Dross Part 9

"Have you no heart?" he cried, stamping his foot on the mossy turf, "that you always laugh when I am serious--have you no heart, Lucille?"

"I do not know what you mean by heart," answered the girl with a little frown, as if the subject did not please her. And wiser men than Alphonse Giraud could not have enlightened her.

"Then you are incapable of feeling," he cried, spreading out his hands as if in invocation to the trees to hear him.

"That may be, but I do not see that it is proved by the fact that I am not always grave. You, yourself, are gay enough when others are by, and it is then that I like you best. It is only when we are alone that you are--tragic. Is that--heart, Alphonse? And are those who laugh heartless? I doubt it."

"You know I love you," he muttered gloomily, and the expression on his round face did not seem at home there.

"Well," she answered, with a severity gathered heaven knows whence--I cannot think they taught it to her in the convent--"you have told me so twice since you became aware of my continued existence at the ball last month. But you are hopelessly serious to-day. Let us go back to the terrace."

She stooped and picked up an orange that had fallen, throwing it subsequently along the smooth turf for her dog to chase.

"See," she said gaily, "Talleyrand will scarcely trouble to run now.

He is so stout and dignified. He is afraid that the country dogs should see him. It is Paris. Paris spoils--so much."

"You know my father's plans concerning us," said Alphonse, after a pause, which served to set aside Talleyrand and the orange.

"The Baron's plans are, I am told, wonderful, but"--she paused and gave a little laugh--"I do not understand finance."

They walked up the steps together, between the trim borders, where spring flowers were already breaking into bud. On the terrace they found the Vicomtesse and the Baron Giraud. A servant was going towards the house carrying carelessly a small silver salver. The Baron was standing with an unopened envelope in his hand.

"You will permit me, Madame," they heard him say with his strident little self-satisfied laugh. "A man of affairs is the slave of the moment. And the affairs of state are never still. A great country moves even in its sleep."

Having the permission of Madame, he tore open the envelope, enjoying the importance of the moment. But his face changed as soon as his glance fell on the paper.

"The government has fallen," he gasped, with white lips and a face wherefrom the colour faded in blotches. He seemed to forget the ladies, and looked only at his son. "It may mean--much. I must go to Paris at once. The place is in an uproar. Mon Dieu--where will it end!"

He excused himself hurriedly, and in a few minutes his carriage rattled through the grey stone gateway.

"An uproar in Paris," repeated Lucille, anxiously, when she was alone with her mother. "What does he mean? Is there any danger? Will papa be safe?"

"Yes," answered the Vicomtesse quietly; "he will be safe, I think."

Chapter VIII

In Paris

"Le plus grand art d'un habile homme est celui de savior cacher son habilete."

It will be necessary to dwell to a certain extent on those events of the great world that left their mark on the obscure lives of which the present history treats. An old man may be excused for expressing his opinion--or rather his agreement with the opinions of greater minds--that our little existence here on earth is but part of a great scheme--that we are but p.a.w.ns moved hither and thither on a vast chess-board, and that, while our vision is often obscured by some knight or bishop or king, whose neighbourhood overshadows us, yet our presence may affect the greater moves as certainly as we are affected by them.

I first became aware of the fact that my existence was amenable to every political wind that might blow a week or so after Lucille went to La Pauline, without, indeed, vouchsafing an explanation of her sudden coldness.

In my study I was one evening smoking, and, I admit it, thinking of Lucille--thinking very practically, however. For I was reflecting with satisfaction over some small improvements I had effected--with a Norfolk energy which, no doubt, gave offence to some--during the short time that the Vicomte and I had pa.s.sed in the Provencal chateau. I had the pleasant conviction that Lucille's health could, at all events, come to no harm from a residence in one of the oldest castles in France. No very lover-like reflections, the high-flown will cry. So be it. Each must love in his own way. "Air and water--air and water!" the Vicomte had cried when he saw the men at work under my directions.

"You Englishmen are mad on the subject."

While I was engaged in these thoughts the old gentleman came to my room, and in the next few minutes made known to me a new and unsuspected side of his character. His manner was singularly alert. He seemed to be years younger.

"I said I should want a man at my side--young and strong," he began, seating himself. "Let us understand each other, Mr. Howard."

"By all means."

He gave a little laugh, and leaning forward took a quill pen from my writing-table, disliking idle fingers while he talked.

"That time has come, my friend. Do you mean to stand by me?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LET US UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER, MR. HOWARD."]

"Yes."

"You are a man of few words," he answered, looking at me with a new keenness which sat strangely on his benign features. "But I want no more. The government has fallen--the doctors say the Emperor's life is not worth that!"

And he snapped his finger and thumb, glancing at the clock. It was eight o'clock. We had dined at half-past six.

"Can you come with me now? I want to show you the state of Paris--the condition of the people, the way of their thoughts. One cannot know too much of the ... people--for they will some day rule the world."

"And rule it devilish badly," I added, putting my papers together.

"We shall be late in returning," the Vicomte said to the servant who held the carriage door. I had heard--through my thoughts--the stamping of the horses in the courtyard and the rattle of the harness, but took no great note of them, as the Vicomte had the habit of going out in the evening. I noticed we never crossed the river during our silent drive. A river has two sides, just as a street, and one of them is usually in the shade. It was among the shadows that our business lay this evening.

"You know," said the Vicomte, as we climbed the narrow staircase of a quiet house in the neighbourhood of the great wine stores that adjoin the Jardin des Plantes--"you know that this is the day of the talkers--the Rocheforts, the Pyats--the windbags. Mon Dieu, what nonsense! But a windbag may burst and do harm. One must watch these gentry."

Republicanism was indeed in the air at this time. And has not history demonstrated that those who cry loudest for a commonwealth are such as wish to draw from that wealth and add nothing to it? The reddest Republican is always the man who has nothing to lose and all to gain by a social upheaval.

I was not surprised, therefore, when we found ourselves in a room full of bad hats and unkempt heads. A voice was shouting their requirements. I knew that they wanted a wash more than anything else.

The room was a large, low one, and looked larger through an atmosphere blue with smoke and the fumes of absinthe. The Vicomte--a little man, as I have said--slipped in unperceived. I was less fortunate, being of a higher stature. I saw that my advent did not pa.s.s un.o.bserved on the platform, where a party of patriots sat in a row, like the Christy Minstrels, showing the soles of their boots to all whom it might concern. In this case a working cobbler would have been deeply interested, as in a vast field of labour. The Vicomte slipped a few yards away from me, and the shoulders of his fellow-countrymen obscured him. I could find no such retreat, for your true Socialist never has much to recommend him to the notice of society, being usually a poor, mean man to look at, who seeks to add a cubit to his stature by encouraging the growth of his hair.

One such stood on the platform, mouthing the bloodthirsty periods of his creed. He caught sight of me.

"Ah!" he cried, "here is a new disciple. And a hardy one! _Un grand gaillard_, my brethren, who can strike a solid blow for liberty, equality and fraternity. Say, brother, you are with us; is it not so?"

"If you open the cas.e.m.e.nts, not otherwise," I answered. The French crowd is ever ready for blood or laughter. I have seen the Republic completely set in the background by a cat looking in a window and giving voice to the one word a.s.signed to it by nature. Some laughed now, and the orator deemed it wise to leave me in peace. I took advantage of my obscurity to look around me, and was duly edified by what I saw. The Paris _vaurien_ is worth less than any man on earth, and these were choice specimens from the gutter.

We were wasting our time in such a galley, and as I thus reflected a note was slipped into my hand.

"Follow me, but not at once." I read and hid the paper in my pocket.

Without staring about me too much, I watched the Vicomte make his way towards a door half hidden by a dirty curtain--another to that by which we had entered. Thither I followed him after a decent interval--no one molesting me. One of the patriots on the platform seemed to watch me with understanding, and when I reached the curtained doorway, my glance meeting his, he dismissed me with his eyelids.

I found myself in a dark pa.s.sage, and with his gentle laugh the Vicomte took my arm.

"All that out there," he whispered, "is a mere blind. It is in the inner room that they act. Out there they merely talk. Come with me.

Gently--there are two steps--my dear Howard. These are the men--he paused with his fingers on the handle of a door--who will rule France when the Emperor is dead or deposed."