CHAPTER XIV
A happy moment.
The search in the Citizen-Deputy's bedroom had proved as fruitless asthat in his study. Merlin was beginning to have vague doubts as towhether he had been effectively fooled.
His manner towards Deroulede had undergone a change. He had become suaveand unctuous, a kind of elephantine irony pervading his laboriousattempts at conciliation. He and the Public Prosecutor would be severelyblamed for this day's work, if the popular Deputy, relying upon thesupport of the people of Paris, chose to take his revenge.
In France, in this glorious year of the Revolution, there was but onestep between censure and indictment. And Merlin knew it. Therefore,although he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Deroulede'streason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convincedthat such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw,the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety,in exchange for his own exculpation in the matter.
This sop would be Juliette, the denunciator instead of Deroulede thedenounced.
But he was still seeking for the proofs.
Somewhat changing his tactics, he had allowed Deroulede to join hismother in the living-room, and had betaken himself to the kitchen insearch of Anne Mie, whom he had previously caught sight of in the hall.There he also found old Petronelle, whom he could scare out of her witsto his heart's content, but from whom he was quite unable to extract anyuseful information. Petronelle was too stupid to be dangerous, and AnneMie was too much on the alert.
But, with a vague idea that a cunning man might choose the most unlikelyplaces for the concealment of compromising property, he was ransackingthe kitchen from floor to ceiling.
In the living-room Deroulede was doing his best to reassure his mother,who, in her turn, was forcing herself to be brave, and not to show byher tears how deeply she feared for the safety of her son. As soon asDeroulede had been freed from the presence of the soldiers, he hadhastened back to his study, only to find that Juliette had gone, andthat the letter-case had also disappeared. Not knowing what to think,trembling for the safety of the woman he adored, he was just debatingwhether he would seek for her in her own room, when she came towards himacross the landing.
There seemed a halo around her now. Deroulede felt that she had neverbeen so beautiful and to him so unattainable. Something told him then,that at this moment she was as far away from him, as if she were aninhabitant of another, more ethereal planet.
When she saw him coming towards her, she put a finger to her lips, andwhispered:
"Sh! sh! the papers are destroyed, burned."
"And I owe my safety to you!"
He had said it with his whole soul, an infinity of gratitude filled hisheart, a joy and pride in that she had cared for his safety.
But at his words she had grown paler than she was before. Her eyes,large, dilated, and dark, were fixed upon him with an intensity of gazewhich almost startled him. He thought that she was about to faint, thatthe emotions of the past half hour had been too much for her overstrungnerves. He took her hand, and gently dragged her into the living-room.
She sank into a chair, as if utterly weary and exhausted, and he,forgetting his danger, forgetting the world and all else besides, kneltat her feet, and held her hands in his.
She sat bolt upright, her great eyes still fixed upon him. At first itseemed as if he could not be satiated with looking at her; he felt as ifhe had never, never really seen her. She had been a dream of beauty tohim ever since that awful afternoon when he had held her, half fainting,in his arms, and had dragged her under the shelter of his roof.
From that hour he had worshipped her: she had cast over him the magicspell of her refinement, her beauty, that aroma of youth and innocencewhich makes such a strong appeal to the man of sentiment.
He had worshipped her and not tried to understand. He would have deemedit almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her inner self, of thatsecond nature in her which at times made her silent, and almost morose,and cast a lurid gloom over her young beauty.
And though his love for her had grown in intensity, it had remained asheaven born as he deemed her to be--the love of a mortal for a saint,the ecstatic adoration of a St Francis for his Madonna.
Sir Percy Blakeney had called Deroulede an idealist. He was that, in thestrictest sense, and Juliette had embodied all that was best in hisidealism.
It was for the first time to-day, that he had held her hand just for amoment longer than mere conventionality allowed. The first kiss on herfinger-tips had sent the blood rushing wildly to his heart; but he stillworshipped her, and gazed upon her as upon a divinity.
She sat bolt upright in the chair, abandoning her small, cold hands tohis burning grasp.
His very senses ached with the longing to clasp her in his arms, to drawher to him, and to feel her pulses beat closer against his. It wasalmost torture now to gaze upon her beauty--that small, oval face,almost like a child's, the large eyes which at times had seemed to beblue but which now appeared to be a deep, unfathomable colour, like thetempestuous sea.
"Juliette!" he murmured at last, as his soul went out to her in apassionate appeal for the first kiss.
A shudder seemed to go through her entire frame, her very lips turnedwhite and cold, and he, not understanding, timorous, chivalrous andhumble, thought that she was repelled by his ardour and frightened by apassion to which she was too pure to respond.
Nothing but that one word had been spoken--just her name, an appeal froma strong man, overmastered at last by his boundless love--and she, poor,stricken soul, who had so much loved, so deeply wronged him, shudderedat the thought of what she might have done, had Fate not helped her tosave him.
Half ashamed of his passion, he bowed his dark head over her hands, and,once more forcing himself to be calm now, he kissed her finger-tipsreverently.
When he looked up again the hard lines in her face had softened, and twotears were slowly trickling down her pale cheeks.
"Will you forgive me, madonna?" he said gently. "I am only a man and youare very beautiful. No--don't take your little hands away. I am quitecalm now, and know how one should speak to angels."
Reason, justice, rectitude--everything was urging Juliette to close herears to the words of love, spoken by the man whom she had betrayed. Butwho shall blame her for listening to the sweetest sound the ears of awoman can ever hear--the sound of the voice of the loved one in hisfirst declaration of love?
She sat and listened, whilst he whispered to her those soft, endearingwords, of which a strong man alone possesses the enchanting secret.
She sat and listened, whilst all around her was still. Madame Deroulede,at the farther end of the room, was softly muttering a few prayers.
They were all alone these two in the mad and beautiful world, which manhas created for himself--the world of romance--that world more wonderfulthan any heaven, where only those may enter who have learned the sweetlesson of love. Deroulede roamed in it at will. He had created his ownromance, wherein he was as a humble worshipper, spending his life in theservice of his madonna.
And she too forgot the earth, forgot the reality, her oath, her crimeand its punishment, and began to think that it was good to live, good tolove, and good to have at her feet the one man in all the world whom shecould fondly worship.
Who shall tell what he whispered? Enough that she listened and that shesmiled; and he, seeing her smile, felt happy.