Barlasch of the Guard Part 14

"And?" he asked, without looking at her.

"And he escaped."

"For the moment?"

"No; he has left Dantzig."

Something in her voice--the cold note of warning--made him glance uneasily at her. This was not a woman to be deceived, and yet she was womanly enough to fear deception and to resent her own fears, visiting her anger on any who aroused them. In the flash of an eye he understood her, and forestalled the words that were upon her lips.

"And I promised that he should come to no harm--I know that," he said quickly. "At first I thought that it must have been a blunder, but on reflection I am sure that it is not. It is the Emperor. He must have given the order for the arrest himself, behind my back. That is his way.

He trusts no one. He deceives those nearest to him. I made out the list of those to be arrested to-night, and your father's name was not on it.

Do you believe me? Mademoiselle, do you believe me?"

It was only natural in such a man to look for disbelief. The air he breathed was infected by suspicion. No deception was too small for the great man whom he served. Mathilde made no answer.

"You came here to accuse me of having deceived you," he said rather anxiously. "Is that it?"

She nodded without meeting his eyes. It was not the truth. She had come to hear his defence, hoping against hope that she might be able to believe him.

"Mathilde," he asked slowly, "do you believe me?"

He came a step nearer, looking down at her averted face, which was oddly white. Then suddenly she turned, without a sound, without lifting her eyes--and was in his arms. It seemed that she had done it against her will, and it took him by surprise. He had thought that she was trying to attract his love because she believed in his capability to make his fortune like so many soldiers of France; that she was only playing a woman's subtle game. And, after all, she was like the rest--a little cleverer, a little colder--but, like the rest.

While his arms were still round her, his quick mind leapt forward to the future, wondering already to what end this would lead them. For a moment he was taken aback. He was over the last of those barriers which are so easy from the outside and unclimbable from within. She had thrust into his hands a power greater than, for the moment, he knew how to wield. It was characteristic of him to think first whither it would lead him, and next how he could turn it to good account.

Some instinct told him that this was a different love from any that he had met before. The same instinct made him understand that it was crying aloud to be convinced; and, oddly enough, he had told her the truth.

"See," he said, "here is a copy of the list, and your father's name is not on it. See, here is Napoleon's letter, expressing satisfaction with my work here and in Konigsberg, where I have been served by an agent of my own choosing. Many have climbed to a throne with less than that letter for their first step. See...!" he opened another drawer. It was full of money.

"See, again!" he said with a low laugh, and from an iron chest he took two or three bags which fell upon the table with the discreet unmistakable c.h.i.n.k of gold. "That is the Emperor's. He trusts me, you see. These bags are mine. They are to be sent back to France before I follow the army to Russia. What I have told you is true, you see."

It was an odd way of wooing, but this man rarely made a mistake. There are many women who, like Mathilde Sebastian, are readier to love success than console failure.

"See," he said, after a moment's hesitation, opening another drawer in his writing-table, "before I went away I had intended to ask you to remember me."

As he spoke he drew a jewel-case from under some papers, and slowly opened it. He had others like it in the drawer; for emergencies.

"But I never hoped," he went on, "to have an opportunity of seeing you thus alone--to ask you never to forget me. You permit me?"

He clasped the diamonds round her throat, and they glittered on the poor, cheap dress, which was the best she had. She looked down at them with a catching breath, and for an instant the glitter was reflected in her eyes.

She had come asking for rea.s.surance, and he gave her diamonds; which is an old tale told over and over again. For in human love we have to accept not what we want, but what is given to us.

"No one in Dantzig," he said, "is so glad to hear that your father has escaped as I am."

And, with the glitter still lurking in her dark-grey eyes, she believed him. He drew her cloak round her, and gently brought her hood over her hair.

"I must take you home," he said tenderly, "without delay. And as we go through the streets you must tell me how it happened, and how you were able to come to me."

"Desiree was not asleep," she answered; "she was waiting for me to return, and told me at once. Then she went to bed, and I waited until she was asleep. It was she who managed the escape."

De Casimir, who was locking the drawers of his writing-table, glanced up sharply.

"Ah! but not alone?"

"No--not alone. I will tell you as we go through the streets."

CHAPTER XI. THE WAVE MOVES ON.

La meme fermete qui sert a resister a l'amour sert aussi a le rendre violent et durable.

It is only in war that the unexpected admittedly happens. In love and other domestic calamities there is always a relative who knew it all the time.

The news that Napoleon was in Vilna, hastily evacuated by the Russians in full retreat, came as a surprise and not to all as a pleasant one, in Dantzig.

It was Papa Barlasch who brought the tidings to the Frauenga.s.se, one hot afternoon in July. He returned before his usual hour, and sent Lisa upstairs, with a message given in dumb show and interpreted by her into matter-of-fact German, that he must see the young ladies without delay.

Far back in the great days of the monarchy, Papa Barlasch must have been a little child in a peasant's hut on those Cotes du Nord where they breed a race of Frenchmen startlingly similar to the hereditary foe across the Channel, where to this day the men kick off their sabots at the door and hold that an honest labourer has no business under a roof except in stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves.

Barlasch had never yet been upstairs in the Sebastians' house, and deemed it only respectful to the ladies to take off his boots on the mat, and prowl to the kitchen in coa.r.s.e blue woollen stockings, carefully darned by himself, under the scornful immediate eye of Lisa.

He was in the kitchen when Mathilde and Desiree, in obedience to his command, came downstairs. The floor in one corner of the room was littered with his belongings; for he never used the table. "He takes up no more room than a cat," Lisa once said of him. "I never fall over him."

"She leaves her greasy plates here and there," explained Barlasch in return. "One must think of one's self and one's uniform."

He was in his stocking-feet with unb.u.t.toned tunic when the two girls came to him.

"Ai, ai, ai," he said, imitating with his two hands the galloping of a horse. "The Russians," he explained confidentially.

"Has there been a battle?" asked Desiree.

And Barlasch answered "Pooh!" not without contempt for the female understanding.

"Then what is it?" she inquired. "You must remember we are not soldiers--we do not understand those manoeuvres--ai, ai, like that."

And she copied his gesture beneath his scowling contempt.

"It is Vilna," he said. "That is what it is. Then it will be Smolensk, and then Moscow. Ah, ah! That little man!"

He turned and took up his haversack.

"And I--I have my route. It is good-bye to the Frauenga.s.se. We have been friends. I told you we should be. It is good-bye to these ladies--and to that Lisa. Look at her!"

He pointed with his curved and derisive finger into Lisa's eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos in the sight of this rugged man--worn by travel, bent with hardship and many wounds, past his work--shouldering his haversack and trudging off to the war.