The Strollers Part 28

Construing in his approach a deliberate intention, a flush of quick anger overspread Saint-Prosper's face and he glanced at the girl by his side. But her manner a.s.sured him she had not observed the land baron, for at that moment she was looking in the opposite direction, endeavoring to discover Barnes or the others of the company in the immense throng.

Murmuring some excuse to his unconscious companion and cutting short the wiry old lady's reminiscences of the first public trotting race in 1818, the soldier left the box, and, moving with some difficulty through the crowd, met Mauville in the aisle near the stairway. The latter's face expressed surprise, not altogether of an agreeable nature, at the encounter, but he immediately regained his composure.

"Ah, Monsieur Saint-Prosper," he observed easily, "I little thought to see you here."

"Nor I you!" said the other bluntly.

The patroon gazed in seeming carelessness from the soldier to the young girl. Saint-Prosper's presence in New Orleans could be accounted for; he had followed her from the Shadengo Valley across the continent; the drive begun at the country inn--he looking down from the dormer window to witness the start--had been a long one; very different from his own brief flight, with its wretched end. These thoughts coursed rapidly through the land baron's brain; her appearance rekindled the ashes of the past; the fire in his breast flamed from his eyes, but otherwise he made no display of feeling. He glanced out upon the many faces below them, bowing to one woman and smiling at another.

"Oh, I couldn't stand a winter in the North," resumed the patroon, turning once more to the soldier. "Although the barn-burners promised to make it warm for me!"

Offering no reply to this sally, Saint-Prosper's gaze continued to rest coldly and expectantly upon the other. Goaded by that arbitrary regard, an implied barrier between him and the young girl, the land baron sought to press forward; his glittering eyes met the other's; the glances they exchanged were like the thrust and parry of swords.

Without wishing to address the actress--and thereby risk a public rebuff--it was, nevertheless, impossible for the hot-blooded Southerner to submit to peremptory restraint. Who had made the soldier his taskmaster? He read Saint-Prosper's purpose and was not slow to retaliate.

"If I am not mistaken, yonder is our divinity of the lane," said the patroon softly. "Permit me." And he strove to pa.s.s.

The soldier did not move.

"You are blocking my way, Monsieur," continued the other, sharply.

"Not if it lies the other way."

"This way, or that way, how does it concern you?" retorted the land baron.

"If you seek further to annoy a lady whom you have already sufficiently wronged, it is any man's concern."

"Especially if he has followed her across the country," sneered Mauville. "Besides, since when have actresses become so chary of their favors?" In his anger the land baron threw out intimations he would have challenged from other lips. "Has the stage then become a holy convent?"

"You stamped yourself a scoundrel some time ago," said the soldier slowly, as though weighing each word, "and now show yourself a coward when you malign a young girl, without father, brother--"

"Or lover!" interrupted the land baron. "Perhaps, however, you were only traveling to see the country! A grand tour, enlivened with studies of human nature, as well as glimpses of scenery!"

"Have you anything further with me?" interjected Saint-Prosper, curtly.

The patroon's blood coursed, burning, through his veins; the other's contemptuous manner stung him more fiercely than language.

"Yes," he said, meaningly, his eyes challenging Saint-Prosper's. "Have you been at Spedella's fencing rooms? Are you in practice?"

Saint-Prosper hesitated a moment and the land baron's face fell. Was it possible the other would refuse to meet him? But he would not let him off easily; there were ways to force--and suddenly the words of the marquis recurring to him, he surveyed the soldier, disdainfully.

"Gad! you must come of a family of cowards and traitors! But you shall fight or--the public becomes arbiter!" And he half raised his arm threateningly.

The soldier's tanned cheek was now as pale as a moment before it had been flushed; his mouth set resolutely, as though fighting back some weakness. With lowering brows and darkening glance he regarded the land baron.

"I was thinking," he said at length, with an effort, "that if I killed you, people would want to know the reason."

The patroon laughed. "How solicitous you are for her welfare--and mine! Do you then measure skill only by inches? If so, I confess you would stand a fair chance of despatching me. But your address? The St.

Charles, I presume." The soldier nodded curtly, and, having accomplished his purpose, Mauville had turned to leave, when loud voices, in a front box near the right aisle, attracted general attention from those occupying that part of the grand stand. The young officer who had accompanied Susan to the races was angrily confronting a thick-set man, the latest recruit to her corps of willing captives.

The lad had a.s.sumed the arduous task of guarding the object of his fancy from all comers, simply because she had been kind. And why should she not have been?--he was only a boy--she was old enough to be--well, an adviser! When, after a brief but pointed altercation, he flung himself away with a last reproachful look in the direction of his enslaver, Susan looked hurt. That was her reward for being nice to a child!

"A fractious young cub!" said the thick-set man, complacently.

"Well, I like cubs better than bears!" retorted Susan, pointedly.

Not long, however, could the interest of the spectators be diverted from the amus.e.m.e.nt of the day and soon all eyes were drawn once more to the track where the horses' hoofs resounded with exciting patter, as they struggled toward the wire, urged by the stimulating voices of the jockeys.

But even when Leduc won the race, beating the best heat on record; when the ladies in the grand stand arose in a body, like a thousand b.u.t.terflies, disturbed by a sudden footfall in a sunlit field; when the jockey became the hero of the hour; when the small boys outside nearly fell from the trees in their exuberance of ecstasy, and the men threw their hats in the air and shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e--even these exhilarating circ.u.mstances failed to reawaken the land baron's concern in the scene around him. His efforts at indifference were chafing his inmost being; the cloak of _insouciance_ was stifling him; the primeval man was struggling for expression, that brute-like rage whose only limits are its own fury and violence.

A quavering voice, near at hand, recalled him to himself, and turning, he beheld the marquis approaching with mincing manner, the paint and pigments cracked by the artificial smiles wreathing his wrinkled face.

In that vast a.s.semblage, amid all the energy, youth and surfeit of vitality, he seemed like a dried and crackling leaf, tossed helplessly, which any foot might crush to dust. The roar of the mult.i.tude subsided, a storm dying in the distance; the ladies sank in their seats--b.u.t.terflies settling once more in the fields--and Leduc, with drooping head, was led to the paddock, followed by a few fair adorers.

"I placed the winner, Monsieur Mauville," piped the marquis. "Though the doctors told me the excitement would kill me! What folly! Every new sensation adds a day to life."

"In your case, certainly, Marquis, for I never saw you looking younger," answered the land baron, with an effort.

"You are too amiable, my dear friend! The ladies would not think so,"

he added, mournfully wagging his head with anile melancholy.

"Nonsense!" protested the other. "With your spirit, animation--"

"If I thought you were right," interrupted the delighted marquis, taking his young friend's arm, "I would ask you to present me to the lady over there--the one you just bowed to."

"The deuce!" said Mauville to himself. "The marquis is becoming a bore."

"You rascal! I saw the smile she gave you," continued the other playfully. "And you ran away from her. What are the young men made of nowadays? In the old days they were tinder; women sparks. But who is she?"

"You mean Susan Duran, the actress?"

"An actress!" exclaimed the n.o.bleman. "A charming creature at any rate!"

"All froth; a bubble!" added Mauville impatiently.

"How entertaining! Any lovers?" leered the n.o.bleman.

"A dozen; a baker's dozen, for all I know!"

"What is her history?" said the marquis eagerly.

"I never inquired."

"Sometimes it's just as well," murmured the other vaguely. "How old is she?"

"How can you tell?" answered Mauville.

"In Paris I kept a little book wherein was entered the _pa.s.se-parole_ of every pretty woman; age; lovers platonic! When a woman became a grandmother, I put a black mark against her name, for I have always held," continued the n.o.bleman, wagging his head, "that a woman who is a grandmother has no business to deceive a younger generation of men.

But present me to Miss Susan at once, my dear friend. I am all impatience to meet her."

His eagerness permitted no refusal; besides, Mauville was not in the mood to enjoy the n.o.bleman's society, and was but too pleased to turn him over to the tender care of Susan.