She did not smile when he stood at the foot of the rocks and gazed up at her. She swayed towards him, bending her neck, the copper curls streaming over it, and she gave him her hand. It was cool and soft in his own, and at its touch a stream of fire seemed to burst through his flesh in a very agony of expanding joy. Her eyes bent down into his, flecked with light, so that their brown hue was invaded with sparkles of vivid gold. Her soft rosy lips parted and she sighed.
She had become so frail that her flesh appeared to be translucent, and the febrile glow of her spirit pervaded it. With the sharp and searing prescience of passionate love, Louis felt a pang of sudden dread and anguish, of impending loss which filled him with black terror, with violent denial, with a soundless and howling cry. He pressed her hand to his lips, wildly kissing the palm, each finger, and finally, the fragile white wrist in which the veins pulsed with a desperate life. He felt the leaflike touch of her other hand as she laid it upon his bent head. And then, in a moment, she had drawn that head convulsively to her breast, and held it there in one supreme gesture of pure love.
And so they stood there, clasped together like flesh fused into one being, and Louis heard the soaring tremor of her heart. One by one, warm drops fell from her eyes upon his cheek. He felt infinite pity and gentleness in her, the most delicate of passions, the most tender of understanding. The terror had him still, but in her arms it was part of the ecstasy of his love.
They did not speak. They sat down together, still embracing, and now her head rested on his shoulder. They looked into the far green distances, darker now, for the sun had fallen behind a cloud. The shade was duskier, more unfathomable, more withdrawn under the earth, more motionless. His spirit was part of it, still throbbing with suffering, but so pervaded with peace and rapture that it was like a pain felt under opiates. There was nothing else in all eternity but those strange immobile shadows and silences, drawn up like impenetrable cloudy barriers between them and the world, shutting them off forever from weariness and loneliness.
He played with one of her shining curls. Its substance clung lovingly to his fingers. He kissed its perfumed length, until he approached her lips. Their mouths met simply, inevitably, with purity and sweetness.
At last, he tried to speak, but she laid her trembling fingers on his lips. She smiled through the tears that filled her eyes.
“No,” she whispered, “let us say nothing.”
Moments glided into an hour, and into another, and they sat there, not moving except for gentle caresses. Everything else had fallen into nothingness, had ceased to exist.
CHAPTER XXI
Monsieur le Marquis du Vaubon slid deeper and deeper under his silken coverlets until only his tiny malicious eyes peered over the edges. He was acutely uncomfortable; a sharp cleft appeared between his dyed brows. But there was vitriolic and uneasy reflection in the glances he kept darting his son, Louis, who sat near windows whose silken curtains kept out the hot morning sun.
It was one of the marquis’ most sacred beliefs that the morning hours were inviolate, sacrosanct, and no person of delicacy and discretion would presume to invade them. During these hours the exhausted constitution could refresh itself, hidden away under bed-draperies and curtains, with perhaps a cool damp cloth upon a feverish and aching brow. Then, a man desired only a lackey shod with silence, who ministered with downcast eyes and voiceless tongue. Later, perhaps, a massage, a hot potion, a spraying with refreshing cologne, another period of relaxation, and a man was ready once more to face the world.
The marquis’ indignation mounted. It was bad enough to experience pangs of acute nausea, and to have a taste in the mouth like the underside of a cow’s hoof; it was worse to have this period invaded by one who, at the best of times, did nothing to exhilarate a man or raise his spirits. Louis had known for years that his father never received any one before the sun was well on its way towards sunset. Yet, this morning, he had come here with cold imperturbability, and had insisted on seeing his father. Now he sat near the windows, silent, his calm chaste hands folded on the knee of his black robe, his large quiet eyes meeting those of the marquis with absolutely no expression at all in them!
However, the speculation increased in the marquis’ aching mind. There was something strange in this abominable Louis this morning. Something less rigid, less marble-like, less implacable. At moments there was a softness, a gentleness, almost imploring, in his glances, a timid questioning. He even gave indications of a desire to speak shyly and impulsively, but these indications were silenced under the marquis’ irate and irritable looks. More surprising than all else, however, that pale and immobile countenance appeared almost human, and there were times when the faintest and most irresolute smiles touched those large smooth lips which actually seemed formed of flesh for the first time.
“There was no necessity to force yourself upon me so early in the day!” exclaimed the marquis, peevishly, for the second time. “There is no comprehension in you, Louis, no subtlety. Arsène has not yet returned from the hunt, but you might easily have waited for him in his apartments without disturbing me.”
“It is nearly three o’clock,” replied Louis, in that gentle voice he always reserved for his father. The marquis was amazed to hear the note of apology in that voice, a rare thing for Louis. “You usually rise long before this hour.”
“But not today,” said the marquis, wincing as Louis’ arm disturbed a drapery at the window, and thus admitted a brief hot dagger of sunlight. “I am not well,” continued the marquis, with rising petulance and irritability. “You were told this.”
A shadow of alarm touched Louis’ face. He rose and approaćhed the bed, his black garments falling heavily about him. Armand slid an inch or two lower under his coverlets; his eyes glared reproachfully over their edge at his son. He felt some angry embarrassment. His vanity was so intense that he could not endure his son to observe how raddled and debauched he appeared even in this dim light. He was further outraged and astounded when Louis dared to lay his cool firm hand on the older man’s brow to test its feverishness.
Armand angrily struck aside that hand. But Louis was not offended. He was too concerned. He said, in a very measured and thoughtful voice: “A man of your years, my father, should exercise more discretion. One does not ask you to become a monk, but an earlier retirement a few nights a week, a little less dancing and exertion—”
But this was too much for Armand. He sat up in bed, the ruffled white silk of his nightshirt revealing too starkly his dark and withered flesh and the cadaver-like hue and substance of his face, still heavily caked with rouge and powder from the night before. Though the gloom in the chamber was very thick, Louis could see what was to be seen, and he was horrified, and sickened.
“‘A man of my years!’” screamed the marquis, for a moment apparently about to rise from his bed and fall upon Louis with murderous intent. His black eyes were malignantly alive, like leaping beetles darting about. “How dare you, you eunuch of a priest, you piece of misbegotten stone, you white-faced Jesuit!”
Louis was accustomed to abuse from his father, but for some reason this morning it affected him visibly. He retired to his chair and sat down. But he kept his face turned to the screaming man on the bed, and there was a strange and melancholy look upon it. He listened in silence to the screams of obscene and hating words that gushed like jets of vitriol from those writhing lips, upon which spots of paint still lingered like bleeding scabs. And for the first time, he seemed to hear those words, and they seemed to burn into his heart, for at last he averted his head and allowed it to drop upon his breast.
Even Armand, in his transports of embarrassed and outraged fury, became aware, after some moments, of Louis’ inexplicable attitude. Nevertheless, he hated the sight of his son, and even his curiosity could not quiet that hatred. He cried out, before subsiding under the coverlets: “Begone! Morbleu, if I were not ill before, I am of a certainty ill now!”
Louis rose, in all his majesty and handsome di
gnity. He was even paler than before. “I shall await Arsène in his apartments,” he said, quietly. “I ought to have done that in the beginning, without disturbing you.”
He traversed the long shining expanse of the floor, and Armand watched his passage, glittering-eyed, panting. Then curiosity, and apprehension, made him exclaim: “Why, then did you annoy me, you fool?”
Louis, his hand on the handle of the door, paused without turning. He said: “I have a message of importance for Arsène. I thought you might be interested. Too, peculiar as it may seem, I wished to have a few moments’ conversation with you, alone.”
But Armand had heard only the first words, and his hidden and chronic fear rose up in him, clamoring. He had long believed that in Louis lived an implicit danger to his beloved Arsène. He wrenched himself up once more in his bed.
“Stay,” he said, sharply. Louis slowly turned, but did not advance again into the chamber. Cold dignity had fallen like a stony mask over his features again.
Armand surveyed him with active uneasiness, his head thrust forward the better to aid his vision in that sultry and perfumed gloom. He licked his dry and scabrous lips. “Give me the message, and I shall relay it to Arsène.” He smiled evilly, his countenance wrinkling. “Then you can return to those mysterious pursuits which absorb the attention of priests.”
“The message is for Arsène,” answered Louis, with quietness. “His Eminence wishes to see him in an audience tomorrow morning.”’
A pange of hysterical fright pierced Armand. But he made himself smile derisively. “‘A matter of importance!’ A letter would have been sufficient. But it is your way, and the ways of all the rascals of your calling, to attach weighty significance to everything.” His voice was goading, his manner contemptuous, but the fear in his piercing regard did not lessen.
“The message is harmless, and courteous enough,” assented Louis. “But I wished to speak to Arsène at some length about it. His Eminence gave me some hint about the purpose of the audience, and I desired to impart my conclusions to my brother, for his own good.”
“Do not stand there like a cursed spectre!” shrilled Armand. “Mon Dieu, my blood is cold enough!”
Louis returned to his chair. The faintest of cold and bitter smiles curved his lips, which once more seemed formed of marble.
Armand wet his lips, his darting eyes fixed on Louis. “What is the purpose of this audience?” he asked, scornfully.
Louis shrugged almost imperceptibly. “It would be too exhausting to impart it to you, my father, and then to Arsène. But perhaps, after I have seen Arsène, and have gone, he will repeat it to you.” He smiled again, with subtle comprehension.
This did nothing to alleviate Armand’s womanish alarm. He was certain that something sinister was inherent in Louis’ remarks. He plucked feverishly at the ruffles of his throat with his thin veined hand, and tried to penetrate the icy layer that covered Louis’ face.
Knowing his son’s detestation for Arsène, Armand concluded that safety for Arsène lay in placating this formidable and terrible young priest. Now he recalled Louis’ words before he had attempted to leave the chamber. He forced a languid and exhausted expression upon his countenance, lay back upon his pillows, whimpered, and sighed, closing his eyes.
“You are annoying, Louis,” he murmured. “Nevertheless, I apologize for my hasty—remarks, a moment or two ago. I am distrait. I have suffered some mysterious but miserable malaise for the past few days. My physician finds nothing alarming in my condition, however,” he added, hastily, cringing at a movement from Louis which indicated that the young priest might arise again and approach the bed. “But I have thought that a few days’ rest, perhaps, or a month or two, on the estates, might have a salutary effect upon me. This has been an unusually arduous season at Court, for one of my delicate constitution.”
“I cannot urge you too strongly to visit the estates,” agreed Louis, gravely. “Arsène has shown no overpowering interest in them, though they are his inheritance.”
At the note of contempt in Louis’ words, Armand’s eyes flew open with a virulent glare. However, he choked back the words hastily. With hypocrisy, he inclined his head, and replied: “Certes, you are correct, Louis! Arsène is somewhat too frivolous. I shall have a conversation with him very soon. I shall insist that he accompany me.”
Louis was greatly surprised. He could not remember when his father had shown him such consideration, and had listened with such interest. He moved upon his chair and directed a long and even eager look upon Armand. Armand, from his cushions, smiled amiably, though his eyelids contracted with the pain in his head.
“I seem to recall that you mentioned wishing to have a conversation with me, Louis,” he said, tentatively.
At this, Louis’ expression changed again with a sort of agitation. He did not flush, but the opaque quality of his face lightened, and became intangibly softened. He rose, abruptly, and glanced about him as if confused. Then, as if there was no conscious effort in the gesture, he unloosened his black outer robe and laid it aside, standing before his father in his black doublet and white shirt. Now he had the aspect, not of a gownsman, but one of those Puritan Englishmen whose soberness of garment gave them an appearance of lofty dignity and austerity. This was heightened by his fair coloring, the large and impassive outlines of his features, and the mountain blue of his eyes.
There was no rigidity in Louis’ manner as he stood at the foot of his father’s bed, gazing at him with shy eagerness, unable to find words to express the faint stirring within him.
Unnerved at this, the older man fumbled on the table at his bedside for his snuffbox. He helped himself to a pinch of snuff, and, to escape his son’s hopeful regard, he pretended to examine with interest the cover of the box, as if he had never seen it before. He smiled maliciously, and with enjoyment, for there was portrayed on the box, in brilliant enamel and gold, the most audaciously debauched duo. The figures of man and woman were exquisite in their minute naked beauty, the colors delightful and true, the attitudes, though intimate, full of grace. Arsène had given this as a gift to his father on his last birthday, and Armand had enjoyed it, received it with delight. For a moment, Armand forgot Louis, standing in mute and eager supplication at the foot of the bed. He found the female figure especially entrancing, and he remembered how the Cardinal, always the lover of the exquisite and the unusual, had admired it, with laughter. Remembering the Cardinal, he remembered Louis, and furtively replaced the box on the table in an inconspicuous position.
But Louis, the innocent, had seen the gesture. There was something infinitely pathetic in his look when he approached the table and picked up the box. The act was instinctive. He had seen how his father had smiled, and he wanted to share in the happy secret of this smile, believing that this would draw them closer together. Armand, seeing Louis’ purpose, thrust out his hand to conceal the box, then, grinning malevolently, he withdrew his hand and allowed Louis to pick up the object.
Louis held the glittering box in his hands, and stared silently at what was depicted upon it. Armand waited, regarding his son with that venomous grin. He was prepared for a freezing start, for an exclamation of cold disgust and shame. But Louis, though flushing, did not recoil, and if there was, for an instant, the beginnings of a gesture of revulsion, it passed without being perceptible.
“Arsène gave this to me,” murmured Armand, wickedly. Louis turned it about in his fingers. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, actually with a smile: “My brother has a strange sense of humor.”
His color had increased to a bright red. He seemed to forget Armand. He gazed at the tiny and brilliant picture on the cover. A moistness crept over his cheeks and brow. When he laid down the box, his hand was trembling. He tried to speak again, and could not. Armand, astonished and gaping, looked at him.
At last Louis spoke, in a low trembling voice, his eyes fixed eagerly on his father’s face, as if he were imploring him.
“All my life,” he s
aid, “I have been unable to approach another human being. Perhaps it was a certain difficulty in my own temperament. Perhaps it was a certain inclination in me to withdraw from other men. I do not know. But now I realize what has been so miserably lacking in my existence. I have not desired to withdraw, to flee, to draw aside. No!” he exclaimed, on a rising and vehement note. “I have always desired to approach and to be approached, to be understood, to be part of life and laughter. I can see that I was always afraid, that it was my fear that kept me mute and isolated. I do not know why. I only know it is so. But now I know that my fear is the cause of my misery, my loneliness.”
He paused. Armand was staring at him incredulously. Louis lifted his hands, then dropped them to his sides.
“I have not wished to be isolated,” he said, almost inaudibly, but with a beseeching and despairing look.
Had one of the stone images in his garden opened its mouth and spoken to him in these strange accents and stranger words, Armand could not have been more astonished, more taken aback. Possessed of a certain perverse subtlety, he understood much of the new turmoil in his son. And slowly, as he regarded him, his malevolent cruelty awakened afresh, laughed in diabolical silence.
Ah, if only Arsène were here! he thought, deliciously. How he would laugh with me at this pious and pretentious fool! His mind rapidly formulated the words with which he would inform Arsène of this delightful scene, and his dry and painted lips writhed.
“Morbleu! You are not becoming sentimental, my Louis?” he murmured, with a long and evil look.
“Sentimental?” faltered Louis. The light in his eyes dwindled. He seemed to shrink.
Armand lifted a thin forefinger, and shook it archly.
“There are twinges in your soul, my dear Louis! I know these twinges!