Part 7 (1/2)
”A pretext is easily invented.”
”Certainly,--a pretext to hide the cause of a quarrel from the world. But the real cause ought to be known to both antagonists.”
”I shall not discuss what ought or ought not to be. I ask you, will you fight this man and try to kill him? I request nothing unusual,--men are killed every day in duels. You are a good swordsman; Bussy d'Amboise himself has said so. Come! will you do this?” She looked up at me with a slight frown of repressed petulance.
”If you will a.s.sure me that he has affronted you, and permit me to let him know, privately, the cause of my quarrel.”
”Oh!” she exclaimed, with irritation, ”must a lady give a hundred reasons when she requests a service of a gentleman?”
”One sufficient reason, when it is a service like this.”
”Well, I shall give none. I desire his death,--few gentlemen would ask a further reason.”
”I had not thought you so cruel, mademoiselle, as to desire the death of any man.”
”G.o.d forbid that I should desire the death of any other man! So, monsieur, I must understand that you refuse to serve me in this?”
Her contemptuous look made me sigh. ”Can you not see, mademoiselle, that to resolve deliberately and secretly on a man's death, and with premeditation to create a pretext for a challenge, is little better than a.s.sa.s.sination?”
”A fine excuse to avoid risking your life!”
Again I had to endure a look of profound scorn from her.
”Mademoiselle,” I replied, patiently, ”I would that you might see how ready I am to fight when an affront is given me or some one needs a defender.”
”Oh!” she said, with an ironical smile. ”Then to show yourself a lion against De Noyard, you require only that he shall affront you, or that some one shall need a defender against him! Suppose that _I_ should ever be in such need?”
”You know that in your defence I would fight an army.”
Her smile now lost its irony, and she a.s.sumed a look of conciliation, which I was both surprised and rejoiced to behold.
”Well, monsieur, it is pleasant to know that, if you will not take the offensive for me, you will, at least, act readily on the defensive if the occasion comes.”
Much relieved at the turn the conversation had taken, I now undertook to continue it to my advantage. After some bantering, maintained with gaiety on her part, she said that she must return to the Louvre. Then, as she would not have me accompany her in the streets, I begged her to appoint another meeting. She evaded my pet.i.tion at first, but, when I took her hand and refused to release it until she should grant my request, she said, after a little submissive shrug of her shoulders:
”Very well. Follow me, at a distance, from this church, and observe a house before which I shall stop for a moment as if to adjust my cloak. It is a house that has been taken by a friend of mine, one of the Queen-mother's ladies. I shall be there tomorrow afternoon.”
”Alas! To-morrow I shall be on duty till six in the evening.”
”Then come at seven. Knock three times on the street door.” And with that she slipped her hand from mine, and hastened lightly out of the church. I stood alone by the font, delighted and bewildered. There was so much to mystify me that I did not even search my mind for explanations. I thought my happiness about to be attained, and left it for the future to explain,--as it did!
CHAPTER IV.
HOW LA TOURNOIRE WAS ENLIGHTENED IN THE DARK
It was already dark when I started, on the evening appointed, for the house indicated by Mlle. d'Arency. I went without attendance, as was my custom, relying on my sword, my alertness of eye, and my nimbleness of foot. I had engaged a lackey, for whose honesty De Rilly had vouched, but he was now absent on a journey to La Tournoire, whither I had sent him with a message to my old steward. I have often wondered at the good fortune which preserved me from being waylaid, by thieving rascals, on my peregrinations, by night, through Paris streets. About this very time several gentlemen, who went well attended, were set upon and robbed almost within sight of the quarters of the provost's watch; and some of these lost their lives as well as the goods upon their persons. Yet I went fearlessly, and was never even threatened with attack.
On the way to the house, I reviewed, for the hundredth time, the conversation in the church. There were different conjectures to be made.
Mlle. d'Arency may have made that surprising request merely to convince me that she did not love De Noyard, and intending, subsequently, to withdraw it; or it may have sprung from a caprice, a desire to ascertain how far I was at her bidding,--women have, thoughtlessly, set men such tasks from mere vanity, lacking the sympathy to feel how precious to its owner is any human life other than their own;--or she may have had some substantial reason to desire his death, something to gain by it, something to lose through his continuing to live. Perhaps she had encouraged his love and had given him a promise from which his death would be the means of release easiest to her,--for women will, sometimes, to secure the smallest immunity for themselves, allow the greatest calamities to others. This arises less from an active cruelty than from a lack of imagination, an inability to suppose themselves in the places of others. I soon felt the uselessness of searching, in my own mind, for the motive of Mlle. d'Arency's desire, or pretence of desire, for the death of De Noyard. What had pa.s.sed between them I could not guess. So, after the manner of youth, I gave up the question, satisfied with knowing that I had before me an interview with a charming woman, and willing to wait for disclosures until events should offer them.