Part 38 (1/2)

therefore, I drink cheerfully to love and happiness, I consider Louis is not in the right, but I know that he is wise, my daughter, as concerns his soul's health, in clinging to you rather than to a tinsel crown. Of Fate I have demanded--like Sgarnarelle of the comedy,--prosaic equity and common-sense; of Fate he has in turn demanded happiness; and Fate will at her convenience decide between us. Meantime I drink to love and happiness, since I, too, remember. I know better than to argue with Louis, you observe, my Nelchen; we de Soyecourts are not lightly severed from any notion we may have taken up. In consequence I drink to your love and happiness!”

They drank. ”To your love, my son,” said the Prince de Gatinais,--”to the true love of a de Soyecourt.” And afterward he laughingly drank: ”To your happiness, my daughter,--to your eternal happiness.”

Nelchen sipped. The two men stood with drained gla.s.ses. Now on a sudden the Prince de Gatinais groaned and clutched his breast.

”I was always a glutton,” he said, hoa.r.s.ely. ”I should have been more moderate--I am faint--”

”Salts are the best thing in the world,” said Nelchen, with fine readiness.

She was half-way up the stairs. ”A moment, monseigneur,--a moment, and I fetch salts.” Nelchen Thorn had disappeared into her room.

V

The Prince sat drumming upon the table with his long white fingers. He had waved the Marquis and Vanringham aside. ”A pa.s.sing weakness,--I am not adamant,” he had said, half-peevishly.

”Then I prescribe another gla.s.s of this really excellent wine,” laughed little Louis de Soyecourt. At heart he was not merry, and his own unreasoning nervousness irritated him, for it seemed to the Marquis, quite irrationally, that the atmosphere of the cheery room was, without forerunners.h.i.+p, become tense and expectant, and was now quiet with much the hush which precedes the bursting of a thunder-storm. And accordingly he laughed.

”I prescribe another gla.s.s, monsieur,” said he. ”Eh, that is the true panacea for faintness--for every ill. Come, we will drink to the most beautiful woman in Poictesme--nay, I am too modest,--to the most beautiful woman in France, in Europe, in the whole universe! _Feriam sidera_, my father! and confound all mealy-mouthed reticence, for you have both seen her. Confess, am I not a lucky man? Come, Vanringham, too, shall drink. No gla.s.ses? Take Nelchen's, then. Come, you fortunate rascal, you shall drink to the bride from the bride's half-emptied gla.s.s. To the most beautiful woman--Why, what the devil--?”

Vanringham had blurted out an odd, unhuman sound. His extended hand shook and jerked, as if in irresolution, and presently struck the proffered gla.s.s from de Soyecourt's grasp. You heard the tiny crash, very audible in the stillness, and afterward the irregular drumming of the old Prince's finger-tips. He had not raised his head, had not moved.

Louis de Soyecourt came to him, without speaking, and placed one hand under his father's chin, and lifted the Prince's countenance, like a dead weight, toward his own. Thus the two men regarded each the other. Their silence was rather horrible.

”It was not in vain that I dabbled with chemistry all these years,” said the guttural voice of the Prince de Gatinais, ”Yes, the child is dead by this. Let us recognize the fact we are de Soyecourts, you and I.”

But Louis de Soyecourt had flung aside the pa.s.sive, wrinkled face, and then, with a straining gesture, wiped the fingers that had touched it upon the sleeve of his left arm. He turned to the stairway. His hand grasped the newelpost and gripped it so firmly that he seemed less to walk than by one despairing effort to lift an inert body to the first step. He ascended slowly, with a queer shamble, and disappeared into Nelchen's room.

VI

”What next, monseigneur?” said Vanringham, half-whispering.

”Why, next,” said the Prince de Gatinais, ”I imagine that he will kill us both. Meantime, as Louis says, the wine is really excellent. So you may refill my gla.s.s, my man, and restore to me my vial of little tablets”....

He was selecting a bonbon from the comfit-dish when his son returned into the apartment. Very tenderly Louis de Soyecourt laid his burden upon a settle, and then drew the older man toward it. You noted first how the thing lacked weight: a flower snapped from its stalk could hardly have seemed more fragile. The loosened hair strained toward the floor and seemed to have sucked all color from the thing to inform that thick hair's insolent glory; the tint of Nelchen's lips was less sprightly, and for the splendor of her eyes Death had subst.i.tuted a conscientious copy in crayons: otherwise there was no change; otherwise she seemed to lie there and muse on something remote and curious, yet quite as she would have wished it to be.

”See, my father,” Louis de Soyecourt said, ”she was only a child, more little even than I. Never in her brief life had she wronged any one,--never, I believe, had she known an unkind thought. Always she laughed, you understand--Oh, my father, is it not pitiable that Nelchen will never laugh any more?”

”I entreat of G.o.d to have mercy upon her soul,” said the old Prince de Gatinais. ”I entreat of G.o.d that the soul of her murderer may dwell eternally in the nethermost pit of h.e.l.l.”

”I would cry amen,” Louis de Soyecourt said, ”if I could any longer believe in G.o.d.”

The Prince turned toward him. ”And will you kill me now, Louis?”

”I cannot,” said the other. ”Is it not an excellent jest that I should be your son and still be human? Yet as for your instrument, your cunning butler--Come, Vanringham!” he barked. ”We are unarmed. Come, tall man, for I who am well-nigh a dwarf now mean to kill you with my naked hands.”

”Vanringham!” The Prince leaped forward. ”Behind me, Vanringham!” As the valet ran to him the old Prince de Gatinais caught a knife from the table and buried it to the handle in Vanringham's breast. The lackey coughed, choked, clutched his a.s.sa.s.sin by each shoulder; thus he stood with a bewildered face, shuddering visibly, every muscle twitching. Suddenly he shrieked, with an odd, gurgling noise, and his grip relaxed, and Francis Vanringham seemed to crumple among his garments, so that he shrank rather than fell to the floor. His hands stretched forward, his fingers spreading and for a moment writhing in agony, and then he lay quite still.

”You progress, my father,” said Louis de Soyecourt, quietly. ”And what new infamy may I now look for?”

”A valet!” said the Prince. ”You would have fought with him--a valet! He topped you by six inches. And the man was desperate. Your life was in danger. And your life is valuable.”