He came into the room, humming a tune of the boulevards; the crimson
hangings swirled about him, the furniture swayed in aerial and thin-legged
minuets. He sank into a chair before the great mirror, supported by frail
love-gods, who contended for its possession. He viewed therein his pale and
grotesque reflection, and he laughed lightly. "Pardon, madame," he said,
"but my castles in the air are tumbling noisily about my ears. It is
difficult to think clearly amid the crashing of the battlements."
"I do not understand." The Duchess had lifted a rather grave and quite
incurious face as he entered the salon.
"My life," laughed the Duc de Puysange, "I assure you I am quite
incorrigible. I have just committed another abominable action; and I cry
_peccavi!_" He smote himself upon the breast, and sighed portentously. "I
accuse myself of eavesdropping."
"What is your meaning?" She had now risen to her feet.
"Nay, but I am requited," the Duke reassured her, and laughed with
discreetly tempered bitterness. "Figure to yourself, madame! I had
planned for us a life during which our new-born friendship was always to
endure untarnished. Eh bien, man proposes! De Soyecourt is of a jealous
disposition; and here I sit, amid my fallen aircastles, like that tiresome
Marius in his Carthaginian débris."
"De Soyecourt?" she echoed, dully.
"Ah, my poor child!" said the Duke and, rising, took her hand in a paternal
fashion, "did you think that, at this late day, the disease of matrimony
was still incurable? Nay, we progress, madame. You shall have grounds for a
separation--sufficient, unimpeachable grounds. You shall have your choice
of desertion, infidelity, cruelty in the presence of witnesses--oh, I shall
prove a yeritabie Gilles de Retz!" He laughed, not unkindlily, at her
bewilderment.
"You heard everything?" she queried.
"I have already confessed," the Duke reminded her. "And speaking as an
unprejudiced observer, I would say the little man really loves you. So be
it! You shall have your separation, you shall marry him in all honor and
respectability; and if everything goes well, you shall be a grand duchess
one of these days--Behold a fact accomplished!" De Puysange snapped his
fingers and made a pirouette; he began to hum, "Songez de bonne à suivre--"
There was a little pause.
"You, in truth, desire to restore to me my freedom?" she asked, in wonder,
and drew near to him.
The Duc de Puysange seated himself, with a smile. "Mon Dieu!" he protested,
"who am I to keep lovers apart? As the first proof of our new-sworn
friendship, I hereby offer you any form of abuse or of maltreatment you may
select."
She drew yet nearer to him. Afterward, with a sigh as if of great
happiness, her arms clasped about his neck. "Mountebank! do you, then, love
me very much?"
"I?" The Duke raised his eyebrows. Yet, he reflected, there was really no
especial harm in drawing his cheek a trifle closer to hers, and he found
the contact to be that of cool velvet.
"You love me!" she repeated, softly.
"It pains me to the heart," the Duke apologized--"it pains me, pith and
core, to be guilty of this rudeness to a lady; but, after all, honesty is
a proverbially recommended virtue, and so I must unblushingly admit I do
nothing of the sort."
"Gaston, why will you not confess to your new friend? Have I not pardoned
other amorous follies?" Her cheeks were warmer now, and softer than those
of any other woman in the world.
"Eh, ma mie," cried the Duke, warningly, "do not be unduly elated by little
Louis' avowal! You are a very charming person, but--'_de gustibus_--'"
"Gaston--!" she murmured.
"Ah, what is one to do with such a woman!" De Puysange put her from him,
and he paced the room with quick, unequal strides.
"Yes, I love you with every nerve and fibre of my body--with every not
unworthy thought and aspiration of my misguided soul! There you have the
ridiculous truth of it, the truth which makes me the laughing-stock of
well bred persons for all time. I adore you. I love you, I cherish you
sufficiently to resign you to the man your heart has chosen. I--But pardon
me,"--and he swept a white hand over his brow, with a little, choking
laugh,--"since I find this new emotion somewhat boisterous. It stifles one
unused to it."
She faced him, inscrutably; but her eyes were deep wells of gladness.
"Monsieur," she said, "yours is a noble affection. I will not palter with
it, I accept your offer--"
"Madame, you act with your usual wisdom," said the Duke.
"--Upon condition," she continued,--"that you resume your position as
eavesdropper."
The Duke obeyed her pointing finger. When he had reached the portières,
the proud, black-visaged man looked back into the salon, wearily. She had
seated herself in the _fauteuil_, where the Marquis de Soyecourt had bent
over her and she had kissed the little gold locket. Her back was turned
toward, her husband; but their eyes met in the great mirror, supported by
frail love-gods, who contended for its possession.
"Comedy for comedy," she murmured. He wondered what purblind fool had
called her eyes sea-cold?
"I do not understand," he said. "You saw me all the while--Yes, but the
locket--?" cried de Puysange.
"Open it!" she answered, and her speech, too, was breathless.
Under his heel the Duc de Puysange ground the trinket. The long, thin chain
clashed and caught about his foot; the face of his youth smiled from the
fragment in his not quite steady hands. "O heart' of gold! O heart of
gold!" he said, with, a strange meditative smile, now that his eyes lifted
toward the glad and glorious eyes of his wife; "I am not worthy! Indeed, my
dear, I am not worthy!"