Part 41 (2/2)
What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a dozen more lovers after me--then old age, and the care of a third-cla.s.s lodging-house for broken-down actors!” Here he chose his weapon. ”At your service, Marquis!”
Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle.
”Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal--out of rule! You are a gentleman,--a man of honour!--would you fight without seconds? It is murder--murder--!”
Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the immovability of Fontenelle's att.i.tude, and the coldness of his eyes.
”I regret to pain you, Madame,” he said stiffly, ”This combat was arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some hours since--and though it seems he did not intend to keep his engagement I intend to keep mine! The princ.i.p.als in the fight are here,--seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter. We must do without them.”
”By no means!” exclaimed Miraudin, ”We have them! Here they are! You, Jeanne, will you be my second--how often you have seconded me in many a devil's game--and you--cochon d'un cocher!--you will for once in your life support the honour of a Marquis!”
And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the gra.s.s, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting. Mademoiselle Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of. Throwing herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her ”protector” throw off his coat, and, standing in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, take close observation of the pistol he held.
”Is this your care of me?” she cried, ”Mon Dieu! What a thing is a man!
Here am I alone in a strange country--and you endanger your life for some quarrel of which I know nothing,--yet you pretend to love me! Nom de Jesus! What is your love!”
”You do well to ask,” said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, ”What is my love! A pa.s.sing fancy, chere pet.i.te! We actors simulate love too well to ever feel it! Out of the way, jou-jou! Your life will be amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable. After that--the lodging-house!”
He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm.
”Victor! Victor!” she wailed, ”Will you not look at me--will you not kiss me!”
Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed.
”Kiss you!” he echoed, ”Pardieu! Would you care! Jeanne! Jeanne! You are a little mad,--the moonlight is too much for you! To-morrow I will kiss you, when the sun rises--or if I am not here--why, somebody else will!”
”Who is the woman you are fighting for?” she suddenly demanded, springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes. Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration.
”I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage,” he said, ”You would have brought down the house! 'Woman!' No 'woman' at all, but WOMEN! The glamour of them--the witchery of them--women!--the madness of them! Women!--The ONE woman saves when the ONE woman exists, but then,--we generally kill HER! Now, once more, Jeanne,--out of the way! Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste. He has many fas.h.i.+onable engagements!”
He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced.
”You are ready?” he enquired civilly.
”Ready!”
”Shall we say twelve paces?”
”Excellent!”
Deliberately Fontenelle dug his heel into the ground and measured twelve paces from that mark between himself and his antagonist. Then with cold courtesy he stood aside for Miraudin to a.s.sure himself that the measurement was correct. The actor complied with this formality in a sufficiently composed way, and with a certain grace and dignity which Fontenelle might almost have taken for bravery if he had not been so convinced that the man was ”acting” still in his mind, and was going through a ”part” which he disliked, but which he was forced to play.
And with it all there was something indefinable about him--something familiar in the turn of his head, the glance of his eye, the movement of his body, which annoyed Fontenelle, because he saw in all these little personal touches such a strong resemblance to himself. But there was now no time to think, as the moment for the combat drew near.
Jeanne Richaud was still weeping hysterically and expostulating with the cab-driver, who paid no attention whatsoever to her pleadings, but remained obstinately on his knees out of harm's way, begging the ”Santissima Madonna” and all his ”patron saints” to see him safely with his fiacre back to the city. That was all he cared for.
”We have no one to give us a signal,” said Miraudin lightly, ”But there is a cloud on the moon. When it pa.s.ses, shall we fire?”
The Marquis bowed a.s.sent.
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