by Howard Pyle
Madame reached out her hand to Céleste. “Come hither, my child, and let me look at you,” said she.
Céleste came timidly forward, and Madame de Pompadour took her by the hand. She drew her down until the girl kneeled upon the floor beside the sofa. The poor sick woman looked long and earnestly into her young face.
“You are beautiful, you are young, you are happy,” she murmured. “You are happy, are you not?”
“SHE DREW HER DOWN UNTIL THE GIRL KNEELED UPON THE FLOOR BESIDE HER.”
“Yes,” answered Céleste, in a whisper.
“And you love Monsieur de Monnière-Croix?”
“Yes,” whispered Céleste again, and her voice thrilled.
Madame de Pompadour fetched a little half-sigh, which faded to a smile before it had left her lips. “Ah!” said she, “it is the young who are happy.” Then, after a moment’s pause, “Will you kiss me, child?”
Céleste bent forward, and her fresh young innocent lips met those others — so soiled, so wan and faded. It was all as effectively done as anything upon the boards of the Comédie Française.
Madame de Pompadour turned with a smile, and beckoned to Oliver.
“Come, Monsieur Count,” said she, “your place should be here beside your lady;” and she motioned to him to kneel beside Céleste.
Oliver saw the ladies and gentlemen who stood around smile. He was embarrassed; he blushed like a school-boy; but there was nothing for him to do but to kneel. Céleste saw his confusion, and furtively reached out her little hand and gave his an encouraging squeeze. Madame de Pompadour saw it and smiled. Yes, it certainly was Arcadian.
At that moment another arrival was announced, “Monsieur the Count de St. Germaine!”
Now and then the name of the Count de St. Germaine, and the story of his strange doings, reached even to the paradise of the lovers. Occasionally Oliver heard a breath of these things, and when he heard it he trembled — the breath was sinister and smelt from the pit. But he was not troubled for long at a time; his cockle floated gayly along the stream of fateful happiness; he was too absorbed in his love-dreams to burden his thoughts with the fear of being overwhelmed in the dark waters upon which that cockle swam. Nevertheless, the name, falling so unexpectedly upon Oliver’s ears, came with a certain shock of dread. He bent his head as he kneeled, and for a time did not dare to look around. The new-comer came forward with the well-assured air of a favorite. Oliver could feel him coming nearer and nearer.
“Rise, my children,” said Madame de Pompadour. And as they obeyed, she presented Oliver to the other. “Monsieur de St. Germaine,” said she, “let me present to you Monsieur de Monnière-Croix.”
Oliver slowly raised his eyes, and then his heart crumbled away within him. It was the master!
“MONSIEUR THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAINE!”
It seemed to Oliver as though the room darkened around him, and he saw but one thing — that cold, handsome face. His ears rang as though with a chime of bells. The floor seemed to rock beneath his feet, for he knew what to expect when those thin lips parted — he would be denounced, exposed, here before Madame de Pompadour and her court. His heart shrunk together, but he steeled himself to face the coming blow.
But he was mistaken. The thin lips parted, the face lit up with a smile. “Ah,” cried the well-known voice, “it is Oliver; it is the little Oliver! You do not remember me. No? Oh, well, it is not likely you would; and yet I was the dearest friend that your poor uncle, who is now in Paradise, had in the world.” He turned to the others who stood there, still holding Oliver by the hand, which he had taken when he first began speaking. “The world,” said he, “does not yet know half the romance connected with this young man. His uncle Henri, Chevalier de Monnière-Croix, was one of the richest men in France. Poor soul! he is dead now, but when he lived he was the owner of one of the largest diamond mines in Brazil. Diamonds! The world has never seen the like of the Chevalier de Monnière-Croix’s diamonds! And now this young man has been left heir to them all. Henri de Monnière-Croix and I were in Brazil together, and it was with him that I gained what little knowledge I possess concerning precious stones; I may say, indeed, that he was my teacher in that knowledge. I was intimately acquainted with his affairs, and know that Oliver, as is reputed of him, is one of the richest men in Europe.”
All who were present listened to the count’s speech with breathless interest and in dead silence. But to Oliver the words he heard spoken lifted him at a bound from the gulf of despair into which he was falling. The master did not mean to ruin him just then. The rebound from the tensity of the strain was too great for him to bear. The ground beneath his feet heaved and rocked, the room spun around and around. He heard some one, he knew not whom, give a sharp exclamation; he felt a strong, sinewy arm clasp him about the body; he knew it was the master’s arm, and then — nothing.
Scene Second. — A room in the Hôtel de Flourens, whither Oliver has been removed after having fainted in madame’s salon.
It is the next day, and Oliver is discovered lying upon a sofa, limp, heart-sick, overshadowed by the looming of coming misfortune. The ladies have sent many inquiries as to his health, and two little notes from Céleste are lying upon the table at his elbow. Enter suddenly Henri, who is in attendance upon him.
“A gentleman to see monsieur,” said the valet, and almost instantly another voice, speaking from behind him, said:
“It is I, Oliver. I have taken the liberty of an old friend of your dear uncle; I was anxious concerning your health, and so followed immediately. You need not wait, Henri” — to the valet.
He entered as he spoke, and waiting for a moment to make sure that Henri had gone, then closed the door and turned to Oliver, who now sat speechless, motionless, fascinated, with eyes fixed, and a face as white as wax. He drew forward a chair, and placing it close to Oliver, sat for a long time looking fixedly and intently at him. At last, without removing his eyes, he drew out his snuffbox — the famous snuffbox that Madame de Pompadour had given him with her own hands — and took a pinch of snuff with a deal of gusto.
“Well,” said he, “have you nothing to say to me?”
“I thought,” said Oliver, dully, “that it was you who had, perhaps, something to say to me.”
The Count de St. Germaine laughed. “Something to say to you?” said he. “Oh! You mean, perhaps, about that looking-glass of mine, upon which you drew that accursed sign with one of those very diamonds that I had taught you to make? Perhaps you thought that by doing so you would prevent my following your motions for the future. Well, as far as the mirror is concerned, you were right; you have spoiled it for me. You, who are generally so dull, sometimes surprise one with sudden gleams of your bucolic cunning. I confess that you did most effectually what you intended; you ruined that looking-glass forever. So far as I am concerned, I can never see anything in it again. Are you not deserving of punishment for that?”
Oliver strove to speak, but his white lips uttered no sound.
“Again,” said the Count de St. Germaine, “I commanded you when we parted that you should never return to Paris; I forbade you imperatively, absolutely, from coming. I unbosomed myself to you and told you all; I confessed to you that I feared your influence upon my destiny. What has resulted? You, knowing that you have taken away all my means of following your movements, did return here against those express commands that I had laid upon you, braving all my threats of punishment. Should you not be punished for that?”
“THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAINE, WITHOUT REMOVING HIS EYES FROM HIS VICTIM, TOOK ANOTHER DEEP, LUXURIOUS PINCH OF SNUFF.”
“I could not help it,” said Oliver, hoarsely; “the marquis compelled me to come.”
Once more the other laughed. “I know nothing of that,” said he. “I only know that you are here. Why you are here concerns yourself, and not me. Now what do you think that I am about to do to you, Oliver?”
“I do not know,” said Oliver. And he hid his face in his trembling hands.
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The Count de St. Germaine, without removing his eyes from his victim, took another deep, luxurious pinch of snuff. Then he shut the lid with a snap, and slipped the box again into his pocket, but all that time his eyes never once moved from the cowering Oliver. Suddenly he burst out laughing, and clapped the lad upon the shoulder. “I will tell you what I will do to you, Oliver,” said he; “I will forgive you! Do you hear me? I will forgive you!”
Oliver slowly removed his hands from his face, and looked up with dumb bewilderment. “You forgive me?” he repeated, stupidly.
“Yes, I forgive you.”
A long pause of silence followed, during which Oliver looked intently and earnestly into that smiling face, so close to his own. That smiling face — it was an impenetrable mask, it was the face of a sphinx, and Oliver might almost as well have tried to read the one as the other. Yet there was a soul behind it, and that soul could not entirely be hidden; one glimpse of it flashed out through the eyes. Oliver saw it and shuddered.
“You forgive me?” he repeated. “What do you mean? I do not comprehend. What would you have me do?”
The other shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “What would I have you do?” said he. “You surprise me! I talk to you, and you do not seem to hear me. I say that I forgive you, and you do not seem to understand. What I mean is that you shall continue to live here, as you have already done, in an atmosphere of happiness and love. It is beautiful, as all Paris says; it is delightful! After all, I cannot punish you, for I have not the heart to interfere with it. By-and-by you shall marry Mademoiselle Céleste.”
Oliver never removed his looks from the other’s face. “Marry Céleste?” he murmured, mechanically.
“Certainly,” said the other, “I never saw you so dull. I said that you were to marry Mademoiselle Céleste — to marry her. But, there! I see what it is. You are not yet recovered from your illness in Madame de Pompadour’s salon. It was indeed insufferably hot. Poor lady! she is like a green cockatoo, she cannot abide a touch of cold. But I weary you; I will take another opportunity of visiting you. But remember, my dear Oliver, I forgive you. Au revoir!”
He was gone; and Oliver sat as Monsieur de St. Germaine had left him, clad in his dressing-gown, and seated upon the edge of the sofa, leaning with his elbows upon his knees, his hands clasped before him, and his eyes fixed dully upon the floor. Forgive him! His soul told him that he need expect no forgiveness from that cold, iron heart. What should he do? How should he escape the fate which he felt was hanging over him? The master had said that he was to marry Céleste. Upon the eve of that marriage, perhaps, he would come and proclaim him the cheat, the charlatan that he was. He shuddered as he pictured the shame of the humiliation of such a disclosure. Suddenly a thought flashed upon him, like light upon the darkness: why not tell Céleste his story? Why not confess all to her, and throw himself upon her mercy? His shame would be less, and she would scorn him less, than if he waited for the Count de St. Germaine to expose him. His heart stood still at the thought of Céleste’s grief and despair. And Paris! How Paris would laugh at the denouement of that romance which it now petted and approved. In a sudden rush of determination, and without giving himself time for second thought, he drew paper and ink towards him, and set himself to write a letter to Céleste. It was a blundering, blotted letter. It took him a long, long time to write it, but at last it was done; in it he told her all; and then, still without giving himself time to think, he rang the bell, and Henri appeared. He hesitated, for one last moment, with a shrinking heart.
“What will monsieur have?” said Henri.
“Take this letter,” said Oliver, with one last, desperate resolve,”to Mademoiselle Céleste, and — and wait her answer.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Oliver watched the man as he crossed the room, as he noiselessly closed the door; he was gone.
How long the answer was in returning Oliver never could tell. It might have been only a few minutes that he walked up and down the room. It seemed to him hours.
“Monsieur, a letter.”
Oliver turned sharply. It was Henri, and he presented upon his tray a little note. It was, as far as outward appearance was concerned, almost exactly like those two others upon the table; but what was within? Oliver hardly dared touch it. He opened it slowly, hesitatingly; there were only three words, “I love you” — that was all. Yes, that was all. Oliver sat looking at it with eyes that blinded more and more, until at last one hot drop fell with a pat upon the open sheet. Then even Henri’s presence was not enough to inspire self-control. He broke down, and began crying, and probably, if Henri thought anything at all, it was that there had been a quarrel.
Scene Third. — The grand salon of the Hôtel de Flourens; the hour, near midnight. Oliver is discovered walking rapidly and agitatedly up and down the length of the great room, still illuminated by a thousand and one candles.
And now the last guest has been gone for some time, the last huge unwieldy coach has rumbled away, and the dull silence seems to hum and buzz after the clatter of the afternoon and night. He is married. Oliver is still bewildered. He is like one in a dream; he only half knows what he does and says; he only half senses what he sees and hears; his heart thrills almost agonizingly with joy and triumph. Céleste is his, his very own, his wife; and what is more, it has been arranged that he and she are to depart for Flourens — dear, sweet, beautiful Flourens — the very next morning.
Some days before, Oliver had proposed the departure to the marquis, and the marquis had made no objection. He had made but one stipulation, that he himself should remain in Paris.
“There are many matters of business to attend to,” he had said. “We have as yet been able to dispose of only a minute portion of our diamonds. The amount we have realized upon them has been enormous, yet it is only a drop or two taken from the bucket.”
It had been arranged that Oliver was to see the marquis upon some final business that very night, and so it is that he is now discovered walking so impatiently up and down the empty room at that hour, his heart thrilling with joy and delight. But through all Oliver’s joy and delight there ran every now and then a discordant pang of uneasiness, for suddenly, in spite of himself, his thoughts would flash back upon the memory of the master, and under that vivid sinister flash of recollection his soul shrank and trembled within him. Twelve hours still stretched between him and that time of departure. What might not happen in twelve hours?
“Twelve hours,” muttered Oliver to himself. “I would give all my diamonds if they were passed and gone.” He thought of Céleste, and a keen thrill pierced through his heart; he thought of the master, and another keen thrill — this time heart-sickening — shot through him as the other had done. “No matter,” he muttered to himself, “the morning will soon come and we will be miles away, with nothing to fear and with nothing to think of but our love.” He pressed his face against the window and looked out into the night, then he turned and pulled out his watch impatiently and looked at it; it was ten minutes of twelve. “I wish he would make haste,” he muttered.
As though in answer to his impatient murmur, the door opened and a servant announced that the marquis was ready to see him now in his closet.
Oliver found him seated at his escritoire, with books and papers spread out before him. He took the chair that the marquis indicated, and then the marquis began talking to him. Oliver did not know what he was saying; whenever the other would pause for a reply, he would say, “Yes, yes, that is so,” or, “I think not,” as the words seemed to demand; sometimes he understood what was said, but more generally it might as well have been spoken in Greek.
“Then,” said the marquis, “if I understand correctly, you are entirely satisfied with my management of your affairs?”
Oliver was beginning to grow weary of this business. “Yes,” said he, restlessly, “yes, I am entirely satisfied. Manage them as you choose; I do not care; it is of no importance.”
The marqui
s opened his arms. “Embrace me!” he cried. “You are generosity itself; I admire generosity! Your confidence in me touches me. You must know, Oliver, that I manage most discreetly. We have lived here, as you are aware, without stint or economy — it would have been wrong for me to limit that generosity of yours which I so much admire — but yet I have not been extravagant; for not only have we maintained the establishment here in Paris, but we have also paid off the debts upon it, as well as upon Flourens. Yes, Flourens is freed; and I — I am not to be outdone in generosity; those ancestral estates of Flourens that have been in the hands of our family for generations” — he waved his hand— “I give them to you, Oliver, and to Céleste for your own.”
“I thank you,” said Oliver.
The marquis paused for a moment; his own generosity moved him profoundly. “But I was about to say,” continued he, presently, “that the reason more especially why I called you here was to let you see how few of our diamonds have been disposed of. I will show you.”
“I do not care to see,” said Oliver.
“Pardon me,” said the marquis, “but you must see them, my dear Oliver. It is business. Look! yonder is the chest of diamonds. I have had it brought here to-day not only to show you how little of the contents we have as yet disposed of, but also because I expect three merchants from Amsterdam to visit me to-morrow and inspect the gems. They write to me that they have formed a company for the purchase of a quantity of them.”
While he was speaking he had taken a bunch of keys from a secret compartment of the escritoire. One of them was the key of the chest. He thrust it into the lock, drew back the bolts, and opened the lid. “You see,” said he, “there is not one-tenth of this first tray of diamonds that we have as yet disposed of.” Oliver glanced indifferently at them. “The rest of the trays,” continued the marquis, “have not yet been touched. I will show them to you.”