Part 6 (1/2)
”Mademoiselle de Merecour----” he began deliberately.
”Helene?” all exclaimed in astonishment. ”Proceed--tell us.”
”She is my best friend,” the Baroness murmured.
”Mademoiselle de Merecour,” he repeated, still delaying. ”Have you heard why she looked so disdainful at the Queen's Game last evening?”
”We never guess your enigmas. Go on.”
”She has need to look brave.”
”She is about to marry Monsieur de Sillon,” said Cyrene. ”Perhaps that explains any unusual expression.”
”Ah, Monsieur de Sillon--yes, Mademoiselle, Monsieur de Sillon--but, ladies, do you know there is no Monsieur de Sillon?”
”No Monsieur de Sillon?”
”Is Monsieur dead?” gasped Cyrene, her hand darting to her breast.
”Monsieur de Sillon will never die, Mademoiselle. It is a maxim of the philosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist.
What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himself into that colonels.h.i.+p of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scattered those broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, and boasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, this Monsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right of his four centuries of _n.o.blesse_, whose coat bore no less than eighteen fine quarterings, whose crest was an eagle and his betrothed a Merecour, is the son of a tanner of Tours.”
”Incredible!”
”Impossible!”
”You fable exquisitely!”
”The contract of marriage, they said, had actually been signed by the King----”
”Go on, you are a snail!” snapped the Canoness.
”Only then was it discovered that his father had ama.s.sed a fortune in ox-skins, that the son had picked up some manners, riding, fencing, and blazonry; none knows how; and that his first introductions were bought and paid for. He is now, some say, in the Bastille, some in Vincennes Dungeon, n.o.body will ever know exactly which. That is all, ladies.”
”Let us thank the saints for Mademoiselle's deliverance!” cried the Princess piously.
Cyrene gasped and said nothing, but tears filled her eyes.
”The horror of but touching one of those creatures--those diners in the kitchen!” exclaimed the Canoness.
”Of his daring to approach a lady in marriage!” added Mademoiselle de Richeval.
”Were she one of _my_ blood, he should die,” a.s.serted d'Estaing.
An uncanny, silent light pa.s.sed across the half-shut eyes of Abbe Jude, and gleamed towards one and another of these haughty exclusives as they talked together so regardlessly before the face of him they thought the only plebeian among them. His eye at last met that of Lecour, and he caught a confusion on the Canadian's countenance which he stored away carefully with the words of de Bailleul.
The evening fell, and a faint silver moon rose in the sky and grew brighter and brighter over park and mere. The Princess went in to play cards, followed by the others. Germain and the Baroness walked up and down the terrace alone, talking of the stars and the delightful speculations about them in the book of Fontenelle.
Under the moonlight the girl's fragile beauty wove its fascination deeper over him. He launched himself upon the strange sea of emotions which were more and more crowding upon him.