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- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.
To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s cousin, who whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable interest - his own presence unsuspected - the perambulations of Andre-Louis and mademoiselle.
Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d’Azyr detached himself from the others, and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.
To Andre-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he ranked neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the two classes, and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly by both. Coldly now he returned M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s greeting, and discreetly removed himself to go and join his friend.
The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing over it, bore it to his lips.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that met his gaze smiling and untroubled, “monsieur your uncle does me the honour to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle, do me the honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have something of great importance for your ear.”
“Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me.” But there was no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not for nothing that she had graduated in the Versailles school of artificialities.
“That,” said he, “is very far from my design.”
“But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?”
“To us both, I hope,” he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine, ardent eyes.
“You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece. It follows that I shall be honoured to receive you.”
“Not honoured, mademoiselle; you will confer the honour. To-morrow at this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait upon you.”
He bowed again; and again he bore her fingers to his lips, what time she curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this formal breaking of the ice, they parted.
She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate. Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic - the lean and impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and steel-buckled shoes - and she felt guilty of an unpardonable offence in having permitted even one word of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M. le Marquis would come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And already she had derogated from the increase of dignity accruing to her from his very intention to translate her to so great an eminence. Not again would she suffer it; not again would she be so weak and childish as to permit Andre-Louis to utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with whom he was no better than a lackey.
Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self and to her vast annoyance her better self would not admit entire conviction.
Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d’Azyr was climbing into his carriage. He had spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou, and he had also had a word for M. de Vilmorin in reply to which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in assenting silence. The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in blue-and-gold very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowing to mademoiselle, who waved to him in answer.
Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of Andre Louis, and said to him, “Come, Andre.”
“But you’ll stay to dine, both of you!” cried the hospitable Lord of Gavrillac. “We’ll drink a certain toast,” he added, winking an eye that strayed towards mademoiselle, who was approaching. He had no subtleties, good soul that he was.
M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented him doing himself the honour. He was very stiff and formal.
“And you, Andre?”
“I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather,” he lied, “and I have a superstition against toasts.” He had no wish to remain. He was angry with Aline for her smiling reception of M. de La Tour d’Azyr and the sordid bargain he saw her set on making. He was suffering from the loss of an illusion.
As they walked down the hill together, it was now M. de Vilmorin who was silent and preoccupied, Andre-Louis who was talkative. He had chosen Woman as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed - quite unjustifiably - to have discovered Woman that morning; and the things he had to say of the sex were unflattering, and occasionally almost gross. M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained the subject, did not listen. Singular though it may seem in a young French abbe of his day, M. de Vilmorin was not interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways exceptional. Opposite the Breton arme - the inn and posting-house at the entrance of the village of Gavrillac - M. de Vilmorin interrupted his companion just as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic invective, and Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the carriage of M. de La Tour d’Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.
“I don’t believe you’ve been listening to me,” said he.
“Had you been less interested in what you were saying, you might have observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is, you disappoint me, Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for. I have an appointment here with M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in the matter. Up there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time was ill-chosen as it happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis.”
“Hopes of what?”
“That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?”
“Unusual condescension,” said Andre-Louis, and quoted “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
“Why?” asked Philippe.
“Let us go and discover - unless you consider that I shall be in the way.”
Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host. A fire of logs was burning brightly at the room’s far end, and by this sat now M. de La Tour d’Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de Chabrillane. Both rose as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following, paused to close the door.
“You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin,” said the Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words. “A chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?” The note was frigidly interrogative. “He accompanies you, monsieur?” he asked.
“If you please, M. le Marquis.”
“Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau.” He spoke over his shoulder as to a lackey.
“It is good of you, monsieur,” said Philippe, “to have offered me this opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it happens, to Gavrillac.”
The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was slightly behind him.
“The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the moment,” said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis thought him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
“But I am grateful,” Philippe insisted, “that you should condescend to hear me plead their cause.”
The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. “Whose cause?” quoth he.
“Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey.”
The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
“I think,” said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, slowly, “that we are at cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Chateau de Gavrillac was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion further, and because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you should come all the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain expressions that you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those expressions, monsieur, that I would hear you further - if you will honour me.”
Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
“I am at a loss, monsieur,” said he. “To what expressions does monsieur allude?”
“It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory.” The Marquis crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he directly faced M. de Vilmorin. “You spoke, monsieur - and however mistaken you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it seemed to me - of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was the precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the honour to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded as he did.”
“If,” said M. de Vilmorin, “the deed was infamous, its infamy is not modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather is it aggravated.”
“Ah!” said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket. “You say, ‘if the deed was infamous,’ monsieur. Am I to understand that you are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?”
M. de Vilmorin’s fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not understand the drift of this.
“It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in view of your readiness to assume responsibility, that you must believe justification for the deed which is not apparent to myself.”
“That is better. That is distinctly better.” The Marquis took snuff delicately, dusting the fragments from the fine lace at his throat. “You realize that with an imperfect understanding of these matters, not being yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable conclusions. That is indeed the case. May it be a warning to you, monsieur. When I tell you that for months past I have been annoyed by similar depredations, you will perhaps understand that it had become necessary to employ a deterrent sufficiently strong to put an end to them. Now that the risk is known, I do not think there will be any more prowling in my coverts. And there is more in it than that, M. de Vilmorin. It is not the poaching that annoys me so much as the contempt for my absolute and inviolable rights. There is, monsieur, as you cannot fail to have observed, an evil spirit of insubordination in the air, and there is one only way in which to meet it. To tolerate it, in however slight a degree, to show leniency, however leniently disposed, would entail having recourse to
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