The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
and fed by the unspeakable complacency with which M. Binet regarded that event of quite unmistakable import.
However much he might affect the frame of mind of the stoics, and seek to judge with a complete detachment, in the heart and soul of him Andre–Louis was tormented and revolted. It was not Climene he blamed. He had been mistaken in her. She was just a poor weak vessel driven helplessly by the first breath, however foul, that promised her advancement. She suffered from the plague of greed; and he congratulated himself upon having discovered it before making her his wife. He felt for her now nothing but a deal of pity and some contempt. The pity was begotten of the love she had lately inspired in him. It might be likened to the dregs of love, all that remained after the potent wine of it had been drained off. His anger he reserved for her father and her seducer.
The thoughts that were stirring in him on that Monday morning, when it was discovered that Climene had not yet returned from her excursion of the previous day in the coach of M. le Marquis, were already wicked enough without the spurring they received from the distraught Leandre.
Hitherto the attitude of each of these men towards the other had been one of mutual contempt. The phenomenon has frequently been observed in like cases. Now, what appeared to be a common misfortune brought them into a sort of alliance. So, at least, it seemed to Leandre when he went in quest of Andre–Louis, who with apparent unconcern was smoking a pipe upon the quay immediately facing the inn.
“Name of a pig!” said Leandre. “How can you take your ease and smoke at such a time?”
Scaramouche surveyed the sky. “I do not find it too cold,” said he. “The sun is shining. I am very well here.”
“Do I talk of the weather?” Leandre was very excited.
“Of what, then?”
“Of Climene, of course.”
“Oh! The lady has ceased to interest me,” he lied.
Leandre stood squarely in front of him, a handsome figure handsomely dressed in these days, his hair well powdered, his stockings of silk. His face was pale, his large eyes looked larger than usual.
“Ceased to interest you? Are you not to marry her?”
Andre–Louis expelled a cloud of smoke. “You cannot wish to be offensive. Yet you almost suggest that I live on other men’s leavings.”
“My God!” said Leandre, overcome, and he stared awhile. Then he burst out afresh. “Are you quite heartless? Are you always Scaramouche?”
“What do you expect me to do?” asked Andre–Louis, evincing surprise in his own turn, but faintly.
“I do not expect you to let her go without a struggle.”
“But she has gone already.” Andre–Louis pulled at his pipe a moment, what time Leandre clenched and unclenched his hands in impotent rage. “And to what purpose struggle against the inevitable? Did you struggle when I took her from you?”
“She was not mine to be taken from me. I but aspired, and you won the race. But even had it been otherwise where is the comparison? That was a thing in honour; this — this is hell.”
His emotion moved Andre–Louis. He took Leandre’s arm. “You’re a good fellow, Leandre. I am glad I intervened to save you from your fate.”
“Oh, you don’t love her!” cried the other, passionately. “You never did. You don’t know what it means to love, or you’d not talk like this. My God! if she had been my affianced wife and this had happened, I should have killed the man — killed him! Do you hear me? But you . . . Oh, you, you come out here and smoke, and take the air, and talk of her as another man’s leavings. I wonder I didn’t strike you for the word.”
He tore his arm from the other’s grip, and looked almost as if he would strike him now.
“You should have done it,” said Andre–Louis. “It’s in your part.”
With an imprecation Leandre turned on his heel to go. Andre–Louis arrested his departure.
“A moment, my friend. Test me by yourself. Would you marry her now?”
“Would I?” The young man’s eyes blazed with passion. “Would I? Let her say that she will marry me, and I am her slave.”
“Slave is the right word — a slave in hell.”
“It would never be hell to me where she was, whatever she had done. I love her, man, I am not like you. I love her, do you hear me?”
“I have known it for some time,” said Andre–Louis. “Though I didn’t suspect your attack of the disease to be quite so violent. Well, God knows I loved her, too, quite enough to share your thirst for killing. For myself, the blue blood of La Tour d’Azyr would hardly quench this thirst. I should like to add to it the dirty fluid that flows in the veins of the unspeakable Binet.”
For a second his emotion had been out of hand, and he revealed to Leandre in the mordant tone of those last words something of the fires that burned under his icy exterior. The young man caught him by the hand.
“I knew you were acting,” said he. “You feel — you feel as I do.”
“Behold us, fellows in viciousness. I have betrayed myself, it seems. Well, and what now? Do you want to see this pretty Marquis torn limb from limb? I might afford you the spectacle.”
“What?” Leandre stared, wondering was this another of Scaramouche’s cynicisms.
“It isn’t really difficult provided I have aid. I require only a little. Will you lend it me?”
“Anything you ask,” Leandre exploded. “My life if you require it.”
Andre–Louis took his arm again. “Let us walk,” he said. “I will instruct you.”
When they came back the company was already at dinner. Mademoiselle had not yet returned. Sullenness presided at the table. Columbine and Madame wore anxious expressions. The fact was that relations between Binet and his troupe were daily growing more strained.
Andre–Louis and Leandre went each to his accustomed place. Binet’s little eyes followed them with a malicious gleam, his thick lips pouted into a crooked smile.
“You two are grown very friendly of a sudden,” he mocked.
“You are a man of discernment, Binet,” said Scaramouche, the cold loathing of his voice itself an insult. “Perhaps you discern the reason?”
“It is readily discerned.”
“Regale the company with it!” he begged; and waited. “What? You hesitate? Is it possible that there are limits to your shamelessness?”
Binet reared his great head. “Do you want to quarrel with me, Scaramouche?” Thunder was rumbling in his deep voice.
“Quarrel? You want to laugh. A man doesn’t quarrel with creatures like you. We all know the place held in the public esteem by complacent husbands. But, in God’s name, what place is there at all for complacent fathers?”
Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood. Violently he shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot who sat on his left.
“A thousand devils!” he roared; “if you take that tone with me, I’ll break every bone in your filthy body.”
“If you were to lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the only provocation I still need to kill you.” Andre–Louis was as calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol — newly purchased. “I go armed, Binet. It is only fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have suggested, and I’ll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most resemble — a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness without soul and without intelligence. When I come to think of it I can’t suffer to sit at table with you.