Part 34 (2/2)
”To oblige Monsieur!” he answered, softly, but his eyes gleamed like a lynx's. His stateliness was a sham; his perfidy and hypocrisy surprised even the land baron.
”You have no compunctions about selling a reputation, Francois?”
”Reputation is that!” said the man, contemptuously snapping his fingers, emboldened by his compact with the caller. ”Francs and sous are everything.”
”Lord, how servants imbibe the ideas of their betters!” quoth the patroon, as he left the house and strode down the graveled walk, decapitating the begonias with his cane.
Furtively the valet watched his departing figure. ”Why does he want it?” he thought.
Then he shrugged his shoulders. ”What do I care!”
”Francois!” piped a shrill and querulous treble from above, dispelling the servant's conjectures.
”Coming, my lord!” And the valet slowly mounted the broad stairway amid a fusillade of epithets from the sick chamber. An hour before the marquis had ordered him out of his sight as vehemently as now he summoned him, all of which Francois endured with infinite patience and becoming humility.
Pa.s.sing into the Rue Royale, the favorite promenade of the Creole-French, the land baron went on through various thoroughfares with French-English nomenclature into St. Charles Street, reaching his apartments, which adjoined a well-known club. He was glad to stretch himself once more on his couch, feeling fatigued from his efforts, and having rather overtaxed his strength.
But if his body was now inert, his mind was active. His thoughts dwelt upon the soldier's reticence, his disinclination to make acquaintances, and the coldness with which he had received his, Mauville's, advances in the Shadengo Valley. Why, asked Mauville, lying there and putting the pieces of the tale together, did not Saint-Prosper remain with his new-found friends, the enemies of his country? Because, came the answer, Abd-el-Kader, the patriot of Algerian independence, had been captured and the subjection of the country had followed. Since Algeria had become a French colony, where could Saint-Prosper have found a safer asylum than in America? Where more secure from ”that chosen curse” for the man who owes his weal to his country's woe?
In his impatience to possess the promised proof, the day pa.s.sed all too slowly. He even hoped the count would call, although that worthy brought with him all the ”flattering devils, sweet poison and deadly sins” of inebriation. But the count, like a poor friend, was absent when wanted, and it was a distinct relief to the land baron when Francois appeared at his apartments in the evening with a buff-colored envelope, which he handed to him.
”The suppressed report?” asked the latter, weighing it in his hand.
”No, Monsieur; I could not find that. My master must have destroyed it.”
The land baron made a gesture of disappointment and irritation.
”But this,” Francois hastened to add, ”is a letter from the Duc d'Aumale, governor of Algeria, to the Marquis de Ligne, describing the affair. Monsieur will find it equally as satisfactory, I am sure.”
”How did you get it?” said the patroon, thoughtfully.
”My master left the keys on the dresser.”
”And if he misses this letter--”
”Oh, Monsieur, I grieve my master is so ill he could not miss anything but his ailments! Those he would willingly dispense with. My poor master!”
”There! Take your long, hypocritical face out of my sight!” said Mauville, curtly, at the same time handing him the promised reward, which Francois calmly accepted. A moment later, however, he drew himself up.
”Monsieur has not paid for the right to libel my character,” he said.
”Your character!”
”My character, Monsieur!” the valet replied firmly, and bowed in the stateliest fas.h.i.+on of the old school as he backed out of the room with grand obsequiousness. Deliberately, heavily and solidly, resounded the echoing footsteps of Francois upon the stairway, like the going of some substantial personage of unimpeachable rect.i.tude.
As the front door closed sharply the land baron threw the envelope on the table and quietly surveyed it, the remnants of his pride rising in revolt.
”Have I then sunk so low as to read private communications or pry into family secrets? Is it a family secret, though? Should it not become common property? Why have they protected him? Did the marquis wish to spare the son of an old friend? Besides”--his glance again seeking the envelope--”it is my privilege to learn whether I have fought with a gentleman or a renegade.” But even as he meditated, he felt the sophistry of this last argument, while through his brain ran the undercurrent: ”He has wooed her--won her, perhaps!” Pa.s.sion, rather than injured hauteur, stirred him. At the same time a great indignation filled his breast; how Saint-Prosper had tricked her and turned her from himself!
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