangely worded request—something that was not—well—not quite correct.
“Is the bearer waiting?” she asked of the footman at the dressing-room door.
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
“Tell him to keep on waiting, please,” and with anexcuse to Piotr—who in his new-born enthusiasm was not minded to let her out of his sight—she hurried to her father’s study.
“Papa,” she said, a little breathlessly, “here’s a note from Laurence. What do you wish me to do about it?”
Régis ran his eye over the penetratingly perfumed sheet, and said nothing.
“Well,” repeated the “Gamin,” “what do you wish me to do, papa?”
“Say yes,” Régis replied, “but understand me,Chevalier, you are under no circumstances to be present when she comes to-night. Madame Laurence gives me the impression of having become even something more of a—a difficulty than she was as Mademoiselle Seton! I will for once—yes, for once—accept the responsibility of what she calls a reunion of her intimate friends. We shall see, or, rather, I shall see, what she means by it, but—”
He impulsively drew his daughter down, kissed her very tenderly, and let her go, and, smothering an expletive meant for Laurence, subsided into his arm-chair. After she had gone he sat quite still, plunged in profound thought, a most unusual proceeding for him. The “Chevalier Gamin” had never caused him one moment’s anxiety since, when orphaned in her cradle, she had become his dearest and most pressing preoccupation. But just now he suddenly perceived that there might be rocks ahead, such as had never yet disturbed the smooth current of his guardianship of her. Five years ago her return from the convent had been an unmixed and unspeakable joy. Nevertheless, had Basil asked him for her hand then, his great affection and esteem for his kinsman, coupled with a firmly rooted conviction that women can never marry too young, would have won his consent. Indeed, more than once, when seeing them so completely happy in each other’s company, he had deemedit by no means improbable that such a demand might soon be made. But when a very blind Fate ordained otherwise, and the ever-cheerful “Gamin” had remained to fill the old château with the rustle of her flying skirts, the music of her laughter, he had resolutely dismissed his guileless dream, and had been only too well content to keep with him this charming littlecompagnon de route. They had been thenceforth more like brother and sister than father and daughter. Together they had ridden and driven, yachted and swum, fenced and shot, and more lately they had undertaken that long voyage around the world—not as globe-trotters, bent upon engulfing as large a mass of indigestible and subsequently undigested facts and adventures as might be encompassed during a breathless race against time and tide, but as finely equippeddilettanti, who take pleasure in lingering over the savor of their every sensation; stopping here and there with album and palette—Marguerite never liked the merciless precision of even the best photograph—pausing a few extra days by the way to hear some celebrated musician, or witness a characteristic folkfête; losing themselves in jungles; dallying in wild regions to try their guns at big game; and being received everywhere withempressementand “distinguished consideration”—as the French love to put it. It had been an ideal two years of vagabondage, during which they had more often than not slept under tents, taken their mealsal fresco, and sat together by camp-fires under the star-sown violet skies of extraordinarily lovely regions; always accompanied by Madame Hortense, as Marguerite’sdueña, and by François, Régis’s man, who had been with his master ever since regimental days in Algeria.
Now this all-play-and-no-work existence had come to an end, much to their regret, but they had many things of a pleasant kind to look forward to, including the coming months by the Breton sea. And, after all, reflectedRégis, here was his lovely daughter still unwed at her majority. She had calmly and persistently declined all offers (and these had been many), arguing that she could never find a man worthy of comparison with her father and that she was too happy as she was to admit of any change. In all his knowledge, a woman of his race had never remained single after seventeen, and he suddenly drew his hand across his forehead as if to dismiss an unfortunate thought buzzing around his brain.
After a time he rose and strode to one of the windows giving on the garden. The weather was admirable, the sky of indescribable purity, the huge lindens skirting the walls were loaded down with little tufts of perfume, and the grass, still empearled with dew where the sun did not strike, was enameled with scores of little golden planets—dandelions defended by the “Gamin,” who loved them, from the gardener’s spudder—and further embellished by a flight of familiar doves who lived in an ivy-garlanded cote near by.
On the middle of the lawn he saw the “Gamin” holding a flat basket from which Piotr—a charming little figure in hismujikcostume, imitated in white drill, his tiny tall boots and jaunty cap—snatched handfuls of crumbs for the hungry birds. Moodily Régis took in the pretty scene. Why was not this baby his grandson? Why—now that he thought of it—had Basil not married Marguerite instead of that infernalposeuseof a Laurence? He a grandfather! The idea made him laugh—he felt so absurdly young—and he stepped back to glance at himself in a mirror! Slender and active as at twenty, with not one line of white to pale his corn-colored pate, he gave no idea of grandfatherly dignity. But, never mind, it would have been pleasant, all the same, and he shrugged an impatient shoulder.
A shriek of delight from Piotr on the lawn brought him quickly again to the open window. The child was runningtoward the stooping doves, clapping his pudgy hands to frighten them away from their breakfast, and Marguerite on silent feet was skimming across the turf after him.
“Naughty, naughty Piotr!” she cried, catching him before much harm was done, and bearing him away from the whirling flock. “You must not give sorrow to the birds!” (“faire du chagrin aux petits oiseaux.”)
Kicking and struggling vigorously, Piotr heeded not at all the wise admonition. “Naughty Malou!” he yelled, vainly trying to break her hold. “Naughty Malou, let Piotr go!”
Marguerite’s laughter rippled under the drooping linden branches, in her delight at the pretty perversion of her name.
“No! No!” she panted, for the boy was heavy, “Malou will not let Piotr go! What would your papa say if he saw you frightening my birds, Piotr? What do you think? Eh?”
At the mention of his father Piotr grew still and glanced up at Marguerite between his long dark lashes.
“Piotr loves papa!” he stoutly declared in Russian. “Piotr wants to see papa, not mamma. Piotr hates mamma!”
“Oh, baby!” exclaimed the deeply shocked Marguerite. “You mustn’t say that! Your mamma is so beautiful!”
She had put him down on the gravel walk under Régis’s window; but she did not see her father, who had dropped the lace curtain before him. He was curious to see how this would end.
“Malou is beautiful, not mamma!” the young insubordinate gravely responded, planted in front of his new passion, both small fists clenched and hanging at his sides. “Mamma scolds Piotr always. Ask Garrassime. Bring him here, Malou; and askniania, too!”
Marguerite glanced quickly toward the house. Theniania(nurse) was not in sight; but Garrassime, the ever-faithful, who never remained far away from his beloved charge, was lurking behind a clump of rhododendrons, and at a sign from her advanced and uncovered his gray head.
“Does Prince Pierre often talk like this?” she asked, rather sadly.
“Alas! Your Nobility,” the old servitor replied, “it does happen; I grieve to say. Your Excellency must pardon him, he means no harm. He does not understand what he says.”
Piotr, sitting flat on the gravel, was engrossed in manufacturing a miniature mountain with the end of a bit of stick escaped from the gardener’s rake, and had evidently forgotten all about the discussion in hand.
The “Gamin” smiled up at Garrassime in the fashion which invariably enslaved all beholders. “Oh!” she said, half-voicedly—she did not want Piotr to hear. “I did not mean it as a reproach, Garrassime, but does not your mistress resent such sayings?”
The old man raised his eyes imploringly to the blue sky above. “When she hears! When she hears!” he murmured. “But The Illustrious sees little of the boy, Your Nobility. He is mostly with the Prince at home, or with me or hisniania. He is a noble child, but vivacious and fond of his own way.”
“I see!” comprehended Marguerite. “He is very winsome, very handsome. Do you think, Garrassime, that he will not pine for his father?”
The servitor of the House of Palitzin for forty loyal years looked steadily at his master’s young cousin and nodded his wise head.
“He would without doubt have done so, were it not for Your Nobility. It is strange, for he does not make friends easily, and yet not so strange,” he added, his eyes fixed upon her; “but he has of a certainty given hisblessed little heart into Your Nobility’s keeping, Excellency. God be praised for it! We will have no trouble now. He is very like his illustrious father,” he concluded, almost in a whisper, and Régis from behind his curtain saw a slow flush of deep rose spread over his “Gamin’s” fair face.
“Je ne suis décidément qu’un imbécile!” he apostrophized himself wrathfully, and noiselessly he quitted his post of observation. He had seen enough, and more than enough!
At ten o’clock that night the Marquis de Plenhöel descended theperronsteps to hand Laurence from her coupé. She was marvelously gowned in dying-azure coruscated with diamond stars, and with loose-locked clusters of lilac orchids playing hide-and-seek in the lace of her train. She gave a rapid glance about her as she was being ceremoniously conducted to the great salon on the first floor, and when Régis bowed her in she asked, with an equivocal smile that made him writhe internally:
“Where is Marguerite?”
“Up-stairs in her own apartments,” he said, shortly, “taking a cup of tea with our old friend Madame de Montemare—I think you met her here some five years ago.”
“I think I remember the occasion,” Laurence acquiesced without much enthusiasm; “and tell me, Cousin Régis”—this was the first time she had thus honored him—“is Marguerite ... are they coming down later?”
“No,” Régis responded. “Marguerite does not like society; and as to Madame de Montemare, she claims that her circle of acquaintances is already too large, so she firmly refuses to increase it.”
“Too bad! Too bad!” Laurence remarked, with a faint sigh of relief, her brilliant eyes roving over the magnificent drawing-room with its Louis XIV. furniture andtapestries lighted by many antique lamps, and wax candles in sconces and appliques half drowned in verdure and flowers.
“It is charming here!” she approved. “So mellow anddistingué; different, altogether different from any place I know.”
Régis smiled a mere smile and bowed a little bow that vexed Laurence, in spite of her lovely thick skin.
“You are very good!” the master of this “mellow” and “distingué” establishment admitted. “It has the merit of antiquity in a time altogether too modern—according to my poor views at least.”
“You are a hardened Royalist!” she observed, with the least suspicion of a sneer. “A lover of all that no longer exists.”
“And you, madame, are assuredly Imperial and modernà outrance!” he retorted with another bow.
“In Russia one has to be an Imperialist,” she said, densely; “but politics do not interest me.”
“Even in Russia?” he asked, curiously.
“Especially there!” she said, quickly, an expression of mingled fear and disgust flitting over her features.
He was looking down at her where she sat on a low ottoman almost at his feet, and the extreme décolletage of her sumptuous gown amazed him. “I am glad I did not let myChevaliersee her; she’s getting quite brazen!” he thought, and added aloud, in order to say something, “That must sound odd to the Russian-speaking ear!”
She clapped her gloved hands. “Oh!” she said. “Delicious! That is the finest Irish bull I ever heard.”
He laughed a bit awkwardly. “I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I was not thinking of what I was saying.”
“So I perceive,” she returned, and, rising quickly, she added: “I think I hear a motor stopping. Some of my friends, probably.”
“Probably,” he assented. “So permit me to takeleave of you for the present. Pray command me if I can do anything else. There are, I believe, some—refreshments prepared in the adjoining room, and the butler is in attendance.”
“But,” she murmured, showing embarrassment for the first time, “are you not going to be one of us? It—it would not disturb me.”
“Thank you for this kindly assurance.” He bowed low as he spoke, and without another word made his exit by a side-door, leaving her to go forward and greet whoever it was that was coming.
At the farther end of the drawing-room was a carven balcony where some tall palms and ferns stood, which was reached by an outer staircase. There, on gala-nights, musicians were placed to underline the conversation, so to speak, by graceful melodies executed on harp and violin, cello and viola-d’amore. It had been a pretty conceit of Régis’s mother thus to entertain her guests, and the Marquis, who had adored her, and never passed the graceful nook without a thrust of reminiscence, paused for a moment on his way up-stairs—between the heavy draperies that separated it from the landing. It never entered his head that from where he stood he could see without being seen. Indeed, he was at the moment quite absorbed in debating with himself whether he had not been extremely stupid to allow Laurence the privilege she was now enjoying. Though by no means straitlaced, Régis de Plenhöel felt almost as if her presence here, under present circumstances, was a desecration of his mother’s memory—of his daughter’s purity; for he had not liked Laurence’s demeanor just now. And then he heard something that made him coolly step upon the balcony and look down. He remained there absolutely petrified and immovable, for immediately beneath was Laurence, her white arms clasped around the neck of a tall man whom, with a start of amazement, he recognizedas Captain Neville Moray, the British Military Attaché, whom he had occasionally met since that famous evening five years ago, and always with pleasure.
“At last—at last! After a whole long year!” he heard Laurence say; but he scarcely knew her voice again, it was so full of warmth and of passion. In a moment Régis recovered himself sufficiently to see in a flash the abominable situation in which his customary easy-going habits had placed not only himself, but his little daughter, and a fine moisture broke out upon his forehead.
“The wretched woman!” he said, almost aloud, so great was his perturbation, and just then the subdued hum of a second motor reached him. “I wonder who now!” he soliloquized, precipitately retreating behind one of the palms at the back of the balcony—ready for inaction, as it were, for, in spite of all hissavoir-faire, he no longer knew to which saint he should address his prayers. “Has she perhaps given a doublerendez-voushere?” he cogitated, and as if to give him right, absurd as the supposition seemed, he suddenly heard coming from below the humorous greetings of his old acquaintance, Preston Wynne. So great was his surprise that he once more advanced, this time with every precaution, and peered downward into his own state salon. Laurence, like a well-behaved hostess, was seated now on acanapébefore Moray and Wynne, and two other gentlemen, unknown to Régis, who wore on their dress-coats the insignia of several Orders, were hovering about her. Evidently too shrewd to invite Moray alone, she was giving a little semi-official reception, expecting, doubtless, by this move to pull the wool over his, Régis’s, eyes. Reassured by the safety of numbers, he hurried to his study, where he summoned his old confidential servant and envoy extraordinary.
“François,” he said, as soon as the valet entered, “you will see that her Serene-Highness Princess Palitzin does not leave the house without my being advised of it.Remain in the little octagonal room off the main hall, and come and warn me the moment she asks for her carriage.”
François saluted in the military fashion—a habit he had never been able to lose—and was on the point of retreat when his master called him back.
“The Princess,” he said, “is receiving some friends here to-night, as you know. Find out who has already arrived, and report to me.”
“That man is worth his weight in gold,” mused the much-perturbed “Antinoüs.” “He knows everybody by sight, has capacious ears and a silent tongue. They don’t make them like that any longer, more’s the pity!” And snatching up an evening paper, which he did not even pretend to read, he awaited François’s return with such patience as he could muster.
In a few minutes that greatest of the world’s wonders, a perfect servant, re-entered and respectfully stood at his master’s elbow, waiting to be questioned.
“Well!” said Régis.
“So far, Monsieur le Marquis,” quietly stated the old soldier, who looked like a retired general in his irreproachable evening dress, “there are in the salon with her Serene-Highness Monsieur le Capitaine Moray of the British Embassy; Monsieur Wynne of America; his Excellency the Marquis di Sebastiani, ItalianChargé-d’Affaires; Sefim Bey of the Ottoman Embassy; Monsieur le Comte de Védrines, attached to the French Embassy at St. Petersburg—now on leave; Monsieur le Vicomte de Braisles, First Secretary of the French Embassy at Madrid—also on leave; and Lord Charles Arbuthnot of the British Foreign Office.”
Régis had not moved a muscle during this magnificent nomenclature. “A concert of the great Powers,” he muttered to himself.
“Monsieur says?” inquired François.
“Nothing of any importance. But, by the way, François, how did you discover the names of the noble assemblage down below?”
“Monsieur le Marquis knows how easily chauffeurs jabber. Ah! It is not like the old times when thegens-de-maisonknew how to keep their places with dignity! Then it took science to find out anything; but now! Monsieur le Marquis has doubtless noticed that servants are no longer what they used to be.”
In spite of himself Régis smiled. “You are unique, my good François!” he remarked. “If any further—arrivals should take place, keep me posted,” and with a nod he dismissed the paragon.
During the next two hours, withdrawn in his sanctum, the exasperated Marquis received at regular intervals from François a series of discreet intimations that half a dozen more personages of high degree had honored his domicile by their appearance within its walls; all men, all young or youngish, all attached to embassies or occupying official positions, excepting one, who was a cavalry officer known all over France for his great wealth and his unlaudable eccentricities.
“I wonder,” raged poor “Antinoüs,” champing his bit, “why she didn’t invite the Papal Nuncio while she was about it! It would certainly have addedcachetto the assembly. What in the world is she up to? Trying to hoodwinkme?” And throwing the paper-knife he had been busying his fingers with to the other end of the room, he walked slowly after it; not with the intention of replacing it on his desk, but just to see how far it had gone.
Just then the door opened half-way, and François once more insinuated his person into the aperture.
“Son Altesse Sérénissimeis alone, and would thank Monsieur le Marquis for his hospitality,” he announced in a tone lugubrious enough for a judge in the black capabout to pronounce sentence. The heavy clouds on his master’s brow had not escaped his keenness of observation, and whatever happened to be his master’s mood, François loyally and unconsciously echoed it.
“D—n Her Serene-Highness!” Régis growled in his mustache, and walked quickly down-stairs.
How he had planned to meet Laurence he remembered not at all as he found her carelessly fingering the sheaf of roses basking in a rock-crystal vase on a little table at her side. There was an absent smile about her pretty mouth and, for the first time in his knowledge of her, a peculiarly dreamy look in her splendid eyes. She turned, however, at the slight noise of his steps on the thick rugs, and presented him with a very soft glance.
“I am going now,” she said, enchantingly. “But I could not do so without telling you all the nice things I think of you, Cousin Régis. It was really kind to let me believe myself even for a few hours the mistress of so adorable a place as this. I take it that Marguerite is already tucked in her little white bedlet, so I will ask you to say good night to her for me—to-morrow morning”.
She was speaking a little excitedly; “worrying her fan,” Régis thought, with undue violence, and there was now a very becoming tinge of pink in her soft cheeks. At his daughter’s name, however, “Antinoüs” stiffened like a pointer, and without any suavity whatsoever, said:
“May I beg you to grant me a few minutes?”
Laurence’s hazel orbs through a curtain of silken lashes fixed themselves coquettishly upon him.
“But, certainly,” she readily acquiesced; “it will be a pleasure—I owe you a reward, anyhow!” And she seated herself in a high-backed carven chair, upon which it was easy to adopt regal airs.
“C’est trop fort!” inwardly commented Régis, and, disregarding her inviting gesture toward a pile of cushionsnear her, he leaned one hand upon the rose-table, and began to speak in a grave voice of which she had never supposed him capable.
“Madame,” he said, slowly, “you have placed me in a difficult position, and as I believe in plain dealing and plain speaking, I am about to ask you, without further preparation, what you intend to do about it.”
Laurence straightened herself brusquely. The color fled from her face, and with it the very essence of her brilliant beauty.
“I!” she exclaimed. “I have put you in a difficult position? Would it be too much to ask you, monsieur, how I have contrived to be so unfortunate?”
“Assuredly, madame; that is exactly what I am here to do. I was unlucky enough to witness—wholly by accident—two or three hours ago your meeting with Captain Moray.”
Laurence, who had already guessed something of the sort, indulged in a low, insolent laugh.
“Such ‘accidents’ have a name, monsieur,” she said, with considerable effrontery. “They enter, it seems to me, into the province of espionage—of—the Third Section, if you prefer.”
Régis passed over the intended insult as though it were not worth picking up.
“By accident,” he quietly repeated. “And much as I dislike calling a woman to account, especially beneath my own roof, I desire—as I have already given myself the honor of telling you—to know from your own lips what you intend to do about it!”
Laurence for a second asked herself whether or no she could brazen the thing out. How much had he seen or heard? Perhaps this was only a “feeler,” a mere trick to get rid of her whom he did not like—she had long ago perceived that. A swift glance at him, however, showed her a Régis so different from the gay anddebonnaireGrand Seigneurshe had known until then that she felt a little shiver of fear pass between her very bare shoulders.
“Do about what?” she questioned. “You presume a good deal, Monsieur de Plenhöel, to address me as you are doing.” She was marking time, and he knew it.
“Rest assured, madame, that I am not here for my pleasure,” he replied. “You seem to forget that I am your husband’s kinsman and friend—not to enumerate other capacities which had better not be mentioned just now. At any rate, I am endeavoring to do my best for his sake, and that of one or two more persons—your son, for instance. But if you persist in the line—of defense—you seem to have taken up, I will bow you out, and take my own course in the matter.”
“But really, monsieur, I have not the faintest idea of what you want of me—of what you accuse me! Is this a joke, or do you genuinely imagine that you have me at a disadvantage?”
“I believe in the testimony of my own eyes.”
“Indeed! Well, and what did your own eyes testify to, that so greatly offends a—mondainlike yourself?”
Régis felt that he could have joyously beaten her with a schoolroom birch, but chivalry has its drawbacks, and he had to be content with an utterly futile clenching of the fingers, which she observed with pleasure. If she could only make him lose his temper!
“I saw you,” he said, now quite brutally frank, “with your arms about Captain Moray’s neck, and as if that were not sufficient, I heard you acknowledge your love for him.”
Laurence played her next card with praiseworthy determination.
“Well—and what of it?” she said. “You chose to spy upon me, but you have merely discovered a mare’s nest. Since you want the truth, I’ll give it to you on all-fours. Captain Moray and I have known each othersince childhood, and there has always been a deep affection between us. Hearing of my arrival in Paris, he hastened to call upon me at the Embassy. I was out, and later on I sent him apetit-bleuinviting him here to-nightwith several other friends... and—your assent. As to my greeting to him, it is perfectly natural and proper after so many years’ separation; nothing more than it should have been. Are you satisfied?”
“No!” answered Régis, looking down at her with a grim smile, and suddenly she came face to face with her position. What could she offer the Marquis to win him over, to silence him? She was dealing with a man who—so to speak—held the best cards. Would he play them? She breathed hard, for she was passing in those short seconds through æons of torture. Her high position, her whole future, her as yet unblemished name, were utterly and completely at Régis’s mercy.
“What more do you want, then?” she asked at last, in a lowered voice that was shaking with dread and anger. She broke off with a ghastly forced laugh, and attempted to meet his straight glance with sullen, defiant eyes, but her gaze slowly fell before his own.
“I do not want much,” Régis said, bending a little toward her and emphasizing each word by a gentle tap of his fingers on the inlaid table-top. “I am not your judge, nor do I desire to persecute you. Of that rest assured.”
He paused, and in the intense silence that followed, a shower of rose-petals dropping to the floor was almost painfully audible.
“If this is the case, what do you demand of me?” she murmured, her head drooping so that he could see the artificial waving of her hair rising from her white neck to the circlet of her starred diadem.
“First of all, that you should never see Marguerite again, excepting in public and when it absolutely cannotbe avoided,” he said, with a sort of repressed intensity that made her wince. “Secondly, that during your stay away from your husband you should, as far as possible, avoid us. The rest is with you. You know very well that I will not betray what I have discovered—to my amazement and regret. To preach is just as far from my mind and character. But remember; if ever Basil learns that you have stepped down from the pedestal upon which he placed you, he will be unmerciful.”
“But”—she struggled—“there is nothing—I have done nothing—to deserve his anger! Your ‘Madonna’ is in no danger from me. I am an honest woman. I swear it! I swear it! I have never seen Captain Moray since my marriage before to-night.”
She was white as a sheet now, and Régis remained silent. Where was the use of quoting her own words to her—“at last—at last—after a whole long year!” Did she even remember them in her terror and confusion? He knew with the intuitive certainty of a squire of dames that she was not the sort to entertain a platonic affection—he had known that long before. She was defending herself as best she could, according to her limitations, and all the manhood in him revolted against prolonging the scene.
“You are upset,” he said, with less severity of tone, though his irritation had not diminished. “Supposing we let the matter drop now? I will, if you permit me, take you home. I have told you what I expect of you. Let it stop at that.”
Once again he became the polished man of the world, his mask admirably reattached, and as he spoke he bowed deferentially.
For a moment she did not appear to have heard him. Her attitude was one miserable alluring droop, and from its nest of laces andfrou-frousone exquisitely shod foot peeped out among the fallen rose-petals on the floor. The pose was clever.
“Why do you dislike me—so—so—much?” she murmured, gazing fixedly downward at her little jeweled slipper, timidly busy amid the ruin of the roses.
Régis glanced at this amusing by-play and carefully denied himself the luxury of a smile.
“I said nothing of the sort,” he politely countered. “But it is getting very late,Princess.” He employed the title with deliberate bad taste. “May I have your carriage called?”
Laurence rose with a great rustle of her flowing silks, and stood dry-lipped before him. She made an evident effort to speak, but mortification and rage forbade this. Her eyes were flashing like yellow zircons, and he looked at her in some apprehension, though the firm set of his mouth did not relax. Then without warning she swayed forward, seized his hand in both her own, as if to support herself, and, falling against his shoulder, burst into a passion of sobs.
“Well, that’s thebouquet!” thought the irrepressible Régis, supporting her with no good will—this gay butterfly was in a virtuous mood! Besides, she was emphatically not his style, as he had remarked five years ago; also—under stress of weather, as it were—her methods were becoming somewhat too crude for thisrafiné, used to more delicate behavior on the part of the women he admired.
“You—you—won’t be convinced!” she sobbed, clutching the lapel of his coat. “You are a—h—h—harsh man—Régis!” There was great tenderness in the way she pronounced his name.
With difficulty he managed to unclasp the slender fingers, and, holding her at a distance by a gentle pressure on the wrists, he looked full at her—this time with an imperceptible smile.
“You are a very pretty woman,Princess, but do not waste your best weapons upon so negligible a person as myself—I am fire-proof.”
A bright spot of color sprang into each of her pale cheeks—which, by the way, showed no trace of tears. Her white teeth clicked together and she drew back violently.
“You insult me, Monsieur de Plenhöel,” she cried. “First you accuse me of having a lover, and now you infer that I wish to win you, too!”
Once more Régis bowed. “Madame,” he said, smiling more openly, “I am not a coxcomb, but I realize that all means are fair in war, so I exonerate you of any design save that of self-protection.” Whereupon he slipped her hand under his arm, drew her to the door of the main hall, and called François. In a few moments more he had solicitously wrapped her in her long cloak, and was escorting her to her waiting brougham before she could find a word to say.
“A prolongedtête-à-têtewould offer no inducements to either of us now,” she said at last, in a wonderfully collected voice, “so do not come with me; but be assured that we shall meet again and that I shall know how to thank you for this evening’s hospitality.”
“Mille grâces, madame! Une hospitalité tout à fait Écossaise!” he murmured, handing her into her carriage, and as she drove off she could see him, still bowing, on the last of the granite steps. Behind him the state antechamber and staircase blazed with light, which, fortunately, prevented her from seeing the expression of his face.
“And now how explain to theChevalier? How keep Basil in the dark when he writes asking for news?” Régis thought, while regaining his study. His brows were knit, and for the second time that night he sank into deep thought from the depths of an arm-chair, smoking cigarette after cigarette, without, however, attaining to any satisfactory conclusion. “Elle n’est pas très forte,” he said several times to himself during the course of this long cogitation. No, Laurence was not very strong inthe sense he meant. Her finesses were sewn with white thread, her attempts at duping her fellow-creatures not quite sufficiently finished in detail, yet she seemed to have hoodwinked, tricked, done ... that splendid chap, her husband! Régis moved restlessly. Of course he knew how some husbands could be blinded in spite of the sun, the moon, and the stars of every magnitude staring them in the face, but Basil was not made of that stuff. Then for an instant the pendulum swung back, and he asked himself whether he could possibly have been unjust. His long-standing antipathy for Laurence! Had it led him astray? He angrily threw one leg over the arm of his chair and asked himself that question squarely and fairly. “No! A thousand times no!” he suddenly exclaimed aloud. “I saw it all. Her eyes, her lips, her poise, were not those of an innocent woman—and her little attempt upon my own modest virtue! Pah! It’s all as clear as daylight, and time will show it to be only too true. Meanwhile I’m going to take myChevalierto farthest Brittany at once. It will be safer.”
He rose, stretched himself, laughed a little nervously, and moved slowly up-stairs. As he passed the flower-gallery he heard the rush of fierce wind and rain driving on the glass dome. Against the rosy glow of the half-lowered hanging-lamps he saw a flock of sodden leaves clinging to the panes like great, green moths, seeking entrance to escape from the sudden squall, and with something between a yawn and a sigh he went on to his own rooms.