CHAPTER IXREFLECTIONS

CHAPTER IXREFLECTIONSLuc was no more moved from his way by M. de Voltaire’s impetuous entry into his life than he had been by the unveiling of Carola or by the glimpse he had of the frivolous, cynical Court.M. de Voltaire was alive, vivid, great. Luc admired him almost to adoration for his intellect and his courage, but he did not in the least waver from the plain path he had set himself, nor did the words of the fiery philosopher affect his scheme of life.He was going along the way prescribed by tradition, by his instinct, by his birth. He was a noble, a soldier; he owed allegiance to the King, respect to his father, reverence to his name and blazon. That he could not believe in the dogma of the Church was no reason for him to disbelieve in loyalty and honour.Certainly he had wished to be free, but had always rejected the thought as a temptation; and to give up his rank, his family, his noble ambitions to devote himself to literature seemed to him pure sacrilege. He did not even dwell on the suggestion long, but dismissed it as an impossibility.If the King were nothing in himself—well, he was a symbol, and Luc, with the obstinacy of the idealist, refused to believe that the world was what the caustic vision of M. de Voltaire saw it.When the first excitement of the great man’s visit was over, Luc returned to his old serenity, went to his desk, and wrote another letter to M. Amelot. Whatever the Court was, it was a vehicle. He had never supposed that he could attain his goal without stepping through some mud; there were only two ways open to a man of rank—the army and the Court.“Unless,” thought Luc, “the heavens open to direct me I will tread the way my father trod.”He had parted from M. de Voltaire with friendly courteousness on each side, based on real liking and admiration. Luc had been inspired and the older man piqued by the interview; it had ended on a mutual laugh and a promise of future intercourse. The Marquis in no way abated his homage of M. de Voltaire, who, on his side, had taken a sudden liking for the young soldier.That evening a letter arrived from Aix. The old Marquis spoke out at last: Would Luc return home and marry Clémence de Séguy? Her father was more than willing, she was a good girl of rank and qualities, a match for the honour of the house, in every way suitable. Might not he formally request her hand?Luc put the letter down and set his lips. He had just decided to hug his chains, to be loyal to every tie, to fulfil every duty, to take up the life his ancestors had led—therefore he had no excuse to refuse this match, and Clémence shone brightly beside the tarnished image of Carola. He wrote immediately saying that if he obtained an appointment, or the sure promise of one, he would return to Aix to marry Mlle de Séguy, and as he sealed the letter he felt like a man who has made his own decision irrevocable. The suggestion was not unexpected; but even yesterday he would not have been sure of his answer. Now M. de Voltaire’s bold speech had shown him clearly enough his own mind.Later that day, when his letters were dispatched, he left the house and walked up and down the pleasant quays by the river, possessed by a great sense of peace and exaltation. It had been a day overbrimming with sunshine, and now, in the hour of twilight, there was a soft glow left over water, trees, buildings, and sky—a reflection of light; rosy, clear, tender, and melancholy.Luc passed by M. de Voltaire’s house near the Rue Bréa, and walked slowly on towards the island of the city and the great church of Notre-Dame de Paris with her two mighty towers. Here the houses began to get poorer and meaner, there were more beggars and fewer sedan-chairs, the shops were more frequent and dirty, the churches looked neglected. Luc paused to lean over the narrow wall of the embankment and look at the great river that widened here to divide into the arms that clasped the island and the church. The water swirled, deep and ruddy coloured from the last glow of the sun, round the piles of the bridge that led to the splendid porch of Notre-Dame; beyond the darkening pile of the church it rolled in a silver-grey flood between flat banks and isolated groups of buildings now beginning to show black against the paling sky.Luc was lost in deep, sweet, and nameless thoughts when he was roused by the practised whine of beggary loud and insistent in his ear.He turned to see a creature in the most miserable attire thrusting out a trembling, grasping hand for charity.Luc started, for the face of this being was so broken, tortured, disfigured (almost beyond likeness to humanity) by the most violent ravages of smallpox that it seemed more some kind of sad-beaten ape than a man.The monotonous demand for money continued to issue from the bloodless lips; the half-blind eyes winked and peered at Luc with a stifled appeal. The Marquis pulled out his purse and gave the fellow a silver coin in silence, his delicate senses revolted beyond expression at the nearness of the wretched creature. When the beggar, seeing silver for the first time for many months, snatched at Luc’s coat in gratitude it was more than he could endure; he drew back sharply against the wall.“Eh, Monseigneur,” mumbled the fellow, crouching away, “pardon me, and may the good saints bless you.”Luc’s tender heart was instantly moved; he regretted that he had been betrayed into an act of pride which had further humbled one so unfortunate.“God pity you and release you,” he said; then he noticed that the beggar had only one leg and dragged himself awkwardly by means of a rude crutch. The fellow saw his benefactor’s glance, and with a sudden odd animation in his voice said—“I lost that in Bohemia, Monseigneur.”“You were a soldier!” exclaimed Luc.“Yes, Monseigneur—was wounded; then the cold and the smallpox.” He dropped into his mumble again; his senses seemed clouded. “There were not many came home at all,” he muttered, and hopped off with the coin between his teeth.Luc stood gazing after him. That pitiful object had perhaps been a gay soldier a couple of years ago. He did not care to follow out his reflections, but abruptly drew his cloak about him and returned to his lodgings.He found awaiting him a letter from M. Amelot, requesting his attendance at the Louvre on the following day.

Luc was no more moved from his way by M. de Voltaire’s impetuous entry into his life than he had been by the unveiling of Carola or by the glimpse he had of the frivolous, cynical Court.

M. de Voltaire was alive, vivid, great. Luc admired him almost to adoration for his intellect and his courage, but he did not in the least waver from the plain path he had set himself, nor did the words of the fiery philosopher affect his scheme of life.

He was going along the way prescribed by tradition, by his instinct, by his birth. He was a noble, a soldier; he owed allegiance to the King, respect to his father, reverence to his name and blazon. That he could not believe in the dogma of the Church was no reason for him to disbelieve in loyalty and honour.

Certainly he had wished to be free, but had always rejected the thought as a temptation; and to give up his rank, his family, his noble ambitions to devote himself to literature seemed to him pure sacrilege. He did not even dwell on the suggestion long, but dismissed it as an impossibility.

If the King were nothing in himself—well, he was a symbol, and Luc, with the obstinacy of the idealist, refused to believe that the world was what the caustic vision of M. de Voltaire saw it.

When the first excitement of the great man’s visit was over, Luc returned to his old serenity, went to his desk, and wrote another letter to M. Amelot. Whatever the Court was, it was a vehicle. He had never supposed that he could attain his goal without stepping through some mud; there were only two ways open to a man of rank—the army and the Court.

“Unless,” thought Luc, “the heavens open to direct me I will tread the way my father trod.”

He had parted from M. de Voltaire with friendly courteousness on each side, based on real liking and admiration. Luc had been inspired and the older man piqued by the interview; it had ended on a mutual laugh and a promise of future intercourse. The Marquis in no way abated his homage of M. de Voltaire, who, on his side, had taken a sudden liking for the young soldier.

That evening a letter arrived from Aix. The old Marquis spoke out at last: Would Luc return home and marry Clémence de Séguy? Her father was more than willing, she was a good girl of rank and qualities, a match for the honour of the house, in every way suitable. Might not he formally request her hand?

Luc put the letter down and set his lips. He had just decided to hug his chains, to be loyal to every tie, to fulfil every duty, to take up the life his ancestors had led—therefore he had no excuse to refuse this match, and Clémence shone brightly beside the tarnished image of Carola. He wrote immediately saying that if he obtained an appointment, or the sure promise of one, he would return to Aix to marry Mlle de Séguy, and as he sealed the letter he felt like a man who has made his own decision irrevocable. The suggestion was not unexpected; but even yesterday he would not have been sure of his answer. Now M. de Voltaire’s bold speech had shown him clearly enough his own mind.

Later that day, when his letters were dispatched, he left the house and walked up and down the pleasant quays by the river, possessed by a great sense of peace and exaltation. It had been a day overbrimming with sunshine, and now, in the hour of twilight, there was a soft glow left over water, trees, buildings, and sky—a reflection of light; rosy, clear, tender, and melancholy.

Luc passed by M. de Voltaire’s house near the Rue Bréa, and walked slowly on towards the island of the city and the great church of Notre-Dame de Paris with her two mighty towers. Here the houses began to get poorer and meaner, there were more beggars and fewer sedan-chairs, the shops were more frequent and dirty, the churches looked neglected. Luc paused to lean over the narrow wall of the embankment and look at the great river that widened here to divide into the arms that clasped the island and the church. The water swirled, deep and ruddy coloured from the last glow of the sun, round the piles of the bridge that led to the splendid porch of Notre-Dame; beyond the darkening pile of the church it rolled in a silver-grey flood between flat banks and isolated groups of buildings now beginning to show black against the paling sky.

Luc was lost in deep, sweet, and nameless thoughts when he was roused by the practised whine of beggary loud and insistent in his ear.

He turned to see a creature in the most miserable attire thrusting out a trembling, grasping hand for charity.

Luc started, for the face of this being was so broken, tortured, disfigured (almost beyond likeness to humanity) by the most violent ravages of smallpox that it seemed more some kind of sad-beaten ape than a man.

The monotonous demand for money continued to issue from the bloodless lips; the half-blind eyes winked and peered at Luc with a stifled appeal. The Marquis pulled out his purse and gave the fellow a silver coin in silence, his delicate senses revolted beyond expression at the nearness of the wretched creature. When the beggar, seeing silver for the first time for many months, snatched at Luc’s coat in gratitude it was more than he could endure; he drew back sharply against the wall.

“Eh, Monseigneur,” mumbled the fellow, crouching away, “pardon me, and may the good saints bless you.”

Luc’s tender heart was instantly moved; he regretted that he had been betrayed into an act of pride which had further humbled one so unfortunate.

“God pity you and release you,” he said; then he noticed that the beggar had only one leg and dragged himself awkwardly by means of a rude crutch. The fellow saw his benefactor’s glance, and with a sudden odd animation in his voice said—

“I lost that in Bohemia, Monseigneur.”

“You were a soldier!” exclaimed Luc.

“Yes, Monseigneur—was wounded; then the cold and the smallpox.” He dropped into his mumble again; his senses seemed clouded. “There were not many came home at all,” he muttered, and hopped off with the coin between his teeth.

Luc stood gazing after him. That pitiful object had perhaps been a gay soldier a couple of years ago. He did not care to follow out his reflections, but abruptly drew his cloak about him and returned to his lodgings.

He found awaiting him a letter from M. Amelot, requesting his attendance at the Louvre on the following day.

CHAPTER XIN THE LOUVREA gorgeous young man, with beautiful dark blue eyes and a face set in lines of gloom and discontent, lounged on a sofa piled with white satin cushions with silver tassels, eating elaborate bonbons out of a gold dish on a small table beside him. The window near looked on to the river and Paris; it was a private apartment in the Louvre, extravagantly furnished.By the window stood M. de Richelieu looking often at the river and occasionally at his companion.“I ask it as a favour,” he said.The other did not trouble to raise his lids.“Ask M. Amelot,” he replied; “Ican do nothing.”“You can advise him—make a suggestion.”“I have no influence with him,” returned the young man with weary peevishness. “Besides, it is too much trouble.”The sunlight shot a ray between the heavy silk curtains and shone on the speaker’s handsome face and disarranged dark hair that flowed over his shoulders and was only partially powdered.“You know M. Amelot will do nothing to oblige me,” persisted M. de Richelieu; “he is a tiresome fool at best.”The other half raised himself on the couch and turned his superb eyes on the Duke.“Maréchal,” he said with an air of authority, “I am tired of the subject.”“Oh, it is as good a subject as another, sire,” returned M. de Richelieu good-humouredly, “and I do not often ask your Majesty for favours.”“No,” retorted Louis; “you generally take them.”He yawned, and sighed, and glanced distastefully round the room.“Come, sire,” urged M. de Richelieu, “it is only a few words to M. Amelot.”“I tell you he never takes my advice,” answered the King; “and I really know nothing about his business, so I have to be silent when he speaks, which makes our interviews very dull. Besides, I do not like him, and I do not wish to see him.”“Write him a note, then,” returned M. de Richelieu, coming from the window.“Mon Dieu, Maréchal,” said Louis peevishly, “I am not sure that I like your protégé either.”“You do not know him, sire,” replied the Maréchal, surprised.“Yes, I do. He wandered into my pavilion at Versailles. I think he is a little insane. Besides,” added His Majesty with some touch of animation, “he does not believe in God.”“Neither do I,” responded the Duke gaily.“I know, my dear Maréchal, and it lies on my conscience that I give you my countenance,” said the King with a melancholy sigh. “But I pray for you,” he added sincerely.“Your Majesty can pray for M. de Vauvenargues,” replied M. de Richelieu.Louis frowned.“Do you think I can put up prayers for every heretic and disbeliever in the kingdom? As for your Vauvenargues, why are you so eager to oblige him?”The Maréchal lifted his eyebrows and gave a whimsical little smile.“Because he obliged me once, and I do not wish to be indebted to the fellow.”“You can give him a post in Languedoc,” said the King obstinately.“He will not take it—he must not know that I am behind this—he thinks anything from me would be a bribe.”“Oh, he is one of that type, is he?” said Louis, leaning back on his cushions wearily. “I thought so. Well, I do not like them.” He selected another bonbon, then threw it down with disgust.“Nevertheless,” persisted M. de Richelieu calmly, “your Majesty is going to ask M. Amelot to give this young man a post in the next embassy to Madrid.”Louis was silent a moment; his soft, great eyes had a brooding look.“What does he know about you?” he asked at length with some interest.“Oh, it is not an amusing story,” replied the Maréchal, seating himself at a little desk that stood in a corner and commencing to write.Louis rose to his full splendid height and crossed to the chimneypiece; his dark blue satins, embroidered with steel, his paste buttons and buckles glittered from the head to the foot of his magnificent person. He yawned, took a spray of jasmine from a black enamel vase, and fastened it into the rich folds of his cravat.“What are you writing, Maréchal?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.“Your letter to M. Amelot, sire.”“How I dislike people who make me do what I do not want to do,” complained the King reflectively.M. de Richelieu brought the letter and a quill over to the King.Louis eyed both with distaste.The Maréchal smiled and waited.“If I sign, will you help me with La Chateauroux?” asked Louis at length.M. de Richelieu lifted his shoulder with an expressive gesture.“What do you want me to do with her?” he demanded, putting letter and pen on the mantelpiece.“Do with her?” repeated the King impatiently. “Get her into a convent, send her back to her husband, find her another, banish her to the country, promise her anything, as long as you get her out of the palace. The Marquise absolutely refuses to allow her to remain.”“If I make Madame de Chateauroux leave the Louvre peaceably I shall want more than your Majesty’s signature to that paper,” replied the Marshal.“You promised yesterday you would see her for me,” protested Louis.“When I was not sober,” said M. de Richelieu; “and afterwards you told her she should stay.”“Well, I was not sober either,” responded the King sullenly. “Can you not accuse her of treason and get her into the Bastille? Nothing less will stop her tongue. Get rid of her so that I never see her again, and I will make your Vauvenargues anything you wish.”“Mon Dieu,” responded the Marshal, “your Majesty drives a hard bargain; if Madame la Duchesse was to hear you she would buy us both a potion from the old witch in the Rue du Bac.”Louis shivered.“I consulted her yesterday,” he said, lowering his voice; “she was very vague. I think Madame la Duchesse pays her to deceive me, for she said I had better beware of the Marquise and the atheist who is her friend—that is M. de Voltaire.”The Duke took the now dry quill, redipped it in the ink, and presented it to Louis.“Sign, sire,” he said amiably, “and we will discuss La Chateauroux afterwards.”With an impatient exclamation the King scrawled his signature to the few lines of writing in the Maréchal’s beautiful hand.“That appoints M. de Vauvenargues secretary to the next embassy to Spain,” remarked M. de Richelieu, “and is a clear affront to M. Amelot, who has his nephew preparing for the post,” he added with malicious levity as he rang the silver and sardonyx hand-bell on the desk.An usher in white livery instantly appeared. M. de Richelieu gave him the note, folded carelessly across.“For the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” he said.When they were alone again Louis sighed discontentedly.“I shall be plagued out of my life,” he complained.“No, sire,” replied M. de Richelieu. “I told M. Amelot yesterday to write to this young man and command him to the Louvre to-day, and that your Majesty intended giving him a post.”“Impudent!” cried Louis. “You took all this upon yourself? Really, Maréchal, you might as well be King of France.”“I suppose,” replied the Duke, “I should fill the position as well as your Majesty.”“I suppose you would,” agreed the King indifferently. “Meanwhile—suggest something to pass the time.”The Maréchal mentioned several amusements, all of which the King languidly rejected.“Well, then, some business!” exclaimed M. de Richelieu. He snatched up a blue portfolio with gold ribbons and opened it, scattering the papers over the desk. “All these to be read, considered, and signed—M. de Voltaire’s instructions on his secret embassy to Berlin—the war—the question about the Chevalier St. George—the Austrian affair—Canada—Flanders—”“Mon Dieu!” cried Louis impatiently. “How many more?”“A great many, sire.”Louis cursed his Minister wearily, crossed to the desk, took up the pen, and began signing the documents, one after another, as the Maréchal, laughing, put them before him.“I would never have employed this Voltaire,” he remarked with an air of distaste, “but the Marquise says he is a great man.”The volatile Duke was soon weary of handing out the papers; he hurried them, signed and unsigned, back into the portfolio.“It is time for the audience with the new envoy from Russia,” he said, glancing at the pale pink marble clock.Louis cast down his pen and moved away towards the window, from which he could see the dusty gold prospect of Paris, and the tawny glitter of the river, and the flutter of the trees in the palace garden and along the quays.“Maréchal,” he said reflectively, “I am much loved in Paris. Yesterday when I drove out there was the very mob shouting. I think I shall go to the war again,” he added—“to Flanders.”“To please Paris, sire?” asked the Maréchal, who, now the King’s back was turned, was skilfully abstracting from the portfolio some of the papers which happened to be against the interest of certain friends of his. “Certainly the people like nothing better than a hero.”Louis laughed with a depth of bitterness that was surprisingly in contrast to the almost stupid apathy of his usual demeanour.“I was well trained to be a hero to please the French,” he said. He turned and laid his white right hand, still strong for all its idle slackness, on M. de Richelieu’s shoulder. “Come, Maréchal, let us attend our audience.”The Duke closed the portfolio with an air of nonchalance and rose; the King’s hand slipped to his arm and rested there on the Duke’s black sleeve that was stiff with coloured sequin embroidery.The two—the King still leaning on the Maréchal’s arm—left His Majesty’s private apartments for the long galleries of the Louvre.As M. de Richelieu was lifting the purple curtain from the entrance of the antechamber of the audience room he saw a solitary young man coming down the corridor.“This is my Vauvenargues,” he smiled.Louis paused, looked back, and, seeing the young man, smiled also.Luc, grave, alert, serenely glad of his appointment as secretary to the embassy to Madrid which had just been conferred on him by M. Amelot, came on along the gallery, unconscious of the two gentlemen half concealed by the heavy folds of the great velvet curtain until he was just upon them. Then he raised his eyes, to see M. de Richelieu regarding him closely and the tall gentleman with the beautiful face, whose wonderful deep blue eyes were now lit by a kind of amusement. Luc was irresistibly attracted to this face with the loose curls dishevelled round the short, fine features, which he now saw for the first time in broad daylight.M. de Richelieu realized in an instant that Luc did not know the King.“I congratulate you on your appointment, M. le Marquis,” he said.Luc uncovered; a flush rose to his brow as a sudden thought stung him.“Do I owe this appointment to your influence, Maréchal?” he asked.“No, Monsieur,” replied M. de Richelieu, smiling broadly; “to this gentleman’s.”Louis’ blue eyes flickered over the slim, erect figure of the young noble. He remembered perfectly well his last meeting and all that Luc had said. He was essentially good-humoured, and the present situation diverted him.“Monseigneur,” said the Marquis with dignity, “I have the honour of your acquaintance, not of your name.”He waited with his hat in his hand and the colour deepening in his face, for he felt acutely that the Maréchal was laughing at him.“I do not know to whom I am indebted,” he added.“Monsieur,” answered Louis, “to the King of France.”“His Majesty!” stammered Luc, bewildered.“I am the King,” smiled Louis with a lazy, soft grandeur.Luc’s quick mind saw it all in a flash of pain—his first sight of this man, their meeting, the unplaceable manner, his own foolish, impetuous words. He rallied to the shock as he had rallied to many a cavalry charge; he faced the blue eyes unflinchingly, though his face became as colourless as the soft folds of muslin under his black velvet stock.“I stand at your Majesty’s mercy,” he said, in a faint but even voice.“You remember our meeting, Monsieur?” asked Louis.“Yes, sire.”Louis advanced a step. Luc did not lower his eyes; the two men looked at each other with a steady intentness.“You spoke of the King of France,” said Louis, “and you gave him too many virtues, Monsieur. It is a rare fault, for the King has more detractors than defenders. I hope you may keep your loyalty in your new employment.” He smiled a little sadly, and the blue eyes clouded and flashed.Luc was disarmed; the languid young idler was transformed into the man who might indeed be the King of his imaginings—a man who was too great to be affronted, too noble to remember trivialities. Luc was aware of nothing in that moment but a passionate desire to serve the King—to instantly prove his loyalty; the generous blood surged back into his face.“Your Majesty will have no idle servant in me,” he said, and his voice quivered a little now.Louis held out his large, shapely hand.“Sire!” cried Luc, overwhelmed. He sank on one knee and kissed the King’s fingers with throbbing lips.“We hope to see you on your return from Spain,” said Louis as he rose.“Your Majesty!” murmured Luc. He took his dismissal with a dignity above a courtier’s and stepped backwards, bowing low.Louis was silent for a little after Luc had gone, but M. de Richelieu laughed, as if he were in possession of a delicious jest.“What is the matter, Maréchal?” asked Louis at length, turning sleepy eyes on him.“I was thinking that, after all, your Majesty does it better than I could.”Louis gave him a sideway glance, revealing, it seemed, that he was not so unconscious of his own arts as he appeared to be.“Ah,” he answered languidly. “I did not like the fellow,” he added thoughtfully; “he has a bright look of death. I hope he will not come back.” With a sudden shudder he continued, “keep these dying men away from me, Richelieu!”“Dying?” echoed the Maréchal, startled. “Why, he is well enough—La Koklinska was in love with him last week.”“All the same, I do not think he has long to live,” replied the King gloomily.A sound of voices and the tap of high-heeled shoes came from the end of the corridor.Louis turned his beautiful face with a startled movement.“Mon Dieu,” he cried, angry and paling, “it is Madame de Chateauroux!”He caught M. de Richelieu by the arm and drew him sharply into the audience chamber.

A gorgeous young man, with beautiful dark blue eyes and a face set in lines of gloom and discontent, lounged on a sofa piled with white satin cushions with silver tassels, eating elaborate bonbons out of a gold dish on a small table beside him. The window near looked on to the river and Paris; it was a private apartment in the Louvre, extravagantly furnished.

By the window stood M. de Richelieu looking often at the river and occasionally at his companion.

“I ask it as a favour,” he said.

The other did not trouble to raise his lids.

“Ask M. Amelot,” he replied; “Ican do nothing.”

“You can advise him—make a suggestion.”

“I have no influence with him,” returned the young man with weary peevishness. “Besides, it is too much trouble.”

The sunlight shot a ray between the heavy silk curtains and shone on the speaker’s handsome face and disarranged dark hair that flowed over his shoulders and was only partially powdered.

“You know M. Amelot will do nothing to oblige me,” persisted M. de Richelieu; “he is a tiresome fool at best.”

The other half raised himself on the couch and turned his superb eyes on the Duke.

“Maréchal,” he said with an air of authority, “I am tired of the subject.”

“Oh, it is as good a subject as another, sire,” returned M. de Richelieu good-humouredly, “and I do not often ask your Majesty for favours.”

“No,” retorted Louis; “you generally take them.”

He yawned, and sighed, and glanced distastefully round the room.

“Come, sire,” urged M. de Richelieu, “it is only a few words to M. Amelot.”

“I tell you he never takes my advice,” answered the King; “and I really know nothing about his business, so I have to be silent when he speaks, which makes our interviews very dull. Besides, I do not like him, and I do not wish to see him.”

“Write him a note, then,” returned M. de Richelieu, coming from the window.

“Mon Dieu, Maréchal,” said Louis peevishly, “I am not sure that I like your protégé either.”

“You do not know him, sire,” replied the Maréchal, surprised.

“Yes, I do. He wandered into my pavilion at Versailles. I think he is a little insane. Besides,” added His Majesty with some touch of animation, “he does not believe in God.”

“Neither do I,” responded the Duke gaily.

“I know, my dear Maréchal, and it lies on my conscience that I give you my countenance,” said the King with a melancholy sigh. “But I pray for you,” he added sincerely.

“Your Majesty can pray for M. de Vauvenargues,” replied M. de Richelieu.

Louis frowned.

“Do you think I can put up prayers for every heretic and disbeliever in the kingdom? As for your Vauvenargues, why are you so eager to oblige him?”

The Maréchal lifted his eyebrows and gave a whimsical little smile.

“Because he obliged me once, and I do not wish to be indebted to the fellow.”

“You can give him a post in Languedoc,” said the King obstinately.

“He will not take it—he must not know that I am behind this—he thinks anything from me would be a bribe.”

“Oh, he is one of that type, is he?” said Louis, leaning back on his cushions wearily. “I thought so. Well, I do not like them.” He selected another bonbon, then threw it down with disgust.

“Nevertheless,” persisted M. de Richelieu calmly, “your Majesty is going to ask M. Amelot to give this young man a post in the next embassy to Madrid.”

Louis was silent a moment; his soft, great eyes had a brooding look.

“What does he know about you?” he asked at length with some interest.

“Oh, it is not an amusing story,” replied the Maréchal, seating himself at a little desk that stood in a corner and commencing to write.

Louis rose to his full splendid height and crossed to the chimneypiece; his dark blue satins, embroidered with steel, his paste buttons and buckles glittered from the head to the foot of his magnificent person. He yawned, took a spray of jasmine from a black enamel vase, and fastened it into the rich folds of his cravat.

“What are you writing, Maréchal?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Your letter to M. Amelot, sire.”

“How I dislike people who make me do what I do not want to do,” complained the King reflectively.

M. de Richelieu brought the letter and a quill over to the King.

Louis eyed both with distaste.

The Maréchal smiled and waited.

“If I sign, will you help me with La Chateauroux?” asked Louis at length.

M. de Richelieu lifted his shoulder with an expressive gesture.

“What do you want me to do with her?” he demanded, putting letter and pen on the mantelpiece.

“Do with her?” repeated the King impatiently. “Get her into a convent, send her back to her husband, find her another, banish her to the country, promise her anything, as long as you get her out of the palace. The Marquise absolutely refuses to allow her to remain.”

“If I make Madame de Chateauroux leave the Louvre peaceably I shall want more than your Majesty’s signature to that paper,” replied the Marshal.

“You promised yesterday you would see her for me,” protested Louis.

“When I was not sober,” said M. de Richelieu; “and afterwards you told her she should stay.”

“Well, I was not sober either,” responded the King sullenly. “Can you not accuse her of treason and get her into the Bastille? Nothing less will stop her tongue. Get rid of her so that I never see her again, and I will make your Vauvenargues anything you wish.”

“Mon Dieu,” responded the Marshal, “your Majesty drives a hard bargain; if Madame la Duchesse was to hear you she would buy us both a potion from the old witch in the Rue du Bac.”

Louis shivered.

“I consulted her yesterday,” he said, lowering his voice; “she was very vague. I think Madame la Duchesse pays her to deceive me, for she said I had better beware of the Marquise and the atheist who is her friend—that is M. de Voltaire.”

The Duke took the now dry quill, redipped it in the ink, and presented it to Louis.

“Sign, sire,” he said amiably, “and we will discuss La Chateauroux afterwards.”

With an impatient exclamation the King scrawled his signature to the few lines of writing in the Maréchal’s beautiful hand.

“That appoints M. de Vauvenargues secretary to the next embassy to Spain,” remarked M. de Richelieu, “and is a clear affront to M. Amelot, who has his nephew preparing for the post,” he added with malicious levity as he rang the silver and sardonyx hand-bell on the desk.

An usher in white livery instantly appeared. M. de Richelieu gave him the note, folded carelessly across.

“For the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

When they were alone again Louis sighed discontentedly.

“I shall be plagued out of my life,” he complained.

“No, sire,” replied M. de Richelieu. “I told M. Amelot yesterday to write to this young man and command him to the Louvre to-day, and that your Majesty intended giving him a post.”

“Impudent!” cried Louis. “You took all this upon yourself? Really, Maréchal, you might as well be King of France.”

“I suppose,” replied the Duke, “I should fill the position as well as your Majesty.”

“I suppose you would,” agreed the King indifferently. “Meanwhile—suggest something to pass the time.”

The Maréchal mentioned several amusements, all of which the King languidly rejected.

“Well, then, some business!” exclaimed M. de Richelieu. He snatched up a blue portfolio with gold ribbons and opened it, scattering the papers over the desk. “All these to be read, considered, and signed—M. de Voltaire’s instructions on his secret embassy to Berlin—the war—the question about the Chevalier St. George—the Austrian affair—Canada—Flanders—”

“Mon Dieu!” cried Louis impatiently. “How many more?”

“A great many, sire.”

Louis cursed his Minister wearily, crossed to the desk, took up the pen, and began signing the documents, one after another, as the Maréchal, laughing, put them before him.

“I would never have employed this Voltaire,” he remarked with an air of distaste, “but the Marquise says he is a great man.”

The volatile Duke was soon weary of handing out the papers; he hurried them, signed and unsigned, back into the portfolio.

“It is time for the audience with the new envoy from Russia,” he said, glancing at the pale pink marble clock.

Louis cast down his pen and moved away towards the window, from which he could see the dusty gold prospect of Paris, and the tawny glitter of the river, and the flutter of the trees in the palace garden and along the quays.

“Maréchal,” he said reflectively, “I am much loved in Paris. Yesterday when I drove out there was the very mob shouting. I think I shall go to the war again,” he added—“to Flanders.”

“To please Paris, sire?” asked the Maréchal, who, now the King’s back was turned, was skilfully abstracting from the portfolio some of the papers which happened to be against the interest of certain friends of his. “Certainly the people like nothing better than a hero.”

Louis laughed with a depth of bitterness that was surprisingly in contrast to the almost stupid apathy of his usual demeanour.

“I was well trained to be a hero to please the French,” he said. He turned and laid his white right hand, still strong for all its idle slackness, on M. de Richelieu’s shoulder. “Come, Maréchal, let us attend our audience.”

The Duke closed the portfolio with an air of nonchalance and rose; the King’s hand slipped to his arm and rested there on the Duke’s black sleeve that was stiff with coloured sequin embroidery.

The two—the King still leaning on the Maréchal’s arm—left His Majesty’s private apartments for the long galleries of the Louvre.

As M. de Richelieu was lifting the purple curtain from the entrance of the antechamber of the audience room he saw a solitary young man coming down the corridor.

“This is my Vauvenargues,” he smiled.

Louis paused, looked back, and, seeing the young man, smiled also.

Luc, grave, alert, serenely glad of his appointment as secretary to the embassy to Madrid which had just been conferred on him by M. Amelot, came on along the gallery, unconscious of the two gentlemen half concealed by the heavy folds of the great velvet curtain until he was just upon them. Then he raised his eyes, to see M. de Richelieu regarding him closely and the tall gentleman with the beautiful face, whose wonderful deep blue eyes were now lit by a kind of amusement. Luc was irresistibly attracted to this face with the loose curls dishevelled round the short, fine features, which he now saw for the first time in broad daylight.

M. de Richelieu realized in an instant that Luc did not know the King.

“I congratulate you on your appointment, M. le Marquis,” he said.

Luc uncovered; a flush rose to his brow as a sudden thought stung him.

“Do I owe this appointment to your influence, Maréchal?” he asked.

“No, Monsieur,” replied M. de Richelieu, smiling broadly; “to this gentleman’s.”

Louis’ blue eyes flickered over the slim, erect figure of the young noble. He remembered perfectly well his last meeting and all that Luc had said. He was essentially good-humoured, and the present situation diverted him.

“Monseigneur,” said the Marquis with dignity, “I have the honour of your acquaintance, not of your name.”

He waited with his hat in his hand and the colour deepening in his face, for he felt acutely that the Maréchal was laughing at him.

“I do not know to whom I am indebted,” he added.

“Monsieur,” answered Louis, “to the King of France.”

“His Majesty!” stammered Luc, bewildered.

“I am the King,” smiled Louis with a lazy, soft grandeur.

Luc’s quick mind saw it all in a flash of pain—his first sight of this man, their meeting, the unplaceable manner, his own foolish, impetuous words. He rallied to the shock as he had rallied to many a cavalry charge; he faced the blue eyes unflinchingly, though his face became as colourless as the soft folds of muslin under his black velvet stock.

“I stand at your Majesty’s mercy,” he said, in a faint but even voice.

“You remember our meeting, Monsieur?” asked Louis.

“Yes, sire.”

Louis advanced a step. Luc did not lower his eyes; the two men looked at each other with a steady intentness.

“You spoke of the King of France,” said Louis, “and you gave him too many virtues, Monsieur. It is a rare fault, for the King has more detractors than defenders. I hope you may keep your loyalty in your new employment.” He smiled a little sadly, and the blue eyes clouded and flashed.

Luc was disarmed; the languid young idler was transformed into the man who might indeed be the King of his imaginings—a man who was too great to be affronted, too noble to remember trivialities. Luc was aware of nothing in that moment but a passionate desire to serve the King—to instantly prove his loyalty; the generous blood surged back into his face.

“Your Majesty will have no idle servant in me,” he said, and his voice quivered a little now.

Louis held out his large, shapely hand.

“Sire!” cried Luc, overwhelmed. He sank on one knee and kissed the King’s fingers with throbbing lips.

“We hope to see you on your return from Spain,” said Louis as he rose.

“Your Majesty!” murmured Luc. He took his dismissal with a dignity above a courtier’s and stepped backwards, bowing low.

Louis was silent for a little after Luc had gone, but M. de Richelieu laughed, as if he were in possession of a delicious jest.

“What is the matter, Maréchal?” asked Louis at length, turning sleepy eyes on him.

“I was thinking that, after all, your Majesty does it better than I could.”

Louis gave him a sideway glance, revealing, it seemed, that he was not so unconscious of his own arts as he appeared to be.

“Ah,” he answered languidly. “I did not like the fellow,” he added thoughtfully; “he has a bright look of death. I hope he will not come back.” With a sudden shudder he continued, “keep these dying men away from me, Richelieu!”

“Dying?” echoed the Maréchal, startled. “Why, he is well enough—La Koklinska was in love with him last week.”

“All the same, I do not think he has long to live,” replied the King gloomily.

A sound of voices and the tap of high-heeled shoes came from the end of the corridor.

Louis turned his beautiful face with a startled movement.

“Mon Dieu,” he cried, angry and paling, “it is Madame de Chateauroux!”

He caught M. de Richelieu by the arm and drew him sharply into the audience chamber.

CHAPTER XITHE FÊTEA honey-coloured haze of autumn glory hung over the trees and fields outside Aix, where a fête was being held, this perfect day in late October. Among the crowds who wandered in and out of the trees, the booths, the stalls were Luc de Clapiers and his promised wife, Clémence de Séguy. He had returned home for his betrothal and to prepare for the appointment he was to take up in the spring. His prospects were suddenly pure gold to him; the sense of the opportunity ahead, of the achievement within his grasp, of success, of fulfilment mingled with the joy of pleasing his father, of satisfying all those claims of family affection and family pride, which had so often seemed a chain and a clog, into one ecstasy of living that was crowned by the gentle passion and happy devotion of Clémence, who seemed to have no wish in the world but to shine for him. Her soft youth, her grave ignorance, her pretty follies and lofty ideals of constancy, self-sacrifice, and truth won from him a tender respect and a generous gratitude that seemed to her perfect love. When she was absent from him he did not often think of her. She filled her place in his mind as his promised wife; over his soul she had no dominion.They paused before a stage in front of a tent set among a group of elm trees. A little group of townsfolk in their best clothes were watching a marionette show that was nearly concluded. Above the tent fluttered long red pennons against the blue sky and gold leaves; the stage was hung at the back with white curtains and in front with a striped tapestry of many colours, on the edge of which, where it trailed in the golden dust, a man in green velvet with a comical painted face sat beating a scarlet drum.From the back of the tent sounded a brisk, lively music, to which the puppets danced afinale, fluttering their laces and spangles.Clémence laughed instinctively and laid her hand on Luc’s sleeve.“Is it not beautiful?” she said. She had never been out of Aix in her life, and never to a fair before: she was only eighteen.The marionettes disappeared, and a little girl not above six years old sprang on to the stage with a coil of rope in her hand.“I should like to stay,” said Clémence.There was a thin semicircle of seats about the stage; at one end of this, in the front, they seated themselves.The small performer deftly fastened the rope from one end to the other of the stage, about five feet from the ground, and commenced walking across it. She wore an apple-green coloured bodice and a white skirt with a red frill; she had a small, dark face, and frowned down at the rope with her arms spread wide and her body swaying.Clémence leant forward and watched with grave absorption. Luc looked at her, studied her with covert intensity, which she was too occupied with the performance to notice.Her face was slightly flushed, the lips parted, the absorbed eyes shaded by the brim of her straw hat; between her warm-coloured, fine neck and the frilled cambric of her fichu rolled a cluster of brown curls that caught the sunlight in threads of gold; her small and helpless-looking hands, covered in fine black silk mittens, were folded in her lap; the full folds of her pale violet silk gown fell over the chair and touched the dust.Luc marvelled at her. That adorable little face had never expressed sorrow, weariness, depression, anger, or any sad passion; it was untouched by yearning, longing—by any struggle; it was, save for the full development of its beauty, the face of an infant; and yet she had calmly pledged herself to the stormy virtues of constancy, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, unending fidelity—more than he had ever asked of her.“I used to consider her a child,” thought Luc; “but she is nearer an angel.” Then he forgot the stage under the trees, the passing holiday-makers, and even the near presence of his betrothed, and was only aware of the sunshine, which carried him back to Paris and the Pont Neuf—and the river flowing past the Louvre and the isle of the city (always the river ran through all his dreams and visions)—and the Rue du Bac at night with the street lights gleaming through the rain—and then the sunshine again over the poplar trees on the quays and the spires of the churches.He thought, too, of M. de Voltaire, and how that great man would smile to think that he, Luc, was supremely happy in the prospect of his modest appointment and his simple wife.A timid touch on his sleeve roused him. Clémence was gazing at him with shining eyes.“Is it not wonderful?” she whispered.Luc glanced at the stage; the child had raised herself by one hand on the rope upright into the air, her feet close together, her green tights a vivid line of colour, and her white and crimson skirts a ruffle round her waist.A man came from the back of the stage and caught the child in his arms; he wore a robe of loose pattern composed of squares of black and white, and he began to execute a fantastic dance with the child on his shoulder.The man in green velvet left off beating the drum, and began collecting from the crowd in a pink and gold shaded shell.Luc’s gaze wandered from the performers, and he watched the mummer’s extravagant bows and grimaces as he solicited his guerdon from the spectators.Presently he stopped before a lady who stood in the shade under one of the elm trees, and who was remarkable both for a certain air of the great world not common to the nobility of Aix, and for the fact that she was alone with only a black page in attendance. Luc could not see her face, for she wore a heavy-plumed beaver, and her figure was disguised by a scarlet riding-cloak, yet she interested him by reason of an extraordinary mixture of humility and defiance in her air, conveyed by something in her pose, the droop of her shoulders, and the set of her head.She gave the player a coin, and he passed on; she remained under the tree, a conspicuous figure, and one of a mournfulness out of place in this time of carnival.Several people looked at her; some stopped to stare.Luc wondered who she was, why she was here alone and apart from the general gaiety.He was looking at her when she came slowly out of the shadow, her page behind her, and as she moved into the sunlight Luc recognized Carola Koklinska.“The show is over,” said Clémence regretfully.A gaudy painted curtain had been drawn across the little stage, and the people were moving away to other booths.“Shall we go?” asked Luc.“Yes; it is rather cold,” she answered shyly. She rose from the little green chair, and as she turned Carola, walking in front of the poles and canvas, was full in her vision.Carola looked over her shoulder and saw the girl; the two gazed directly at each other.“Who is that lady?” asked Clémence, for she saw Luc’s salutation and the stranger’s faint, answering smile.“A Polish Countess,” he answered, “whom I met in Prague and in Paris.”“Why, what is she here for—alone?” questioned Mademoiselle de Séguy. “And will you not present me to her?” Her ardent desire to be gracious to any acquaintance of his showed in her eager words.Luc smiled.“I never knew her well enough,” he said, “and it seems she does not wish to speak to me.”Certainly Carola, without a backward look, had disappeared in the crowd. Clémence seemed disappointed.“I wish she had stayed,” she remarked sincerely.Luc made no answer; he was wondering what had brought Carola to Aix. He had thought that she was still in Austria; he supposed she might be on her way to Avignon; yet he knew M. de Richelieu was in Paris, and under any circumstances it seemed curious that she should be alone at a public fête—she who had always affected such magnificence.A little sigh from Clémence recalled him from his momentary reflection.“It is cold,” she repeated timidly.“Come out into the sun,” he answered, and they moved slowly away from the crowd, beyond the elms, and so beyond the fête, into a little slope of meadow land where the grass was yet untrod and green. The western distance, blue, hazed, and mysterious, was half hid by a belt of beech trees, whose boughs bent beneath a load of tawny, orange, gold, and crimson leaves.The distant, mechanical music of the fête was in the air, and occasional gusts of laughter and of applause broke the monotonous rhythm of the melody.Luc and Clémence moved farther and farther away from these sounds; the streaming sunlight wrapped them in warmth and glory, the beech trees were a dazzle of golden colour before their eyes, and the sky overhead was clear blue without a trace of cloud. The girl sighed, looked at the trees, the heavens, then at the ground.“Are you sad, my dear?” asked Luc very tenderly.“No,” she answered in a thin voice; “only I should like to do—something—for you.”“For me?” His face flashed into a charming smile.“Yes.” She lifted her childlike countenance and her voice was stronger. “Sometimes I wish that you were poor or lonely or—despised—that I might prove what I can only say now.”He was abashed and overwhelmed. He saw tears of sincerity glittering on her long, drooping lashes; the heroic in his own soul was quick to salute the heroic rising to him in hers.He stopped and turned to face her.“You must not say that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders very gently. “I do not deserve that you should say that, Clémence.”She shuddered and bent her head lower.“I am such an ordinary woman—but now I feel I could do something great—for you. I—I cared for you before you ever thought of me, you know. When you were in Paris—I used—to—pray—every night—that you might come back.”She gave a quivering little laugh. He looked at her with intense earnestness, and the blood flushed into his face.“You will have my life’s entire homage, Clémence,” he responded gravely. “To have you for my wife is beyond my desert. I want you to do nothing for me but be yourself and smile on my endeavours to please you.”He took his hands lightly from her shoulders, and she clung weakly and gently to his arm.“You do believe I would do anything in the world for you?” she said in a kind of broken passion. “Oh, I feel so foolish, so ignorant—and you have a great career before you. But if I ever have a chance——”“What makes you speak like this?” he asked in a tone of reverent wonder. “I have done nothing for you——”“Oh, oh!” she murmured, as if she concealed a secret pain. “You do not understand me. But if you are ever in any misfortune——”“You are the sweetest child in the world,” Luc interrupted, “and you must not think of misfortune—I trust never to bring you within the shadow of any trouble.”She gave a little fluttering sigh and slipped her arm from his. They reached a low fence that separated the meadow from the beech trees and there they rested, looking, through a break in the ruddy foliage, at the sweet expanse of open country.Luc’s heart was singing within him. All sense of struggle, of discord, of loneliness, of hopes deferred, of ambitions cheated was over; the road was open, free. He would tread it in the old ways of honour and nobility; he would fulfil himself, and at the same time respect his name, his blazon, and the traditions of his race. His companion was beside him and prepared to follow him with more than conventional affection, while he experienced a new and exquisite pleasure in offering her all the devotion of a hitherto untouched heart. In truth it seemed to Luc, as he gazed over the prospect of Provence, that here, in his native place, among his own people, he had found the peace he had looked for uselessly abroad; here, in simple Clémence, were the high virtues he had once thrilled to think he had met in Carola Koklinska.The sun glowed to its setting; superb bars of purple and scarlet began to burn out of the dense gold of the west; a low, clear breeze arose and swept over the grass.Clémence broke the charmed silence.“Are you sure of me?” she asked with panting force.He gave her a quick smile; the glamour of all his visions and hopes transfigured the moment.“As I am sure of God,” he said. He raised the cold, mittened hand from the fence and kissed it.“Ah, Luc,” she said below her breath, “Luc!”They went slowly back towards the fête with the sun behind them and their shadows long across the grass before them, and all the air circled with glory and the ineffable light of the setting sun.As they entered the grounds of the fair they met the old Marquis and Joseph.If Luc had needed any completion of his happiness he would have found it in the radiant demeanour of his father, whose every wish had been now fulfilled and satisfied. He did not know of Luc’s correspondence with M. de Voltaire; in Aix, Luc attended Mass, and never mentioned the new philosophy that guided Paris. There was nothing to trouble the elder M. de Vauvenargues’s touching pleasure in his sons.Coloured lamps began to appear in the trees, mingling their twinkling beams with the sanguine fires of the sun, and music sounded with renewed gaiety from the gaudy tents.Luc de Clapiers was content.

A honey-coloured haze of autumn glory hung over the trees and fields outside Aix, where a fête was being held, this perfect day in late October. Among the crowds who wandered in and out of the trees, the booths, the stalls were Luc de Clapiers and his promised wife, Clémence de Séguy. He had returned home for his betrothal and to prepare for the appointment he was to take up in the spring. His prospects were suddenly pure gold to him; the sense of the opportunity ahead, of the achievement within his grasp, of success, of fulfilment mingled with the joy of pleasing his father, of satisfying all those claims of family affection and family pride, which had so often seemed a chain and a clog, into one ecstasy of living that was crowned by the gentle passion and happy devotion of Clémence, who seemed to have no wish in the world but to shine for him. Her soft youth, her grave ignorance, her pretty follies and lofty ideals of constancy, self-sacrifice, and truth won from him a tender respect and a generous gratitude that seemed to her perfect love. When she was absent from him he did not often think of her. She filled her place in his mind as his promised wife; over his soul she had no dominion.

They paused before a stage in front of a tent set among a group of elm trees. A little group of townsfolk in their best clothes were watching a marionette show that was nearly concluded. Above the tent fluttered long red pennons against the blue sky and gold leaves; the stage was hung at the back with white curtains and in front with a striped tapestry of many colours, on the edge of which, where it trailed in the golden dust, a man in green velvet with a comical painted face sat beating a scarlet drum.

From the back of the tent sounded a brisk, lively music, to which the puppets danced afinale, fluttering their laces and spangles.

Clémence laughed instinctively and laid her hand on Luc’s sleeve.

“Is it not beautiful?” she said. She had never been out of Aix in her life, and never to a fair before: she was only eighteen.

The marionettes disappeared, and a little girl not above six years old sprang on to the stage with a coil of rope in her hand.

“I should like to stay,” said Clémence.

There was a thin semicircle of seats about the stage; at one end of this, in the front, they seated themselves.

The small performer deftly fastened the rope from one end to the other of the stage, about five feet from the ground, and commenced walking across it. She wore an apple-green coloured bodice and a white skirt with a red frill; she had a small, dark face, and frowned down at the rope with her arms spread wide and her body swaying.

Clémence leant forward and watched with grave absorption. Luc looked at her, studied her with covert intensity, which she was too occupied with the performance to notice.

Her face was slightly flushed, the lips parted, the absorbed eyes shaded by the brim of her straw hat; between her warm-coloured, fine neck and the frilled cambric of her fichu rolled a cluster of brown curls that caught the sunlight in threads of gold; her small and helpless-looking hands, covered in fine black silk mittens, were folded in her lap; the full folds of her pale violet silk gown fell over the chair and touched the dust.

Luc marvelled at her. That adorable little face had never expressed sorrow, weariness, depression, anger, or any sad passion; it was untouched by yearning, longing—by any struggle; it was, save for the full development of its beauty, the face of an infant; and yet she had calmly pledged herself to the stormy virtues of constancy, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, unending fidelity—more than he had ever asked of her.

“I used to consider her a child,” thought Luc; “but she is nearer an angel.” Then he forgot the stage under the trees, the passing holiday-makers, and even the near presence of his betrothed, and was only aware of the sunshine, which carried him back to Paris and the Pont Neuf—and the river flowing past the Louvre and the isle of the city (always the river ran through all his dreams and visions)—and the Rue du Bac at night with the street lights gleaming through the rain—and then the sunshine again over the poplar trees on the quays and the spires of the churches.

He thought, too, of M. de Voltaire, and how that great man would smile to think that he, Luc, was supremely happy in the prospect of his modest appointment and his simple wife.

A timid touch on his sleeve roused him. Clémence was gazing at him with shining eyes.

“Is it not wonderful?” she whispered.

Luc glanced at the stage; the child had raised herself by one hand on the rope upright into the air, her feet close together, her green tights a vivid line of colour, and her white and crimson skirts a ruffle round her waist.

A man came from the back of the stage and caught the child in his arms; he wore a robe of loose pattern composed of squares of black and white, and he began to execute a fantastic dance with the child on his shoulder.

The man in green velvet left off beating the drum, and began collecting from the crowd in a pink and gold shaded shell.

Luc’s gaze wandered from the performers, and he watched the mummer’s extravagant bows and grimaces as he solicited his guerdon from the spectators.

Presently he stopped before a lady who stood in the shade under one of the elm trees, and who was remarkable both for a certain air of the great world not common to the nobility of Aix, and for the fact that she was alone with only a black page in attendance. Luc could not see her face, for she wore a heavy-plumed beaver, and her figure was disguised by a scarlet riding-cloak, yet she interested him by reason of an extraordinary mixture of humility and defiance in her air, conveyed by something in her pose, the droop of her shoulders, and the set of her head.

She gave the player a coin, and he passed on; she remained under the tree, a conspicuous figure, and one of a mournfulness out of place in this time of carnival.

Several people looked at her; some stopped to stare.

Luc wondered who she was, why she was here alone and apart from the general gaiety.

He was looking at her when she came slowly out of the shadow, her page behind her, and as she moved into the sunlight Luc recognized Carola Koklinska.

“The show is over,” said Clémence regretfully.

A gaudy painted curtain had been drawn across the little stage, and the people were moving away to other booths.

“Shall we go?” asked Luc.

“Yes; it is rather cold,” she answered shyly. She rose from the little green chair, and as she turned Carola, walking in front of the poles and canvas, was full in her vision.

Carola looked over her shoulder and saw the girl; the two gazed directly at each other.

“Who is that lady?” asked Clémence, for she saw Luc’s salutation and the stranger’s faint, answering smile.

“A Polish Countess,” he answered, “whom I met in Prague and in Paris.”

“Why, what is she here for—alone?” questioned Mademoiselle de Séguy. “And will you not present me to her?” Her ardent desire to be gracious to any acquaintance of his showed in her eager words.

Luc smiled.

“I never knew her well enough,” he said, “and it seems she does not wish to speak to me.”

Certainly Carola, without a backward look, had disappeared in the crowd. Clémence seemed disappointed.

“I wish she had stayed,” she remarked sincerely.

Luc made no answer; he was wondering what had brought Carola to Aix. He had thought that she was still in Austria; he supposed she might be on her way to Avignon; yet he knew M. de Richelieu was in Paris, and under any circumstances it seemed curious that she should be alone at a public fête—she who had always affected such magnificence.

A little sigh from Clémence recalled him from his momentary reflection.

“It is cold,” she repeated timidly.

“Come out into the sun,” he answered, and they moved slowly away from the crowd, beyond the elms, and so beyond the fête, into a little slope of meadow land where the grass was yet untrod and green. The western distance, blue, hazed, and mysterious, was half hid by a belt of beech trees, whose boughs bent beneath a load of tawny, orange, gold, and crimson leaves.

The distant, mechanical music of the fête was in the air, and occasional gusts of laughter and of applause broke the monotonous rhythm of the melody.

Luc and Clémence moved farther and farther away from these sounds; the streaming sunlight wrapped them in warmth and glory, the beech trees were a dazzle of golden colour before their eyes, and the sky overhead was clear blue without a trace of cloud. The girl sighed, looked at the trees, the heavens, then at the ground.

“Are you sad, my dear?” asked Luc very tenderly.

“No,” she answered in a thin voice; “only I should like to do—something—for you.”

“For me?” His face flashed into a charming smile.

“Yes.” She lifted her childlike countenance and her voice was stronger. “Sometimes I wish that you were poor or lonely or—despised—that I might prove what I can only say now.”

He was abashed and overwhelmed. He saw tears of sincerity glittering on her long, drooping lashes; the heroic in his own soul was quick to salute the heroic rising to him in hers.

He stopped and turned to face her.

“You must not say that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders very gently. “I do not deserve that you should say that, Clémence.”

She shuddered and bent her head lower.

“I am such an ordinary woman—but now I feel I could do something great—for you. I—I cared for you before you ever thought of me, you know. When you were in Paris—I used—to—pray—every night—that you might come back.”

She gave a quivering little laugh. He looked at her with intense earnestness, and the blood flushed into his face.

“You will have my life’s entire homage, Clémence,” he responded gravely. “To have you for my wife is beyond my desert. I want you to do nothing for me but be yourself and smile on my endeavours to please you.”

He took his hands lightly from her shoulders, and she clung weakly and gently to his arm.

“You do believe I would do anything in the world for you?” she said in a kind of broken passion. “Oh, I feel so foolish, so ignorant—and you have a great career before you. But if I ever have a chance——”

“What makes you speak like this?” he asked in a tone of reverent wonder. “I have done nothing for you——”

“Oh, oh!” she murmured, as if she concealed a secret pain. “You do not understand me. But if you are ever in any misfortune——”

“You are the sweetest child in the world,” Luc interrupted, “and you must not think of misfortune—I trust never to bring you within the shadow of any trouble.”

She gave a little fluttering sigh and slipped her arm from his. They reached a low fence that separated the meadow from the beech trees and there they rested, looking, through a break in the ruddy foliage, at the sweet expanse of open country.

Luc’s heart was singing within him. All sense of struggle, of discord, of loneliness, of hopes deferred, of ambitions cheated was over; the road was open, free. He would tread it in the old ways of honour and nobility; he would fulfil himself, and at the same time respect his name, his blazon, and the traditions of his race. His companion was beside him and prepared to follow him with more than conventional affection, while he experienced a new and exquisite pleasure in offering her all the devotion of a hitherto untouched heart. In truth it seemed to Luc, as he gazed over the prospect of Provence, that here, in his native place, among his own people, he had found the peace he had looked for uselessly abroad; here, in simple Clémence, were the high virtues he had once thrilled to think he had met in Carola Koklinska.

The sun glowed to its setting; superb bars of purple and scarlet began to burn out of the dense gold of the west; a low, clear breeze arose and swept over the grass.

Clémence broke the charmed silence.

“Are you sure of me?” she asked with panting force.

He gave her a quick smile; the glamour of all his visions and hopes transfigured the moment.

“As I am sure of God,” he said. He raised the cold, mittened hand from the fence and kissed it.

“Ah, Luc,” she said below her breath, “Luc!”

They went slowly back towards the fête with the sun behind them and their shadows long across the grass before them, and all the air circled with glory and the ineffable light of the setting sun.

As they entered the grounds of the fair they met the old Marquis and Joseph.

If Luc had needed any completion of his happiness he would have found it in the radiant demeanour of his father, whose every wish had been now fulfilled and satisfied. He did not know of Luc’s correspondence with M. de Voltaire; in Aix, Luc attended Mass, and never mentioned the new philosophy that guided Paris. There was nothing to trouble the elder M. de Vauvenargues’s touching pleasure in his sons.

Coloured lamps began to appear in the trees, mingling their twinkling beams with the sanguine fires of the sun, and music sounded with renewed gaiety from the gaudy tents.

Luc de Clapiers was content.

CHAPTER XIIAFTERWARDSThe last generous glow of October had passed into the first chill of November; the white haze of an early frost lay over the fields as Luc, but a few days after the fête, rode across the fields where he had walked with Clémence on his way home from the house of the Comte de Séguy.He noted, even in his happy mood, a certain sadness in the deserted spot that had been so gay. The fair was over, the travelling players had gone, leaving behind them worn grass, scattered rubbish, and trampled bushes; in one corner of the field a ragged tent still stood with a long blue and scarlet streamer fluttering above it. Luc wondered at that, for there was no indication of anyone having been left behind; but he rode on briskly towards the gates of Aix, and was striking out of the fields into the high road when round the group of elms, where the stage had been but so short a time before, rode Carola Koklinska.It seemed as if she would have passed him without a word, but he drew rein, and then she checked her horse also.“You wonder to see me in Aix,” she said.It was sunless and near to twilight. She wore a dark dress and hat, and in her whole person was no colour whatever; her face was pallid, and the blood only showed faintly in her lips; her mount was a fine white horse—an animal such as she had ridden when she came round the silver firs in Bohemia.“Certainly; I thought you were in Austria, Madame,” said Luc with a grave smile.She looked at him steadily through the cold, uncertain light.“I have been a failure in Austria,” she answered. “Perhaps you have not heard, Monsieur, that I have been a failure altogether.”“No,” said the Marquis; “I have heard nothing of you. I was surprised to see you the other day—here, at the fête.”“I came,” she replied, still gazing at him, “because I shall not be likely to ever hear music or see gaiety again—not even this little simple country merry-making.”The wind blew sharply between them and a few dead leaves fell from the elm on to Carola’s lap.“Is M. de Richelieu in Paris?” asked Luc.“M. de Richelieu”—she spoke without heat or bitterness—“is now the servant of Madame de la Poplinière, and M. Amelot, who was my friend, has fallen. The Marquise de Pompadour has changed the face of the Court; every post is now filled by her creatures. Besides, I was very stupid in Austria—I was found out.”Her horse shook his head and the bridle silver twinkled in the stillness.Luc asked her what she had once asked him—“What are you going to do with your life?”“I have made my choice.” Her answer was ready. “M. de Richelieu is generous—he gives one—alternatives. I have an estate in Poland, my husband’s estate. I could go there, with a pension—I could die—like Madame de Chateauroux—I could go into a convent. I have decided on the last.”“Why?” asked Luc, leaning a little forward on his saddle.“Because I am tired.” Her dark, heavy-lidded eyes were still clear and steady. “You must not think that I am more holy than I ever was. I have simply done what I meant to—come to the usual end—and I am tired.”“Will your religion console you for the loss of the world?” smiled Luc.“Yes,” she answered swiftly. “Do you remember me in the chapel of St. Wenceslas? Ibelieve.”“Are you putting this resolve in practice—at once?”She answered in her old precise tones.“I am journeying to a convent near Avignon which is under a certain obligation to me. I was generous to them and they will be generous to me.”“Alone?” asked Luc gently. “You are travelling alone?”She smiled.“I had my page. He left me yesterday with most of my jewels. Yes, I am alone. As you may remember, Monsieur, I am not afraid—of such things as travelling alone.”He did remember her in Bohemia, and a glow came into his heart.“I think you have a fine courage, Madame.”“Yes?” she assented indifferently. “There are so many kinds of courage, are there not? I,” she added, “have been cowardly enough in some things.”Luc sat silent, looking down at the dark mane of his patient horse.“You are to have your chance in the spring,” continued Carola. “I am glad—and about Mademoiselle de Séguy. In great sincerity I congratulate you. I believe and hope this lady will not disappoint you.”“I believe so also, Madame,” said Luc proudly.Carola sighed.“I am leaving Aix to-night,” she said. “Good-bye, Monsieur le Marquis.”Luc took off his hat.“Good-bye, Madame. I shall still think of our journey to Eger as an—inspiration.”“Thank you,” answered Carola.She touched up her horse; and so it seemed that they were about to part for ever, he journeying towards the dark gates of the town and his brilliant future, she towards her convent and her obscure end. So they would have parted had not a sudden sound checked them, made them pause, drawn them once more together.It was the imploring, weak wail of a child rising out of the empty dusk. They both listened, and it was repeated.“O God!” cried Carola, with sudden passion. “I have heard that cry in dreams!”“Some child is lost,” said Luc.“And in pain,” she added quickly.He turned his horse’s head, and went back with her along the way he had come, across the worn grass of the fair ground, which was strewn with confetti, torn paper, and ragged muslin roses.The crying continued. It sounded near, yet very feeble; it could scarcely rise above the sound of the horses’ hoofs or the jingle of the harness.The twilight seemed to have descended very rapidly; it was now almost dark, but the clouds were breaking above a rising moon, and the last glow of daylight was mingled with a cold, unearthly radiance. Luc felt chilly even beneath his riding mantle; the memory of the march from Prague seemed to linger in the faintly bitter air.Carola paused and looked over her shoulder at the man, who was a little behind her.“Stop,” she said. “You had better ride home, Monsieur.”“What do you mean?”“Have you not heard about the plague?”“The plague?”“The smallpox,” she said intensely. “They say it will be bad in Provence this winter. They wish to keep it from the towns. I was told, at my inn, that they suspected it among the players, and had ordered them away suddenly.”“Well?” questioned Luc keenly.Carola pointed her whip towards the corner of the field where the solitary tent stood.“The crying comes from there,” she said. “They have left somebody behind.”“Ah!” cried Luc, “some one infected—some one ill!”“I think so—at least it is possible.”Luc had heard of such things often enough. The smallpox was the dread and the scourge of the country; his father had earned recognition from the Court by his heroic fight with an epidemic in Aix many years ago. Luc had heard him speak of how the sick and dying had been cast out by their own kin.“I will see if there is anyone abandoned in the tent,” he said.Carola laid her hand on his bridle.“No,” she cried, with energy. “Return home, Monsieur. You have others to think of—remember, reflect. You must not risk it.”Luc smiled.“Am I to watch you go—and then ride away?”“Ah,” she answered, “what does it matter about me? There is amaison de Dieuat my convent; the nuns would take in the sick.”“Madame, simply because there may be some danger, I cannot leave you.”“You have never had the smallpox?”“No.”“Then,” she said, in great agitation, “you must not come. Think of Mademoiselle de Séguy.”“She would bid me go,” smiled Luc. “And we make much out of nothing—maybe it is not the plague.”He took her hand gently from his reins and rode across to the tent.By the time he had dismounted and fastened his horse to a little broken elm tree she was on foot also and beside him, leading her horse.“If you were to ride into the town, could you not find some one who would come?” she asked.“Many,” he answered; “but why should I? This has come my way. Do you ride on, Madame.”“O God!” cried Carola desperately, “supposing it is the plague?”Luc lifted the tent flap and entered. The air was heavy and foul; it was completely dark. Luc stepped cautiously; he could hear nothing.He began to think Carola had been mistaken, and that the tent was empty, when she appeared behind him with the lantern from her saddle, lit, in her hand. The beautiful beams disclosed the sagging canvas, the tipping centre pole, a confusion of articles, clothes, cooking utensils, stools, and paper hats and crowns cast over the ground.Carola held the lantern higher.In one corner a child lay along a pile of garments, staring at the light with glazed eyes; her face was white and disfigured with purple stains like bruises, her lips were covered with blood. Seeing these two looking at her, she began to wail incoherently.Both Luc and Carola recognized her by her apple-green bodice and red and white skirts: she was the little dancer on the tight-rope at the fête.Luc made a step forward, but Carola caught his arm.“Itisthe smallpox!” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”Luc looked at her.“You should not be here,” he said.The child began to talk in some kind of patois.“She is saying her prayers,” said Luc, who knew the dialect of the district. He shook his arm free from Carola, went to the humble bed, and took the small, cold, heavy hand of the sick child in his. “What is the matter, eh?” he asked, in a tone of great tenderness. “You are not alone now.”“You have done a mad thing,” said Carola, in a quivering voice. “You cannot return to Aix now.”He lifted his calm, beautiful face, round which the soft locks of hazel hair had loosened.“No,” he said, very gravely—“not until I know if this is the smallpox or not.”He put his arm round the child, and, taking his laced handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the blood from the sore lips. The little creature drooped her swollen face against the silk muslin and lace on his bosom.Carola set the lantern on a stool and looked round the tent.“Here is nothing,” she said. “What can we do.” Luc looked up.“Your convent, Madame. You say they would take in the sick?”“Yes—that is our only chance to save the child.”“And to avoid Aix,” added the Marquis quietly. “How far is this convent?”“Twenty miles, perhaps.”She came to the other side of the couch and knelt down.“Givemethe child,” she said passionately. “You do not know what you are doing—what it means. For God’s sake——!”“Hush,” answered Luc gently. “I know very well—hush.”The little girl lay in a stupor in his arms; as the blood came to her mouth he wiped it away. His face was utterly pale, but serene; he was thinking of Clémence and the beggar on the Paris quay.Carola looked at him, and controlled herself with an effort.“You sacrifice so much,” she said, in a very low voice; “I nothing. You were wrong not to let me undertake this.”“Could you have carried her?” he asked, with a little smile.And to both of them came the thought of the child she had borne over the Bohemian mountains.“That was younger,” she murmured.And in the strangeness of their being alone again with the dying, isolated alone again from the world, they looked at each other in silence.“What shall I do?” whispered Carola.“We will go to your convent. I think the moon will hold. There is no other way, and perhaps we may prevent the plague spreading to Aix. All this”—he looked round the tent—“must be burnt.” He rose from his knees, lifting the child, who cried bitterly when her aching body was moved.“We will go at once,” he said, with his simple air of decision. “Some one might find us here.”Two slender figures in their long dark cloaks, they left the tent—he carrying the child, she the lantern. When they breathed the clear air again both gave a deep sigh of relief.It was now dark, but the moon was abroad though swimming behind a feeble veil of clouds; the cold was insidious, keen, mysterious; the grey and silver sky seemed very remote, the trees still as a painted fantasy; the little wind had utterly died away. Luc’s face was a pale oval above the mantle that wrapt his burden, which he carried easily enough for all his slight look.Carola glanced at him and bit her lower lip.“It is going to be a cold night,” she said. She went back into the tent and brought out a woollen cloak, a tawdry striped thing of blue and yellow. “Wrap her in this, Monsieur.”Luc gave up the child, who coughed and muttered deliriously; between them they rolled her in the player’s mantle. Luc wiped her face and her lips with his stained handkerchief.Both were silent now; like creatures in the grip of fate, they seemed to act almost mechanically.Leaving the child under the trees, they collected the paper roses, the card-board hats and crowns, and piling them together in front of the tent, lit them from a ragged brand of paper turned into a torch by the lantern flame.The first attempts were fruitless, but presently the muslin began to flare and the fire rose up strong and clear.Luc and Carola stepped back; the ragged edges of the tent caught; in a few moments a fantastic bonfire lit the dark and lonely field, and illuminated the steadfast faces of the man and woman who watched their work. When the flames were sweeping untroubled over the infected spot, the two, still without a word, turned to their horses. When they had unfastened them, Luc spoke.“Can you lift her up if I mount?” he asked.“I will try.”He carried the child to his horse’s side, then gave her to Carola as he sprang into the saddle; then as he stooped to her, Carola felt his bare cold hands touch hers as the little girl, not without difficulty, was lifted on to his saddle-bow.“You know the way; you must lead,” he said.She stood for a second, looking up at him. The glow of the fire brought out every line of his face, so fine and true and serene, and yet the face of a man who knew what he had undertaken, what was before him, for there was a kind of awe in his expression, and yet an exaltation; his lips were delicately compressed, his nostrils delicately distended, and his eyes were wild and dark. He was looking over the huddled form of the child in front of him that he held to his bosom with his right hand; his gaze went beyond Carola and beyond the flames. She thought he had forgotten she was there.She mounted and brought her horse alongside his.“Ah, Madame,” he murmured, with a start.They rode together out of the light of the flames.

The last generous glow of October had passed into the first chill of November; the white haze of an early frost lay over the fields as Luc, but a few days after the fête, rode across the fields where he had walked with Clémence on his way home from the house of the Comte de Séguy.

He noted, even in his happy mood, a certain sadness in the deserted spot that had been so gay. The fair was over, the travelling players had gone, leaving behind them worn grass, scattered rubbish, and trampled bushes; in one corner of the field a ragged tent still stood with a long blue and scarlet streamer fluttering above it. Luc wondered at that, for there was no indication of anyone having been left behind; but he rode on briskly towards the gates of Aix, and was striking out of the fields into the high road when round the group of elms, where the stage had been but so short a time before, rode Carola Koklinska.

It seemed as if she would have passed him without a word, but he drew rein, and then she checked her horse also.

“You wonder to see me in Aix,” she said.

It was sunless and near to twilight. She wore a dark dress and hat, and in her whole person was no colour whatever; her face was pallid, and the blood only showed faintly in her lips; her mount was a fine white horse—an animal such as she had ridden when she came round the silver firs in Bohemia.

“Certainly; I thought you were in Austria, Madame,” said Luc with a grave smile.

She looked at him steadily through the cold, uncertain light.

“I have been a failure in Austria,” she answered. “Perhaps you have not heard, Monsieur, that I have been a failure altogether.”

“No,” said the Marquis; “I have heard nothing of you. I was surprised to see you the other day—here, at the fête.”

“I came,” she replied, still gazing at him, “because I shall not be likely to ever hear music or see gaiety again—not even this little simple country merry-making.”

The wind blew sharply between them and a few dead leaves fell from the elm on to Carola’s lap.

“Is M. de Richelieu in Paris?” asked Luc.

“M. de Richelieu”—she spoke without heat or bitterness—“is now the servant of Madame de la Poplinière, and M. Amelot, who was my friend, has fallen. The Marquise de Pompadour has changed the face of the Court; every post is now filled by her creatures. Besides, I was very stupid in Austria—I was found out.”

Her horse shook his head and the bridle silver twinkled in the stillness.

Luc asked her what she had once asked him—

“What are you going to do with your life?”

“I have made my choice.” Her answer was ready. “M. de Richelieu is generous—he gives one—alternatives. I have an estate in Poland, my husband’s estate. I could go there, with a pension—I could die—like Madame de Chateauroux—I could go into a convent. I have decided on the last.”

“Why?” asked Luc, leaning a little forward on his saddle.

“Because I am tired.” Her dark, heavy-lidded eyes were still clear and steady. “You must not think that I am more holy than I ever was. I have simply done what I meant to—come to the usual end—and I am tired.”

“Will your religion console you for the loss of the world?” smiled Luc.

“Yes,” she answered swiftly. “Do you remember me in the chapel of St. Wenceslas? Ibelieve.”

“Are you putting this resolve in practice—at once?”

She answered in her old precise tones.

“I am journeying to a convent near Avignon which is under a certain obligation to me. I was generous to them and they will be generous to me.”

“Alone?” asked Luc gently. “You are travelling alone?”

She smiled.

“I had my page. He left me yesterday with most of my jewels. Yes, I am alone. As you may remember, Monsieur, I am not afraid—of such things as travelling alone.”

He did remember her in Bohemia, and a glow came into his heart.

“I think you have a fine courage, Madame.”

“Yes?” she assented indifferently. “There are so many kinds of courage, are there not? I,” she added, “have been cowardly enough in some things.”

Luc sat silent, looking down at the dark mane of his patient horse.

“You are to have your chance in the spring,” continued Carola. “I am glad—and about Mademoiselle de Séguy. In great sincerity I congratulate you. I believe and hope this lady will not disappoint you.”

“I believe so also, Madame,” said Luc proudly.

Carola sighed.

“I am leaving Aix to-night,” she said. “Good-bye, Monsieur le Marquis.”

Luc took off his hat.

“Good-bye, Madame. I shall still think of our journey to Eger as an—inspiration.”

“Thank you,” answered Carola.

She touched up her horse; and so it seemed that they were about to part for ever, he journeying towards the dark gates of the town and his brilliant future, she towards her convent and her obscure end. So they would have parted had not a sudden sound checked them, made them pause, drawn them once more together.

It was the imploring, weak wail of a child rising out of the empty dusk. They both listened, and it was repeated.

“O God!” cried Carola, with sudden passion. “I have heard that cry in dreams!”

“Some child is lost,” said Luc.

“And in pain,” she added quickly.

He turned his horse’s head, and went back with her along the way he had come, across the worn grass of the fair ground, which was strewn with confetti, torn paper, and ragged muslin roses.

The crying continued. It sounded near, yet very feeble; it could scarcely rise above the sound of the horses’ hoofs or the jingle of the harness.

The twilight seemed to have descended very rapidly; it was now almost dark, but the clouds were breaking above a rising moon, and the last glow of daylight was mingled with a cold, unearthly radiance. Luc felt chilly even beneath his riding mantle; the memory of the march from Prague seemed to linger in the faintly bitter air.

Carola paused and looked over her shoulder at the man, who was a little behind her.

“Stop,” she said. “You had better ride home, Monsieur.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you not heard about the plague?”

“The plague?”

“The smallpox,” she said intensely. “They say it will be bad in Provence this winter. They wish to keep it from the towns. I was told, at my inn, that they suspected it among the players, and had ordered them away suddenly.”

“Well?” questioned Luc keenly.

Carola pointed her whip towards the corner of the field where the solitary tent stood.

“The crying comes from there,” she said. “They have left somebody behind.”

“Ah!” cried Luc, “some one infected—some one ill!”

“I think so—at least it is possible.”

Luc had heard of such things often enough. The smallpox was the dread and the scourge of the country; his father had earned recognition from the Court by his heroic fight with an epidemic in Aix many years ago. Luc had heard him speak of how the sick and dying had been cast out by their own kin.

“I will see if there is anyone abandoned in the tent,” he said.

Carola laid her hand on his bridle.

“No,” she cried, with energy. “Return home, Monsieur. You have others to think of—remember, reflect. You must not risk it.”

Luc smiled.

“Am I to watch you go—and then ride away?”

“Ah,” she answered, “what does it matter about me? There is amaison de Dieuat my convent; the nuns would take in the sick.”

“Madame, simply because there may be some danger, I cannot leave you.”

“You have never had the smallpox?”

“No.”

“Then,” she said, in great agitation, “you must not come. Think of Mademoiselle de Séguy.”

“She would bid me go,” smiled Luc. “And we make much out of nothing—maybe it is not the plague.”

He took her hand gently from his reins and rode across to the tent.

By the time he had dismounted and fastened his horse to a little broken elm tree she was on foot also and beside him, leading her horse.

“If you were to ride into the town, could you not find some one who would come?” she asked.

“Many,” he answered; “but why should I? This has come my way. Do you ride on, Madame.”

“O God!” cried Carola desperately, “supposing it is the plague?”

Luc lifted the tent flap and entered. The air was heavy and foul; it was completely dark. Luc stepped cautiously; he could hear nothing.

He began to think Carola had been mistaken, and that the tent was empty, when she appeared behind him with the lantern from her saddle, lit, in her hand. The beautiful beams disclosed the sagging canvas, the tipping centre pole, a confusion of articles, clothes, cooking utensils, stools, and paper hats and crowns cast over the ground.

Carola held the lantern higher.

In one corner a child lay along a pile of garments, staring at the light with glazed eyes; her face was white and disfigured with purple stains like bruises, her lips were covered with blood. Seeing these two looking at her, she began to wail incoherently.

Both Luc and Carola recognized her by her apple-green bodice and red and white skirts: she was the little dancer on the tight-rope at the fête.

Luc made a step forward, but Carola caught his arm.

“Itisthe smallpox!” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

Luc looked at her.

“You should not be here,” he said.

The child began to talk in some kind of patois.

“She is saying her prayers,” said Luc, who knew the dialect of the district. He shook his arm free from Carola, went to the humble bed, and took the small, cold, heavy hand of the sick child in his. “What is the matter, eh?” he asked, in a tone of great tenderness. “You are not alone now.”

“You have done a mad thing,” said Carola, in a quivering voice. “You cannot return to Aix now.”

He lifted his calm, beautiful face, round which the soft locks of hazel hair had loosened.

“No,” he said, very gravely—“not until I know if this is the smallpox or not.”

He put his arm round the child, and, taking his laced handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the blood from the sore lips. The little creature drooped her swollen face against the silk muslin and lace on his bosom.

Carola set the lantern on a stool and looked round the tent.

“Here is nothing,” she said. “What can we do.” Luc looked up.

“Your convent, Madame. You say they would take in the sick?”

“Yes—that is our only chance to save the child.”

“And to avoid Aix,” added the Marquis quietly. “How far is this convent?”

“Twenty miles, perhaps.”

She came to the other side of the couch and knelt down.

“Givemethe child,” she said passionately. “You do not know what you are doing—what it means. For God’s sake——!”

“Hush,” answered Luc gently. “I know very well—hush.”

The little girl lay in a stupor in his arms; as the blood came to her mouth he wiped it away. His face was utterly pale, but serene; he was thinking of Clémence and the beggar on the Paris quay.

Carola looked at him, and controlled herself with an effort.

“You sacrifice so much,” she said, in a very low voice; “I nothing. You were wrong not to let me undertake this.”

“Could you have carried her?” he asked, with a little smile.

And to both of them came the thought of the child she had borne over the Bohemian mountains.

“That was younger,” she murmured.

And in the strangeness of their being alone again with the dying, isolated alone again from the world, they looked at each other in silence.

“What shall I do?” whispered Carola.

“We will go to your convent. I think the moon will hold. There is no other way, and perhaps we may prevent the plague spreading to Aix. All this”—he looked round the tent—“must be burnt.” He rose from his knees, lifting the child, who cried bitterly when her aching body was moved.

“We will go at once,” he said, with his simple air of decision. “Some one might find us here.”

Two slender figures in their long dark cloaks, they left the tent—he carrying the child, she the lantern. When they breathed the clear air again both gave a deep sigh of relief.

It was now dark, but the moon was abroad though swimming behind a feeble veil of clouds; the cold was insidious, keen, mysterious; the grey and silver sky seemed very remote, the trees still as a painted fantasy; the little wind had utterly died away. Luc’s face was a pale oval above the mantle that wrapt his burden, which he carried easily enough for all his slight look.

Carola glanced at him and bit her lower lip.

“It is going to be a cold night,” she said. She went back into the tent and brought out a woollen cloak, a tawdry striped thing of blue and yellow. “Wrap her in this, Monsieur.”

Luc gave up the child, who coughed and muttered deliriously; between them they rolled her in the player’s mantle. Luc wiped her face and her lips with his stained handkerchief.

Both were silent now; like creatures in the grip of fate, they seemed to act almost mechanically.

Leaving the child under the trees, they collected the paper roses, the card-board hats and crowns, and piling them together in front of the tent, lit them from a ragged brand of paper turned into a torch by the lantern flame.

The first attempts were fruitless, but presently the muslin began to flare and the fire rose up strong and clear.

Luc and Carola stepped back; the ragged edges of the tent caught; in a few moments a fantastic bonfire lit the dark and lonely field, and illuminated the steadfast faces of the man and woman who watched their work. When the flames were sweeping untroubled over the infected spot, the two, still without a word, turned to their horses. When they had unfastened them, Luc spoke.

“Can you lift her up if I mount?” he asked.

“I will try.”

He carried the child to his horse’s side, then gave her to Carola as he sprang into the saddle; then as he stooped to her, Carola felt his bare cold hands touch hers as the little girl, not without difficulty, was lifted on to his saddle-bow.

“You know the way; you must lead,” he said.

She stood for a second, looking up at him. The glow of the fire brought out every line of his face, so fine and true and serene, and yet the face of a man who knew what he had undertaken, what was before him, for there was a kind of awe in his expression, and yet an exaltation; his lips were delicately compressed, his nostrils delicately distended, and his eyes were wild and dark. He was looking over the huddled form of the child in front of him that he held to his bosom with his right hand; his gaze went beyond Carola and beyond the flames. She thought he had forgotten she was there.

She mounted and brought her horse alongside his.

“Ah, Madame,” he murmured, with a start.

They rode together out of the light of the flames.

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