The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama Page 17

  XVI

  SHADOWS

  Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "God save yourmajesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enterParis in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, whenhe suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To hissurprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the kingwas retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.

  Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him?Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him?He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at theside of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing thebridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay's return had nothingwhatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn ofthe Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursuea pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something ofthe pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, apastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king's assurancethat he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.

  So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across thebridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very muchenjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly,and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebblefrom the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window abovethe Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling mischievously, under the doorwayof the Inn, and waited upon events. In a moment the window was opened,and Gabrielle looked out. "Is that you, Henri?" she asked, softly.

  Instantly Chavernay emerged from his hiding-place, and stood bareheadedand bending almost double before the beautiful girl. "It was I," he said,with a manner of airy deference.

  Gabrielle drew back a little. "You? Who are you?" she asked, astonished.

  Chavernay again made her a reverence. "Your slave," he asserted.

  Gabrielle remembered him now, and looked annoyed. "Sir!" she said,angrily.

  Chavernay saw her anger, but was not dismayed. He was familiar with thefeigned rages of pretty country girls when it pleased great lords to makelove to them. "Listen to me," he pleaded. "Ever since I first saw you Ihave adored you."

  He meant to say more, but he was not given the time in which to say it,for Lagardere came forth from his shelter beside the caravan andinterrupted him. At the sight of Lagardere, Gabrielle gave a little cryand closed the window. Lagardere advanced to Chavernay, who stared inastonishment at the presumption of the gypsy fellow--a gypsy fellow thatcarried a sword under his mantle.

  "That young girl is under my care, little gentleman," Lagardere said,mockingly.

  But Chavernay was not easily to be dashed from his habitual manner ofgenial insolence, and he answered, as mockingly as Lagardere: "Then Itell you what I told her: that I adore her."

  Lagardere eyed him whimsically, grimly. He felt disagreeably conscious ofthe contrast between himself in his shabby habit and the gilded fripperyof this brilliant young insolence. He speculated with melancholy as tothe effect of this contrast on the young girl that witnessed it. "Youimp, you deserve to be whipped!" he said, sharply.

  Chavernay stared at him with eyes wide with astonishment, and explainedhimself, haughtily: "I am the Marquis de Chavernay, cousin of the Princede Gonzague."

  Lagardere changed his phrase: "Then you come of a bad house, and deserveto be hanged!"

  In a second the little marquis dropped his daffing manner. "If you were agentleman, sir," he cried, "and had a right to the sword you presume tocarry, I would make you back your words!"

  Lagardere smiled ironically. "If it eases your mind in any way," he said,quietly, "I can assure you that I am a gentleman, although a poor one,and have as good right to trail a sword as any kinsman of the Prince deGonzague." He paused, and then added, not unpityingly: "I would ratherbeat you than kill you."

  Chavernay was scarcely to be appeased in this fashion. Something inLagardere's carriage, something in his voice, convinced the littlemarquis that his enemy was speaking the truth, and that he was, indeed, agentleman. "Braggart!" he cried, and, drawing his sword, he struckLagardere across the breast with the flat of his blade.

  Lagardere was quite unmoved by the affront. Leisurely he drew his swordand leisurely fell into position, saying, "Very well, then."

  The swords engaged for a moment--only for a moment. Then, to the surpriseand rage of Chavernay, his hand and his sword parted company, and thesword, a glittering line of steel, leaped into the air and fell to earthmany feet away from him. Even as this happened, Gabrielle, who had beenwatching with horror the quarrel from behind her curtains, came runningdown the Inn stairs and darted through the door into the open.

  She turned to Lagardere, appealing: "Do not hurt him, Henri; he is but achild."

  The little marquis frowned. He disliked to be regarded as a pitiablejuvenile. "If the gentleman will return me my sword," he said, "I willnot lose it again so lightly."

  Lagardere looked at him with kind-hearted compassion. "If I returned youyour sword twenty times," he said, "its fate would be twenty times thesame. Take your sword and use it hereafter to defend women, not to insultthem."

  While he was speaking he had stepped to where Chavernay's blade lay onthe sward, and had picked it up, and now, as he made an end of speaking,he handed Chavernay the rapier. Chavernay took it, and sent it home inits sheath half defiantly. "Fair lady, I ask your pardon," he said,bowing very reverentially to Gabrielle. "Let me call myself ever yourservant." He turned and gave Lagardere a salutation that was more hostilethan amiable, and then recrossed the bridge in his airiest manner as onethat is a lord of fortune. Lagardere stood silent, almost gloomy, lookingat the ground. Gabrielle regarded him for a moment timidly, and then,advancing, softly placed a hand upon his shoulder.

  "You are not angry with me?" she whispered.

  Lagardere turned to her and forced himself to smile cheerfully."Angry--with you? How could that be possible?" He was silent for amoment, then he asked: "Do you know that gentleman?"

  Gabrielle shook her head. "I saw him for the first time to-day, not verylong ago, when I was speaking to Flora. I had come out for a moment whenshe called to me, and he came over the bridge and took us unawares."

  Lagardere looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?"he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might wellwin a girl's heart."

  Gabrielle returned Lagardere's earnest look with a look of surprise. "Heis a noble. I am a poor girl."

  Lagardere smiled wistfully. "How if you were no longer to be a poor girl,Gabrielle? How if this visit to Paris were to change our fortunes?"

  Gabrielle looked at him curiously. "Why have we come to Paris, Henri? Ithought there was danger in Paris?"

  "There was danger in Paris," Lagardere said, slowly--"grave danger. But Ihave seen a great man, and the danger has vanished, and you and I arecoming to the end of our pilgrimage."

  "The end of our pilgrimage?" echoed Gabrielle. "What is going to happento us?"

  "Wonderful things," Lagardere said, lightly--"beautiful things. You shallknow all about them soon enough." To himself he whispered: "Too soon forme." Then he addressed the girl again, blithely: "When I took you toMadrid you saw the color of the court, you heard the music of festivals.Did you not feel that you were made for such a life?"

  Gabrielle answered instantly: "Yes, for that life--or any life--withyou."

  Lagardere protested: "Ah, but without me."

  Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gavean absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."

  Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women yousaw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers--"

  Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the onlytreasure I envy them," she said, firmly.

  Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again qu
estioned her. "But supposeyou had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother andme?"

  For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressingeffect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you."Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily:"Henri, you are the first in the world for me."

  Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graverrivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother's love."

  "What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.

  Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl'slove for a boy, a maid's love for a man. That pretty gentleman who washere but now, and swore he adored you--if you were noble, could you lovesuch a man as he?"

  Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instantshad been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "Iswear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love wouldnot be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."

  In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something,at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed tolaugh, too.

  "What would he be like," he asked--"the wonder whom you would consent tolove?"

  He spoke very merrily, but it racked his heart to speak thus lightly ofthe love of Gabrielle. He wished that he were a little boy again, that hemight hide behind some tree and cry out his grief in bitter tears. Butbeing, as he reminded himself, a weather-beaten soldier of fortune, itwas his duty to screen his misery with a grin and to salute his doom withamusement. As for Gabrielle, she came a little nearer to Lagardere, andher eyes were shining very brightly, and her lips trembled a little, andshe seemed a little pale in the clear air.

  "I will try to paint you a picture," she said, hesitatingly, "of the manI"--she paused for a second, and then continued, hurriedly--"of the man Icould love. He would be about your height, as I should think, to the verylittlest of an inch; and he would be built as you are built, Henri; andhis hair would be of your color, and his eyes would have your fire; andhis voice would have the sound of your voice, the sweetest sound in theworld; and the sweetest sound of that most sweet voice would be when itwhispered to me that it loved me."

  Lagardere looked at her with haggard, happy eyes. He could notmisunderstand, and he was happy; he dared not understand, and he wassad.

  "Gabrielle," he said, softly, "when you were a little maid I used to tellyou tales to entertain you. Will you let me spin you a fable now?"

  The girl said nothing; only she nodded, and she looked at him veryfixedly. Lagardere went on:

  "There was once a man, a soldier of fortune, an adventurous rogue, intowhose hands a jesting destiny confided a great trust. That trust was thelife of a child, of a girl, of a woman, whom it was his glory to defendfor a while with his sword against many enemies."

  "I think he defended her very well," Gabrielle interrupted, gently.Lagardere held up a warning finger.

  "Hush," he said. "What I am speaking of took place ages ago, when theworld was ever so much younger, in the days of Charlemagne and Caesar andAchilles and other great princes long since withered, so you can knownothing at all about it. But this rogue of my story had a sacred duty tofulfil. He had to restore to this charge, this ward of his, the name, thegreatness, that had been stolen from her. It was his mission to give herback the gifts which had been filched from her by treason. For seventeenyears he had lived for this purpose, and only for this purpose, crushingall other thoughts, all other hopes, all other dreams. What would you sayof such a man, so sternly dedicated to so great a faith, if he were toprove false to his trust, and to allow his own mad passion to blind himto the light of loyalty, to deafen him to the call of honor?"

  He was looking away from her as he spoke, but the girl came close to himand caught his hands, and made him turn his face to her, and each sawthat the other's eyes were wet. Gabrielle spoke steadily, eagerly:

  "You say that what you speak of happened very long ago. But we are to-dayas those were yesterday, and if I were the maid of your tale I would sayto the man that love is the best thing a true man can give to a truewoman, and that a woman who wore my body could lose no wealth, nokingdom, to compare with the rich treasure of her lover's heart."

  There was no mistaking the meaning of the girl, the meaning ringing inher words, shining in her eyes, appealing in her out-stretched arms. ToLagardere it seemed as if the kingdom of the world were offered to him.He had but to keep silence, and his heart's desire was his. But heremembered the night in the moat of Caylus, he remembered the purpose oflong years, he remembered his duty, he remembered his honor, and hegrappled with the dragon of passion, with the dragon of desire. Verycalmly he touched for a moment, with caressing hand, the hair ofGabrielle. Very quietly he spoke.

  "We are taking my fairy tale too gravely," he said. "It all happened longago, and has nothing to do with us. Our story is very different, and ourstory is coming to a wonderful conclusion. This day is your last day ofdoubt and ignorance, of solitude and poverty." He turned a little awayfrom her and murmured to himself: "It is also my last day of youth andjoy and hope."

  Gabrielle pressed her hands against her breasts for a moment, like one ingreat dismay. The tears welled into her eyes. Then she gave a little moanof wonder and protest, and sprang towards him with out-stretched hands."Do you not understand?" she cried. "Henri, Henri, I love you."

  Lagardere grasped the out-stretched hands, and in another moment wouldhave caught the girl in his arms, but a dry, crackling laugh arrestedhim. Gently restraining Gabrielle's advance, he turned his head and sawstanding upon the bridge surveying him and Gabrielle a sinister figure.It was AEsop, returning from his stroll with Monsieur Peyrolles, who hadpaused on the bridge in cynical amusement of what he conceived to be alovers' meeting between countryman and countrymaid, but whose face nowflushed with a sudden interest as he recognized the face of the man inthe gypsy habit.

  Lagardere turned again to Gabrielle, and his face was calm and smiling."Go in-doors," he said, pleasantly, "I will join you by-and-by."

  Gabrielle, in her turn, had glanced at the sinister figure on thebridge, and, seeing the malevolence of its attitude, of its expression,had drawn back with a faint cry. "Henri," she said--"Henri, who is thatwatching us? He looks so evil."

  Lagardere had recognized AEsop as instantly as AEsop had recognizedLagardere. AEsop now came slowly towards them, addressing them mockingly:"Do not let me disturb you. Life is brief, but love is briefer."

  Lagardere again commanded Gabrielle: "Go in, child, at once."

  "Are you in danger?" Gabrielle asked, fearfully.

  Lagardere shook his head and repeated his command: "No. Go in at once.Wait in your room until I come for you."

  AEsop looked at him with raised eyebrows and a wicked grin. "Why banishthe lady? She might find my tale entertaining."

  At an imperative signal from Lagardere, Gabrielle entered the Inn.Lagardere then advanced towards AEsop, who watched him with folded armsand his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, AEsopgreeted Lagardere:

  "So the rat has come to the trap at last. Lagardere in Paris--ha, ha!"

  Lagardere looked at him ponderingly. "The thought amuses you."

  AEsop's grin deepened. "Very much. Before nightfall you will be inprison."

  Lagardere seemed to deny him. "I think not. You carry a sword and canuse it. You shall fight for your life, like your fellow-assassins."

  AEsop looked about him. "I have but to raise my voice. There must bepeople within call even in this sleepy neighborhood."

  Lagardere still smiled, and the smile was still provocative. "But if youraise your voice I shall be reluctantly compelled to stab you where youstand. Ah, coward, can you only fight in the dark when you are nine toone?"

  AEsop gave his hilt a hitch. "You will serve my master's turn as well deadas alive. I wear the best sword in the world, and it longs for yourlife."

  Lagarde
re pointed to the tranquil little Inn. "Behind yonder Inn there isa garden. To-day, when all the world is at the fair, that garden is aslonely as a cemetery. At the foot of the garden runs the river, a readygrave for the one who falls. There we can fight in quiet to our heart'scontent."

  AEsop glared at Lagardere with a look of triumphant hatred. "I mean tokill you, Lagardere!" he said, and the tone of his voice was surety ofhis intention and his belief in his power to carry it out.

  Lagardere only laughed as lightly as before. "I mean to kill you, MasterAEsop. I have waited a long time for the pleasure of seeing you again."

  Then the pair passed into the quiet Inn and out of the quiet Inn into thequiet Inn's quiet garden, and down the quiet garden to a quiet space hardby the quiet river.