Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave
an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."
Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you
saw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers--"
Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only
treasure I envy them," she said, firmly.
Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose
you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and
me?"
For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressing
effect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you."
Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily:
"Henri, you are the first in the world for me."
Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graver
rivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother's love."
"What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.
Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl's
love for a boy, a maid's love for a man. That pretty gentleman who was
here but now, and swore he adored you--if you were noble, could you love
such a man as he?"
Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instants
had been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "I
swear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love would
not be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."
In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something,
at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed to
laugh, too.
"What would he be like," he asked--"the wonder whom you would consent to
love?"
He spoke very merrily, but it racked his heart to speak thus lightly of
the love of Gabrielle. He wished that he were a little boy again, that he
might hide behind some tree and cry out his grief in bitter tears. But
being, as he reminded himself, a weather-beaten soldier of fortune, it
was his duty to screen his misery with a grin and to salute his doom with
amusement. As for Gabrielle, she came a little nearer to Lagardere, and
her eyes were shining very brightly, and her lips trembled a little, and
she seemed a little pale in the clear air.
"I will try to paint you a picture," she said, hesitatingly, "of the man
I"--she paused for a second, and then continued, hurriedly--"of the man I
could love. He would be about your height, as I should think, to the very
littlest of an inch; and he would be built as you are built, Henri; and
his hair would be of your color, and his eyes would have your fire; and
his voice would have the sound of your voice, the sweetest sound in the
world; and the sweetest sound of that most sweet voice would be when it
whispered to me that it loved me."
Lagardere looked at her with haggard, happy eyes. He could not
misunderstand, and he was happy; he dared not understand, and he was
sad.
"Gabrielle," he said, softly, "when you were a little maid I used to tell
you tales to entertain you. Will you let me spin you a fable now?"
The girl said nothing; only she nodded, and she looked at him very
fixedly. Lagardere went on:
"There was once a man, a soldier of fortune, an adventurous rogue, into
whose hands a jesting destiny confided a great trust. That trust was the
life of a child, of a girl, of a woman, whom it was his glory to defend
for a while with his sword against many enemies."
"I think he defended her very well," Gabrielle interrupted, gently.
Lagardere held up a warning finger.
"Hush," he said. "What I am speaking of took place ages ago, when the
world was ever so much younger, in the days of Charlemagne and Cæsar and
Achilles and other great princes long since withered, so you can know
nothing at all about it. But this rogue of my story had a sacred duty to
fulfil. He had to restore to this charge, this ward of his, the name, the
greatness, that had been stolen from her. It was his mission to give her
back the gifts which had been filched from her by treason. For seventeen
years he had lived for this purpose, and only for this purpose, crushing
all other thoughts, all other hopes, all other dreams. What would you say
of such a man, so sternly dedicated to so great a faith, if he were to
prove false to his trust, and to allow his own mad passion to blind him
to the light of loyalty, to deafen him to the call of honor?"
He was looking away from her as he spoke, but the girl came close to him
and caught his hands, and made him turn his face to her, and each saw
that the other's eyes were wet. Gabrielle spoke steadily, eagerly:
"You say that what you speak of happened very long ago. But we are to-day
as those were yesterday, and if I were the maid of your tale I would say
to the man that love is the best thing a true man can give to a true
woman, and that a woman who wore my body could lose no wealth, no
kingdom, to compare with the rich treasure of her lover's heart."
There was no mistaking the meaning of the girl, the meaning ringing in
her words, shining in her eyes, appealing in her out-stretched arms. To
Lagardere it seemed as if the kingdom of the world were offered to him.
He had but to keep silence, and his heart's desire was his. But he
remembered the night in the moat of Caylus, he remembered the purpose of
long years, he remembered his duty, he remembered his honor, and he
grappled with the dragon of passion, with the dragon of desire. Very
calmly he touched for a moment, with caressing hand, the hair of
Gabrielle. Very quietly he spoke.
"We are taking my fairy tale too gravely," he said. "It all happened long
ago, and has nothing to do with us. Our story is very different, and our
story is coming to a wonderful conclusion. This day is your last day of
doubt and ignorance, of solitude and poverty." He turned a little away
from her and murmured to himself: "It is also my last day of youth and
joy and hope."
Gabrielle pressed her hands against her breasts for a moment, like one in
great dismay. The tears welled into her eyes. Then she gave a little moan
of wonder and protest, and sprang towards him with out-stretched hands.
"Do you not understand?" she cried. "Henri, Henri, I love you."
Lagardere grasped the out-stretched hands, and in another moment would
have caught the girl in his arms, but a dry, crackling laugh arrested
him. Gently restraining Gabrielle's advance, he turned his head and saw
standing upon the bridge surveying him and Gabrielle a sinister figure.
It was Æsop, returning from his stroll with Monsieur Peyrolles, who had
paused on the bridge in cynical amusement of what he conceived to be a
lovers' meeting between countryman and countrymaid, but whose face now
flushed with a sudden interest as he recognized the face of the man in
the gypsy habit.
Lagardere turned again to Gabrielle, and his face was calm and smiling.
"Go in-doors," he said, pleasantly, "I will join you by-and-by."
Gabrielle, in her turn, had glanced at the sinister figure on the
bridge, and, seeing the malevolence of its attitude, of its expression,
had drawn back with a faint cry. "Henri," she said--"Henri, who is that
watching us? He looks so evil."
Lagardere had recognized Æsop as instantly as Æsop had recognized
Lagardere. Æsop now came slowly towards them, addressing them mockingly:
"Do not let me disturb you. Life is brief, but love is briefer."