In the excitation of his new hopes and of his happy self-delusions her
husband's suspicions had all died away; he did not even notice how
completely she had avoided all direct answer to the questions which
had at the first so offended her. He had not the faintest conception
of how completely he had been put off his guard, intoxicated by
suggested concessions, and enwrapped in the blinding fumes of awakening
affections.
He went, with his usual heavy and slow tread, but with a heart as
light as a youth's who has heard the first word of encouragement from
lips he loved, out into the noon-day glare of the Paris streets.
During these six years through which his wife had been no more to him
than the tea-rose which she liked to wear at her throat, he had grown
reconciled to the inevitable. He had consoled himself with the thousand
and one consolations with which women are always ready to strew the
path of a rich man; he had not, after the first shock of her dislike,
greatly rebelled or greatly mourned; and he had been what his world
called a _viveur enragé_. Yet at the depths of his soul there had been
always--living, tenacious, indestructible, exceedingly humble, and
infinitely forgiving--a great love for his wife. If she had cared,
she could have done what she chose with him; he would have led the
life of an anchorite to win her favour, and there would have been no
heroism and no folly to which she could not have impelled him. She had
never seen in him anything except a heavy, stupid, good-humoured man,
who could have a very good manner when it was wanted, but had hardly
more intelligence than one of his own _moujiks_. She never saw the
possibilities of self-negation and of blind devotion which slumbered in
his nature because she never felt interest enough in him to look for
them. To see as little of him as was possible, whilst still remaining
in accordance with the etiquette of the world, was all her study where
Platon Napraxine was concerned.
That he loved her very much she was fully aware--loved her as only
big dogs and unintellectual people have the instinct to do--but the
higher qualities which were in him, and might have been called out had
she chosen, she never knew or would have cared to know. The natural
nobility of his character was entirely obscured to her beneath the
slowness and dulness of his intelligence, as his corpulent body and his
large appetite wholly concealed the heroism of poor Louis Seize from
France and from the world.
Napraxine, when he left her now, walked straight to a private
club which he often frequented; a club of great exclusiveness and
distinction, where very high play could be indulged in every morning,
afternoon, and evening. There he breakfasted, played a little himself
to while away time, and waited the coming of the Duc de Prangins.
He waited until four o'clock; at that hour, which was his usual one
for entrance there, the elder de Prangins arrived for his customary
afternoon baccarat.
Napraxine threw down the cards he held, rose, and approached him.
'M. le Duc,' he said curtly, 'I have learned that you have ventured to
jest about Madame la Princesse Napraxine. I am here to tell you that I
do not allow such jests. If you apologise for them--well. If not----'
'I never apologise,' said the Duc, as curtly.
Napraxine, without more words, struck him over the shoulders with a
cane which he carried. Then he turned his back on him with supreme
disdain, and sat down again to his écarté.
To such an insult there was only one answer possible. Within fifteen
minutes a hostile meeting was arranged between him and M. de Prangins,
which was to take place on the following morning at sunrise, in the
gardens of a friend's château situated on the road to Versailles.
The elder de Prangins, though a man of sixty-five years of age, was
of great skill and address in all offensive and defensive science; it
was he who had killed the young Piedmontese prince, d'Ivrea, some four
years before. He was a slightly-made man, but very strong and agile,
cold and sure in his attack, and very careful in his guard. He had the
reputation of being a dangerous foe, and, secure in that reputation,
had never condescended to bridle his tongue, which was at once coarse
and caustic. For Nadine Napraxine he had conceived, years earlier, one
of those gross, yet chill, passions of which a man, advanced in years,
is at once tenacious and impatient, proud and ashamed.
Platon Napraxine finished his game of écarté and won it. He was in no
degree disturbed or depressed by the ordeal which lay before him. He
was as happy as a boy to think that he was about to fight in her cause,
and he pictured to himself how, when all was over, he would tell her,
and perhaps--perhaps--she would smile on him for the recital. Like many
big, strong, and kindly men, he had a great deal of the lad in him; he
was unworn in heart, despite all the experiences of his life in Paris
and in Petersburg; the adoration of his wife, which he had preserved
throughout all the vulgar amours with which he had sought to console
himself, had served, in a great measure, to keep his youth alive in
him. With a youth's hopefulness and short-sightedness he longed now for
the moment in which he would say to her, 'They dared to jest of you,
but I was there; and they have bitten the dust.'
That night she dined at one house and he dined at another; she went
later to more than one ball, at which she showed herself for a brief
hour of the cotillon and then took herself away, knowing that after
her presence there all other women would pale and pall, as the stars
fade, or seem to fade, when a meteor passes. She and Othmar had met
that night at more than one house, and she had kept him beside her more
openly and for a longer time than she had ever done before. It was her
manner of reply to her husband's suspicions and to the conjectures of
the world.
Platon Napraxine returned home earlier than usual, and waited in a
little smoking-room which opened on to the head of the staircase that
he might hear her arrival, and see her once, if only as she passed
up the stairs. It was only midnight when he went home, and he waited
one, two, three, four hours; then he heard the carriage roll into the
inner court and the door of the private entrance open. He left the
_fumoir_ and walked a few steps downward to meet her as she ascended
the staircase. His heart thrilled as he saw her in her cloak, made of
soft blush-coloured feathers, with her delicate head emerging from it
as from some rose-tinted cloud. She herself perceived him waiting there
with that involuntary irresistible sense of annoyance which was always
her first emotion whenever she saw him anywhere.
She gave him a little careless smile, nodded a good-night, and would
have gone onward, but he stopped her timidly.
'Give me one of those,' he said, as he touched the knot of tea-roses
which were fastened at her breast.
'What nonsense!' she said impatiently, with much real irritation, as
she mused, 'If he play the lover, I shall not keep my patience!'
Her cloak parted and fell a little off one arm. His eyes dwelled
passionately on the whiteness of her shoulder, with the great diamonds
sparkling on it, and the jewelled butterflies trembling as though they
took the blue veins for azure flowers.
With an obstinacy which he had never dared to show to her before he
drew away one of the tea-roses.
'Do not be angry,' he murmured.
She shrugged her shoulders with sovereign indifference and contempt,
and passed up the stairs.
He looked after her with dim longing eyes.
No shadow of any sort had been upon him throughout that sunny day--the
last day of April.
The next morning he went with a perfectly light heart to the garden
outside Paris which had been chosen as the scene of his encounter
with the Duc de Prangins. He had fought many duels in his time; he
was a fine fencer, though of late he had neglected to keep his hand
in practice, and he was a man always of the coolest and most stolid
courage. He had no kind of apprehension of the result; he had taken
no measures in case he should fall; it seemed so entirely impossible;
besides, all his affairs were in order, all his vast wealth was
disposed of with legal accuracy and care in documents which were safe
in their iron safes in the muniment room of Zaraizoff; he went to his
appointment with no more thought or apprehension than he would have
gone to the 'tir aux pigeons.'
He lighted a large cigar and stood chatting with his friends to the
last moment. Now and then he put his hand in his coat; it was to feel
for the little rose he had taken from her the day before; but his
friends could not know that.
For some moments after the rapiers crossed the duel was bloodless;
a mere display of even and perfect science on each side; but at the
third encounter his guard was broken; the sword of the Duc de Prangins
entered his left side and passed straight through the left lung out
beneath the shoulder; his adversary could not draw it back; with the
blade transfixing his breast thus, Platon Napraxine fell heavily to the
ground. When they endeavoured to raise him he looked at them, and his
lips moved; it was only the hoarsest murmur, but it said once, twice,
thrice--'Do not tell her! Do not tell her! Do not tell her!'
They let him lie where he was; they gathered about him pale and in
silence. They all knew he was a dead man.
For one moment he looked up at the blue morning sky where the clouds
were drifting and a flock of swallows was circling with gay buoyant
movement; there were all the odours of spring on the air, and the grass
which he lay on was yellow with kingcups and white with daisies. With
his right hand he feebly made the sign of the cross on his breast;
then he thrust the same hand within his coat once more, and with a
terrible shuddering, choking sigh his last breath passed away. When
they unloosened his lifeless fingers they found them clasped on a faded
tea-rose.
'Who will tell Princess Napraxine?' said the men around him, with white
lips, to one another.
The man who had killed him, throwing on his great-coat in haste, said
with a cruel smile:
'She will have a Te Deum in every church in Paris. You waste your
pity.'