CHAPTER XIITHE DIAMOND RINGDespite the different light, surroundings, and dress, the recognition was instantaneous on each side. For a breathless instant the two men gazed at each other. M. de Richelieu was the first to speak.“So you are M. de Vauvenargues!” he said, and put his gold-slippered feet to the ground and threw his head back with a cold haughtiness.“I am M. de Vauvenargues,” answered Luc.“You were introduced unceremoniously,” returned the Duke. “I did not expect you so soon. Be seated, Monsieur le Marquis.”Luc took one of the delicate chairs and fixed his eyes on the pale carpet; he was conscious of a wretched feeling of disappointment, of disgust, of a sense of personal failure.“You look rather pale, Monsieur,” remarked the Governor, in those same gentle tones that Luc had heard last night. “I trust you have had an easy journey from Aix?”The Marquis bowed in silence.M. de Richelieu supported himself on his elbow on the pile of cushions at the head of his couch.“You bring the best of introductions,” he said. “M. de Caumont speaks of you warmly—you were Hippolyte’s friend, and with him in Prague, were you not?”Luc was impressed, almost bewildered, by his composure, his quick assumption of the courtly, gracious manner. Last night this calm had surprised him; now he found it astounding. M. de Richelieu had not changed colour, and was regarding him with unfaltering eyes.But it was not in Luc to take up the matter on these terms; he revolted against the situation, against the part he was evidently expected to play. The slim, gorgeous young Governor, the sumptuous little room became hateful to him. He rose.“Monseigneur,” he said coldly, “I came here on a misunderstanding.”M. de Richelieu interrupted.“You came, I think, Monsieur, because you are desirous of entering Government service—M. de Caumont asks my influence on your behalf.”“I will not put you to that trouble, Highness,” answered Luc wearily.The Duke laughed in his princely way, as if he was too great to be easily offended; yet Luc thought he was vexed too, perhaps a little confused.“I shall be able to give you a position, Monsieur, immediately.”Luc flushed almost as painfully as if some one had offered him money.“You mistake me,” he said gravely.“No, I think I estimate you fairly well,” answered the Governor decidedly.“In this you mistake me,” replied Luc, with a sudden flash in his voice. “There is nothing in your gift, Monseigneur, that I would accept.”A look of wrathful amaze glimmered for an instant in the Duke’s brown eyes, but he smiled, though coldly.“For one who hopes to succeed in diplomacy,” he said, “you are singularly simple.”“Not so simple, Monseigneur, that I do not see the attempt of your Highness to bribe a man who holds an unpleasant secret.”M. de Richelieu did not alter the regal ease of his attitude, but he suddenly changed his tone.“Forgive me, my dear Marquis,” he said pleasantly, “but we evidently do fail to understand each other, and that is a pity——”Luc interrupted.“Highness, this is the truth. I know that the wretched Italian was murdered last night, and I know whose sword struck him down. You deceived me easily,” he added simply, “and I know you are a great man, who can amuse himself as he pleases—you have the law in your own hands. But there is no employ under the Governor of Languedoc that I would take.”With the effort of saying these words the colour flooded his face; he did not speak them with any grandeur, but with a frowning distaste.M. de Richelieu flashed into fierce haughtiness.“Do you imagine that you will better yourself by taking this story to Versailles? You think you can ruin me, perhaps——”“Monsieur!” cried Luc, raising his head.M. de Richelieu was on his feet, a glittering, winning figure, difficult to associate with the miserable scene in the barn.“Well, if you think, Monsieur,” he said quietly, “that you would gain a hearing against me, remember I am Armand du Plessis,” and Luc realized suddenly what a great man, what a notable person he was defying. He thought of his future career, and his heart sank; what could he hope to achieve commencing with such a powerful enemy?Something of this thought showed in his sensitive face, and the Governor was quick to perceive and follow up his advantage.“I have usedlettres de cacheton less occasion,” he said gently.Luc turned so as to face him.“Scarcely on men of my position, M. de Richelieu,” he answered haughtily. “I am not of the bourgeois, to be threatened.”He was stung now out of his shyness and reserve; he faced the Governor as an equal and unabashed.“As to last night, my own wish is to forget it,” he said sternly. “I shall not speak for the sake of speaking—you know that. I should not be silent for any threat’s sake if honour bade me speak—you know that also, Monseigneur.”M. de Richelieu was clearly puzzled; if at the same time vexed, or alarmed, he did not show it. His face expressed wonder and even amusement.“It was only a jest last night,” he said lightly, “a common amusement.”“It cost a man his life,” answered Luc wearily. “But I pray your Highness not to speak of it.”“Well,” returned the Duke, with utter callousness, “he was a knave, and deserved it. He was cheating, and I had him brought from Venice on purpose.”Luc did not answer; he felt tired, disappointed, and downcast. His one desire was to get away from this house and from Avignon.“I can make yesterday’s meeting fortunate for both of us,” continued the Duke. “I liked you from the first. I require another secretary——”“I must refuse,” interrupted Luc. “I will take nothing, Monseigneur.”M. de Richelieu looked at him narrowly.“Where have you lived all your life?” he asked abruptly.“In Aix and in camp,” replied Luc. His dreamy eyes brightened. “I have been ten years with the army.”“Why did you leave?”“Because my health broke,” said Luc briefly. “There were not many of us, Monsieur, who survived the retreat from Prague.”“And now you wish to become a politician,” said M. de Richelieu. “I suppose you are an idealist?”Luc smiled to think of the utter hopelessness of endeavouring to express his aspirations to this man.“I have ideas,” he answered simply. “I think I could succeed in statecraft.”“Tell me some of your ideas—tell me something of what you would do were you in power.”The Duke was standing now in front of the many-coloured tapestry; his slight figure, his elegant features, and rich dressing-gown gave him an almost feminine appearance. A faint mockery curved his nostrils and touched his speech.“I would not have men like M. de Richelieu Governor over any province of France,” answered Luc calmly.Again that look of great haughtiness hardened the face of the Duke.“You know nothing about M. de Richelieu,” he said.He seated himself on the slender-legged chair under the tapestry and began turning over a tray of engraved gems that stood on a little tulip-wood table; yet absently, and with his brown eyes on Luc.The two men whose lives, characters, and experiences were so absolutely different that an impassable gulf existed between them looked at each other as they might have gazed across the borders of some strange country that they would never penetrate. M. de Richelieu’s career had blazed high above the heads of men for all to see, but it was unknown to Luc, who was ignorant of all the scandals and gossip of his time; and Luc, to the Governor, was a man who came from absolute obscurity, who was interestingly novel, but mainly to be noticed because he held an uncomfortable knowledge of an unfortunate incident the Duke wished forgotten. As he gazed at Luc, he was considering what to do. Though he had been involved in many affairs as doubtful and as dangerous as that of last night, though careless recklessness was the keynote of his character and he was confident in his great position and powerful name, yet a creditable witness to a murder connected with an unlawful ceremony to which his confessor was privy was not to be too lightly suffered to depart. The Duke had enemies; if they knew of this, they could make a story of it that the King would not dare disregard. From a spark like this might rise a flame that would burn the very foundations of his greatness.Malice was not in his nature, and he felt no unkindness towards the cold young officer who so manifestly disliked him, but rather a curiosity to know more of him and a half-amused liking.“Monsieur,” he said at length, “this must be adjusted some way between us. You seem to refuse my advances. Perhaps you think I am setting some snare for you, but it is not so.”This had never entered Luc’s thoughts. His outlook was so simple that the other could never have guessed it; he merely wished to get away, to forget it all, and try another road to success.“Monseigneur,” he answered wearily, because his head was aching, and the rosy light of the room and the scent of the flowers, that had at first so pleased, now oppressed his senses, “we have nothing to fear or gain from each other. Permit me to take my leave.”With his stiff military bow he moved towards the door. M. de Richelieu stepped forward and, with an almost affectionate gesture, caught his arm.“Be reasonable,” he said. “I lost my temper last night; but after all the fellow was of no account—’tis over now.”“So I wish it to be, your Highness,” replied Luc.“But there is no need,” continued the Duke, “that it should prevent me from doing you the service you came to request.”Luc was silent; he was not insensible to M. de Richelieu’s beautiful grace, to the complete attraction of his person and features that his life, whatever it had been, had not in the least coarsened or spoilt. Such was the power of this charm, delicate, manly, strong, that Luc, though he despised the Duke without affectation, yet felt his scorn overwhelmed in this physical nearness.“Secretary to the Governor of Languedoc is not a post easily obtained,” insisted M. de Richelieu. “And I think we should work well together, Monsieur.”“It is not in your power to give me what I seek, Monsieur,” replied Luc sadly. “Indeed it is impossible.”The Duke drew back a step.“I implore you allow me to depart,” continued the Marquis. “We shall never understand each other.”M. de Richelieu twisted his fingers in the curls on his bosom.“What object have you in keeping silence about last night?” he asked shortly.“What object,” returned Luc proudly, “have I in speaking?”“Oh, you seem to have a great sympathy with heretics and charlatans and the baser sort. And what of your servant?”“He did not see your Highness in the full light. Besides, he was a soldier, and is devoted to the house of de Clapiers; you may, Monseigneur, be assured he will not speak.”“That means that I have taken two obligations from you—my sword last night and your promise now,” said the Duke very proudly. “It is impossible, Monsieur le Marquis, that you should refuse to take anything from me.”“I want nothing of your Highness,” replied Luc; for he thought of the Duke’s offers as so many bribes, nothing more.M. de Richelieu was galled and angry; it was the first time in his life that he had felt himself obliged to anyone. He was an adept in bestowing favours, but had never before received one save from the King. His breeding, however, took the defeat gracefully.“I hope,” he said coldly, “that some day I may be able to balance this.”“There is nothing to balance,” returned Luc earnestly, for the whole interview was irritating him. “Let your Highness forget it all and forget me.”“Will you go to Paris?” asked the Duke abruptly.“Perhaps,” said Luc. His plans were all dashed to the ground, and he had not yet formed others.“Come to me, then, if you ever need help,” said M. de Richelieu, with sudden and characteristic recklessness. “A Puritan like you is like to get into trouble some way.”“I am no Puritan,” returned Luc, flushing slightly, “but an atheist.”M. de Richelieu crossed himself and, at the same time, laughed.“Some day I must introduce you to Monsieur de Voltaire. As for me, I see I can do nothing with you. I wish you success, Monsieur, but I am not very hopeful.”He did not hold out his hand, but bowed very grandly and rang a little bell that stood near the tray of gems.Luc returned the bow in silence, glad to take his departure; the black page appeared, and conducted him from the mansion. Luc passed through the beautiful apartments without any sense of pleasure now; he felt exhausted, and even faint. He longed to be out in the night and under the stars.When he was on the threshold of the street door another page breathlessly overtook him.“Monseigneur, you left your glove,” he said.Luc took the riding gauntlet, and felt something heavy in the palm. The colour throbbed in his face; he shook out on to his hand a diamond ring of exceptional beauty and remarkably set with sapphires.“Yes, it is my glove,” he said to the page, who was hurrying away, “but take this back to M. de Richelieu—it is a mistake.” He held out the ring.“Monseigneur said the jewel was yours,” returned the page.“Well, then,” replied M. de Vauvenargues proudly, “take it as your guerdon for bringing me the glove.”He flung it on the carpet at the boy’s feet and left the Governor’s house.
Despite the different light, surroundings, and dress, the recognition was instantaneous on each side. For a breathless instant the two men gazed at each other. M. de Richelieu was the first to speak.
“So you are M. de Vauvenargues!” he said, and put his gold-slippered feet to the ground and threw his head back with a cold haughtiness.
“I am M. de Vauvenargues,” answered Luc.
“You were introduced unceremoniously,” returned the Duke. “I did not expect you so soon. Be seated, Monsieur le Marquis.”
Luc took one of the delicate chairs and fixed his eyes on the pale carpet; he was conscious of a wretched feeling of disappointment, of disgust, of a sense of personal failure.
“You look rather pale, Monsieur,” remarked the Governor, in those same gentle tones that Luc had heard last night. “I trust you have had an easy journey from Aix?”
The Marquis bowed in silence.
M. de Richelieu supported himself on his elbow on the pile of cushions at the head of his couch.
“You bring the best of introductions,” he said. “M. de Caumont speaks of you warmly—you were Hippolyte’s friend, and with him in Prague, were you not?”
Luc was impressed, almost bewildered, by his composure, his quick assumption of the courtly, gracious manner. Last night this calm had surprised him; now he found it astounding. M. de Richelieu had not changed colour, and was regarding him with unfaltering eyes.
But it was not in Luc to take up the matter on these terms; he revolted against the situation, against the part he was evidently expected to play. The slim, gorgeous young Governor, the sumptuous little room became hateful to him. He rose.
“Monseigneur,” he said coldly, “I came here on a misunderstanding.”
M. de Richelieu interrupted.
“You came, I think, Monsieur, because you are desirous of entering Government service—M. de Caumont asks my influence on your behalf.”
“I will not put you to that trouble, Highness,” answered Luc wearily.
The Duke laughed in his princely way, as if he was too great to be easily offended; yet Luc thought he was vexed too, perhaps a little confused.
“I shall be able to give you a position, Monsieur, immediately.”
Luc flushed almost as painfully as if some one had offered him money.
“You mistake me,” he said gravely.
“No, I think I estimate you fairly well,” answered the Governor decidedly.
“In this you mistake me,” replied Luc, with a sudden flash in his voice. “There is nothing in your gift, Monseigneur, that I would accept.”
A look of wrathful amaze glimmered for an instant in the Duke’s brown eyes, but he smiled, though coldly.
“For one who hopes to succeed in diplomacy,” he said, “you are singularly simple.”
“Not so simple, Monseigneur, that I do not see the attempt of your Highness to bribe a man who holds an unpleasant secret.”
M. de Richelieu did not alter the regal ease of his attitude, but he suddenly changed his tone.
“Forgive me, my dear Marquis,” he said pleasantly, “but we evidently do fail to understand each other, and that is a pity——”
Luc interrupted.
“Highness, this is the truth. I know that the wretched Italian was murdered last night, and I know whose sword struck him down. You deceived me easily,” he added simply, “and I know you are a great man, who can amuse himself as he pleases—you have the law in your own hands. But there is no employ under the Governor of Languedoc that I would take.”
With the effort of saying these words the colour flooded his face; he did not speak them with any grandeur, but with a frowning distaste.
M. de Richelieu flashed into fierce haughtiness.
“Do you imagine that you will better yourself by taking this story to Versailles? You think you can ruin me, perhaps——”
“Monsieur!” cried Luc, raising his head.
M. de Richelieu was on his feet, a glittering, winning figure, difficult to associate with the miserable scene in the barn.
“Well, if you think, Monsieur,” he said quietly, “that you would gain a hearing against me, remember I am Armand du Plessis,” and Luc realized suddenly what a great man, what a notable person he was defying. He thought of his future career, and his heart sank; what could he hope to achieve commencing with such a powerful enemy?
Something of this thought showed in his sensitive face, and the Governor was quick to perceive and follow up his advantage.
“I have usedlettres de cacheton less occasion,” he said gently.
Luc turned so as to face him.
“Scarcely on men of my position, M. de Richelieu,” he answered haughtily. “I am not of the bourgeois, to be threatened.”
He was stung now out of his shyness and reserve; he faced the Governor as an equal and unabashed.
“As to last night, my own wish is to forget it,” he said sternly. “I shall not speak for the sake of speaking—you know that. I should not be silent for any threat’s sake if honour bade me speak—you know that also, Monseigneur.”
M. de Richelieu was clearly puzzled; if at the same time vexed, or alarmed, he did not show it. His face expressed wonder and even amusement.
“It was only a jest last night,” he said lightly, “a common amusement.”
“It cost a man his life,” answered Luc wearily. “But I pray your Highness not to speak of it.”
“Well,” returned the Duke, with utter callousness, “he was a knave, and deserved it. He was cheating, and I had him brought from Venice on purpose.”
Luc did not answer; he felt tired, disappointed, and downcast. His one desire was to get away from this house and from Avignon.
“I can make yesterday’s meeting fortunate for both of us,” continued the Duke. “I liked you from the first. I require another secretary——”
“I must refuse,” interrupted Luc. “I will take nothing, Monseigneur.”
M. de Richelieu looked at him narrowly.
“Where have you lived all your life?” he asked abruptly.
“In Aix and in camp,” replied Luc. His dreamy eyes brightened. “I have been ten years with the army.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because my health broke,” said Luc briefly. “There were not many of us, Monsieur, who survived the retreat from Prague.”
“And now you wish to become a politician,” said M. de Richelieu. “I suppose you are an idealist?”
Luc smiled to think of the utter hopelessness of endeavouring to express his aspirations to this man.
“I have ideas,” he answered simply. “I think I could succeed in statecraft.”
“Tell me some of your ideas—tell me something of what you would do were you in power.”
The Duke was standing now in front of the many-coloured tapestry; his slight figure, his elegant features, and rich dressing-gown gave him an almost feminine appearance. A faint mockery curved his nostrils and touched his speech.
“I would not have men like M. de Richelieu Governor over any province of France,” answered Luc calmly.
Again that look of great haughtiness hardened the face of the Duke.
“You know nothing about M. de Richelieu,” he said.
He seated himself on the slender-legged chair under the tapestry and began turning over a tray of engraved gems that stood on a little tulip-wood table; yet absently, and with his brown eyes on Luc.
The two men whose lives, characters, and experiences were so absolutely different that an impassable gulf existed between them looked at each other as they might have gazed across the borders of some strange country that they would never penetrate. M. de Richelieu’s career had blazed high above the heads of men for all to see, but it was unknown to Luc, who was ignorant of all the scandals and gossip of his time; and Luc, to the Governor, was a man who came from absolute obscurity, who was interestingly novel, but mainly to be noticed because he held an uncomfortable knowledge of an unfortunate incident the Duke wished forgotten. As he gazed at Luc, he was considering what to do. Though he had been involved in many affairs as doubtful and as dangerous as that of last night, though careless recklessness was the keynote of his character and he was confident in his great position and powerful name, yet a creditable witness to a murder connected with an unlawful ceremony to which his confessor was privy was not to be too lightly suffered to depart. The Duke had enemies; if they knew of this, they could make a story of it that the King would not dare disregard. From a spark like this might rise a flame that would burn the very foundations of his greatness.
Malice was not in his nature, and he felt no unkindness towards the cold young officer who so manifestly disliked him, but rather a curiosity to know more of him and a half-amused liking.
“Monsieur,” he said at length, “this must be adjusted some way between us. You seem to refuse my advances. Perhaps you think I am setting some snare for you, but it is not so.”
This had never entered Luc’s thoughts. His outlook was so simple that the other could never have guessed it; he merely wished to get away, to forget it all, and try another road to success.
“Monseigneur,” he answered wearily, because his head was aching, and the rosy light of the room and the scent of the flowers, that had at first so pleased, now oppressed his senses, “we have nothing to fear or gain from each other. Permit me to take my leave.”
With his stiff military bow he moved towards the door. M. de Richelieu stepped forward and, with an almost affectionate gesture, caught his arm.
“Be reasonable,” he said. “I lost my temper last night; but after all the fellow was of no account—’tis over now.”
“So I wish it to be, your Highness,” replied Luc.
“But there is no need,” continued the Duke, “that it should prevent me from doing you the service you came to request.”
Luc was silent; he was not insensible to M. de Richelieu’s beautiful grace, to the complete attraction of his person and features that his life, whatever it had been, had not in the least coarsened or spoilt. Such was the power of this charm, delicate, manly, strong, that Luc, though he despised the Duke without affectation, yet felt his scorn overwhelmed in this physical nearness.
“Secretary to the Governor of Languedoc is not a post easily obtained,” insisted M. de Richelieu. “And I think we should work well together, Monsieur.”
“It is not in your power to give me what I seek, Monsieur,” replied Luc sadly. “Indeed it is impossible.”
The Duke drew back a step.
“I implore you allow me to depart,” continued the Marquis. “We shall never understand each other.”
M. de Richelieu twisted his fingers in the curls on his bosom.
“What object have you in keeping silence about last night?” he asked shortly.
“What object,” returned Luc proudly, “have I in speaking?”
“Oh, you seem to have a great sympathy with heretics and charlatans and the baser sort. And what of your servant?”
“He did not see your Highness in the full light. Besides, he was a soldier, and is devoted to the house of de Clapiers; you may, Monseigneur, be assured he will not speak.”
“That means that I have taken two obligations from you—my sword last night and your promise now,” said the Duke very proudly. “It is impossible, Monsieur le Marquis, that you should refuse to take anything from me.”
“I want nothing of your Highness,” replied Luc; for he thought of the Duke’s offers as so many bribes, nothing more.
M. de Richelieu was galled and angry; it was the first time in his life that he had felt himself obliged to anyone. He was an adept in bestowing favours, but had never before received one save from the King. His breeding, however, took the defeat gracefully.
“I hope,” he said coldly, “that some day I may be able to balance this.”
“There is nothing to balance,” returned Luc earnestly, for the whole interview was irritating him. “Let your Highness forget it all and forget me.”
“Will you go to Paris?” asked the Duke abruptly.
“Perhaps,” said Luc. His plans were all dashed to the ground, and he had not yet formed others.
“Come to me, then, if you ever need help,” said M. de Richelieu, with sudden and characteristic recklessness. “A Puritan like you is like to get into trouble some way.”
“I am no Puritan,” returned Luc, flushing slightly, “but an atheist.”
M. de Richelieu crossed himself and, at the same time, laughed.
“Some day I must introduce you to Monsieur de Voltaire. As for me, I see I can do nothing with you. I wish you success, Monsieur, but I am not very hopeful.”
He did not hold out his hand, but bowed very grandly and rang a little bell that stood near the tray of gems.
Luc returned the bow in silence, glad to take his departure; the black page appeared, and conducted him from the mansion. Luc passed through the beautiful apartments without any sense of pleasure now; he felt exhausted, and even faint. He longed to be out in the night and under the stars.
When he was on the threshold of the street door another page breathlessly overtook him.
“Monseigneur, you left your glove,” he said.
Luc took the riding gauntlet, and felt something heavy in the palm. The colour throbbed in his face; he shook out on to his hand a diamond ring of exceptional beauty and remarkably set with sapphires.
“Yes, it is my glove,” he said to the page, who was hurrying away, “but take this back to M. de Richelieu—it is a mistake.” He held out the ring.
“Monseigneur said the jewel was yours,” returned the page.
“Well, then,” replied M. de Vauvenargues proudly, “take it as your guerdon for bringing me the glove.”
He flung it on the carpet at the boy’s feet and left the Governor’s house.
CHAPTER XIIITHREE LETTERSLuc was back at Aix in the peace, the confinement, the even atmosphere of his own home.He told his father that M. de Richelieu had not been able to do anything for him, and the old Marquis advised him to give up all thoughts of any further career and settle down in Aix.Luc listened patiently, but no advice could have shown less understanding of his character; even while he listened his heart was throbbing and his blood tingling with the desire of life, of liberty, of action, of glory. The very moment he had stepped across the threshold of his father’s house he had felt the ordered, sluggish days fall round him like a chain; he saw the years stretch ahead in an uneventful avenue, with an undistinguished tomb at the end, and every nerve in his being cried out against it. His fruitless journey, the heavy disappointment caused by coming into actual contact with one of the men ruling France and finding him like M. de Richelieu, the persecution, the degradation, the misery he had witnessed in riding through Languedoc were but so many goads to urge him to a further attempt on fortune.Paris blazed even brighter in his visions, and he thought long and often on the name of M. de Voltaire.To please his parents, he still retained the forms of Christianity, and never hinted that he held that doctrine of free-thinking which his father so abhorred. But this reserve was another chain: he desired to be with those with whom he could exchange ideas, from whom he could gain wisdom, experience, and encouragement; not to have to be for ever deferring to those opinions, habits, and traditions that he no longer shared nor admired.Hence the very affection that surrounded him at Aix, and which he had often longed for when with the army, became first a useless thing to him, and then another burden, another chain to hamper and clog him.As, gradually and day by day, his father’s love made insidious demands on him, as almost imperceptibly he found his native sweetness giving way on many little points of difference, as he perceived affection laying hands on the most secret sensations of his soul, he began to revolt against this obligation of affection, of duty, of respect; he longed to stand, a free man, with his own life to make according to his own standards, unhindered by this fear of giving pain to those who loved him—the fear which had already made him deny his beliefs, and which now urged him to abandon his choicest hopes. His soul rose up against this exacting, tender love, that burdened him with responsibility; morally and mentally he stood alone, not desiring support, and strong to meet anything, yet through his heart and affections he was made captive to his father’s chair and his mother’s apron.Autumn passed into winter. Joseph married and left home; this was another reason for Luc to remain. His mother clung to him with piteous fondness; his father deferred to him in matters of business, relied on him, treated him with courteous affection, dismissed all idea of his leaving them—had not M. de Biron and M. de Richelieu both declared politics hopeless?Luc listened and waited; the chains became heavier every day. The Marquise was preparing another in the shape of Clémence de Séguy, a good girl, beautiful and well-dowered. Luc, looking into her fair countenance, knew that she had never known an aspiration nor a sorrow in all her life; she bloomed in Aix like the late lilies he had seen in the garden the day of his return; pure flowers, modest with their own sweetness, they kept their heads bent towards the earth, and never lifted their petals towards heaven or the sun. Luc never looked at Clémence that he did not think of the Countess Carola; red like the trellis roses he pictured her, and, like them, for ever climbing and breathing perfume to the utmost clouds.Yet these days were not wholly wasted; in the evenings, he would revive his forgotten knowledge of music, and play the clavichord to his mother’s harp; and then his thoughts would fly wide, and drink at immortal wells of unquenchable longing, and see the ineffable hues of skies only to be glimpsed at by mortals.Sometimes, when he was playing thus in the dark parlour, he would have flashing premonitions of immortality in which this life seemed a mere nothing that he could afford to waste; there was all eternity in which to join Hippolyte and Georges in the quest for glory.In these moments he felt an unbounded ecstasy, and his playing would take on a richness and colour that transfigured the light music he interpreted; then a veil would be dropped over the vision, and there would come unbidden thoughts of the hopelessness of all high endeavour, the sad end, the open failure of all noble, unselfish lives, the uselessness of all great enthusiasms, all the gallant efforts of the pure minorities of the world, all the eager aspirations of reformers, preachers, prophets, swept away and forgotten in the commonplace corruptions, needs, vices, failings, and blindness of humanity. And these reflections were as a bitter blankness of soul to Luc, and the comfortable room would darken round him like the jaw of hell itself.But with equal conviction would come the afterthought that these broken lives, these lost causes, these ridiculed endeavours, these failures, these minorities had handed on the light from one century to another, and kept alive truth, courage, and all that is beautiful in the heart of man. Luc felt the intense force of the stirrings in his own bosom to be a response to these prophets, martyrs, lonely standard-bearers who were calling him to be one of them, to come forth from the sheltered happiness of common men and join the shadowy multitude who had climbed and perished and left a glimmering name behind. Life was little, yet tremendous; it was all a man had. Though its doings, its greatest events were so small, yet some could make marvels out of those few short years.Millions did nothing with their lives, but all were not the same; the oak is large compared to the cherry tree, thought Luc, and some men can lift themselves. After the playing was over, and he was alone in his chamber, he would put some of his thoughts on paper for want of a better confidant—carefully concealing them, for his father considered it degradation for a gentleman to compose a line of verse or prose.So the winter passed, and Luc remained in Aix doing homage to custom and family pride and family tradition and family affection. It happened that, at Christmas, a friend came from Paris and spent a few days with the de Clapiers; he was neither fashionable, nor of the Court, nor any admirer of M. de Voltaire and the new school of thought, but his speech unconsciously betrayed knowledge of a world that was alive with energy, change, and endeavour. Luc did not speak much with him, and never questioned him on any of those subjects on which he was burning to be enlightened; but when the visitor had left, Luc went to his chamber and wrote two letters, one to the King, one to M. Amelot, Minister for Foreign Affairs, both with the same request—that they would find him some employment for his eager abilities.It was an extraordinary act of courage on the part of a nature reserved, shy, and socially timid; no one who knew him would have credited him with it; but he made no confidant of any. When the two letters were written, sealed, and lying ready for dispatch, Luc, with a flush like fever in his cheek, took up the pen again and wrote a third——To M. de Voltaire.A thousand hopes and questions rose in his bosom, eager for expression; but modesty and pride together forbade that he should put anything intimate before a stranger. He made the subject of his letter his opinion of Corneille and Racine; he asked the judgment of the great arbitrator of letters as to the relative merits of the two geniuses; he expressed the criticism he had conceived on the rival masters, and begged to know if he was right or wrong. He gave the address of an inn he knew in Paris, and prayed that the answer might be sent there, if M. de Voltaire deigned to answer.He sealed this letter with more agitation than he had felt when writing either to the King or to the Minister, and with all three in his pocket went downstairs to post them.When he reached the hall, he hesitated a moment, then turned into the sombre withdrawing-room in the front. The candles had just been lit and the curtains drawn, for, though not late, it was a wet, dreary day.Round the hearth sat his mother, Joseph’s wife, and Clémence de Séguy; Joseph was at the clavichord, his father on the sofa with a little book in his hand.The tender figures and light dresses of the women were surrounded with soft shadows from the rosy firelight; Clémence held up a pink silk hand-screen which cast a full glow of radiant light over her small sweet features and pale curls.The pretty whisper of talk was hushed as Luc entered and there was a second’s pause, caused, though he did not guess it, by the instant impression of extreme delicacy he made as he stood before the open door, the candlelight full on him, and behind him the background of the dark shadows of the hall.He was unusually pale, and his eyes were too lustrous, too wide and bright, too deeply shadowed for health. His dark, simple, and rather careless dress, the plain waves of his smooth hair, accentuated the impression he made of something uncommon, exceptional; but this sense of difference was mainly caused by his expression, by a certain smile and flash in his eyes, by an extraordinary sweetness in the lines of the mouth and chin, by a proud look of motion in his carriage which was like swiftness arrested.His sudden silent appearance made all who gazed at him realize in a flash his exceeding, uncommon beauty; it was as if they regarded a stranger, they even felt afraid of him.He, all unconscious, came to the table where his mother’s tambour frame lay, and affectionately turned over the lengths of silks.“How quickly you work!” he smiled.Joseph, to conceal an unaccountable sense of confusion, commenced playing a little old-fashioned “coranto,” which was the only piece he knew perfectly by heart.Clémence expressed her sense of the inexpressible in another way.“How silent we all are!” she exclaimed, and rose.Luc looked up instantly.“I fear I disturbed you,” he said; she had come a few steps from the hearth, and their eyes met.“You look strange to-night,” murmured Clémence, as if they had been alone.“I have come to a resolution, that is all,” he answered quietly. “Nothing so very momentous.” He smiled, and looked from the girl to his father.“Monseigneur, I have decided to go to Paris.”The old Marquis put down his book.“I thought you wished to remain in Aix,” he said, in a low voice.“I cannot,” replied Luc. “Father, I must go.”There was a note of almost entreaty in his voice, for his mother had risen and Joseph ceased playing, and he foresaw protest and complaint; Clémence had hung her head; all the old chains tightening about him.“I must go,” he repeated.“You have been away so much,” said the Marquise. “Will you not stay at home now, Luc?”“Madame,” he answered, “I shall return, but I must go, and soon, to Paris.”His father rose.“But, dear Heaven, what chance have you in Paris?”“I must make my own chances,” smiled Luc.The old Marquis and Joseph both surveyed him with a certain pride. Luc was indescribably touched to see that mingled look of satisfaction and solicitude on their faces.He crossed impulsively to the clavichord and the sofa, and held out his hands, one to his father, one to his brother.“Do not think I am eager to be gone,” he said, with a fine flush. “It is only that I have not earned this home—yet.”Joseph thought he referred to his fortune spent at the war, leaving him dependent on their father, and blushed furiously.“Luc——” he began desperately.Their father interrupted.“Joseph, he must go. I understand. He will be the head of the family, and, bred a soldier, he finds this a poor life.... You shall go, Luc, but we must see you back soon.... Your place is at Aix.”
Luc was back at Aix in the peace, the confinement, the even atmosphere of his own home.
He told his father that M. de Richelieu had not been able to do anything for him, and the old Marquis advised him to give up all thoughts of any further career and settle down in Aix.
Luc listened patiently, but no advice could have shown less understanding of his character; even while he listened his heart was throbbing and his blood tingling with the desire of life, of liberty, of action, of glory. The very moment he had stepped across the threshold of his father’s house he had felt the ordered, sluggish days fall round him like a chain; he saw the years stretch ahead in an uneventful avenue, with an undistinguished tomb at the end, and every nerve in his being cried out against it. His fruitless journey, the heavy disappointment caused by coming into actual contact with one of the men ruling France and finding him like M. de Richelieu, the persecution, the degradation, the misery he had witnessed in riding through Languedoc were but so many goads to urge him to a further attempt on fortune.
Paris blazed even brighter in his visions, and he thought long and often on the name of M. de Voltaire.
To please his parents, he still retained the forms of Christianity, and never hinted that he held that doctrine of free-thinking which his father so abhorred. But this reserve was another chain: he desired to be with those with whom he could exchange ideas, from whom he could gain wisdom, experience, and encouragement; not to have to be for ever deferring to those opinions, habits, and traditions that he no longer shared nor admired.
Hence the very affection that surrounded him at Aix, and which he had often longed for when with the army, became first a useless thing to him, and then another burden, another chain to hamper and clog him.
As, gradually and day by day, his father’s love made insidious demands on him, as almost imperceptibly he found his native sweetness giving way on many little points of difference, as he perceived affection laying hands on the most secret sensations of his soul, he began to revolt against this obligation of affection, of duty, of respect; he longed to stand, a free man, with his own life to make according to his own standards, unhindered by this fear of giving pain to those who loved him—the fear which had already made him deny his beliefs, and which now urged him to abandon his choicest hopes. His soul rose up against this exacting, tender love, that burdened him with responsibility; morally and mentally he stood alone, not desiring support, and strong to meet anything, yet through his heart and affections he was made captive to his father’s chair and his mother’s apron.
Autumn passed into winter. Joseph married and left home; this was another reason for Luc to remain. His mother clung to him with piteous fondness; his father deferred to him in matters of business, relied on him, treated him with courteous affection, dismissed all idea of his leaving them—had not M. de Biron and M. de Richelieu both declared politics hopeless?
Luc listened and waited; the chains became heavier every day. The Marquise was preparing another in the shape of Clémence de Séguy, a good girl, beautiful and well-dowered. Luc, looking into her fair countenance, knew that she had never known an aspiration nor a sorrow in all her life; she bloomed in Aix like the late lilies he had seen in the garden the day of his return; pure flowers, modest with their own sweetness, they kept their heads bent towards the earth, and never lifted their petals towards heaven or the sun. Luc never looked at Clémence that he did not think of the Countess Carola; red like the trellis roses he pictured her, and, like them, for ever climbing and breathing perfume to the utmost clouds.
Yet these days were not wholly wasted; in the evenings, he would revive his forgotten knowledge of music, and play the clavichord to his mother’s harp; and then his thoughts would fly wide, and drink at immortal wells of unquenchable longing, and see the ineffable hues of skies only to be glimpsed at by mortals.
Sometimes, when he was playing thus in the dark parlour, he would have flashing premonitions of immortality in which this life seemed a mere nothing that he could afford to waste; there was all eternity in which to join Hippolyte and Georges in the quest for glory.
In these moments he felt an unbounded ecstasy, and his playing would take on a richness and colour that transfigured the light music he interpreted; then a veil would be dropped over the vision, and there would come unbidden thoughts of the hopelessness of all high endeavour, the sad end, the open failure of all noble, unselfish lives, the uselessness of all great enthusiasms, all the gallant efforts of the pure minorities of the world, all the eager aspirations of reformers, preachers, prophets, swept away and forgotten in the commonplace corruptions, needs, vices, failings, and blindness of humanity. And these reflections were as a bitter blankness of soul to Luc, and the comfortable room would darken round him like the jaw of hell itself.
But with equal conviction would come the afterthought that these broken lives, these lost causes, these ridiculed endeavours, these failures, these minorities had handed on the light from one century to another, and kept alive truth, courage, and all that is beautiful in the heart of man. Luc felt the intense force of the stirrings in his own bosom to be a response to these prophets, martyrs, lonely standard-bearers who were calling him to be one of them, to come forth from the sheltered happiness of common men and join the shadowy multitude who had climbed and perished and left a glimmering name behind. Life was little, yet tremendous; it was all a man had. Though its doings, its greatest events were so small, yet some could make marvels out of those few short years.
Millions did nothing with their lives, but all were not the same; the oak is large compared to the cherry tree, thought Luc, and some men can lift themselves. After the playing was over, and he was alone in his chamber, he would put some of his thoughts on paper for want of a better confidant—carefully concealing them, for his father considered it degradation for a gentleman to compose a line of verse or prose.
So the winter passed, and Luc remained in Aix doing homage to custom and family pride and family tradition and family affection. It happened that, at Christmas, a friend came from Paris and spent a few days with the de Clapiers; he was neither fashionable, nor of the Court, nor any admirer of M. de Voltaire and the new school of thought, but his speech unconsciously betrayed knowledge of a world that was alive with energy, change, and endeavour. Luc did not speak much with him, and never questioned him on any of those subjects on which he was burning to be enlightened; but when the visitor had left, Luc went to his chamber and wrote two letters, one to the King, one to M. Amelot, Minister for Foreign Affairs, both with the same request—that they would find him some employment for his eager abilities.
It was an extraordinary act of courage on the part of a nature reserved, shy, and socially timid; no one who knew him would have credited him with it; but he made no confidant of any. When the two letters were written, sealed, and lying ready for dispatch, Luc, with a flush like fever in his cheek, took up the pen again and wrote a third——
To M. de Voltaire.
A thousand hopes and questions rose in his bosom, eager for expression; but modesty and pride together forbade that he should put anything intimate before a stranger. He made the subject of his letter his opinion of Corneille and Racine; he asked the judgment of the great arbitrator of letters as to the relative merits of the two geniuses; he expressed the criticism he had conceived on the rival masters, and begged to know if he was right or wrong. He gave the address of an inn he knew in Paris, and prayed that the answer might be sent there, if M. de Voltaire deigned to answer.
He sealed this letter with more agitation than he had felt when writing either to the King or to the Minister, and with all three in his pocket went downstairs to post them.
When he reached the hall, he hesitated a moment, then turned into the sombre withdrawing-room in the front. The candles had just been lit and the curtains drawn, for, though not late, it was a wet, dreary day.
Round the hearth sat his mother, Joseph’s wife, and Clémence de Séguy; Joseph was at the clavichord, his father on the sofa with a little book in his hand.
The tender figures and light dresses of the women were surrounded with soft shadows from the rosy firelight; Clémence held up a pink silk hand-screen which cast a full glow of radiant light over her small sweet features and pale curls.
The pretty whisper of talk was hushed as Luc entered and there was a second’s pause, caused, though he did not guess it, by the instant impression of extreme delicacy he made as he stood before the open door, the candlelight full on him, and behind him the background of the dark shadows of the hall.
He was unusually pale, and his eyes were too lustrous, too wide and bright, too deeply shadowed for health. His dark, simple, and rather careless dress, the plain waves of his smooth hair, accentuated the impression he made of something uncommon, exceptional; but this sense of difference was mainly caused by his expression, by a certain smile and flash in his eyes, by an extraordinary sweetness in the lines of the mouth and chin, by a proud look of motion in his carriage which was like swiftness arrested.
His sudden silent appearance made all who gazed at him realize in a flash his exceeding, uncommon beauty; it was as if they regarded a stranger, they even felt afraid of him.
He, all unconscious, came to the table where his mother’s tambour frame lay, and affectionately turned over the lengths of silks.
“How quickly you work!” he smiled.
Joseph, to conceal an unaccountable sense of confusion, commenced playing a little old-fashioned “coranto,” which was the only piece he knew perfectly by heart.
Clémence expressed her sense of the inexpressible in another way.
“How silent we all are!” she exclaimed, and rose.
Luc looked up instantly.
“I fear I disturbed you,” he said; she had come a few steps from the hearth, and their eyes met.
“You look strange to-night,” murmured Clémence, as if they had been alone.
“I have come to a resolution, that is all,” he answered quietly. “Nothing so very momentous.” He smiled, and looked from the girl to his father.
“Monseigneur, I have decided to go to Paris.”
The old Marquis put down his book.
“I thought you wished to remain in Aix,” he said, in a low voice.
“I cannot,” replied Luc. “Father, I must go.”
There was a note of almost entreaty in his voice, for his mother had risen and Joseph ceased playing, and he foresaw protest and complaint; Clémence had hung her head; all the old chains tightening about him.
“I must go,” he repeated.
“You have been away so much,” said the Marquise. “Will you not stay at home now, Luc?”
“Madame,” he answered, “I shall return, but I must go, and soon, to Paris.”
His father rose.
“But, dear Heaven, what chance have you in Paris?”
“I must make my own chances,” smiled Luc.
The old Marquis and Joseph both surveyed him with a certain pride. Luc was indescribably touched to see that mingled look of satisfaction and solicitude on their faces.
He crossed impulsively to the clavichord and the sofa, and held out his hands, one to his father, one to his brother.
“Do not think I am eager to be gone,” he said, with a fine flush. “It is only that I have not earned this home—yet.”
Joseph thought he referred to his fortune spent at the war, leaving him dependent on their father, and blushed furiously.
“Luc——” he began desperately.
Their father interrupted.
“Joseph, he must go. I understand. He will be the head of the family, and, bred a soldier, he finds this a poor life.... You shall go, Luc, but we must see you back soon.... Your place is at Aix.”
PART IITHE QUEST SORROWFUL“Voyez ce que fait la gloire: le tombeau ne peut l’obscurcir, son nom règne encore sur la terre qu’elle a décorée; féconde jusque dans les ruines et la nudité de la mort, ses exemples la réproduisent, et elle s’accroît d’âge en âge. Cultivez-là donc, car si vous la négligiez bientôt vous négligeriez la vertu même, dont elle est la fleur. Ne croyez pas qu’on puisse obtenir la vraie gloire sans la vraie vertu, ni qu’on puisse se maintenir dans la vertu sans l’aide de la gloire.”—Marquis de Vauvenargues.
PART II
THE QUEST SORROWFUL
“Voyez ce que fait la gloire: le tombeau ne peut l’obscurcir, son nom règne encore sur la terre qu’elle a décorée; féconde jusque dans les ruines et la nudité de la mort, ses exemples la réproduisent, et elle s’accroît d’âge en âge. Cultivez-là donc, car si vous la négligiez bientôt vous négligeriez la vertu même, dont elle est la fleur. Ne croyez pas qu’on puisse obtenir la vraie gloire sans la vraie vertu, ni qu’on puisse se maintenir dans la vertu sans l’aide de la gloire.”—Marquis de Vauvenargues.
CHAPTER IPARISLuc de Clapiers stood on the Pont Neuf gazing over the great city.Below him curled the strong grey river that surged and swirled round the stout central pier of the bridge; barges and boats with drab and russet sails were passing up and down on the tide; from either bank rose the fine tourelles, the splendid buildings, the straight houses and tall churches of Paris.The day was sunless, the sky heavy with loose clouds; the steady, cheerful life of the city passed Luc in chariots, coaches, sedans, on foot, and was absorbed into the fashionable quarters on the left and the poorer quarters on the right.Luc was acutely aware how complete a sense of isolation and of loneliness this standing against the parapet of a bridge with busy footsteps passing and never stopping gave him; all these people were going to, or coming from, somewhere; all might be imagined as having some definite occupation or pleasure or purpose; all might be considered as knowing this city well, as having some claim on it, if only the claim of familiarity, while he was a stranger with his place still to find.He had been in Paris a fortnight, and it was extraordinary how like a shut door the city still seemed to him; he felt more utterly apart from the spirit, motion, and meaning of the capital than he had ever done when in Aix.Inscrutable buildings portentous with locked secrets, inscrutable river laden with boats going with unknown cargoes to unknown destinations, inscrutable faces of rich and poor passing to and fro, beautiful youth in a chariot flashing across the public way to be absorbed in a narrow turning and seen no more, old age on foot vanishing painfully in the dusk; the crowd leaving the opera, the play, with pomp and laughter and comment; the shopkeepers behind their counters, the idlers about the cafés, the priests, the sudden black splendour of a funeral with candles looking strange in the daylight and the crucifix exacting the homage of bent knees, all inscrutable to those who held not the key of it, passing and repassing about the river, and the Louvre and the church on the isle.Mingled with these actual objects were the spiritual forces of which the city was full, and which were to Luc fully as potent as the things he saw; the air was full of an extraordinary inspiration, as if every man who had struggled and thought and died in Paris had left some part of his aspirations behind to enrich the city.A wonderful gorgeous history was held in the stones of the ancient buildings, in the holy glooms of the churches, in the crooked lines of the famous streets; her children bloomed and faded, but the city itself was imperishable, a thing never to be touched with decay.No one once loving this city could ever love another so well.Luc found the immortal charm of Paris enwrapping him with a sad power; she was the cradle of all the glory of the Western world, the epitome of all that man had achieved in this his last civilization; she had seen all his passions burn themselves out and live again. But as yet Luc was on her threshold, unadmitted, unnoticed.None of his three letters had been answered. The truth of M. de Biron’s advice was being proved every day: he was neither wanted nor heeded; there was no place ready for him nor any hand held out to welcome. Yet Luc, leaning against the heavy parapet and listening to the steady sound of the passing footsteps, watching the deep eddies of the water and the grey outlines of the buildings, felt no discouragement; he measured his soul against even the mighty city, and found it sufficient.Last night he had walked past the hotel from which the Countess Carola had written. There had been a festival within; all the windows were lit, and the courtyard was blocked with carriages.Luc had smiled to think of her dancing behind those walls—what if he had come into her presence and asserted his claim to friendship based on that march of horror from Prague?He had not entered her mansion, nor did he think of waiting on her; why he could not tell, save that all his life he had shrunk from putting his dreams to the test of actuality: and he had dreams about the Countess Carola, visions of her and pleasant imaginings, but no knowledge; he did not care to alter this delicate attitude towards the only woman who had ever interested him. No visions clouded his remembrance of Clémence de Séguy: she stood out in his mind, clear-cut and definite; he thought he knew her perfectly, to the bottom of her simple soul.She was pleasant to think on; he conjured up her picture now, rosy, enveloped in a multitude of frills and ribbons—the grey city seemed the greyer by contrast.Then the mighty currents of the river swept away her picture as a rose-leaf is swept away by a torrent, and the swish of it against the ancient bridge beat on the heart of Luc the three words: endeavour—achievement—fame.The dusk was gathering, blurring the lines of the city, and a fine rain began to fall. Luc moved from his station, and walked slowly back to his lodgings in the fashionable Rue du Bac; his father had insisted on his living with proper magnificence, and Luc felt his only sting of failure when he considered the so far useless expenses.When he entered his quiet, handsome rooms he found a letter.His servant had been to the inn that Luc had given as his Paris address, and had found this missive, which had been left the previous day by a lackey whose splendour had startled the host. Luc’s heart fluttered; he thought of the King, of M. Amelot——When he had torn the seal, he saw it was from M. de Voltaire.The great man wrote with charm, with generous frankness: he praised his young correspondent’s taste, yet pointed out where it went astray; he warmly encouraged the love of literature, the thirst for knowledge—he hoped the Marquis would write to him again.Luc put the letter down with a thrill of pure, intense pleasure; the blood flushed into his cheeks and his heart beat quickly; at that moment he felt an adoration for its writer.He did not notice the darkening room, the rain that was falling steadily without; he sat motionless on the stiff striped sofa forming picture after picture of endless glory, for all his winged fancies had been stirred into life by this encouragement.Presently, before the room was quite dark, he wrote the following letter to M. Amelot:—“Monseigneur,—I am sufficiently disappointed that the letter I have had the honour to write to you, and that which I sent under cover to you for the King, have not attracted your attention.“It is not surprising, perhaps, that a Minister so occupied should not find time to examine such letters; but, Monseigneur, permit me to tell you that it is this discouragement, given to those gentlemen who have nothing to offer but their loyalty, that causes the coldness so often remarked in the provincial nobility and extinguishes in them all emulation for court favour.“I have passed, Monseigneur, all my youth far from the distractions of the world, in tasks that render me fit for the position towards which my character impels me, and I dare to think that a training so laborious puts me, at least, on a level with those who have spent all their fortune on their intrigues and their pleasures. I am well aware, Monseigneur, that the hopes that I have founded on my own ardour are likely to be deceived; my health will not permit me to continue my services at the war. I have written to M. le Duc de Biron asking him to accept my resignation, and there remains nothing to me in my present situation but to again put my case before you, Monseigneur, and to await the grace of your reply. Pardon me, Monseigneur, if this letter is not sufficiently measured in expression.—I am, Monseigneur, your devoted servant,“Vauvenargues”This letter was written in a breath and on the instant sealed and dispatched; the inspiration to write it had come from the few lines of M. de Voltaire’s note. It was not a letter many would have sent to a Minister. Luc was not versed in the method of addressing the great; he wrote from his heart, urged on by the burning desire for action, for achievement, for fame.When the letter had gone he went to the window and looked out on the steady rain and straight-fronted houses, lit with the glimmer of oil lamps, that hid Paris from his vision.What was the cloud, the confusion, the barrier that came between him and the attainment of his desires? There was some key somewhere that unlocked the door of Paris, of life—of that life which meant the scope to exercise, to strain the energies, to put the utmost into endeavour. Where was such a life?For ten years Luc had been waiting—always round the corner was the promised goal—everything had been beautiful with the glamour of romance. But, looked at coldly, what had these ten years been but wasted? Luc was starting fresh on another road, and seemed as far as ever from the summit of his ambitions. Yet it could not be possible that he was going to remain for ever obscure; he could not believe that.There was a little narrow balcony with a fine railing before his window. Luc drew the curtains, opened the wet glass, and stepped out. The air was pure and clear, the rain fresh and delicate. The long twisted length of the Rue du Bac glistened with the reflected light of the pools between the cobbles.Luc thrilled to the mystery and inspiration of the silent city with its hidden activities, to the subtle pleasure of the rain and the lamplight. He thought—he knew not why—of the King, young, ardent, brave, with the riches of the world rolled to his feet—the King—of France!Luc shivered even to imagine the glorious pride of that position. He leant on the railing, regardless of the rain that was falling, and looked up and down the street that was all he could see of Paris.A sedan-chair came from the direction of the river, carried by two bearers in plain livery; it was—though Luc did not recognize it as such—a hired chair. It stopped at the house nearly opposite Luc. A gentleman put his head out and said something in a low voice; the chair moved a few doors higher up. Meanwhile from the opposite end of the street came two other men carrying, not a sedan-chair, but a large black coffin, on the lid of which was a shield-shaped plate that threw off the hesitating rays of the lamplight.Luc watched with interest; his mood was too exalted to feel any horror at the sudden appearance of this sombre object. These little pictures shown him by the great city attracted him strangely. The sedan-chair had stopped; a tall gentleman had alighted and paid the bearers, who turned back the way they had come. None of them noticed what was being borne, shoulder high, towards them.The sedan passed round a turn of the street out of sight, the late occupant hesitated a second, then came back to the house exactly opposite Luc, who stood only a few feet above him, and could observe him perfectly in the strong beams of the powerful lamp which at this point was swung across the street by a rope from house to house.The gentleman was unusually tall and of an unusual grace and perfect balance in his walk. He was wrapped in the close, elegant folds of a fine fawn cloth cloak, and wore a black hat pulled well over his eyes. He approached the door and, putting out a hand gloved in white doeskin, knocked four times in succession.At this moment the coffin-bearers, with a slow, steady, silent step, had reached the point where he stood, and he, all unconscious, stepped backwards and looked up at the windows of the house where he sought admission (which were all in darkness), and in so doing ran against the foremost man and the foot of the coffin. The street was narrow indeed at this place, and the men, in endeavouring to avoid a collision, made a misstep and thrust the gentleman against the wall with the side of the coffin.He gave a cry that Luc heard distinctly—a terrible sound of terror, amaze, and despair—and threw up his hands, dropping the cane he carried. The coffin-bearers recovered their balance and passed on muttering, but the gentleman remained crouching against the wall, staring after them, with no effort to move. His terror was so evident and so incomprehensible that Luc held his breath to watch. The stranger’s hat had fallen off, and his full powdered curls were uncovered. Luc could see his breast heaving and his hands clutching at the wet wall behind him. Presently he raised his face and flung back his head, as if he were faint or gasping for breath. The garish lamplight fell full on his countenance, which gave Luc a genuine start of surprise. It was the most perfectly beautiful, the most attractive face he had ever seen in man or woman, in painting or sculpture, or, indeed, ever imagined. M. de Richelieu’s charm was as nothing compared to the grandeur of this face, which seemed to hold the flower and perfection of human loveliness even now, when the eyes were closed and the colouring hidden by the ill-light.The expression of the man was as remarkable as his beauty. Luc had never seen such anguish, such fear, such utter terror on any countenance of all the dying and dead he had ever looked on in the war; it was a haunted look—the look a poet might conceive for a damned soul.After a full moment the man pulled himself together with a long shudder and knocked again desperately. This time the door was opened almost instantly, and he staggered into the house, leaving his cane and hat on the cobbles.A second after the door was opened again and a servant stepped out, picked up the beaver and cane, retired, and softly closed the door.The curious little incident seemed over. Luc stepped back into his room, now in total darkness, and was about to call for candles when the window directly opposite suddenly flashed full of crystal light.From where Luc stood he had a complete picture of the interior of this room where the light had appeared; it was a very luxurious apartment, and gleamed the colour of an opal across the dusky street. But Luc’s attention was arrested, not by the room, but by the two people within it: one was the gentleman who had just entered the house, the other a woman of exquisite fairness wearing a gown of white lace and grey silk. When Luc first looked across she was holding the man by the shoulders and gazing anxiously into his face; with a languid movement of loathing and fear he put her hands down. An overblown white rose fell from his cravat and scattered its petals on the polished floor between them. The lady made a movement of considerable alarm and distress, and the gentleman, who seemed never to look at her, cast himself along a gilt couch, and Luc had another glimpse of his perfect face, with the expression of almost unendurable fear and gloom, as he raised it for a moment before hiding it in the satin cushions.The lady, who was herself of great beauty, seemed both angry and frightened. She retreated from the couch, then, with an obvious start, saw the uncovered window, came across the room and impatiently lowered the heavy velvet curtain, which, falling into place, completely shut the rest of the little scene from Luc’s gaze.
Luc de Clapiers stood on the Pont Neuf gazing over the great city.
Below him curled the strong grey river that surged and swirled round the stout central pier of the bridge; barges and boats with drab and russet sails were passing up and down on the tide; from either bank rose the fine tourelles, the splendid buildings, the straight houses and tall churches of Paris.
The day was sunless, the sky heavy with loose clouds; the steady, cheerful life of the city passed Luc in chariots, coaches, sedans, on foot, and was absorbed into the fashionable quarters on the left and the poorer quarters on the right.
Luc was acutely aware how complete a sense of isolation and of loneliness this standing against the parapet of a bridge with busy footsteps passing and never stopping gave him; all these people were going to, or coming from, somewhere; all might be imagined as having some definite occupation or pleasure or purpose; all might be considered as knowing this city well, as having some claim on it, if only the claim of familiarity, while he was a stranger with his place still to find.
He had been in Paris a fortnight, and it was extraordinary how like a shut door the city still seemed to him; he felt more utterly apart from the spirit, motion, and meaning of the capital than he had ever done when in Aix.
Inscrutable buildings portentous with locked secrets, inscrutable river laden with boats going with unknown cargoes to unknown destinations, inscrutable faces of rich and poor passing to and fro, beautiful youth in a chariot flashing across the public way to be absorbed in a narrow turning and seen no more, old age on foot vanishing painfully in the dusk; the crowd leaving the opera, the play, with pomp and laughter and comment; the shopkeepers behind their counters, the idlers about the cafés, the priests, the sudden black splendour of a funeral with candles looking strange in the daylight and the crucifix exacting the homage of bent knees, all inscrutable to those who held not the key of it, passing and repassing about the river, and the Louvre and the church on the isle.
Mingled with these actual objects were the spiritual forces of which the city was full, and which were to Luc fully as potent as the things he saw; the air was full of an extraordinary inspiration, as if every man who had struggled and thought and died in Paris had left some part of his aspirations behind to enrich the city.
A wonderful gorgeous history was held in the stones of the ancient buildings, in the holy glooms of the churches, in the crooked lines of the famous streets; her children bloomed and faded, but the city itself was imperishable, a thing never to be touched with decay.
No one once loving this city could ever love another so well.
Luc found the immortal charm of Paris enwrapping him with a sad power; she was the cradle of all the glory of the Western world, the epitome of all that man had achieved in this his last civilization; she had seen all his passions burn themselves out and live again. But as yet Luc was on her threshold, unadmitted, unnoticed.
None of his three letters had been answered. The truth of M. de Biron’s advice was being proved every day: he was neither wanted nor heeded; there was no place ready for him nor any hand held out to welcome. Yet Luc, leaning against the heavy parapet and listening to the steady sound of the passing footsteps, watching the deep eddies of the water and the grey outlines of the buildings, felt no discouragement; he measured his soul against even the mighty city, and found it sufficient.
Last night he had walked past the hotel from which the Countess Carola had written. There had been a festival within; all the windows were lit, and the courtyard was blocked with carriages.
Luc had smiled to think of her dancing behind those walls—what if he had come into her presence and asserted his claim to friendship based on that march of horror from Prague?
He had not entered her mansion, nor did he think of waiting on her; why he could not tell, save that all his life he had shrunk from putting his dreams to the test of actuality: and he had dreams about the Countess Carola, visions of her and pleasant imaginings, but no knowledge; he did not care to alter this delicate attitude towards the only woman who had ever interested him. No visions clouded his remembrance of Clémence de Séguy: she stood out in his mind, clear-cut and definite; he thought he knew her perfectly, to the bottom of her simple soul.
She was pleasant to think on; he conjured up her picture now, rosy, enveloped in a multitude of frills and ribbons—the grey city seemed the greyer by contrast.
Then the mighty currents of the river swept away her picture as a rose-leaf is swept away by a torrent, and the swish of it against the ancient bridge beat on the heart of Luc the three words: endeavour—achievement—fame.
The dusk was gathering, blurring the lines of the city, and a fine rain began to fall. Luc moved from his station, and walked slowly back to his lodgings in the fashionable Rue du Bac; his father had insisted on his living with proper magnificence, and Luc felt his only sting of failure when he considered the so far useless expenses.
When he entered his quiet, handsome rooms he found a letter.
His servant had been to the inn that Luc had given as his Paris address, and had found this missive, which had been left the previous day by a lackey whose splendour had startled the host. Luc’s heart fluttered; he thought of the King, of M. Amelot——
When he had torn the seal, he saw it was from M. de Voltaire.
The great man wrote with charm, with generous frankness: he praised his young correspondent’s taste, yet pointed out where it went astray; he warmly encouraged the love of literature, the thirst for knowledge—he hoped the Marquis would write to him again.
Luc put the letter down with a thrill of pure, intense pleasure; the blood flushed into his cheeks and his heart beat quickly; at that moment he felt an adoration for its writer.
He did not notice the darkening room, the rain that was falling steadily without; he sat motionless on the stiff striped sofa forming picture after picture of endless glory, for all his winged fancies had been stirred into life by this encouragement.
Presently, before the room was quite dark, he wrote the following letter to M. Amelot:—
“Monseigneur,—I am sufficiently disappointed that the letter I have had the honour to write to you, and that which I sent under cover to you for the King, have not attracted your attention.“It is not surprising, perhaps, that a Minister so occupied should not find time to examine such letters; but, Monseigneur, permit me to tell you that it is this discouragement, given to those gentlemen who have nothing to offer but their loyalty, that causes the coldness so often remarked in the provincial nobility and extinguishes in them all emulation for court favour.“I have passed, Monseigneur, all my youth far from the distractions of the world, in tasks that render me fit for the position towards which my character impels me, and I dare to think that a training so laborious puts me, at least, on a level with those who have spent all their fortune on their intrigues and their pleasures. I am well aware, Monseigneur, that the hopes that I have founded on my own ardour are likely to be deceived; my health will not permit me to continue my services at the war. I have written to M. le Duc de Biron asking him to accept my resignation, and there remains nothing to me in my present situation but to again put my case before you, Monseigneur, and to await the grace of your reply. Pardon me, Monseigneur, if this letter is not sufficiently measured in expression.—I am, Monseigneur, your devoted servant,“Vauvenargues”
“Monseigneur,—I am sufficiently disappointed that the letter I have had the honour to write to you, and that which I sent under cover to you for the King, have not attracted your attention.
“It is not surprising, perhaps, that a Minister so occupied should not find time to examine such letters; but, Monseigneur, permit me to tell you that it is this discouragement, given to those gentlemen who have nothing to offer but their loyalty, that causes the coldness so often remarked in the provincial nobility and extinguishes in them all emulation for court favour.
“I have passed, Monseigneur, all my youth far from the distractions of the world, in tasks that render me fit for the position towards which my character impels me, and I dare to think that a training so laborious puts me, at least, on a level with those who have spent all their fortune on their intrigues and their pleasures. I am well aware, Monseigneur, that the hopes that I have founded on my own ardour are likely to be deceived; my health will not permit me to continue my services at the war. I have written to M. le Duc de Biron asking him to accept my resignation, and there remains nothing to me in my present situation but to again put my case before you, Monseigneur, and to await the grace of your reply. Pardon me, Monseigneur, if this letter is not sufficiently measured in expression.—I am, Monseigneur, your devoted servant,
“Vauvenargues”
This letter was written in a breath and on the instant sealed and dispatched; the inspiration to write it had come from the few lines of M. de Voltaire’s note. It was not a letter many would have sent to a Minister. Luc was not versed in the method of addressing the great; he wrote from his heart, urged on by the burning desire for action, for achievement, for fame.
When the letter had gone he went to the window and looked out on the steady rain and straight-fronted houses, lit with the glimmer of oil lamps, that hid Paris from his vision.
What was the cloud, the confusion, the barrier that came between him and the attainment of his desires? There was some key somewhere that unlocked the door of Paris, of life—of that life which meant the scope to exercise, to strain the energies, to put the utmost into endeavour. Where was such a life?
For ten years Luc had been waiting—always round the corner was the promised goal—everything had been beautiful with the glamour of romance. But, looked at coldly, what had these ten years been but wasted? Luc was starting fresh on another road, and seemed as far as ever from the summit of his ambitions. Yet it could not be possible that he was going to remain for ever obscure; he could not believe that.
There was a little narrow balcony with a fine railing before his window. Luc drew the curtains, opened the wet glass, and stepped out. The air was pure and clear, the rain fresh and delicate. The long twisted length of the Rue du Bac glistened with the reflected light of the pools between the cobbles.
Luc thrilled to the mystery and inspiration of the silent city with its hidden activities, to the subtle pleasure of the rain and the lamplight. He thought—he knew not why—of the King, young, ardent, brave, with the riches of the world rolled to his feet—the King—of France!
Luc shivered even to imagine the glorious pride of that position. He leant on the railing, regardless of the rain that was falling, and looked up and down the street that was all he could see of Paris.
A sedan-chair came from the direction of the river, carried by two bearers in plain livery; it was—though Luc did not recognize it as such—a hired chair. It stopped at the house nearly opposite Luc. A gentleman put his head out and said something in a low voice; the chair moved a few doors higher up. Meanwhile from the opposite end of the street came two other men carrying, not a sedan-chair, but a large black coffin, on the lid of which was a shield-shaped plate that threw off the hesitating rays of the lamplight.
Luc watched with interest; his mood was too exalted to feel any horror at the sudden appearance of this sombre object. These little pictures shown him by the great city attracted him strangely. The sedan-chair had stopped; a tall gentleman had alighted and paid the bearers, who turned back the way they had come. None of them noticed what was being borne, shoulder high, towards them.
The sedan passed round a turn of the street out of sight, the late occupant hesitated a second, then came back to the house exactly opposite Luc, who stood only a few feet above him, and could observe him perfectly in the strong beams of the powerful lamp which at this point was swung across the street by a rope from house to house.
The gentleman was unusually tall and of an unusual grace and perfect balance in his walk. He was wrapped in the close, elegant folds of a fine fawn cloth cloak, and wore a black hat pulled well over his eyes. He approached the door and, putting out a hand gloved in white doeskin, knocked four times in succession.
At this moment the coffin-bearers, with a slow, steady, silent step, had reached the point where he stood, and he, all unconscious, stepped backwards and looked up at the windows of the house where he sought admission (which were all in darkness), and in so doing ran against the foremost man and the foot of the coffin. The street was narrow indeed at this place, and the men, in endeavouring to avoid a collision, made a misstep and thrust the gentleman against the wall with the side of the coffin.
He gave a cry that Luc heard distinctly—a terrible sound of terror, amaze, and despair—and threw up his hands, dropping the cane he carried. The coffin-bearers recovered their balance and passed on muttering, but the gentleman remained crouching against the wall, staring after them, with no effort to move. His terror was so evident and so incomprehensible that Luc held his breath to watch. The stranger’s hat had fallen off, and his full powdered curls were uncovered. Luc could see his breast heaving and his hands clutching at the wet wall behind him. Presently he raised his face and flung back his head, as if he were faint or gasping for breath. The garish lamplight fell full on his countenance, which gave Luc a genuine start of surprise. It was the most perfectly beautiful, the most attractive face he had ever seen in man or woman, in painting or sculpture, or, indeed, ever imagined. M. de Richelieu’s charm was as nothing compared to the grandeur of this face, which seemed to hold the flower and perfection of human loveliness even now, when the eyes were closed and the colouring hidden by the ill-light.
The expression of the man was as remarkable as his beauty. Luc had never seen such anguish, such fear, such utter terror on any countenance of all the dying and dead he had ever looked on in the war; it was a haunted look—the look a poet might conceive for a damned soul.
After a full moment the man pulled himself together with a long shudder and knocked again desperately. This time the door was opened almost instantly, and he staggered into the house, leaving his cane and hat on the cobbles.
A second after the door was opened again and a servant stepped out, picked up the beaver and cane, retired, and softly closed the door.
The curious little incident seemed over. Luc stepped back into his room, now in total darkness, and was about to call for candles when the window directly opposite suddenly flashed full of crystal light.
From where Luc stood he had a complete picture of the interior of this room where the light had appeared; it was a very luxurious apartment, and gleamed the colour of an opal across the dusky street. But Luc’s attention was arrested, not by the room, but by the two people within it: one was the gentleman who had just entered the house, the other a woman of exquisite fairness wearing a gown of white lace and grey silk. When Luc first looked across she was holding the man by the shoulders and gazing anxiously into his face; with a languid movement of loathing and fear he put her hands down. An overblown white rose fell from his cravat and scattered its petals on the polished floor between them. The lady made a movement of considerable alarm and distress, and the gentleman, who seemed never to look at her, cast himself along a gilt couch, and Luc had another glimpse of his perfect face, with the expression of almost unendurable fear and gloom, as he raised it for a moment before hiding it in the satin cushions.
The lady, who was herself of great beauty, seemed both angry and frightened. She retreated from the couch, then, with an obvious start, saw the uncovered window, came across the room and impatiently lowered the heavy velvet curtain, which, falling into place, completely shut the rest of the little scene from Luc’s gaze.
CHAPTER IIA WALLED GARDENLuc made little of the incident of the house opposite, but had enough curiosity to ask the doorkeeper of his own hotel who owned the mansion, for the extraordinary beauty and terror of the tall man who had arrived in the sedan remained in his mind even through other thoughts. He was told that both the houses opposite were empty, and only inhabited by a caretaker. It was believed they belonged to some noble who was always at Versailles; at least it was not supposed that they were for sale. Luc, considerably surprised, was drawn by this to give some attention to the house where he had last night observed the little scene through the first-floor window. It was, like the neighbouring mansion, closed and shuttered, and had an air of long desertion; no sign nor coat of arms nor any ornamentation distinguished it. It was neither large nor pretentious, boasted no courtyard, nor even a lamp over the plain door. It became clear to Luc that it was used for some intrigue, romantic, political, sordid, or commonplace, and that last night the lady, shaken out of long caution by her companion’s terror, had carried a lamp into a front room, forgetting that the shutters had been taken down. Luc would have thought no more of it, save that he could not easily dismiss the unusual beauty of the face upturned in the lamplight, nor the peculiar sick terror shown by a man, presumably on a gallant adventure, at the, after all, common enough sight of a coffin being carried through the streets.Yet soon enough his own affairs engrossed him wholly, and the silent little drama was dismissed from his mind.He answered M. Voltaire’s letter; he longed to wait on him, but dare not intrude on the great man. M. de Caumont was now in Paris, and Luc went to see him, taking the eulogy written on his son, Hippolyte de Seytres. M. de Caumont was warm and pleasant, but Luc was not inspired to show the tender words he had written on his dead friend. M. de Caumont was not like his son. Luc keenly felt the difference; his native shyness rushed over him and tied his tongue. He spoke neither of his hopes, his letter to M. Amelot, nor of M. de Voltaire’s letter to him. He left M. de Caumont’s hotel with a feeling of slight depression, and was walking absorbed in sad thought down the quiet street when a coach drew up and Carola Koklinska’s voice hailed him.Luc paused and uncovered. The coach was at a standstill beside the posts that divided the footway from the road; the blind had been pulled aside, and the lady was looking from the window. Luc had recognized her voice instantly; he would not so soon have recognized her person. She wore a dark red “capuchin” closed under the chin, and her hair showed in the folds of it, white and stiff with pomade.“You in Paris!” she said swiftly. “Why was I not to know?” she added gravely.His real reasons would have seemed absurd in speech, and he was slow with inventions; he blushed and looked at her seriously.“I am going home,” said Carola. “Will you come with me, Monsieur? I have a garden I should like to show you.”He bowed in acceptance, still silent. Her lackey dismounted from behind and opened the coach door; Luc stepped into the interior, which was lined with white satin and full of a keen perfume.He took the seat opposite the Countess; she occupied the whole of hers with her full skirts, which were of gold brocade of an unusual Eastern pattern, and the long clinging folds of the crimson “capuchin.”Her dark face looked the darker for the powdered hair; the cheeks were still hollow, but all her outline was curved and soft, and her lips were a warm, pale red; her rather sombre eyes were clear and reflective in expression. She wore diamond ear-rings of remarkable size and brilliance, and all her garments and the appointments of her coach showed of noticeable richness. Luc reflected how unaware of her wealth and position he had been when they were climbing the Bohemian rocks together.“I thought you would come to Paris,” she remarked. “Do you wish to enter politics? You should be at Versailles.”“Why, perhaps, Madame,” assented Luc. “But Paris is very interesting to one who knows so little of the cities of the world as myself.”She gave him a full look.“Oh,” she said slowly; then she added, “But you must meet people, know people, court people—and every one worth meeting, knowing, courting is at Versailles. Shall I help you?”“I should be deeply grateful,” answered the Marquis simply. “I have no acquaintances at the Court.”Carola did not answer; she was gazing out of the window. He had already, in Bohemia, guessed her to be a woman of few words, and this impression was confirmed, for the only opening for conversation they had—the campaign of last year—she never mentioned.The coach drove soon through the massive gates of an hotel that Luc took to be the residence of her brother-in-law, and the Marquis handed her out at the steps of the fine door; it was not the house that had been pointed out to him as the Hôtel Dubussy. As he alighted he noticed a light curricle pass along the street driven by a lady ostentatiously placed high and alone on the box with a black servant behind. Her dress was pale and showy; veils and ribbons flew behind her. The passers-by stared, and so did Luc, for he recognized in her fair, slightly over-opulent beauty the woman whom he had seen last night in the house opposite.“Who is that lady?” he asked, for the Countess was looking at her very keenly.Carola again gave him her full, almost blank glance.“I do not know,” she answered, rather strangely, he thought, then added, all in a breath, “Do not let us go into the house; I want to show you the garden.”She led the way to a door at the side of the mansion—a tall door with a ring-shaped handle—and, opening it, beckoned the Marquis to follow her. They went down a narrow stone passage with a wall one side and the house the other; then the opening of another gate admitted them into the garden.Luc had been prepared for splendour of statuary, walk, arbour, and fountain, after the designs of Lenôtre, or perhaps some Eastern fantasy of trellises and hanging creepers. What he saw, as Carola Koklinska motioned him to pass her, was utterly different.He found himself in a large garden bounded by high walls on all sides save one, where the sombre, dark pile of the mansion overshadowed it; a narrow, neglected gravel path ran round under the walls, from which it was only separated by an unkempt edging of long grass and thick-leaved weeds. At the extreme end of the garden, which was of considerable length, was a row of seven very tall poplar trees which caught the last rays of sunlight in their topmost branches. For the rest the garden was a mere stretch of fresh May-time grass neglected and growing tall enough to bend in a sad fashion before the slight evening breeze.Near the poplars was a plain wooden seat, and behind this showed the sole flowers in the garden—a clump of wallflowers growing out of, and on, the high brick wall.Luc noticed the poplars first, for their great height and straightness reminded him of the silver firs in Bohemia, then the flowers, their sturdy charm and the bold lustre of their colouring.“Do you like this place, Monsieur?” asked Carola, as she closed the door behind her.“It reminds me of a convent or a prison, Madame,” he answered; “but it is doubtless a fair place for meditation.”They were walking slowly down the gravel path, towards the poplar trees. Luc looked back and saw that the windows of the house were all shuttered, and that there was no sign of life.“Is this your sister’s hotel, Countess?” he asked.“No,” she answered; “mine. I told you that I came to Paris to attend the Queen; but I have left that employment. I lead a life of leisure. I am not so often at the Court.”“Forgive me,” he said, for he felt as if he had asked her for an explanation; “but I thought you wrote to me from the Hôtel Dubussy——”“I did,” she interrupted. “Madame Dubussy is my sister; but I no longer live there.”Luc looked at her and smiled.“Do you know that I passed her house the other night and wondered if you were within? There was a great festival. Some one told me it was the Hôtel Dubussy, but when I saw this house I thought perhaps I had been mistaken.”Carola drew the slim folds of the red “capuchin” over her stiff skirts.“You are now in my house, a little outside the Porte St. Antoine. It is rather a lonely part of Paris,” she said. “I have not been to my sister’s house for some weeks.”Luc did not answer. He liked her measured speech; she was careful with words. His rare dealings with women had taught him that it was an unusual gift in them. Even his mother at times threw words about in a cloud regardless of their meaning, almost of their sense, and he had known little Clémence de Séguy deal in tangled periods that left her panting and worsted by her own language. But Carola used the foreign tongue that was so familiar to her with cautious care; her almost hesitating choice of sentences gave her a marvellous air of sincerity.“Perhaps,” she continued, “you are wondering why I live here. You used to call me ‘Mademoiselle’ in Bohemia, but I am a widow.”This fact, that explained both her wealth and her freedom, gave him that shock always given by a discovery about some one of whom we have known nothing, but imagined much.“I should have realized that, I think,” he said simply; “but you seemed to me very young, Madame.”They had now reached the bench under the wallflowers. Carola seated herself.“I am thirty,” she said; “I looked the same at twenty. The man I was with in Bohemia was my husband’s brother. Madame Dubussy is his sister. Now tell me about yourself. Why did you come to Paris?”Luc smiled; his whole exquisite face changed and lit. There was nothing in his heart that he could explain to a woman; the idea of it made him smile.“I intend to enter politics, as you surmised,” he answered. “I am a poor man, Madame, and have had to begin my career afresh.”“Did they want you to remain in Aix?” she asked.“My family? Yes.”“But you have a great ambition, Monsieur.”He was still smiling.“How do you know so much about me?” he asked.For the first time an expression came into her serene voice; it was an expression of tenderness.“Anyone would know everything about you, Monsieur, by looking at your face,” she answered; then she turned and picked a spray of wallflower from behind her and turned it over and over between her fingers.The Marquis seated himself on the other end of the bench; he was wondering what whim caused her to keep this dreary, closed-in, barren garden, what fancy made her bring him there, where they were as remote from the world as they had been when enwrapped by the Bohemian snowstorms.The whole square of grass was in shadow; only in the upper leaves of the poplars the reluctant light still quivered. The air was rather cool and the sky a dome of colourless light.“There is a street at the end of the garden,” said Carola—“the Rue Deauville, still the place is very quiet.”“Will you continue to live here?” he asked, for this abode seemed neither like her home nor the residence of any wealthy noblewoman, pretentious to stateliness though it was.“No,” answered the Countess. “I am going to Vienna this summer.”She was still occupied in twirling the sprig of wallflower and did not raise her eyes. The gorgeous quality of her appearance, delicate and complete, was an anomaly with the humble and neglected garden. Her hood had slipped back, and the long, stiff grey curls hung against her neck and threw up the dusky shadow under her chin.“It is strange enough,” said Luc, “that we two, meeting so curiously in war-time, should be sitting here in this utter peace.”“Do you regret the war?” she asked.He would not answer that. She saw the pride that held him silent in the profile turned towards her.“You are better suited,” she said, “for war than politics, Monsieur.”She was looking now at him, not at the flower turning in her fingers.“My God,” she cried, with sudden soft force, “I wonder if you know what kind of work politics is!”He thought of M. de Richelieu.“I know well enough,” he said; “but there are great men still in France, and I am resolved to serve the King.”“Have you seen the King?” she asked quickly.“No, Madame.”“Ah, well, they call him Louis the Well-Beloved, do they not?”“How could he be otherwise—young, glorious, brave, the hope of France?” A flash came into his voice and he raised his brows in a little frown, as was his habit when excited.Carola Koklinska moved in her seat, so that her silk mantle fell apart over the long sheen of her gold gown.“You must come to the fête at Versailles next week,” she said.“M. de Caumont, who is a friend of my family, requested my presence there with him,” answered Luc. “Shall I see you there, Madame?”“Yes—oh yes.”Luc was pleased with this meeting. Carola’s gravity, reserve, the slight mystery of her background all encouraged the abstract ideas of strength, purity, and spirituality that he had associated with her image.“I have often thought of you,” he said, with a very tender chivalry, “and always as an inspiration.”She coloured painfully.“You are on the quest of glory, are you not?” she asked in a breath.“You have my secret,” he answered, half wistfully, half proudly. For the moment both his reserve and his strength gave way before the impulse to utterly confide in this strange, cold creature and take her comfort, her admonitions, maybe her praise; but he checked the desire, though she might have read it in his hazel eyes as he turned them softly, yet mysteriously, on her. She rose, and he hardened instantly into utter reserve.“I have no company to-night, or I would desire you to stay,” she said. “Some time you must come. I hope you will be very successful, Monsieur le Marquis.”The words were very formal, but as she spoke she held out her right hand. Luc took it as he formed his answer, and dropped his grave eyes from her face to her fingers.A curious little shock of surprise and dismay brought the colour to his cheeks. On the Countess’s forefinger was a diamond ring curiously set round with points formed of sapphires—the very jewel Luc had flung at the feet of the page in the Governor’s house at Avignon, or its exact counterpart.“Why are you silent?” she asked rather haughtily, and withdrew her hand.“The ring you wear reminded me of another I saw in the possession of some one so different from you, Countess, that the mere connexion gave me a start.”“Which ring?” She wore several.“The diamond, Madame, on your first finger.”“That is very extraordinary!” she exclaimed.“In what way, Madame?”She flushed now.“Oh, I did not know there were two such rings, that is all.” She seemed desirous of dismissing the subject, and he had no excuse for pressing it, though he wondered that she should not carelessly have told him how she came by the jewel, and so have set at rest his first impression—that she was wearing the actual jewel M. de Richelieu had offered him as a bribe.“I hope I shall see you at Versailles,” she said. She was walking towards the gate, and her stiff skirts rustled on the untidy gravel path. “I think you are on a sorrowful quest,” she added timidly; “forgive me.”“Believe me that I am happy,” he answered gravely.Above the dark bulk of the house was the primrose-coloured moon, a thin crescent; there was a shiver in the air. Luc looked at the Countess, and thought that her eyes were suddenly flushed with tears.“If I could help you, if I could prevent it,” she began passionately, then checked herself and held out, curiously enough, her left hand. “Good-bye,” she said.He kissed her fingers and left her. As he passed along the darkening street before her house he thought that he had never known the fading of the sky and the first glimmering of the moon of such poignant beauty.
Luc made little of the incident of the house opposite, but had enough curiosity to ask the doorkeeper of his own hotel who owned the mansion, for the extraordinary beauty and terror of the tall man who had arrived in the sedan remained in his mind even through other thoughts. He was told that both the houses opposite were empty, and only inhabited by a caretaker. It was believed they belonged to some noble who was always at Versailles; at least it was not supposed that they were for sale. Luc, considerably surprised, was drawn by this to give some attention to the house where he had last night observed the little scene through the first-floor window. It was, like the neighbouring mansion, closed and shuttered, and had an air of long desertion; no sign nor coat of arms nor any ornamentation distinguished it. It was neither large nor pretentious, boasted no courtyard, nor even a lamp over the plain door. It became clear to Luc that it was used for some intrigue, romantic, political, sordid, or commonplace, and that last night the lady, shaken out of long caution by her companion’s terror, had carried a lamp into a front room, forgetting that the shutters had been taken down. Luc would have thought no more of it, save that he could not easily dismiss the unusual beauty of the face upturned in the lamplight, nor the peculiar sick terror shown by a man, presumably on a gallant adventure, at the, after all, common enough sight of a coffin being carried through the streets.
Yet soon enough his own affairs engrossed him wholly, and the silent little drama was dismissed from his mind.
He answered M. Voltaire’s letter; he longed to wait on him, but dare not intrude on the great man. M. de Caumont was now in Paris, and Luc went to see him, taking the eulogy written on his son, Hippolyte de Seytres. M. de Caumont was warm and pleasant, but Luc was not inspired to show the tender words he had written on his dead friend. M. de Caumont was not like his son. Luc keenly felt the difference; his native shyness rushed over him and tied his tongue. He spoke neither of his hopes, his letter to M. Amelot, nor of M. de Voltaire’s letter to him. He left M. de Caumont’s hotel with a feeling of slight depression, and was walking absorbed in sad thought down the quiet street when a coach drew up and Carola Koklinska’s voice hailed him.
Luc paused and uncovered. The coach was at a standstill beside the posts that divided the footway from the road; the blind had been pulled aside, and the lady was looking from the window. Luc had recognized her voice instantly; he would not so soon have recognized her person. She wore a dark red “capuchin” closed under the chin, and her hair showed in the folds of it, white and stiff with pomade.
“You in Paris!” she said swiftly. “Why was I not to know?” she added gravely.
His real reasons would have seemed absurd in speech, and he was slow with inventions; he blushed and looked at her seriously.
“I am going home,” said Carola. “Will you come with me, Monsieur? I have a garden I should like to show you.”
He bowed in acceptance, still silent. Her lackey dismounted from behind and opened the coach door; Luc stepped into the interior, which was lined with white satin and full of a keen perfume.
He took the seat opposite the Countess; she occupied the whole of hers with her full skirts, which were of gold brocade of an unusual Eastern pattern, and the long clinging folds of the crimson “capuchin.”
Her dark face looked the darker for the powdered hair; the cheeks were still hollow, but all her outline was curved and soft, and her lips were a warm, pale red; her rather sombre eyes were clear and reflective in expression. She wore diamond ear-rings of remarkable size and brilliance, and all her garments and the appointments of her coach showed of noticeable richness. Luc reflected how unaware of her wealth and position he had been when they were climbing the Bohemian rocks together.
“I thought you would come to Paris,” she remarked. “Do you wish to enter politics? You should be at Versailles.”
“Why, perhaps, Madame,” assented Luc. “But Paris is very interesting to one who knows so little of the cities of the world as myself.”
She gave him a full look.
“Oh,” she said slowly; then she added, “But you must meet people, know people, court people—and every one worth meeting, knowing, courting is at Versailles. Shall I help you?”
“I should be deeply grateful,” answered the Marquis simply. “I have no acquaintances at the Court.”
Carola did not answer; she was gazing out of the window. He had already, in Bohemia, guessed her to be a woman of few words, and this impression was confirmed, for the only opening for conversation they had—the campaign of last year—she never mentioned.
The coach drove soon through the massive gates of an hotel that Luc took to be the residence of her brother-in-law, and the Marquis handed her out at the steps of the fine door; it was not the house that had been pointed out to him as the Hôtel Dubussy. As he alighted he noticed a light curricle pass along the street driven by a lady ostentatiously placed high and alone on the box with a black servant behind. Her dress was pale and showy; veils and ribbons flew behind her. The passers-by stared, and so did Luc, for he recognized in her fair, slightly over-opulent beauty the woman whom he had seen last night in the house opposite.
“Who is that lady?” he asked, for the Countess was looking at her very keenly.
Carola again gave him her full, almost blank glance.
“I do not know,” she answered, rather strangely, he thought, then added, all in a breath, “Do not let us go into the house; I want to show you the garden.”
She led the way to a door at the side of the mansion—a tall door with a ring-shaped handle—and, opening it, beckoned the Marquis to follow her. They went down a narrow stone passage with a wall one side and the house the other; then the opening of another gate admitted them into the garden.
Luc had been prepared for splendour of statuary, walk, arbour, and fountain, after the designs of Lenôtre, or perhaps some Eastern fantasy of trellises and hanging creepers. What he saw, as Carola Koklinska motioned him to pass her, was utterly different.
He found himself in a large garden bounded by high walls on all sides save one, where the sombre, dark pile of the mansion overshadowed it; a narrow, neglected gravel path ran round under the walls, from which it was only separated by an unkempt edging of long grass and thick-leaved weeds. At the extreme end of the garden, which was of considerable length, was a row of seven very tall poplar trees which caught the last rays of sunlight in their topmost branches. For the rest the garden was a mere stretch of fresh May-time grass neglected and growing tall enough to bend in a sad fashion before the slight evening breeze.
Near the poplars was a plain wooden seat, and behind this showed the sole flowers in the garden—a clump of wallflowers growing out of, and on, the high brick wall.
Luc noticed the poplars first, for their great height and straightness reminded him of the silver firs in Bohemia, then the flowers, their sturdy charm and the bold lustre of their colouring.
“Do you like this place, Monsieur?” asked Carola, as she closed the door behind her.
“It reminds me of a convent or a prison, Madame,” he answered; “but it is doubtless a fair place for meditation.”
They were walking slowly down the gravel path, towards the poplar trees. Luc looked back and saw that the windows of the house were all shuttered, and that there was no sign of life.
“Is this your sister’s hotel, Countess?” he asked.
“No,” she answered; “mine. I told you that I came to Paris to attend the Queen; but I have left that employment. I lead a life of leisure. I am not so often at the Court.”
“Forgive me,” he said, for he felt as if he had asked her for an explanation; “but I thought you wrote to me from the Hôtel Dubussy——”
“I did,” she interrupted. “Madame Dubussy is my sister; but I no longer live there.”
Luc looked at her and smiled.
“Do you know that I passed her house the other night and wondered if you were within? There was a great festival. Some one told me it was the Hôtel Dubussy, but when I saw this house I thought perhaps I had been mistaken.”
Carola drew the slim folds of the red “capuchin” over her stiff skirts.
“You are now in my house, a little outside the Porte St. Antoine. It is rather a lonely part of Paris,” she said. “I have not been to my sister’s house for some weeks.”
Luc did not answer. He liked her measured speech; she was careful with words. His rare dealings with women had taught him that it was an unusual gift in them. Even his mother at times threw words about in a cloud regardless of their meaning, almost of their sense, and he had known little Clémence de Séguy deal in tangled periods that left her panting and worsted by her own language. But Carola used the foreign tongue that was so familiar to her with cautious care; her almost hesitating choice of sentences gave her a marvellous air of sincerity.
“Perhaps,” she continued, “you are wondering why I live here. You used to call me ‘Mademoiselle’ in Bohemia, but I am a widow.”
This fact, that explained both her wealth and her freedom, gave him that shock always given by a discovery about some one of whom we have known nothing, but imagined much.
“I should have realized that, I think,” he said simply; “but you seemed to me very young, Madame.”
They had now reached the bench under the wallflowers. Carola seated herself.
“I am thirty,” she said; “I looked the same at twenty. The man I was with in Bohemia was my husband’s brother. Madame Dubussy is his sister. Now tell me about yourself. Why did you come to Paris?”
Luc smiled; his whole exquisite face changed and lit. There was nothing in his heart that he could explain to a woman; the idea of it made him smile.
“I intend to enter politics, as you surmised,” he answered. “I am a poor man, Madame, and have had to begin my career afresh.”
“Did they want you to remain in Aix?” she asked.
“My family? Yes.”
“But you have a great ambition, Monsieur.”
He was still smiling.
“How do you know so much about me?” he asked.
For the first time an expression came into her serene voice; it was an expression of tenderness.
“Anyone would know everything about you, Monsieur, by looking at your face,” she answered; then she turned and picked a spray of wallflower from behind her and turned it over and over between her fingers.
The Marquis seated himself on the other end of the bench; he was wondering what whim caused her to keep this dreary, closed-in, barren garden, what fancy made her bring him there, where they were as remote from the world as they had been when enwrapped by the Bohemian snowstorms.
The whole square of grass was in shadow; only in the upper leaves of the poplars the reluctant light still quivered. The air was rather cool and the sky a dome of colourless light.
“There is a street at the end of the garden,” said Carola—“the Rue Deauville, still the place is very quiet.”
“Will you continue to live here?” he asked, for this abode seemed neither like her home nor the residence of any wealthy noblewoman, pretentious to stateliness though it was.
“No,” answered the Countess. “I am going to Vienna this summer.”
She was still occupied in twirling the sprig of wallflower and did not raise her eyes. The gorgeous quality of her appearance, delicate and complete, was an anomaly with the humble and neglected garden. Her hood had slipped back, and the long, stiff grey curls hung against her neck and threw up the dusky shadow under her chin.
“It is strange enough,” said Luc, “that we two, meeting so curiously in war-time, should be sitting here in this utter peace.”
“Do you regret the war?” she asked.
He would not answer that. She saw the pride that held him silent in the profile turned towards her.
“You are better suited,” she said, “for war than politics, Monsieur.”
She was looking now at him, not at the flower turning in her fingers.
“My God,” she cried, with sudden soft force, “I wonder if you know what kind of work politics is!”
He thought of M. de Richelieu.
“I know well enough,” he said; “but there are great men still in France, and I am resolved to serve the King.”
“Have you seen the King?” she asked quickly.
“No, Madame.”
“Ah, well, they call him Louis the Well-Beloved, do they not?”
“How could he be otherwise—young, glorious, brave, the hope of France?” A flash came into his voice and he raised his brows in a little frown, as was his habit when excited.
Carola Koklinska moved in her seat, so that her silk mantle fell apart over the long sheen of her gold gown.
“You must come to the fête at Versailles next week,” she said.
“M. de Caumont, who is a friend of my family, requested my presence there with him,” answered Luc. “Shall I see you there, Madame?”
“Yes—oh yes.”
Luc was pleased with this meeting. Carola’s gravity, reserve, the slight mystery of her background all encouraged the abstract ideas of strength, purity, and spirituality that he had associated with her image.
“I have often thought of you,” he said, with a very tender chivalry, “and always as an inspiration.”
She coloured painfully.
“You are on the quest of glory, are you not?” she asked in a breath.
“You have my secret,” he answered, half wistfully, half proudly. For the moment both his reserve and his strength gave way before the impulse to utterly confide in this strange, cold creature and take her comfort, her admonitions, maybe her praise; but he checked the desire, though she might have read it in his hazel eyes as he turned them softly, yet mysteriously, on her. She rose, and he hardened instantly into utter reserve.
“I have no company to-night, or I would desire you to stay,” she said. “Some time you must come. I hope you will be very successful, Monsieur le Marquis.”
The words were very formal, but as she spoke she held out her right hand. Luc took it as he formed his answer, and dropped his grave eyes from her face to her fingers.
A curious little shock of surprise and dismay brought the colour to his cheeks. On the Countess’s forefinger was a diamond ring curiously set round with points formed of sapphires—the very jewel Luc had flung at the feet of the page in the Governor’s house at Avignon, or its exact counterpart.
“Why are you silent?” she asked rather haughtily, and withdrew her hand.
“The ring you wear reminded me of another I saw in the possession of some one so different from you, Countess, that the mere connexion gave me a start.”
“Which ring?” She wore several.
“The diamond, Madame, on your first finger.”
“That is very extraordinary!” she exclaimed.
“In what way, Madame?”
She flushed now.
“Oh, I did not know there were two such rings, that is all.” She seemed desirous of dismissing the subject, and he had no excuse for pressing it, though he wondered that she should not carelessly have told him how she came by the jewel, and so have set at rest his first impression—that she was wearing the actual jewel M. de Richelieu had offered him as a bribe.
“I hope I shall see you at Versailles,” she said. She was walking towards the gate, and her stiff skirts rustled on the untidy gravel path. “I think you are on a sorrowful quest,” she added timidly; “forgive me.”
“Believe me that I am happy,” he answered gravely.
Above the dark bulk of the house was the primrose-coloured moon, a thin crescent; there was a shiver in the air. Luc looked at the Countess, and thought that her eyes were suddenly flushed with tears.
“If I could help you, if I could prevent it,” she began passionately, then checked herself and held out, curiously enough, her left hand. “Good-bye,” she said.
He kissed her fingers and left her. As he passed along the darkening street before her house he thought that he had never known the fading of the sky and the first glimmering of the moon of such poignant beauty.