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- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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“And not unprofitable, if I may judge that jewel at this distance. It should be worth at least a couple of hundred louis, and that is a formidable sum even to so wealthy a nobleman as M. de La Tour d’Azyr. Would it be impertinent in one who has had some notion of becoming your husband, to ask you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?”
M. Binet uttered a gross laugh, a queer mixture of cynicism and contempt.
“I have given nothing,” said Climene, indignantly.
“Ah! Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in advance.”
“My God, man, you’re not decent!” M. Binet protested.
“Decent?” Andre-Louis’ smouldering eyes turned to discharge upon M. Binet such a fulmination of contempt that the old scoundrel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Did you mention decency, Binet? Almost you make me lose my temper, which is a thing that I detest above all others!” Slowly his glance returned to Climene, who sat with elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her palms, regarding him with something between scorn and defiance. “Mademoiselle,” he said, slowly, “I desire you purely in your own interests to consider whither you are going.”
“I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide without advice from you, monsieur.”
“And now you’ve got your answer,” chuckled Binet. “I hope you like it.”
Andre-Louis had paled a little; there was incredulity in his great sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard her. Of M. Binet he took no notice.
“Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean that willingly, with open eyes and a full understanding of what you do, you would exchange an honourable wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour d’Azyr may have in store for you?”
M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. “You hear him, the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you’ll believe at last that marriage with him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the inconvenient husband—to mar your every chance, my girl.”
She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father. “I begin to find him tiresome with his silly jealousies,” she confessed. “As a husband I am afraid he would be impossible.”
Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But—always the actor—he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and rose.
“I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not regret it.”
“Regret it?” cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved to see his daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had never approved, if we except those few hours when he really believed him to be an eccentric of distinction. “And what shall she regret? That she accepted the protection of a nobleman so powerful and wealthy that as a mere trinket he gives her a jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year at the Comedie Francaise?” He got up, and advanced towards Andre-Louis. His mood became conciliatory. “Come, come, my friend, no rancour now. What the devil! You wouldn’t stand in the girl’s way? You can’t really blame her for making this choice? Have you thought what it means to her? Have you thought that under the protection of such a gentleman there are no heights which she may not reach? Don’t you see the wonderful luck of it? Surely, if you’re fond of her, particularly being of a jealous temperament, you wouldn’t wish it otherwise?”
Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment. Then he laughed again. “Oh, you are fantastic,” he said. “You are not real.” He turned on his heel and strode to the door.
The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and words stung M. Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.
“Fantastic, are we?” he cried, turning to follow the departing Scaramouche with his little eyes that now were inexpressibly evil. “Fantastic that we should prefer the powerful protection of this great nobleman to marriage with a beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are fantastic!”
Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. “No,” he said, “I was mistaken. You are not fantastic. You are just vile—both of you.” And he went out.
CHAPTER X. CONTRITION
Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the bright morning sunshine of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been oddly irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldliness, which convinced Mme. de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin had scandalously conducted the child’s education. She appeared to be instructed in all the things of which a girl is better ignorant, and ignorant of all the things that a girl should know. That at least was the point of view of Mme. de Sautron.
“Tell me, madame,” quoth Aline, “are all men beasts?” Unlike her brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and majestically built. In the days before her marriage with M. de Sautron, ill-natured folk described her as the only man in the family. She looked down now from her noble height upon her little niece with startled eyes.
“Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most disconcerting and improper questions.”
“Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper.”
“Life? A young girl should not discuss life.”
“Why not, since I am alive? You do not suggest that it is an impropriety to be alive?”
“It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek to know too much about life. As for your absurd question about men, when I remind you that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you will consider yourself answered.”
Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de Kercadiou’s outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
“That being so,” said she, “will you tell me why they find such an overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?”
Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her handsome, high-bridged nose.
“Sometimes—often, in fact, my dear Aline—you pass all understanding. I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the better it will be for all.”
“Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding,” Aline reminded her.
“That,” said madame with complete conviction, “is the last and most outrageous of his errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide the matter of her own marriage? It is... indelicate almost to expose her to thoughts of such things.” Mme. de Sautron shuddered. “Quintin is a boor.
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