CHAPTER VIIN THE GARDENLuc stood in the Rue Deauville before a flat, narrow door in the high wall behind which rose the tall poplars of Carola’s garden.He took the knocker in his hand and looked at it; it was, as the Countess had described, a woman’s head, smoothly cast in bronze, and the face had a reserved yet wild expression, a look of terror and bitterness.A soft little wind was blowing, and the sun was extraordinarily bright. Luc looked up and down the street with an idle, unexplainable reluctance to knock. He did not care for the rendezvous—he did not even greatly wish to see Carola; he felt to the full the desire that had more or less possessed him of late—the desire to be alone and free—even from those things he loved and admired.When he at length did knock, the door was opened instantly, and the Countess stood the other side of the portal. He saluted her gravely, and passed into the queer, lonely garden.They stood for a moment side by side between the trunks of the poplar trees. She wore a light cloak like a man’s riding mantle, and her black hair was unpowdered.“I am glad you have come, Monsieur le Marquis,” she said.“I have come wondering why you asked me, Madame,” he answered.She led the way to the one seat beneath the wallflowers, and when they reached it turned and replied—“I always liked you, I always wanted to serve you. Ambition is so splendid! You have the makings of a great man.”Luc coloured and looked at her gravely.“I too have always been ambitious,” she continued, with a slight nervousness; “but women tire—and they cannot achieve what men achieve.” She paused a second, then added hastily, “I can put you on the path to obtain what you desire.”Luc had the impression that she was not saying what she really wished, but was confused by some agitation into, contrary to her wont, using evasive words.“You leave me at a loss, Madame,” he answered, with a gentle dignity. “I only understand that you condescend towards me, and for that I am proudly grateful.”Carola glanced quickly at the firm yet sensitive and delicate lines of his profile—for he did not look towards her as he spoke. She seated herself, but he remained standing.“Since I was a young girl I have moved among Courts,—France, Austria, Russia,”—she said, “and I have made the acquaintance of some powerful people.” She pressed to her lips a little handkerchief embroidered with gold thread. “One is in the house now—I want you to meet him. He has, I know, a post for you, if you will accept it.”The Marquis answered earnestly—“I only wish for some scope in which to work, Madame—the humblest position, if it will but allow me the bare chance of—some achievement.”Carola suddenly held out her hand.“I wish I knew you a little better!” she cried, with sudden passion. “I may be making a blunder, Monsieur!”Luc glanced at her in surprise.“I think you know all there is to know of me,” he replied, with a slight smile. Indeed, his life had been so simple, so open in outward action, that she might, by the simplest inquiries from M. de Biron, have elicited all of it and his character too.“We none of us know each other.” Her outstretched hand rested on his plain basket sword-hilt. “You might surprise me a hundred ways, and I you. When you are absent from me, so many things I should like to say rise in my mind; when you come, you bring a barrier with you that makes speech impossible.”Luc’s hazel eyes darkened; with his ungloved right hand he raised hers from the steel shell of his sword.“You see, Monsieur,” she added proudly, “that I admit to thinking of you.”She rose, leaving her hand in his. They were of a height, and he looked straight into her face, which was fully illuminated by the strong beams of the sun. He could see the fine lines round her large, misty eyes, the red powder rubbed into her cheeks, and the veins showing under the dark skin of the hollow temples and thin throat. Her thick lashes and slender brows were artificially darkened; the sun showed the bluish look of the pencil round the heavy lids. He noticed that her hand was very cold in his.“You are different indeed!” she exclaimed, with a certain bitterness.“Different?” he asked.She withdrew her hand.“From all of them!” She appeared to be struggling with some excitement or agitation. “What is in your mind? Where are you going? What do you mean to do? You will have to use the world as you find it—like every one else.”Luc smiled.“I am so exactly the same as every one else, Madame,” he said, in a deprecating tone. “I am just struggling for some little sphere in which I can let my soul spread its wings—I have that restlessness to achieve something which many better men lack,” he added, thinking of his father and Joseph; “yet I dare not profane it, for it is the highest thing I know.” He fixed his eyes on her gravely, and she moved towards the wallflowers, away from him.“I wish I had left you alone,” she said.Luc flushed swiftly.“Have you found me so ungrateful?”“You have nothing to be grateful for,” she replied, narrowing her eyes on him, “I only fear that some day you may come to dislike me.”She had not said or done anything to destroy the mental image he cherished of a slightly mysterious creature, fiery and pure, disdainful of the world and at heart tender and a little sad; he therefore smiled at her words, which he thought showed her ignorance of his conception of her, and looked at her with his serene, enthusiastic glance, before which her dark eyes fell.“You are very sure of your own creeds,” she said irrelevantly, “and narrow too, at the best—I think.”He admitted to not following her thought, and she answered his admission by a half-scornful, half-terrified little laugh.“Do you really not understand me?” she asked.Luc felt a sudden beat at his heart, as if his life was about to fulfil its most splendid promise; his eyes were dazzled by her face, which seemed to him to be suddenly illuminated from within and transfigured. Her actual presence and his cherished vision of her were for that moment fused in one; he saw her robe edged with flame, and her head crowned with points of light, and her eyes of a steady and immortal brilliance.“Is it possible?” he said. “Is it possible?”“You know if it is or no,” she answered, and took a sudden step towards him with her head high.To his unfaltering gaze she was as unsubstantial as the sunbeams about her and as mysterious as the living flowers growing in the dusty old wall.“I cannot believe it,” said Luc—“that this is going to happen to me!”“Hush!” she whispered, “hush!”If he had put out his hand he could have touched her, but he made no movement, and she paused when there was a foot between them.“Won’t you speak to me?” he said. “Tell me how much I may dare?”She never ceased to gaze at him.“You know—everything,” she answered. “Why need we speak?”“I know nothing,” murmured Luc, “and I am afraid to guess.”“Afraid!” echoed Carola. “I too am afraid, bitterly afraid.”She turned her eyes from him and sank on to the seat with her head bent.Luc stepped impulsively towards her.“I have dreamt of you so often,” he said gravely; his lips were quivering and his eyes filled with tears. “You could never understand——”He laid his hand very lightly on her cloak; she looked up suddenly and said almost fiercely—“Do not kiss me—do not touch me.”He would as soon have thought of trying to clasp the rainbow or press his lips to a moonbeam. He started, and flushed, and winced.“Not you,” she continued. “I could so easily hate you if you were to bring it to that. I also have had my dreams.”She was suddenly stripped of glory; her voice was even a little harsh; her attitude of shrinking distaste had nothing of the divine in it. Luc stared at her with a sudden terror; she seemed to be changing under his very eyes.She rose again, drooping yet stately, and drew her cloak about her.“Nothing has happened!” she exclaimed vehemently. “Do you hear—nothing has happened!”“Why do you deny yourself?” cried Luc. “Why are you lying to me?”“Nothing has happened!” she repeated; “nothing. Keep your dreams.”It seemed to Luc that she, while she spoke, was looking beyond him at some one else, and with a throbbing brain he turned and gazed towards the gloomy back of the house.There was, as he had expected, a man coming slowly towards them.Luc stiffened and narrowed his eyes.“This is the man who will be useful to you,” said Carola, in an ordinary tone.The stranger, who wore a black velvet mantle and a hat with a high white plumage fastened by a steel loop and button that glittered in the strong sun, approached at an easy gait. When he uncovered to the Countess, Luc recognized, with an angry heart, M. de Richelieu.The Duke marked him with instant and unmistakeable surprise.“Is this your friend, Madame?” he said, in no pleased tone.“You know each other?” asked Carola.“We have a slight acquaintance,” answered the Duke grandly.“One I shall not presume on, Monsieur,” said Luc, burning to think that perhaps M. de Richelieu thought he wished to solicit the benefits he had once refused.“You did not expect to see me nor I you,” replied M. de Richelieu, absolutely composed and courteous, “but our previous knowledge of each other need not interfere with the matter on hand now.”Luc bowed, not at all satisfied. He did not desire any favour, direct or indirect, from M. de Richelieu; he did not like to see him on these terms of intimacy with the Countess; he did not wish such a man introduced into his life.The only thing that kept him from proudly taking his leave was the conviction that both Carola and the Duke had been quite innocent of planning the situation, she being ignorant that M. de Richelieu and he had met before, and the Duke being unaware that her protégé was M. de Vauvenargues.Therefore Luc felt that his refusal to listen to their proposals would be ungrateful to Carola, and put him in a foolish position towards the Duke, who had already gracefully carried off the encounter.The Countess on her part appeared confused; she obviously wondered when these two had met, and why Luc had not mentioned his acquaintance with the Duke.“You know M. le Maréchal!” she exclaimed. “Then my task—to bring you to an understanding of each other—is the lighter.”“I understand M. de Vauvenargues perfectly,” answered M. de Richelieu; and, as if unwilling to prolong the conversation, he turned back towards the house.Luc, regarding him with an habitually keen observation, noticed that he was considerably older than he had appeared on either of the two previous occasions on which Luc had seen him.In the lurid lights of the barn, in the shadowed softness of his own luxurious apartment, he had seemed in his first youth; but now the direct sunbeams that showed the red powder on Carola’s fine skin revealed the face of M. de Richelieu as that of a man of middle age, despite his slender, upright figure and careful dressing. His charm was none the less; his slightly broad countenance wore the same expression of almost irresistible daring gaiety and serene self-confidence. Luc smiled at him in his heart, and so was half won.The three entered the house by a side door and ascended a back staircase. Luc thought the place seemed little used, a great mansion often shut up. He neither saw nor heard servants.Carola went ahead with M. de Richelieu; he, as if disdainful of being overheard, said in a voice hardly lowered—“You have chosen the wrong man, Madame; but if you wish to go on with the comedy, I shall not interfere.”Carola’s reply was such a mere murmur that Luc did not hear; nor did he care what she said. He was content to leave this doubtful adventure in her hands—whichever way it ended, he would come to some issue with her before he left.They entered upon a long wide corridor, the heavy candelabra and gilt-legged furniture covered with linen on which the dust lay thickly; the floor was of black and white squares of marble, the windows were shuttered, the air struck musty and yet chill.Carola opened a high door half-way down this corridor, and the two men followed her into an ornately furnished room, where the sun streamed in a melancholy fashion over silk screens, silk-hung walls, carved chairs, and Eastern rugs. The room had an air of having been long deserted or only used casually; the sunbeams showed dust everywhere, and one of the wings of the elaborate shutters was still closed.On a long crimson-striped sofa lay Carola’s hat, gloves, and cane. She seated herself near on a fantastic chair of a Chinese pattern; behind her was a picture covered by a faded pink curtain.Luc looked at her and at nothing else. The presence of M. de Richelieu was no longer anything to him; he was waiting for the explanation of this mystery,—Carola Koklinska,—an explanation that had seemed on the point of being revealed in the garden. What was she?—did she or did she not fulfil his ideal of the spiritual power of perfect woman?—did he love her as he knew he was capable of loving? He stood against the closed shutter with his grave hazel eyes on her face. She was colourless save for the false blush on her cheeks: he disliked that artificial glow, and thought of her as she was among the Bohemian snows, haggard and disfigured, yet more pleasing to him then than now.M. de Richelieu glanced from one to the other with an eye of hawk-like brightness.“Do you wish me to speak?” he asked Carola, and cast his hat on to a little tulip-wood table.She bent her head, and the Duke turned with a quiet magnificence of manner to Luc.“Monsieur le Marquis, may I have—for a little—your attention?”With an effort Luc took his eyes from Carola; he was not concerned with what M. de Richelieu had to say.In an even voice, with the air of one who courteously, but without conviction, discharges a duty, the Duke began speaking. He related, from the inside, politics that Luc knew already from the outside; he gave details of the present state of affairs between the Courts of France, Austria, England, and Prussia; he indicated the web of intrigues that was continually being spun beyond the scrutiny of the public eye. Luc listened without interest; he had already guessed that M. de Richelieu intended, through the influence of the Countess, to offer him some adventurous chance in politics, and he had already resolved to refuse—he began, in fact, to understand.Even while the Duke was speaking, Luc’s mind was still busy with the problem of Carola. Once or twice he allowed his glance to rest on her: she was seated with her pallid face supported between her long ringless hands; her cloak had fallen apart, and a crystal heart that hung round her neck by a thin silver chain swung and twinkled above her knees.M. de Richelieu proceeded to unfold a plan for the confusion of Maria Theresa. A young man had been prepared and instructed for the principal rôle in this intrigue, but unfortunately had lost his life in a duel; and Madame la Comtesse having declared she knew of some one to take his place—— The Duke paused.“What is the task you wish me to undertake, Monsieur?” asked Luc, without raising his head; while the Duke was speaking, a great many things had become slowly plain.M. de Richelieu told him with an almost crude brevity. He was to go to the Austrian Court and proclaim himself neglected by his country; he was to offer to serve Maria, the unfortunate Empress-Queen; he was to creep into her confidences, and forward them to the French Ministers. “Madame la Comtesse is going to Austria,” finished the Duke; “you would work in collusion.”An extraordinary calmness came over Luc. He slightly moved his attitude against the shutter.“In what capacity, Madame, are you going to the Court of Austria?” he asked.She made no answer.The Duke looked steadily at Luc.“You refuse, of course?” he said.The Marquis smiled.“I thank you, Monsieur, for the compliment. Your position is awkward—and I am grateful for your courtesy.” He pressed his handkerchief to his pale but firm lips.The Duke gave a little bow.“You did not understand?”“No—but now I do.”Carola, still holding her head in her hands, looked with great tragic eyes from one to another. M. de Richelieu crossed over to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.“I always promised you, Madame, that you should have your own way in your whims—and I have done what you asked me to. Unfortunately, Monsieur de Vauvenargues refuses.”“He has had no time to consider,” she said, without changing her attitude.Luc stepped from the window.“One word, M. le Duc—this is your house?”“Yes,” answered M. de Richelieu, with the slightest lift of his delicate brows.“You know that,” breathed Carola; “from the first you must have known——”“No,” said Luc. “I am from the provinces.”The Duke’s clear glance went from one to another; he spoke very gravely, with an even pride.“I told Madame she had made a mistake. Perhaps Madame will explain?”He picked up his hat.“Shall I leave you to explain?” he insisted, looking full at Carola.“Leave me to solve my enigma,” said Luc, with a smile. “Give me five minutes, M. le Duc——”“Are you so quick?” responded M. de Richelieu. “I will give you half an hour in which to weary of guessing your riddle.”His charming face relaxed into a soft and fleeting smile, he bowed low to the haggard lady on the sofa, and left her alone with Luc.
Luc stood in the Rue Deauville before a flat, narrow door in the high wall behind which rose the tall poplars of Carola’s garden.
He took the knocker in his hand and looked at it; it was, as the Countess had described, a woman’s head, smoothly cast in bronze, and the face had a reserved yet wild expression, a look of terror and bitterness.
A soft little wind was blowing, and the sun was extraordinarily bright. Luc looked up and down the street with an idle, unexplainable reluctance to knock. He did not care for the rendezvous—he did not even greatly wish to see Carola; he felt to the full the desire that had more or less possessed him of late—the desire to be alone and free—even from those things he loved and admired.
When he at length did knock, the door was opened instantly, and the Countess stood the other side of the portal. He saluted her gravely, and passed into the queer, lonely garden.
They stood for a moment side by side between the trunks of the poplar trees. She wore a light cloak like a man’s riding mantle, and her black hair was unpowdered.
“I am glad you have come, Monsieur le Marquis,” she said.
“I have come wondering why you asked me, Madame,” he answered.
She led the way to the one seat beneath the wallflowers, and when they reached it turned and replied—
“I always liked you, I always wanted to serve you. Ambition is so splendid! You have the makings of a great man.”
Luc coloured and looked at her gravely.
“I too have always been ambitious,” she continued, with a slight nervousness; “but women tire—and they cannot achieve what men achieve.” She paused a second, then added hastily, “I can put you on the path to obtain what you desire.”
Luc had the impression that she was not saying what she really wished, but was confused by some agitation into, contrary to her wont, using evasive words.
“You leave me at a loss, Madame,” he answered, with a gentle dignity. “I only understand that you condescend towards me, and for that I am proudly grateful.”
Carola glanced quickly at the firm yet sensitive and delicate lines of his profile—for he did not look towards her as he spoke. She seated herself, but he remained standing.
“Since I was a young girl I have moved among Courts,—France, Austria, Russia,”—she said, “and I have made the acquaintance of some powerful people.” She pressed to her lips a little handkerchief embroidered with gold thread. “One is in the house now—I want you to meet him. He has, I know, a post for you, if you will accept it.”
The Marquis answered earnestly—
“I only wish for some scope in which to work, Madame—the humblest position, if it will but allow me the bare chance of—some achievement.”
Carola suddenly held out her hand.
“I wish I knew you a little better!” she cried, with sudden passion. “I may be making a blunder, Monsieur!”
Luc glanced at her in surprise.
“I think you know all there is to know of me,” he replied, with a slight smile. Indeed, his life had been so simple, so open in outward action, that she might, by the simplest inquiries from M. de Biron, have elicited all of it and his character too.
“We none of us know each other.” Her outstretched hand rested on his plain basket sword-hilt. “You might surprise me a hundred ways, and I you. When you are absent from me, so many things I should like to say rise in my mind; when you come, you bring a barrier with you that makes speech impossible.”
Luc’s hazel eyes darkened; with his ungloved right hand he raised hers from the steel shell of his sword.
“You see, Monsieur,” she added proudly, “that I admit to thinking of you.”
She rose, leaving her hand in his. They were of a height, and he looked straight into her face, which was fully illuminated by the strong beams of the sun. He could see the fine lines round her large, misty eyes, the red powder rubbed into her cheeks, and the veins showing under the dark skin of the hollow temples and thin throat. Her thick lashes and slender brows were artificially darkened; the sun showed the bluish look of the pencil round the heavy lids. He noticed that her hand was very cold in his.
“You are different indeed!” she exclaimed, with a certain bitterness.
“Different?” he asked.
She withdrew her hand.
“From all of them!” She appeared to be struggling with some excitement or agitation. “What is in your mind? Where are you going? What do you mean to do? You will have to use the world as you find it—like every one else.”
Luc smiled.
“I am so exactly the same as every one else, Madame,” he said, in a deprecating tone. “I am just struggling for some little sphere in which I can let my soul spread its wings—I have that restlessness to achieve something which many better men lack,” he added, thinking of his father and Joseph; “yet I dare not profane it, for it is the highest thing I know.” He fixed his eyes on her gravely, and she moved towards the wallflowers, away from him.
“I wish I had left you alone,” she said.
Luc flushed swiftly.
“Have you found me so ungrateful?”
“You have nothing to be grateful for,” she replied, narrowing her eyes on him, “I only fear that some day you may come to dislike me.”
She had not said or done anything to destroy the mental image he cherished of a slightly mysterious creature, fiery and pure, disdainful of the world and at heart tender and a little sad; he therefore smiled at her words, which he thought showed her ignorance of his conception of her, and looked at her with his serene, enthusiastic glance, before which her dark eyes fell.
“You are very sure of your own creeds,” she said irrelevantly, “and narrow too, at the best—I think.”
He admitted to not following her thought, and she answered his admission by a half-scornful, half-terrified little laugh.
“Do you really not understand me?” she asked.
Luc felt a sudden beat at his heart, as if his life was about to fulfil its most splendid promise; his eyes were dazzled by her face, which seemed to him to be suddenly illuminated from within and transfigured. Her actual presence and his cherished vision of her were for that moment fused in one; he saw her robe edged with flame, and her head crowned with points of light, and her eyes of a steady and immortal brilliance.
“Is it possible?” he said. “Is it possible?”
“You know if it is or no,” she answered, and took a sudden step towards him with her head high.
To his unfaltering gaze she was as unsubstantial as the sunbeams about her and as mysterious as the living flowers growing in the dusty old wall.
“I cannot believe it,” said Luc—“that this is going to happen to me!”
“Hush!” she whispered, “hush!”
If he had put out his hand he could have touched her, but he made no movement, and she paused when there was a foot between them.
“Won’t you speak to me?” he said. “Tell me how much I may dare?”
She never ceased to gaze at him.
“You know—everything,” she answered. “Why need we speak?”
“I know nothing,” murmured Luc, “and I am afraid to guess.”
“Afraid!” echoed Carola. “I too am afraid, bitterly afraid.”
She turned her eyes from him and sank on to the seat with her head bent.
Luc stepped impulsively towards her.
“I have dreamt of you so often,” he said gravely; his lips were quivering and his eyes filled with tears. “You could never understand——”
He laid his hand very lightly on her cloak; she looked up suddenly and said almost fiercely—
“Do not kiss me—do not touch me.”
He would as soon have thought of trying to clasp the rainbow or press his lips to a moonbeam. He started, and flushed, and winced.
“Not you,” she continued. “I could so easily hate you if you were to bring it to that. I also have had my dreams.”
She was suddenly stripped of glory; her voice was even a little harsh; her attitude of shrinking distaste had nothing of the divine in it. Luc stared at her with a sudden terror; she seemed to be changing under his very eyes.
She rose again, drooping yet stately, and drew her cloak about her.
“Nothing has happened!” she exclaimed vehemently. “Do you hear—nothing has happened!”
“Why do you deny yourself?” cried Luc. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Nothing has happened!” she repeated; “nothing. Keep your dreams.”
It seemed to Luc that she, while she spoke, was looking beyond him at some one else, and with a throbbing brain he turned and gazed towards the gloomy back of the house.
There was, as he had expected, a man coming slowly towards them.
Luc stiffened and narrowed his eyes.
“This is the man who will be useful to you,” said Carola, in an ordinary tone.
The stranger, who wore a black velvet mantle and a hat with a high white plumage fastened by a steel loop and button that glittered in the strong sun, approached at an easy gait. When he uncovered to the Countess, Luc recognized, with an angry heart, M. de Richelieu.
The Duke marked him with instant and unmistakeable surprise.
“Is this your friend, Madame?” he said, in no pleased tone.
“You know each other?” asked Carola.
“We have a slight acquaintance,” answered the Duke grandly.
“One I shall not presume on, Monsieur,” said Luc, burning to think that perhaps M. de Richelieu thought he wished to solicit the benefits he had once refused.
“You did not expect to see me nor I you,” replied M. de Richelieu, absolutely composed and courteous, “but our previous knowledge of each other need not interfere with the matter on hand now.”
Luc bowed, not at all satisfied. He did not desire any favour, direct or indirect, from M. de Richelieu; he did not like to see him on these terms of intimacy with the Countess; he did not wish such a man introduced into his life.
The only thing that kept him from proudly taking his leave was the conviction that both Carola and the Duke had been quite innocent of planning the situation, she being ignorant that M. de Richelieu and he had met before, and the Duke being unaware that her protégé was M. de Vauvenargues.
Therefore Luc felt that his refusal to listen to their proposals would be ungrateful to Carola, and put him in a foolish position towards the Duke, who had already gracefully carried off the encounter.
The Countess on her part appeared confused; she obviously wondered when these two had met, and why Luc had not mentioned his acquaintance with the Duke.
“You know M. le Maréchal!” she exclaimed. “Then my task—to bring you to an understanding of each other—is the lighter.”
“I understand M. de Vauvenargues perfectly,” answered M. de Richelieu; and, as if unwilling to prolong the conversation, he turned back towards the house.
Luc, regarding him with an habitually keen observation, noticed that he was considerably older than he had appeared on either of the two previous occasions on which Luc had seen him.
In the lurid lights of the barn, in the shadowed softness of his own luxurious apartment, he had seemed in his first youth; but now the direct sunbeams that showed the red powder on Carola’s fine skin revealed the face of M. de Richelieu as that of a man of middle age, despite his slender, upright figure and careful dressing. His charm was none the less; his slightly broad countenance wore the same expression of almost irresistible daring gaiety and serene self-confidence. Luc smiled at him in his heart, and so was half won.
The three entered the house by a side door and ascended a back staircase. Luc thought the place seemed little used, a great mansion often shut up. He neither saw nor heard servants.
Carola went ahead with M. de Richelieu; he, as if disdainful of being overheard, said in a voice hardly lowered—
“You have chosen the wrong man, Madame; but if you wish to go on with the comedy, I shall not interfere.”
Carola’s reply was such a mere murmur that Luc did not hear; nor did he care what she said. He was content to leave this doubtful adventure in her hands—whichever way it ended, he would come to some issue with her before he left.
They entered upon a long wide corridor, the heavy candelabra and gilt-legged furniture covered with linen on which the dust lay thickly; the floor was of black and white squares of marble, the windows were shuttered, the air struck musty and yet chill.
Carola opened a high door half-way down this corridor, and the two men followed her into an ornately furnished room, where the sun streamed in a melancholy fashion over silk screens, silk-hung walls, carved chairs, and Eastern rugs. The room had an air of having been long deserted or only used casually; the sunbeams showed dust everywhere, and one of the wings of the elaborate shutters was still closed.
On a long crimson-striped sofa lay Carola’s hat, gloves, and cane. She seated herself near on a fantastic chair of a Chinese pattern; behind her was a picture covered by a faded pink curtain.
Luc looked at her and at nothing else. The presence of M. de Richelieu was no longer anything to him; he was waiting for the explanation of this mystery,—Carola Koklinska,—an explanation that had seemed on the point of being revealed in the garden. What was she?—did she or did she not fulfil his ideal of the spiritual power of perfect woman?—did he love her as he knew he was capable of loving? He stood against the closed shutter with his grave hazel eyes on her face. She was colourless save for the false blush on her cheeks: he disliked that artificial glow, and thought of her as she was among the Bohemian snows, haggard and disfigured, yet more pleasing to him then than now.
M. de Richelieu glanced from one to the other with an eye of hawk-like brightness.
“Do you wish me to speak?” he asked Carola, and cast his hat on to a little tulip-wood table.
She bent her head, and the Duke turned with a quiet magnificence of manner to Luc.
“Monsieur le Marquis, may I have—for a little—your attention?”
With an effort Luc took his eyes from Carola; he was not concerned with what M. de Richelieu had to say.
In an even voice, with the air of one who courteously, but without conviction, discharges a duty, the Duke began speaking. He related, from the inside, politics that Luc knew already from the outside; he gave details of the present state of affairs between the Courts of France, Austria, England, and Prussia; he indicated the web of intrigues that was continually being spun beyond the scrutiny of the public eye. Luc listened without interest; he had already guessed that M. de Richelieu intended, through the influence of the Countess, to offer him some adventurous chance in politics, and he had already resolved to refuse—he began, in fact, to understand.
Even while the Duke was speaking, Luc’s mind was still busy with the problem of Carola. Once or twice he allowed his glance to rest on her: she was seated with her pallid face supported between her long ringless hands; her cloak had fallen apart, and a crystal heart that hung round her neck by a thin silver chain swung and twinkled above her knees.
M. de Richelieu proceeded to unfold a plan for the confusion of Maria Theresa. A young man had been prepared and instructed for the principal rôle in this intrigue, but unfortunately had lost his life in a duel; and Madame la Comtesse having declared she knew of some one to take his place—— The Duke paused.
“What is the task you wish me to undertake, Monsieur?” asked Luc, without raising his head; while the Duke was speaking, a great many things had become slowly plain.
M. de Richelieu told him with an almost crude brevity. He was to go to the Austrian Court and proclaim himself neglected by his country; he was to offer to serve Maria, the unfortunate Empress-Queen; he was to creep into her confidences, and forward them to the French Ministers. “Madame la Comtesse is going to Austria,” finished the Duke; “you would work in collusion.”
An extraordinary calmness came over Luc. He slightly moved his attitude against the shutter.
“In what capacity, Madame, are you going to the Court of Austria?” he asked.
She made no answer.
The Duke looked steadily at Luc.
“You refuse, of course?” he said.
The Marquis smiled.
“I thank you, Monsieur, for the compliment. Your position is awkward—and I am grateful for your courtesy.” He pressed his handkerchief to his pale but firm lips.
The Duke gave a little bow.
“You did not understand?”
“No—but now I do.”
Carola, still holding her head in her hands, looked with great tragic eyes from one to another. M. de Richelieu crossed over to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“I always promised you, Madame, that you should have your own way in your whims—and I have done what you asked me to. Unfortunately, Monsieur de Vauvenargues refuses.”
“He has had no time to consider,” she said, without changing her attitude.
Luc stepped from the window.
“One word, M. le Duc—this is your house?”
“Yes,” answered M. de Richelieu, with the slightest lift of his delicate brows.
“You know that,” breathed Carola; “from the first you must have known——”
“No,” said Luc. “I am from the provinces.”
The Duke’s clear glance went from one to another; he spoke very gravely, with an even pride.
“I told Madame she had made a mistake. Perhaps Madame will explain?”
He picked up his hat.
“Shall I leave you to explain?” he insisted, looking full at Carola.
“Leave me to solve my enigma,” said Luc, with a smile. “Give me five minutes, M. le Duc——”
“Are you so quick?” responded M. de Richelieu. “I will give you half an hour in which to weary of guessing your riddle.”
His charming face relaxed into a soft and fleeting smile, he bowed low to the haggard lady on the sofa, and left her alone with Luc.
CHAPTER VIIA PICTURECarola moved her long hands so that they covered her face.“What are you?” asked Luc dreamily. “What are you?”She dropped her hands and looked at him.“I do not know. Whatever men label me, I think. To you at least I was a beacon of pure flame—was I not?”“You have quenched that light now, Madame,” he answered quietly.“I could not believe that you had not found out—till you came to-day,” she said. “And yet I wondered, too—for you are one of those who care——”She rose, erect in the stiff folds of her brocade gown.“So you will not come to Austria?” she asked.He smiled. “Did you think I would? You know my ambitions.”Some passion ran through her and tightened her whole frame; she clasped her hands together and pressed them against her bosom.“Do you dare to despise me?” she cried. “Do you accuse me of fooling you?”“I fooled myself,” he answered quietly. “You seemed to me wonderful.”The real blood outshone the paint on her cheeks.“Am I less wonderful,” she asked, “because I come from the gutter?—because I am a wanton and spy?”“Not less wonderful to M. de Richelieu,” answered Luc, “but to me you no longer exist save as a shadowy riddle. That can be no grief to you, Madame.”She unclasped her hands and raised her head; she took up her hat and flung it down again; she cast herself on the settee and pulled at the heavy lace on her bosom. All the while he watched her, never moving.“I wanted to help you,” she said, breathing quickly. “It is not my fault that you blindly accepted me—M. de Biron must know. I wished to help you ever since we tramped the snow together in Bohemia.”He thought of her with the dead child in her arms and holding the dying head of Georges d’Espagnac; he looked at her tenderly.“Poor soul!” he whispered.The words seemed to sting her into fierceness.“Am I so soiled that you pity me?” she demanded. “I pity you too—you who are flinging everything away for glory—glory!” She laid a passionate sneer on the word, but Luc was unmoved.“I believe that you wished to help me—I think you must have a generous soul, Madame. But you cannot help me.”“So it seems,”—she became slack and weary again, and the blood ebbed from her face,—“and yet there was a chance for one not so nice about his means.”Luc raised his hand and let it fall.“Before I go, tell me why you wished to help me. I cannot understand why you should have any interest in one so different from your world.”She buried her face in the cushions at the head of the sofa and did not answer.The room seemed very silent and remote to Luc; the dusty motes in the sunbeams conveyed a sense of desolation; they seemed very far away from the world. The windows looked on the neglected garden, and there was not a sound from without.He stared at the woman with the hidden face. His vision of a flame-like purity, scornful of the world, yet kind, serene, and lovely, was gone for ever, but towards this creature who was so brave, so mysterious, yet so commonplace, so rare and yet so cheap, the tool of party intrigue, the slave of men like M. de Richelieu, he felt a cold pity, a cold tenderness, a disenchanted interest. She had been slowly revealed to him from the moment that M. de Richelieu crossed the long grass towards them; she was now as plain to him as she ever could be. He did not regret so much this exposure of the uses to which she had put her gift of lovely life, but the fact that she had been able so long to fling a false glittering light over his own path.But now he was completely free of her; this light was, as he had told her, for ever quenched, and those higher, holier fires that were the true objects of his devotion burnt the brighter and more gloriously.She lifted her face; it was pale and marked on the cheek with a red line from the rough bullion edging of one of the cushions.“I wonder how you would judge me if you knew the whole truth?” she said. There was a weakness in this that yet further cast her outside his sympathies.“Neither you nor I know the whole truth of anything,” he answered.“You are too courteous.” Her voice had sunk to a trembling whisper. She seemed very angry. “Why do you not tell me to my face that you think yourself degraded by my mere presence? Dear God, I wonder where you will find the woman you imagine! You are too severe for this frivolous age!”Her delicate railing meant nothing to him; he felt as he had felt in the Governor’s house at Avignon—like one who has been diverted from his path, and is anxious to return to it. He took up his beaver and his green cloak.His serenity seemed to exasperate her almost beyond endurance; she sat up on the sofa, and the crystal heart depending from her bosom shuddered with her distressed breaths.“What have I done to you?” she asked frantically. “What have I done to you? Never heed others—what have I done toyou?”He answered her gently.“In truth, nothing. I shall never have anything to say against you—why should I?”She eyed him keenly and made another attempt to get within his guard.“Why do you refuse my help?”“Because I will not pay the terms,” he answered even more gently, and stood with his cloak over his arm waiting his dismissal.“Youdoscorn me,” she urged.“Believe me, Madame, no.”She paused and beat her foot on the ground.“I will go,” he said, “if you are willing.”“Stay,” she answered; “listen. There was one time—when you were on your knees to my image—when youalmostloved me, when you thought of me as your wife.”He coloured and did not move.“You thought I was too wealthy and too great a lady, but you had dreams of me. Just now, in the garden, you were ready for my signal.”“Well?” he said unsteadily. “Well?”“Would you make me your wife now?”Luc stared at her, the red deepening in his face.“M. de Richelieu would be willing,” she added.“Madame!” he cried. “I am noble.”Carola laughed.“I have touched you at last,” she answered feverishly. “Youdodespise me.”Luc was silenced and convicted; there fell a silence neither could break. The brilliant sun was hidden by a cloud, and a greyness entered the gorgeous but dreary little room.“Good-bye,” said Carola at length.She rose, and so unsteadily that she had to catch hold of the sofa for aid; it slipped back under her hand, and the movement dragged the faded red drapery from the picture behind her. A brilliant oil-painting of a dark-haired woman clad in drapery ruffled by a light wind stepping through an undergrowth of fairy bushes with two hounds in leash, flashed out on Luc.Something stirred in his memory; he saw that the face was the face of Carola herself, younger, more blooming, and more gay.“Who painted that picture?” he asked.She looked swiftly over her shoulder; then went behind the sofa, picked up the drapery, and flung it over the heavy frame.“I thought it had been moved,” she murmured.“You were the model?” asked Luc. “And the subject is Bellona?”“Yes.” She looked bewildered.Luc saw again, very clearly, the old-fashioned chamber in Versailles and the young suicide lying there; he saw this picture perhaps even more vividly than the dark-eyed woman watching him from behind the striped settee.“What is the matter?” asked Carola heavily.Luc collected himself and took a step away from her while he looked at her with sudden flashing keenness.She was bare indeed now, bare of the last glamour of any illusion—“from the gutters of St. Antoine,” the dead man had said. Her brocades, her jewels, her paint now seemed to hang on her as so many rags that made no pretence to hide the stark crude thing they fluttered round. Luc could not believe that a little while before she had dazzled his vision—she was no longer even mysterious. He had nothing more to say to her; a weary disgust sealed his spirit; his face flushed with changes of thought, but he ended on silence.“Ah, you are moved now, I think,” said Carola, in her old precise tones—“by what, I wonder?”Luc put his hand on the door knob; he had nothing to say to her.“Will you not even speak to me?” she asked; she was gazing at him with great intentness.He opened the door and went out, closing it after him.In the corridor he found M. de Richelieu seated on one of the linen-covered chairs, whistling a little air under his breath and beating time to it by delicate movements of his bare right hand. Seeing the Marquis, he rose.Luc paused; the two men were face to face. Luc noted that M. de Richelieu’s handsome eyes were full of amusement. He could not wonder; he smiled too, with his head a little thrown back.“Who was she?” he asked; “eh, M. le Maréchal?”The Duke slightly lifted his shoulders.“I don’t know. She is quite marvellous. She came from”—he opened and threw out his hand—“nothing.”Luc bowed.“Adieu, Monsieur. I regret if I have incommoded you by this visit—forgive my ignorance.”“I am still in your debt,” returned the Duke. “Tell me, now we meet again, is there any way I can serve you?”He spoke with a winning air of grandeur and perfect courtesy. Luc responded—“Yes,” he said suddenly, “you can present me to M. de Voltaire.”“With the best will in the world,” replied M. de Richelieu. “You are, I perceive, already something of a philosopher. Where is your lodging?”“In the Rue du Bac.”“You shall hear from me.”The Duke accompanied him to the dark side staircase, directed him carefully as to his way out, and then took leave of him.Luc passed out of the house, out of the garden into the courtyard, through the great iron gates, and so into the untidy, sordid street that led to the wretched noisy quarter of St. Antoine. The sun was out again, vivid and steady; it would be shining over a certain poor funeral in Versailles. Luc felt sorry, as much for her as for the dead man; possibly she was the finer material. He wished that he had never seen either of them.A strong Eastern scent clung to his cloak; he shook it out to the wind and turned home.
Carola moved her long hands so that they covered her face.
“What are you?” asked Luc dreamily. “What are you?”
She dropped her hands and looked at him.
“I do not know. Whatever men label me, I think. To you at least I was a beacon of pure flame—was I not?”
“You have quenched that light now, Madame,” he answered quietly.
“I could not believe that you had not found out—till you came to-day,” she said. “And yet I wondered, too—for you are one of those who care——”
She rose, erect in the stiff folds of her brocade gown.
“So you will not come to Austria?” she asked.
He smiled. “Did you think I would? You know my ambitions.”
Some passion ran through her and tightened her whole frame; she clasped her hands together and pressed them against her bosom.
“Do you dare to despise me?” she cried. “Do you accuse me of fooling you?”
“I fooled myself,” he answered quietly. “You seemed to me wonderful.”
The real blood outshone the paint on her cheeks.
“Am I less wonderful,” she asked, “because I come from the gutter?—because I am a wanton and spy?”
“Not less wonderful to M. de Richelieu,” answered Luc, “but to me you no longer exist save as a shadowy riddle. That can be no grief to you, Madame.”
She unclasped her hands and raised her head; she took up her hat and flung it down again; she cast herself on the settee and pulled at the heavy lace on her bosom. All the while he watched her, never moving.
“I wanted to help you,” she said, breathing quickly. “It is not my fault that you blindly accepted me—M. de Biron must know. I wished to help you ever since we tramped the snow together in Bohemia.”
He thought of her with the dead child in her arms and holding the dying head of Georges d’Espagnac; he looked at her tenderly.
“Poor soul!” he whispered.
The words seemed to sting her into fierceness.
“Am I so soiled that you pity me?” she demanded. “I pity you too—you who are flinging everything away for glory—glory!” She laid a passionate sneer on the word, but Luc was unmoved.
“I believe that you wished to help me—I think you must have a generous soul, Madame. But you cannot help me.”
“So it seems,”—she became slack and weary again, and the blood ebbed from her face,—“and yet there was a chance for one not so nice about his means.”
Luc raised his hand and let it fall.
“Before I go, tell me why you wished to help me. I cannot understand why you should have any interest in one so different from your world.”
She buried her face in the cushions at the head of the sofa and did not answer.
The room seemed very silent and remote to Luc; the dusty motes in the sunbeams conveyed a sense of desolation; they seemed very far away from the world. The windows looked on the neglected garden, and there was not a sound from without.
He stared at the woman with the hidden face. His vision of a flame-like purity, scornful of the world, yet kind, serene, and lovely, was gone for ever, but towards this creature who was so brave, so mysterious, yet so commonplace, so rare and yet so cheap, the tool of party intrigue, the slave of men like M. de Richelieu, he felt a cold pity, a cold tenderness, a disenchanted interest. She had been slowly revealed to him from the moment that M. de Richelieu crossed the long grass towards them; she was now as plain to him as she ever could be. He did not regret so much this exposure of the uses to which she had put her gift of lovely life, but the fact that she had been able so long to fling a false glittering light over his own path.
But now he was completely free of her; this light was, as he had told her, for ever quenched, and those higher, holier fires that were the true objects of his devotion burnt the brighter and more gloriously.
She lifted her face; it was pale and marked on the cheek with a red line from the rough bullion edging of one of the cushions.
“I wonder how you would judge me if you knew the whole truth?” she said. There was a weakness in this that yet further cast her outside his sympathies.
“Neither you nor I know the whole truth of anything,” he answered.
“You are too courteous.” Her voice had sunk to a trembling whisper. She seemed very angry. “Why do you not tell me to my face that you think yourself degraded by my mere presence? Dear God, I wonder where you will find the woman you imagine! You are too severe for this frivolous age!”
Her delicate railing meant nothing to him; he felt as he had felt in the Governor’s house at Avignon—like one who has been diverted from his path, and is anxious to return to it. He took up his beaver and his green cloak.
His serenity seemed to exasperate her almost beyond endurance; she sat up on the sofa, and the crystal heart depending from her bosom shuddered with her distressed breaths.
“What have I done to you?” she asked frantically. “What have I done to you? Never heed others—what have I done toyou?”
He answered her gently.
“In truth, nothing. I shall never have anything to say against you—why should I?”
She eyed him keenly and made another attempt to get within his guard.
“Why do you refuse my help?”
“Because I will not pay the terms,” he answered even more gently, and stood with his cloak over his arm waiting his dismissal.
“Youdoscorn me,” she urged.
“Believe me, Madame, no.”
She paused and beat her foot on the ground.
“I will go,” he said, “if you are willing.”
“Stay,” she answered; “listen. There was one time—when you were on your knees to my image—when youalmostloved me, when you thought of me as your wife.”
He coloured and did not move.
“You thought I was too wealthy and too great a lady, but you had dreams of me. Just now, in the garden, you were ready for my signal.”
“Well?” he said unsteadily. “Well?”
“Would you make me your wife now?”
Luc stared at her, the red deepening in his face.
“M. de Richelieu would be willing,” she added.
“Madame!” he cried. “I am noble.”
Carola laughed.
“I have touched you at last,” she answered feverishly. “Youdodespise me.”
Luc was silenced and convicted; there fell a silence neither could break. The brilliant sun was hidden by a cloud, and a greyness entered the gorgeous but dreary little room.
“Good-bye,” said Carola at length.
She rose, and so unsteadily that she had to catch hold of the sofa for aid; it slipped back under her hand, and the movement dragged the faded red drapery from the picture behind her. A brilliant oil-painting of a dark-haired woman clad in drapery ruffled by a light wind stepping through an undergrowth of fairy bushes with two hounds in leash, flashed out on Luc.
Something stirred in his memory; he saw that the face was the face of Carola herself, younger, more blooming, and more gay.
“Who painted that picture?” he asked.
She looked swiftly over her shoulder; then went behind the sofa, picked up the drapery, and flung it over the heavy frame.
“I thought it had been moved,” she murmured.
“You were the model?” asked Luc. “And the subject is Bellona?”
“Yes.” She looked bewildered.
Luc saw again, very clearly, the old-fashioned chamber in Versailles and the young suicide lying there; he saw this picture perhaps even more vividly than the dark-eyed woman watching him from behind the striped settee.
“What is the matter?” asked Carola heavily.
Luc collected himself and took a step away from her while he looked at her with sudden flashing keenness.
She was bare indeed now, bare of the last glamour of any illusion—“from the gutters of St. Antoine,” the dead man had said. Her brocades, her jewels, her paint now seemed to hang on her as so many rags that made no pretence to hide the stark crude thing they fluttered round. Luc could not believe that a little while before she had dazzled his vision—she was no longer even mysterious. He had nothing more to say to her; a weary disgust sealed his spirit; his face flushed with changes of thought, but he ended on silence.
“Ah, you are moved now, I think,” said Carola, in her old precise tones—“by what, I wonder?”
Luc put his hand on the door knob; he had nothing to say to her.
“Will you not even speak to me?” she asked; she was gazing at him with great intentness.
He opened the door and went out, closing it after him.
In the corridor he found M. de Richelieu seated on one of the linen-covered chairs, whistling a little air under his breath and beating time to it by delicate movements of his bare right hand. Seeing the Marquis, he rose.
Luc paused; the two men were face to face. Luc noted that M. de Richelieu’s handsome eyes were full of amusement. He could not wonder; he smiled too, with his head a little thrown back.
“Who was she?” he asked; “eh, M. le Maréchal?”
The Duke slightly lifted his shoulders.
“I don’t know. She is quite marvellous. She came from”—he opened and threw out his hand—“nothing.”
Luc bowed.
“Adieu, Monsieur. I regret if I have incommoded you by this visit—forgive my ignorance.”
“I am still in your debt,” returned the Duke. “Tell me, now we meet again, is there any way I can serve you?”
He spoke with a winning air of grandeur and perfect courtesy. Luc responded—
“Yes,” he said suddenly, “you can present me to M. de Voltaire.”
“With the best will in the world,” replied M. de Richelieu. “You are, I perceive, already something of a philosopher. Where is your lodging?”
“In the Rue du Bac.”
“You shall hear from me.”
The Duke accompanied him to the dark side staircase, directed him carefully as to his way out, and then took leave of him.
Luc passed out of the house, out of the garden into the courtyard, through the great iron gates, and so into the untidy, sordid street that led to the wretched noisy quarter of St. Antoine. The sun was out again, vivid and steady; it would be shining over a certain poor funeral in Versailles. Luc felt sorry, as much for her as for the dead man; possibly she was the finer material. He wished that he had never seen either of them.
A strong Eastern scent clung to his cloak; he shook it out to the wind and turned home.
CHAPTER VIIIVOLTAIRELuc dismissed Carola Koklinska from his thoughts as he would have brushed a dead leaf from his coat, but he could not so easily banish the sensation that something distasteful and sad had occurred; this clung to him like the vague remembrance of an evil dream. His stately lodgings seemed more lonely; the aspect of the city had something hard, even cruel and menacing, in it; he felt farther from the accomplishment of his desires. The usual letter from home awoke an even deeper sense of responsibility and of yearning, the extraordinary mingled feelings of desire for freedom from everything and desire to fulfil his duty to the utmost towards those whom he loved and honoured.Yet his sweet serenity lifted him above any sense of struggle; he was like one waiting for commands.If M. Amelot did not answer his letter within a day or two, he meant to wait on him personally and force the issue. It must be possible for a noble with talents and energy to obtain, without bribery or intrigue, some honest post in politics. If, however, it was not so, then Luc meant to violently alter his life, to in some way strike directly for what his soul wanted, what it must have.On the day following the pitiful little adventure with the Countess Koklinska he again saw the graceful cavalier enter the house opposite.This time a cloak and a low-pulled hat masked the features, but Luc was sure of the remarkably fine and well-set figure; the stranger was, too, just sufficiently above the ordinary stature to be conspicuous anywhere, in any dress.The man who waited on the chambers happened to be in the room, and Luc remarked to him on the mysterious character of the house opposite.He was answered that the place was commonly believed to be the residence of one of the fortune-tellers with which Paris swarmed; one of the houses where attempts were made to raise the Devil, to pry into the future; where potions, charms, and maybe poisons were sold; a place of rendezvous also for intrigues that had some reason for concealment, or, in themselves, lacked the element of that mystery that alone made them alluring.Many great people, even the greatest, the man averred, would go to these places, and take the utmost pains with their disguises—which, however, very seldom deceived anyone, as all the world knew that all the world went. But the mystery was the great charm, and many adventures appeared palatable when undertaken in a cloak and mask that would have seemed stale enough enacted in broad daylight.“Of course,” finished the fellow, “since La Voisine was burnt in the Place de la Grêve, they have been more careful, these people; but nevertheless, Monseigneur, they become very bold, for they say the King himself visits them often enough, and that everybody knows it; and His Highness the Regent encouraged them to a great extent, though they say he never raised the Devil.”Luc smiled; he thought of M. de Richelieu. He wondered if such men hadnotraised the Devil, in very tangible form indeed, and set him up as master over France.So it was said that the King spent his leisure with these tawdry prophetesses and cheap tricksters! Since he came to Paris Luc had heard several ends of gossip about the King that, true or not, served to a little blur his vivid picture of the young Louis he was so ardent to serve, whom hehadserved for ten strenuous years without recognition or reward.It was a frivolous age, a restless age, an age of change, of great possibilities. France was brilliant yet corrupt, energetic yet slothful. Paris did not dazzle so much to Luc’s near sight as it had done to his distant gaze. Carola Koklinska became to him as a symbol of the city—so calm, lofty, high, and bright from a distance, so mean, dishonoured, falsely glittering near, yet with an immortal heart concealed somewhere behind the gaudy shams.Paris was great, was eternal, held the seed of all future thought, was the theatre of all present action; yet her streets were thronged by the foppish, the foolish, the ignorant, and the starving. Her government was in the hands of men like M. de Richelieu, who in their turn were influenced by women like Carola—greedy soldiers of fortune who kept the point of view of the gutter from whence they came.Luc’s heart swelled to a sense of agony—the agony of powerlessness. All the pageant that passed by him he knew only by glimpses; he was outside, he could do nothing—nay, worse than that, he was even being swept along with the others, no better than they, a mere inarticulate creature played upon by the devices of those he met. Even M. de Richelieu, in his opulent consciencelessness, was expressing, fulfilling himself, turning circumstances into what he wished them to be, making his life what he wanted it; even Carola had forced the hand of Fate to satisfy her sordid ambition; while he was baffled, thwarted, like a thing chained.He thought of the young man whom he had met in the pavilion at Versailles, and whom he had just seen enter the house opposite. He lulled his slothful soul by juggling with the poor lures of charlatans. He could actually drive his lagging, empty days faster by such spurs as these!Luc had not yet conceived the task, the responsibility, the goal that would satisfy the hunger ofhissoul.Ill-health, moderate means, an obscure position in the great world—these were his disadvantages. And was it possible that the fire of his desires could not surmount these paltry things?Where was the secret by which men, poorer, meaner, more hampered than he, hadforcedglory out of their lives, had wrung greatness out of their own souls? He sat with his elbows on the elegant ormolu desk and his face hidden in his hands, shuddering, for his body bent and shivered with the power of the passions that drove through it. The damp broke out on his forehead, his heart struggled in his side, his hands and feet were cold, his mouth dry, his closed eyes hot in their sockets. He clenched his hands under his face till he felt the bones of the palms with his finger-tips. Reality swung into a dazzling darkness that pulsed before him, out of which he could force nothing tangible but an enigma with the face of Carola. He raised his head at last and sat back in his chair. At these moments his bodily weakness asserted itself, and when he most wished to get beyond and above the flesh he was reminded of it by a cold weight in all his limbs and the heat of the blood in his temples.He gave a little sigh, then quickly turned his head, seized with an uncontrollable conviction that he was not alone. Yet it was with a considerable start that he saw a slight, strange gentleman standing inside the door keenly observing him.Luc stared without rising; his visionary mood had scarcely cleared. He gazed eagerly at his visitor in silence. He saw a man no longer young, yet impossible to associate with any idea of age, dressed richly and fashionably in brown velvet that glittered with gold braid, erect, graceful, and of an extraordinary appearance of animation and energy; his face, framed in a grey peruke, was so pale as to be livid; the features were delicate, strongly cut, remarkable; there was an upward slant to eyebrows and nostrils, and the mouth was wide, thin, and smiling, while his brown eyes held a world of passion, power, and force in their glance which was at once challenging, mocking, and good-humoured.He held an agate-handled cane and his hat under his arm. All the appointments of his person were costly and modish; he wore patches, jewellery, and fine ruffles.“I have surprised you, M. le Marquis,” he observed, with a deepening of his smile and in a voice changeful and melodious.Luc sprang to his feet; he knew face and figure from a dozen prints, from a hundred descriptions.“Voltaire!” he cried.The stranger bowed.“I am welcome?” he asked.“I am honoured beyond expression,” stammered Luc, with simple and genuine self-abasement.M. de Voltaire looked sharply at the man who had sent him such remarkable letters, and of whom he had had such a remarkable account from M. de Richelieu.He was surprised to see one so young, so delicately beautiful, so timid in manner, for Luc stood blushing like a child, and his sensitive features expressed vast confusion. The great man seated himself and threw back his head.“M. de Richelieu gave me your address,” he remarked; “but I did not wait for his company to make the acquaintance of one of whom I have formed such a high opinion.”“Monsieur,” answered Luc earnestly, “I fear I have been presumptuous in forcing myself on your notice; but for the interest you have taken in me I am passionately grateful.”M. de Voltaire was secretly, immensely gratified. He had not climbed from an attorney’s clerk to be a friend of kings without meeting very severe rebuffs on the way. Even now, courted as he was, the nobles he consorted with reminded him often enough, in covert ways, that he was not ‘born.’ But here was a Marquis, a soldier, who sincerely bowed down to him. He had been greatly flattered when he received Luc’s first letter; now his vast vanity, quick to take offence, quick to respond to admiration, was even more flattered by the young noble’s ardent homage.And a finer feeling than vanity moved M. de Voltaire’s great generous heart; he thought that he saw in this frail, boyish-looking, blushing, slightly awkward soldier a kindred soul.On his part Luc was struggling with an overwhelming sense of humility in being thus suddenly sought out by the man whom, of all others, he most admired and respected.“Oh, Monsieur!” he exclaimed, “you cannot guess how much I have hoped to one day meet you.”“A soldier,” smiled M. de Voltaire, “and yet you found time for philosophy and the arts!”Luc, who was standing like a scholar before his master, answered in nervous haste—“I know nothing about either, Monsieur, nothing——”The great man interrupted.“I gather from your letters that you are in quest of glory—therefore you know a great deal about both. If you have the penetration to see, M. le Marquis, that there is nothing in the world like even the dim sparkle of glory—I, at least, can teach you nothing.”As he spoke his eyes flashed as if a positive red fire sparkled from them; so strong was the effect of his presence that Luc felt as if he were being physically touched and held.M. de Voltaire rose. He had the grand manner consciously—not unconsciously like M. de Richelieu—yet defined from the theatrical by his passionate genius that gave his very flourishes an air of conviction. He stepped up to the Marquis and held out his hand.“Monseigneur,” he said, with a large air of grandeur, “I should like to be your friend.”Luc clasped the thin right hand that had been so active and powerful in the cause of truth and freedom, and tears lent a lustre to his eyes.“Monsieur,” he answered, “I have nothing to offer one like you but my devotion—I have had very few friends—but if you will be troubled with me I will pledge my service to you—always.”M. de Voltaire looked at him thoughtfully.“You have the spirit,” he said—“yes, you have the spirit that is to waken France and re-create her. Do you not feel it, see it everywhere—the dawn of something better than we have ever known?”He began walking up and down the room, as if his restless heart could not brook his body to stand still.“What are you going to do with your life?” he asked abruptly.It was Carola’s demand, as Luc instantly remembered with a sense of pain.“I wish to fulfil myself,” he answered. “I can do that by serving France. I am in Paris now, waiting my chance.”M. de Voltaire paused before the high white marble chimneypiece.“In what way are you hoping to serve France?” he asked sharply.Luc answered with a grave enthusiasm—“I served in the army ten years, Monsieur, and unfortunately lost my health during the retreat from Prague. It is now my ambition to enter politics.”The powerful eyes of M. de Voltaire narrowed and glittered.“You know what the politics of France are? You know what kind of a world this Paris is?”Luc drew a deep breath; he thought of Carola, of M. de Richelieu, of the young suicide of Versailles.“Monsieur,” he replied earnestly, “my life has been passed in a kind of seclusion, I being always with the army and often abroad, and I have had little time even for meditation, and in truth I might well be engulfed in this great world of which I know so little, and where I have already experienced some falls, were it not that I have certain thoughts, ideals so fixed that I cannot conceive them altering, and so Imustgo on.”“Ah!” cried M. de Voltaire softly, “you will succeed; but not in the way you think perhaps. Politics are poor scope after all.”“Yet you are in them, Monsieur.”“As I was in the Bastille!” flashed M. de Voltaire, “as I have been everything and said everything and deceived them all—all the little dolls who dance to whatever tune is played the loudest. I have been many characters, I have laughed at all France, and now I am—Voltaire! And all France steps to the pace I set—therefore I know something of kings and queens and courtiers and beggars.” He paused and smiled, laying his hand on his heart with a quick, passionate gesture. “I have tried most weapons,” he continued, “and the pen is the most powerful of all. Monseigneur, you have thought, you can express yourself—use your pen to lift yourself above the age—write—write from your soul, never heed what you know—write what you feel!”Luc caught his breath.“Monsieur—do you mean that I should write and—publish?”“Yes.”Luc flushed. Instinct, training, tradition were too powerful for even M. de Voltaire’s fiery urgings to move. Though he struggled against the impression he felt as if he had been insulted; then he laughed, and the great man before whom he had stood abashed was swept with that laugh on to a different plane. In the next perfectly courteous words that Luc spoke, it was the Marquis addressing the attorney’s clerk.“But, Monsieur, I am a gentleman,” he said simply.M. de Voltaire looked at him for a moment of silence.“Would you rather be such as M. de Richelieu or such as I?” he asked at last.Luc did not see the point.“M. de Richelieu does nothing that a gentleman may not do,” he answered; “he does not write books.”“No—and he has all the seven deadly sins to his credit, which, I suppose, makes a fine patent of nobility,” remarked M. de Voltaire slowly.Luc flushed; he found that it was necessary to explain.“When one is ‘born’ there are things one cannot do, Monsieur. I could no more publish my writings than”—he hesitated for an illustration—“than a stage player could wear a sword.”M. de Voltaire was very pale; his whole figure trembled.“Monsieur le Marquis!” he said in a terrible voice, “you have ambitions, you have desires, you have your soul to satisfy, you are searching for glory—I do not doubt that you have in fancy scaled the highest peak of achievement—and all the while you are bound and gagged and tied to earth because you are born a gentleman. Are not your eyes open on the changes about you? Do you not see that we—that I—are sweeping away God and rank and all the barriers that come between man and man? You are young, Monsieur le Marquis; you may live to see the day when kings are cast down and peasants are called to the government of their country. This is the age of light and freedom; your rank is but a clog to you—your genius might raise you to be a light over France!”He spoke with such force, passion, such energy of gesture and emphasis that Luc had the sense that something new was being violently disclosed to his view. He sank into the chair before the desk and fixed his eyes, dark with emotion, on the extraordinary animated face of the speaker. He had nothing to say; his own instincts, that were until then unquestioned, taken for granted, never put into words, were unchanged, for they were rooted almost as deeply as life itself.“Go your way,” said M. de Voltaire more quietly—“spend your strength for another ten years in politics as you have in war—give your talents to the service of the superstitious young profligate who sleeps on the throne of thrones.”“Monsieur!” cried Luc, “do you speak of the King?”“Of His Most Christian Majesty,” replied M. de Voltaire, “of Louis de Bourbon, who is always on his knees to a certain Jesus Christ or a certain Marquise de Pompadour, the lady who rules France and who is my very good friend.”“The King is the King,” answered Luc, reddening, “and I serve him.”“If you have rejected their Christian God, why do you not reject their Christian King?” demanded M. de Voltaire. “Make your court to the lady I mention; she has great good sense. Use these things, bow down to them, make your way through them, but do notbelievein them.”“I believe in the King,” returned Luc, in a tone of great agitation. “I must believe in him whom I have seen hundreds die for.”“Hundreds of thousands have died for Christ,” flashed M. de Voltaire—“do you therefore believe in Him?”“No,” answered Luc; “but I know there is a God, and I love not to talk of these matters. As for His Majesty—if I did not believe in him could I serve him?”“Serve France,” interrupted M. de Voltaire. “Put aside all prejudice, superstition, your rank, your family, come to Paris, go into a garret—be one of us—start as I started—befree, express your own soul, write your thoughts, and laugh at the world!”Luc looked at him with steady hazel eyes, then shook his head.“I cannot,” he said, in firm, positive tones and with a faint smile.
Luc dismissed Carola Koklinska from his thoughts as he would have brushed a dead leaf from his coat, but he could not so easily banish the sensation that something distasteful and sad had occurred; this clung to him like the vague remembrance of an evil dream. His stately lodgings seemed more lonely; the aspect of the city had something hard, even cruel and menacing, in it; he felt farther from the accomplishment of his desires. The usual letter from home awoke an even deeper sense of responsibility and of yearning, the extraordinary mingled feelings of desire for freedom from everything and desire to fulfil his duty to the utmost towards those whom he loved and honoured.
Yet his sweet serenity lifted him above any sense of struggle; he was like one waiting for commands.
If M. Amelot did not answer his letter within a day or two, he meant to wait on him personally and force the issue. It must be possible for a noble with talents and energy to obtain, without bribery or intrigue, some honest post in politics. If, however, it was not so, then Luc meant to violently alter his life, to in some way strike directly for what his soul wanted, what it must have.
On the day following the pitiful little adventure with the Countess Koklinska he again saw the graceful cavalier enter the house opposite.
This time a cloak and a low-pulled hat masked the features, but Luc was sure of the remarkably fine and well-set figure; the stranger was, too, just sufficiently above the ordinary stature to be conspicuous anywhere, in any dress.
The man who waited on the chambers happened to be in the room, and Luc remarked to him on the mysterious character of the house opposite.
He was answered that the place was commonly believed to be the residence of one of the fortune-tellers with which Paris swarmed; one of the houses where attempts were made to raise the Devil, to pry into the future; where potions, charms, and maybe poisons were sold; a place of rendezvous also for intrigues that had some reason for concealment, or, in themselves, lacked the element of that mystery that alone made them alluring.
Many great people, even the greatest, the man averred, would go to these places, and take the utmost pains with their disguises—which, however, very seldom deceived anyone, as all the world knew that all the world went. But the mystery was the great charm, and many adventures appeared palatable when undertaken in a cloak and mask that would have seemed stale enough enacted in broad daylight.
“Of course,” finished the fellow, “since La Voisine was burnt in the Place de la Grêve, they have been more careful, these people; but nevertheless, Monseigneur, they become very bold, for they say the King himself visits them often enough, and that everybody knows it; and His Highness the Regent encouraged them to a great extent, though they say he never raised the Devil.”
Luc smiled; he thought of M. de Richelieu. He wondered if such men hadnotraised the Devil, in very tangible form indeed, and set him up as master over France.
So it was said that the King spent his leisure with these tawdry prophetesses and cheap tricksters! Since he came to Paris Luc had heard several ends of gossip about the King that, true or not, served to a little blur his vivid picture of the young Louis he was so ardent to serve, whom hehadserved for ten strenuous years without recognition or reward.
It was a frivolous age, a restless age, an age of change, of great possibilities. France was brilliant yet corrupt, energetic yet slothful. Paris did not dazzle so much to Luc’s near sight as it had done to his distant gaze. Carola Koklinska became to him as a symbol of the city—so calm, lofty, high, and bright from a distance, so mean, dishonoured, falsely glittering near, yet with an immortal heart concealed somewhere behind the gaudy shams.
Paris was great, was eternal, held the seed of all future thought, was the theatre of all present action; yet her streets were thronged by the foppish, the foolish, the ignorant, and the starving. Her government was in the hands of men like M. de Richelieu, who in their turn were influenced by women like Carola—greedy soldiers of fortune who kept the point of view of the gutter from whence they came.
Luc’s heart swelled to a sense of agony—the agony of powerlessness. All the pageant that passed by him he knew only by glimpses; he was outside, he could do nothing—nay, worse than that, he was even being swept along with the others, no better than they, a mere inarticulate creature played upon by the devices of those he met. Even M. de Richelieu, in his opulent consciencelessness, was expressing, fulfilling himself, turning circumstances into what he wished them to be, making his life what he wanted it; even Carola had forced the hand of Fate to satisfy her sordid ambition; while he was baffled, thwarted, like a thing chained.
He thought of the young man whom he had met in the pavilion at Versailles, and whom he had just seen enter the house opposite. He lulled his slothful soul by juggling with the poor lures of charlatans. He could actually drive his lagging, empty days faster by such spurs as these!
Luc had not yet conceived the task, the responsibility, the goal that would satisfy the hunger ofhissoul.
Ill-health, moderate means, an obscure position in the great world—these were his disadvantages. And was it possible that the fire of his desires could not surmount these paltry things?
Where was the secret by which men, poorer, meaner, more hampered than he, hadforcedglory out of their lives, had wrung greatness out of their own souls? He sat with his elbows on the elegant ormolu desk and his face hidden in his hands, shuddering, for his body bent and shivered with the power of the passions that drove through it. The damp broke out on his forehead, his heart struggled in his side, his hands and feet were cold, his mouth dry, his closed eyes hot in their sockets. He clenched his hands under his face till he felt the bones of the palms with his finger-tips. Reality swung into a dazzling darkness that pulsed before him, out of which he could force nothing tangible but an enigma with the face of Carola. He raised his head at last and sat back in his chair. At these moments his bodily weakness asserted itself, and when he most wished to get beyond and above the flesh he was reminded of it by a cold weight in all his limbs and the heat of the blood in his temples.
He gave a little sigh, then quickly turned his head, seized with an uncontrollable conviction that he was not alone. Yet it was with a considerable start that he saw a slight, strange gentleman standing inside the door keenly observing him.
Luc stared without rising; his visionary mood had scarcely cleared. He gazed eagerly at his visitor in silence. He saw a man no longer young, yet impossible to associate with any idea of age, dressed richly and fashionably in brown velvet that glittered with gold braid, erect, graceful, and of an extraordinary appearance of animation and energy; his face, framed in a grey peruke, was so pale as to be livid; the features were delicate, strongly cut, remarkable; there was an upward slant to eyebrows and nostrils, and the mouth was wide, thin, and smiling, while his brown eyes held a world of passion, power, and force in their glance which was at once challenging, mocking, and good-humoured.
He held an agate-handled cane and his hat under his arm. All the appointments of his person were costly and modish; he wore patches, jewellery, and fine ruffles.
“I have surprised you, M. le Marquis,” he observed, with a deepening of his smile and in a voice changeful and melodious.
Luc sprang to his feet; he knew face and figure from a dozen prints, from a hundred descriptions.
“Voltaire!” he cried.
The stranger bowed.
“I am welcome?” he asked.
“I am honoured beyond expression,” stammered Luc, with simple and genuine self-abasement.
M. de Voltaire looked sharply at the man who had sent him such remarkable letters, and of whom he had had such a remarkable account from M. de Richelieu.
He was surprised to see one so young, so delicately beautiful, so timid in manner, for Luc stood blushing like a child, and his sensitive features expressed vast confusion. The great man seated himself and threw back his head.
“M. de Richelieu gave me your address,” he remarked; “but I did not wait for his company to make the acquaintance of one of whom I have formed such a high opinion.”
“Monsieur,” answered Luc earnestly, “I fear I have been presumptuous in forcing myself on your notice; but for the interest you have taken in me I am passionately grateful.”
M. de Voltaire was secretly, immensely gratified. He had not climbed from an attorney’s clerk to be a friend of kings without meeting very severe rebuffs on the way. Even now, courted as he was, the nobles he consorted with reminded him often enough, in covert ways, that he was not ‘born.’ But here was a Marquis, a soldier, who sincerely bowed down to him. He had been greatly flattered when he received Luc’s first letter; now his vast vanity, quick to take offence, quick to respond to admiration, was even more flattered by the young noble’s ardent homage.
And a finer feeling than vanity moved M. de Voltaire’s great generous heart; he thought that he saw in this frail, boyish-looking, blushing, slightly awkward soldier a kindred soul.
On his part Luc was struggling with an overwhelming sense of humility in being thus suddenly sought out by the man whom, of all others, he most admired and respected.
“Oh, Monsieur!” he exclaimed, “you cannot guess how much I have hoped to one day meet you.”
“A soldier,” smiled M. de Voltaire, “and yet you found time for philosophy and the arts!”
Luc, who was standing like a scholar before his master, answered in nervous haste—
“I know nothing about either, Monsieur, nothing——”
The great man interrupted.
“I gather from your letters that you are in quest of glory—therefore you know a great deal about both. If you have the penetration to see, M. le Marquis, that there is nothing in the world like even the dim sparkle of glory—I, at least, can teach you nothing.”
As he spoke his eyes flashed as if a positive red fire sparkled from them; so strong was the effect of his presence that Luc felt as if he were being physically touched and held.
M. de Voltaire rose. He had the grand manner consciously—not unconsciously like M. de Richelieu—yet defined from the theatrical by his passionate genius that gave his very flourishes an air of conviction. He stepped up to the Marquis and held out his hand.
“Monseigneur,” he said, with a large air of grandeur, “I should like to be your friend.”
Luc clasped the thin right hand that had been so active and powerful in the cause of truth and freedom, and tears lent a lustre to his eyes.
“Monsieur,” he answered, “I have nothing to offer one like you but my devotion—I have had very few friends—but if you will be troubled with me I will pledge my service to you—always.”
M. de Voltaire looked at him thoughtfully.
“You have the spirit,” he said—“yes, you have the spirit that is to waken France and re-create her. Do you not feel it, see it everywhere—the dawn of something better than we have ever known?”
He began walking up and down the room, as if his restless heart could not brook his body to stand still.
“What are you going to do with your life?” he asked abruptly.
It was Carola’s demand, as Luc instantly remembered with a sense of pain.
“I wish to fulfil myself,” he answered. “I can do that by serving France. I am in Paris now, waiting my chance.”
M. de Voltaire paused before the high white marble chimneypiece.
“In what way are you hoping to serve France?” he asked sharply.
Luc answered with a grave enthusiasm—
“I served in the army ten years, Monsieur, and unfortunately lost my health during the retreat from Prague. It is now my ambition to enter politics.”
The powerful eyes of M. de Voltaire narrowed and glittered.
“You know what the politics of France are? You know what kind of a world this Paris is?”
Luc drew a deep breath; he thought of Carola, of M. de Richelieu, of the young suicide of Versailles.
“Monsieur,” he replied earnestly, “my life has been passed in a kind of seclusion, I being always with the army and often abroad, and I have had little time even for meditation, and in truth I might well be engulfed in this great world of which I know so little, and where I have already experienced some falls, were it not that I have certain thoughts, ideals so fixed that I cannot conceive them altering, and so Imustgo on.”
“Ah!” cried M. de Voltaire softly, “you will succeed; but not in the way you think perhaps. Politics are poor scope after all.”
“Yet you are in them, Monsieur.”
“As I was in the Bastille!” flashed M. de Voltaire, “as I have been everything and said everything and deceived them all—all the little dolls who dance to whatever tune is played the loudest. I have been many characters, I have laughed at all France, and now I am—Voltaire! And all France steps to the pace I set—therefore I know something of kings and queens and courtiers and beggars.” He paused and smiled, laying his hand on his heart with a quick, passionate gesture. “I have tried most weapons,” he continued, “and the pen is the most powerful of all. Monseigneur, you have thought, you can express yourself—use your pen to lift yourself above the age—write—write from your soul, never heed what you know—write what you feel!”
Luc caught his breath.
“Monsieur—do you mean that I should write and—publish?”
“Yes.”
Luc flushed. Instinct, training, tradition were too powerful for even M. de Voltaire’s fiery urgings to move. Though he struggled against the impression he felt as if he had been insulted; then he laughed, and the great man before whom he had stood abashed was swept with that laugh on to a different plane. In the next perfectly courteous words that Luc spoke, it was the Marquis addressing the attorney’s clerk.
“But, Monsieur, I am a gentleman,” he said simply.
M. de Voltaire looked at him for a moment of silence.
“Would you rather be such as M. de Richelieu or such as I?” he asked at last.
Luc did not see the point.
“M. de Richelieu does nothing that a gentleman may not do,” he answered; “he does not write books.”
“No—and he has all the seven deadly sins to his credit, which, I suppose, makes a fine patent of nobility,” remarked M. de Voltaire slowly.
Luc flushed; he found that it was necessary to explain.
“When one is ‘born’ there are things one cannot do, Monsieur. I could no more publish my writings than”—he hesitated for an illustration—“than a stage player could wear a sword.”
M. de Voltaire was very pale; his whole figure trembled.
“Monsieur le Marquis!” he said in a terrible voice, “you have ambitions, you have desires, you have your soul to satisfy, you are searching for glory—I do not doubt that you have in fancy scaled the highest peak of achievement—and all the while you are bound and gagged and tied to earth because you are born a gentleman. Are not your eyes open on the changes about you? Do you not see that we—that I—are sweeping away God and rank and all the barriers that come between man and man? You are young, Monsieur le Marquis; you may live to see the day when kings are cast down and peasants are called to the government of their country. This is the age of light and freedom; your rank is but a clog to you—your genius might raise you to be a light over France!”
He spoke with such force, passion, such energy of gesture and emphasis that Luc had the sense that something new was being violently disclosed to his view. He sank into the chair before the desk and fixed his eyes, dark with emotion, on the extraordinary animated face of the speaker. He had nothing to say; his own instincts, that were until then unquestioned, taken for granted, never put into words, were unchanged, for they were rooted almost as deeply as life itself.
“Go your way,” said M. de Voltaire more quietly—“spend your strength for another ten years in politics as you have in war—give your talents to the service of the superstitious young profligate who sleeps on the throne of thrones.”
“Monsieur!” cried Luc, “do you speak of the King?”
“Of His Most Christian Majesty,” replied M. de Voltaire, “of Louis de Bourbon, who is always on his knees to a certain Jesus Christ or a certain Marquise de Pompadour, the lady who rules France and who is my very good friend.”
“The King is the King,” answered Luc, reddening, “and I serve him.”
“If you have rejected their Christian God, why do you not reject their Christian King?” demanded M. de Voltaire. “Make your court to the lady I mention; she has great good sense. Use these things, bow down to them, make your way through them, but do notbelievein them.”
“I believe in the King,” returned Luc, in a tone of great agitation. “I must believe in him whom I have seen hundreds die for.”
“Hundreds of thousands have died for Christ,” flashed M. de Voltaire—“do you therefore believe in Him?”
“No,” answered Luc; “but I know there is a God, and I love not to talk of these matters. As for His Majesty—if I did not believe in him could I serve him?”
“Serve France,” interrupted M. de Voltaire. “Put aside all prejudice, superstition, your rank, your family, come to Paris, go into a garret—be one of us—start as I started—befree, express your own soul, write your thoughts, and laugh at the world!”
Luc looked at him with steady hazel eyes, then shook his head.
“I cannot,” he said, in firm, positive tones and with a faint smile.