Part 20 (1/2)
St. Aulaire laughed. ”I am not as drunk as you think me, Monsieur Calvert,” he said. ”'Tis enough that I know and shall act. By G.o.d, sir,”
he cried, suddenly starting up, ”shall a man stand everything and have no revenge? Let Madame de St. Andre take care! Let d'Azay take care!
Should you be inclined to go to their rescue, Monsieur, perhaps we may meet again!” and with a mocking smile on his wicked, handsome face, he flung himself out of the room.
The young man sat for a long while where St. Aulaire had left him, pondering upon this strange meeting and the mysterious hints and threats thrown out. He could make nothing of them, but it was clear that some danger menaced those he loved in France, and he felt only too well a.s.sured that St. Aulaire would stop at nothing. Indeed, it did not need a personal and malignant enemy to bring terror and death to any in Paris, as he knew. Terror and death were in the air. The last despatches from the capital had told of almost inconceivable horrors being there perpetrated. ”Aristocrats in Paris must keep quiet or the aristocrats will hang,” Mr. Morris had said to him tersely one evening just before leaving.
Suddenly an overwhelming desire to go to France, to be near Adrienne, to avert, if humanly possible, this unknown, but, as he felt, no less real danger, took possession of him. All the tenderness for her, which he had hoped and believed was dying within him, revived at the thought of the peril she was in. For himself he felt there could be no danger, and it was possible that his standing as an American and his close connection with the American Minister might be of service to her. But whatever the consequences to himself--and he thought with far more dread of the revival of his love, which the sight and near presence of her would surely bring, than of any physical danger to himself--he felt it to be unendurable to be so near her and yet not to be near enough to render her aid if danger threatened. He thought of d'Azay and Beaufort and Lafayette, of Mr. Morris, re-established there, and of all those great and terrible events taking place, and he suddenly found himself a thousand times more anxious to get back to Paris than he had ever been to leave it, and wondered how he could have stayed away so long. He sat alone in the little anteroom thinking of these things until almost the last of the guests had gone, and then, bidding the Amba.s.sador and Amba.s.sadress good-night, he, too, left, walking to his lodgings, thinking the while of his return to Paris and the Legation, where he felt a.s.sured he would receive a warm welcome from Mr. Morris.
CHAPTER XVIII
MR. CALVERT FIGHTS A DUEL
The welcome which Mr. Calvert received at the Legation was even more cordial than he had dared to hope for, Mr. Morris being surprised and delighted beyond measure by the young man's sudden arrival. As for Calvert, the sight of his old friend and the cheerful, sumptuous air of the new Legation, where Mr. Morris was but just established, were inexpressibly pleasant.
”I think you have a talent for making yourself comfortable even in the midst of horrors,” he said, looking about the brilliantly lit drawing-room, for Mr. Morris was expecting a large company to supper.
”In these rooms I can scarcely believe I have been for days travelling through a country strangely and terribly changed since I last saw it--so desolate and soldier-ridden and suspicious that I am truly glad to get within these walls. And to-night, when my pa.s.sport had been examined for the hundredth time since leaving Havre and we had pa.s.sed the city barrier, I thought the very look and sound of these streets of Paris had changed utterly in the last two years.”
”And indeed they have, Ned,” returned Mr. Morris, earnestly. ”Each day sees that difference grow more and more marked, more and more terrible.
Anarchy and bloodshed are becoming rampant, all semblance of order is gone. The rest of the diplomatic corps look upon me as a madman to come here at this time and set up a legation. _They_ are asking for their pa.s.sports--the Spanish Minister withdrew yesterday and Lord Gower is in the devil of a fright,” he says, laughing. ”But as for myself, I have no fear and shall uphold the interests and independence of the American Legation to the last gasp. G.o.d only knows whether this house will prove a protection, but, in all events, I shall not abandon it, nor my friends here, voluntarily,” he adds, intrepidly. ”I could have wished, however, boy, that events had kept you out of France just now. Though I urged you to accompany me, when I returned and realized the awful state of affairs here, I was heartily glad you had not yielded to my wishes.”
”As it happened, though,” said Calvert, ”events have brought me,” and in a few words he told Mr. Morris of all that had occurred at the house of Monsieur de la Luzerne, and of the uneasiness he felt at the manner and threats of St. Aulaire.
”He is capable of any villany. We must thresh this matter out to-morrow, Ned. Had I known you were coming I would have had no guests here to-night. We could have had a quiet evening together, and I could have shown you over my new establishment. All this must wait, however, and now you had best go to your room and dress for supper.” But Mr. Calvert, begging to be excused from the company that evening, and saying that he would go out by himself and get a look at this changed Paris, left Mr.
Morris to entertain his guests, who were beginning to arrive.
”I would offer you my carriage,” said Mr. Morris, as the young man turned away, ”but 'twere best you walked abroad. Carriages are but little the fas.h.i.+on these days--they are being rapidly abolished along with everything else that makes life comfortable in this city.”
Mr. Calvert went out into the dimly lit street that, despite the hour, was full of a restless throng of people, who seemed to be wandering about as aimlessly as himself. Here and there he encountered squads of the National Guard being manoeuvred by their lieutenants, here and there mobs of ragged men, shouting and cursing and bearing torches which rained sparks of fire as they were swung aloft, and once, as he pa.s.sed the Abbaie St. Germain des Pres, a horrible throng pressed by him, holding high in their midst a head on a dripping pike. He turned away, sick at the sight, and, making his way down by the quays, crossed by the Pont Royal to the other side of the city. He stopped for an instant on the bridge to look down the river, and, as he did so, he recalled that Christmas Eve two years before when he and Mr. Morris had stood on that same spot. Much, very much, had happened since; it seemed as if both a long and a short time had elapsed; perhaps, the greatest difference he felt was that then he had been eager to leave Paris; now he was relieved to be back. He strolled along under the glittering stars and the fast-sailing clouds, through ill-lighted streets and past deserted mansions whose owners were in voluntary exile beyond the Rhine, until he suddenly bethought himself of a little cafe in the Champs Elysees not far from the Demi-Lune du Cours de la Reine, where he and Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris had often gone together. It occurred to him that he was both thirsty and a little tired, and that he would turn in there for something to drink and to see what might be happening.
Not much was happening, for a wonder. The gusty March wind, sweeping through the gardens and under the lighted arcades, seemed to have swept away the usual throng of strollers in the Champs Elysees. Even the cafe was deserted except for a small group in a far corner of the room, which Mr. Calvert scarce noticed as he pa.s.sed in. A cheerful fire was burning in an open grate, near which were set a screen and a settle. Mr. Calvert ensconced himself comfortably in this cosy corner and, calling for a gla.s.s of wine, fell to reading the day's copy of the _Moniteur_ lying on the table beside him. But his thoughts were other-where than with the account of the a.s.sembly's proceedings. Although he was in Paris and near the woman he loved, he was as greatly in the dark as ever as to what course to pursue to protect her. He knew not in what direction to turn, seeing that he knew not what danger threatened. After he had seen St.
Aulaire, pressing affairs had detained him in London three days before he could set out for Paris. He knew not whether that worthy had arrived there before him or not--whether he intended to return to Paris at all or to work through some secret agency. A thousand vague plans for discovering these things floated through his mind and were rejected one after the other. All were alike in one respect--she must not know, if possible, that he was rendering her any service. Though he realized that this danger hanging over her endeared her to him a thousand times more than ever, though the chivalry of his nature impelled him to serve her, he knew she did not love him, nor ever could, and all the pride and hardness of youth made him resolve to guard his secret more jealously than ever. He had humbled himself once before her and she had treated him lightly, indifferently, contemptuously, and he had no mind to suffer a second humiliation.
Upon one thing he was resolved--that he would see d'Azay in the morning and discover if he knew of any peril that threatened. As this thought pa.s.sed through his mind he suddenly heard d'Azay's name distinctly p.r.o.nounced from the other side of the room. He laid the copy of the _Moniteur_, which he had been turning in his hands, quietly down upon the table and listened. The voices from the corner, which had been low and confused on his entrance, were now louder and bolder. Either the speakers did not know that they were not alone or else the wine had made them careless.
”'Tis a pleasure I have long had in contemplation and which has become peculiarly dear to me of late,” and the speaker laughed mockingly. ”I shall denounce d'Azay to-morrow.”
Calvert started and looked hurriedly through the small panel of gla.s.s at the top of the screen. Even before he looked he knew he was not mistaken--St. Aulaire sat at the table with three companions, and it was he who had spoken. Two of the men--one of them had a most villainous countenance--Calvert had never seen before, but the third one he discovered, to his intense surprise, was Bertrand--Bertrand, whose honest lackey's face now wore a curious and sinister look of power and importance. So, it was in the society of such that Monsieur de St.
Aulaire now talked and drank familiarly!
”He has already been denounced and released,” says Bertrand, moodily.
”He will not be released this time,” replies St. Aulaire, with so much evident satisfaction as to strike one of the other two drinkers with astonishment.
”Not entirely a matter of patriotism, I judge?” he questioned, with a chuckle.
”A duty I owe myself as well as to my country,” says St. Aulaire, so much mocking meaning in his voice and glance that his three listeners fell to laughing.