CHAPTER VII
A warning.
Sir Percy bowed very low, with all the graceful flourish and elaborategesture the eccentric customs of the time demanded.
He had not said a word, since the first exclamation of warning, withwhich he had drawn his friend's attention to the young girl in thedoorway.
Noiselessly, as she had come, Juliette glided out of the room again,leaving behind her an atmosphere of wild flowers, of the bouquet she hadgathered, then scattered in the woods.
There was silence in the room for awhile. Deroulede was locking up hisdesk and slipping the keys into his pocket.
"Shall we join my mother for a moment, Blakeney?" he said, movingtowards the door.
"I shall be proud to pay my respects," replied Sir Percy; "but before weclose the subject, I think I'll change my mind about those papers. If Iam to be of service to you I think I had best look through them, andgive you my opinion of your schemes."
Deroulede looked at him keenly for a moment.
"Certainly," he said at last, going up to his desk. "I'll stay with youwhilst you read them through."
"La! not to-night, my friend," said Sir Percy lightly; "the hour islate, and madame is waiting for us. They'll be quite safe with me, andyou'll entrust them to my care."
Deroulede seemed to hesitate. Blakeney had spoken in his usual airymanner, and was even now busy readjusting the set of hisperfectly-tailored coat.
"Perhaps you cannot quite trust me?" laughed Sir Percy gaily. "I seemedtoo lukewarm just now."
"No; it's not that, Blakeney!" said Deroulede quietly at last. "There isno mistrust in me, all the mistrust is on your side."
"Faith!--" began Sir Percy.
"Nay! do not explain. I understand and appreciate your friendship, but Ishould like to convince you how unjust is your mistrust of one of God'spurest angels, that ever walked the earth."
"Oho! that's it, is it, friend Deroulede? Methought you had foreswornthe sex altogether, and now you are in love."
"Madly, blindly, stupidly in love, my friend," said Deroulede with asigh. "Hopelessly, I fear me!"
"Why hopelessly?"
"She is the daughter of the late Duc de Marny, one of the oldest namesin France; a Royalist to the backbone ..."
"Hence your overwhelming sympathy for the Queen!"
"Nay! you wrong me there, friend. I'd have tried to save the Queen, evenif I had never learned to love Juliette. But you see now how unjust wereyour suspicions."
"Had I any?"
"Don't deny it. You were loud in urging me to burn those papers a momentago. You called them useless and dangerous and now ..."
"I still think them useless and dangerous, and by reading them wouldwish to confirm my opinion and give weight to my arguments."
"If I were to part from them now I would seem to be mistrusting her."
"You are a mad idealist, my dear Deroulede!"
"How can I help it? I have lived under the same roof with her for threeweeks now. I have begun to understand what a saint is like."
"And 'twill be when you understand that your idol has feet of clay thatyou'll learn the real lesson of love," said Blakeney earnestly.
"Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, whohovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as yougaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, ourequal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp onewoman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do,suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sinswith us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if shehave not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall atthe feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level afterthat--the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart."
Who shall render faithfully a true account of the magnetism which pouredforth from this remarkable man as he spoke: this well-dressed, foppishapostle of the greatest love that man has ever known. And as he spokethe whole story of his own great, true love for the woman who once hadso deeply wronged him seemed to stand clearly written in the strong,lazy, good-humoured, kindly face glowing with tenderness for her.
Deroulede felt this magnetism, and therefore did not resent the impliedsuggestion, anent the saint whom he was still content to worship.
A dreamer and an idealist, his mind held spellbound by the great socialproblems which were causing the upheaval of a whole country, he had notyet had the time to learn the sweet lesson which Nature teaches to herelect--the lesson of a great, a true, human and passionate love. To him,at present, Juliette represented the perfect embodiment of his mostidealistic dreams. She stood in his mind so far above him that if sheproved unattainable, he would scarce have suffered. It was such aforegone conclusion.
Blakeney's words were the first to stir in his heart a desire forsomething beyond that quasi-mediaeval worship, something weaker and yetinfinitely stronger, something more earthy and yet almost divine.
"And now, shall we join the ladies?" said Blakeney after a long pause,during which the mental workings of his alert brain were almost visible,in the earnest look which he cast at his friend. "You shall keep thepapers in your desk, give them into the keeping of your saint, trust herall in all rather than not at all, and if the time should come that yourheaven-enthroned ideal fall somewhat heavily to earth, then give me theprivilege of being a witness to your happiness."
"You are still mistrustful, Blakeney," said Deroulede lightly. "If yousay much more I'll give these papers into Mademoiselle Marny's keepinguntil to-morrow."