CHAPTER VII
"THE LEAP IS TAKEN"
"Who is this Monsieur de Repentigny, Chevalier?--tell me," asked thePrincess, who was holding her little evening court in full circle on thebalustraded terrace behind the chateau. She sat well out where there wasplenty of room for the swell and spread of her vast garland-flouncedskirts,--a woman of something less than forty, the incarnation of inanecondescension. At her feet were her two pages--rosy little boys, dressedexactly like full-grown gentlemen. The ladies of her circle sat aroundher, each likewise skirt-voluminous, all pretending to be negligentlyengaged unravelling scraps of gold and silver lace, the greatfashionable occupation of the day. Her reader stood behind her.
The Chevalier, when addressed, had just remounted the steps from thelawn to the terrace with the Prince. He made a smiling bow.
"Monsieur de Repentigny?" he inquired. "I do not know of whom--ah, it isof Germain you speak."
Only the little Abbe, crouching, noted the first half of his answer. Hetreasured it away in his memory.
"Monsieur Germain then," continued the Princess--"this Canadiangentleman. Is he one of your relations?"
"One of my dearest, Madame. Why do you ask?"
"Because he is the most adorable of men. He has explained to me the_coiffure Montgolfier_."
"He is a picture," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Richeval.
"A man, Mademoiselle," returned de Bailleul warmly.
"Has he a fortune then, Chevalier?" she laughed.
"Perhaps he shall have mine," quizzed the old soldier.
"He must come with us to Versailles, Chevalier," said the Princess. "Soagreeable a person will be indispensable to me."
Germain, dallying behind the Chevalier, approached the foot of theterrace steps.
"Monsieur-Germain," she cried to him, "will you do me the honour ofreturning to Versailles with us?"
What could the poor fellow do but thank her with his profoundest bow,though the situation set his head in a whirl.
"Is it the pleasure of Madame that I should read?" interrupted a harshand ruffled voice. The Princess, for reply, took out of her work-bag abook of devotions and handed it to the Abbe. He received it with acringing bow, but as he glanced at it a suggestion of repugnance flittedacross his lips. "Or does she care first to hear the trifle of newswhich I brought from Fontainebleau?"
"What, have you dared conceal a scandal so long, Abbe? Let us have itinstantly," cried the Canoness.
"He is certainly an offender," echoed Mademoiselle de Richeval.
"Ladies, listen to the Abbe," said the Princess languidly.
The pseudo-Abbe scanned the faces about him with a cunning look,especially that of Germain, as one he would read through and throughwere it possible.
"In the name of mercy, Abbe, proceed," the Canoness cried.
"It is a trifle, a piece of mere common talk," he said demurely.
"Speak, Abbe," commanded the Princess de Poix.
"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 heardwhy 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 thatexplains 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 thephilosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist.What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himselfinto that colonelship of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scatteredthose broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, andboasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, thisMonsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right ofhis four centuries of _noblesse_, whose coat bore no less than eighteenfine 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 theKing----"
"Go on, you are a snail!" snapped the Canoness.
"Only then was it discovered that his father had amassed a fortune inox-skins, that the son had picked up some manners, riding, fencing, andblazonry; none knows how; and that his first introductions were boughtand paid for. He is now, some say, in the Bastille, some in VincennesDungeon, nobody will ever know exactly which. That is all, ladies."
"Let us thank the saints for Mademoiselle's deliverance!" cried thePrincess piously.
Cyrene gasped and said nothing, but tears filled her eyes.
"The horror of but touching one of those creatures--those diners in thekitchen!" exclaimed the Canoness.
"Of his daring to approach a lady in marriage!" added Mademoiselle deRicheval.
"Were she one of _my_ blood, he should die," asserted d'Estaing.
An uncanny, silent light passed across the half-shut eyes of Abbe Jude,and gleamed towards one and another of these haughty exclusives as theytalked together so regardlessly before the face of him they thought theonly plebeian among them. His eye at last met that of Lecour, and hecaught a confusion on the Canadian's countenance which he stored awaycarefully with the words of de Bailleul.
The evening fell, and a faint silver moon rose in the sky and grewbrighter and brighter over park and mere. The Princess went in to playcards, followed by the others. Germain and the Baroness walked up anddown the terrace alone, talking of the stars and the delightfulspeculations about them in the book of Fontenelle.
Under the moonlight the girl's fragile beauty wove its fascinationdeeper over him. He launched himself upon the strange sea of emotionswhich were more and more crowding upon him.
"Oh, my God!" he thought, "am I walking the celestial gardens? Am I aspirit doomed to banishment? Am I at the same moment both ravished anddamned?"
Once when they came to the end of the terrace they leaned on thebalustrade and looked down at the water. Glossy dark in the shadows ofthe old castle which stood in its midst, and in those of the grove onthe further side, it glittered tranquilly where the moonshine fell onits surface, and the foliage around it wore a soft, glittering veil.Some mighty witch, some spirit combining Beauty, Power, and theCenturies, seemed to reign over the lake, holding silent court in thepeaked and clustered white walls and turrets of the ancient stronghold.
"Mademoiselle," he said very quietly, "_I_ have reason to be silent; buttell me why _you_ are so pensive?"
"I was sad for my friend Helene. Love must be so sacred."
"Did you know her suitor?"
"Sillon--yes; he had _dared_ to speak to me."
They were silent. It was not he who next spoke. Her clear eyes looked asif into his soul as she said after a long time--
"Monsieur de Repentigny, what would you do were you Helene's brother?"
Germain's sword in an instant slid half-drawn from its sheath, and hegasped, "I would find him."
She drew her slender figure up in the dusk and looked at him with anapproving glance as if to say, "_You_ are of other fibre than thebaseborn."
"Oh, sweet Cyrene!" he exclaimed, then checked himself, appalled at hispresumption, and added, "Alas, what am I saying? Heaven knows I am mad."
"Hush, hush!" she shuddered, glancing back over her shoulder.
Germain turned and caught sight of a shadow advancing. It proved to bethe Abbe.
"Excuse the messenger of Madame," said he. "She asks you, Baroness, totake a hand at piquet."
She courtesied graciously to G
ermain and moved away, followed by thePrincess's black parasite. When she passed through the immense glassdoor which looked from the card-room upon the terrace, and his eyescould no longer follow her loveliness, Lecour turned towards the lakeand exclaimed in a low voice--
"There must be some way to win the paradise on earth and this seraph.Castle of ages past, frown not too hardly upon me. You represent what Ilove--the grand, the brave, the historic, the fair."
* * * * *
As he paced his chamber after the household had retired, therecollection of the day became an elixir, exciting and delicious.
The room was in one of the four towers of the chateau. Sitting down, helooked out through an open window upon the peace of the night-world.There were the gardens, quiet, lovely and ghostly, the weird water, thestately grove beyond it. He sat by the window more than two hours, whilethe events just over crowded through his brain.
After a time the moonlight lit an unhappy countenance; next it grewfixed and studious. He paced the room, he threw himself back into hischair, rose once more, drew long breaths of cool air at the windows, andknelt at the _prie-Dieu_ in the inmost corner. A violent tempest hadarisen within. The sails and yards of the soul-ship were strained, andit was fleeing without a rudder.
At last he undressed quickly and got into bed. He could not sleep, buttossed from side to side. Finally he sprang up and sat on the side ofthe couch lost in swift, fevered thought.
"For her," he whispered in intensest passion--"yes, for her." Then hehesitated. Suddenly, with fierce decision, he added, "The leap istaken."
At once the inward storm subsided, sleep overpowered him, and he droppedback at rest. The moon laid its rays like bars of silver across the bed,and illuminated his unconscious face and flowing hair with a patch ofbrightness. Such is the serene look of heaven upon its wanderingchildren.