Part 32 (1/2)

”He is safe, you tell me. May the G.o.d who has spared my son remember you and bless you through all your days and in all your ways!”

He bent low. ”I have my reward, Madame.”

Some intuitive recognition of what was in his mind was perhaps naturally in the thought of both. She said, ”Will it end here?”

Seeing before him a face which he could not read, he replied, ”It is to be desired that it end here, or that some good fortune put the sea between these two.”

”And can you, his friend, say that? Not if he is the son I bore. I trust not,” and, turning away, she left him; while he looked after her and murmured: ”There is more mother in me than in her,” and going out to where Rene lay, he said gaily: ”Out of prison at last, my boy. A grim jail is sickness.”

”Ah, to hear the birds who are so free,” said Rene. ”Are they ever ill, I wonder?”

”Mr. Hamilton is below, Rene--just come from New York. He has been here twice.”

”Then I shall hear of the world. You have starved me of news.” There was little good to tell him. The duke, their cousin, had fled from France, and could write to madame only of the Terror and of deaths and ruin.

The Secretary came up fresh with the gaiety of a world in which he was still battling fiercely with the Republican party, glad of the absence of his rival, Jefferson, who saw no good in anything he did or said.

”You are very kind,” said De Courval, ”to spare me a little of your time, sir.” Indeed he felt it. Hamilton sat down, smiling at the eagerness with which Rene questioned him.

”There is much to tell, Vicomte. The outrages on our commerce by the English have become unendurable, and how we are to escape war I do not see. An embargo has been proclaimed by the President; it is for thirty days, and will be extended to thirty more. We have many English s.h.i.+ps in our ports. No one of them can leave.”

”That ought to bring them to their senses,” said Rene.

”It may,” returned Hamilton.

”And what, sir, of the treaty with England?”

Hamilton smiled. ”I was to have been sent, but there was too much opposition, and now, as I think, wisely, Chief-Justice Jay is to go to London.”

”Ah, Mr. Hamilton, if there were but war with England,--and there is cause enough,--some of us poor exiles might find pleasant occupation.”

The Secretary became grave. ”I would do much, yield much, to escape war, Vicomte. No man of feeling who has ever seen war desires to see it again. If the memory of nations were as retentive as the memory of a man, there would be an end of wars.”

”And yet, sir,” said Rene, ”I hardly see how you--how this people--endure what you so quietly accept.”

”Yes, yes. No man more than Was.h.i.+ngton feels the additions of insult to injury. If to-day you could give him a dozen frigates, our answer to England would not be a request for a treaty which will merely secure peace, and give us that with contempt, and little more. What it personally costs that proud gentleman, our President, to preserve his neutral att.i.tude few men know.”

Rene was pleased and flattered by the thoughtful gravity of the statesman's talk.

”I see, sir,” he said. ”There will be no war.”

”No; I think not. I sincerely hope not. But now I must go. My compliments to your mother; and I am glad to see you so well.”

As he went out, he met Schmidt in the hall. ”Ah, why did you not prevent this duel?” he said.

”No man could, sir. It is, I fear, a business to end only when one of them dies. It dates far back of the blow. Some day we will talk of it, but I do not like the outlook.”

”Indeed.” He went into the street thoughtful. In principle opposed to duels, he was to die in the prime of life a victim to the pistol of Burr.

The pleasant May weather and the open air brought back to De Courval health and the joys of life. The girl in the garden heard once more his bits of French song, and when June came with roses he was able to lie on the lower porch, swinging at ease in a hammock sent by Captain Biddle, and it seemed as if the world were all kindness. As he lay, Schmidt read to him, and he missed only Margaret, ordered out to the country in the care of Aunt Gainor, while, as he grew better, he had the strange joy of senses freshened and keener than in health, as if he were reborn to a new heritage of tastes and odors, the priceless gift of wholesome convalescence.