She sat waiting Le Gardeur's arrival, and the thought of him began to
assert its influence as the antidote of the poisonous stuff she had
taken into her imagination. His presence so handsome, his manner so
kind, his love so undoubted, carried her into a region of intense
satisfaction. Angélique never thought so honestly well of herself as
when recounting the marks of affection bestowed upon her by Le Gardeur
de Repentigny. “His love is a treasure for any woman to possess, and he
has given it all to me!” said she to herself. “There are women who value
themselves wholly by the value placed upon them by others; but I value
others by the measure of myself. I love Le Gardeur; and what I love I do
not mean to lose!” added she, with an inconsequence that fitted ill
with her resolution regarding the Intendant. But Angélique was one
who reconciled to herself all professions, however opposite or however
incongruous.
A hasty knock at the door of the mansion, followed by the quick,
well-known step up the broad stair, brought Le Gardeur into
her presence. He looked flushed and disordered as he took her
eagerly-extended hand and pressed it to his lips.
Her whole aspect underwent a transformation in the presence of her
lover. She was unfeignedly glad to see him. Without letting go his
hand she led him to the sofa, and sat down by him. Other men had the
semblance of her graciousness, and a perfect imitation it was too; but
he alone had the reality of her affection.
“O Le Gardeur!” exclaimed she, looking him through and through, and
detecting no flaw in his honest admiration, “can you forgive me
for asking you to come and see me to-night? and for absolutely no
reason--none in the world, Le Gardeur, but that I longed to see you! I
was jealous of Belmont for drawing you away from the Maison des Meloises
to-night!”
“And what better reason could I have in the world than that you were
longing to see me, Angélique? I think I should leave the gate of Heaven
itself if you called me back, darling! Your presence for a minute is
more to me than hours of festivity at Belmont, or the company of any
other woman in the world.”
Angélique was not insensible to the devotion of Le Gardeur. Her feelings
were touched, and never slow in finding an interpretation for them she
raised his hand quickly to her lips and kissed it. “I had no motive
in sending for you but to see you, Le Gardeur!” said she; “will that
content you? If it won't--”
“This shall,” replied he, kissing her cheek--which she was far from
averting or resenting.
“That is so like you, Le Gardeur!” replied she,--“to take before it
is given!” She stopped--“What was I going to say?” added she. “It was
given, and my contentment is perfect to have you here by my side!” If
her thoughts reverted at this moment to the Intendant it was with a
feeling of repulsion, and as she looked fondly on the face of Le Gardeur
she could not help contrasting his handsome looks with the hard, swarthy
features of Bigot.
“I wish my contentment were perfect, Angélique; but it is in your power
to make it so--will you? Why keep me forever on the threshold of my
happiness, or of my despair, whichever you shall decree? I have spoken
to Amélie tonight of you!”
“O do not press me, Le Gardeur!” exclaimed she, violently agitated,
anxious to evade the question she saw burning on his lips, and
distrustful of her own power to refuse; “not now! not to-night! Another
day you shall know how much I love you, Le Gardeur! Why will not men
content themselves with knowing we love them, without stripping our
favors of all grace by making them duties, and in the end destroying our
love by marrying us?” A flash of her natural archness came over her face
as she said this.
“That would not be your case or mine, Angélique,” replied he, somewhat
puzzled at her strange speech. But she rose up suddenly without
replying, and walked to a buffet, where stood a silver salver full of
refreshments. “I suppose you have feasted so magnificently at Belmont
that you will not care for my humble hospitalities,” said she, offering
him a cup of rare wine, a recent gift of the Intendant,--which she did
not mention, however. “You have not told me a word yet of the grand
party at Belmont. Pierre Philibert has been highly honored by the
Honnêtes Gens I am sure!”
“And merits all the honor he receives! Why were you not there too,
Angélique? Pierre would have been delighted,” replied he, ever ready to
defend Pierre Philibert.
“And I too! but I feared to be disloyal to the Fripponne!” said she,
half mockingly. “I am a partner in the Grand Company you know, Le
Gardeur! But I confess Pierre Philibert is the handsomest man--except
one--in New France. I own to THAT. I thought to pique Amélie one day by
telling her so, but on the contrary I pleased her beyond measure! She
agreed without excepting even the one!”
“Amélie told me your good opinions of Pierre, and I thanked you for it!”
said he, taking her hand. “And now, darling, since you cannot with wine,
words, or winsomeness divert me from my purpose in making you declare
what you think of me also, let me tell you I have promised Amélie to
bring her your answer to-night!”
The eyes of Le Gardeur shone with a light of loyal affection. Angélique
saw there was no escaping a declaration. She sat irresolute and
trembling, with one hand resting on his arm and the other held up
deprecatingly. It was a piece of acting she had rehearsed to herself
for this foreseen occasion. But her tongue, usually so nimble and free,
faltered for once in the rush of emotions that well-nigh overpowered
her. To become the honored wife of Le Gardeur de Repentigny, the sister
of the beauteous Amélie, the niece of the noble Lady de Tilly, was a
piece of fortune to have satisfied, until recently, both her heart and
her ambition. But now Angélique was the dupe of dreams and fancies. The
Royal Intendant was at her feet. France and its courtly splendors
and court intrigues opened vistas of grandeur to her aspiring and
unscrupulous ambition. She could not forego them, and would not! She
knew that, all the time her heart was melting beneath the passionate
eyes of Le Gardeur.
“I have spoken to Amélie, and promised to take her your answer
to-night,” said he, in a tone that thrilled every fibre of her better
nature. “She is ready to embrace you as her sister. Will you be my wife,
Angélique?”
Angélique sat silent; she dared not look up at him. If she had, she
knew her hard resolution would melt. She felt his gaze upon her without
seeing it. She grew pale and tried to answer no, but could not; and she
would not answer yes.
The vision she had so wickedly revelled in flashed again upon her at
this supreme moment. She saw, in a panorama of a few seconds, the gilded
halls of Versailles pass before her, and with the vision came the old
temptation.
“Angélique!” repeated he, in a tone full of passionate entreaty, “will
you be my wife, loved as no woman ever was,--loved as alone Le Gardeur
de Repentigny can love you?”
She knew that. As she weakened under his pleading and grasped both his
hands tight in hers, she strove to frame a reply which should say yes
while it meant no; and say no which he should interpret yes.
“All New France will honor you as the Châtelaine de Repentigny! There
will be none higher, as there will be none fairer, than my bride!” Poor
Le Gardeur! He had a dim suspicion that Angélique was looking to France
as a fitting theatre for her beauty and talents.
She still sat mute, and grew paler every moment. Words formed themselves
upon her lips, but she feared to say them, so terrible was the
earnestness of this man's love, and no less vivid the consciousness of
her own. Her face assumed the hardness of marble, pale as Parian and as
rigid; a trembling of her white lips showed the strife going on within
her; she covered her eyes with her hand, that he might not see the tears
she felt quivering under the full lids, but she remained mute.
“Angélique!” exclaimed he, divining her unexpressed refusal; “why do you
turn away from me? You surely do not reject me? But I am mad to think
it! Speak, darling! one word, one sign, one look from those dear eyes,
in consent to be the wife of Le Gardeur, will bring life's happiness to
us both!” He took her hand, and drew it gently from her eyes and kissed
it, but she still averted her gaze from him; she could not look at him,
but the words dropped slowly and feebly from her lips in response to his
appeal:
“I love you, Le Gardeur, but I will not marry you!” said she. She could
not utter more, but her hand grasped his with a fierce pressure, as if
wanting to hold him fast in the very moment of refusal.
He started back, as if touched by fire. “You love me, but will not
marry me! Angélique, what mystery is this? But you are only trying me!
A thousand thanks for your love; the other is but a jest,--a good jest,
which I will laugh at!” And Le Gardeur tried to laugh, but it was a sad
failure, for he saw she did not join in his effort at merriment, but
looked pale and trembling, as if ready to faint.
She laid her hands upon his heavily and sadly. He felt her refusal in
the very touch. It was like cold lead. “Do not laugh, Le Gardeur, I
cannot laugh over it; this is no jest, but mortal earnest! What I say I
mean! I love you, Le Gardeur, but I will not marry you!”
She drew her hands away, as if to mark the emphasis she could not speak.
He felt it like the drawing of his heartstrings.
She turned her eyes full upon him now, as if to look whether love of
her was extinguished in him by her refusal. “I love you, Le Gardeur--you
know I do! But I will not--I cannot--marry you now!” repeated she.
“Now!” he caught at the straw like a drowning swimmer in a whirlpool.
“Now? I said not now but when you please, Angélique! You are worth a
man's waiting his life for!”
“No, Le Gardeur!” she replied, “I am not worth your waiting for; it
cannot be, as I once hoped it might be; but love you I do and ever
shall!” and the false, fair woman kissed him fatuously. “I love you, Le
Gardeur, but I will not marry you!”
“You do not surely mean it, Angélique!” exclaimed he; “you will not give
me death instead of life? You cannot be so false to your own heart, so
cruel to mine? See, Angélique! My saintly sister Amélie believed in
your love, and sent these flowers to place in your hair when you
had consented to be my wife,--her sister; you will not refuse them,
Angélique?”
He raised his hand to place the garland upon her head, but Angélique
turned quickly, and they fell at her feet. “Amélie's gifts are not for
me, Le Gardeur--I do not merit them! I confess my fault: I am, I know,
false to my own heart, and cruel to yours. Despise me,--kill me for it
if you will, Le Gardeur! better you did kill me, perhaps! but I cannot
lie to you as I can to other men! Ask me not to change my resolution,
for I neither can nor will.” She spoke with impassioned energy, as if
fortifying her refusal by the reiteration of it.
“It is past comprehension!” was all he could say, bewildered at her
words thus dislocated from all their natural sequence of association.
“Love me and not marry me!--that means she will marry another!” thought
he, with a jealous pang. “Tell me, Angélique,” continued he, after
several moments of puzzled silence, “is there some inscrutable reason
that makes you keep my love and reject my hand?”
“No reason, Le Gardeur! It is mad unreason,--I feel that,--but it is no
less true. I love you, but I will not marry you.” She spoke with more
resolution now. The first plunge was over, and with it her fear and
trembling as she sat on the brink.
The iteration drove him beside himself. He seized her hands, and
exclaimed with vehemence,--“There is a man--a rival--a more fortunate
lover--behind all this, Angélique des Meloises! It is not yourself that
speaks, but one that prompts you. You have given your love to another,
and discarded me! Is it not so?”
“I have neither discarded you, nor loved another,” Angélique
equivocated. She played her soul away at this moment with the mental
reservation that she had not yet done what she had resolved to do upon
the first opportunity--accept the hand of the Intendant Bigot.
“It is well for that other man, if there be one!” Le Gardeur rose and
walked angrily across the room two or three times. Angélique was playing
a game of chess with Satan for her soul, and felt that she was losing
it.
“There was a Sphinx in olden times,” said he, “that propounded a riddle,
and he who failed to solve it had to die. Your riddle will be the death
of me, for I cannot solve it, Angélique!”
“Do not try to solve it, dear Le Gardeur! Remember that when her riddle
was solved the Sphinx threw herself into the sea. I doubt that may be
my fate! But you are still my friend, Le Gardeur!” added she, seating
herself again by his side, in her old fond, coquettish manner. “See
these flowers of Amélie's, which I did not place in my hair; I treasure
them in my bosom!” She gathered them up as she spoke, kissed them, and
placed them in her bosom.
“You are still my friend, Le Gardeur?” Her eyes turned upon him with the
old look she could so well assume.
“I am more than a thousand friends, Angélique!” replied he; “but I shall
curse myself that I can remain so and see you the wife of another.”
The very thought drove him to frenzy. He dashed her hand away and sprang
up towards the door, but turned suddenly round. “That curse was not for
you, Angélique!” said he, pale and agitated; “it was for myself, for
ever believing in the empty love you professed for me. Good-by! Be
happy! As for me, the light goes out of my life, Angélique, from this
day forth.”
“Oh, stop! stop, Le Gardeur! do not leave me so!” She rose and
endeavored to restrain him, but he broke from her, and without adieu
or further parley rushed out bareheaded into the street. She ran to
the balcony to call him back, and leaning far over it, cried out, “Le
Gardeur! Le Gardeur!” That voice would have called him from the dead
could he have heard it, but he was already lost in the darkness. A
few rapid steps resounded on the distant pavement, and Le Gardeur de
Repentigny was lost to her forever!
She waited long on the balcony, looking over it for a chance of hearing
his returning steps, but none came. It was the last impulse of her love
to save her, but it was useless. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed in a voice
of mortal agony, “he is gone forever--my Le Gardeur! my one true lover,
rejected by my own madness, and for what?” She thought “For what!”
and in a storm of passion, tearing her golden hair over her face,
and beating her breast in her rage, she exclaimed,--“I am wicked,
unutterably bad, worse and more despicable than the vilest creature that
crouches under the bushes on the Batture! How dared I, unwomanly that I
am, reject the hand I worship for sake of a hand I should loathe in the
very act of accepting it? The slave that is sold in the market is better
than I, for she has no choice, while I sell myself to a man whom I
already hate, for he is already false to me! The wages of a harlot were
more honestly earned than the splendor for which I barter soul and body
to this Intendant!”
The passionate girl threw herself upon the floor, nor heeded the blood
that oozed from her head, bruised on the hard wood. Her mind was torn by
a thousand wild fancies. Sometimes she resolved to go out like the Rose
of Sharon and seek her beloved in the city and throw herself at his
feet, making him a royal gift of all he claimed of her.
She little knew her own wilful heart. She had seen the world bow to
every caprice of hers, but she never had one principle to guide her,
except her own pleasure. She was now like a goddess of earth, fallen in
an effort to reconcile impossibilities in human hearts, and became the
sport of the powers of wickedness.
She lay upon the floor senseless, her hands in a violent clasp. Her
glorious hair, torn and disordered, lay over her like the royal robe of
a queen stricken from her throne and lying dead upon the floor of her
palace.
It was long after midnight, in the cold hours of the morning, when
she woke from her swoon. She raised herself feebly upon her elbow,
and looked dazedly up at the cold, unfeeling stars that go on shining
through the ages, making no sign of sympathy with human griefs. Perseus
had risen to his meridian, and Algol, her natal star, alternately
darkened and brightened as if it were the scene of some fierce conflict
of the powers of light and darkness, like that going on in her own soul.
Her face was stained with hard clots of blood as she rose, cramped and
chilled to the bone. The night air had blown coldly upon her through
the open lattice; but she would not summon her maid to her assistance.
Without undressing she threw herself upon a couch, and utterly worn out
by the agitation she had undergone, slept far into the day.