"Lavater," said the Master to the Swiss, "drop your theories for it is high time to take up practice; no longer study what man is, but what he may become. Go, and woe to your fellow countrymen who take up arms against us, for the wrath of the people is swift and devouring even as that of the God on high!"
Trembling, the physiognomist bowed and went his way.
"List to me, Ximenes," said the Copt to the Spaniard; "you are zealous, but you distrust yourself. You say, Spain dozes. That is because no one rouses her. Go and awake her; Castile is still the land of the Cid."
The last chief was skulking forward when the head of the Masons checked him with a wave of the hand.
"Schieffort, of Russia, you are a traitor who will betray our cause before the month is over; but before the month is out, you will be dead."
The Muscovite envoy fell on his knees; but the other made him rise with a threatening gesture, and the doomed one reeled out of the hall.
Left by himself in the deserted and silent hall, the strange man buttoned up his overcoat, settled his hat on his head, pushed the spring of the bronze door to make it open, and went forth. He strode down the mountain defiles as if they had long been known to him, and without light or guide in the woods, went to the further edge. He listened, and hearing a distant neigh, he proceeded thither. Whistling peculiarly, he brought his faithful Djerid to his hand. He leaped lightly into the saddle, and the two, darting away headlong, were enwrapped in the fogs rising between Danenfels and the top of the Thunder Mountain.
A week after the events depicted, a living-wagon drawn by four horses and conducted by two postboys, left Pont-a-Mousson, a pretty town between Nancy and Metz. Nothing like this caravan, as show people style the kind, had ever crossed the bridge, though the good folks see theatrical carts of queer aspect.
The body was large and painted blue, with a baron's insignia, surmounting a J. and a B., artistically interlaced. This box was lighted by two windows, curtained with muslin, but they were in the front, where a sort of driver's cab hid them from the vulgar eye. By these apertures the inmate of the coach could talk with outsiders. Ventilation was given this case by a glazed skylight in the "dickey," or hind box of the vehicle, where grooms usually sit. Another orifice completed the oddity of the affair by presenting a stovepipe, which belched smoke, to fade away in the wake as the whole rushed on.
In our times one would have simply imagined that it was a steam conveyance and applauded the mechanician who had done away with horses.
The machine was followed by a led horse of Arab extraction, ready saddled, indicating that one of the passengers sometimes gave himself the pleasure and change of riding alongside the vehicle.
At St. Mihiel the mountain ascent was reached. Forced to go at a walk, the quarter of a league took half an hour.
Toward evening the weather turned from mild and clear to tempestuous. A cloud spread over the skies with frightful rapidity and intercepted the setting sunbeams. All of a sudden the cloud was stripped by a lightning flash, and the startled eye could plunge into the immensity of the firmament, blazing like the infernal regions. The vehicle was on the mountain side when a second clap of thunder flung the rain out of the cloud; after falling in large drops, it poured hard.
The postboys pulled up. "Hello!" demanded a man's voice from inside the conveyance, "what are you stopping for?"
"We are asking one another if we ought to go on," answered one postillion with the deference to a master who had paid handsomely.
"It seems to me that I ought to be asked about that. Go ahead!"
But the rain had already made the road downward slippery.
"Please, sir, the horses won't go," said the elder postillion.
"What have you got spurs for?"
"They might be plunged rowels deep without making the balky creatures budge; may heaven exterminate me if——"
The blasphemy was not finished, as a dreadful lightning stroke cut him short. The coach was started and ran upon the horses, which had to race to save themselves from being crushed. The equipage flew down the sloping road like an arrow, skimming the precipice.
Instead of the traveler's voice coming from the vehicle, it was his head.
"You clumsy fellows will kill us all!" he said. "Bear to the left, deuce take ye!"
"Oh, Joseph," screamed a woman's voice inside, "help! Holy Madonna, help us!"
It was time to invoke the Queen of Heaven, for the heavy carriage was skirting the abysm; one wheel seemed to be in the air and a horse was nearly over when the traveler, springing out on the pole, grasped the postboy nearest by the collar and slack of the breeches. He raised him out of his boots as if he were a child, flung him a dozen feet clear, and taking his place in the saddle, gathered up the reins, and said in a terrifying voice to the second rider:
"Keep to the left, rascal, or I shall blow out your brains!"
The order had a magical effect. The foremost rider, haunted by the shriek of his luckless comrade, followed the substitute impulse and bore the horses toward the firm land.
"Gallop!" shouted the traveler. "If you falter, I shall run right over you and your horses."
The chariot seemed an infernal machine drawn by nightmares and pursued by a whirlwind.
But they had eluded one danger only to fall into another.
As they reached the foot of the declivity, the cloud split with an awful roar in which was blended the flame and the thunder.
A fire enwrapped the leaders, and the wheelers and the leaders were brought to their haunches as if the ground gave way under them. But the fore pair, rising quickly and feeling that the traces had snapped, carried away their man in the darkness. The vehicle, rolling on a few paces, stopped on the dead body of the stricken horse.
The whole event had been accompanied by the screams of the woman.
For a moment of confusion, none knew who was living or dead.
The traveler was safe and sound, on feeling himself; but the lady had swooned. Although he guessed this was the case, it was elsewhere that he ran to aid—to the rear of the vehicle.
The led horse was rearing with bristling mane, and shaking the door, to the handle of which his halter was hitched.
"Hang the confounded beast again!" muttered a broken voice within; "a curse on him for shaking the wall of my laboratory." Becoming louder, the same voice added in Arabic: "I bid you keep quiet, devil!"
"Do not wax angry with Djerid, master," said the traveler, untying the steed and fastening it to the hind wheel; "he is frightened, and for sound reasons."
So saying, he opened a door, let down the steps, and stepped inside the vehicle, closing the door behind him.
He faced a very aged man, with hooked nose, gray eyes, and shaking yet active hands. Sunken in a huge armchair, he was following the lines of a manuscript book on vellum, entitled "The Secret Key to the Cabinet of Magic," while holding a silver skimmer in his other hand.
The three walls—for this old man had called the sides of the living-wagon "walls"—held bookcases, with shelves of bottles, jars and brass-bound boxes, set in wooden cases like utensils on shipboard so as to stand up without upsetting. The old man could reach these articles by rolling the easy chair to them; a crank enabled him to screw up the seat to the level of the highest. The compartment was, in feet, eight by six and six in height. Facing the door was a furnace with hood and bellows. It was now boiling a crucible at a white heat, whence issued the smoke by the pipe overhead exciting the mystery of the villagers wherever the wagon went through.
The whole emitted an odor which in a less grotesque laboratory would have been called a perfume.
The occupant seemed to be in bad humor, for he grumbled:
"The cursed animal is frightened: but what has he got to disturb him, I want to know? He has shaken my door, cracked my furnace, and spilt a quarter of my elixir in the fire. Acharat, in heaven's name, drop the beast in the first desert we cross."
"In the first place, master," returned the other smiling, "we are not crossing deserts, for we are in France; and next, I would not abandon a horse worth a thousand louis, or rather priceless, as he is of the breed of Al Borach."
"I will give you a thousand over and over again. He has lost me more than a million, to say nothing of the days he has robbed me of. The liquor would have boiled up without loss of a drop, in a little longer, which neither Zoroaster nor Paracelsus stated, but it is positively advised by Borri."
"Never mind, it will soon be boiling again."
"But that is not all—something is dropping down my chimney."
"Merely water—it is raining."
"Water? Then my elixir is spoilt. I must renew the work—as if I had any time to spare!"
"It is pure water from above. It was pouring, as you might have noticed."
"Do I notice anything when busy? On my poor soul, Acharat, this is exasperating. For six months I have been begging for a cowl to my chimney—I mean this year. You never think of it, though you are young and have lots of leisure. What will your negligence bring about? The rain to-day or the wind to-morrow confound my calculations and ruin all my operations. Yet I must hurry, by Jove! for my hundredth year commences on the fifteenth of July, at eleven at night precisely, and if my elixir of life is not then ready, good-night to the Sage Althotas."
"But you are getting on well with it, my dear master, I think."
"Yes, by my tests by absorption, I have restored vitality to my paralyzed arm. I only want the plant mentioned by Pliny, which we have perhaps passed a hundred times or crushed under the wheels. By the way, what rumbling is that? Are we still going?"
"No; that is thunder. The lightning has been playing the mischief with us, but I was safe enough, being clothed in silk."
"Lightning? Pooh! wait till I renew my life and can attend to other matters. I will put a steel bridle on your electric fluid and make it light this study and cook my meals. I wish I were as sure of making my elixir perfect——"
"And our great work—how comes it on?"
"Making diamonds? That is done. Look there in the glass dish."
Joseph Balsamo greedily caught up the crystal saucer, and saw a small brilliant amid some dust.
"Small, and with flaws," he said, disappointed.
"Because the fire was put out, Acharat, from there being no cowl to the chimney."
"You shall have it; but do take some food."
"I took some elixir a couple of hours ago."
"Nay, that was at six this morning, and it is now the afternoon."
"Another day gone, fled and lost," moaned the alchemist, wringing his hands; "are they not growing shorter? Have they less than four-and-twenty hours?"
"If you will not eat, at least take a nap."
"When I sleep, I am afraid I shall never wake. If I lie down for two hours, you will come and call me, Acharat," said the old man in a coaxing voice.
"I swear I will, master."
At this point they heard the gallop of a horse and a scream of astonishment and disquiet.
"What does that mean?" questioned the traveler, quickly opening the door, and leaping out on the road without using the steps.
The woman who was in the fore part of the coach, in the cab, remained for a time deprived of sense. As fear alone had caused the swoon, she came to consciousness.
"Heavens!" she cried, "am I abandoned helpless here, with no human being to take pity upon me?"
"Lady," said a timid voice at hand, "I am here, and I may be some help to you."
Passing her head and both arms out of the cab by the leather curtains, the young woman, rising, faced a youth who stood on the steps.
"Is it you offered me help? What has happened?"
"The thunderbolt nearly struck you, and the traces were broken of the leading pair, which have run off with the postboy."
"What has become of the person who was riding the other pair?" she asked, with an anxious look round.
"He got off the horses as if all right and went inside the other part of this coach."
"Heaven be praised," said she, breathing more freely. "But who are you to offer me assistance so timely?"
"Surprised by the storm, I was in that dark hole which is a quarry outlet, when I suddenly saw a large wagon coming down at a gallop. I thought it a runaway, but soon saw it was guided by a mighty hand, but the lightning fell with such an uproar that I feared I was struck and was stunned. All seemed to have happened in a dream."
The lady nodded as if this satisfied her, but rested her head on her hand in deep thought. He had time to examine her. She was in her twenty-third year, and of dark complexion, but richly colored with the loveliest pink. Her blue eyes sparkled like stars as she appealed to heaven, and her hair fell in curls of jet, unpowdered contrary to the fashion, on her opal neck.
"Where are we?" she suddenly inquired.
"On the Strasburg to Paris highway, near Pierrefittes, a village. Bar-le-Duc is the next town, with some five thousand population."
"Is there a short cut to it?"
"None I ever heard of."
"What a pity!" she said in Italian.
As she kept silent toward him, the youth was going away, when this drew her from her reverie, for she called him for another question.
"Is there a horse still attached to the coach?"
"The gentleman who entered, tied it to the wheel."
"It is a valuable animal, and I should like to be sure it is unhurt; but how can I go through this mud?"
"I can bring it here," proposed the stripling.
"Do so, I prithee, and I shall be most grateful to you."
But the barb reared and neighed when he went up.
"Do not be afraid," said the lady: "it is gentle as a lamb. Djerid," she called in a low voice.
The steed recognized the mistress's voice, for it extended its intelligent head toward the speaker, while the youth unfastened it. But it was scarcely loose before it jerked the reins away and bounded up to the vehicle. The woman came forth, and almost as quickly leaped on the saddle, with the dexterity of those sylphs in German ballads who cling to riders while seated on the crupper. The youth sprang toward her but she stopped him with an imperative wave of the hand.
"List to me. Though but a boy, or because you are young, you have humane feelings. Do not oppose my flight. I am fleeing from a man I love, but I am above all a good Catholic. This man would destroy my soul were I to stay by him, as he is a magician whom God sent a warning to by the lighting. May he profit by it! Tell him this, and bless you for the help given me. Farewell!"
Light as the marsh mist, she was carried away by the gallop of Djerid. On seeing this, the youth could not restrain a cry of surprise, which was the one heard inside the coach.
The alarmed traveler closed the coach door behind him carefully, and looked wistfully round. First he saw the young man, frightened. A flash of lighting enabled him to examine him from head to foot, an operation habitual to him on seeing any new person or thing. This was a springald of sixteen, small, thin and agile; his bold black eyes lacked sweetness but not charm: shrewdness and observation were revealed in his thin, hooked nose, fine lip and projecting cheek bones, while the rounded chin stuck out in token of resolution.
"Was that you screamed just now,—what for?" queried the gentleman.
"The lady from the cab there rode off on the led horse."
The traveler did not make any remark at this hesitating reply; not a word; he rushed to the fore part and saw by the lightning that it was empty.
"Sblood!" he roared in Italian, almost like the thunder peal accompanying the oath.
He looked round for means of pursuit, but one of the coach-horses in chase of Djerid would be a tortoise after a gazelle.
"Still I can find out where she is," he muttered, "unless——"
Quickly and anxiously he drew a small book from his vest pocket, and in a folded paper found a tress of raven hair.
His features became serene, and apparently he was calmed.
"All is well," he said, wiping his streaming face. "Did she say nothing when she started?"
"Yes, that she quitted you not through hate but fear, as she is a Christian, while you—you are an atheist, and miscreant, to whom God sought to give a final warning by this storm."
"If that is all, let us drop the subject."
The last traces of disquiet and discontent fled the man's brow. The youth noticed all this with curiosity mingled with keen observation.
"What is your name, my young friend?" inquired the traveler.
"Gilbert."
"It is my whole name."
"My dear Gilbert, Providence placed you on my road to save me from bother. I know your youth compels you to be obliging: but I am not going to ask anything hard of you—only a night's lodging."
"This rock was my shelter."
"I should like a dwelling better where I could get a good meal and bed."
"We are a league and a half from Pierrefitte, the next village."
"With only two horses that would take two hours. Just think if there is no refuge nearer."
"Taverney Castle is at hand, but it is not an inn."
"Not lived in?"
"Baron Taverney lives there——"
"What is he?"
"Father of Mademoiselle Andrea de Taverney——"
"Delighted to hear it," smilingly said the other: "but I want to know the kind of man he is."
"An old nobleman who used to be wealthy."
"An old story. My friend, please take me to Baron Taverney's."
"He does not receive company," said the youth, in apprehension.
"Not welcome a stray gentleman? He must be a bear."
"Much like it. I do not advise your risking it."
"Pooh! The bear will not eat me up alive."
"But he may keep the door closed."
"I will break it in; and unless you refuse to be my guide——"
"I do not; I will show the way."
The traveler took off the carriage lamp, which Gilbert held curiously in his hands.
"It has no light," he said.
"I have fire in my pocket."
"Pretty hard to get fire from flint and steel this weather," observed the youth.
But the other drew a silver case from his pocket, and opening the lid plunged a match into it; a flame sprang up and he drew out the match aflame. This was so sudden and unexpected by the youth, who only knew of tinder and the spark, and not of phosphorus, the toy of science at this period, that he started. He watched the magician restore the case to his pocket with greed. He would have given much to have the instrument.
He went on before with the lighted lamp, while his companion forced the horses to come by his hand on the bridle.
"You appear to know all about this Baron of Taverney, my lad!" he began the dialogue.
"I have lived on his estate since a child."
"Oh, your kinsman, tutor, master?"
At this word the youth's cheek colored up, though usually pale, and he quivered.
"I am no man's servant, sir," he retorted. "I am son of one who was a farmer for the baron, and my mother nursed Mademoiselle Andrea."
"I understand; you belong to the household as foster-brother of the young lady—I suppose she is young?"
"She is sixteen."
He had answered only one of the two questions, and not the one personal to him.
"How did you chance to be on the road in such weather?" inquired the other, making the same reflection as our own.
"I was not on the road, but in the cave, reading a book called 'The Social Contract,' by one Rousseau."
"Oh, found the book in the lord's library?" asked the gentleman with some astonishment.
"No, I bought it of a peddler who, like others of his trade, has been hawking good books hereabouts."
"Who told you 'The Contract' was a good book?"
"I found that out by reading it, in comparison with some infamous ones in the baron's library."
"The baron gets indecent books, always costly, in this hole?"
"He does not spend money on them as they are sent him from Paris by his friend the Marshal Duke of Richelieu."
"Oh! of course he does not let his daughter see such stuff?"
"He leaves them about, but Mademoiselle Andrea does not read them," rejoined the youth, drily.
The mocking traveler was briefly silent. He was interested in this singular character, in whom was blended good and evil, shame and boldness.
"How came you to read bad books?"
"I did not know what they were until read; but I kept on as they taught me what I was unaware of. But 'The Contract' told me what I had guessed, that all men are brothers, society badly arranged, and that instead of being serfs and slaves, individuals are equal."
"Whew!" whistled the gentleman, as they went on. "You seem to be hungry to learn?"
"Yes, it is my greatest wish to know everything, so as to rise——"
"To what station?"
Gilbert paused, for having a goal in his mind, he wanted to keep it hidden.
"As far as man may go," he answered.
"So you have studied?"
"How study when I was not rich and was cooped up in Taverney? I can read and write; but I shall learn the rest somehow one of these days."
"An odd boy," thought the stranger.
During the quarter of an hour they had trudged on, the rain had ceased, and the earth sent up the sharp tang replacing the sulphurous breath of the thunderstorms.
"Do you know what storms are?" questioned Gilbert, after deep musing.
"Thunder and lightning are the result of a shock between the electricity in the air and in the earth," he said, smiling.
"I do not follow you," sighed Gilbert.
The traveler might have supplied a more lucid explanation but a light glimmered through the trees.
"That is the carriage-gateway of Taverney," said the guide.
"Open it."
"Taverney gate does not open so easily as that."
"Is it a fort? Knock, and louder than that!"
Thus emboldened, the boy dropped the knocker and hung on to the bell, which clanged so lustily that it might be heard afar.
"That is Mahon barking," said the youth.
"Mahon? He names his watchdog after a victory of his friend my Lord Richelieu, I see," remarked the traveler.
"I did not know that. You see how ignorant I am," sighed Gilbert.
These sighs summed up the disappointments and repressed ambition of the youth.
"That is the goodman Labrie coming," said the latter at the sound of footsteps within.
The door opened, but at the sight of the stranger the old servant wanted to slam it.
"Excuse me, friend," interposed the traveler; "don't shut the door in my face. I will risk my travel-stained garb, and I warrant you that I shall not be expelled before I have warmed myself and had a meal. I hear you keep good wine, eh? You ought to know that?"
Labrie tried still to resist, but the other was determined and led the horses right in with the coach, while Gilbert closed the gates in a trice. Vanquished, the servant ran to announce his own defeat. He rushed toward the house, shouting:
"Nicole Legay!"
"Nicole is Mademoiselle Andrea's maid," explained the boy, as the gentleman advanced with his usual tranquility.
A light appeared among the shrubbery, showing a pretty girl.
"What is all this riot; what's wanted of me?" she challenged.
"Quick, my lass," faltered the old domestic, "announce to master that a stranger, overtaken by the storm, seeks hospitality for the night."
Nicole darted so swiftly toward the building as to be lost instantly to sight. Labrie took breath, as he might be sure that his lord would not be taken by surprise.
"Announce Baron Joseph Balsamo," said the traveler; "the similarity in rank will disarm your lord."
At the first step of the portal he looked round for Gilbert, but he had disappeared.
Though forewarned by Gilbert of Baron Taverney's poverty, Baron Balsamo was not the less astonished by the meanness of the dwelling which the youth had dubbed the Castle. On the paltry threshold stood the master in a dressing gown and holding a candle.
Taverney was a little, old gentleman of five-and-sixty, with bright eye and high but retreating forehead. His wretched wig had lost by burning at the candles what the rats had spared of its curls. In his hands was held a dubiously white napkin, which proved that he had been disturbed at table. His spiteful face had a likeness to Voltaire's, and was divided between politeness to the guest and distaste to being disturbed. In the flickering light he looked ugly.
"Who was it pointed out my house as a shelter?" queried the baron, holding up the light to spy the pilot to whom he was eager to show his gratitude, of course.
"The youth bore the name of Gilbert, I believe."
"Ugh! I might have guessed that. I doubted, though, he was good enough for that. Gilbert, the idler, the philosopher!"
This flow of epithets, emphasized threateningly, showed the visitor that little sympathy existed between the lord and his vassal.
"Be pleased to come in," said the baron, after a short silence more expressive than his speech.
"Allow me to see to my coach, which contains valuable property," returned the foreign nobleman.
"Labrie," said Lord Taverney, "put my lord's carriage under the shed, where it will be less uncovered than in the open yard, for some shingles stick to the roof. As for the horses, that is different, for I cannot answer for their supper; still, as they are not yours, but the post's, I daresay it makes no odds."
"Believe me, I shall be ever grateful to your lordship——"
"Oh, do not deceive yourself," said the baron, holding up the candle again to light Labrie executing the work with the aid of the foreign noble; "Taverney is a poor place and a sad one."
When the vehicle was under cover, after a fashion, the guest slipped a gold coin into the servant's hand. He thought it a silver piece, and thanked heaven for the boon.
"Lord forbid I should think the ill of your house that you speak," said Balsamo, returning and bowing as the baron began leading him through a broad, damp antechamber, grumbling:
"Nay, nay, I know what I am talking about; my means are limited. Were you French—though your accent is German, in spite of your Italian title—but never mind—you would be reminded of the rich Taverney."
"Philosophy," muttered Balsamo, for he had expected the speaker would sigh.
The master opened the dining-room door.
"Labrie, serve us as if you were a hundred men in one. I have no other lackey, and he is bad. But I cannot afford another. This dolt has lived with me nigh twenty years without taking a penny of wages, and he is worth it. You will see he is stupid."
"Heartless," Balsamo continued his studies; "unless he is putting it on."
The dining-room was the large main room of a farmhouse which had been converted into the manor. It was so plainly furnished as to seem empty. A small, round table was placed in the midst, on which reeked one dish, a stew of game and cabbage. The wine was in a stone jar; the battered, worn and tarnished plate was composed of three plates, a goblet and a salt dish; the last, of great weight and exquisite work, seemed a jewel of price amid the rubbish.
"Ah, you let your gaze linger on my salt dish?" said the host. "You have good taste to admire it. You notice the sole object presentable here. No, I have another gem, my daughter——"
"Mademoiselle Andrea?"
"Yes," said Taverney, astonished at the name being known; "I shall present you. Come, Andrea, my child, and don't be alarmed."
"I am not, father," said a sonorous but melodious voice as a maiden appeared, who seemed a lovely pagan statue animated.
Though of the utmost plainness, her dress was so tasteful and suitable that a complete outfit from a royal wardrobe would have appeared less rich and elegant.
"You are right," he whispered to his host, "she is a precious beauty."
"Do not pay my poor girl too many compliments," said the old Frenchman carelessly, "for she comes from the nunnery school and may credit them. Not that I fear that she will be a coquette," he continued; "just the other way, for the dear girl does not think enough of herself, and I am a good father, who tries to make her know that coquetry is a woman's first power."
Andrea cast down her eyes and blushed; whatever her endeavor she could not but overhear this singular theory.
"Was that told to the lady at convent, and is that a rule in religious education?" queried the foreigner, laughing.
"My lord, I have my own ideas, as you may have noticed. I do not imitate those fathers who bid a daughter play the prude and be inflexible and obtuse; go mad about honor, delicacy and disinterestedness. Fools! they are like seconds who lead their champion into the lists with all the armor removed and pit him against a man armed at all points. No, my daughter Andrea will not be that sort, though reared in a rural den at Taverney."
Though agreeing with the master about his place, the baron deemed it duty to suggest a polite reproof.
"That is all very well, but I know Taverney; still, be that as it may, and far though we are from the sunshine of Versailles Palace, my daughter is going to enter the society where I once flourished. She will enter with a complete arsenal of weapons forged in my experience and recollections. But I fear, my lord, that the convent has blunted them. Just my luck! my daughter is the only pupil who took the instructions as in earnest and is following the Gospel. Am I not ill-fated?"
"The young lady is an angel," returned Balsamo, "and really I am not surprised at what I hear."
Andrea nodded her thanks, and they sat down at table.
"Eat away, if hungry. That is a beastly mess which Labrie has hashed up."
"Call you partridges so? You slander your feast. Game-birds in May? Shot on your preserves?"
"Mine? My good father left me some, but I got rid of them long ago. I have not a yard of land. That lazybones Gilbert, only good for mooning about, stole a gun somewhere and done a bit of poaching. He will go to jail for it, and a good riddance. But Andrea likes game, and so far, I forgive the boy."
Balsamo contemplated the lovely face without perceiving a twinge, wrinkle or color, as she helped them to the dish, cooked by Labrie, furnished by Gilbert, and maligned by the baron.
"Are you admiring the salt dish again, baron?"
"No, the arm of your daughter."
"Capital! the reply is worthy the gallant Richelieu. That piece of plate was ordered of Goldsmith Lucas by the Regent of Orleans. Subject: the Amours of the Bacchantes and Satyrs—rather free."
More than free, obscene—but Balsamo admired the calm unconcern of Andrea, not blenching as she presented the plate.
"Do eat," said the host; "do not fancy that another dish is coming, for you will be dreadfully disappointed."
"Excuse me, father," interrupted the girl with habitual coolness, "but if Nicole has understood me, she will have made a cake of which I told her the recipe."
"You gave Nicole the recipe of a cake? Your waiting maid does the cooking now, eh? The next thing will be your doing it yourself. Do you find duchesses and countesses playing the kitchen-wench? On the contrary, the king makes omelets for them. Gracious! that I have lived to see women-cooks under my roof. Pray excuse my daughter, baron."
"We must eat, father," rebuked Andrea tranquilly. "Dish up, Legay!" she called out, and the girl brought in a pancake of appetizing smell.
"I know one who won't touch the stuff," cried Taverney, furiously dashing his plate to pieces.
"But the gentleman, perhaps, will," said the lady coldly. "By the way, father, that leaves only seventeen pieces in that set, which comes to me from my mother."
The guest's spirit of observation found plenty of food in this corner of life in the country. The salt dish alone revealed a facet of Taverney's character or rather all its sides. From curiosity or otherwise, he stared at Andrea with such perseverance that she tried to frown him down; but finally she gave way and yielded to his mesmeric influence and command.
Meanwhile the baron was storming, grumbling, snarling and nipping the arm of Labrie, who happened to get into his way. He would have done the same to Nicole's when the baron's gaze fell on her hands.
"Just look at what pretty fingers this lass has," he exclaimed. "They would be supremely pretty only for her kitchen work having made corns at the tips. That is right; perk up, my girl! I can tell you, my dear guest, that Nicole Legay is not a prude like her mistress and compliments do not frighten her."
Watching the baron's daughter, Balsamo noticed the highest disdain on her beauteous face. He harmonized his features with hers and this pleased her, spite of herself, for she looked at him with less harshness, or, better, with less disquiet.
"This girl, only think," continued the poor noble, chucking the girl's chin with the back of his hand, "was at the nunnery with my daughter and picked up as much schooling. She does not leave her mistress a moment. This devotion would rejoice the philosophers, who grant souls to her class."
"Father, Nicole stays with me because I order her to do so," observed Andrea, discontented.
By the curl of the servant's lip, Balsamo saw that she was not insensible to the humiliations from her proud superior. But the expression flitted; and to hide a tear, perhaps, the girl looked aside to a window on the yard. Everything interested the visitor, and he perceived a man's face at the panes.
Each in this curious abode had a secret, he thought; "I hope not to be an hour here without learning Andrea's. Already I know her father's, and I guess Nicole's."
Taverney perceived his short absence of mind.
"What! are you dreaming?" he questioned. "We are all at it, here; but you might have waited for bedtime. Reverie is a catching complaint. My daughter broods; Nicole is wool-gathering; and I get puzzling about that dawdler who killed these birds—and dreams when he kills them. Gilbert is a philosopher, like Labrie. I hope you are not friendly with them? I forewarn you that philosophers do not go down with me."
"They are neither friends nor foes to me," replied the visitor; "I do not have anything to do with them."
"Very good. Zounds, they are scoundrelly vermin, more venomous than ugly. They will ruin the monarchy with their maxims, like 'People can hardly be virtuous under a monarchy;' or, 'Genuine monarchy is an institution devised to corrupt popular manners, and make slaves;' or yet, 'Royal authority may come by the grace of God, but so do plagues and miseries of mankind.' Pretty flummery, all this! What good would a virtuous people be, I beg? Things are going to the bad, since his Majesty spoke to Voltaire and read Diderot's book."
At this Balsamo fancied again to spy the pale face at the window, but it vanished as soon as he fixed his eyes upon it.
"Is your daughter a philosopher?" he asked, smiling.
"I do not know what philosophy is; I only know that I like serious matters," was Andrea's reply.
"The most serious thing is to live; stick to that," said her father.
"But the young lady cannot hate life," said the stranger.
"All depends," she said.
"Another stupid saying," interrupted Taverney. "That is just the nonsense my son talks. I have the misfortune to have a son. The Viscount of Taverney is cornet in the dauphin's horse-guards—a nice boy; another philosopher! The other day he talked to me about doing away with negro slavery. 'What are we to do for sugar?' I retorted, for I like my coffee heavily sweetened, as does Louis XV. 'We must do without sugar to benefit a suffering race.' 'Suffering monkeys!' I returned, 'and that is paying them a compliment.' Whereupon he asserted that all men were brothers! Madness must be in the air. I, brother of a blackamoor!"
"This is going too far," observed Balsamo.
"Of course. I told you I was in luck. My children are—one an angel, the other an apostle. Drink, though my wine is detestable."
"I think it exquisite," said the guest, watching Andrea.
"Then you are a philosopher! In my time we learnt pleasant things; we played cards, fought duels, though against the law; and wasted our time on duchesses and money on opera dancers. That is my story in a nutshell. Taverney went wholly into the opera-house; which is all I sorrow for, since a poor noble is nothing of a man. I look aged, do I not? Only because I am impoverished and dwell in a kennel, with a tattered wig, and gothic coat; but my friend the marshal duke, with his house in town and two hundred thousand a year—he is young, in his new clothes and brushed up perukes—he is still alert, brisk and pleasure-seeking, though ten years my senior, my dear sir, ten years."
"I am astonished that, with powerful friends like the Duke of Richelieu, you quitted the court."
"Only a temporary retreat, and I am going back one day," said the lord, darting a strange glance on his daughter, which the visitor intercepted.
"But, I suppose, the duke befriends your son?"
"He holds the son of his friend in horror, for he is a philosopher, and he execrates them."
"The feeling is reciprocal," observed Andrea with perfect calm. "Clear away, Legay!"
Startled from her vigilant watch on the window, the maid ran back to the table.
"We used to stay at the board to two A. M. We had luxuries for supper, then, that's why! and we drank when we could eat no more. But how can one drink vinegar when there is nothing to eat? Legay, let us have the Maraschino, provided there is any."
"Liqueurs," said Andrea to the maid, who took her orders from the baron thus second-hand.
Her master sank back in his armchair and sighed with grotesque melancholy while keeping his eyes closed.
"Albeit the duke may execrate your son—quite right, too, as he is a philosopher," said Balsamo, "he ought to preserve his liking for you, who are nothing of the kind. I presume you have claims on the king, whom you must have served?"
"Fifteen years in the army. I was the marshal's aid-de-camp, and we went through the Mahon campaign together. Our friendship dates from—let me see! the famous siege of Philipsburg, 1742 to 1743."
"Yes, I was there, and remember you——"