The Strollers Part 34

"You have served the marquis so long?" said the visitor, pausing as he was leaving the room. "Do you remember the Saint-Prosper family?"

"Well, Monsieur. General Saint-Prosper and my master were distant kinsmen and had adjoining lands."

"Surely the marquis did not pa.s.s his time in the country?" observed Mauville.

"He preferred it to Paris--when my lady was there!" added Francois, softly.

In spite of his ill-humor, the shadow of a smile gleamed in the land baron's gaze, and, encouraged by that questioning look, the man continued: "The marquis and General Saint-Prosper were always together. My lady had her own friends."

"So I've heard," commented the listener.

Francois' discreet eyes were downcast. Why did the visitor wish to learn about the Saint-Prosper family? Why, instead of going, did he linger and eye the man half-dubiously? Francois had sold so many of his master's secrets he scented his opportunities with a sixth sense.

"The marquis and General Saint-Prosper were warm friends?" asked the land baron at length.

"Yes, Monsieur; the death of the latter was a severe shock to the Marquis de Ligne, but, _mon Dieu_!"--lifting his eyes--"it was as well he did not live to witness the disgrace of his son."

"His son's disgrace," repeated the land baron, eagerly. "Oh, you mean running in debt--gaming--some such fashionable virtue?"

"If betraying his country is a fashionable virtue," replied the valet.

"He is a traitor."

Incredulity overspread the land baron's features; then, coincident with the a.s.sertion, came remembrance of his conversation with the marquis.

"He certainly called him that," ruminated the visitor. Not only the words, but the expression of the old n.o.bleman's face recurred to him.

What did it mean unless it confirmed the deliberate charge of the valet? The land baron forgot his disappointment over his inability to see the marquis, and began to look with more favor on the man.

"He surrendered a French stronghold," continued the servant, softly. "Not through fear; oh, no; but for ambition, power, under Abd-el-Kader, the Moorish leader."

"How do you know this?" said the patroon, sharply.

"My master has the report of the military board of inquiry," replied the man, steadily.

"Why has the matter attracted no public attention, if a board of inquiry was appointed?"

"The board was a secret one, and the report was suppressed. Few have seen it, except the late King of France and my master."

"And yourself, Francois?" said the patroon, his manner changing.

"Oh, Monsieur!" Deprecatorily.

"Since it has been inspected by such good company, I confess curiosity to look at it myself. But your master is ill; I can not speak with him; perhaps you--"

"I, Monsieur!" Indignantly.

"For five hundred francs, Francois?"

Like oil upon the troubled waters, this a.s.surance wrought a swift change in the valet's manner.

"To oblige Monsieur!" he answered, softly, but his eyes gleamed like a lynx's. His stateliness was a sham; his perfidy and hypocrisy surprised even the land baron.

"You have no compunctions about selling a reputation, Francois?"

"Reputation is that!" said the man, contemptuously snapping his fingers, emboldened by his compact with the caller. "Francs and sous are everything."

"Lord, how servants imbibe the ideas of their betters!" quoth the patroon, as he left the house and strode down the graveled walk, decapitating the begonias with his cane.

Furtively the valet watched his departing figure. "Why does he want it?" he thought.

Then he shrugged his shoulders. "What do I care!"

"Francois!" piped a shrill and querulous treble from above, dispelling the servant's conjectures.

"Coming, my lord!" And the valet slowly mounted the broad stairway amid a fusillade of epithets from the sick chamber. An hour before the marquis had ordered him out of his sight as vehemently as now he summoned him, all of which Francois endured with infinite patience and becoming humility.

Pa.s.sing into the Rue Royale, the favorite promenade of the Creole-French, the land baron went on through various thoroughfares with French-English nomenclature into St. Charles Street, reaching his apartments, which adjoined a well-known club. He was glad to stretch himself once more on his couch, feeling fatigued from his efforts, and having rather overtaxed his strength.

But if his body was now inert, his mind was active. His thoughts dwelt upon the soldier's reticence, his disinclination to make acquaintances, and the coldness with which he had received his, Mauville's, advances in the Shadengo Valley. Why, asked Mauville, lying there and putting the pieces of the tale together, did not Saint-Prosper remain with his new-found friends, the enemies of his country? Because, came the answer, Abd-el-Kader, the patriot of Algerian independence, had been captured and the subjection of the country had followed. Since Algeria had become a French colony, where could Saint-Prosper have found a safer asylum than in America? Where more secure from "that chosen curse" for the man who owes his weal to his country's woe?

In his impatience to possess the promised proof, the day pa.s.sed all too slowly. He even hoped the count would call, although that worthy brought with him all the "flattering devils, sweet poison and deadly sins" of inebriation. But the count, like a poor friend, was absent when wanted, and it was a distinct relief to the land baron when Francois appeared at his apartments in the evening with a buff-colored envelope, which he handed to him.

"The suppressed report?" asked the latter, weighing it in his hand.

"No, Monsieur; I could not find that. My master must have destroyed it."

The land baron made a gesture of disappointment and irritation.

"But this," Francois hastened to add, "is a letter from the Duc d'Aumale, governor of Algeria, to the Marquis de Ligne, describing the affair. Monsieur will find it equally as satisfactory, I am sure."

"How did you get it?" said the patroon, thoughtfully.

"My master left the keys on the dresser."

"And if he misses this letter--"

"Oh, Monsieur, I grieve my master is so ill he could not miss anything but his ailments! Those he would willingly dispense with. My poor master!"

"There! Take your long, hypocritical face out of my sight!" said Mauville, curtly, at the same time handing him the promised reward, which Francois calmly accepted. A moment later, however, he drew himself up.

"Monsieur has not paid for the right to libel my character," he said.

"Your character!"

"My character, Monsieur!" the valet replied firmly, and bowed in the stateliest fashion of the old school as he backed out of the room with grand obsequiousness. Deliberately, heavily and solidly, resounded the echoing footsteps of Francois upon the stairway, like the going of some substantial personage of unimpeachable rect.i.tude.

As the front door closed sharply the land baron threw the envelope on the table and quietly surveyed it, the remnants of his pride rising in revolt.

"Have I then sunk so low as to read private communications or pry into family secrets? Is it a family secret, though? Should it not become common property? Why have they protected him? Did the marquis wish to spare the son of an old friend? Besides"--his glance again seeking the envelope--"it is my privilege to learn whether I have fought with a gentleman or a renegade." But even as he meditated, he felt the sophistry of this last argument, while through his brain ran the undercurrent: "He has wooed her--won her, perhaps!" Pa.s.sion, rather than injured hauteur, stirred him. At the same time a great indignation filled his breast; how Saint-Prosper had tricked her and turned her from himself!