They were the very words that she desired to hear from him; yet his manner of uttering them gave her little reassurance. The smile on her lips was forced; her watchful eyes smiled not at all.
"Still," he continued, "you will be so good as to remember that I am not my own master in this affair. Were that so, I should not fail to relieve you at once of my unbidden presence."
"Oh, monsieur—"
"But, being the Queen's emissary, I have her orders to obey, and those orders are to convey Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to Paris. They make no allowance for any change that may have occurred in mademoiselle's inclinations. If the journey is now distasteful to her, she has but her own rashness to blame in having sought it herself. What imports is that she is bidden by the Queen to repair to Paris; as a loyal subject she must obey the Queen's commands; you, as a loyal subject, must see to it that she obeys them. So, madame, I count upon your influence with mademoiselle to see that she is ready to set out by noon to-morrow. One day already has been wasted me by your—ah—jest, madame. The Queen likes her ambassadors to be brisk."
The Dowager reclined in her chair, and bit her lip. This man was too keen for her. She had no illusions. He had seen through her as if she had been made of glass; he had penetrated her artifices and detected her falsehoods. Yet feigning to believe her and them, he had first neutralized her only weapons—other than offensive—then used them for her own defeat. Marius it was who took up the conversation.
"Monsieur," he cried—and there was a frown drawing together his fine brows—"what you suggest amounts to a tyranny on the Queen's part."
Garnache was on his feet, his chair grating the polished floor.
"Monsieur says?" quoth he, his glittering eye challenging the rash boy to repeat his words.
But the Dowager intervened with a little trill of laughter.
"Bon Dieu! Marius, what are you saying? Foolish boy! And you, Monsieur de Garnache, do not heed him, I beg you. We are so far from Court in this little corner of Dauphiny, and my son has been reared in so free an atmosphere that he is sometimes betrayed into expressions whose impropriety he does not realize."
Garnache bowed in token of his perfect satisfaction, and at that moment two servants entered bearing flagons and beakers, fruits and sweetmeats, which they placed upon the table. The Dowager rose, and went to do the honours of the board. The servants withdrew.
"You will taste our wine of Condillac, monsieur?"
He acquiesced, expressing thanks, and watched her fill a beaker for him, one for herself, and another for her son. She brought him the cup in her hands. He took it with a grave inclination of the head. Then she proffered him the sweetmeats. To take one, he set down the cup on the table, by which he had also come to stand. His left hand was gloved and held his beaver and whip.
She nibbled, herself, at one of the comfits, and he followed her example. The boy, a trifle sullen since the last words, stood on the hearth with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him.
"Monsieur," she said, "do you think it would enable you to comply with what I have signified to be not only our own wishes, but those of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye herself, if she were to state them to you?"
He looked up sharply, his lips parting in a smile that revealed his strong white teeth.
"Are you proposing another of your jests, madame?"
She laughed outright. A wonderful assurance was hers, thought Monsieur de Garnache. "Mon Dieu! no, monsieur," she cried. "If you will, you may see the lady herself."
He took a turn in the apartment, idly, as does a man in thought.
"Very well," said he, at last. "I do not say that it will alter my determination. But perhaps—yes, I should be glad of an opportunity of the honour of making Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye's acquaintance. But no impersonations, I beg, madame!" He said it half-laughingly, taking his cue from her.
"You need have no fear of any."
She walked to the door, opened it, and called "Gaston!" In answer came the page whom Garnache had found in the room when he was admitted.
"Desire Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to come to us here at once," she bade the boy, and closed the door.
Garnache had been all eyes for some furtive sign, some whispered word; but he had surprised neither.
His pacing had brought him to the opposite end of the board, where stood the cup of wine madame had poured for Marius. His own, Garnache, had left untouched. As if abstractedly, he now took up the beaker, pledged madame with his glance, and drank. She watched him, and suddenly a suspicion darted through her mind—a suspicion that he suspected them.
Dieu! What a man was this! He took no chances. Madame reflected that this augured ill for the success of the last resource upon which, should all else fail, she was counting to keep mademoiselle at Condillac. It seemed incredible that one so wary and watchful should have committed the rashness of venturing alone into Condillac without taking his precautions to ensure his ability to retreat.
In her heart she felt daunted by him. But in the matter of that wine—the faintest of smiles hovered on her lips, her eyebrows went up a shade. Then she took up the cup that had been poured for the Parisian, and bore it to her son.
"Marius, you are not drinking," said she. And seeing a command in her eyes; he took the beaker from her hand and bore it to his lips, emptying the half of it, whilst with the faintest smile of scorn the Dowager swept Garnache a glance of protest, as of one repudiating an unworthy challenge.
Then the door opened, and the eyes of all three were centred upon the girl that entered.
CHAPTER V. MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE LOSES HIS TEMPER
"You sent for me, madame," said the girl, seeming to hesitate upon the threshold of the room, and her voice—a pleasant, boyish contralto—was very cold and conveyed a suggestion of disdain.
The Marquise detected that inauspicious note, and was moved by it to regret her already of having embarked upon so bold a game as to confront Monsieur de Garnache with Valerie. It was a step she had decided upon as a last means of convincing the Parisian of the truth of her statement touching the change that had taken place in mademoiselle's inclinations. And she had provided for it as soon as she heard of Garnache's arrival by informing mademoiselle that should she be sent for, she must tell the gentleman from Paris that it was her wish to remain at Condillac. Mademoiselle had incontinently refused, and madame, to win her compliance, had resorted to threats.
"You will do as you consider best, of course," she had said, in a voice that was ominously sweet. "But I promise you that if you do otherwise than as I tell you, you shall be married before sunset to Marius, whether you be willing or not. Monsieur de Garnache comes alone, and if I so will it alone he shall depart or not at all. I have men enough at Condillac to see my orders carried out, no matter what they be.
"You may tell yourself that this fellow will return to help you. Perhaps he will; but when he does, it will be too late so far as you shall be concerned."
Terrified by that threat, Valerie had blenched, and had felt her spirit deserting her.
"And if I comply, madame?" she had asked. "If I do as you wish, if I tell this gentleman that I no longer desire to go to Paris—what then?"
The Dowager's manner had become more affectionate. She had patted the shrinking girl upon the shoulder. "In that case, Valerie, you shall suffer no constraint; you shall continue here as you have done."
"And has there been no constraint hitherto?" had been the girl's indignant rejoinder.
"Hardly, child," the Dowager had returned. "We have sought to guide you to a wise choice—no more than that. Nor shall we do more hereafter if you do my pleasure now and give this Monsieur de Garnache the answer that I bid you. But if you fail me, remember—you marry Marius before nightfall."
She had not waited for the girl to promise her compliance. She was too clever a woman to show anxiety on that score. She left her with that threat vibrating in her mind, confident that she would scare the girl into obedience by the very as
surance she exhibited that Valerie would not dare to disobey.
But now, at the sound of that chill voice, at the sight of that calm, resolved countenance, madame was regretting that she had not stayed to receive the girl's promise before she made so very sure of her pliability.
She glanced anxiously at Garnache. His eyes were upon the girl. He was remarking the slender, supple figure, moderately tall and looking taller in its black gown of mourning; the oval face, a trifle pale now from the agitation that stirred her, with its fine level brows, its clear, hazel eyes, and its crown of lustrous brown hair rolled back under the daintiest of white coifs. His glance dwelt appreciatively on the slender nose, with its delicate nostrils, the charming line of mouth and chin, the dazzling whiteness of her skin, conspicuous not only in neck and face but in the long, slender hands that were clasped before her.
These signs of breeding, everywhere proclaimed, left him content that here was no imposture; the girl before him was, indeed, Valerie de La Vauvraye.
At madame's invitation she came forward. Marius hastened to close the door and to set a chair for her, his manner an admirable suggestion of ardour restrained by deference.
She sat down with an outward calm under which none would have suspected the full extent of her agitation, and she bent her eyes upon the man whom the Queen had sent for her deliverance.
After all, Garnache's appearance was hardly suggestive of the role of Perseus which had been thrust upon him. She saw a tall, spare man, with prominent cheek-bones, a gaunt, high-bridged nose, very fierce mustachios, and a pair of eyes that were as keen as sword-blades and felt to her glance as penetrating. There was little about him like to take a woman's fancy or claim more than a moderate share of her attention, even when circumstances rendered her as interested in him as was now Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.
There fell a silence, broken at last by Marius, who leaned, a supple, graceful figure, his elbow resting upon the summit of Valerie's chair.
"Monsieur de Garnache does us the injustice to find a difficulty in believing that you no longer wish to leave us."
That was by no means what Garnache had implied; still, since it really expressed his mind, he did not trouble to correct Marius.
Valerie said nothing, but her eyes travelled to madame's countenance, where she found a frown. Garnache observed the silence, and drew his own conclusions.
"So we have sent for you, Valerie," said the Dowager, taking up her son's sentence, "that you may yourself assure Monsieur de Garnache that it is so."
Her voice was stern; it bore to the girl's ears a subtle, unworded repetition of the threat the Marquise had already voiced. Mademoiselle caught it, and Garnache caught it too, although he failed to interpret it as precisely as he would have liked.
The girl seemed to experience a difficulty in answering. Her eyes roved to Garnache's, and fell away in affright before their glitter. That man's glance seemed to read her very mind, she thought; and suddenly the reflection that had terrified her became her hope. If it were as she deemed it, what matter what she said? He would know the truth, in spite of all.
"Yes, madame," she said at last, and her voice was wholly void of expression. "Yes, monsieur, it is as madame says. It is my wish to remain at Condillac."
From the Dowager, standing a pace or two away from Garnache, came the sound of a half-sigh. Garnache missed nothing. He caught the sound, and accepted it as an expression of relief. The Marquise stepped back a pace; idly, one might have thought; not so thought Garnache. It had this advantage: that it enabled her to stand where he might not watch her face without turning his head. He was content that such was her motive. To defeat her object, to show her that he had guessed it, he stepped back, too, also with that same idleness of air, so that he was once more in line with her. And then he spoke, addressing Valerie.
"Mademoiselle, that you should have written to the Queen in haste is deplorable now that your views have undergone this change. I am a stupid man, mademoiselle, just a blunt soldier with orders to obey and no authority to think. My orders are to conduct you to Paris. Your will was not taken into consideration. I know not how the Queen would have me act, seeing your reluctance; it may be that she would elect to leave you here, as you desire. But it is not for me to arrogate to determine the Queen's mind. I can but be guided by her orders, and those orders leave me no course but one—to ask you, mademoiselle, to make ready immediately to go with me."
The look of relief that swept into Valerie's face, the little flush of colour that warmed her cheeks, hitherto so pale, were all the confirmation that he needed of what he suspected.
"But, monsieur," said Marius, "it must be plain to you that since the Queen's orders are but a compliance with mademoiselle's wishes, now that mademoiselle's wishes have altered, so too would Her Majesty's commands alter to comply with them once more."
"That may be plain to you, monsieur; for me, unfortunately, there are my orders for only guide," Garnache persisted. "Does not mademoiselle herself agree with me?"
She was about to speak; her glance had looked eager, her lips had parted. Then, of a sudden, the little colour faded from her cheeks again, and she seemed stricken with a silence. Garnache's eyes, directed in a sidelong glance to the Marquise's face, surprised there a frown that had prompted that sudden change.
He half-turned, his manner changing suddenly to a freezing civility.
"Madame la Marquise," said he, "I beg with all deference to suggest that I am not allowed the interview you promised me with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye."
The ominous coldness with which he had begun to speak had had a disturbing effect upon the Dowager; the words he uttered, when she had weighed them, brought an immense relief. It seemed, then, that he but needed convincing that this was Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. This argued that for the rest he was satisfied.
"There, monsieur, you are at fault," she cried, and she was smiling into his grave eyes. "Because once I put that jest upon you, you imagine—"
"No, no," he broke in. "You misapprehend me. I do not say that this is not Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye; I do not say that—"
He paused; he was at the end of his resources. He did not know how to put the thing without giving offence, and it had been his resolve—realizing the necessity for it—to conduct this matter with a grave courtesy.
To feel that after having carried the affair so far with a for him—commendable lightness of touch, he should be at a loss for a delicate word to convey a harsh accusation began to anger him. And once Garnache began to be angered, the rest followed quickly. It was just that flaw in his character that had been the ruin of him, that had blighted what otherwise might have been a brilliant career. Astute and wily as a fox, brave as a lion, and active as a panther, gifted with intelligence, insight and resource, he had carried a dozen enterprises up to the very threshold of success, there to have ruined them all by giving way to some sudden access of choler.
So was it now. His pause was but momentary. Yet in that moment, from calm and freezing that he had been, he became ruffled and hot. The change was visible in his heightened colour, in his flashing eyes, and in his twitching mustachios. For just a second he sought to smother his wrath; he had a glimmer of remembrance of the need for caution and diplomacy in the darkness of anger that was descending over him. Then, without further warning, he exploded.
His nervous, sinewy hand clenched itself and fell with a crash upon the table, overturning a flagon and sending a lake of wine across the board, to trickle over at a dozen points and form in puddles at the feet of Valerie. Startled, they all watched him, mademoiselle the most startled of the three.
"Madame," he thundered, "I have been receiving dancing-lessons at your hands for long enough. It is time, I think, we did a little ordinary walking, else shall we get no farther along the road I mean to go and that is the road to Paris with mademoiselle for company."
"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the startled Marquise, placing herself intrepidly before him; and Marius trembled
for her, for so wild did the man seem that he almost feared he might strike her.
"I have heard enough," he blazed. "Not another word from any here in Condillac! I'll take this lady with me now, at once; and if any here raises a finger to resist me, as Heaven is my witness, it will be the last resistance he will ever offer any man. Let a hand be laid upon me, or a sword bared before my eyes, and I swear, madame, that I'll come back and burn this dunghill of rebellion to the ground."
In the blindness of his passion all his fine keenness was cast to the wind, his all-observing watchfulness was smothered in the cloud of anger that oppressed his brain. He never saw the sign that madame made to her son, never so much as noticed Marius's stealthy progress towards the door.
"Oh," he continued, a satirical note running now through his tempestuous voice, "it is a fine thing to cozen each other with honeyed words, with smirks and with grimaces. But we have done with that, madame." He towered grimly above her, shaking a threatening finger in her very face. "We have done with that. We shall resort to deeds, instead."
"Aye, monsieur," she answered very coldly, sneering upon his red-hot fury, "there shall be deeds enough to satisfy even your outrageous thirst for them."
That cold, sneering voice, with its note of threat, was like a hand of ice upon his overheated brain. It cooled him on the instant. He stiffened, and looked about him. He saw that Marius had disappeared, and that mademoiselle had risen and was regarding him with singularly imploring eyes.
He bit his lip in mortified chagrin. He cursed himself inwardly for a fool and a dolt—the more pitiable because he accounted himself cunning above others. Had he but kept his temper, had he done no more than maintain the happy pretence that he was a slave to the orders he had received—a mere machine—he might have gained his ends by sheer audacity. At least, his way of retreat would have remained open, and he might have gone, to return another day with force at his heels.
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