Part 16 (1/2)
”Tell me more. Where is it? It is mine, mine, mine!”
”Do you believe me, Monsieur St. Georges?--me, though I am his sister, a De Roquemaure myself?”
His eyes looked back into hers now--looked deep into those pure, clear, gray eyes; he hesitated no longer. She was his sister, was a De Roquemaure, yet he believed.
”Yes,” he said, ”mademoiselle, I believe. I do believe.”
Beneath the hateful, necessary carmine he saw the true blood show itself as he spoke. He saw the honest, truthful eyes glisten--at least no rococo monarch could cause them to be made vile!--he knew that his words had satisfied her. He had an ally, a friend, here. And how powerful such an ally might be! Yet he continued, his anxiety overmastering all:
”But in pity, mademoiselle, not so much for me, her father, as her own innocent, helpless little self--think of her, poor little babe, in that man's--in any man's power!--tell me all you know. Tell me, I implore.”
What she would have said, what answered, he could not know. At that moment there came forth from the inner court a troop of the mounted gendarmerie, followed by an enormous carriage, three times the size of that in which sat Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, covered with gilding. It was the carriage of Louis Quatorze, who was about to proceed to Marly for the night. Naturally, therefore, the vehicle in which Aurelie sat was forced to go forward; naturally, also, St. Georges had to back his horse to the side of the huge gateway, since no obstruction was allowed to impede the gracious sovereign's progress. With a bow they parted, therefore, she giving him one glance that might mean that later on they would meet again, while her carriage proceeded as fast as was possible in the direction of the already fas.h.i.+onable quarter of St.-Germain.
And he, drawing aside, witnessed the pa.s.sage of Louis ere he himself proceeded to present himself to Louvois. He saw the king with his great carriage full of ladies, saw the table inside it covered with sweetmeats and fruit, saw the greatest monarch in Europe lolling back alone on one seat, a dog upon his knees. And, as he bowed low before his master, it seemed to him almost as if the king had distinguished him from among the heterogeneous ma.s.s of people who thronged the filthy footpath, and had looked at him an instant as though either gazing on a familiar face or wondering where he had seen one like it before.
Chapter XV.
The Minister of War.
”You come a little late, Monsieur St. Georges,” the harsh, raucous, and underbred voice of Louvois said--”a little late. Too late by far for an officer selected by his Majesty for special service.”
He turned his back upon his visitor as he spoke, changing the position he had a.s.sumed in front of the great fireplace in the room set apart as his cabinet in the Louvre, and seemed now only intent on watching the logs burning in the grate, and of dismissing--or insulting--the _chevau-leger_.
”Perhaps when M. de Louvois has heard my explanation of the reason why I am late, have tarried on my road, he may be disposed to overlook my dilitoriness,” St. Georges replied, regarding the back of the _roturier_ minister as he spoke; and the well-bred tones in which he uttered the words caused Louvois to turn around and face him again.
They made a strange contrast as they stood there. Both men were more than ordinarily tall, yet both carried their height differently.
Louvois's was decreased in appearance by the heaviness of his shoulders, his head being deep set between them. St. Georges was as erect as a dart; while, as he faced the man whom, by some innate perception, he regarded as an enemy--or, at least, not a friend--his head was thrown back, so that his height and uprightness seemed somehow increased. Moreover, the whole appearance of each was in extreme contrast, and that not a contrast in favour of the minister.
The stained military jacket of the soldier, the long, brown leather boots, the large cavalry spurs, the great bowl-hilted sword, all gave him an appearance of advantage over the sombre, velvet-clad Louvois; the long, curling hair falling on his shoulders in a thick ma.s.s was more becoming than the wig _a trois marteaux_ which Louvois wore outside state functions. And for the rest, the pale yet weather-exposed face of the one, with its long, deep, chestnut mustache, caused the cadaverous and coa.r.s.e-cut features of the other--the thick, bulbous nose and full, sensual lips--to appear insignificant, if not ign.o.ble.
Louvois had kept him waiting three hours in the anteroom--a thing which, however, he would have done in any case and to any one seeking an interview with him, excepting only some scion of royalty, legitimate or illegitimate, one of the king's marshals, or a relative of one of the king's mistresses--for he understood as well as any vulgar, important _parvenu_ of to-day, or thought he understood, the value of administering such snubs. And, now that the visitor was admitted, his manner was as insulting and as would-be humiliating as he knew how to fas.h.i.+on it. Moreover, with another trait of vulgarity as common in those days as these, he had bidden him to no seat.
His behaviour was the ign.o.ble spite of the man who believed he saw in the other the son of him who had consistently ignored his existence--the late Duc de Vannes.
”The explanation,” he said, in answer to St Georges's remark, and speaking in a voice which he endeavoured to render cold and haughty, but which was, in truth, an angry, bitter one, ”will have to be very full, very complete, to satisfy his Majesty. You quitted the garrison of Pontarlier on the last night of the last year, riding on special service in the king's name, and you have tarried long on the road in, I imagine, your own service. Beyond bringing one message--that from the Bishop of Lodeve--you have failed in your duty, sir; indeed, failed so much that the Marquise de Roquemaure, from whom you were ordered to bring another message, has actually preceded your arrival here. Has pa.s.sed you on the road and entered Paris before you, though you quitted her manoir before she did; has, indeed, been able to give an interesting account of you and your supposed adventures.”
”Supposed!” exclaimed St. Georges quietly--”supposed! Does madame la marquise stigmatize them as 'supposed,' or does monsieur le ministre, Monsieur de Louvois, apply that epithet to them?” and as he spoke, with still his head thrown back and his left hand resting lightly in the cup of his sword hilt, he looked very straight into the eyes of Louvois.
”Madame la marquise is a woman; she believes--and tells--a story as she hears it.”
St. Georges bent his head for a moment, then as quietly as he asked the previous question, but equally as clearly and distinctly as he had previously spoken, he said:
”Monsieur Louvois will remember he is speaking to a soldier.”
”_Et puis?_”
”Who permits no one, not even the minister of the army, who is his superior, to question his veracity. What he told madame he told as it happened.”
Louvois laughed somewhat sinisterly and wholly insultingly, yet for him quietly, after which he said: