CHAPTER XI. INFERENCES
By fast driving Andre-Louis had reached the ground some minutes aheadof time, notwithstanding the slight delay in setting out. There hehad found M. de La Tour d'Azyr already awaiting him, supported by a M.d'Ormesson, a swarthy young gentleman in the blue uniform of a captainin the Gardes du Corps.
Andre-Louis had been silent and preoccupied throughout that drive. Hewas perturbed by his last interview with Mademoiselle de Kercadiou andthe rash inferences which he had drawn as to her motives.
"Decidedly," he had said, "this man must be killed."
Le Chapelier had not answered him. Almost, indeed, had the Bretonshuddered at his compatriot's cold-bloodedness. He had often of latethought that this fellow Moreau was hardly human. Also he had found himincomprehensibly inconsistent. When first this spadassinicide businesshad been proposed to him, he had been so very lofty and disdainful. Yet,having embraced it, he went about it at times with a ghoulish flippancythat was revolting, at times with a detachment that was more revoltingstill.
Their preparations were made quickly and in silence, yet without unduehaste or other sign of nervousness on either side. In both men the samegrim determination prevailed. The opponent must be killed; there couldbe no half-measures here. Stripped each of coat and waistcoat, shoelessand with shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, they faced each other atlast, with the common resolve of paying in full the long score thatstood between them. I doubt if either of them entertained a misgiving asto what must be the issue.
Beside them, and opposite each other, stood Le Chapelier and the youngcaptain, alert and watchful.
"Allez, messieurs!"
The slender, wickedly delicate blades clashed together, and after amomentary glizade were whirling, swift and bright as lightnings, andalmost as impossible to follow with the eye. The Marquis led the attack,impetuously and vigorously, and almost at once Andre-Louis realized thathe had to deal with an opponent of a very different mettle from thosesuccessive duellists of last week, not excluding La Motte-Royau, ofterrible reputation.
Here was a man whom much and constant practice had given extraordinaryspeed and a technique that was almost perfect. In addition, he enjoyedover Andre-Louis physical advantages of strength and length of reach,which rendered him altogether formidable. And he was cool, too; cool andself-contained; fearless and purposeful. Would anything shake that calm,wondered Andre-Louis?
He desired the punishment to be as full as he could make it. Not contentto kill the Marquis as the Marquis had killed Philippe, he desiredthat he should first know himself as powerless to avert that death asPhilippe had been. Nothing less would content Andre-Louis. M. le Marquismust begin by tasting of that cup of despair. It was in the account;part of the quittance due.
As with a breaking sweep Andre-Louis parried the heavy lunge in whichthat first series of passes culminated, he actually laughed--gleefully,after the fashion of a boy at a sport he loves.
That extraordinary, ill-timed laugh made M. de La Tour d'Azyr's recoveryhastier and less correctly dignified than it would otherwise have been.It startled and discomposed him, who had already been discomposed bythe failure to get home with a lunge so beautifully timed and so trulydelivered.
He, too, had realized that his opponent's force was above anything thathe could have expected, fencing-master though he might be, and on thataccount he had put forth his utmost energy to make an end at once.
More than the actual parry, the laugh by which it was accompanied seemedto make of that end no more than a beginning. And yet it was the end ofsomething. It was the end of that absolute confidence that had hithertoinspired M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He no longer looked upon the issue as athing forgone. He realized that if he was to prevail in this encounter,he must go warily and fence as he had never fenced yet in all his life.
They settled down again; and again--on the principle this time that thesoundest defence is in attack--it was the Marquis who made the game.Andre-Louis allowed him to do so, desired him to do so; desired himto spend himself and that magnificent speed of his against the greaterspeed that whole days of fencing in succession for nearly two years hadgiven the master. With a beautiful, easy pressure of forte on foibleAndre-Louis kept himself completely covered in that second bout, whichonce more culminated in a lunge.
Expecting it now, Andre-Louis parried it by no more than a deflectingtouch. At the same moment he stepped suddenly forward, right within theother's guard, thus placing his man so completely at his mercy that, asif fascinated, the Marquis did not even attempt to recover himself.
This time Andre-Louis did not laugh: He just smiled into the dilatingeyes of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and made no shift to use his advantage.
"Come, come, monsieur!" he bade him sharply. "Am I to run my bladethrough an uncovered man?" Deliberately he fell back, whilst his shakenopponent recovered himself at last.
M. d'Ormesson released the breath which horror had for a moment caught.Le Chapelier swore softly, muttering:
"Name of a name! It is tempting Providence to play the fool in thisfashion!"
Andre-Louis observed the ashen pallor that now over spread the face ofhis opponent.
"I think you begin to realize, monsieur, what Philippe de Vilmorin musthave felt that day at Gavrillac. I desired that you should first do so.Since that is accomplished, why, here's to make an end."
He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his point seemed to LaTour d'Azyr to be everywhere at once, and then from a low engagementin sixte, Andre-Louis stretched forward with swift and vigorous easeto lunge in tierce. He drove his point to transfix his opponent whoma series of calculated disengages uncovered in that line. But to hisamazement and chagrin, La Tour d'Azyr parried the stroke; infinitelymore to his chagrin La Tour d'Azyr parried it just too late. Had hecompletely parried it, all would yet have been well. But striking theblade in the last fraction of a second, the Marquis deflected the pointfrom the line of his body, yet not so completely but that a coupleof feet of that hard-driven steel tore through the muscles of hissword-arm.
To the seconds none of these details had been visible. All that theyhad seen had been a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then Andre-Louisstretched almost to the ground in an upward lunge that had pierced theMarquis' right arm just below the shoulder.
The sword fell from the suddenly relaxed grip of La Tour d'Azyr'sfingers, which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed,his lip in his teeth, his face white, his chest heaving, before hisopponent, who had at once recovered. With the blood-tinged tip of hissword resting on the ground, Andre-Louis surveyed him grimly, as wesurvey the prey that through our own clumsiness has escaped us at thelast moment.
In the Assembly and in the newspapers this might be hailed as anothervictory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know theextent and the bitternest of the failure.
M. d'Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.
"You are hurt!" he had cried stupidly.
"It is nothing," said La Tour d'Azyr. "A scratch." But his lip writhed,and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.
D'Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief,which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.
Still Andre-Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused. Hecontinued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm. Then at last heroused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor didhe address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground atonce.
As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejectiontowards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage,they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d'Azyr and hissecond--which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of theencounter. The Marquis' wounded arm was carried in a sling improvisedfrom his companion's sword-belt. His sky-blue coat with three collarshad been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty.Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his
usual self.
And now you understand how it was that he was the first to return,and that seeing him thus returning, apparently safe and sound, the twoladies, intent upon preventing the encounter, should have assumed thattheir worst fears were realized.
Mme. de Plougastel attempted to call out, but her voice refused itsoffice. She attempted to throw open the door of her own carriage; buther fingers fumbled clumsily and ineffectively with the handle. Andmeanwhile the caleche was slowly passing, La Tour d'Azyr's fine eyessombrely yet intently meeting her own anguished gaze. And then shesaw something else. M. d'Ormesson, leaning back again from the forwardinclination of his body to join his own to his companion's salutation ofthe Countess, disclosed the empty right sleeve of M. de La Tour d'Azyr'sblue coat. More, the near side of the coat itself turned back from thepoint near the throat where it was caught together by a single button,revealed the slung arm beneath in its blood-sodden cambric sleeve.
Even now she feared to jump to the obvious conclusion--feared lestperhaps the Marquis, though himself wounded, might have dealt hisadversary a deadlier wound.
She found her voice at last, and at the same moment signalled to thedriver of the caleche to stop.
As it was pulled to a standstill, M. d'Ormesson alighted, and so metmadame in the little space between the two carriages.
"Where is M. Moreau?" was the question with which she surprised him.
"Following at his leisure, no doubt, madame," he answered, recovering.
"He is not hurt?"
"Unfortunately it is we who..." M. d'Ormesson was beginning, when frombehind him M. de La Tour d'Azyr's voice cut in crisply:
"This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess..."
He broke off, observing a vague challenge in the air with which sheconfronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing.
There was a vaguely awkward pause. And then she looked at M. d'Ormesson.Her manner changed. She offered what appeared to be an explanation ofher concern for M. Moreau.
"Mademoiselle de Kercadiou is with me. The poor child has fainted."
There was more, a deal more, she would have said just then, but for M.d'Ormesson's presence.
Moved by a deep solicitude for Mademoiselle de Kertadiou, de La Tourd'Azyr sprang up despite his wound.
"I am in poor case to render assistance, madame," he said, an apologeticsmile on his pale face. "But..."
With the aid of d'Ormesson, and in spite of the latter's protestations,he got down from the caleche, which then moved on a little way, so as toleave the road clear--for another carriage that was approaching from thedirection of the Bois.
And thus it happened that when a few moments later that approachingcabriolet overtook and passed the halted vehicles, Andre-Louis beheld avery touching scene. Standing up to obtain a better view, he saw Alinein a half-swooning condition--she was beginning to revive by now--seatedin the doorway of the carriage, supported by Mme. de Plougastel. Inan attitude of deepest concern, M. de La Tour d'Azyr, his woundnotwithstanding, was bending over the girl, whilst behind him stood M.d'Ormesson and madame's footman.
The Countess looked up and saw him as he was driven past. Her facelighted; almost it seemed to him she was about to greet him or to callhim, wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of the presence thereof his late antagonist, he anticipated her by bowing frigidly--for hismood was frigid, the more frigid by virtue of what he saw--and thenresumed his seat with eyes that looked deliberately ahead.
Could anything more completely have confirmed him in his conviction thatit was on M. de La Tour d'Azyr's account that Aline had come to pleadwith him that morning? For what his eyes had seen, of course, was a ladyovercome with emotion at the sight of blood of her dear friend, and thatsame dear friend restoring her with assurances that his hurt was veryfar from mortal. Later, much later, he was to blame his own perversestupidity. Almost is he too severe in his self-condemnation. For howelse could he have interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptionsbeing what they were?
That which he had already been suspecting, he now accounted proven tohim. Aline had been wanting in candour on the subject of her feelingstowards M. de La Tour d'Azyr. It was, he supposed, a woman's way to besecretive in such matters, and he must not blame her. Nor could he blameher in his heart for having succumbed to the singular charm of such aman as the Marquis--for not even his hostility could blind him to M. deLa Tour d'Azyr's attractions. That she had succumbed was betrayed, hethought, by the weakness that had overtaken her upon seeing him wounded.
"My God!" he cried aloud. "What must she have suffered, then, if I hadkilled him as I intended!"
If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won hisconsent to the thing she asked. If only she had told him what now hesaw, that she loved M. de La Tour d'Azyr, instead of leaving him toassume her only regard for the Marquis to be based on unworthy worldlyambition, he would at once have yielded.
He fetched a sigh, and breathed a prayer for forgiveness to the shade ofVilmorin.
"It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide," he said.
"What do you mean?" wondered Le Chapelier.
"That in this business I must relinquish all hope of recommencing."