AN ALLIANCE DECLINED
As the Emperor left the room, followed by the officers and men, a
little silence fell over the three people remaining therein.
"Monsieur le Comte d'Aumenier!" exclaimed the Countess Laure, wonder,
derision and disdain in her voice. "Your château, your domain!"
She looked about the great hall and laughed scornfully. Young Marteau
turned crimson. He threw up his head proudly.
"Mademoiselle----" he began sternly, his voice full of indignant
protest and resentment.
"Don't be too hard on the lad, Countess," interposed the Englishman,
his interest aroused. "By gad, he saved your honor, your life, and----"
"And, if I mistake not, I repaid the obligation by saving his life
also, sir."
"And I recognize it, and am grateful, mademoiselle."
"I am ordered to report to you, sir," said a young man, coming into the
room followed by a file of dismounted soldiers, and relieving a
situation growing most tense.
"Very good," said Marteau, devoutly thankful for the interruption.
"You will dispose your men so as to guard the approaches of the château
at every hand. You will keep a strict lookout, and you will awaken me
at dawn. I think there is nothing to be apprehended from the enemy.
The advance of the Emperor will have cleared all this section of even
wandering troops of Cossacks by this time, but there are masterless men
abroad."
"I shall know how to deal with them," said the young officer, saluting.
"You will also send men to remove these dead bodies and clear up this
room. Take this poor lad"--pointing to Pierre--"and see that he is
cared for. You will find a place for him upstairs. Your regimental
surgeon----"
"Is attending to the wounded. I will see that the boy gets every care,
sir."
"And Bal-Arrêt?"
"His arm is dressed, and he is the admiration of the camp-fire."
"I suppose so."
"Any other orders, Major?"
"None; you may go."
"Mademoiselle," said Marteau, facing the Countess as the officer turned
away, his men taking the dead bodies and the wounded peasant with them,
"you wrong me terribly."
"By saving your life, pray?" she asked contemptuously.
"By--by--your----" he faltered and stopped.
"In what way, Monsieur le Comte?" interrupted the young woman, who knew
very well what the young man meant.
In her irritating use of his new-found title, and in the way in which
it fell from her lips, she cut him like a whip-lash, and she did it
deliberately, too--he, the Count, forsooth!
"Call me Marteau," he protested, stepping toward her, at which she fell
back a little. "Or, better still, as when I was a boy, your faithful
follower, Jean."
"If the Emperor has the power, he has made you a Count; if he has not,
you are not."
"What the Emperor makes me is of little consequence between us,
mademoiselle. It is what I am that counts."
"And you remain, then, just Jean Marteau, of the loyal Marteaux?"
"One does not wipe out the devotion of years in a moment. My father
served yours, your grandfather, your uncle, your father. I am
still"--he threw up his head proudly as he made the confession--"your
man."
"But the title----"
"What is a title? Your uncle is in England. He does not purpose to
come back to France unless he whom he calls his rightful king again
rules the land. Should that come to be, my poor patent of nobility
would not be worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed."
"And the lands?"
"In any case I would but hold them in trust for the Marquis----"
"My uncle is old, childless. I am the last of the long line."
"Then I will hold them for you, mademoiselle. They are yours. When
this war is over, and France is at peace once more, I will take my
father's place and keep them for you."
"I could not accept such a sacrifice."
"It would be no sacrifice."
"I repeat, I cannot consent to be under such obligation, even to you."
"There is a way----" began the young Frenchman softly, shooting a
meaning glance at the young woman.
"I do not understand," she faltered.
"I am peasant born," admitted Marteau, "but, though no gentle blood
flows through my veins, my family, I think, is as old as your own."
"It is so," agreed the Countess, trembling as she began to catch the
meaning. "Oh, monsieur, stop."
"As there has never a d'Aumenier failed to hold the château so there
has never failed a Marteau to follow him," went on the young man,
unheeding her protest.
"I care as little for distinctions of rank as any demoiselle of old
France, perhaps, but----"
"Mademoiselle is right. As for myself, I am a republican at heart,
although I follow the Emperor. I, too, care little for the
distinctions of rank, for titles, yet I have earned a title in the
service of the Emperor. Through him, even humble men rise high and go
far. Will you----"
"Monsieur, you must not go on!" cried the girl, "thrusting out her
hand, as if to check him.
"Pardon," said the young Frenchman resolutely. "Having gone thus far I
must go further. Humble as I am, obscure though I be, I have dared to
raise my eyes to heaven--to you, mademoiselle. In my boyhood days you
honored me with your friendship, your companionship. I have made
something of myself. If mademoiselle would only deign to---- It is
impossible that she should love me--it would be an ineffable
condescension--but is there not some merit in the thought that the last
survivors of the two lines should unite to----"
"Impossible!" cried the Countess, her face flushing. "My uncle would
never consent. In my veins is the oldest, the noblest blood of France.
Even I could not----"
"Be it so," said Marteau, paling, but standing very erect. "It is, of
course, impossible. There is not honor enough or merit enough in the
world," he went on bitterly, "to obliterate the difference in station
between us. The revolution, after all, changed little. Keep the
title, keep the estates, mademoiselle, I want them not," continued the
young soldier bitterly. "Having aspired to you, do you think these are
compensations?"
"You saved my life," said the girl falteringly.
"It was nothing. You did as much for me."
"And my honor," she added.
"I ask no reward."
"By gad!" said Yeovil at this juncture, "I'm damned if I see how you
can withstand him. He is a gallant lad. He has fought bravely and he
has pleaded nobly. You may not win the Countess--as a matter of fact
she is pledged to my son--but you deserve her. I've never been able to
understand any kind of women, much less Frenchwomen, saving your
presence, mademoiselle. Base-born you may be, Major Marteau, but I
know a gentleman when I see him, I flatter myself, and, damme, young
man, here's my hand. I can understand your Emperor better since he can
inspire the devotion of men like you."
The two men clasped hands. The Countess looked on. She stepped softly
nearer to them. She laid her hand on Marteau's shoulder.
"Monsieur--Jean," she said, and there was a long pause between the two
words, "I would that I could grant your request, but it is--you
see--you know I cannot. I am betrothed to Captain Yeovil, with my
uncle's consent, of course. I am a very unhappy woman," she ended,
although just what she meant by that last sentence she hardly knew.
"And this Captain Yeovil, he is a soldier?" asked Marteau.
"Under Wellington," answered the father.
"Now may God grant that I may meet him!"
"You'll find him a gallant officer," answered the sturdy old Englishman
proudly.
"When I think of his father I know that to be true," was the polite
rejoinder.
The little Countess sank down on the chair, buried her face in her
hands and burst into tears.
"Well, of all the----" began the Englishman, but the Frenchman checked
him.
"Mademoiselle," he said softly, "were every tear a diamond they could
not make for me so precious a diadem as they do when I think that you
weep for me. I wish you joy with your English captain. I am your
humble servant ever."
And Laure d'Aumenier felt very much comforted by those words. It was
absurd, inconceivable, impossible, of course, and yet no handsomer,
braver, truer, more considerate gentleman had ever crossed her horizon
than this descendant of an ancient line of self-respecting, honorable
yeomen. She contrasted him with Captain Yeovil, and the contrast was
not to Marteau's disadvantage! No, decidedly not!