The Missourian

by Eugene P. Lyle

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE TITLE OF NOBILITY

  "Hear, therefore, O ye kings, and understand." --_Wisdom of Solomon._

  One more sunset, one more sunrise! And then?...

  Maximilian again confronted the ghostly enumeration. But this time hislast day should be the day of a man's work, in simple-hearted humility.He no more searched the skies to find a supernal finger there. He letDestiny alone, and did his best instead. For a man's best is Destiny'speer.

  The fiery June sun was dying in its larger shell of bronze over thewestern sierras, and the self-same blue that vaults beautiful Tuscany wastaking on its richer, darker hue, when a foreigner in the land, DinDriscoll, walked under the Alameda trees, his pipe cold in his mouth, heperplexed before his heavy spirits. For he no longer had war todistract, to engross.

  Maximilian's physician, an Austrian, found him in his reverie. Would theHerr Americano at once repair to His Highness attend? The senor'spresence would a favor be esteemed, in reason that a witness was greatlynecessitated.

  Wondering not a little, Driscoll hastened back into the town. As thephysician did not follow, he arrived alone. But in the door of thearchduke's cell he stopped, angry and embarrassed. For his eyesencountered a second pair, which were no less angry, which moreover,were Jacqueline's. Maximilian and Padre Soria, the father confessor,were also there, but Driscoll at first saw no one but Jacqueline. Aswith him, she had been vaguely summoned, without knowing why. A lasttestament was to be signed, she imagined, but in his choice of witnessesshe thought that Maximilian might at least have shown more delicacy. Asto cruelty also, she would not confess, but cruelty it was,nevertheless. To see again this American was to know memory quickenedinto torture, and days afterward there would still be with her, vividly,hatefully, the beloved awkwardness of his strong frame, the splendid,roguish head, now so forbidding, and more than all, the way he smiled oflate. It was a smile so cold, so cheerless, a something so changed inhim since the old, piquant days of their first acquaintance. Despiseherself as she might, Jacqueline knew how the sight of the man haltedthere would leave her whole woman's being athirst and panting.

  Maximilian's thin white face lighted eagerly when he perceived thatDriscoll had come. The haggard despair of two days before had given wayto a serene calm, like that which soothes a dying man when the pain isno longer felt. In a gentleness of command that would not be denied, herose and brought the American into the room.

  "Colonel Driscoll," he began, "you know, of course, that a witness isthe world's deputy. He is named to learn a certain truth, but afterwardhe must champion that truth, even against the world. So you findyourself here, but first I wish to thank----"

  "Please don't mention it," Driscoll interposed. "I'm willing to doanything I can."

  "Then remember," said Maximilian, "that you are a witness, and a witnessonly. Can you bear that in mind, senor, no matter what you may hear?"

  Driscoll nodded, but the very first words all but made him a violentactor as well. Maximilian had turned to Jacqueline. For a moment hepaused, then with a grave dignity spoke.

  "Mademoiselle," he said, "reverently, prayerfully, I ask your hand inmarriage."

  She gasped, and so sharp and quick that certainly she was the mostdumbfounded there. Her utter stupefaction amazed Driscoll as much againas the question itself. He stiffened as though struck. If this were arevelation? If it could be--if it could be that she really knew noreason why she should marry Maximilian?

  The archduke observed them both, and his eyes shone with kindliness. Butmaking a gesture for patience, he hurried on. "Father Soria here," hesaid, "will come in the morning, just before the--the execution, toperform the ceremony. A judge of the Republic will come too, for thecivil marriage. As to the banns----"

  "But why--_why_, parbleu?"

  Jacqueline stood before him, stung from her speechless trance by fury.Behind narrowed lids the gray eyes hardened as points of steel.

  "You shall know, mademoiselle," he answered softly. "It is a boon I askof you, the greatest, and the only one before I go----"

  "Why? Tell me why!"

  "Because it is _the_ boon a true knight may crave. It is to rightbefore the world the noblest woman a knight can ever know----"

  "Sire!"

  The word was rage and supplication both. It was a hurt cry, piteous tohear. Then the glint dying from her eyes blazed to tempestuous life inthose of the Missourian. But the priest's hand touched his arm, and thepriest's voice, low and gentle, stayed him.

  Maximilian, though, had seen the outburst. "Ah yes, senor, I remember,"he said, and smiled, "one may be slapped upon the mouth, yes, yes, foreven breathing my lady's name when one talks of rumor."

  Jacqueline darted at them a puzzled glance. She did not understand atfirst. Then she divined. And then, wide and gloriously, her eyes openedon Driscoll, her defender. But in the instant they sought a saferquarter. She could not, and would not, forgive him for being there atall.

  "However," the obdurate prince continued, "our witness must bear with methis time, for I will--_will_, I tell each of you--speak plainly.The false scandal does exist. Deny it, dear lady, if you can.--Nay,senor, _you_ believe it, or did. So, now, as the world's deputyhere, you must be armed to foil those venomous tongues. But there isonly one way. You shall tell them that they talk of Maximilian'swidow----"

  "But----"

  Jacqueline, Driscoll, both spoke at once. But the girl flashed on theman an angry command for silence.

  "Enough, enough!" she cried, "Let me speak, then end it. Whatever othersmay think, Your Highness extends me his respect? Bien, but that gives mea certain right, which is the right to consider just one thing inanswering the question of Your Highness--just one lone, little thing."

  "And that?"

  "Is--is whether or not I have the honor to love Your Highness. Oh, theshame in such sacrifice, the shame you put on me! You should have knownmy answer already."

  Her answer? Driscoll stirred uneasily. What, indeed, was her answer?

  "Yet later, mademoiselle," pursued her inflexible suitor, "when othersaspire to your hand, there might come one for whom your answer would befavorable. How then, if this suitor, when pausing to hear what the worldsays of you----"

  "He'd choke it down the world's throat!" Driscoll burst forth. "He aloneneed know it's a lie."

  Jacqueline started as she heard him speak, but the glad and unintendedlook she gave him changed as quick as thought to haughty resentment.After all, he was still there.

  "But how else," Maximilian persisted, "can such a man know so much?"

  Then, a captive absolute to his lofty idea, the poet prince pleaded forit as one inspired. All things worked, as by Heaven's own will, tosanction what he proposed. There was Charlotte's death. There was hisown. Dying, he was still a Mexican, and might wed in any station hechose. While if he lived, as an archduke of Austria he could not. But hedetested life. With it he had bettered no one. Yet by his death he hopedto save more than life to another. This other was the girl before him.He had wrecked her dearest ambition. For France's sake she would havelured him from peril. For that, and that alone, she had sacrificed hername. Such accounted for their interview at Cuernavaca. Such accountedfor her coming to Queretaro. Yet through his own blind weakness she hadfailed. France had lost Mexico, he his life, and she--her happiness. Butthe last could yet be restored. And why not purchase it with his death,since he must have died in any case?

  "Must have," Driscoll interrupted, "must have died in any case?"

  The American had listened perplexed, now with a quick, eager start, nowwith crinkled brows. First of all the old mystery and its anguish hadassailed him. The hideous, gloomy tangle would wound him round again.Did Jacqueline care for this prince? Surely, because he had seen theevidence. But why had she intrigued against his Empire, why had sheturned Confederate aid from him?

  Then, as the ruined monarch spoke, the other man saw. He saw the truth.Truth that reconciled all contradictions. Tha
t explained what even thetheory of her wanton heart had only half satisfied before. Explainedeverything by that heart of purest gold. The lover knew now why she haddelivered him to Lopez and the Tiger, two years ago, though with the actso perversely confessing her love for him. He knew why, at Boone'sCordova plantation, she had tempted him to hold her for his own, thougheven then she was returning to the capital, to Maximilian. No, it wasnot wanton sport. It was not contradiction. But it was conflict. In thecontemplation of that conflict he stood unnerved. It was the conflictbetween a wild yet altogether French scheme of patriotic endeavor andher own good woman's love. His eyes wandered to her, half afraid, andthe chill of months about his heart was gone, as some great berg of icesinks in the warmth of sunny waters. From siren alluring flesh whosetouch was woe, she was become a sceptred angel, far, far away, sotantalizingly far away!

  Thus Driscoll listened on, happy in his soul of a man, yet abashed as aboy. But listening, at the last he was perplexed anew, though foranother reason.

  "Must have died, sir?" he repeated again. "But that wasn't what youthought last night. No sir, last night you thought you could escape. Butjust the same you turned back. You chose to die!"

  "His Highness," spoke the gray-haired priest, "returned for thesenorita's answer."

  "My answer?" cried Jacqueline. "You mean, father, for my sake?"

  "Yes."

  Driscoll started violently, perplexed no longer. "By God, sir," heswore, and clapped Maximilian on the shoulder, "but you are a man!"

  The prince recoiled, his instincts of breeding in arms against thesavage equality. But then, slowly, a smile that was almost beatifictouched his lips, and without knowing it, he straightened proudly, asmajesty would.

  "A man?" he murmured, breathing exaltation. "Then am I, at my lastmoment, come into harmony with God's own ordering of the universe. Forhe made man on the sixth day, not a Hapsburg. Man, and after His OwnImage--Oh, but that is the title the hardest of all to win! You--youdon't think, senor, that you would like to take it back?"

  Driscoll reddened inexplicably. Murguia's ivory cross was still in hispocket.

  "No!" he blurted out with sudden defiance. "It's the truth!"

  "Then," said Maximilian solemnly, "on your word I stake my faith.To-morrow, at the judgment-seat, I shall hope to hear myself called so."

  "Your Highness," questioned Jacqueline in a kind of daze, "Your Highnessdid not _intend_ to escape last night?"

  "No, he did not," Driscoll answered for him. "He got Miramon and Mejiastarted all right, and then, without knowing that your plot had failed,he turned back to this cell here, alone."

  "Your Highness, you did that for--for----"

  Her voice broke, and she stopped abruptly and went to the narrow window.With her back to them, she groped for the dainty bit of cambric that washer handkerchief.

  "So you see, my daughter," said the priest, drawing near her, "what hewould have given, what, before Heaven, he has given, to tell you whatyou so hotly resent. Do you resent it now?"

  The beautiful head shook slowly. She was touching her eyes with herhandkerchief.

  "Then you will not let his sacrifice be in vain? You will marry him?"

  Impetuously she turned, and faced them. There were blinding drops, clearas diamonds, on the long lashes. "Oh Your Highness, Your--Oh, there issomething you can tell me that is--that is inexpressibly better?"

  "Let me know what it is."

  "It is if--if you can forgive me.--Mon Dieu, why did you need to heapthis terrible sacrifice on me? Why could you not remember that I triedto drive you from your empire? That I plotted against you? That----"

  "Hush, you would have saved me."

  "Oh, only incidentally, and you knew it. Yet you must----"

  "Don't! There's nothing to forgive.--But wait, we will grant that therereally is, but only that I may exact my price of forgiveness."

  "The price? Name it."

  "That you will marry me, here, to-morrow morning, before I die."

  Jacqueline raised her head. "Has Your Highness," she demanded, smilingshyly behind her tears, "has he forgotten the woman's, rather myconsideration, before such a question?"

  Driscoll straightened, squared his shoulders to take a blow. To hisblindness her manner looked like awakening love for the other man--andfor the man himself, not for the prince! His sense of loss, his agony,were extreme. But of the old bitterness he now knew nothing. His rivalwas putting the question. "And according to that consideration,mademoiselle?"

  Driscoll did not see her swift glance toward himself. He was hurryingout lest he might hear her answer. And she let him go--till he reachedthe door. But there, like one frozen, he halted rigidly.

  "Helas, I do not love you, sire," Jacqueline had answered, very quietly.

  Maximilian, however, did not seem heart broken.

  His attention was all for the mere witness. He saw the effect on thatwitness. In Driscoll's glad face he read his own triumph, his ownpurpose achieved. Jacqueline was righted at last.

  "No," he agreed, "I could not hope for so much.--But another might."

  Then apropos of nothing, he went and flung his arms about Driscoll. Theastounded trooper could only grip his hand, just once, without a word.Then he was gone.

  Maximilian watched him go. The priest turned to Jacqueline. She, too,stood poised so long as his spurs rang through the corridor. At lastsilence fell on them. For a moment she hesitated. Then, trembling, hereyes moist, she held out her hand. "Good-bye," she whispered. But,impulsively, she raised her arm and touched the doomed man's foreheadlightly with her finger tips, making a blurred sign of the cross. And,not daring an instant longer, she too fled.

  Maximilian was alone with the priest. The room was growing dark. It wasthe last night.

  "Now, father, light the tapers, there on the altar. Yes, I am ready.Ready? Blessed Mother in Heaven, it is more than I had thought to be!"