A happy moment.
The search in the Citizen-Deputy's bedroom had proved as fruitless as
that in his study. Merlin was beginning to have vague doubts as to
whether he had been effectively fooled.
His manner towards Déroulède had undergone a change. He had become suave
and unctuous, a kind of elephantine irony pervading his laborious
attempts at conciliation. He and the Public Prosecutor would be severely
blamed for this day's work, if the popular Deputy, relying upon the
support of the people of Paris, chose to take his revenge.
In France, in this glorious year of the Revolution, there was but one
step between censure and indictment. And Merlin knew it. Therefore,
although he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Déroulède's
treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced
that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw,
the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety,
in exchange for his own exculpation in the matter.
This sop would be Juliette, the denunciator instead of Déroulède the
denounced.
But he was still seeking for the proofs.
Somewhat changing his tactics, he had allowed Déroulède to join his
mother in the living-room, and had betaken himself to the kitchen in
search of Anne Mie, whom he had previously caught sight of in the hall.
There he also found old Pétronelle, whom he could scare out of her wits
to his heart's content, but from whom he was quite unable to extract any
useful information. Pétronelle was too stupid to be dangerous, and Anne
Mie was too much on the alert.
But, with a vague idea that a cunning man might choose the most unlikely
places for the concealment of compromising property, he was ransacking
the kitchen from floor to ceiling.
In the living-room Déroulède was doing his best to reassure his mother,
who, in her turn, was forcing herself to be brave, and not to show by
her tears how deeply she feared for the safety of her son. As soon as
Déroulède had been freed from the presence of the soldiers, he had
hastened back to his study, only to find that Juliette had gone, and
that the letter-case had also disappeared. Not knowing what to think,
trembling for the safety of the woman he adored, he was just debating
whether he would seek for her in her own room, when she came towards him
across the landing.
There seemed a halo around her now. Déroulède felt that she had never
been so beautiful and to him so unattainable. Something told him then,
that at this moment she was as far away from him, as if she were an
inhabitant of another, more ethereal planet.
When she saw him coming towards her, she put a finger to her lips, and
whispered:
"Sh! sh! the papers are destroyed, burned."
"And I owe my safety to you!"
He had said it with his whole soul, an infinity of gratitude filled his
heart, a joy and pride in that she had cared for his safety.
But at his words she had grown paler than she was before. Her eyes,
large, dilated, and dark, were fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze
which almost startled him. He thought that she was about to faint, that
the emotions of the past half hour had been too much for her overstrung
nerves. He took her hand, and gently dragged her into the living-room.
She sank into a chair, as if utterly weary and exhausted, and he,
forgetting his danger, forgetting the world and all else besides, knelt
at her feet, and held her hands in his.
She sat bolt upright, her great eyes still fixed upon him. At first it
seemed as if he could not be satiated with looking at her; he felt as if
he had never, never really seen her. She had been a dream of beauty to
him ever since that awful afternoon when he had held her, half fainting,
in his arms, and had dragged her under the shelter of his roof.
From that hour he had worshipped her: she had cast over him the magic
spell of her refinement, her beauty, that aroma of youth and innocence
which makes such a strong appeal to the man of sentiment.
He had worshipped her and not tried to understand. He would have deemed
it almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her inner self, of that
second nature in her which at times made her silent, and almost morose,
and cast a lurid gloom over her young beauty.
And though his love for her had grown in intensity, it had remained as
heaven born as he deemed her to be--the love of a mortal for a saint,
the ecstatic adoration of a St Francis for his Madonna.
Sir Percy Blakeney had called Déroulède an idealist. He was that, in the
strictest sense, and Juliette had embodied all that was best in his
idealism.
It was for the first time to-day, that he had held her hand just for a
moment longer than mere conventionality allowed. The first kiss on her
finger-tips had sent the blood rushing wildly to his heart; but he still
worshipped her, and gazed upon her as upon a divinity.
She sat bolt upright in the chair, abandoning her small, cold hands to
his burning grasp.
His very senses ached with the longing to clasp her in his arms, to draw
her to him, and to feel her pulses beat closer against his. It was
almost torture now to gaze upon her beauty--that small, oval face,
almost like a child's, the large eyes which at times had seemed to be
blue but which now appeared to be a deep, unfathomable colour, like the
tempestuous sea.
"Juliette!" he murmured at last, as his soul went out to her in a
passionate appeal for the first kiss.
A shudder seemed to go through her entire frame, her very lips turned
white and cold, and he, not understanding, timorous, chivalrous and
humble, thought that she was repelled by his ardour and frightened by a
passion to which she was too pure to respond.
Nothing but that one word had been spoken--just her name, an appeal from
a strong man, overmastered at last by his boundless love--and she, poor,
stricken soul, who had so much loved, so deeply wronged him, shuddered
at the thought of what she might have done, had Fate not helped her to
save him.
Half ashamed of his passion, he bowed his dark head over her hands, and,
once more forcing himself to be calm now, he kissed her finger-tips
reverently.
When he looked up again the hard lines in her face had softened, and two
tears were slowly trickling down her pale cheeks.
"Will you forgive me, madonna?" he said gently. "I am only a man and you
are very beautiful. No--don't take your little hands away. I am quite
calm now, and know how one should speak to angels."
Reason, justice, rectitude--everything was urging Juliette to close her
ears to the words of love, spoken by the man whom she had betrayed. But
who shall blame her for listening to the sweetest sound the ears of a
woman can ever hear--the sound of the voice of the loved one in his
first declaration of love?
She sat and listened, whilst he whispered to her those soft, endearing
words, of which a strong man alone possesses the enchanting secret.
She sat and listened, whilst all around her was still. Madame Déroulède,
at the farther end of the room, was softly muttering a few prayers.
They were all alone these two in the mad and beautiful world, which man
has created for himself--the world of romance--that world more wonderful
than any heaven, where only those may enter who have learned the sweet
lesson of love. Déroulède roamed in it at will. He had created his own
romance, wherein he was as a humble worshipper, spending his life in the
service of his madonna.
And she too forgot the earth, forgot the reality, her oath, her crime
and its punishment, and began to think that it was good to live, good to
love, and good to have at her feet the one man in all the world whom she
could fondly worship.
Who shall tell what he whispered? Enough that she listened and that she
smiled; and he, seeing her smile, felt happy.