Chantemerle

But Louis’ scrapes were not always political.

It was no mitigation of the Marquise’s annoyance—rather it was an addition of fresh fuel—to know that if Louis had come himself instead of writing she would have denied him nothing; there was no resisting his personal charm. But her principles, her prejudices, and her maternal jealousy, all of which the Vicomte de Saint-Ermay could vanquish when he was present, were apt, in his absence, to clamour the louder for their temporary extinction. It was so this evening.

CHAPTER III
A LETTER AND A CONCLAVE

Had the Marquise de Château-Foix been able to overhear the conversation between her son and M. des Graves she might perhaps have held her surmises to be in a measure justified. To M. des Graves’ conjecture of “something worse than a mistake,” Gilbert de Chantemerle had indeed made no immediate reply, but glanced thoughtfully at the letter in his hand.

“You mean?” he asked at length.

“I mean that there is more information in the Vicomte’s letter than he is himself aware of.”

The younger man looked puzzled. “Naturally I see that Louis is under some misapprehension,” he said slowly, “since I have never, as he imagines, given in my adhesion to this scheme of which he speaks. Indeed, how could I, when his letter gives me the first hint of its existence?”

They had reached the end of the terrace.

“Will you read me the letter again?” asked the priest. “Or read, at least, the part relating to the plot, if so it is to be called.”

His companion complied at once, turning to the first page of the fine, closely-written missive.

The reader paused.

“Et dona ferentes,” said M. des Graves softly. “But I fear me Louis has long ago forgotten the Virgil we did together. May I also have the passage relating to Madame d’Espaze?”

“It is further on, I think.

“The rest, as you know, is not pertinent,” concluded the Marquis drily.

“Yet I am inclined to think that there is more pertinence in the remark about a woman’s rôle in a plot than the writer knows,” muttered his listener.

“I wish to goodness that Louis would think less about a woman’s rôle in any capacity,” returned the Marquis, with a slight show of impatience.

“Can the boy for a moment,” said the Curé, ignoring Château-Foix’ remark, “believe in the sincerity of this divinity, as he calls her? Surely he must know that there was a suspicion of her being implicated in the affair of the Necklace? If the idea of a Girondin-émigré alliance were not on the face of it an impossibility, the mere presence of a woman ought to be enough to rouse suspicion. The game is as old as Delilah and Jael.”

“Then what do you make of this project of Louis’?” asked Gilbert.

“It is a trap,” returned the Curé, quickening his steps and his speech. “I have not a doubt of it. Can a leopard change his spots? No; and can the deputies of the Gironde, who have spent their time since the autumn in passing laws against the émigrés, now be desirous of an alliance with them. The idea is preposterous.”

“If they are,” said the Marquis, “their conversion must certainly have been speedy, for it is less than a month ago that the King’s constitutional guard was dismissed, and less still since Servan’s abominable proposals for the formation of a camp of scoundrels outside Paris passed the Assembly.”

“And if our last news is true—as seems likely—that the King refuses his assent to that, as he has done to Vergniaud’s iniquitous scheme for deportation of priests, you may be quite sure that the Gironde will never forgive him.”

“But if it is only a trap, a bogus conspiracy, what do the Girondin party hope to gain by it?” asked the Marquis, knitting his brows.

“This,” answered the priest. “The Gironde has long been hinting that the Court wishes for nothing less than the invasion of France by the Emperor, and that it communicates its desires by secret messages to Coblentz. But they have no proofs to show to the people. Very well, then, if they can persuade a certain number of young hotheads about the King to believe in their sincerity, they will have their names and signatures, most probably, as evidence, when the time for denunciation is ripe. That these ‘conspirators’ are unimportant does not matter a straw—they are Royalists. For all we know, a list of false names may be in circulation also, which would account for the appearance of yours.”

“If this explanation be anything like the truth,” said Château-Foix, “then not only the King and the Court are imperilled, but Louis himself is in the gravest danger. I had better start for Paris to-night.”

“I think you would be wise to do so,” said the priest quietly.

“Young fool!” muttered the Marquis somewhat irritably. “How could he be so blinded? He has a good enough head on his shoulders as a rule. . . . And, Father, what about you? I cannot bear the thought of leaving home when matters are so critical.”

“We are in God’s hands,” replied M. des Graves tranquilly. “When He permits it, but not before, the municipality will move. You cannot deny, Gilbert, that they have proved miraculously tolerant.”

“Yes; because no pressure has yet been brought to bear on them from Fontenay,” returned Château-Foix. “Directly that happens, we shall see the worth of their tolerant spirit. I tell you frankly, Father, I fear the worst. And if you are turned out there will be a riot in the village, and we shall have the scenes of last year at Apremont and Saint-Christophe-du-Ligneron over again.”

“Not if I can prevent it,” said the Curé firmly. “And, should I be ejected, I shall obey your wishes, and take up my residence in the Château.” It was not in his mind, any more than it was in his host’s, to consider the odium and danger in which such a course would involve the inhabitants of the Château, for the matter was not one of safety, but of duty.

The Marquis looked at him. “I shall leave full instructions,” was all his comment. “It seems a sorry trick of fate,” he added, “to drag me away at this juncture. However, it is evidently a pressing matter. I can satisfy myself also as to Lucienne’s well-being.” His voice had grown softer, and he paused for a second. “Well, I had better tell my mother. I am sure that you are right about my going, but I do not go willingly.”

The priest stood looking after him as he went towards the steps, and there shone on his face, for a moment, something of the love which he bore him.

“You have had a long conference down there,” said the Marquise cheerfully, as Gilbert mounted the steps. “Am I to share the secret?”

“Certainly,” replied Château-Foix. “We were discussing Louis’ affairs. He has entered into some exceedingly rash political relations, and, though he is evidently not aware of it, is at this moment most seriously compromised by them.”

He stood there looking down on her with a little frown, rather as if she were the offending entanglement.

At Saint-Ermay’s name the smile left Madame de Château-Foix’ lips, and a certain tightness came about them. “Oh, Louis . . .” she murmured, and took her embroidery and a skein of silk off the table. “Well?” she asked, bending her head and selecting a needle from her case.

“I am going to Paris to see him,” announced her son succinctly.

There was a moment’s pause, ere Madame de Château-Foix slowly raised her head. “You do not really mean that, surely?”

“Yes. Why not?”

The Marquise made a gesture with her still beautiful hands. “What sort of a scrape is in this time?” she demanded. “Debts, or a woman?”

“Neither,” said Gilbert. And, leaning against the stone balustrade, he gave her an outline of the situation, omitting all reference to Madame d’Espaze. At the end she took the embroidery and put it back on the table. Her colour was perceptibly heightened.

“I have no patience with Louis—nor with you, for the matter of that,” she observed, and there was more than irritation in her voice. “But it has always been the same. Surely Louis is old enough to look after himself. Who made you his keeper?”

“You yourself,” returned the Marquis, and there was the glimmer of a smile on his face. “Exactly eighteen years ago last March it was. Have you forgotten?”

Madame de Château-Foix gave vent to a monosyllable that sounded like “Pshaw!”

“My dear mother, you make yourself out a perfect Gorgon of hard-heartedness. Who would be the first to fly to Louis’ bedside if he were ill? Why, you, of course!”

“That is very different,” replied the Marquise, unmoved.

“Well, the difference lies in this, that Louis has never had a dangerous illness in his life, and that this affair is—dangerous.”

“Other things,” said his mother, “are dangerous, too—for other people. It is dangerous for you to go away now, when we do not know from day to day what the Directory at Fontenay may do next, when the village is on the point of revolt against them, when——”

Château-Foix got up from the balustrade. “Yes, I know all that,” he replied gravely, “and therefore nothing but an affair of life and death could persuade me to leave at this juncture. But I must go, and to-night.”

“Well, I hope we shall not all live to regret it,” said Madame de Château-Foix. “It is perfectly scandalous that you should be dragged away like this. And does M. des Graves approve of your going, may I ask?”

“He does,” said her son. “Try not to be so unjust to Louis, ma mère! You know what an ardent Royalist he is, and you are far from disapproving of him on that score. If he chooses to play his head for the cause, as he is doing now, it may be foolish of him, but it is hardly scandalous.”

The Marquise got up and gathered together her silks. “As you like, my dear boy,” she said, with an air of resignation. “I do not want to dictate to you. Dear me, what a singular hurry M. des Graves appears to be in!”

For the priest was now hastening along the terrace walk with a newspaper in his hand. He did not speak until he was nearly at the top of the steps.

“The courier has just brought the Paris paper,” he said, a little out of breath. “There is very serious news in it. The mob has invaded the Tuileries.”

“Invaded the Tuileries!” exclaimed the Marquise with incredulous horror. “Then—— O mon Dieu!”

“No one was injured, Madame,” put in the priest quickly. “The account most expressly says so.”

A heartfelt “Thank God!” from Gilbert, who had perceptibly paled, accompanied the Marquise’s sigh of relief as she sank down again into her chair.

“The paper merely says,” went on the Curé, glancing at it, “that several thousand armed persons from the Faubourgs Saint Antoine and Saint Marcel——”

“The worst quarters of Paris!” ejaculated the Marquise.

“—Accompanied to the Assembly a deputation demanding the recall of the Girondin ministry dismissed by the King on the 13th. Afterwards they forced an entrance into the palace, threatening to bring cannon to bear on the great gates if they were not opened. The newspaper—which is Jacobin—states that calm and order prevailed throughout, and that great enthusiasm was manifested when the King himself put on the bonnet rouge.”

“The King put on the cap of liberty!” exclaimed Madame de Château-Foix. “It is impossible!”

“Was the mob in Madame Elisabeth’s apartments?” asked the Marquis quickly. “Does it say anything about the Princess and her ladies?”

“I can see nothing specific,” replied the priest, holding out the newspaper, “except that Madame Elisabeth was with the King, while the Queen appears to have been in another room. But you had better read it for yourself. As far as I can gather, the crowd roamed for hours all over the palace—the gates were opened at half-past eleven, and the invaders were there till half-past eight at night. So it is probably useless for us to hope that Lucienne was spared the sight of them.”

Gilbert dashed the paper down on the balustrade. “It is monstrous!” he cried. “I am as good a Liberal as any man, but this outrage! . . . Now, at all events, I must start for Paris!”

“Poor, poor darling!” exclaimed Madame de Château-Foix, referring not to her son but to his betrothed. “Bring her back as quickly as you can, Gilbert—you will, of course, have to bring Madame de Fontenelle, too—though I do not know how you will manage, for she is very old. Perhaps I——”

“No, ma mère,” interposed the Marquis quickly, “I must go alone. And as to bringing Lucienne back here——” Instead of finishing his sentence he looked at the Curé.

The Marquise saw the glance and its answer. “You don’t mean to say that you are not going to bring her back?” she said in disappointed tones. Already she had the girl in bed, surrounded with remedies against shock. “In Heaven’s name, Gilbert, what will you do with the poor child if you do not bring her here?”

“I shall take, or send her, for a little while to Suffolk,” replied her son. “I do not think it desirable to bring her into the midst of so much unrest and potential disturbance as we have here at present, and M. des Graves agrees with me.”

“But I am here!” exclaimed the Marquise, sitting up in her chair.

“Yes, but some day I may have to send you away, too,” returned Gilbert very gravely. “However, we will not discuss that now. I hope the time may never come. If it should, you will go and take care of Lucienne for me till I claim her, will you not, ma mère?” He bent and kissed her hand affectionately.

“I suppose I shall always do as you ask me, Gilbert,” answered Madame de Château-Foix, her unmistakable surprise at his last announcement softening a little. “But leave Chantemerle! . . . However, as you say, the time has not come for that. Now, will you tell Antoine what clothes to pack for you, or shall I?”

CHAPTER IV
PLAY AND POLITICS

Eight o’clock had just struck from the great timepiece whose dial had the privilege of being upheld in the arms of two hooped and painted china shepherdesses. The dying daylight fought a losing fight with the host of candles in the large, well-furnished room. These stood on half a dozen tables, where they lit up the players’ faces and their gold, and from their silver sconces on the walls they chiefly joined issue with the few shafts of daylight slipping between the heavy window curtains. Behind those same curtains lay, shut out from view alone, the turmoil of the Rue Saint-Honoré. It must be confessed that, if this was loud, it was occasionally equalled by the noise within the room itself, when a group of talkers burst into laughter over an anecdote, or an unlucky player declared with vehemence, and amid expostulation, that he would stake no more.

There was no woman present, and the general appearance of the room and the occupation of its inmates might have led to the supposition that it existed for the sole purpose of gambling. Nevertheless, it was really an apartment in a private house, and, as such, it testified merely to the Comte de Larny’s method of entertaining his friends. Were the monarchy going swiftly to perdition, and its supporters involved in the same downfall, the latter must amuse themselves; and if the host and every one of his guests knew that each card-party might be his last, the knowledge apparently added zest to the game.

The gathering numbered scarcely a score. Amongst it were visible a few black figures, those of the noirs, the aristocrates enragés, who affected to wear mourning for the monarchy which they considered—and very truly—to have breathed its last when its holder was brought from Versailles. The greater number, however, wore a less sombre style of dress, and several were in uniform. This was, like Coblentz, the camp of ultra-Royalism, the last stronghold of a loyalty pushed to the point of fanaticism, where the champions of a lost cause brought to its defence a zeal far more ardent than their leader’s own. Leader, indeed, the King was not; his name served as a rallying-cry, his person as a symbol, but the passive and patient Louis XVI. was neither chief nor divinity to these his most fervent partisans. They were all of them very literally plus royalistes que le roi. For them the King was almost a traitor to himself. He had stripped himself of what he had no right to lay aside, but above him still burnt the throne from which he had been dragged, and it was on the steps of that desecrated altar that their lives were offered up. They were many of them young, and most of them doomed; they were gay with a gaiety which was spontaneous if it was extravagant, and brave with a courage no less real for its utter futility. And if the stake for which they played was the existence and the privileges of their own order as well as those of their King, if they sometimes condemned the sovereign in whose name they held the dice, if they cast the last throws with defiant recklessness, theirs was none the less a tragic and a desperate devotion. But certainly none of the company seemed in the slightest degree conscious of this. They talked, they laughed, they lost or won; and the Comte de Larny, who prided himself on his personal resemblance to the King, went round the room at intervals, exchanging a jest with the talkers and bestowing an occasional word of advice on a player if he overlooked his cards.

The table nearest to the door was unoccupied, but round that beyond it sat four gentlemen playing quadrille. One of them was a noir, whose peculiarly cadaverous appearance was heightened by his black dress. He had on his right a Chevalier de Saint Louis, and on his left a personage, no longer young, whose dark features bore the stamp of mingled sensuality and cynicism.

The fourth player was a young man of exceptional good looks, wearing the somewhat extravagantly cut fashions of 1792, but with no trace of the amazing war of colours by which the young bloods of the Court party usually protested against the levelling tendencies of Jacobinism in sartorial as in other matters. The protest, however, was visible enough in the striped pearl-grey satin which glimmered upon his handsome person, and in his carefully dressed and powdered hair, becoming unmistakable in the silver buttons with the fleur-de-lys, which testified to his political opinions in a manner more courageous than prudent. A half-amused expression seemed habitual to him, and he staked with great nonchalance from a rapidly diminishing heap of coins in front of him. Eyes of the darkest grey, a straight nose neither long nor short, and an unusually well-turned mouth and chin made up a face instinct with life and vivacity. The eyes had that rare setting so full of charm, when the outer corner is at a slightly lower level than the inner—the slope which stamps a face sometimes with hauteur, sometimes with dreaminess, but always with a nameless fascination. In the present case it seemed impossible that melancholy should sit there; the glance was too direct and keen, too little likely to be veiled in introspection—a look at once indolent and daring. Despite their beauty and their delicacy, the features were scarcely effeminate. They were those of a man who could at need both think and act; and yet there were strong indications that the hour for either necessity was never a very welcome one. An inborn airy gaiety, an almost ardent carelessness reigned in them at present, and by too clear a natural tenure ever to be wholly dethroned.

A diamond sparkled on one of his hands as, tilting back his spindle-legged chair, the young man clasped them at the back of his head, looking with a smile and a raising of the eyebrows at his partner, the noir. The smile was a very charming one.

“We have no luck to-night, it seems,” he remarked, as the Chevalier de Saint Louis raked in the gains. “I should advise you to change your partner, Comte.”

The melancholy noir shook his head. “I could not find a better loser to bear me company,” he said with courtesy, “and if you will honour me so far, I should like to continue our alliance.”

“It is I who am honoured,” replied the young man, bringing back his chair to its normal position; “but I hope that our opponents will not object to my making sure that I am still solvent. I confess that I feel somewhat doubtful on the point.” He laughed, plunged a hand into his breeches pocket, and pulled out five louis d’or.

“Then we shall make your pockets as empty as Vergniaud’s last speech,” said the Chevalier de Saint Louis, with the air of one contributing a witty remark.

But his partner was recounting his gains, the noir was dealing very slowly and methodically, and the player in grey, with his hands in his depleted pockets, was looking a little abstractedly round the room.

“A thousand pardons!” he exclaimed, as the Chevalier touched his arm; “I did not know that you were ready. Is it my turn to stake?”

The noir nodded, and the possessor of five louis pushed three of them towards the centre of the table. The slim hand, however, never reached the little rosewood centre of its goal, for it was arrested by the sudden opening of the heavily gilded folding-door.

“Monsieur le Marquis de Château-Foix!” announced the strident voice of a lackey.

The arrival sufficed to divert most people’s attention. As for the noir’s partner, he had sprung to his feet, upsetting his chair, his gaze riveted upon the newcomer. “Gilbert! as I live!” he exclaimed in accents of the profoundest astonishment.

For the handsome player in grey was no other than Louis-Adrien-Marie-Hyacinthe de Chantemerle, Vicomte de Saint-Ermay, and a visitor from the shades could not have surprised him more.

For a moment the Marquis stood on the threshold, a tall dark figure, glancing swiftly round the company with an air of quiet self-possession. Then he moved forward to take the outstretched hand of the Comte de Larny, who had hurried from the other side of the room.

“This is indeed a surprise,” said the latter—“and a pleasure!” he hastened to add with effusion. The Marquis bowed slightly. He was perfectly aware of the falsity of the last statement. No one of his Liberal views was likely to be popular in the present assembly—nay, would probably be regarded as something worse than a Jacobin. Since M. de Larny was also aware of this fact, his usually suave manner became a little flustered, but, as he had every wish to be polite to the cousin of his kinsman Saint-Ermay, he caught hold of the two nearest guests and presented them to the newcomer.

By this time the Vicomte had definitely abandoned his game (which at one moment he had seemed to have a wish to continue) and had advanced to greet his cousin. The Marquis was exchanging civilities with an acquaintance, but as the young man approached he broke off, and held out his hand with a smile. “I want a word or two with you presently, Louis,” he said carelessly, and resumed his conversation.

The Vicomte de Saint-Ermay nodded rather disconsolately, and strolled back to his fellow-players. But they had broken up and the table was deserted. He threw himself down in his former chair, crossed his legs, put an elbow on the table, and waited. He was not sure that he was glad to see his cousin in the present company. In spite of temperamental gulfs, there subsisted between them a very sincere if limited affection, and he knew how far from friendly to the Marquis were the dispositions of most present. And though he permitted himself free criticism, not to say mockery, of his kinsman’s views and actions, he very rarely indulged in it except to Gilbert’s face, and at no time encouraged it in others. The smiles and glances around him were therefore highly galling to the feeling of mingled affection, amusement, and family pride with which he regarded Château-Foix.

“You appear to be sulking, Saint-Ermay,” said a voice suddenly behind him. “Can it be that you are bankrupt?” And the speaker, a young exquisite like himself, powdered and point-devise, but lacking his own good looks, perched himself on the table and leant towards him. “Are your pockets quite empty?”

“Very nearly,” responded the Vicomte, with a shrug. “You are in the same condition yourself, I expect, De Périgny, if what I hear is true. But if you think I was sulking (which I was not), favour me with a little of your conversation.”

“I see—I am to enact David before Saul,” retorted the newcomer, slipping off the table. “Or rather, since I find myself so scriptural, I fancy that it is a case of ‘Occupy till I come.’” He punctuated his remark with a glance at the other side of the room, where Château-Foix was visible in conversation. “Monsieur le Cousin will want a word with you presently, I suspect.”

“I suppose so,” said Saint-Ermay resignedly. “Meanwhile you can tell me all you know about the Lafayette affair. The accounts are so confoundedly conflicting.”

For answer his companion hailed a passing friend. “We want news of General Morpheus,” he called out. “D’Aubeville, you will know. Has he gone back to his army—is he going back at all? Has the Assembly hanged him or the National Guard made him dictator?”

The young man addressed shook his head, and a smile flickered for an instant over his kindly and melancholy visage. “I am probably little wiser than you, gentlemen. You know that their Majesties received the Marquis very coldly the day before yesterday, and that the Queen is reported to have said that she would rather perish than be saved by Lafayette.”

“Wherein I applaud her,” observed the Comte de Périgny.

“He could have closed the Jacobins that day, for most of the National Guard were eager to do so. But he dismissed them, and lost his chance, for at the review which he held yesterday in the Champs Elysées only a hundred or so put in an appearance.”

The others laughed, for they were emphatically of the Queen’s opinion.

“So the hero has gone back to his camp with his tail between his legs?” asked M. de Périgny amiably. “I only regret that Guadet’s vote of censure on him for leaving it was lost.”

“Yes; he went back this morning,” answered D’Aubeville gravely. “His life would probably not have been safe in Paris a day longer—so much has his coming excited and alarmed the Jacobins and Orleanists.”

“Then we shall see him burnt in effigy yet,” remarked De Périgny with satisfaction.

“Ma foi, that would be something to live for!” exclaimed Louis de Chantemerle. “We will all go and dance round the pile.”

“Too late, Messieurs,” interposed a fourth young man, stopping as he passed. “I have just come through the Palais-Royal, and there was M. Marie-Jean-Paul-Roch-Yves-Gilbert du Mottier blazing away merrily in the middle of the garden.”

“I suspect your cousin does not share your views on bonfires, Saint-Ermay,” put in D’Aubeville quietly. “Look at old Du Mesnou’s long face; M. de Château-Foix is probably telling him that he considers Lafayette the one man who could have saved us.”

“My cousin,” said the Vicomte ruefully, “has the misfortune to possess the same Christian name as General Morpheus—a fact of which you have just reminded me, M. de Monroux. Perhaps that accounts for it.”

hummed the Comte de Périgny, and continued:

Louis knitted his brows. “I have never been able to arrive at a clear comprehension of my cousin’s creed,” he said. “I know that it leads him to the erection of model pig-styes for his tenantry, and all that sort of thing; but disobey his orders, and see what happens! The pig-styes have not altered a jot of his authority down there, and as for his politics, I have my suspicions that his views are changing. A few days in Paris will change them still more. And after all,” he concluded lightly, “these things are freaks; one has generally to put up with something of the kind in one’s relations.”

“One has,” assented D’Aubeville. “Sometimes one has to put up with them in oneself.”

“I had a great-aunt,” observed the Comte de Périgny sympathetically, “who always wanted to be kind to parrots. She thought they were unhappy in cages, and bought up all she could find, and had them loose in her house—one of those old houses in the Marais. It was as much as one’s life was worth to go in. But she meant well, you know; and I expect it is much the same with Monsieur le Marquis. Only, of course, people who do not understand take these things seriously, and you cannot be surprised if they class your cousin with the La Rochefoucauld and the rest of that crew.”

“At any rate, he is with us in heart, whether he knows it or not,” muttered Saint-Ermay a trifle moodily. And having uttered this apologia for his erring kinsman, the young Royalist abruptly excused himself and crossed the room towards him.

His friends looked after him.

“Saint-Ermay is always bon enfant,” remarked D’Aubeville reflectively, “but I fancy he is not disposed to welcome his cousin’s visit with enthusiasm.”

“But, parbleu, it must be trying to have a near relative with Jacobin views,” suggested the latest comer; “especially when one is so devoted a Royalist as Monsieur le Vicomte.”

“Good heavens, man, M. de Château-Foix is not a Jacobin!” cried De Périgny, shocked. “He’s only one of those Liberal and constitutional people.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said D’Aubeville with unusual emphasis. “Le beau Saint-Ermay is losing his head over . . . a certain Royalist widow, now Girondin in her tastes and . . . alliances!”

Octave de Périgny laughed. “Le beau Saint-Ermay lose his head! Not in the figurative sense! He is only amusing himself with that lady, and Madame d’Espaze knows it. They both understand the game.”

“H’m!” said D’Aubeville meditatively, “I have not been feeling so sure. I almost thought the butterfly was caught at last.”

“Had you known Saint-Ermay as long as I have,” returned De Périgny, smiling, “you would have thought that so often that you would have learned to distrust your own opinion on the matter. Though even I believed that last winter——”

“What? What?” cried his auditors in a breath.

The Comte de Périgny hesitated. “Considering who is present,” he observed with a significant glance, “I should be indiscreet if I finished the sentence. And, at any rate, I was wrong, for it never came to anything.”

“A good thing for all concerned,” observed D’Aubeville drily.

CHAPTER V
A MENTOR FROM THE PROVINCES

Meanwhile the Vicomte de Saint-Ermay, finding his cousin still occupied, had drawn aside the window curtains and was looking out, or pretending to do so, with latent impatience. At last the hand which he had been expecting was laid on his shoulder.

“You can give me a few minutes?” enquired the voice of the Marquis.

Saint-Ermay turned round. “Half an hour if you like,” he replied cheerfully.

As they stood together for a moment a spectator could scarcely have divined their kinship, save perhaps in that they had something of the same bearing. Saint-Ermay was of slighter and more graceful make than his cousin, nor was he so tall. The Chantemerle had for generations been noted for their fine figures and their carriage, and though Gilbert had grown up to better looks than his boyhood had promised, he possessed his full share of the constant racial heritage without any portion of the beauty which his (and Louis’) great-grandmother had brought into the family. The Vicomte had both.

“We cannot possibly talk privately here,” observed Château-Foix rather doubtfully.

“Not here, perhaps, but in that corner we could.” And slipping his arm through his companion’s, Louis drew him towards a sofa standing in a small recess in the least populated quarter of the room. “You have come about Lucienne, of course,” he began at once. Having known Mademoiselle d’Aucourt from a child he never used any more formal designation in speaking of her to one of the family. “She is quite safe, and well, I believe. But perhaps you have seen her? You got my letter of the 20th, I suppose?”

“Of the 19th,” corrected Gilbert. “Did you write on the 20th? Then it must have missed me. I learnt about that day’s events from the papers. But I am satisfied about Lucienne, thank God. No, I have not yet seen her, but the Princess was so good as to grant me an interview this evening, and she told me of the plans which she had made, with your assistance.”

“I hope that they are what you would have wished,” said the young man anxiously. “You see, the Princess was so distressed about her, and it takes so long for a letter to reach Chantemerle . . . and so she did me the honour to take me into her counsels, failing you—or rather till you could be got at. Of course one naturally thought of England, and then it occurred to me that your uncle Ashley would probably be only too pleased to take temporary charge of your . . . future wife.”

“Exactly the plan that had occurred to me,” said his cousin. “You acted extremely properly, and I am very much obliged to you. It is out of the question to take Lucienne to Vendée just now. On the other hand, it is preposterous that she should have been exposed to such a scene as must have taken place on the 20th. I can only pardon myself by reflecting that, in the provinces, one is so far from realising what is happening in Paris.”

“And in Paris, on the contrary, one grows accustomed to such things,” returned Saint-Ermay, “though the events of the 20th were, I admit, a new departure. But no doubt I ought to have made stronger representations to you about her remaining here.”

“I am not blaming you in the least, Louis,” interposed the Marquis quickly. “I have been too much influenced by her great reluctance to quit Madame Elisabeth. That, and the knowledge that you were near her has made me hesitate too long. But now——”

The other interrupted him with an odd laugh. “Pray don’t delude yourself into thinking my presence any protection! Good God! if any one could have been more helpless that day——” The Vicomte broke off, biting his lip.

“You refer to the 20th?” asked Château-Foix, surprised to see that light nature so moved. “Where was Lucienne? How much did she see?”

“She was with the Princess all the time. You can have no conception what it was like. Oh, she was safe enough—no one said a word to her—but still——” Saint-Ermay did not say to whom Lucienne owed her comparative immunity from insult, nor mention how, at a risk to his own life far greater than the danger to her sensibility, he had stood in front of her for two long hours, the only barrier between her and the mob that flowed through the Tuileries.

“You saw it too, then?”

“Unofficially, so to speak,” returned the Vicomte, with a curling lip. “I came in with the rabble. You know—or perhaps you do not know—that the King sent all us gentlemen out of the palace. On my soul, I would rather have died in the antechamber than have gone—we were enough, we could have held it—but”—he shrugged his shoulders—“the King wished it, and so, like thieves, we crept out by the postern gate in twos and threes. A fine experience for the remnants of the bodyguard!”

The Marquis looked at him in astonishment. Was this Louis, the trifler, the volatile, the easy-going? His gay indifference was dropped like a mask, his eyes were alight for a moment with a sombre fire, and in his voice surged a passion and a bitterness which, if ever he had believed his cousin capable of, Château-Foix had at least not believed he would ever allow himself to display.

“But you came back?” he asked curiously.

Louis nodded, and in a flash resumed his wonted outer self. “I came back,” he said in his ordinary tone. “By the way, I suppose the Princess has told you that, since Madame de Fontenelle is too old and infirm for the journey, she has procured an escort for Lucienne, in the person of a certain Madame Gaumont—unless indeed you mean to take her to England yourself?”

The change of subject was significant enough. Gilbert followed half unwillingly along the new track.

“No,” he said in answer to the last query, “I dare not spare the time to go to England now. Madame Elisabeth told me about this lady. She seems thoroughly to be trusted; don’t you think so?”

Louis nodded. “She is an Englishwoman herself, I understand, and the widow of Gaumont, the banker, once dear to the Third Estate. If the Princess trusts her I think we—that is you—may do so too. But the difficulty is that Lucienne is so extremely reluctant to leave her mistress.”

“I know,” returned the Marquis slowly. “But from what the Princess told me this afternoon I fancy she has made Lucienne see the necessity of it. And now, Louis, what about yourself?”

“I?” asked his cousin. “What about me? I am not going to leave the King, if that is what you mean.” His tone was calm and even languid as, crossing his silk-clad legs, he studied the effects produced by the light on the diamonds of his right shoe-buckle. “Though he will do nothing to help himself, it is still possible to do something for him.”

“To try to do something—and to perish in the trying,” corrected Gilbert.

The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders. “Qu’importe?” he said lightly. “Personally, I do not much care. But this is gloomy talk, when we are set at last on such a hopeful track. For now it is do or die—the last throw—as you know.”

“Yes, but I want to hear more about your plans.”

Louis raised his eyebrows. “But surely, Gilbert, you are well enough posted up in them?”

“Not so thoroughly, perhaps, as you imagine,” replied the Marquis with an enigmatical smile. The situation had its humours, grim though they were. “You forget, too, that some time has elapsed since you wrote.”

“True,” conceded Louis. “Well, things have advanced since then, as you can guess. To put it briefly, the events of the 20th have disgusted the Gironde.”

“Indeed?” said Gilbert.

“And, in consequence,” continued the Vicomte, lowering his voice, “we are now so sure of them, that on the 24th letters were despatched to Coblentz, to the Princes.”

“Joint letters from the Girondins and the Royal party, I presume?”

Louis nodded. “Letters signed by both. Naturally, speculation is very rife as to the consequences of the unexpected combination.”

“So I can imagine,” commented his listener. Tragedy still held Comedy’s mask before her face. “And what do you yourselves think will be the result?”

“We hope that it will be the means of urging on Prussia’s declaration of war, which is sure to come sooner or later. Of course, the question is whether it will come in time. You have no doubt gathered that a certain reaction has set in since the 20th, and that the King may almost be said to be popular just now. If that will last, and if that damned Lafayette will but keep his finger out of the pie—thank Heaven! he went back to-day, and in disgrace too——”

“Well, if the King’s popularity lasts, what then?”

“My dear Gilbert, what need to ask? With that, and the support of the Gironde, we shall have the game in our hands in a few weeks. Come now, what do you think yourself of our prospects?”

“What do I think?” echoed the Marquis slowly. “Why, this—that for a party in your desperate position you are astonishingly trustful. What if the Gironde is playing you false?”

“Impossible!” said the Vicomte with decision. “They are committed too far. Why, Vergniaud himself—— And if you think that, why the devil did you join us?”

Château-Foix put down his ace. “Your question is very pertinent, Louis,” he replied in level tones. “I never did.”

“You never joined!” repeated Saint-Ermay in amazement. “I don’t understand you!”

“It is impossible,” said the Marquis calmly, “to join a plot of the very existence of which you are ignorant. Your letter was absolutely the first intimation that I received of it.”

None, surely, but the most exalted natures are proof against the joy of producing a sensation. And a sensation Château-Foix had certainly produced, for his cousin sat staring blankly at him like a man stunned. Gilbert began to see his goal in view, for surely his proof of treachery was overwhelming. Unfortunately the Vicomte rallied very quickly from his consternation, profound though it had undoubtedly been.

“There must be some mistake,” he said slowly, and with an unusual degree of stolidity. “I am certain I saw your name.”

“Oh,” retorted the Marquis with a laugh, “I have no doubt that my name was there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the plot is not genuine. The Gironde is entrapping you.”

The young Royalist gave a derisive laugh. “That is indeed jumping to conclusions, my dear cousin!” he exclaimed. “And, by the way, I feel sure that it is not your own idea. I seem to recognise in it the hand of M. des Graves.”

“It matters very little whose idea it is,” retorted Gilbert, considerably nettled. “There stands the fact, and you must look it in the face. My name, you say, is on the list of adherents, and I know nothing of the affair.”

“It was a mistake,” repeated Louis doggedly.

“A mistake with a meaning, then.”

Saint-Ermay faced round upon his cousin. “Do you seriously mean to tell me that, on the evidence of this wretched little slip, you expect me to believe the Gironde to be playing us false?”

“I most certainly think that it should at least make you pause and reflect.”

“Reflect!” echoed the Vicomte. “One might fancy from your tone, Gilbert, that reflection was the monopoly of the provinces. Give us credit here in Paris for having considered the matter for a moment or so before we entered upon it!”

“To say nothing, then, of the ‘mistake’ about my name,” pursued the Marquis imperturbably, “what of Madame d’Espaze?”

A fire leapt up in the Vicomte’s glance and became a challenge. “Well, what of her?” he demanded. “Ah, I suppose M. des Graves has educated your morals to the pitch of objecting to her because she is supposed to be Lecorrier’s mistress. But if I do not quarrel with her on that score, you need not.”

Château-Foix made an impatient gesture of dissent, but the Vicomte, ignoring it, went on with a rather feverish gaiety: “If that is so, come with me to-night. I wager she will convert you from your altitudes.”

At once the Marquis perceived this to be the issue on which he should win or lose. “Good heavens!” he ejaculated, “are you going there to-night, when you don’t know whether—— Louis, you can’t! Don’t you know that in ’84——”

A mutinous expression came over the face of his young kinsman. “I don’t care what she did in ’84,” he rejoined, smiling sweetly, “and I am going there to-night.”

A wiser or a more selfish man would have accepted his defeat. Not so Château-Foix, and in proportion as his agitation and anxiety grew greater, so did his manner become harsher. Moreover, he was painfully aware of it.

“You are mad! he exclaimed. “Can’t you see—if there is the least suspicion of foul play . . . You are compromised enough already; don’t, for God’s sake, walk further into the trap! Madame d’Espaze——”

There was a dangerous glint in the Vicomte’s eye. “Pray do not think me wanting in good manners,” he interrupted slowly and with a slight air of weariness, “if I intimate—always with thanks for your interest—that I can manage my own affairs.”

“In that case,” retorted Gilbert, stung to the quick, “I will leave you to do so.” He rose, inwardly more angry at his failure to get his own way than at his cousin’s insolence, and most of all, though he scarcely knew it, angry with himself for having consciously bungled a delicate task. Even then he could not check his further progress down the path of undoing.

“I wonder,” he observed coldly, “that you care to compromise the King in this way.”

Louis fired up immediately, and one could guess the submerged presence of a certain very intractable temper from the pose of his head as he frowned at his cousin.

“Morbleu! compromise!” he began angrily; then laughed a little as he dealt a more telling riposte. “At least we try to do something, while you—you with your supine, enlightened Liancourt and La Rochefoucauld—you sit on a fence and dare not put out a finger in the storm you have called up yourselves! Mon Dieu! if I was as afraid for my precious skin as some of you are, I might think twice before I compromised the King, as you call it!” He was on his feet, with every mark of displeasure on his handsome visage, but he had hardly raised his voice. Gilbert was angry too, for the taunt against his party was grossly unfair.

“We will not discuss the matter now,” he said stiffly.

“It would certainly be wiser not to do so,” acquiesced the Vicomte, who had regained his composure, and he gave as he spoke a quick glance round the room.

Château-Foix saw the look and smiled rather bitterly. “I understand,” he said. “One does not air one’s views in the enemy’s camp.”

“Oh, if you regard us as that, Gilbert——” broke in his cousin.

“I beg your pardon. Of course I did not mean it. But still . . . am I to understand that you persist in going to Madame d’Espaze’s salon to-night?” His tone was acridly cold, his manner galling in the extreme. An unbiassed observer might have thought that his young kinsman now displayed beneath it a surprising patience; indeed the latter, completely recovered from his sudden heat, looked at the Marquis with something like an amused forbearance in his glance. The next moment he had summoned up a demeanour to match his cousin’s.

“I have already had the honour to inform you, mon cousin, that I intend to do so,” he retorted with a sarcastic bow. But as he straightened himself there was a tiny imp of laughter looking out of his eye. “Your expression, Monsieur le Marquis, is that of the outraged guardian saying, ‘Your blood be on your own head!’”

“My looks may possibly reflect my thoughts, then,” returned Château-Foix drily. “Where shall I find M. de Larny?”

The Vicomte indicated his whereabouts. “You are going?”

“Since you will not be warned.”

“My dear cousin, I am warned,” retorted Louis, with a shade of irritation. “I assure you that your forebodings are graven on my heart. But I am not sufficiently alarmed to break my word—and, by the way,” he added, pulling out his watch, “it is nearly time for me to keep it.”

The Marquis made no reply, and moved towards his host. Louis, following him, stopped to speak to an acquaintance, and when their brief converse was over he saw that his cousin’s figure, accompanied by the gayer and more rotund bulk of the Comte de Larny, was at the door. He hurried across the intervening space; he was not really angry, either with Gilbert or himself, and he did not wish the rest of the company to divine that there had been a difference of opinion between them. To Louis de Saint-Ermay few things in life were worth the trouble of remaining angry about.

“Good-night, Gilbert,” he said pleasantly.

“Good-night,” replied the Marquis, scarcely looking round. He took his hat and cane from a lackey, the folding-doors clapped to behind him, and the Vicomte turned away with a slightly clouded brow, to find, to his vexation, that he had become the centre of attention. A chorus of raillery greeted him as he came back.

“What crime have you been committing now, Saint-Ermay, to bring down so solemn a visitation?”

“Does Monsieur le Marquis preach persuasively?”

“In faith, I think so, by the results,” laughed the Comte de Périgny. “Come, confess now, Louis, that the sermon has moved you!”

Louis de Chantemerle had the reputation of accepting a jest in the same spirit in which he made one. “I will confess,” he returned drily, “that the text surprised me,” and he began to move away.

“The text? We will not be ill-bred enough to ask what that was. But the manner of the discourse?”

“Yes, yes,” chimed in another. “Do not be so ill-humoured, my dear Vicomte, as to deprive us of Monsieur le Marquis’ periods! Faith, his demeanour would grace the cassock.”

The Vicomte turned. “Could you not choose a better subject of mirth, gentlemen?” he asked, in somewhat chilling tones. “I confess that I do not find the present one amusing, and I must invite you to remember that the gentleman who has just left us is my cousin, and the head of my house.” His voice rang warningly, and those around him fell instantly into laughing apology. But from the outskirts of the group the late partner of the Knight of Saint Louis, lounging forward from the hearth, saw fit to cap the young man’s last remark.

“And loyalty is, alas, too rare a virtue nowadays that we should discourage it,” he said, in drawling tones which might or might not have spelt intentional insolence.

A momentary gleam was visible in Louis de Saint-Ermay’s eyes, and he seemed about to reply, but in the end merely bit his lip and turned away. M. de Bercy, however, seemed loth to let the subject drop.

“You have my deep sympathy, Vicomte,” he pursued softly. “These unexpected visits play the deuce with one’s arrangements . . . do they not?”

Louis faced round quickly. “What the devil do you mean?”

“Nothing, I assure you, my dear Vicomte,” replied the other, still with his crooked smile. “Only that the visits of our mentors—when unexpected—are a trifle irritating. We have all felt the same.”

“M. de Bercy’s sympathy does him credit,” said D’Aubeville drily. “Come with me, Louis; I have a word for your private ear.”

“In a moment,” said his friend. “Let me first understand why I am thus honoured by M. de Bercy’s compassion. I am not aware of any arrangement with which my cousin’s visit will interfere.” His glance across the circle was a challenge.

“I am relieved to hear it,” returned De Bercy lightly. “Has any one a desire for piquet?”

“Stop, if you please!” cried Saint-Ermay. “I have a desire for an explanation of some sort. Otherwise I must take the liberty of calling your observation decidedly impertinent.”

The young man’s voice and look were suggestive of a cold and growing anger. Octave de Périgny looked at him for a moment, and then, coming up to him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Let the fool alone,” he whispered. “He thinks your cousin has stopped you from going to our fair hostess to-night.”

“I know,” said the Vicomte shortly, and paid no further heed. Ruffled by his interview with Château-Foix, irritated by De Bercy’s reference to its supposed result, and not unconscious of the attempts which were being made to turn the conversation, he had lost for the moment his naturally sweet temper and his indolence. He waited frowning for an answer.

De Bercy shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, my dear Saint-Ermay,” he exclaimed, “in your heart of hearts you know that my remark was much to the point. However, let us not insist upon a delicate subject. Consider my words unsaid.”

“On the contrary,” said the Vicomte, “I insist upon knowing what you mean by these hints.”

The other hesitated. “And if I refuse to tell you?”

“Oh, in that case,” retorted Louis, “I shall know that you are afraid.”

De Bercy was stung. “Very well, then,” he said, coming forward with a little laugh, “since you insist, I will tell you what came into my mind. It occurred to me—a foolish thought, no doubt, but how can one help one’s thoughts?—it occurred to me that you must find your cousin’s visit extremely . . . inconvenient . . . for the progress of your very pretty little idyll with . . . his charming bride that is to be.”

The words, slow, gentle, and distinct, fell into the stillness with the effect of a stone dropped into quiet water. The Vicomte went as pale as death.

“You will answer to me to-morrow morning for that lie,” he said, in a voice sufficiently steady to contrast oddly with his blazing eyes, and added, with the most concentrated venom and contempt: “You hound!”

De Bercy’s hand went to the place where his hilt should have been, and as the dusky red mounted slowly to his cheek the strained silence broke into protest and intervention.

CHAPTER VI
SOME RESULTS OF EARLY RISING