Part 7 (1/2)
Though she had been annoyed, even frightened by the n.o.bleman's ardent manner and words, she was now eager to defend him from Calvert's attack.
She knew him to be in the right, and the rising admiration for his quiet dignity and courage, which she could not repress, only added to her petulance and desire to be revenged on him. It is so with all women--they hate to be put in the wrong, even when the doing so means protection to themselves. And so it was wellnigh intolerable to the spoiled beauty, who had never been used to the lightest contradiction, that this calm young American should so openly show his disapproval of her.
”I will pa.s.s by your reproof of myself, Monsieur,” she said at length, haughtily; her eyes flas.h.i.+ng and a deep blush mantling her brow, ”but I cannot consent to listen in silence to your condemnation of a personage whose talents and rank should protect him from your sarcasms.”
”Rank, Madame!” burst out Mr. Calvert at these words. ”I never knew before that morality or immorality, loyalty or treason, honor or dishonor had aught to do with rank! In our country 'tis not so. A king's word can make of the meanest scoundrel a duke, a marquis, but an honest man holds his rank by a power greater than any king's.” He bent upon her such a compelling gaze that she was forced to turn and look at him.
Before Calvert's flas.h.i.+ng eyes and manly, honest indignation her own anger died out and an unwilling admiration took its place. She blushed again deeply and bit her lips. This young American, with his n.o.ble face, his simplicity of manner and democratic scorn of her rank and pretensions, had not only accused, but silenced her. At any rate he should not see that he had impressed her! She laughed lightly.
”What a n.o.ble sentiment, Monsieur! Did you find it in one of Monsieur Rousseau's books?”
”No, Madame, it was not in the works of the famous Monsieur Rousseau that I found the expression of that sentiment,” replied Calvert, hesitating slightly. ”'Tis the theme of a little song by a young man named Robert Burns, who writes the sweetest poetry in the world, I think. He is a friend and protege of Dr. Witherspoon, of the College of Princeton, who never tires of reading his verses to us. I wish I could give you some idea of the beauty and power of the poem,” and he began to translate ”For a' that, and a' that” into the best French at his command, smiling every now and then at the strange subst.i.tutes for Burns's Scotch which he was forced to employ and at the curious metamorphosis of the poem into French prose. But he managed to infuse the spirit and sentiment of the original into his offhand translation, and Madame de St. Andre listened attentively.
”I would like to hear more of your poet,” she said, gently, when Calvert had finished speaking. ”I do not remember to have heard Monsieur Chenier speak of him or the Abbe Delille, either. The Abbe is often good enough to read poetry to us in my aunt's drawing-room, but 'tis usually his own,” and she laughed mischievously. ”The poor gentleman makes a great fuss about it, too. He must have his dish of tea at his elbow and the shades all drawn, with only the firelight or a single candle to read by, and when we are all quaking with fear at the darkness and solemn silence, he begins to recite, and imagines that 'tis his verses which have so moved us!” and she laughed merrily again. ”You shall come and read to us from your young Scotch poet and s.n.a.t.c.h the Abbe's laurels from him! Indeed, my aunt has already conceived a great liking for you, Monsieur, so she told me last night on her way from Madame Necker's, and intends to urge upon Mr. Jefferson to bring you to see her immediately.”
She smiled at Calvert so graciously and with such unaffected good-humor that he looked at her with delight and wonder at the change come over her. Once more the mask was down. All the haughtiness and capricious anger had faded away, and Calvert thought he had never beheld a creature so charming and so beautiful. Her dark eyes shone like stars in a wintry sky, and, though the air was frosty, the roses bloomed in her cheeks. As he looked at her there was a troubled smile on his lips and he felt a sudden quickening of his pulse. A curious sense of remoteness from her impressed itself upon him. He looked around at the unfamiliar scene, at the towering palace walls on his right, at the crowds of spectators on the river's edge, at the brilliant throng of skaters, at the great stone bridge spanning the frozen river over which people were forever pa.s.sing to and fro, some hurriedly, some with leisure to lean over the parapet for a moment to watch the unaccustomed revelry below. And as he looked, another scene, which he had so lately left, rose before him. In fancy he could see the broad and s.h.i.+ning Potomac, on its banks the stately old colonial house with its colonnaded wings, something after the fas.h.i.+on of General Was.h.i.+ngton's mansion at near-by Mount Vernon, the green lawns stretching away from the portico and the fragrant depths of the woods beyond. A voice recalled him from his abstraction. It was that of Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who, as they neared the crowded terrace of the Tuileries gardens, emerged from a group of skaters and, approaching Calvert and Madame de St. Andre, made a profound bow before the latter.
”Is Madame de St. Andre to show favor to none but Monsieur Calvert?” he asks, in a low voice that had an accent of mockery in it as he bent over the young girl's hand.
”'Tis no favor that I show Monsieur Calvert,” she replied, smiling.
”'Tis a privilege to skate with so perfect a master of the art.”
”I shall be most happy to take a lesson from Monsieur later in the afternoon,” returned St. Aulaire, courteously, but with a disagreeable smile playing about his mouth. ”In the meantime, if Monsieur will but resign you for a time--” He stopped and shrugged his shoulders slightly.
Calvert moved from his place beside Madame de St. Andre.
As he made his way toward the sh.o.r.e, intending to remove his skates and find Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris, d'Azay and Beaufort came up and urged upon him to join them. Both were good skaters, but the young American excelled them in a certain lightness and grace, and the three friends, as they circled about, trying a dozen difficult and showy manoeuvres on the ice, attracted much attention. It was after half an hour of the vigorous exercise and as Mr. Calvert stopped for an instant to take breath and pay his respects to Madame de Flahaut, who had ventured upon the ice in a chair-sleigh surrounded by her admirers, that Monsieur de St. Aulaire again presented himself before him.
”I have come for my lesson, Monsieur,” he said to Calvert, bowing after his incomparably graceful fas.h.i.+on, which Calvert (who had never before wasted thought upon such things) suddenly found himself envying, and with the disagreeable smile still upon his lips.
”I am no skating-master, Monsieur,” returned the young man, quietly, and with as good grace as he was master of, ”but I shall be happy to have a turn upon the ice with you,” and with that he moved off, leaving St.
Aulaire to stay or follow as he chose. He chose to follow and skated rapidly after Calvert with no very benevolent look on his handsome, dissipated face. Although he was by far the best skater among the French gentlemen who thronged the ice, and although it was little short of a marvel that he should be so active at his age, he was scarcely a match for the younger man either in lightness or quickness of movement. And although his splendid dress and jewels so overshadowed Mr. Calvert's quiet appearance, he was conscious of being excelled before the crowd of spectators by the agility and sure young strength of the American.
Piqued and disgusted at the thought, the habitual half-mocking good-humor of his manner gave way to sullen, repressed irritation.
Knowing his world so well, he was sure of the interest and curiosity Calvert's performance would arouse, and longed to convert his little triumph into a defeat. Being accustomed to doing everything he undertook a little better, a little more gracefully, with a little more eclat than anyone else, he suddenly began to hate this young man who had beaten him at his own game and for whom he had felt an aversion from the first moment of seeing him.
He tried to bethink himself of some plan of lowering his enemy's colors.
In his younger days he had been a notable athlete, excelling in vaulting and jumping, and suddenly an idea occurred to him which he thought would result in mortification to Mr. Calvert and success to himself. So great was the interest in the skating of the two gentlemen that the greater part of the crowd had retired beyond a little ledge of roughened ice and snow which cut the improvised arena into two nearly equal parts from where they could conveniently see Monsieur de St. Aulaire and Mr.
Calvert as they skated about. This rift in the smoothness of the ice was some fifteen feet wide and extended far out from the sh.o.r.e, so that those wis.h.i.+ng to pa.s.s beyond it had to skate out around its end and so get to the other side. Monsieur de St. Aulaire came up close to it, and, as he did so, he suddenly called out to Calvert:
”Let us try the other side, Monsieur, and, as it is too far to go around this, suppose we jump it,” and he laughed as he noted Calvert's look of surprise at his proposition.
”As you wish, Monsieur,” a.s.sented Calvert, though somewhat dubiously, as he noted the breadth of the roughened surface, and mentally calculated that to miss the clear jump by a hair's-breadth would ensure a hard, perhaps dangerous, fall. 'Twas no easy jump under ordinary circ.u.mstances; weighted down by skates the difficulty would be vastly increased.
”Tis too wide for a standing jump, Monsieur,” said St. Aulaire, looking alternately at Calvert and the rift of broken, jagged ice, and laughing recklessly. ”We will have to run for it!” And without more words the two gentlemen skated rapidly back for twenty yards and then came forward with tremendous velocity, _pari pa.s.su_, and, both jumping at the same instant, landed on the far side of the ledge, scattering the applauding spectators right and left as they drove in among them, unable for an instant to stop the swiftness of their progress.
”Well done, Monsieur!” called out St. Aulaire, as he wheeled beside Calvert, who had succeeded in checking his impetus. He was smiling, but there was a dark look in his eyes. ”Well done, but 'twas too easy--a very school-boy's trick! We must try something a little more difficult to test our agility upon the ice--unless, indeed, Monsieur has had enough?” and he looked at Calvert insultingly full in the face. ”The eyes of the world are upon us--” and he waved his hand mockingly toward the throng of spectators on the terrace where the ladies were applauding with gloved hands and the men tapping the frozen ground with canes and swords. From where he stood Calvert could see Mr. Jefferson looking at him and Mr. Morris sitting beside Madame de Flahaut and Madame de St.
Andre, who had left the ice and joined the onlookers.
”It has never been my custom or my desire, Monsieur, to furnish amus.e.m.e.nt for the crowd,” said Calvert, returning St. Aulaire's insolent look, ”but I should be very sorry to stand in the way of your doing so by declining to act as a foil to your prowess. If there is anything else I can do for you--?” and he bowed and smiled tranquilly at Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who blushed darkly with vexation at the way in which the young man had turned his attack.
”Monsieur is too modest,” he said, suavely, controlling himself, and then, calling one of the attendants who was busy near-by sweeping the snow cut by the skates from the ice, he instructed the fellow to bring one of the chairs which had been taken from the palace to the terrace for the convenience of those who had not had their servants bring them.