The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
his strength would prove a match for hers.
He must have recourse to subtlety. He had always more faith in his wits than in his sinews.
'Not worthy?' he echoed. He looked at her sadly, his big, liquid eyes full of a pathetic pleading. 'So be it, child. You shall school me in worth. For if there is one thing in this world of which I would be worthy, you are that thing. I set worthiness of that above worthiness of the throne itself.' Thus he reminded her how near the throne he stood. But it seemed to have no weight with the little fool.
She continued wrapped in a dignity which made her seem of ice.
'Monseigneur, I am alone here,' she was beginning, and there she checked to look at him more keenly, the throb of a sudden thought perceptible in her quickening glance.
She reviewed in a flash the past months in which he had imposed his companionship upon her; remembered the esteem in which she had held it, the flattery which she had accounted it. She recalled occasional attempts of his to overstep the boundaries of a platonic friendship, but how quickly on each occasion he had retreated the moment she had shown it to be unwelcome. Reviewing all those lapses now in the aggregate, she blamed herself for having lacked the wit to perceive whither he was ultimately aiming. In her blindness and in her very listlessness, it seemed to her now that she had encouraged him by continuing a companionship in which such lapses had been repeated. Not a doubt but he had classed her with those who, like the woman in the song, vowing that she would ne'er consent, consented. Perhaps he had thought her restrained by the lack of proper opportunity. And now he had created it.
'Was it for this,' she asked him, 'that you sent my uncle on a mission to the Prince de Condé? To leave me here defenceless?'
'Defenceless? What a word, Aline! What defence do you need other than that of your will? Would any dare do violence to it? Not I, at least.'
'You reassure me, Monseigneur.' Was she ironical, he wondered. And then, with an inclination of her dainty head, she added, 'I beg, Monseigneur, that you will leave me.'
But he remained squarely planted on his stout legs, and with his head a little on one side surveyed her, archly smiling. 'I am not used to be dismissed,' he reminded her.
She put a hand to her brow in a gesture of weariness. 'Your Highness will forgive me. But etiquette here ...'
'You are right, and I am wrong. What need to regard etiquette between us, my dear?'
'I understood that you insisted upon the rights of your rank.'
'With you? As if I should! Have I ever done so? Have I ever been the Prince to you?'
'You have always been the Prince to me, Monseigneur.'
'Then, it has not been by my insistence. To you I have never desired to be more than just a man; the man for whom you might come to care, Aline; the man whose devotion might melt you into perceiving some worth in him. Does it offend you, child, to hear me say I love you? Does it offend you that I offer you my worship, as I offer you my destiny, my very life?'
He was the suppliant now. The fat voice was softly modulated. There was something akin to a tear in it. And he went on without giving her time to answer him.
'You have aroused in me feelings that seem to have changed my nature. I have no thought but of you; no care but to be near you; no fear but the fear of losing you. Is all this nothing to you? Nothing it may be. But offend you it cannot. If you are indeed a woman, and God knows you are that, Aline, it must move you to compassion for me. I suffer. Can you be insensible? Will you see a man so tortured that he must end by being false to himself, false to his mission, false to his very duty because you have made him mad?'
'This is wild talk, Monseigneur!' she cried out, and then abruptly presented him with the question: 'What does your Highness want of me?'
'What I want?' he faltered. Plague take the girl! Could a man be more explicit? Did she think to checkmate him by asking him to express the inexpressible? 'What I want!' He opened wide his arms. 'Aline!'
But here was no eagerness to respond to the invitation and fling herself upon that portly royal bosom. She continued to regard him with a quizzically bitter little smile.
'If you will not say it, Monseigneur, why, then, I will. Thus, we shall be clear. You are asking me to become your mistress, I think.'
If she thought to abash him by thus reducing to its precise terms the relationship he sought, she was profoundly at fault. His great liquid eyes opened a little wider in astonishment.
'What else can I offer you, my dear? I am already married. And if I were not, there would still be my rank. Though I swear to you that it should count for little with me if it were an obstacle in my way to you. I would barter all for you, and count myself the gainer. I swear I should.'
'That is easily sworn, Monseigneur.'
Gloom descended upon him. 'You do not believe me. You do not believe even the evidence of your own senses. Why am I here? Why do I tarry in Hamm at such a time as this? For many weeks now it has daily been dinned into my ears that my place is in Toulon with those who are making a stand there for Throne and Altar. Three days ago there arrived here a gentleman sent to me by the Royalist Committee in Paris, who permitted himself to point out to me my duty, to demand in the name of the nobility of France that I should render myself at once to Toulon and place myself at the head of the forces there. The terms of the demand were presumptuous. And yet I was robbed of even the satisfaction of resenting them, because in my heart I knew that they were justified. I know that I have been false to my duty, to myself, to my house, and to the brave defenders of Toulon. And why have I been false? Because my love for you has put trammels upon me which will not permit me to move. I am chained here, chained to the spot that holds you, Aline. My house may be destroyed, my chances of succeeding to the throne may perish, my honour may go hang before I will be false to my love for you. Does that tell you nothing? Does it afford you no proof of my sincerity? Does it give you no glimpse into the depth of it? Can you still, when you consider this, suppose that I am offering you some trivial and transient passion?'
That she was deeply moved, deeply shaken, he perceived at once. The mantle of dignity in which she had so coldly wrapped herself was permitted to slip from her shoulders. She was pale, and her eyes no longer met his ardent glance with their earlier defiant fearlessness. Although her words still sought to fence him off, they lacked their former bold, uncompromising tone.
'But that is all over now. You have conquered this unworthy weakness, Monseigneur. You start for Toulon on the day after tomorrow.'
'Do I? Do I, indeed? Who will guarantee that? Not I, by my soul.'
'What do you mean?' She was looking at him in alarm, leaning forward towards him. He was instantly aware of it; instantly aware that what he had alarmed was her sense of what was due, her concern for those men of her own class who had raised the royal standard at Toulon and who were depending upon his presence amongst them. He was quick to perceive how her loyalties were aroused, how intolerable to her must be the thought that those gentlemen should look for him in vain.
'What do I mean?' he answered slowly, a crooked smile on his full, sensuous lips. 'I mean, Aline, that the fate of Toulon, the fate of the royalist cause itself, is in your hands at this moment. Let that prove to you the depth of my sincerity.'
She drew nearer by a step. Her breath quickened. 'Oh, you are mad!' she cried. 'Mad! You are a Prince, the representative of France. Will you allow a whim, a caprice, to make you false to your duty, false to those brave souls who count upon you, who are exposing their lives for you and your house?'
She had come so near to him in her intentness that he was scarcely under the necessity of moving so as to place his left arm round her. He drew her close. Passively she suffered it, listening for his reply, so engrossed in it, perhaps, as scarcely to be conscious of what he did, or, at least, scarcely caring.
'At need I will do no less,' he answered her. 'What do I care for anything in this world compared with the care I have for you? My conduct shall prove it. I'll throw away the chances of a throne at need, to show you how little a thing is a throne to me when