Servants of Sin. John Bloundelle-Burton
reached those words, there came to his ears the noise of the great bell pealing in the courtyard as though rung by one seeking immediate entrance. Then, a moment later, the noise of lackeys addressing one another; in another instant, the sound of a footfall in the corridor outside--drawing nearer to the room where the man was. Wherefore he came out of the tower with the window in it, to which he had vainly gone, as though to observe what might be happening in the street--knowing even as he did so that he could see nothing, since, whoever his visitor might be, that visitor and his carriage, or sedan-chair, had already entered the courtyard with his menials.
Then, in answer to the soft knock at the door, he bade the person come in.
"Who is below?" he asked of the footman, thinking some friend had kindly ventured forth on this inclement night to visit him--perhaps to take a hand at pharaon or piquet.
"Monsieur, it is Madame la Marquise----"
"La Marquise?"
"Grignan de Poissy."
For a moment the man addressed stood still, facing his servant; his eyes a little closed, his upper eyelids lowered somewhat; then he said quietly:
"Show Madame la Marquise to this apartment. Or, rather, I will come with you to welcome Madame la Marquise." While, suiting his action to his words, he preceded the footman to the head of the great staircase and warmly welcomed the lady who, by this time, was almost at the head of it. Doubtless, she knew she would not be denied.
That this man had been (as the letter, which he had a few moments ago but glanced at, said) "a poor captain following the wars" was no doubt the fact; now, however, he was becoming a perfect courtier, and testified that such was the case by his demeanour. With easy grace he removed from her shoulders the great furred houppelande, or cloak, which the ladies of the period of the Regency wore on such a night as this, and carried it over his own arm; with equal grace he led her into the room he had but now quitted, placed her in the great fauteuil before the fire, and put before her feet a footstool, while he, with great courtesy, even removed her shoes, and thus left her silk-stockinged feet to benefit by the genial warmth thrown out by the logs.
"I protest it is too good of you, Diane," he whispered, as he paid her all these attentions, "too good of you to visit thus so idle an admirer as I am. See, I, a soldier, a man used to all weathers, have not dared to quit my own hearth on such a night as this. Yet Diane, adorable Diane, why--why--expose yourself to the inclemency of the night--even, almost, I might say, to the gossip of your--and of my--menials."
"The gossip of your menials!" the lady exclaimed. "The gossip of your menials? Will this fresh incident expose us to any further gossip, do you suppose? It is a long while since our names have been coupled together, Monsieur le Duc."
"Monsieur le Duc!" he repeated. "What a form of address! Monsieur le Duc! My name to you is--has ever been--Armand."
"Ay, 'tis so," she answered, while, even as she continued speaking a little bitterly to him, she shifted her feet upon the footstool, so that they should get their full share of the luxurious warmth of the fire. "'Tis so. Has been so for more years now than a woman cares to count. Desparre," she said, addressing him shortly, "how long have we known each other--how old am I?"
For answer he gave her a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders, as though it were impossible such a question should be asked, or, being asked, could possibly be answered by him; while she, her blue eyes fixed upon his face, herself replied to the question. "It is twenty years," she said, "since we first met."
"Alas!" with another shrug, meant this time to express a wince of emotion.
"Yes, twenty years," she continued. "A long while, is it not? I, a young widow then; you, Armand Desparre, a penniless porte-drapeau in the Regiment de Bellebrune. Yet not so penniless either, if I remember aright"--and the blue eyes looked steely now, as they gazed from beneath their thick auburn fringe at him--"not penniless. You lived well for an ensign absolutely without private means--rode a good horse, could throw a main with the richest man in the regiment."
"Diane," he interrupted, "these suggestions, these reminiscences are unseemly."
"Unseemly! Heavens! Yes, they are unseemly. However, no matter for that. You are no longer a poor man. Armand Desparre is rich, he is no more the poor marching soldier, he is Monsieur le Duc Desparre."
"More recollections," he said, with still another shrug. "Diane, we know all this. The world, our world, knows who and what I am."
"Also our world knows, expects, that there is to be a Duchess Desparre."
"Yes," he answered, "it knows, it expects, that."
"Expects! My God!" she exclaimed vehemently, "if it knew all it would not only expect but insist that that duchesse should be the woman who now bears the title of the Marquise Grignan de Poissy."
"It does not know all. Meanwhile," and his eye glanced towards the heap of swords in the corner of the room, "who is there to insist on what my conduct shall be--to order it to be otherwise than I choose it shall be? Frankly, Diane, who is there to insist and make the insistence good?"
"There are men of the De Poissy family," she replied, and her glance, too, rested on those swords. "Desparre is not the only master of fence in Paris."
"Chut! They are your kinsmen. I do not desire to slay them, nor, I presume, will they desire to slay me. And, desiring, what could they do? De Poissy himself is only a boy."
"He is the head of the house. He will not see the wife of the late head slighted." Then, before he could make any answer to this remark, she turned round suddenly on him and exclaimed, while again the blue eyes looked steely through their heavy lashes:
"Who is Laure Vauxcelles?"
This question, asked with such unexpectedness, startled even the man's cynical superciliousness, as he showed by the way in which he stammered forth an answer that was no answer at all.
"Laure--Vauxcelles! What--what--do you know of her? She is not of your--our--class."
"Pardon. Every woman who is well favoured is--of your class."
"What do you know of her?" he repeated, unheeding the taunt, though with a look that might have been regarded as a menacing one.
"Only," she answered, "that which most of those who are of your--our--class know. The gossip of the salon, the court, the Palais Royal. Armand Desparre, I have been in Paris two days and was bidden to the Regent's supper last night--otherwise I should have been still at the Abbaye de Grignan dispensing New Year hospitality with the boy, De Poissy. Instead, therefore, I was at supper in the oval room. And de Parabére, de Sabran, de Noailles, le Duc de Richelieu--a dozen, were there. One hears gossip in the oval room, 'specially when the Regent has drunk sufficient of that stuff," and she nodded towards Monsieur's still unfinished flask of tokay. "When he is asleep at the head of his table endeavouring to--well--sleep off--shake off its fumes ere going to his box close by to hear La Gautier sing."
"What did you hear?" Desparre asked now.
"Gossip," the Marquise answered. "Gossip. Perhaps true--perhaps idle. God knows. The story of a man," she continued, with a shrug of her shoulders, "no longer young, once very poor, yet always with pistoles in his pocket, since he did not disdain to take gifts from a foolish woman whom he had wronged and who loved him."
"Was that mentioned?"
"It was hinted at. It was known, too, by one listener, at least--myself--to be true. A man," she continued, "now well to do, able to gratify almost every desire he possesses. Of high position. The story of a man," she went on with machine-like insistence, "who, finding at last, however, one desire he is not able to gratify--the desire of adding one more woman to his victims, and that a woman young enough to be his daughter--is about to change his character. To abandon that of knave, to adopt that of fool."
"Also," interrupted Monsieur le Duc, "a man who will demand from Madame la Marquise Grignan de Poissy the name of her gossip. It is to be desired that that gossip should be a man. Otherwise, her nephew the Marquis Grignan