Part 54 (2/2)
”No better than the others, after all! Well, well! Re you, how history repeats itself--with certain differences Because poor Viloaded him, he struck you Because you cannot bear an equally vile truth which I have uttered, you strike me But always is the vileness yours And now as then for the striker there is” He broke off ”But why name it? You will remember what there is Yourself you wrote it that day with the point of your too-ready sword But there I will meet you if you desire it, monsieur”
”What else do you suppose that I desire? To talk?”
Andre-Louis turned to his friends and sighed ”So that I ao another jaunt to the Bois Isaac, perhaps you will kindly have a ith one of these friends of M le Marquis', and arrange for nine o'clock to-morrow, as usual”
”Not to-morrow,” said the Marquis shortly to Le Chapeher ”I have an engagement in the country, which I cannot postpone”
Le Chapelier looked at Andre-Louis
”Then for M le Marquis' convenience, ill say Sunday at the saan to break the holy day”
”But surely the good God would not have the presuentleman of M le Marquis' quality on that account? Ah, well, Isaac, please arrange for Monday, if it is not a feast-day or ement I leave it in your hands”
He boith the air of a h Kersain's withdrew
”Ah, Dieu de Dieu! But what a trick of it you have,” said the Breton deputy, entirely unsophisticated in these matters
”To be sure I have I have taken lessons at their hands” He laughed He was in excellent good-humour And Kersain was enrolled in the ranks of those who accounted Andre-Louis a man without heart or conscience
But in his ”Confessions” he tells us--and this is one of the glimpses that reveal the true ht he went down on his knees to commune with his dead friend Philippe, and to call his spirit to witness that he was about to take the last step in the fulfilo
CHAPTER IX TORN PRIDE
M de La Tour d'Azyr's engagement in the country on that Sunday ith M de Kercadiou To fulfil it he drove out early in the day to Meudon, taking with him in his pocket a copy of the last issue of ”Les Actes des Apotres,” a journal whose reatly diverted the Seigneur de Gavrillac The venomous scorn it poured upon those worthless rapscallions afforded hiainst the discomforts of expatriation by which he was afflicted as a result of their detestable energies
Twice in the last one to visit the Lord of Gavrillac at Meudon, and the sight of Aline, so sweet and fresh, so bright and of so lively aunder the ashes of the past, embers which until now he had believed utterly extinct, to kindle into flame once more He desired her as we desire Heaven I believe that it was the purest passion of his life; that had it coht have been a vastly different man The cruelest wound that in all his selfish life he had taken hen she sent him word, quite definitely after the affair at the Feydau, that she could not again in any circuraceful riot--he had been robbed of a mistress he prized and of a ho had become a necessity to the very soul of hiht have consoled him for the compulsory renunciation of his exalted love of Aline, just as to his exalted love of Aline he had been ready to sacrifice his attachment to La Binet But that ill-timed riot had robbed him at once of both Faithful to his word to Sautron he had definitely broken with La Binet, only to find that Aline had definitely broken with him And by the tirief to think again of La Binet, the comedienne had vanished beyond discovery
For all this he blamed, and most bitterly blamed, Andre-Louis That low-born provincial lout pursued hienius of his life That was it--the evil genius of his life!
And it was odds that on Monday He did not like to think of Monday
He was not particularly afraid of death He was as brave as his kind in that respect, too brave in the ordinary way, and too confident of his skill, to have considered even re in a duel It was only that it would seem like a proper consummation of all the evil that he had suffered directly or indirectly through this Andre-Louis Moreau that he should perish ignobly by his hand Al the flippant announce
He shook off theit It was maudlin After all Chabrillane and La Motte-Royau were quite exceptional swordsmen, but neither of thean to flow, as he drove out through country lanes flooded with pleasant September sunshi+ne His spirits rose A pre Monday's an to look forward to it It should afford hi a definite term to this persecution of which he had been the victim He would crush this insolent and persistent flea that had been stinging him at every opportunity Borne upward on that wave of optimism, he took presently a more hopeful view of his case with Aline
At their first o he had used the utmost frankness with her He had told her the whole truth of his ht to the Feydau; he had made her realize that she had acted unjustly towards hione no farther
But that was very far to have gone as a beginning And in their last ht old, she had received him with frank friendliness True, she had been a little aloof But that was to be expected until he quite explicitly avowed that he had revived the hope of winning her He had been a fool not to have returned before to-day
Thus in that mood of new-born confidence--a confidence risen from the very ashes of despondency--caay and jovial with M de Kercadiou what time he waited in the salon for mademoiselle to show herself He pronounced with confidence on the country's future There were signs already--he wore the rosiest spectacles that e of opinion, of a an to perceive whither this lawyer rabble was leading it
He pulled out ”The Acts of the Apostles” and read a stinging paragraph