footman, and leapt down. "My compliments," said he, furiously, "to the
assassin you are to marry." He slammed the door. "Drive on," he bade the
coachman.
The carriage rolled away up the Faubourg Gigan, leaving him standing
where he had alighted, quivering with rage. Gradually, as he walked back to
the inn, his anger cooled. Gradually, as he cooled, he perceived her point
of view, and in the end forgave her. It was not her fault that she thought
as she thought. Her rearing had been such as to make her look upon every
actress as a trull, just as it had qualified her calmly to consider the
monstrous marriage of convenience into which she was invited.
He got back to the inn to find the company at table. Silence fell when
he entered, so suddenly that of necessity it must be supposed he was himself
the subject of the conversation. Harlequin and Columbine had spread the tale
of this prince in disguise caught up into the chariot of a princess and
carried off by her; and it was a tale that had lost nothing in the telling.
Climene had been silent and thoughtful, pondering what Columbine had
called this romance of hers. Clearly her Scaramouche must be vastly other
than he had hitherto appeared, or else that great lady and he would never
have used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him no better than he
was, Climene had made him her own. And now she was to receive the reward of
disinterested affection.
Even old Binet's secret hostility towards Andre-Louis melted before
this astounding revelation. He had pinched his daughter's ear quite
playfully. "Ah, ah, trust you to have penetrated his disguise, my child!"
She shrank resentfully from that implication.
"But I did not. I took him for what he seemed."
Her father winked at her very solemnly and laughed. "To be sure, you
did. But like your father, who was once a gentleman, and knows the ways of
gentlemen, you detected in him a subtle something different from those with
whom misfortune has compelled you hitherto to herd. You knew as well as I
did that he never caught that trick of haughtiness, that grand air of
command, in a lawyer's musty office, and that his speech had hardly the ring
or his thoughts the complexion of the bourgeois that he pretended to be. And
it was shrewd of you to have made him yours. Do you know that I shall be
very proud of you yet, Climene?"
She moved away without answering. Her father's oiliness offended her.
Scaramouche was clearly a great gentleman, an eccentric if you please, but a
man born. And she was to be his lady. Her father must learn to treat her
differently.
She looked shyly - with a new shyness - at her lover when he came into
the room where they were dining. She observed for the first time that proud
carriage of the head, with the chin thrust forward, that was a trick of his,
and she noticed with what a grace he moved
- the grace of one who in youth has had his dancing-masters and
fencing-masters.
It almost hurt her when he flung himself into a chair and exchanged a
quip with Harlequin in the usual manner as with an equal, and it offended
her still more that Harlequin, knowing what he now knew, should use him with
the same unbecoming familiarity.
"Do you know," said Climene, "that I am waiting for the explanation
which I think you owe me?"
They were alone together, lingering still at the table to which
Andre-Louis had come belatedly, and Andre-Louis was loading himself a pipe.
Of late - since joining the Binet Troupe - he had acquired the habit of
smoking. The others had gone, some to take the air and others, like Binet
and Madame, because they felt that it were discreet to leave those two to
the explanations that must pass. It was a feeling that Andre-Louis did not
share. He kindled a light and leisurely applied it to his pipe. A frown came
to settle on his brow.
"Explanation?" he questioned presently, and looked at her. "But on what
score?"
"On the score of the deception you have practised on us - on me."
"I have practised none," he assured her.
"You mean that you have simply kept your own counsel, and that in
silence there is no deception. But it is deceitful to withhold facts
concerning yourself and your true station from your future wife. You should
not have pretended to be a simple country lawyer, which, of course, any one
could see that you are not. It may have been very romantic, but... Enfin,
will you explain?"
"I see," he said, and pulled at his pipe. "But you are wrong, Climene.
I have practised no deception. If there are things about me that I have not
told you, it is that I did not account them of much importance. But I have
never deceived you by pretending to be other than I am. I am neither more
nor less than I have represented myself."
This persistence began to annoy her, and the annoyance showed on her
winsome face, coloured her voice.
"Ha! And that fine lady of the nobility with whom you are so intimate,
who carried you off in her cabriolet with so little ceremony towards myself?
What is she to you?"
"A sort of sister," said he.
"A sort of sister!" She was indignant. "Harlequin foretold that you
would say so; but he was amusing himself. It was not very funny. It is less
funny still from you. She has a name, I suppose, this sort of sister?"
"Certainly she has a name. She is Mlle. Aline de Kercadiou, the niece
of Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac."
"Oho! That's a sufficiently fine name for your sort of sister. What
sort of sister, my friend?"
For the first time in their relationship he observed and deplored the
taint of vulgarity, of shrewishness, in her manner.
"It would have been more accurate in me to have said a sort of reputed
left-handed cousin."
"A reputed left-handed cousin! And what sort of relationship may that
be? Faith, you dazzle me with your lucidity."
"It requires to be explained."
"That is what I have been telling you. But you seem very reluctant with
your explanations."
"Oh, no. It is only that they are so unimportant. But be you the judge.
Her uncle, M. de Kercadiou, is my godfather, and she and I have been
playmates from infancy as a consequence. It is popularly believed in
Gavrillac that M. de Kercadiou is my father. He has certainly cared for my
rearing from my tenderest years, and it is entirely owing to him that I was
educated at Louis le Grand. I owe to him everything that I have - or,
rather, everything that I had; for of my own free will I have cut myself
adrift, and to-day I possess nothing save what I can earn for myself in the
theatre or elsewhere."
She sat stunned and pale under that cruel blow to her swelling pride.
Had he told her this but yesterday, it would have made no impression upon
her, it would have mattered not at all; the event of to-day coming as a
sequel would but have enhanced him in her eyes. But coming now, after her
imagination had woven for him so magnificent a background, after the rashly
assumed discovery of his splendid identity had made her the envied of all
the company, after having been in her own eyes and theirs enshrined by
marriage with him as a great lady, this disclosure crushed and humiliated
her. Her prince in disguise was merely the outcast bastard of a country
gentleman! She would be the laughing-stock of every member of her father's
troupe, of all those who had so lately envied her this romantic good
fortune.
"You should have told me this before," she said, in a dull voice that
she strove to render steady.
"Perhaps I should. But does it really matter?"
"Matter?" She suppressed her fury to ask another question. "You say
that this M. de Kercadiou is popularly believed to be your father. What
precisely do you mean?"
"Just that. It is a belief that I do not share. It is a matter of
instinct, perhaps, with me. Moreover, once I asked M. de Kercadiou
point-blank, and I received from him a denial. It is not, perhaps, a denial
to which one would attach too much importance in all the circumstances. Yet
I have never known M de Kercadiou for other than a man of strictest honour,
and I should hesitate to disbelieve him
- particularly when his statement leaps with my own instincts. He
assured me that he did not know who my father was."
"And your mother, was he equally ignorant?" She was sneering, but he
did not remark it. Her back was to the light.
"He would not disclose her name to me. He confessed her to be a dear
friend of his."
She startled him by laughing, and her laugh was not pleasant.
"A very dear friend, you may be sure, you simpleton. What name do you
bear?"
He restrained his own rising indignation to answer her question calmly:
"Moreau. It was given me, so I am told, from the Brittany village in which I
was born. But I have no claim to it. In fact I have no name, unless it be
Scaramouche, to which I have earned a title. So that you see, my dear," he
ended with a smile, "I have practised no deception whatever."
"No, no. I see that now." She laughed without mirth, then drew a deep
breath and rose. "I am very tired," she said.
He was on his feet in an instant, all solicitude. But she waved him
wearily back.
"I think I will rest until it is time to go to the theatre." She moved
towards the door, dragging her feet a little. He sprang to open it, and she
passed out without looking at him.
Her so brief romantic dream was ended. The glorious world of fancy
which in the last hour she had built with such elaborate detail, over which
it should be her exalted destiny to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its
debris so many stumbling-blocks that prevented her from winning back to her
erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he really was.
Andre-Louis sat in the window embrasure, smoking and looking idly out
across the river. He was intrigued and meditative. He had shocked her. The
fact was clear; not so the reason. That he should confess himself nameless
should not particularly injure him in the eyes of a girl reared amid the
surroundings that had been Climene's. And yet that his confession had so
injured him was fully apparent.
There, still at his brooding, the returning Columbine discovered him a
half-hour later.
"All alone, my prince!" was her laughing greeting, which suddenly threw
light upon his mental darkness. Climene had been disappointed of hopes that
the wild imagination of these players had suddenly erected upon the incident
of his meeting with Aline. Poor child! He smiled whimsically at Columbine.
"I am likely to be so for some little time," said he, "until it becomes
a commonplace that I am not, after all, a prince.
"Not a prince? Oh, but a duke, then - at least a marquis."
"Not even a chevalier, unless it be of the order of fortune. I am just
Scaramouche. My castles are all in Spain."
Disappointment clouded the lively, good-natured face.
"And I had imagined you... "
"I know," he interrupted. "That is the mischief." He might have gauged
the extent of that mischief by Climene's conduct that evening towards the
gentlemen of fashion who clustered now in the green-room between the acts to
pay their homage to the incomparable amoureuse. Hitherto she had received
them with a circumspection compelling respect. To-night she was recklessly
gay, impudent, almost wanton.
He spoke of it gently to her as they walked home together, counselling
more prudence in the future.
"We are not married yet," she told him, tartly. "Wait until then before
you criticize my conduct."
"I trust that there will be no occasion then," said he.
"You trust? Ah, yes. You are very trusting."
"Climene, I have offended you. I am sorry."
"It is nothing," said she. "You are what you are. Still was he not
concerned. He perceived the source of her ill-humour; understood, whilst
deploring it; and, because he understood, forgave. He perceived also that
her ill-humour was shared by her father, and by this he was frankly amused.
Towards M. Binet a tolerant contempt was the only feeling that complete
acquaintance could beget. As for the rest of the company, they were disposed
to be very kindly towards Scaramouche. It was almost as if in reality he had
fallen from the high estate to which their own imaginations had raised him;
or possibly it was because they saw the effect which that fall from his
temporary and fictitious elevation had produced upon Climene.
Leandre alone made himself an exception. His habitual melancholy seemed
to be dispelled at last, and his eyes gleamed now with malicious
satisfaction when they rested upon Scaramouche, whom occasionally he
continued to address with sly mockery as "mon prince."
On the morrow Andre-Louis saw but little of Climene. This was not in
itself extraordinary, for he was very hard at work again, with preparations
now for "Figaro-Scaramouche" which was to be played on Saturday. Also, in
addition to his manifold theatrical occupations, he now devoted an hour
every morning to the study of fencing in an academy of arms. This was done
not only to repair an omission in his education, but also, and chiefly, to
give him added grace and poise upon the stage. He found his mind that
morning distracted by thoughts of both Climene and Aline. And oddly enough
it was Aline who provided the deeper perturbation. Climene's attitude he
regarded as a passing phase which need not seriously engage him. But the
thought of Aline's conduct towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply
rankled the thought of her possible betrothal to M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
This it was that brought forcibly to his mind the self-imposed but by
now half-forgotten mission that he had made his own. He had boasted that he
would make the voice which M. de La Tour d'Azyr had sought to silence ring
through the length and breadth of the land. And what had he done of all this
that he had boasted? He had incited the mob of Rennes and the mob of Nantes
in such terms as poor Philippe might have employed, and then because of a
hue and cry he had fled like a cur and taken shelter in the first kennel
that offered, there to lie quiet and devote himself to other things -
self-seeking things. What a fine contrast between the promise and the
fulfilment!
Thus Andre-Louis to himself in his self-contempt. And whilst he trifled
away his time and played Scaramouche, and centred all his hopes in presently
becoming the rival of such men as Chenier and Mercier, M. de La Tour d'Azyr
went his proud ways unchallenged and wrought his will. It was idle to tell
himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit. That the demands he had
voiced in Nantes for the Third Estate had been granted by M. Necker, thanks
largely to the commotion which his anonymous speech had made. That was not
his concern or his mission. It was no part of his concern to set about the
regeneration of mankind, or even the regeneration of the social structure of
France. His concern was to see that M. de La Tour d'Azyr paid to the
uttermost liard for the brutal wrong he had done Philippe de Vilmorin. And
it did not increase his self-respect to find that the danger in which Aline
stood of being married to the Marquis was the real spur to his rancour and
to remembrance of his vow. He was - too unjustly, perhaps - disposed to
dismiss as mere sophistries his own arguments that there was nothing he
could do; that, in fact, he had but to show his head to find himself going
to Rennes under arrest and making his final exit from the world's stage by
way of the gallows.
It is impossible to read that part of his "Confessions" without feeling
a certain pity for him. You realize what must have been his state of mind.
You realize what a prey he was to emotions so conflicting, and if you have
the imagination that will enable you to put yourself in his place, you will
also realize how impossible was any decision save the one to which he says
he came, that he would move, at the first moment that he perceived in what
direction it would serve his real aims to move.
It happened that the first person he saw when he took the stage on that
Thursday evening was Aline; the second was the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
They occupied a box on the right of, and immediately above, the stage. There
were others with them - notably a thin, elderly, resplendent lady whom
Andre-Louis supposed to be Madame la Comtesse de Sautron. But at the time he
had no eyes for any but those two, who of late had so haunted his thoughts.
The sight of either of them would have been sufficiently disconcerting. The
sight of both together very nearly made him forget the purpose for which he
had come upon the stage. Then he pulled himself together, and played. He
played, he says, with an unusual nerve, and never in all that brief but
eventful career of his was he more applauded.
That was the evening's first shock. The next came after the second act.
Entering the green-room he found it more thronged than usual, and at the far
end with Climene, over whom he was bending from his fine height, his eyes
intent upon her face, what time his smiling lips moved in talk, M. de La
Tour d'Azyr. He had her entirely to himself, a privilege none of the men of
fashion who were in the habit of visiting the coulisse had yet enjoyed.
Those lesser gentlemen had all withdrawn before the Marquis, as jackals
withdraw before the lion.
Andre-Louis stared a moment, stricken. Then recovering from his
surprise he became critical in his study of the Marquis. He considered the
beauty and grace and splendour of him, his courtly air, his complete and
unshakable self-possession. But more than all he considered the expression
of the dark eyes that were devouring Climene's lovely face, and his own lips
tightened.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr never heeded him or his stare; nor, had he done
so, would he have known who it was that looked at him from behind the
make-up of Scaramouche; nor, again, had he known, would he have been in the
least troubled or concerned.
Andre-Louis sat down apart, his mind in turmoil. Presently he found a
mincing young gentleman addressing him, and made shift to answer as was
expected. Climene having been thus sequestered, and Columbine being already
thickly besieged by gallants, the lesser visitors had to content themselves
with Madame and the male members of the troupe. M. Binet, indeed, was the
centre of a gay cluster that shook with laughter at his sallies. He seemed
of a sudden to have emerged from the gloom of the last two days into high
good-humour, and Scaramouche observed how persistently his eyes kept
flickering upon his daughter and her splendid courtier.
That night there, were high words between Andre-Louis and Climene, the
high words proceeding from Climene. When Andre-Louis again, and more
insistently, enjoined prudence upon his betrothed, and begged her to beware
how far she encouraged the advances of such a man as M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
she became roundly abusive. She shocked and stunned him by her virulently
shrewish tone, and her still more unexpected force of invective.
He sought to reason with her, and finally she came to certain terms
with him.
"If you have become betrothed to me simply to stand as an obstacle in
my path, the sooner we make an end the better."
"You do not love me then, Climene?"
"Love has nothing to do with it. I'll not tolerate your insensate
jealousy. A girl in the theatre must make it her business to accept homage
from all."
"Agreed; and there is no harm, provided she gives nothing in exchange."
White-faced, with flaming eyes she turned on him at that.
"Now, what exactly do you mean?"
"My meaning is clear. A girl in your position may receive all the
homage that is offered, provided she receives it with a dignified aloofness
implying clearly that she has no favours to bestow in return beyond the
favour of her smile. If she is wise she will see to it that the homage is
always offered collectively by her admirers, and that no single one amongst
them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone. If she is wise
she will give no encouragement, nourish no hopes that it may afterwards be
beyond her power to deny realization."
"How? You dare?"
"I know my world. And I know M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he answered her.
"He is a man without charity, without humanity almost; a man who takes what
he wants wherever he finds it and whether it is given willingly or not; a
man who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his self-indulgent way;
a man whose only law is force. Ponder it, Climene, and ask yourself if I do
you less than honour in warning you."
He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing the subject.
The days that followed were unhappy days for him, and for at least one
other. That other was Leandre, who was cast into the profoundest dejection
by M. de La Tour d'Azyr's assiduous attendance upon Climene. The Marquis was
to be seen at every performance; a box was perpetually reserved for him, and
invariably he came either alone or else with his cousin M. de Chabrillane.
On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went out alone early in
the morning. He was out of temper, fretted by an overwhelming sense of
humiliation, and he hoped to clear his mind by walking. In turning the
corner of the Place du Bouffay he ran into a slightly built,
sallow-complexioned gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a
tie-wig under a round hat. The man fell back at sight of him, levelling a
spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang with amazement.
"Moreau! Where the devil have you been hiding your-self these months?"
It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer, the leader of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes.
"Behind the skirts of Thespis," said Scaramouche.
"I don't understand."
"I didn't intend that you should. What of yourself, Isaac? And what of
the world which seems to have been standing still of late?"
"Standing still!" Le Chapelier laughed. "But where have you been, then?
Standing still!" He pointed across the square to a caf under the shadow of
the gloomy prison. "Let us go and drink a bavaroise. You are of all men the
man we want, the man we have been seeking everywhere, and - behold! - you
drop from the skies into my path."
They crossed the square and entered the caf .
"So you think the world has been standing still! Dieu de Dieu! I
suppose you haven't heard of the royal order for the convocation of the
States General, or the terms of them - that we are to have what we demanded,
what you demanded for us here in Nantes! You haven't heard that the order
has gone forth for the primary elections - the elections of the electors.
You haven't heard of the fresh uproar in Rennes, last month. The order was
that the three estates should sit together at the States General of the
bailliages, but in the bailliage of Rennes the nobles must ever be
recalcitrant. They took up arms actually - six hundred of them with their
valetaille, headed by your old friend M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and they were
for slashing us - the members of the Third Estate - into ribbons so as to
put an end to our insolence." He laughed delicately. "But, by God, we showed
them that we, too, could take up arms. It was what you yourself advocated
here in Nantes, last November. We fought them a pitched battle in the
streets, under the leadership of your namesake Moreau, the provost, and we
so peppered them that they were glad to take shelter in the Cordelier
Convent. That is the end of their resistance to the royal authority and the
people's will."
He ran on at great speed detailing the events that had taken place, and
finally came to the matter which had, he announced, been causing him to hunt
for Andre-Louis until he had all but despaired of finding him.
Nantes was sending fifty delegates to the assembly of Rennes which was
to select the deputies to the Third Estate and edit their cahier of
grievances. Rennes itself was being as fully represented, whilst such
villages as Gavrillac were sending two delegates for every two hundred
hearths or less. Each of these three had clamoured that Andre-Louis Moreau
should be one of its delegates. Gavrillac wanted him because he belonged to
the village, and it was known there what sacrifices he had made in the
popular cause; Rennes wanted him because it had heard his spirited address
on the day of the shooting of the students; and Nantes - to whom his
identity was unknown - asked for him as the speaker who had addressed them
under the name of Omnes Omnibus and who had framed for them the memorial
that was believed so largely to have influenced M. Necker in formulating the
terms of the convocation.
Since he could not be found, the delegations had been made up without
him. But now it happened that one or two vacancies had occurred in the
Nantes representation; and it was the business of filling these vacancies
that had brought Le Chapelier to Nantes.
Andre-Louis firmly shook his head in answer to Le Chapelier's proposal.
"You refuse?" the other cried. "Are you mad? Refuse, when you are
demanded from so many sides? Do you realize that it is more than probable
you will be elected one of the deputies, that you will be sent to the States
General at Versailles to represent us in this work of saving France?"
But Andre-Louis, we know, was not concerned to save France. At the
moment he was concerned to save two women, both of whom he loved, though in
vastly different ways, from a man he had vowed to ruin. He stood firm in his
refusal until Le Chapelier dejectedly abandoned the attempt to persuade him.
"It is odd," said Andre-Louis, "that I should have been so deeply
immersed in trifles as never to have perceived that Nantes is being
politically active."
"Active! My friend, it is a seething cauldron of political emotions. It
is kept quiet on the surface only by the persuasion that all goes well. At a
hint to the contrary it would boil over."
"Would it so?" said Scaramouche, thoughtfully. "The knowledge may be
useful." And then he changed the subject. "You know that La Tour d'Azyr is
here?"
"In Nantes? He has courage if he shows himself. They are not a docile
people, these Nantais, and they know his record and the part he played in
the rising at Rennes. I marvel they haven't stoned him. But they will,
sooner or later. It only needs that some one should suggest it."
"That is very likely," said Andre-Louis, and smiled. "He doesn't show
himself much; not in the streets, at least. So that he has not the courage
you suppose; nor any kind of courage, as I told him once. He has only
insolence."
At parting Le Chapelier again exhorted him to give thought to what he
proposed. "Send me word if you change your mind. I am lodged at the Cerf,
and I shall be here until the day after to-morrow. If you have ambition,
this is your moment."
"I have no ambition, I suppose," said Andre-Louis, and went his way.
That night at the theatre he had a mischievous impulse to test what Le
Chapelier had told him of the state of public feeling in the city. They were
playing "The Terrible Captain," in the last act of which the empty cowardice
of the bullying braggart Rhodomont is revealed by Scaramouche.
After the laughter which the exposure of the roaring captain invariably
produced, it remained for Scaramouche contemptuously to dismiss him in a
phrase that varied nightly, according to the inspiration of the moment. This
time he chose to give his phrase a political complexion:
"Thus, 0 thrasonical coward, is your emptiness exposed. Because of your
long length and the great sword you carry and the angle at which you cock
your hat, people have gone in fear of you,, have believed in you, have
imagined you to be as terrible and as formidable as you insolently make
yourself appear. But at the first touch of true spirit you crumple up, you
tremble, you whine pitifully, and the great sword remains in your scabbard.
You remind me of the Privileged Orders when confronted by the Third Estate."
It was audacious of him, and he was prepared for anything - a laugh,
applause, indignation, or all together. But he was not prepared for what
came. And it came so suddenly and spontaneously from the groundlings and the
body of those in the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it - as a boy
may be scared who has held a match to a sun-scorched hayrick. It was a
hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their feet, sprang up on to the
benches, waving their hats in the air, deafening him with the terrific
uproar of their acclamations. And it rolled on and on, nor ceased until the
curtain fell.
Scaramouche stood meditatively smiling with tight lips. At the last
moment he had caught a glimpse of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's face thrust farther
forward than usual from the shadows of his box, and it was a face set in
anger, with eyes on fire.
"Mon Dieu!" laughed Rhodomont, recovering from the real scare that had
succeeded his histrionic terror, "but you have a great trick of tickling
them in the right place, Scaramouche."
Scaramouche looked up at him and smiled. "It can be useful upon
occasion," said he, and went off to his dressing-room to change.
But a reprimand awaited him. He was delayed at the theatre by matters
concerned with the scenery of the new piece they were to mount upon the
morrow. By the time he was rid of the business the rest of the company had
long since left. He called a chair and had himself carried back to the inn
in solitary state. It was one of many minor luxuries his comparatively
affluent present circumstances permitted.
Coming into that upstairs room that was common to all the troupe, he
found M. Binet talking loudly and vehemently. He had caught sounds of his
voice whilst yet upon the stairs. As he entered Binet broke off short, and
wheeled to face him.
"You are here at last!" It was so odd a greeting that Andre-Louis did
no more than look his mild surprise. "I await your explanations of the
disgraceful scene you provoked to-night."
"Disgraceful? Is it disgraceful that the public should applaud me?"
"The public? The rabble, you mean. Do you want to deprive us of the
patronage of all gentlefolk by vulgar appeals to the low passions of the
mob.?"
Andre-Louis stepped past M. Binet and forward to the table. He shrugged
contemptuously. The man offended him, after all.
"You exaggerate grossly - as usual."
"I do not exaggerate. And I am the master in my own theatre. This is
the Binet Troupe, and it shall be conducted in the Binet way."
"Who are the gentlefolk the loss of whose patronage to the Feydau will
be so poignantly felt?" asked Andre-Louis.
"You imply that there are none? See how wrong you are. After the play
to-night M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr came to me, and spoke to me in the
severest terms about your scandalous outburst. I was forced to apologize,
and... "
"The more fool you," said Andre-Louis. "A man who respected himself
would have shown that gentleman the door." M. Binet's face began to
empurple. "You call yourself the head of the Binet Troupe, you boast that
you will be master in your own theatre, and you stand like a lackey to take
the orders of the first insolent fellow who comes to your green-room to tell
you that he does not like a line spoken by one of your company! I say again
that had you really respected yourself you would have turned him out."
There was a murmur of approval from several members of the company,
who, having heard the arrogant tone assumed by the Marquis, were filled with
resentment against the slur cast upon them all.
"And I say further," Andre-Louis went on, "that a man who respects
himself, on quite other grounds, would have been only too glad to have
seized this pretext to show M. de La Tour d'Azyr the door."
"What do you mean by that?" There was a rumble of thunder in the
question.
Andre-Louis' eyes swept round the company assembled at the
supper-table. "Where is Climene?" he asked, sharply.
Leandre leapt up to answer him, white in the face, tense and quivering
with excitement.
"She left the theatre in the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr's carriage
immediately after the performance. We heard him offer to drive her to this
inn."
Andre-Louis glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. He seemed
unnaturally calm.
"That would be an hour ago - rather more. And she has not yet arrived?"
His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet's eyes eluded his glance. Again it
was Leandre who answered him.
"Not yet."
"Ah!" Andre-Louis sat down, and poured himself wine. There was an
oppressive silence in the room. Leandre watched him expectantly, Columbine
commiseratingly. Even M. Binet appeared to be waiting for a cue from
Scaramouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him. "Have you left me anything to
eat?" he asked.
Platters were pushed towards him. He helped himself calmly to food, and
ate in silence, apparently with a good appetite. M. Binet sat down, poured
himself wine, and drank. Presently he attempted to make conversation with
one and another. He was answered curtly, in monosyllables. M. Binet did not
appear to be in favour with his troupe that night.
At long length came a rumble of wheels below and a rattle of halting
hooves. Then voices, the high, trilling laugh of Climene floating upwards.
Andre-Louis went on eating unconcernedly.
"What an actor!" said Harlequin under his breath to Polichinelle, and
Polichinelle nodded gloomily.
She came in, a leading lady taking the stage, head high, chin thrust
forward, eyes dancing with laughter; she expressed triumph and arrogance.
Her cheeks were flushed, and there was some disorder in the mass of
nut-brown hair that crowned her head. In her left hand she carried an
enormous bouquet of white camellias. On its middle finger a diamond of great
price drew almost at once by its effulgence the eyes of all.
Her father sprang to meet her with an unusual display of paternal
tenderness. "At last, my child!"
He conducted her to the table. She sank into a chair, a little wearily,
a little nervelessly, but the smile did not leave her face, not even when
she glanced across at Scaramouche. It was only Leandre, observing her
closely, with hungry, scowling stare, who detected something as of fear in
the hazel eyes momentarily seen between the fluttering of her lids.
Andre-Louis, however, still went on eating stolidly, without so much as
a look in her direction. Gradually the company came to realize that just as
surely as a scene was brooding, just so surely would there be no scene as
long as they remained. It was Polichinelle, at last, who gave the signal by
rising and withdrawing, and within two minutes none remained in the room but
M. Binet, his daughter, and Andre-Louis. And then, at last, Andre-Louis set
down knife and fork, washed his throat with a draught of Burgundy, and sat
back in his chair to consider Climene.
"I trust," said he, "that you had a pleasant ride, mademoiselle."
"Most pleasant, monsieur. Impudently she strove to emulate his
coolness, but did not completely succeed.
"And not unprofitable, if I may judge that jewel at this distance. It
should be worth at least a couple of hundred louis, and that is a formidable
sum even to so wealthy a nobleman as M. de La Tour d'Azyr. Would it be
impertinent in one who has had some notion of becoming your husband, to ask
you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?"
M. Binet uttered a gross laugh, a queer mixture of cynicism and
contempt.
"I have given nothing," said Climene, indignantly.
"Ah! Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in advance."
"My God, man, you're not decent!" M. Binet protested.
"Decent?" Andre-Louis' smouldering eyes turned to discharge upon M.
Binet such a fulmination of contempt that the old scoundrel shifted
uncomfortably in his chair. "Did you mention decency, Binet? Almost you make
me lose my temper, which is a thing that I detest above all others!" Slowly
his glance returned to Climene, who sat with elbows on the table, her chin
cupped in her palms, regarding him with something between scorn and
defiance. "Mademoiselle," he said, slowly, "I desire you purely in your own
interests to consider whither you are going."
"I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide without advice
from you, monsieur."
"And now you've got your answer," chuckled Binet. "I hope you like it."
Andre-Louis had paled a little; there was incredulity in his great
sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard her. Of M. Binet he took no
notice.
"Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean that willingly, with open eyes
and a full understanding of what you do, you would exchange an honourable
wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour d'Azyr may have
in store for you?"
M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him,
the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that marriage with
him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the inconvenient
husband - to mar your every chance, my girl."
She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father "I begin to
find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a husband I
am afraid he would be impossible."
Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But - always the actor -
he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and rose.
"I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not regret it"
"Regret it?" cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved to see his
daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had never approved, if we
except those few hours when he really believed him to be an eccentric of
distinction. "And what shall she regret? That she accepted the protection of
a nobleman so powerful and wealthy that as a mere trinket he gives her a
jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year at the Comedie Francaise?"
He got up, and advanced towards Andre-Louis. His mood became conciliatory.
"Come, come, my friend, no rancour now. What the devil! You wouldn't stand
in the girl's way? You can't really blame her for making this choice? Have
you thought what it means to her? Have you thought that under the protection
of such a gentleman there are no heights which she may not reach? Don't you
see the wonderful luck of it? Surely, if you're fond of her, particularly
being of a jealous temperament, you wouldn't wish it otherwise?"
Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment. Then he laughed
again. "Oh, you are fantastic," he said. "You are not real." He turned on
his heel and strode to the door.
The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and words stung
M. Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.
"Fantastic, are we?" he cried, turning to follow the departing
Scaramouche with his little eyes that now were inexpressibly evil.
"Fantastic that we should prefer the powerful protection of this great
nobleman to marriage with beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are fantastic!"
Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. No," he said, "I was
mistaken. You are not fantastic. You are just vile - both of you." And he
went out.
Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the bright morning sunshine
of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been oddly
irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldliness, which
convinced Mme. de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin had
scandalously conducted the child's education. She appeared to be instructed
in all the things of which a girl is better ignorant, and ignorant of all
the things that a girl should know. That at least was the point of view of
Mme. de Sautron.
"Tell me, madame," quoth Aline, "are all men beasts?" Unlike her
brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and majestically built. In the days
before her marriage with M. de Sautron, ill-natured folk described her as
the only man in the family. She looked down now from her noble height upon
her little niece with startled eyes.
"Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most disconcerting and
improper questions."
"Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper.
"Life? A young girl should not discuss life."
"Why not, since I am alive? You do not suggest that it is an
impropriety to be alive?"
"It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek to know too
much about life. As for your absurd question about men, when I remind you
that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you will consider yourself
answered."
Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de
Kercadiou's outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
"That being so," said she, will you tell me why they find such an
overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?"
Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her
handsome, high-bridged nose.
"Sometimes - often, in fact, my dear Aline - you pass all
understanding. I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the
better it will be for all."
"Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding," Aline reminded
her.
"That," said madame with complete conviction, "is the last and most
outrageous of his errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide the
matter of her own marriage? It is... indelicate almost to expose her to
thoughts of such things." Mme. de Sautron shuddered. "Quintin is a boor. His
conduct is unheard of. That M. de La Tour d'Azyr should parade himself
before you so that you may make up your mind whether he is the proper man
for you!" Again she shuddered. "It is of a grossness, of... of a prurience
almost... Mon Dieu! When I married your uncle, all this was arranged between
our parents. I first saw him when he came to sign the contract. I should
have died of shame had it been otherwise. And that is how these affairs
should be conducted."
"You are no doubt right, madame. But since that is not how my own case
is being conducted, you will forgive me if I deal with it apart from others.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr desires to marry me. He has been permitted to pay his
court. I should be glad to have him informed that he may cease to do so."
Mme. de Sautron stood still, petrified by amazement. Her long face
turned white; she seemed to breathe with difficulty.
"But.., but.. what are you saying?" she gasped.
Quietly Aline repeated her statement.
"But this is outrageous! You cannot be permitted to play fast-and-loose
with a gentleman of M. le Marquis' quality! Why, it is little more than a
week since you permitted him to be informed that you would become his wife!"
"I did so in a moment of... rashness. Since then M. le Marquis' own
conduct has convinced me of my error."
"But - mon Dieu!" cried the Countess. "Are you blind to the great
honour that is being paid you? M. le Marquis will make you the first lady in
Brittany. Yet, little fool that you are, and greater fool that Quintin is,
you trifle with this extraordinary good fortune! Let me warn you." She
raised an admonitory forefinger. "If you continue in this stupid humour M.
de La Tour d'Azyr may definitely withdraw his offer and depart in justified
mortification."
"That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you, is what I most
desire."
"Oh, you are mad."
"It may be, madame, that I am sane in preferring to be guided by my
instincts. It may be even that I am justified in resenting that the man who
aspires to become my husband should at the same time be paying such
assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau."
"Aline!"
"Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find it strange that M. de La
Tour d'Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?"
"Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me by
the indecency of your expressions; at others you amaze me by the excess of
your prudery. You have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I think.
Yes, that is it - a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something of a
assassin you are to marry." He slammed the door. "Drive on," he bade the
coachman.
The carriage rolled away up the Faubourg Gigan, leaving him standing
where he had alighted, quivering with rage. Gradually, as he walked back to
the inn, his anger cooled. Gradually, as he cooled, he perceived her point
of view, and in the end forgave her. It was not her fault that she thought
as she thought. Her rearing had been such as to make her look upon every
actress as a trull, just as it had qualified her calmly to consider the
monstrous marriage of convenience into which she was invited.
He got back to the inn to find the company at table. Silence fell when
he entered, so suddenly that of necessity it must be supposed he was himself
the subject of the conversation. Harlequin and Columbine had spread the tale
of this prince in disguise caught up into the chariot of a princess and
carried off by her; and it was a tale that had lost nothing in the telling.
Climene had been silent and thoughtful, pondering what Columbine had
called this romance of hers. Clearly her Scaramouche must be vastly other
than he had hitherto appeared, or else that great lady and he would never
have used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him no better than he
was, Climene had made him her own. And now she was to receive the reward of
disinterested affection.
Even old Binet's secret hostility towards Andre-Louis melted before
this astounding revelation. He had pinched his daughter's ear quite
playfully. "Ah, ah, trust you to have penetrated his disguise, my child!"
She shrank resentfully from that implication.
"But I did not. I took him for what he seemed."
Her father winked at her very solemnly and laughed. "To be sure, you
did. But like your father, who was once a gentleman, and knows the ways of
gentlemen, you detected in him a subtle something different from those with
whom misfortune has compelled you hitherto to herd. You knew as well as I
did that he never caught that trick of haughtiness, that grand air of
command, in a lawyer's musty office, and that his speech had hardly the ring
or his thoughts the complexion of the bourgeois that he pretended to be. And
it was shrewd of you to have made him yours. Do you know that I shall be
very proud of you yet, Climene?"
She moved away without answering. Her father's oiliness offended her.
Scaramouche was clearly a great gentleman, an eccentric if you please, but a
man born. And she was to be his lady. Her father must learn to treat her
differently.
She looked shyly - with a new shyness - at her lover when he came into
the room where they were dining. She observed for the first time that proud
carriage of the head, with the chin thrust forward, that was a trick of his,
and she noticed with what a grace he moved
- the grace of one who in youth has had his dancing-masters and
fencing-masters.
It almost hurt her when he flung himself into a chair and exchanged a
quip with Harlequin in the usual manner as with an equal, and it offended
her still more that Harlequin, knowing what he now knew, should use him with
the same unbecoming familiarity.
"Do you know," said Climene, "that I am waiting for the explanation
which I think you owe me?"
They were alone together, lingering still at the table to which
Andre-Louis had come belatedly, and Andre-Louis was loading himself a pipe.
Of late - since joining the Binet Troupe - he had acquired the habit of
smoking. The others had gone, some to take the air and others, like Binet
and Madame, because they felt that it were discreet to leave those two to
the explanations that must pass. It was a feeling that Andre-Louis did not
share. He kindled a light and leisurely applied it to his pipe. A frown came
to settle on his brow.
"Explanation?" he questioned presently, and looked at her. "But on what
score?"
"On the score of the deception you have practised on us - on me."
"I have practised none," he assured her.
"You mean that you have simply kept your own counsel, and that in
silence there is no deception. But it is deceitful to withhold facts
concerning yourself and your true station from your future wife. You should
not have pretended to be a simple country lawyer, which, of course, any one
could see that you are not. It may have been very romantic, but... Enfin,
will you explain?"
"I see," he said, and pulled at his pipe. "But you are wrong, Climene.
I have practised no deception. If there are things about me that I have not
told you, it is that I did not account them of much importance. But I have
never deceived you by pretending to be other than I am. I am neither more
nor less than I have represented myself."
This persistence began to annoy her, and the annoyance showed on her
winsome face, coloured her voice.
"Ha! And that fine lady of the nobility with whom you are so intimate,
who carried you off in her cabriolet with so little ceremony towards myself?
What is she to you?"
"A sort of sister," said he.
"A sort of sister!" She was indignant. "Harlequin foretold that you
would say so; but he was amusing himself. It was not very funny. It is less
funny still from you. She has a name, I suppose, this sort of sister?"
"Certainly she has a name. She is Mlle. Aline de Kercadiou, the niece
of Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac."
"Oho! That's a sufficiently fine name for your sort of sister. What
sort of sister, my friend?"
For the first time in their relationship he observed and deplored the
taint of vulgarity, of shrewishness, in her manner.
"It would have been more accurate in me to have said a sort of reputed
left-handed cousin."
"A reputed left-handed cousin! And what sort of relationship may that
be? Faith, you dazzle me with your lucidity."
"It requires to be explained."
"That is what I have been telling you. But you seem very reluctant with
your explanations."
"Oh, no. It is only that they are so unimportant. But be you the judge.
Her uncle, M. de Kercadiou, is my godfather, and she and I have been
playmates from infancy as a consequence. It is popularly believed in
Gavrillac that M. de Kercadiou is my father. He has certainly cared for my
rearing from my tenderest years, and it is entirely owing to him that I was
educated at Louis le Grand. I owe to him everything that I have - or,
rather, everything that I had; for of my own free will I have cut myself
adrift, and to-day I possess nothing save what I can earn for myself in the
theatre or elsewhere."
She sat stunned and pale under that cruel blow to her swelling pride.
Had he told her this but yesterday, it would have made no impression upon
her, it would have mattered not at all; the event of to-day coming as a
sequel would but have enhanced him in her eyes. But coming now, after her
imagination had woven for him so magnificent a background, after the rashly
assumed discovery of his splendid identity had made her the envied of all
the company, after having been in her own eyes and theirs enshrined by
marriage with him as a great lady, this disclosure crushed and humiliated
her. Her prince in disguise was merely the outcast bastard of a country
gentleman! She would be the laughing-stock of every member of her father's
troupe, of all those who had so lately envied her this romantic good
fortune.
"You should have told me this before," she said, in a dull voice that
she strove to render steady.
"Perhaps I should. But does it really matter?"
"Matter?" She suppressed her fury to ask another question. "You say
that this M. de Kercadiou is popularly believed to be your father. What
precisely do you mean?"
"Just that. It is a belief that I do not share. It is a matter of
instinct, perhaps, with me. Moreover, once I asked M. de Kercadiou
point-blank, and I received from him a denial. It is not, perhaps, a denial
to which one would attach too much importance in all the circumstances. Yet
I have never known M de Kercadiou for other than a man of strictest honour,
and I should hesitate to disbelieve him
- particularly when his statement leaps with my own instincts. He
assured me that he did not know who my father was."
"And your mother, was he equally ignorant?" She was sneering, but he
did not remark it. Her back was to the light.
"He would not disclose her name to me. He confessed her to be a dear
friend of his."
She startled him by laughing, and her laugh was not pleasant.
"A very dear friend, you may be sure, you simpleton. What name do you
bear?"
He restrained his own rising indignation to answer her question calmly:
"Moreau. It was given me, so I am told, from the Brittany village in which I
was born. But I have no claim to it. In fact I have no name, unless it be
Scaramouche, to which I have earned a title. So that you see, my dear," he
ended with a smile, "I have practised no deception whatever."
"No, no. I see that now." She laughed without mirth, then drew a deep
breath and rose. "I am very tired," she said.
He was on his feet in an instant, all solicitude. But she waved him
wearily back.
"I think I will rest until it is time to go to the theatre." She moved
towards the door, dragging her feet a little. He sprang to open it, and she
passed out without looking at him.
Her so brief romantic dream was ended. The glorious world of fancy
which in the last hour she had built with such elaborate detail, over which
it should be her exalted destiny to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its
debris so many stumbling-blocks that prevented her from winning back to her
erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he really was.
Andre-Louis sat in the window embrasure, smoking and looking idly out
across the river. He was intrigued and meditative. He had shocked her. The
fact was clear; not so the reason. That he should confess himself nameless
should not particularly injure him in the eyes of a girl reared amid the
surroundings that had been Climene's. And yet that his confession had so
injured him was fully apparent.
There, still at his brooding, the returning Columbine discovered him a
half-hour later.
"All alone, my prince!" was her laughing greeting, which suddenly threw
light upon his mental darkness. Climene had been disappointed of hopes that
the wild imagination of these players had suddenly erected upon the incident
of his meeting with Aline. Poor child! He smiled whimsically at Columbine.
"I am likely to be so for some little time," said he, "until it becomes
a commonplace that I am not, after all, a prince.
"Not a prince? Oh, but a duke, then - at least a marquis."
"Not even a chevalier, unless it be of the order of fortune. I am just
Scaramouche. My castles are all in Spain."
Disappointment clouded the lively, good-natured face.
"And I had imagined you... "
"I know," he interrupted. "That is the mischief." He might have gauged
the extent of that mischief by Climene's conduct that evening towards the
gentlemen of fashion who clustered now in the green-room between the acts to
pay their homage to the incomparable amoureuse. Hitherto she had received
them with a circumspection compelling respect. To-night she was recklessly
gay, impudent, almost wanton.
He spoke of it gently to her as they walked home together, counselling
more prudence in the future.
"We are not married yet," she told him, tartly. "Wait until then before
you criticize my conduct."
"I trust that there will be no occasion then," said he.
"You trust? Ah, yes. You are very trusting."
"Climene, I have offended you. I am sorry."
"It is nothing," said she. "You are what you are. Still was he not
concerned. He perceived the source of her ill-humour; understood, whilst
deploring it; and, because he understood, forgave. He perceived also that
her ill-humour was shared by her father, and by this he was frankly amused.
Towards M. Binet a tolerant contempt was the only feeling that complete
acquaintance could beget. As for the rest of the company, they were disposed
to be very kindly towards Scaramouche. It was almost as if in reality he had
fallen from the high estate to which their own imaginations had raised him;
or possibly it was because they saw the effect which that fall from his
temporary and fictitious elevation had produced upon Climene.
Leandre alone made himself an exception. His habitual melancholy seemed
to be dispelled at last, and his eyes gleamed now with malicious
satisfaction when they rested upon Scaramouche, whom occasionally he
continued to address with sly mockery as "mon prince."
On the morrow Andre-Louis saw but little of Climene. This was not in
itself extraordinary, for he was very hard at work again, with preparations
now for "Figaro-Scaramouche" which was to be played on Saturday. Also, in
addition to his manifold theatrical occupations, he now devoted an hour
every morning to the study of fencing in an academy of arms. This was done
not only to repair an omission in his education, but also, and chiefly, to
give him added grace and poise upon the stage. He found his mind that
morning distracted by thoughts of both Climene and Aline. And oddly enough
it was Aline who provided the deeper perturbation. Climene's attitude he
regarded as a passing phase which need not seriously engage him. But the
thought of Aline's conduct towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply
rankled the thought of her possible betrothal to M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
This it was that brought forcibly to his mind the self-imposed but by
now half-forgotten mission that he had made his own. He had boasted that he
would make the voice which M. de La Tour d'Azyr had sought to silence ring
through the length and breadth of the land. And what had he done of all this
that he had boasted? He had incited the mob of Rennes and the mob of Nantes
in such terms as poor Philippe might have employed, and then because of a
hue and cry he had fled like a cur and taken shelter in the first kennel
that offered, there to lie quiet and devote himself to other things -
self-seeking things. What a fine contrast between the promise and the
fulfilment!
Thus Andre-Louis to himself in his self-contempt. And whilst he trifled
away his time and played Scaramouche, and centred all his hopes in presently
becoming the rival of such men as Chenier and Mercier, M. de La Tour d'Azyr
went his proud ways unchallenged and wrought his will. It was idle to tell
himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit. That the demands he had
voiced in Nantes for the Third Estate had been granted by M. Necker, thanks
largely to the commotion which his anonymous speech had made. That was not
his concern or his mission. It was no part of his concern to set about the
regeneration of mankind, or even the regeneration of the social structure of
France. His concern was to see that M. de La Tour d'Azyr paid to the
uttermost liard for the brutal wrong he had done Philippe de Vilmorin. And
it did not increase his self-respect to find that the danger in which Aline
stood of being married to the Marquis was the real spur to his rancour and
to remembrance of his vow. He was - too unjustly, perhaps - disposed to
dismiss as mere sophistries his own arguments that there was nothing he
could do; that, in fact, he had but to show his head to find himself going
to Rennes under arrest and making his final exit from the world's stage by
way of the gallows.
It is impossible to read that part of his "Confessions" without feeling
a certain pity for him. You realize what must have been his state of mind.
You realize what a prey he was to emotions so conflicting, and if you have
the imagination that will enable you to put yourself in his place, you will
also realize how impossible was any decision save the one to which he says
he came, that he would move, at the first moment that he perceived in what
direction it would serve his real aims to move.
It happened that the first person he saw when he took the stage on that
Thursday evening was Aline; the second was the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
They occupied a box on the right of, and immediately above, the stage. There
were others with them - notably a thin, elderly, resplendent lady whom
Andre-Louis supposed to be Madame la Comtesse de Sautron. But at the time he
had no eyes for any but those two, who of late had so haunted his thoughts.
The sight of either of them would have been sufficiently disconcerting. The
sight of both together very nearly made him forget the purpose for which he
had come upon the stage. Then he pulled himself together, and played. He
played, he says, with an unusual nerve, and never in all that brief but
eventful career of his was he more applauded.
That was the evening's first shock. The next came after the second act.
Entering the green-room he found it more thronged than usual, and at the far
end with Climene, over whom he was bending from his fine height, his eyes
intent upon her face, what time his smiling lips moved in talk, M. de La
Tour d'Azyr. He had her entirely to himself, a privilege none of the men of
fashion who were in the habit of visiting the coulisse had yet enjoyed.
Those lesser gentlemen had all withdrawn before the Marquis, as jackals
withdraw before the lion.
Andre-Louis stared a moment, stricken. Then recovering from his
surprise he became critical in his study of the Marquis. He considered the
beauty and grace and splendour of him, his courtly air, his complete and
unshakable self-possession. But more than all he considered the expression
of the dark eyes that were devouring Climene's lovely face, and his own lips
tightened.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr never heeded him or his stare; nor, had he done
so, would he have known who it was that looked at him from behind the
make-up of Scaramouche; nor, again, had he known, would he have been in the
least troubled or concerned.
Andre-Louis sat down apart, his mind in turmoil. Presently he found a
mincing young gentleman addressing him, and made shift to answer as was
expected. Climene having been thus sequestered, and Columbine being already
thickly besieged by gallants, the lesser visitors had to content themselves
with Madame and the male members of the troupe. M. Binet, indeed, was the
centre of a gay cluster that shook with laughter at his sallies. He seemed
of a sudden to have emerged from the gloom of the last two days into high
good-humour, and Scaramouche observed how persistently his eyes kept
flickering upon his daughter and her splendid courtier.
That night there, were high words between Andre-Louis and Climene, the
high words proceeding from Climene. When Andre-Louis again, and more
insistently, enjoined prudence upon his betrothed, and begged her to beware
how far she encouraged the advances of such a man as M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
she became roundly abusive. She shocked and stunned him by her virulently
shrewish tone, and her still more unexpected force of invective.
He sought to reason with her, and finally she came to certain terms
with him.
"If you have become betrothed to me simply to stand as an obstacle in
my path, the sooner we make an end the better."
"You do not love me then, Climene?"
"Love has nothing to do with it. I'll not tolerate your insensate
jealousy. A girl in the theatre must make it her business to accept homage
from all."
"Agreed; and there is no harm, provided she gives nothing in exchange."
White-faced, with flaming eyes she turned on him at that.
"Now, what exactly do you mean?"
"My meaning is clear. A girl in your position may receive all the
homage that is offered, provided she receives it with a dignified aloofness
implying clearly that she has no favours to bestow in return beyond the
favour of her smile. If she is wise she will see to it that the homage is
always offered collectively by her admirers, and that no single one amongst
them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone. If she is wise
she will give no encouragement, nourish no hopes that it may afterwards be
beyond her power to deny realization."
"How? You dare?"
"I know my world. And I know M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he answered her.
"He is a man without charity, without humanity almost; a man who takes what
he wants wherever he finds it and whether it is given willingly or not; a
man who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his self-indulgent way;
a man whose only law is force. Ponder it, Climene, and ask yourself if I do
you less than honour in warning you."
He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing the subject.
The days that followed were unhappy days for him, and for at least one
other. That other was Leandre, who was cast into the profoundest dejection
by M. de La Tour d'Azyr's assiduous attendance upon Climene. The Marquis was
to be seen at every performance; a box was perpetually reserved for him, and
invariably he came either alone or else with his cousin M. de Chabrillane.
On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went out alone early in
the morning. He was out of temper, fretted by an overwhelming sense of
humiliation, and he hoped to clear his mind by walking. In turning the
corner of the Place du Bouffay he ran into a slightly built,
sallow-complexioned gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a
tie-wig under a round hat. The man fell back at sight of him, levelling a
spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang with amazement.
"Moreau! Where the devil have you been hiding your-self these months?"
It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer, the leader of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes.
"Behind the skirts of Thespis," said Scaramouche.
"I don't understand."
"I didn't intend that you should. What of yourself, Isaac? And what of
the world which seems to have been standing still of late?"
"Standing still!" Le Chapelier laughed. "But where have you been, then?
Standing still!" He pointed across the square to a caf under the shadow of
the gloomy prison. "Let us go and drink a bavaroise. You are of all men the
man we want, the man we have been seeking everywhere, and - behold! - you
drop from the skies into my path."
They crossed the square and entered the caf .
"So you think the world has been standing still! Dieu de Dieu! I
suppose you haven't heard of the royal order for the convocation of the
States General, or the terms of them - that we are to have what we demanded,
what you demanded for us here in Nantes! You haven't heard that the order
has gone forth for the primary elections - the elections of the electors.
You haven't heard of the fresh uproar in Rennes, last month. The order was
that the three estates should sit together at the States General of the
bailliages, but in the bailliage of Rennes the nobles must ever be
recalcitrant. They took up arms actually - six hundred of them with their
valetaille, headed by your old friend M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and they were
for slashing us - the members of the Third Estate - into ribbons so as to
put an end to our insolence." He laughed delicately. "But, by God, we showed
them that we, too, could take up arms. It was what you yourself advocated
here in Nantes, last November. We fought them a pitched battle in the
streets, under the leadership of your namesake Moreau, the provost, and we
so peppered them that they were glad to take shelter in the Cordelier
Convent. That is the end of their resistance to the royal authority and the
people's will."
He ran on at great speed detailing the events that had taken place, and
finally came to the matter which had, he announced, been causing him to hunt
for Andre-Louis until he had all but despaired of finding him.
Nantes was sending fifty delegates to the assembly of Rennes which was
to select the deputies to the Third Estate and edit their cahier of
grievances. Rennes itself was being as fully represented, whilst such
villages as Gavrillac were sending two delegates for every two hundred
hearths or less. Each of these three had clamoured that Andre-Louis Moreau
should be one of its delegates. Gavrillac wanted him because he belonged to
the village, and it was known there what sacrifices he had made in the
popular cause; Rennes wanted him because it had heard his spirited address
on the day of the shooting of the students; and Nantes - to whom his
identity was unknown - asked for him as the speaker who had addressed them
under the name of Omnes Omnibus and who had framed for them the memorial
that was believed so largely to have influenced M. Necker in formulating the
terms of the convocation.
Since he could not be found, the delegations had been made up without
him. But now it happened that one or two vacancies had occurred in the
Nantes representation; and it was the business of filling these vacancies
that had brought Le Chapelier to Nantes.
Andre-Louis firmly shook his head in answer to Le Chapelier's proposal.
"You refuse?" the other cried. "Are you mad? Refuse, when you are
demanded from so many sides? Do you realize that it is more than probable
you will be elected one of the deputies, that you will be sent to the States
General at Versailles to represent us in this work of saving France?"
But Andre-Louis, we know, was not concerned to save France. At the
moment he was concerned to save two women, both of whom he loved, though in
vastly different ways, from a man he had vowed to ruin. He stood firm in his
refusal until Le Chapelier dejectedly abandoned the attempt to persuade him.
"It is odd," said Andre-Louis, "that I should have been so deeply
immersed in trifles as never to have perceived that Nantes is being
politically active."
"Active! My friend, it is a seething cauldron of political emotions. It
is kept quiet on the surface only by the persuasion that all goes well. At a
hint to the contrary it would boil over."
"Would it so?" said Scaramouche, thoughtfully. "The knowledge may be
useful." And then he changed the subject. "You know that La Tour d'Azyr is
here?"
"In Nantes? He has courage if he shows himself. They are not a docile
people, these Nantais, and they know his record and the part he played in
the rising at Rennes. I marvel they haven't stoned him. But they will,
sooner or later. It only needs that some one should suggest it."
"That is very likely," said Andre-Louis, and smiled. "He doesn't show
himself much; not in the streets, at least. So that he has not the courage
you suppose; nor any kind of courage, as I told him once. He has only
insolence."
At parting Le Chapelier again exhorted him to give thought to what he
proposed. "Send me word if you change your mind. I am lodged at the Cerf,
and I shall be here until the day after to-morrow. If you have ambition,
this is your moment."
"I have no ambition, I suppose," said Andre-Louis, and went his way.
That night at the theatre he had a mischievous impulse to test what Le
Chapelier had told him of the state of public feeling in the city. They were
playing "The Terrible Captain," in the last act of which the empty cowardice
of the bullying braggart Rhodomont is revealed by Scaramouche.
After the laughter which the exposure of the roaring captain invariably
produced, it remained for Scaramouche contemptuously to dismiss him in a
phrase that varied nightly, according to the inspiration of the moment. This
time he chose to give his phrase a political complexion:
"Thus, 0 thrasonical coward, is your emptiness exposed. Because of your
long length and the great sword you carry and the angle at which you cock
your hat, people have gone in fear of you,, have believed in you, have
imagined you to be as terrible and as formidable as you insolently make
yourself appear. But at the first touch of true spirit you crumple up, you
tremble, you whine pitifully, and the great sword remains in your scabbard.
You remind me of the Privileged Orders when confronted by the Third Estate."
It was audacious of him, and he was prepared for anything - a laugh,
applause, indignation, or all together. But he was not prepared for what
came. And it came so suddenly and spontaneously from the groundlings and the
body of those in the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it - as a boy
may be scared who has held a match to a sun-scorched hayrick. It was a
hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their feet, sprang up on to the
benches, waving their hats in the air, deafening him with the terrific
uproar of their acclamations. And it rolled on and on, nor ceased until the
curtain fell.
Scaramouche stood meditatively smiling with tight lips. At the last
moment he had caught a glimpse of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's face thrust farther
forward than usual from the shadows of his box, and it was a face set in
anger, with eyes on fire.
"Mon Dieu!" laughed Rhodomont, recovering from the real scare that had
succeeded his histrionic terror, "but you have a great trick of tickling
them in the right place, Scaramouche."
Scaramouche looked up at him and smiled. "It can be useful upon
occasion," said he, and went off to his dressing-room to change.
But a reprimand awaited him. He was delayed at the theatre by matters
concerned with the scenery of the new piece they were to mount upon the
morrow. By the time he was rid of the business the rest of the company had
long since left. He called a chair and had himself carried back to the inn
in solitary state. It was one of many minor luxuries his comparatively
affluent present circumstances permitted.
Coming into that upstairs room that was common to all the troupe, he
found M. Binet talking loudly and vehemently. He had caught sounds of his
voice whilst yet upon the stairs. As he entered Binet broke off short, and
wheeled to face him.
"You are here at last!" It was so odd a greeting that Andre-Louis did
no more than look his mild surprise. "I await your explanations of the
disgraceful scene you provoked to-night."
"Disgraceful? Is it disgraceful that the public should applaud me?"
"The public? The rabble, you mean. Do you want to deprive us of the
patronage of all gentlefolk by vulgar appeals to the low passions of the
mob.?"
Andre-Louis stepped past M. Binet and forward to the table. He shrugged
contemptuously. The man offended him, after all.
"You exaggerate grossly - as usual."
"I do not exaggerate. And I am the master in my own theatre. This is
the Binet Troupe, and it shall be conducted in the Binet way."
"Who are the gentlefolk the loss of whose patronage to the Feydau will
be so poignantly felt?" asked Andre-Louis.
"You imply that there are none? See how wrong you are. After the play
to-night M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr came to me, and spoke to me in the
severest terms about your scandalous outburst. I was forced to apologize,
and... "
"The more fool you," said Andre-Louis. "A man who respected himself
would have shown that gentleman the door." M. Binet's face began to
empurple. "You call yourself the head of the Binet Troupe, you boast that
you will be master in your own theatre, and you stand like a lackey to take
the orders of the first insolent fellow who comes to your green-room to tell
you that he does not like a line spoken by one of your company! I say again
that had you really respected yourself you would have turned him out."
There was a murmur of approval from several members of the company,
who, having heard the arrogant tone assumed by the Marquis, were filled with
resentment against the slur cast upon them all.
"And I say further," Andre-Louis went on, "that a man who respects
himself, on quite other grounds, would have been only too glad to have
seized this pretext to show M. de La Tour d'Azyr the door."
"What do you mean by that?" There was a rumble of thunder in the
question.
Andre-Louis' eyes swept round the company assembled at the
supper-table. "Where is Climene?" he asked, sharply.
Leandre leapt up to answer him, white in the face, tense and quivering
with excitement.
"She left the theatre in the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr's carriage
immediately after the performance. We heard him offer to drive her to this
inn."
Andre-Louis glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. He seemed
unnaturally calm.
"That would be an hour ago - rather more. And she has not yet arrived?"
His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet's eyes eluded his glance. Again it
was Leandre who answered him.
"Not yet."
"Ah!" Andre-Louis sat down, and poured himself wine. There was an
oppressive silence in the room. Leandre watched him expectantly, Columbine
commiseratingly. Even M. Binet appeared to be waiting for a cue from
Scaramouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him. "Have you left me anything to
eat?" he asked.
Platters were pushed towards him. He helped himself calmly to food, and
ate in silence, apparently with a good appetite. M. Binet sat down, poured
himself wine, and drank. Presently he attempted to make conversation with
one and another. He was answered curtly, in monosyllables. M. Binet did not
appear to be in favour with his troupe that night.
At long length came a rumble of wheels below and a rattle of halting
hooves. Then voices, the high, trilling laugh of Climene floating upwards.
Andre-Louis went on eating unconcernedly.
"What an actor!" said Harlequin under his breath to Polichinelle, and
Polichinelle nodded gloomily.
She came in, a leading lady taking the stage, head high, chin thrust
forward, eyes dancing with laughter; she expressed triumph and arrogance.
Her cheeks were flushed, and there was some disorder in the mass of
nut-brown hair that crowned her head. In her left hand she carried an
enormous bouquet of white camellias. On its middle finger a diamond of great
price drew almost at once by its effulgence the eyes of all.
Her father sprang to meet her with an unusual display of paternal
tenderness. "At last, my child!"
He conducted her to the table. She sank into a chair, a little wearily,
a little nervelessly, but the smile did not leave her face, not even when
she glanced across at Scaramouche. It was only Leandre, observing her
closely, with hungry, scowling stare, who detected something as of fear in
the hazel eyes momentarily seen between the fluttering of her lids.
Andre-Louis, however, still went on eating stolidly, without so much as
a look in her direction. Gradually the company came to realize that just as
surely as a scene was brooding, just so surely would there be no scene as
long as they remained. It was Polichinelle, at last, who gave the signal by
rising and withdrawing, and within two minutes none remained in the room but
M. Binet, his daughter, and Andre-Louis. And then, at last, Andre-Louis set
down knife and fork, washed his throat with a draught of Burgundy, and sat
back in his chair to consider Climene.
"I trust," said he, "that you had a pleasant ride, mademoiselle."
"Most pleasant, monsieur. Impudently she strove to emulate his
coolness, but did not completely succeed.
"And not unprofitable, if I may judge that jewel at this distance. It
should be worth at least a couple of hundred louis, and that is a formidable
sum even to so wealthy a nobleman as M. de La Tour d'Azyr. Would it be
impertinent in one who has had some notion of becoming your husband, to ask
you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?"
M. Binet uttered a gross laugh, a queer mixture of cynicism and
contempt.
"I have given nothing," said Climene, indignantly.
"Ah! Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in advance."
"My God, man, you're not decent!" M. Binet protested.
"Decent?" Andre-Louis' smouldering eyes turned to discharge upon M.
Binet such a fulmination of contempt that the old scoundrel shifted
uncomfortably in his chair. "Did you mention decency, Binet? Almost you make
me lose my temper, which is a thing that I detest above all others!" Slowly
his glance returned to Climene, who sat with elbows on the table, her chin
cupped in her palms, regarding him with something between scorn and
defiance. "Mademoiselle," he said, slowly, "I desire you purely in your own
interests to consider whither you are going."
"I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide without advice
from you, monsieur."
"And now you've got your answer," chuckled Binet. "I hope you like it."
Andre-Louis had paled a little; there was incredulity in his great
sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard her. Of M. Binet he took no
notice.
"Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean that willingly, with open eyes
and a full understanding of what you do, you would exchange an honourable
wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour d'Azyr may have
in store for you?"
M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him,
the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that marriage with
him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the inconvenient
husband - to mar your every chance, my girl."
She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father "I begin to
find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a husband I
am afraid he would be impossible."
Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But - always the actor -
he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and rose.
"I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not regret it"
"Regret it?" cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved to see his
daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had never approved, if we
except those few hours when he really believed him to be an eccentric of
distinction. "And what shall she regret? That she accepted the protection of
a nobleman so powerful and wealthy that as a mere trinket he gives her a
jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year at the Comedie Francaise?"
He got up, and advanced towards Andre-Louis. His mood became conciliatory.
"Come, come, my friend, no rancour now. What the devil! You wouldn't stand
in the girl's way? You can't really blame her for making this choice? Have
you thought what it means to her? Have you thought that under the protection
of such a gentleman there are no heights which she may not reach? Don't you
see the wonderful luck of it? Surely, if you're fond of her, particularly
being of a jealous temperament, you wouldn't wish it otherwise?"
Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment. Then he laughed
again. "Oh, you are fantastic," he said. "You are not real." He turned on
his heel and strode to the door.
The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and words stung
M. Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.
"Fantastic, are we?" he cried, turning to follow the departing
Scaramouche with his little eyes that now were inexpressibly evil.
"Fantastic that we should prefer the powerful protection of this great
nobleman to marriage with beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are fantastic!"
Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. No," he said, "I was
mistaken. You are not fantastic. You are just vile - both of you." And he
went out.
Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the bright morning sunshine
of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been oddly
irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldliness, which
convinced Mme. de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin had
scandalously conducted the child's education. She appeared to be instructed
in all the things of which a girl is better ignorant, and ignorant of all
the things that a girl should know. That at least was the point of view of
Mme. de Sautron.
"Tell me, madame," quoth Aline, "are all men beasts?" Unlike her
brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and majestically built. In the days
before her marriage with M. de Sautron, ill-natured folk described her as
the only man in the family. She looked down now from her noble height upon
her little niece with startled eyes.
"Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most disconcerting and
improper questions."
"Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper.
"Life? A young girl should not discuss life."
"Why not, since I am alive? You do not suggest that it is an
impropriety to be alive?"
"It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek to know too
much about life. As for your absurd question about men, when I remind you
that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you will consider yourself
answered."
Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de
Kercadiou's outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
"That being so," said she, will you tell me why they find such an
overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?"
Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her
handsome, high-bridged nose.
"Sometimes - often, in fact, my dear Aline - you pass all
understanding. I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the
better it will be for all."
"Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding," Aline reminded
her.
"That," said madame with complete conviction, "is the last and most
outrageous of his errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide the
matter of her own marriage? It is... indelicate almost to expose her to
thoughts of such things." Mme. de Sautron shuddered. "Quintin is a boor. His
conduct is unheard of. That M. de La Tour d'Azyr should parade himself
before you so that you may make up your mind whether he is the proper man
for you!" Again she shuddered. "It is of a grossness, of... of a prurience
almost... Mon Dieu! When I married your uncle, all this was arranged between
our parents. I first saw him when he came to sign the contract. I should
have died of shame had it been otherwise. And that is how these affairs
should be conducted."
"You are no doubt right, madame. But since that is not how my own case
is being conducted, you will forgive me if I deal with it apart from others.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr desires to marry me. He has been permitted to pay his
court. I should be glad to have him informed that he may cease to do so."
Mme. de Sautron stood still, petrified by amazement. Her long face
turned white; she seemed to breathe with difficulty.
"But.., but.. what are you saying?" she gasped.
Quietly Aline repeated her statement.
"But this is outrageous! You cannot be permitted to play fast-and-loose
with a gentleman of M. le Marquis' quality! Why, it is little more than a
week since you permitted him to be informed that you would become his wife!"
"I did so in a moment of... rashness. Since then M. le Marquis' own
conduct has convinced me of my error."
"But - mon Dieu!" cried the Countess. "Are you blind to the great
honour that is being paid you? M. le Marquis will make you the first lady in
Brittany. Yet, little fool that you are, and greater fool that Quintin is,
you trifle with this extraordinary good fortune! Let me warn you." She
raised an admonitory forefinger. "If you continue in this stupid humour M.
de La Tour d'Azyr may definitely withdraw his offer and depart in justified
mortification."
"That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you, is what I most
desire."
"Oh, you are mad."
"It may be, madame, that I am sane in preferring to be guided by my
instincts. It may be even that I am justified in resenting that the man who
aspires to become my husband should at the same time be paying such
assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau."
"Aline!"
"Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find it strange that M. de La
Tour d'Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?"
"Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me by
the indecency of your expressions; at others you amaze me by the excess of
your prudery. You have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I think.
Yes, that is it - a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something of a