The Bronze Eagle Part 37

St. Genis had behaved like an abominable blackguard! this he gathered from what she said: he had lied like a mean skunk and betrayed the man who had rendered him an infinitely great service. Of him Clyffurde wouldn't even think! Such despicable, crawling worms did exist on G.o.d's earth: he knew that! but he possessed the happy faculty, the sunny disposition that is able to pa.s.s a worm by and ignore its existence while keeping his eyes fixed upon all that is beautiful in earth and in the sky. Of St. Genis, therefore, he would not think; some day, perhaps, he might be able to punish him--but not now--not while this poor, forlorn, heartsick girl pinned her implicit faith upon that wretched worm and bestowed on him the priceless guerdon of her love. An infinity of pity rose in his kindly heart for her and obscured every other emotion. That same pity he had felt for her before, a sweet, protecting pity--gentle sister to fiercer, madder love which had perhaps never been so strong as it was at this hour when, for the second time, he was about to make a supreme sacrifice for her.

That the sacrifice must be made, he already knew: knew it even when first St. Genis' name escaped her lips. She loved St. Genis and she believed in him, and he, Clyffurde, who loved her with every fibre of his being, with all the pa.s.sionate ardour of his lonely heart, could serve her no better than by accepting this awful humiliation which she put upon him. If he could have justified himself now, he would not have done it, not while she loved St. Genis, and he--Clyffurde--was less than nothing to her.

What did it matter after all what she thought of him? He would have given his life for her love, but short of that everything else was anyhow intolerable--her contempt, her hatred? what mattered? since to-night anyhow he would pa.s.s out of her life for ever.

He was ready for the sacrifice--sacrifice of pride, of honour, of peace of mind--but he did want to know that that sacrifice would be really needed and that when made it would not be in vain: and in order to gain this end he put a final question to her:

"One moment, Mademoiselle," he said, "before you go will you tell me one thing at least; was it M. de St. Genis himself who accused me of treachery?"

"There is no reason why I should deny it, Sir," she replied coldly. "It was M. de St. Genis himself who gave to my father and to me a full account of the interview which he had with you at a lonely inn, some few kilometres from Lyons, and less than two hours after we had been shamefully robbed on the highroad of money that belonged to the King."

"And did M. de St. Genis tell you, Mademoiselle, that I purposed to use that money for mine own ends?"

"Or for those of the Corsican," she retorted impatiently. "I care not which. Yes! Sir, M. de St. Genis told me that with his own lips and when I had heard the whole miserable story of your duplicity and your treachery, I--a helpless, deceived and feeble woman--did then and there register a vow that I too would do you some grievous wrong one day--a wrong as great as you had done not only to the King of France but to me and to my father who trusted you as we would a friend. What you did to-night has of course altered the irrevocableness of my vow. I owe, perhaps, my father's life to your timely intervention and for this I must be grateful, but . . ."

Her voice broke in a kind of pa.s.sionate sob, and it took her a moment or two to recover herself, even while Clyffurde stood by, mute and with well-nigh broken heart, his very soul so filled with sorrow for her that there was no room in it even for resentment.

"Father let us go now," Crystal said after a while with brusque transition and in a steady voice; "no purpose can be served by further recriminations."

"None, my dear," said the Comte in his usual polished manner.

"Personally I have felt all along that explanations could but aggravate the unpleasantness of the present position. Mr. Clyffurde understands perfectly, I am sure. He had his axe to grind--whether personal or political we really do not care to know--we are not likely ever to meet again. All we can do now is to thank him for his timely intervention on our behalf and . . ."

"And brand him a liar," broke in Clyffurde almost involuntarily and with bitter vehemence.

"Your pardon, Monsieur," retorted the Comte coldly, "neither my daughter nor I have done that. It is your deeds that condemn you, your own admissions and the word of M. de St. Genis. Would you perchance suggest that he lied?"

"Oh, no," rejoined Clyffurde with perfect calm, "it is I who lied, of course."

He had said this very slowly and as if speaking with mature deliberation: not raising his voice, nor yet allowing it to quiver from any stress of latent emotion. And yet there was something in the tone of it, something in the man's att.i.tude, that suggested such a depth of pa.s.sion that, quite instinctively, the Comte remained silent and awed.

For the moment, however, Clyffurde seemed to have forgotten the older man's presence; wounded in every fibre of his being by the woman whom he loved so tenderly and so devotedly, he had spoken only to her, compelling her attention and stirring--even by this simple admission of a despicable crime--an emotion in her which she could not--would not define.

She turned large inquiring eyes on him, into which she tried to throw all that she felt of hatred and contempt for him. She had meant to wound him and it seemed indeed as if she had succeeded beyond her dearest wish. By the dim, flickering light of the street-lamp his face looked haggard and old. The traitor was suffering almost as much as he deserved, almost as much--Crystal said obstinately to herself--as she had wished him to do. And yet, at sight of him now, Crystal felt a strong, unconquerable pity for him: the womanly instinct no doubt to heal rather than to hurt.

But this pity she was not prepared to show him: she wanted to pa.s.s right out of his life, to forget once and for all that sense of warmth of the soul, of comfort and of peace which she had felt in his presence on that memorable evening at Brestalou. Above all, she never wanted to touch his hand again, the hand which seemed to have such power to protect and to shield her, when on that same evening she had placed her own in it.

Therefore, now she took her father's arm once more: she turned resolutely to go. One more curt nod of the head, one last look of undying enmity, and then she would pa.s.s finally out of his life for ever.

V

How Clyffurde got back to his lodgings that night he never knew.

Crystal, after his final admission, had turned without another word from him, and he had stood there in the lonely, silent street watching her retreating form--on her father's arm--until the mist and gloom swallowed her up as in an elvish grave. Then mechanically he hunted for his hat and he, too, walked away.

That was the end of his life's romance, of course. The woman whom he loved with his very soul, who held his heart, his mind, his imagination captive, whose every look on him was joy, whose every smile was a delight, had gone out of his life for ever! She had turned away from him as she would from a venomous snake! she hated him so cruelly that she would gladly hurt him--do him some grievous wrong if she could. And Clyffurde was left in utter loneliness with only a vague, foolish longing in his heart--the longing that one day she might have her wish, and might have the power to wound him to death--bodily just as she had wounded him to the depth of his soul to-night.

For the rest there was nothing more for him to do in France. King Louis was not like to remain at Lille very long: within twenty-four hours probably he would continue his journey--his flight--to Ghent--where once more he would hold his court in exile, with all the fugitive royalists rallied around his tottering throne.

Clyffurde had already received orders from his chief at the Intelligence Department to report himself first at Lille, then--if the King and court had already left--at Ghent. If, however, there were plenty of men to do the work of the Department it was his intention to give up his share in it and to cross over to England as soon as possible, so as to take up the first commission in the new army that he could get. England would be wanting soldiers more urgently than she had ever done before: mother and sisters would be well looked after: he--Bobby--had earned a fortune for them, and they no longer needed a bread-winner now: whilst England wanted all her sons, for she would surely fight.

Clyffurde, who had seen the English papers that morning--as they were brought over by an Intelligence courier--had realised that the debates in Parliament could only end one way.

England would not tolerate Bonaparte; she would not even tolerate his abdication in favour of his own son. Austria had already declared her intention of renewing the conflict and so had Prussia. England's decision would, of course, turn the scale, and Bobby in his own mind had no doubt which way that decision would go.

The man whom the people of France loved, and whom his army idolised, was the disturber of the peace of Europe. No one would believe his protestations of pacific intentions now: he had caused too much devastation, too much misery in the past--who would believe in him for the future?

For the sake of that past, and for dread of the future, he must go--go from whence he could not again return, and Bobby Clyffurde--remembering Gren.o.ble, remembering Lyons, Villefranche and Nevers--could not altogether suppress a sigh of regret for the brave man, the fine genius, the reckless adventurer who had so boldly scaled for the second time the heights of the Capitol, oblivious of the fact that the Tarpeian Rock was so dangerously near.

VI

At this same hour when Bobby Clyffurde finally bade adieu to all the vague hopes of happiness which his love for Crystal de Cambray had engendered in his heart, his whilom companion in the long ago--rival and enemy now--Victor de Marmont, was laying a tribute of twenty-five million francs at the feet of his beloved Emperor, and receiving the thanks of the man to serve whom he would gladly have given his life.

"What reward shall we give you for this service?" the Emperor had deigned to ask.

"The means to subdue a woman's pride, Sire, and make her thankful to marry me," replied de Marmont promptly.

"A t.i.tle, what?" queried the Emperor. "You have everything else, you rogue, to please a woman's fancy and make her thankful to marry you."

"A t.i.tle, Sire, would be a welcome addition," said de Marmont lightly, "and the freedom to go and woo her, until France and my Emperor need me again."

"Then go and do your wooing, man, and come back here to me in three months, for I doubt not by then the flames of war will have been kindled against me again."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT

I

But the hand had lost its cunning, the mighty brain its indomitable will-power. Genius was still there, but it was cramped now by indecision--the indecision born of a sense of enmity around, suspicion where there should have been nothing but enthusiasm, and the blind devotion of the past.

The man who, all alone, by the force of his personality and of his prestige had reconquered France, who had been acclaimed from the Gulf of Jouan to the gates of the Tuileries as the saviour of France, the people's Emperor, the beloved of the nation returned from exile, the man who on the 20th of March had said with his old vigour and his old pride: "Failure is the nightmare of the feeble! impotence, the refuge of the poltroon!" the man who had marched as in a dream from end to end of France to find himself face to face with the whole of Europe in league against him, with a million men being hastily armed to hurl him from his throne again, now found the south of France in open revolt, the west ready to rise against him, the north in accord with his enemies.

He has not enough men to oppose to those millions, his a.r.s.enals are depleted, his treasury empty. And after he has worked sixteen hours out of the twenty-four at reorganising his army, his finances, his machinery of war, he has to meet a set of apathetic or openly hostile ministers, const.i.tutional representatives, men who are ready to thwart him at every turn, jealous only of curtailing his power, of obscuring his ascendency, of clipping the eagle's wings, ere it soars to giddy heights again. And to them he must give in, from them he must beg, entreat: give up, give up all the time one hoped-for privilege after another, one power after another.

He yields the military dictatorship to other--far less competent--hands; he grants liberty to the press, liberty of debate, liberty of election, liberty to all and sundry: but suspicion lurks around him; they suspect his sincerity, his goodwill, they doubt his promises, they mistrust that dormant Olympian ambition which has precipitated France into humiliation and brought the strangers' armies within her gates.

The same man was there--the same genius who even now could have mastered all the enemies of France and saved her from her present subjection and European insignificance, but the men round him were not the same. He, the guiding hand, was still there, but the machinery no longer worked as it had done in the past before disaster had blunted and stiffened the temper of its steel.

The men around the Emperor were not now as they were in the days of Jena and Austerlitz and Wagram. Their characters and temperaments had undergone a change. Disaster had brought on slackness, the past year of constant failures had engendered a sense of discouragement and demoralisation, a desire to argue, to foresee difficulties, to foretell further disasters.

He saw it all well enough--he the man with the far-seeing mind and the eagle-eyes that missed nothing--neither a look of indecision, nor an indication of revolt. He saw it all but he could do nothing, for he too felt overwhelmed by that wave of indecision and of discouragement. Faith in himself, energy in action, had gone. He envisaged the possibility of a vanquished and dismembered France.

Above all he had lost belief in his Star: the star of his destiny which, rising over the small island of Corsica, shining above a humble middle-cla.s.s home, had guided him step by step, from triumph to triumph, to the highest pinnacle of glory to which man's ambition has ever reached.

That star had been dimmed once, its radiance was no longer unquenchable: "Destiny has turned against me," he said, "and in her I have lost my most valuable helpmate."