Vanringham served. Never was any one more blithe than the lean Prince de
Gâtinais. The latest gossip of Versailles was delivered, with discreet
emendations; he laughed gayly; and he ate with an appetite. There was a
blight among the cattle hereabouts? How deplorable! witchcraft, beyond
doubt. And Louis passed as a piano-tuner?--because there were no pianos in
Manneville. Excellent! he had always given Louis credit for a surpassing
cleverness; now it was demonstrated. In fine, the Prince de Gâtinais became
so jovial that Nelchen was quite at ease, and Louis de Soyecourt became
vaguely alarmed. He knew his father, and for the Prince to yield thus
facilely was incredible. Still, his father had seen Nelchen, had talked
with Nelchen....
Now the Prince rose. "Fresh glasses, Vanringham," he ordered; and then: "I
give you a toast. Through desire of love and happiness, you young people
have stolen a march on me. Eh, I am not Sgarnarelle of the comedy!
therefore, I drink cheerfully to love and happiness, I consider Louis is
not in the right, but I know that he is wise, my daughter, as concerns his
soul's health, in clinging to you rather than to a tinsel crown. Of Fate
I have demanded--like Sgarnarelle of the comedy,--prosaic equity and
common-sense; of Fate he has in turn demanded happiness; and Fate will at
her convenience decide between us. Meantime I drink to love and happiness,
since I, too, remember. I know better than to argue with Louis, you
observe, my Nelchen; we de Soyecourts are not lightly severed from any
notion we may have taken up. In consequence I drink to your love and
happiness!"
They drank. "To your love, my son," said the Prince de Gâtinais,--"to the
true love of a de Soyecourt." And afterward he laughingly drank: "To your
happiness, my daughter,--to your eternal happiness."
Nelchen sipped. The two men stood with drained glasses. Now on a sudden the
Prince de Gâtinais groaned and clutched his breast.
"I was always a glutton," he said, hoarsely. "I should have been more
moderate--I am faint--"
"Salts are the best thing in the world," said Nelchen, with fine readiness.
She was half-way up the stairs. "A moment, monseigneur,--a moment, and I
fetch salts." Nelchen Thorn had disappeared into her room.
V
The Prince sat drumming upon the table with his long white fingers. He had
waved the Marquis and Vanringham aside. "A passing weakness,--I am not
adamant," he had said, half-peevishly.
"Then I prescribe another glass of this really excellent wine," laughed
little Louis de Soyecourt. At heart he was not merry, and his own
unreasoning nervousness irritated him, for it seemed to the Marquis,
quite irrationally, that the atmosphere of the cheery room was, without
forerunnership, become tense and expectant, and was now quiet with much the
hush which precedes the bursting of a thunder-storm. And accordingly he
laughed.
"I prescribe another glass, monsieur," said he. "Eh, that is the true
panacea for faintness--for every ill. Come, we will drink to the most
beautiful woman in Poictesme--nay, I am too modest,--to the most beautiful
woman in France, in Europe, in the whole universe! _Feriam sidera_, my
father! and confound all mealy-mouthed reticence, for you have both seen
her. Confess, am I not a lucky man? Come, Vanringham, too, shall drink. No
glasses? Take Nelchen's, then. Come, you fortunate rascal, you shall drink
to the bride from the bride's half-emptied glass. To the most beautiful
woman--Why, what the devil--?"
Vanringham had blurted out an odd, unhuman sound. His extended hand shook
and jerked, as if in irresolution, and presently struck the proffered
glass from de Soyecourt's grasp. You heard the tiny crash, very audible in
the stillness, and afterward the irregular drumming of the old Prince's
finger-tips. He had not raised his head, had not moved.
Louis de Soyecourt came to him, without speaking, and placed one hand under
his father's chin, and lifted the Prince's countenance, like a dead weight,
toward his own. Thus the two men regarded each the other. Their silence was
rather horrible.
"It was not in vain that I dabbled with chemistry all these years," said
the guttural voice of the Prince de Gâtinais, "Yes, the child is dead by
this. Let us recognize the fact we are de Soyecourts, you and I."
But Louis de Soyecourt had flung aside the passive, wrinkled face, and
then, with a straining gesture, wiped the fingers that had touched it upon
the sleeve of his left arm. He turned to the stairway. His hand grasped the
newelpost and gripped it so firmly that he seemed less to walk than by one
despairing effort to lift an inert body to the first step. He ascended
slowly, with a queer shamble, and disappeared into Nelchen's room.