The Son of Clemenceau Part 10

He was singing in German, and he accompanied himself on a zither. He had an excellent baritone voice, and the ballad, simple and unfinished, became a tragic _scena_ from his skill in repeating some exceptionally talented teacher's instructions.

To Cesarine, the strains awakened dormant meditations; aspirations frozen in her placid home, began to melt; a curtain was gradually drawn aside to reveal a world where woman reigned over all. What she had heard from her grandmother of the magic splendor which Wanda had missed and Iza enjoyed, flashed up before her, and her heart warmed delightedly in the voluptuous intoxication of unspeakable bliss. On the wings of this melody, which, in truth, merely sought to picture the celestial dwelling of the elect, she was carried into one of those bijou palaces of the best part of the Queen City of the Universe, where the bedizened Imperia at the plate-gla.s.s window reviews an army of faultlessly-clad gentlemen filing before her, and sweetly calls out:

"This, gentlemen, is the spot where you can be amused!"

Yes, Cesarine was intended to entertain men! She longed to be the central figure in the scene, however brief, of that apotheosis where Cupid is proclaimed superior to all the high interests of human conscience; this glittering stage sufficed for her, although it would have limited Felix's ideal of man's function.

In a struggle between duty and pa.s.sion, she expected pa.s.sion to overcome, and she concurred beforehand with this troubadour who protested that the gentler s.e.x really held the under one in its dependence.

Radiant with pleasure and farther delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel's shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments. It was the young n.o.bleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought! Better than all, while t.i.tled a baron in Germany, he held a viscount's rank in France, and his aunt, the marchioness, presented him as the last of the Terremondes.

She had not expected to meet in this coterie a gentleman who patronized the singers of a beer-hall, but the frock does not make the monk, and Baron Gratian von Linden-Hohen-Linden, Viscount de Terremonde in France, was of another species than the frequenters of Latour chateau.

From his income in both countries, he had the means to maintain what would have been ruinous establishments; he had the racing stud which no English peer would be ashamed of, a gallery of masterpieces acquired from living painters, an unrivaled hot-house of orchids, wolf-hounds and fox-hounds and other dogs, and the rumor went that the famous Caroline Birchoffstein, in consideration of his being a fellow-countryman, was more often seen in his box at the Grand Opera House than in her own.

The imperial court, also, not averse to being on good terms with South Germany, since Prussia was supposed to be France's greatest opponent in case Luxembourg were clutched, petted the Franco-Teuton, and regretted that he was so pleasure-loving.

To continue her thraldom over him, Cesarine left not a word unsaid or a glance undelivered. In this attack, she was met halfway, for, had she been less eager, she must have seen that the viscount-baron's joy at seeing her again was sincere.

"You hesitate to ask what happened after your fortunate escape with that young student," he said, when they were allowed a few minutes together by the artful management of the hostess. "I can tell you that I had to pa.s.s through a fiery ordeal and I hope you preserved a kindly memory of one who suffered tremendously for you. Major Von Sendlingen was not an undetached person whose quarrel could be kept among private ones. On the contrary, he moved the authorities like a chess-player does the pieces, and he moved them against me. At the first, they talked of nothing less than trying me for treason, since the projected arrest of the Polish conspirator and yourself--kinswoman of the Dobronowska inscribed in the black book of the Russian and Polish police--was foiled on my territory.

The major affirmed that he had seen me not only looking on at the defeat of his posse, but holding my farmers in check not to hasten to their a.s.sistance. He alleged that I had lent racehorses to you and your accomplice, for your continued flight. This Polander--"

"You can say Frenchman, now," returned Madame Clemenceau; "he is one, and my cousin. The story is long and involved and will keep to another day. It is he I married."

"Your husband!" he exclaimed, and she nodded apologetically.

"Then," sighed he, "my dream ends here--on that day when we last met."

"A learned man has said, in a lecture here, that dreams can be repeated and continued, by an effort of the will. My advice to you is to try it."

"Do not jest with me! You can see--you can be sure if you will but question--that I narrowly escaped the State's prison for helping you.

Spite of all, I can love no other woman but you--"

She held up her closed fan and touched his lips with the feathery edging.

"You must not talk so--at least--here," she said, with her glance in contradiction to her words. "I am happy, or contented, strictly speaking, in my home, and as soon as my husband realizes one or two of the ideas over which he is musing, happiness must be mine. A success in art will drag him forth; he must go to Paris to be feasted in the salons and lionized in the conversaziones."

And her eyes blazed as she figured herself presiding at an a.s.semblage of artists and patrons.

"Pardon me," said the viscount-baron. "I am afraid I add to your worry.

I see that you are pining for the sphere to which your grace and charms entice you. I will do anything you order; but yet, since I, too, am an exile, and for your sake, pray do not ask me not to see you and speak of love."

"It must be thus," she replied, with half-closed eyes, turning away abruptly, as if she feared her virtuous resolution were failing. "Let our parting be forever!"

"Forever!" he repeated, following her into the window alcove, although thirty pairs of eyes regarded them. "You cannot mean that. At least, I deserve--have earned--your friendship by what I have undergone for you.

Let me have a word of hope! Though divorce is not allowed in this country, death befalls any man, for while your statisticians figure out that the married live longest, they do not a.s.sert that they are immortal. Clemenceau dead, his widow may remarry. You say he is an enthusiast--one of those college-growths which run to seed without any fruit. I thought the contrary from the way he rode my horse and handled the pistols. But, being an enthusiast, how can you expect to do anything but vegetate? You will always be poor, for, if the man's ideas bore fruit, he would only sink the gains in fresh enterprises. These artists are always unthrifty, and they should wed their laundresses or their cooks. But I--though they have tied up my German revenue, and I have been practically banished--enjoy a tolerable return from my property in this Empire. I have been offered a very handsome present if I wholly transfer allegiance to the Napoleons. Would you not like to have the _entre_ to the Empress's coterie and shine among the acknowledged beauties? I give you my word that your peer is not among them, and the leader would be enchanted with you. Come, suppose a little fatal accident to Monsieur--may he not suck poison off his paint brush or cut an artery with his sculptor's chisel? And, after a sojourn at Bravitz, you might return to Paris a viscountess--a countess, perhaps, and rule in a pretty court of your own!"

For a woman who had said adieu! she had lingered still listening much too long. They continued the conversation, turned into this ominous channel, in the same low key.

Cesarine returned home with the sentiment of loneliness which had oppressed her almost utterly removed. She did not love Gratian, but one need not be a prisoner to understand how admirable the jailer with the outer door-key may appear. She saw in him a precious friend and ally--a worshiper who would obey a hint like a fanatic. Cautiously, at the marchioness's, and more deeply than at Munich, she made inquiries upon his pecuniary standing and was rejoiced to learn that he had not deceived her in that respect. It was left to him to be a favorite in the court, which, not succeeding in weaning away the scions of the Legitimist n.o.bility, greeted the foreign n.o.bles cordially and sought to attach them to its standard in foresight of a European war. One thing was certain: Gratian had illimitable resources, and the sharp-witted, who had sharp tongues, did not hesitate to aver that he was one of those spoilt children of politics who are fed from State treasuries--not such a shallow-brain as he pretended. The new type of diplomatist was like him, the Morny's, not the effete Metternich's, gentlemen who settled affairs of the State in the boudoir not in the cabinet.

Brave, gallant, dashing, craftier than his manner indicated, he was destined to play no inconsiderable part in the conflict impending; such an one might emerge from the smoke a lieutenant of an emperor and holding a large slice of territory which neither of the two contestants cared yet to rule.

Compared with a sculptor who had produced nothing--an architect whose buildings had appeared only on paper--this young n.o.ble was to be run away with, if not to be run after.

The marchioness favored their future and less public meetings, and her gardens were their scene. But while the relations of the treacherous wife with her cavalier became closer, a singular change took place in him. Instead of growing bolder, he seemed to hold aloof, and he fixed each new appointment at a longer interval. He was gloomy and absent, and she began to feel that her charm was weakening. She reproached him, and tried to find excuses for him. Everybody knew what he had lost at the races or over the baccarat-board; and she knew, according to a rhymed saying, that "lucky at love is unlucky at gambling."

"It is not that," he answered slowly, with an anxious glance around in the green avenues of trimmed trees. "I do not know why I should speak of politics to a woman; but you and I are as one: you should know the worst. I am not my own master, and they who rule me presume to dictate my course as regards my heart. Brain and sword are theirs, but I shall feel too ign.o.ble a slave if I sacrifice my love for you to _la haute politique_."

"Sacrifice your love! That would be odious--that must not be! Do you mean that they want you to marry? How cruel!"

He did not smile at the absurdity of her protest, it was so sincere.

"Well, Cesarine, they are blind here, and deaf to the signs along their own frontier. The French rely on a Russian alliance, when already Herr von Bismarck, the Prussian amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg, long ago secured its suspension. Besides, the Crimean War will always be remembered against Napoleon--it is so easy not to ally oneself with England, and, considering her proverbial ingrat.i.tude, so rarely profitable. I spoke of Bismarck! This man of a million, with deep, dark eyes, fixed and unreadable, with a cold, mocking mouth, iron will and mighty brain, is soon to be pitted against Napoleon, the shadow whom you have seen. I am no soothsayer, but I can tell which must go down in the charge, and never to hold up his head again. I am one of the flies on the common wheel who will be carried into the action and smashed, whoever is the victor. I am unwilling to perish thus, when I can find in love of you a paradise on earth wherever you consent to dwell with me.

Listen: I am entrusted with a prodigious sum in cash by a political organization, the headquarters of which in France are here, at the old marchioness's--a veteran puller of the wires that move the European puppets. They have practically seized my German bands, and unless I retake them at the head of a column of victorious French, I may as well say good-bye to them. As for Terremonde, the revenue is falling every quarter. If it were not for this secret service, I should be bankrupt, for the Tuileries, perhaps, suspecting my good faith, pay me only in pretty words--_a la francaise_. This bank which I hold tempts me sorely, Cesarine, but only if you will dip into it with me. Only once in a life does a man have his great opportunity. Mine is the present. A fortune--a beauty! Never will I have such an opportunity again to found a princ.i.p.ality in Florida or the South Seas or South America--wherever we choose to come to a rest. Speak, Cesarine, are you with me? After a while, when the modern Attila has swept over France, perhaps we will like to come and view the ruins and fill our gallery with the art-treasures which the impoverished defeated ones will gladly sell."

"A large sum!" repeated the woman, frowning as her thoughts concentrated.

"Enormous! I have been changing it into sight-drafts, and we can put on our wings at a moment's notice."

"It belongs to a political organization, you say?"

"Have no qualms--it is a few drops out of a reptilian fund! No one can claim what was handed over to me without witnesses, and no receipt demanded. I make no secret: I am offering for your love the price of my honor. Only let us flee to a distance for a while. The money could not be claimed of me in a public court, but they might punish me with an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet."

"And for me, for my happiness, you would do this? I cannot doubt you any longer, if ever I did. Enough, Gratian, I will go to the world's end with you!"

CHAPTER XI.

A SPRAT AND THE WHALE.

A few moments were enough for the two to enter the chateau again, where their absence had begun to arouse curiosity, though the guests were too well bred to make general remarks. With the cue that these "slow," tame gatherings were but the cloak to more important conclaves, Cesarine studied them as never before. It was clear. Here and there were groups which did not waste a word on the accent of Mademoiselle Delaporte, the early history of Aimee Derclee, or the latest episode in the stage and boudoir history of "the Beauty who is also the Stupid Beast." For a certainty, conspiracy went on here at the gates of the capital; perhaps from the pretty belvedere, where the large telescope was mounted for lovers to see Venus, the sons of Mars ascertained where the batteries of siege guns should be planted to sh.e.l.l Parisian palaces and forts.

Two of a trade never agree, says the wisdom of our ancestors, and from that time Cesarine detested Gratian. If he so easily betrayed his friends, countrymen and employers for her, what might he not do as regards her when she was older and her bloom vanished? Better not place herself under his thumb and be cast off, in some remote, barbarous region, when the caprice had worn out. But the money! What was this political league and its aims to her? For her limited education, that of a refined and expensive toy, she was ignorant of the laws and regulations governing even herself, and these laws were too subtly interwoven and inexorable for man alone to have formed them. She did not suspect the great reasons of the State in setting them in motion to accomplish collective ends and destinies, whether they wrought good or evil to individuals. Enough that they were necessary for a dynasty or a cla.s.s; but in all cases, the rulers knew why they were made.

Little by little, but without loss of time, her perspicacity penetrated the disguises, although not to the motives that impelled the plotters.

She centered her thoughts on the old, white-locked pianist, who silently listened to all the parties and was tolerated even when the piano was closed; he was taciturn, always blandly smiling and bent in a servile bow. Nevertheless, this was the princ.i.p.al of the conspirators and even the viscount-baron treated him with some deference as representing a formidable power.

One morning, Cesarine came over to the marchioness's and took advantage of the drawing-room being open to be aired, to open the piano and practice an aria which she had promised at the next soiree. There was nothing but praise for her singing, and old, retired tenors and obese soprani had a.s.sured her that she had but to have one hearing in the Opera to be placed among the stars. The aged pianist had often listened to her vocalism with enraptured gaze, and she believed he, too, was her slave.

He had now glided into the room and upon the piano stool, and, as if by magic divining her wish, silently opened the piece of music for which she had been hunting. For the first time their eyes met without any medium, for he had discarded the tinted spectacles he usually wore.

These were not the worn orbs of a man who had pored over crabbed part.i.tions for sixty years. They were eyes familiar to her.

"Major Von Sendlingen!" she exclaimed, in a kind of terror; for women, being judges of duplicity, are alarmed by any one successful in disguises.