Part 25 (1/2)
”I have sought for you everywhere,” he said when Jean entered and the man who had brought him had gone.
”You were unfortunate in not finding me,” said the dwarf, with a grotesque bow. ”I am always at the Duke's service.”
”Tell me, Jean, why do you call me Duke? You are in advance of time.
The crown has not yet touched this head of mine.”
”We speak of to-morrow ere the sun has risen upon it,” the dwarf answered.
”True; but it might never dawn.”
”Ah, my lord, one cannot stop to consider possibilities if life is to be lived.”
”The other day you spoke of visions, visions in St. Etienne in the night. Is it true that you have been dreaming again?” asked Felix.
”I always dream; so do other men, only with the light they forget. I remember. Half our life is a dream, visions of things we long for, yet never attain to. Love, hope, ambition, they are all dreams, sometimes turned to realities, yet seldom fulfilling expectation.”
”Have I entered into your visions?” asked Felix, and eagerness was in the question in spite of his efforts to conceal it.
”Often,” answered the dwarf, quick to catch the trend of the Count's question. ”Often, as lover, as a man of hope, as a slave of ambition.”
”How say you? Slave!”
”Truly we are all slaves in varying degree; slaves to love, slaves----”
”Since when have I been slave to love?” asked Felix.
”Since the day a woman first said you nay,” was the quick answer. It was a general answer enough, applicable to any man, yet the Count, remembering Elisabeth and Christine, found it easy to apply it forcibly to himself.
”And for the others, hope and ambition, what of them?” he asked.
”They stand with one foot on the steps of a throne,” said Jean.
”And shall I mount it? Have your visions told you that?”
”Who can stop you?” asked the dwarf. ”Is not the pale scholar of Pa.s.sey dead? You did not know that when last we talked together, nor did I. Did I not leave you to go and welcome him at the gate of Vayenne? Yet I called you Duke then. I am but the dwarf of St.
Etienne, a fool; yet maybe I sometimes utter prophecies.”
There were steps outside the room, and then a soldier entered.
”Stand you here, Jean,” said Felix. ”You shall see how I deal with traitors.”
”Have a care that you mistake not friends for traitors and traitors for friends,” said the dwarf. ”They have a habit of looking and speaking much alike.” And, doubling his legs under him, Jean sank into a sitting posture by the Count's chair.
With chains upon his wrists, Gaspard Lemasle was marched into the room. He glanced at the dwarf, who did not meet his look, and then he fixed his eyes upon Felix.
”We looked upon you as an honest man, Lemasle,” said Felix.
”Duke Robert ever found me so,” was the answer.
”He is dead,” said Felix, ”and his son, who should have been Duke, was placed in your keeping. Where is he?”