“Your lacqueys are even now following us--and look, your coachman is
again upon his box. If they no longer carry pistols, mademoiselle, it
is that they may not shoot themselves. Take my word for it, they will
never shoot any one else.”
He laughed gaily, and gave the pretty white arm which rested upon his
own the suspicion of a squeeze. Had Corinne been certain that the
adventure would have begun and ended with the supper at the house of
the Silver Birch, her alarm would have been less. As it was, she had a
great dread of her company and of the very dark wood which the
highwayman now entered.
As for old Antonio, he stumbled along behind her, muttering to himself
like a man demented. But he still carried his book, his pen, and his
ink-horn; and now and then, had there been light whereby to observe
it, a meaning smile might have been seen playing upon his usually
placid face. The lacqueys, on the other hand, were in the last stages
of fear; and while the coachman cried out that his coach would surely
be found in the ditch, the others behind clung to their straps
desperately and rolled against each other as men drunk with wine. It
was five minutes before this strange cavalcade reached the house of
the Silver Birch.
The robber’s house lay snug in the thicket as a nest in the hedge.
Save for a small clearing near the door, where a stagnant pool gleamed
as with the face of a blackened mirror, the copse put walls of bramble
and of bracken about the simple chalet, and so sheltered it that only
the eyes of a woodlander might detect a habitation in the vicinity.
Nor did there seem to be any one to guard a retreat so remarkable. Not
a light shone from the windows when the guests arrived; not a dog
barked or a sound made itself heard. Corinne, who was shivering with
the rasping air of the night and the noxious and humid miasma of the
swamp, began at last to be seriously alarmed. Her coach, perforce, had
been left in the more open glade a hundred yards from the robber’s
home.
“La Force” was accompanied now by one only of the torch-bearers. He
had left the other heavily armed to watch the terrified lacqueys. Old
Antonio in his turn had become green with anger and cold and
impatience. He mumbled no longer, even to himself. The highwayman
alone remained self-possessed and talkative; indeed, he assumed a more
plausible politeness with every step he took.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, producing a great key from his pocket, and
bidding his fellow hold the flambeau nearer to the door, “why do you
tremble? Am I not here to protect you? In half an hour you shall have
eaten a good supper, and be on your way to Paris again. Judge me not
harshly since my honour is at stake.”
Corinne stamped her foot.
“Your honour, monsieur!” she cried; “if that be at stake, then surely
the wager is trifling.”
“Saint John! madame, it is no trifle, since my honour intrusts to me
so precious a charge.”
He spoke with exceeding deference, and stood bareheaded, despite the
raw cold of the night, while he threw open the door for her to enter,
and bade the torch-bearer hold up the light. None the less did Corinne
continue to tremble when she passed into the house and found herself
at once in the chief room of it. She asked only that the adventure
might draw quickly to its end, for she felt very helpless, and thought
how different it would have been had Bénoît accompanied her from
Gros Bois. As for her old physician, who had been so ready with his
boasts and his talk of mysteries, she could have laughed aloud at his
undisguised distress. The shadow of death seemed already upon him. He
started at every sound.
The robber entered the house, and, quickly divesting himself of his
heavy cloak and his mask, he lighted candles in a heavy silver
candelabrum. Directly the pale yellow light flooded the room, Corinne
uttered a little word of surprise, for she had never thought that so
poor a house could afford such a feast to the eye as this room now
presented. Though the chalet itself was rough hewn of wood from the
surrounding thickets, its internal ornament was worthy of the Louvre.
Rare tapestries hid bare walls; dainty cabinets filled with fine
china, chairs and tables reflecting the delicate taste of the period,
a fine copy of the Apollo and Marsyas of Raphael, a genuine sketch by
Jean de Paris, another by Rigaud, added to the wealth of its
decoration.
Corinne felt her feet sinking into soft white skins the moment she
passed the door of the house. A blazing fire of fagots spangled with
golden stars the polished wood of the ingle-nook. The table itself was
almost hidden by bouquets of spring flowers and early fruits. The
whole place was redolent with the air of dishes steaming, and of good
things made ready.
“Come,” said “La Force,” when he had indicated the seat of honour, and
had placed Corinne therein, “you will forgive me that I have no
lacqueys as you have, mademoiselle. I am a lover of solitude, and my
secrets are not well worn in company. But you will find my supper none
the less excellent, believe me. As for our friend here, let there be
no hot blood between us. I have not forgotten the service he did to
Coq le Roi. Saint John! it is I who should fear with such a wizard for
my guest.”
The bloodless eyes of the old physician twinkled when the compliment
was paid. He, for the first time, appeared to forget the pass to which
things had come, and to observe the supper now being served by the
comrade of their host. When at length he sat down, a smile of
satisfaction played upon his face, and he hastened to admit so much to
the robber.
“Monsieur,” said he, “it is to my mistress that your friend Coq le Roi
owes thanks. My own share in that business is not worthy of mention.”
“_Ciel!_” cried the robber, helping Corinne to a goblet of Chianti,
“you are modest, Monsieur le Médecin; did you not, as the story goes,
tell the lieutenant of police everything that Coq le Roi was about to
do during the next four-and-twenty hours? Holy Mother of God! I would
have given a hundred crowns had I been there to hear the jest.”
Antonio looked up from his plate.
“My friend,” said he, “it was a jest, I grant; yet had it been my
intention, I could have told the future of Coq le Roi not for one day,
but for a year.”
“La Force” roared with laughter; the wine had warmed him, and his
wager was nearly won.
“Name of the devil,” cried he, “you are a true magician, old man; have
a care lest you provoke me to ask a like experiment.”
“Indeed,” intervened Corinne, who had exchanged a quick glance with
the doctor, “you do Antonio an injustice. A very little provocation,
Monsieur Brissac, will induce him to grant your request. He has been
absorbed in some calculation ever since we left Gros Bois.”
“La Force” drained a goblet to the dregs.
“Saint Denis!” said he, “we will put him to the proof upon the spot.
Did not Coq le Roi tell me that he drew little lines upon a piece of
paper? Very well, then, your physician has paper, mademoiselle, and I
see an ink-horn at his waist. Let him tell me what I shall be doing
this time to-morrow night. If he can do that, I will conduct you to
your coach before the clock strikes again.”
Corinne looked at Antonio inquiringly, but the doctor shook his head.
“It is true,” said he, “that I told Coq le Roi’s fate, and traced the
orbit of his day; but that, I would ask you to remember, was a jest.
To-night we leave the jester’s mask behind us, and neither pen nor
paper will serve our purpose. Command, I pray you, monsieur, that your
servant bring me yon silver bowl full to the brim with boiling water.”
“Pah!” exclaimed the robber, “you think that I am a child!”
“I think nothing, monsieur. I wait to act. But if you do not choose--”
“La Force” shrugged his shoulders; the wine had quickened his more
brutal instincts.
“Oh,” replied he, “as for that--I choose; but I tell you plainly, _mon
ami_, if this be another of your jests, you shall drain the bowl to
the dregs.”
Had the robber been sober enough to detect it, he would have observed
that old Antonio’s eyes were lighted for a moment by a look which
boded no good to him. But he was too busy with the flagons of wine,
and the excellent supper his fellow rogue had cooked, to observe it,
and the look passed upon the instant, to leave the physician unmoved
and apparently unconcerned. Even a close observer would not have
foretold anything of the comedy then about to be played in the house
of the Silver Birch.
None the less, Corinne foretold it. A subtle instinct warned her from
the first that her old friend had not forgotten altogether his boasts
in the coach. She knew not what plan he had contrived, nor what weapon
he sought; but she began to take heart, hoping that she might, after
all, be revenged on this insolent fellow who had subjected her to such
an insult. In truth, her pride was sore hurt; and although she hid her
feelings very prettily, nevertheless she told herself that the
highwayman known as “La Force” should find her, as she had declared, a
dangerous guest.
All this passed through her mind when the lesser rogue, who aped the
rôle of lacquey, brought the silver bowl from the kitchen, and the
steam from the boiling water began to moisten the air of the
supper-room. Antonio had now tucked up the sleeves of his heavy gown,
and was prepared, apparently, to fulfil his promise to the ultimate
letter.
“Monsieur Brissac, you have asked me to tell you upon what employment
you will be engaged at this hour to-morrow night. When the steam from
that bowl shall have cleared away, I will ask you to look at the
surface of the water, and to read your own fate therein.”
The robber laughed scornfully.
“At your pleasure, friend,” said he, “though if you fail me, I warrant
you I will keep my word.”
Antonio bowed, but said nothing. Corinne felt her heart beating
quickly, while the blood surged up into her head and made her dizzy.
She began to fear that Antonio was embarked upon some very dangerous
enterprise, in which failure might leave her alone with this ruffian
who had stopped her coach. She was tempted almost to beg her friend to
desist, but he refused steadfastly to exchange a glance with her, and
she, by a great effort of will, held her peace.
A minute passed, perhaps, before the steam floated away from the
circle of the bowl. When it was quite clear Antonio rose from his
chair and began to peer into the water very diligently.
“Monsieur,” said he, with great dignity, “come near and tell me if the
water of life has any message for you.”
The robber bent over the bowl, and examined its contents very
narrowly. “Bah!” he answered, “you mock me; there is nothing there.”
Antonio looked again.
“My son,” said he, speaking now with the air of a doctor, “fate is not
the child of man, that he shall say to her, do this, and she will do
it. Seek rather to approach these mysteries with awe, for they are
mysteries to which God alone holds the key. Let there be obedience in
your heart and humility in your mind, since the hour of your death is
about to be made known to you.”
“Monsieur,” said he, “for the third time, I tell you, beware how you
jest with me.”
In spite of his braggadocio, “La Force” trembled. His hand shook a
little when he bent over the table; the colour rushed from his face
and his lips were bloodless.
“Speak not of jests, I say,” cried the old physician,
solemnly,--“speak not of jests, for the book of God is about to be
opened before your eyes. Nay, my son, let there be a prayer upon your
lips, and the fear of God in your mind. Behold, the picture shapes
itself.”
Swiftly and deftly he took a phial from his pocket and cast the
contents upon the face of the water. The robber, wound up to a
surpassing dread and curiosity, bent over the bowl until his eyes
almost touched the water. At the same moment the white powder from the
phial began to mix with the liquid and to set up a great
effervescence, with a noxious odour which filled the whole room: a
seething vapour, which hurt the lungs of those who breathed it. “La
Force,” who all unwillingly inhaled the vapour as he bent over the
water, uttered a loud cry and made to draw back from the table; but
old Antonio had gripped him by the neck now, and was strong with the
strength of ten men.
“Behold, my son, behold, and read the book of life,” he cried, with a
ferocity which was almost devilish, while he forced the robber’s head
down until his brow touched the silver rim. “Did I not tell you that
the hour of your death was written there?--look well then, for the
hour is come.”
During a terrible instant, the struggle was a doubtful one. The bowl
rocked and spilt the water upon the table; glasses fell and were
crunched under the elbows of the men; the robber, about whose throat
the bony fingers of the physician were twined, fought like a wild
beast. For the first fumes of the drug had robbed him of breath,
almost of sense; his lungs were scorched as by burning needles; his
eyes were blinded and smarting; it seemed as though a hand of iron had
been put upon his heart to still it.
Presently sense began to leave him; and after a moment of suffering,
when he thought that he was sinking down, down into a vast abyss of
darkness, the idea began to recur in his mind that he was lapping the
water of the bowl; and this quickened and quickened, as ideas will in
the brains of those who are on the point of losing sensibility, until
he sank as one dead upon the floor, and silence fell upon the room
again.
Silence fell upon the room, but half of a minute was not marked on the
clock before it was broken. The robber’s comrade, awakened to
curiosity by the hush of voices, appeared suddenly at the door of the
supper-room, and stood half choked by the vapours. Corinne herself was
upon the point of fainting, when the old physician unbarred the
shutters of the little window, and let the night breeze come blowing
in like a gift of life.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “stand here at the window, and your faintness
will pass; I am going to deal with this fellow as I have dealt with
his master.”
The second of the robbers gave a great cry, for he saw the body of “La
Force” huddled upon the floor, and did not neglect to observe the
broken glasses and the disordered table.
“Holy God!” exclaimed he, “‘La Force’ is dead.”
“As you say, my friend,” answered Antonio, “‘La Force’ is dead. Let me
conjure you to leave this house quickly, lest my art strike you as it
has struck him.”
The man answered him by levelling a pistol at his head; but, when he
pulled the trigger, the powder did not even flash in the pan.
“You see,” continued Antonio, “that pistol is my servant also. Begone,
then, lest you lie there with your master.”
He pointed impatiently to the door, whereto the man slunk in awe,
muttering “‘La Force’ is dead.” They heard him a moment later
galloping wildly through the woods with the same cry upon his lips.
“Mademoiselle,” said Antonio, very quietly, “it is fortunate that I
took the opportunity to spill my wine upon the pan of yon fellow’s
pistol while we sat at supper, or assuredly he would have blown my
brains out. Now, if it be agreeable to you, we will bind up this rogue
in his own table-cloth and carry him to Paris with us as a souvenir of
this evening.”
“To Paris!” cried Corinne, in amazement, “and what shall we do with
him in Paris, my dear Antonio?”
“We shall punish him for his audacity in stopping the coach of Corinne
de Montesson. Did I not tell you that my mysteries were more powerful
than the sword of your kinsman, Bénoît? Have patience a little while
and you shall doubt my word no more.”
Corinne could not repress a word of fear.
“You carry your jest far--it seems to me that the man is dead.”
“Indeed, there is very little the matter with him, mademoiselle--so
little that I fear to hear him tell us so if we delay. Run back to the
coach, then, and bid one of the men attend me. If the third knave
should desire to know what we have done to his master, ask him to come
to the house and I will show him.”
She did not answer him, but, drawing her cloak about her, ran off
swiftly through the thicket.
[Illustration: The Man answered him by levelling a Pistol.]
When the lacqueys and the third of the robbers arrived at the chalet
presently, they found “La Force” already bound hand and foot with the
white cloth from his own table.
Indeed, a physician alone could have told that he lived; and when the
remaining highwayman saw the body he reeled back as though a pistol
had been fired in his face.
“Rascal!” cried Antonio, taking advantage of the situation to grip him
by the throat and to clap a pistol to his head--one of the pistols he
had snatched from the belt of “La Force”--“rascal! I have killed your
master as you see, and am taking his body back to Paris as a warning
to those who do not respect the name of my mistress. Choose, then,
whether you will throw down your arms and have your liberty, or be
taken to Paris to die upon the gibbet.”
The man writhed and gasped under the powerful hand--but
impotently--for the lacqueys had taken heart now and had made haste to
seize him by the arms. When he spoke, it was to beseech the old
physician to give him his liberty.
“By the God above me, we have trapped the devil this night!” said he;
“show me but the back of a horse and you shall see my face no more,
monsieur.”
Two minutes later, he also was galloping through the woods, crying
like one demented, “‘La Force’ is dead.” But the body of his master
lay secure upon the top of Corinne’s coach, where, rolling and jolting
like a log, it rested until the barrier was passed and the horses were
driven through the gateway of the Hôtel Beautreillis. Dark as the
night proved, many stopped in the narrow streets of the great city to
point the finger at a burden so curious; many cried, “They carry a
dead man,--what a thing to see!” But others only crossed themselves
and lifted their hats. “She jests with the dead,” they said, and
hurried on, afraid.
It was one o’clock in the morning when “La Force,” who had been
conscious of a restless and troubled sleep, and of strange happenings
in his dreams, wholly recovered his senses and sat up in the bed upon
which unknown hands had laid him. He thought at the instant of waking
that he had slept out in the woods by Gros Bois again; but when he
rubbed his eyes and looked well around him, some of the events of the
night began to shape themselves again in his brain, and to be acted
anew, until he remembered all things--even to the silver bowl and the
horrible draught of vapour he had drunk therefrom.
“_Mort Dieu!_” said he, springing from his bed angrily, “it was the
devil’s bowl I drank from--a curse upon them! And now--and now--?”
He began to examine the room with questioning eyes, but his curiosity
was soon satisfied. It was a small apartment with walls of stone, in
shape, a horseshoe; having for furniture a stool and a table, in
addition to the plain wooden bed whereupon he had slept. Its only
ornament was a crucifix hung high upon the crown of the apse.
“La Force” saw that the door was sheathed with iron and monstrous
thick, like the door of a dungeon. A little window, heavily barred,
permitted him, when he stood upon the tips of his toes, to see the
world without. At the moment, however, such a privilege was worth
little, for the night was moonless, and his keen eyes could detect
nothing beyond a great black shape, which had no meaning to him. None
the less did he begin to be haunted by the thought that he was in a
prison; and when he had reflected a little while, he said it would be
the prison of the Conciergerie.
This thought was slow to be accepted, slow to force itself upon his
mind. He found himself at first laughing at the idea as a folly; but
he could pause in his laughter to feel the damp sweat upon his brow
and to sink upon the bed shivering with fear. Well he knew that, if
his surmise were true, he might ask nothing more of life. They would
send him to the galleys--possibly to death. He remembered the dashing
life of the road, the women he had kissed, the gay company he had
enjoyed, the debauches which had been kept in the house of the Silver
Birch; and these pleasant memories helped him to stave off the
dreadful omens of the cell. “God!” he said, “it cannot be that I shall
never see the woods again!”
It needed a great effort to banish a sense of peril such as this; but
he refused to hear the damning voices which haunted him; and anon, he
got into bed again and tried to sleep. He was very weak after the
trial of the night; and when he lay down and pulled the heavy covering
over his head to shut out the light of the lantern which illumined the
apartment, he found that he was hot as one in a fever, and that there
was a new pain in his lungs which forbade him to rest.
Do what he would, recall as he might the most pleasant scenes of his
past, a phantom figure ever at his side seemed to whisper, “You are
come to the judgment.” For a while he battled bravely with the
spectre, but when a clock without struck two, he was able to endure
the vision no longer, and he sprang from his bed in an agony of fear
and of foreboding.
“Jesus!” he said, “it is my dream; that which I see is a thing of
sleep. The sun will shine in my eyes presently, and I shall behold the
forest again. My horse will come to me, and we will--”
A shadow falling across the floor cut short his pleasant promises. It
was a dreadful shadow, magnified by the lantern’s feeble light until
it represented nothing human, being a horrid shape, eyeless, with
masked face, and a head upon which a cap like a fool’s cap was placed.
“La Force” staggered against the bed when he beheld it, and covered
his eyes with his hand.
“Mother of God!” he sobbed, “what do I see?”
“Monsieur,” was the answer, in a low and gentle voice, “fear nothing
from me. I come to warn you.”
“La Force” turned his head and looked. A figure dressed in the rough
black robe of a monk, but having the head and face covered with a
pointed black hood, like the hood of the Misereri in Rome, stood
motionless at his side. For a moment the highwayman succumbed to an
overwhelming panic. He shrieked aloud at the terrible aspect of the
phantom, believing that the devil stood with him in the cell.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” he wailed, “tell me what this means.”
“My son,” said the monk, “it means that you have stopped the coach of
Mademoiselle de Montesson; for which crime you now find yourself a
prisoner in her house, where--”
He paused, as though he did not wish to finish the sentence; but the
robber, being assured now that the apparition was no ghostly one,
could not suppress his curiosity.
“Yes--yes,” he asked eagerly, “where--?”
“Where you are to die at dawn,” said the monk.
“La Force” wiped the sweat from his brow and laughed like an
hysterical woman.
“Bah,” he said, “she will not kill me.”
“My son,” said the monk, very earnestly, “she will think no more of
killing you than of crushing an insect in her path. Do you hear those
blows? They are the blows of the axes which hew a scaffold for you. If
you doubt me, look from yon window and you shall see--”
“La Force” ran to the window, and standing upon the tips of his toes
looked into the court. Where darkness had prevailed ten minutes
before, light--the light of fifty torches--now mastered the night. The
highwayman saw that these torches were held by men gowned as his
mysterious visitor, all in deep black, with hoods covering their
faces, and holes for their eyes, which gave them an ogreish aspect
terrible to behold.
But that which interested him more than all was the great structure
they were helping to build--a structure of wood heavily draped in
black. Very familiar to him was that warning shape--the great
cross-beam, the heavy side supports, the platform for the victim. He
could even see a coil of rope curled like a snake upon the black
carpet.
“Jesus!” he said, dropping upon his feet again, “they build a
scaffold.”
“Exactly,” said the monk, “and at dawn they will have finished their
work.”
“La Force” felt his heart beating quickly, but he nerved himself to
look out of the window again.
“Holy God, have pity upon me; I see a coffin!” he exclaimed, reeling
back from the casement and falling, terror-struck, upon the bed. “Oh,
monsieur, of your charity beseech a little mercy for me. I cannot
die--I have sin upon my soul.”
The monk watched his agony unmoved.
“My son,” said he, “of that which we sow assuredly we must reap.
Forget not that your harvest is death. At dawn you will garner the
fruit you have fostered so well. Remember that the sun will shine down
to-morrow, not upon your eyes glad to behold the day again, but upon
the earth which lies heavy upon a spiritless body. Think of that, and
be warned, for here mercy is unknown.”
“La Force” answered him with a great oath and a threat, lifting his
clenched hand to strike the speaker; but the monk seized the upraised
arm by the wrist and threw the robber to the ground with such force
that he lay there many minutes stunned and bruised. When he looked up
again the monk had left the cell.
He heard a clock strike three at this time; but the sound of hammering
still continued in the court without, and although he dared not to
look again, he made sure that the scaffold must be now near its
completion.
Had it been given him to die upon the high-road in some affair where
swords clashed and pistols made merry music, he would have shown a
bold face enough; but to be killed like a rat in a trap, to swing like
a common thief, simply because he had compelled a woman to sup with
him against her will, was a punishment not to be borne.
There were moments when he raved like a madman, beating with his fists
against the cold stone wall, or casting himself in rabid fits of fury
at the iron-sheathed door. At other moments he lay upon his bed in a
stupor, scarcely seeming to breathe, trying in his mind to imagine
that the end was passed, and that he lay in his coffin, still and
voiceless, beneath a heavy weight of earth. When at length a glimmer
of day struck the dark court without, and came with timid step even
into his cell, he had no longer the mind either to fear or hope. A
dull and merciful insensibility to thought prevailed.
It was half-past five precisely when the door of his cell was opened,
and the monk, accompanied by three others similarly habited,
re-entered the prison and bade “La Force” arise.
“Monsieur,” said the monk, “the hour has come. Have courage, then, and
drink a cup of wine. Remember what a reputation you bear, and do not
let them speak of you as other than the brave man I know you to be.”
“La Force” opened his eyes, for he was half asleep.
“Christ!” said he, “I dreamed that I was in the woods again.”
He was like a man walking in a sleep now; and he drank off the wine
they offered him, protesting that he was ready to die; but no sooner
were the words spoken, than he fell into an uncontrollable fit of
sobbing, and, throwing himself upon his knees, he craved mercy of
them. The four hooded men gave no sign that they heard him, but stood
like messengers of death, silent and unmoved. Nor did they speak when
they led him from the cell presently, and, coming out into the court,
he beheld a towering scaffold with a masked executioner upon the steps
of it, and other hooded men ready to assist in the last great act.
“La Force” had never thought that death could wear a shape so awful.
The cold light of dawn, the silent, hooded figures, the gaunt black
scaffold, struck his heart with a deadly and overwhelming fear. He
gave one long-drawn cry of agony, and then fell fainting upon the
stone floor.
But at the moment when he fell, a great shout of laughter went up in
the court, and one of the monks, pulling aside his hood, exclaimed:
“Haste to drive him to Gros Bois. The drug that was in the wine acts
for three hours. Let him be quite alone when he awakes.”
“La Force” awoke when the church bells in the village of Gros Bois
were proclaiming the Angelus. They had laid him in the heart of a
solitary thicket, wherefrom, through a bower of the trees, he could
espy a little pond shining like a silver mirror in the generous
sunshine. But he was very weak when the spell of the drug passed, and
he lay for long minutes content to feel the sweet morning air blowing
upon his face, and to gaze up at the cloudless heaven above him.
“Holy Virgin,” he said, “can it be that I live--that I have dreamed
the things of the night! Is it I, ‘La Force,’ who speaks, or do I hear
voices in the grave? Oh, Heaven pity me, for I have suffered.”
Slowly and with painful effort he dragged himself to the pond. A horse
whinnied in a neighbouring brake as he went, and he knew that it was
his own horse calling to him.
“Oh,” he said, “how good it is to live--how good! Last night I died
ten deaths, but to-day--to-day--”
He tried to collect his thoughts and to knit the story of this night
together, but confused images played with his brain, and he could
recall nothing. Once or twice the old fear came back to him. His heart
quickened when he remembered the masked men and the heavy blows of
those who had hewn out his scaffold. But this mood passed, and at
length he crawled to the pond and began to lap up the water.
A tree shaded the place where he lay, and the water being clear and
without a ripple, he beheld his own image reflected in it; and at this
he started back from the bank, and his trembling hands clutched the
grass convulsively.
“God!” he said, “she was right--she _is_ a dangerous guest.”
VIII.
YERUT THE DWARF
Chamillart, Marquis de la Suze, entered the garden of the Hôtel
Beautreillis when the clocks of Paris were striking five. He was
dressed with scrupulous care, but the heavy coat of black satin with
the ample skirts, dictated by fashion in the year 1766--the heavy
coat, and the full wig which fell upon his stooping shoulders, were
allies of the summer heat. Chamillart, Marquis de la Suze, also Grand
Marshal of the palace, used his handkerchief very freely, and declared
that the weather was atrociously warm. And this was an observation not
to be contested.
There was no one in the garden--an old garden umbrageously sweet and
alive with the vesper note of birds--when the lacquey led so
distinguished a visitor to a little bower of chestnut-trees, girt
about with roses in full bloom, and carpeted with ripe grass and the
petals of the flowers of yesterday. Here was a couch of ivory and
satin and a little table, upon which a golden flagon of wine was set,
and cups beside it, and fruit to cool the lips. Chamillart, Marquis de
la Suze, bade the lacquey tell his mistress that his business was
urgent. Then he filled a cup of wine and drank it at a draught.
Certainly, the day was atrociously hot.
Had it been anywhere else than the Hôtel Beautreillis in the Rue St.
Paul, had the mistress of the house been any one but pretty Corinne,
with whom all Paris was properly in love, the Grand Marshal would have
swollen visibly before the eyes of that lacquey who had asked him to
cool his heels in a garden; but since it _was_ the Hôtel
Beautreillis, and Corinne _was_ unquestionably mistress of it, he
contented himself with a prodigious pinch of snuff and many impatient
shufflings of the feet, and an attempt to stoop and pick a trailing
rose; but there nature hindered him, for he was very stout,--without
doubt it was a hot day.
Corinne de Montesson came tripping out of the house like a schoolgirl
from a convent. She was dressed in that costume known as the
_négligé apparent_--a girlish dress, suggesting shepherdesses and
Elysian fields, and masquerade at Trianon. A straw hat half concealed
the wealth of pretty silken hair which fell upon her shoulders, and
was rebelliously untrammelled about her little ears. Her arms and neck
were bare, and white as the marble of the fountains. She carried a
volume of Racine in her hand; a merry laugh rippled upon her lips.
Chamillart, Marquis de la Suze, leaned heavily upon his gold-mounted
cane, and watched the pretty picture.
“_Ventrebleu!_” he said to himself, “she cannot be twenty-five years
old--I do not believe it; she is eighteen, fifteen--she is an angel,
and I am going to make her cry.”
It may have been that, among the other reflections of this wicked old
fop, there was one which told him how pleasant it would be to wipe
away the tears of Corinne de Montesson. But that he concealed when he
rose to salute her. Indeed, following the extravagant habit of the
times, he stood bowing for quite a long time; and while he did so, he
covered his heart with his three-cornered hat, as though in heart and
hat lay all the emotions which had prompted his visit.
“_Chère_ Corinne, you have no pity, you make me wait,--me,
Chamillart--the minutes are hours--I grow old in this garden--”
She laughed coquettishly, for the day was rare when Chamillart,
Marquis de la Suze, did not amuse her very much.
“Oh, monsieur, it is really too hot for compliments,” she said,
sinking into a low chair placed by the side of his couch. “Am I not
grateful to any one who comes to the Hôtel Beautreillis on such a
day? Let me give you some wine, and you shall repay me with all the
news.”
The Grand Marshal put down his hat very carefully, and then took up
that position upon the sofa whence he could look with least effort
into the pretty eyes of his hostess.
“The news!” he said, “oh, as for that, there is no news. Madame de
Bouffleurs is not in Paris.”
“She is at Yères, then?”
“Nowhere else. She left yesterday with two coaches, seven lacqueys,
and a letter full of scolding from her kinsman, the Bishop of Bruges.
She has gone to keep a retreat, and the Chevalier Leduc will follow
her to-morrow. But, of course, we do not know that he is going to
Yères.”
The Grand Marshal chuckled horribly. Corinne was amused.
“If Madame de Bouffleurs has gone to Yères,” she cried, “we shall
have a holiday indeed. It will be Lent again, my dear marquis. There
will be no scandals, and think of it, no unhappy lovers. How will
Paris live for a week when that wicked tongue is still?”
“Impossible, my child. As impossible as the happiness of Chamillart,
without the words of Corinne de Montesson.”
“A compliment, a compliment! Is not that forbidden, Monsieur le
Marquis?”
“Mademoiselle, beauty is as far above the law as the stars above the
darkness.”