Part 56 (2/2)
The dismissed ones thirsted with a desire for vengeance, and took every opportunity to inflame the pa.s.sions of their own particular set against the King, some of them openly declaring their readiness to side with the Revolutionary party, and help it to power. But over the seething volcano of discontent, the tide of fas.h.i.+on moved as usual, to all outward appearances tranquil, and absorbed in trivialities of the latest description; and though many talked, few dreamed that the mind of the country, growing more compressed in thought, and inflammable in nature every day, was rapidly becoming like a huge magazine of gunpowder or dynamite, which at a spark would explode into that periodically recurring fire-of-cleansing called Revolution.
Weighted with many thoughts, Sir Roger de Launay, whose taciturn and easy temperament disinclined him for argument and kept him aloof from discussion whenever he could avoid it, sat alone one evening in his own room which adjoined the King's library, writing a few special letters for his Majesty which were of too friendly a nature to be dealt with in the curt official manner of the private secretary. Once or twice he had risen and drawn aside the dividing curtain between himself and the King's apartment to see if his Royal master had entered; but the room remained empty, though it was long past eleven at night. He looked every now and again at a small clock which ticked with a quick intrusive cheerfulness on his desk,--then with a slight sigh resumed his work.
Letter after letter was written and sealed, and he was getting to the end of his correspondence, when a tap at the door disturbed him, and his sister Teresa, the Queen's lady-in-waiting, entered.
”Is the King within?” she asked softly, moving almost on tiptoe as she came.
Sir Roger shook his head.
”He has been absent for some time,” he replied,--then after a pause--”But what are you here for, Teresa? This is not your department!”
and he took her hand kindly, noticing with some concern that there were tears in her large dark eyes;--”Is anything wrong?”
”Nothing! That is,--nothing that I have any right to imagine--or to guess. But--” and here she seemed a little confused--”I am commanded by the Queen to summon you to her presence if,--if the King has not returned!”
He rose at once, looking perplexed. Teresa watched him anxiously, and the expression of his face did not tend to rea.s.sure her.
”Roger,” she began timidly--”Would you not tell me,--might I not know something of this mystery? Might I not be trusted?”
His languid eyes flashed with a sudden tenderness, as from his great and stately height he looked down upon her pretty shrinking figure.
”Poor little Teresa!” he murmured playfully; ”What is the matter? What mystery are you talking about?”
”_You_ know--you must know!” answered Teresa, clasping her hands with a gesture of entreaty; ”There is something wrong, I am sure! Why is the King so often absent--when all the household suppose him to be with the Queen?--or in his private library there?” and she pointed to the curtained-off Royal sanctum beyond.
”Why does the Queen herself give it out that he is with her, when he is not? Why does he enter the Queen's corridor sometimes quite late at night by the private battlement-stair? Does it not seem very strange?
And since he was so nearly a.s.sa.s.sinated, his absences have been more frequent than ever!”
Sir Roger pulled his long fair moustache meditatively between his fingers.
”When you were a little girl, Teresa, you must have been told the story of Blue-beard;” he said; ”Now take my advice!--and do not try to open forbidden doors with your tiny golden key of curiosity!”
Teresa's cheeks flushed a pretty rose pink.
”I am not curious;” she said, with an air of hauteur; ”And indeed I am far too loyal to say anything to anyone but to you, of what seems so new and strange. Besides--the Queen has forbidden me--only it is just because of the Queen--” here she stopped hesitatingly.
”Because of the Queen?” echoed Sir Roger; ”Why?”
”She is unhappy!” said Teresa.
A smile,--somewhat bitter,--crossed De Launay's face.
”Unhappy!” he repeated; ”She! You mistake her, little girl! She does not know what it is to be unhappy; nothing so weak and slight as poor humanity affects the s.h.i.+ning iceberg of her soul! For it _is_ an iceberg, Teresa! The sun s.h.i.+nes on it all day, fierce and hot, and never moves or melts one glittering particle!”
He spoke with a concentrated pa.s.sion of melancholy, and Teresa trembled a little. She knew, as no one else did, the intense and despairing love that had corroded her brother's life ever since the Queen had been brought home to the kingdom in all her exquisite maiden beauty, as bride of the Heir-Apparent. Such love terrified her; she did not understand it. She knew it was hopeless,--she felt it was disloyal,--and yet--it was love!--and her brother was one of the truest and n.o.blest of gentlemen, devoted to the King's service, and incapable of a mean or a treacherous act. The position was quite incomprehensible to her, for she was not thoughtful enough to a.n.a.lyse it,--and she had no experience of the tender pa.s.sion herself, to aid her in sympathetically considering its many moods, sorrows, and inexplicable martyrdoms of mind-torture.
She contented herself now with repeating her former a.s.sertion.
”She is unhappy,--I am sure she is! You may call her an iceberg, if you like, Roger!--men have such odd names for the women they are unable to understand! But I have seen the iceberg shed tears very often lately!”
He looked at her, surprised.
”You have? Then we may expect the Pallas Athene to weep in marble? Well!
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