VIII

He came into the room, humming a tune of the boulevards; the crimson hangings swirled about him, the furniture swayed in aerial and thin-legged minuets. He sank into a chair before the great mirror, supported by frail love-G.o.ds, who contended for its possession. He viewed therein his pale and grotesque reflection, and he laughed lightly. "Pardon, madame," he said, "but my castles in the air are tumbling noisily about my ears. It is difficult to think clearly amid the crashing of the battlements."

"I do not understand." The d.u.c.h.ess had lifted a rather grave and quite incurious face as he entered the salon.

"My life," laughed the Duc de Puysange, "I a.s.sure you I am quite incorrigible. I have just committed another abominable action; and I cry _peccavi!_" He smote himself upon the breast, and sighed portentously. "I accuse myself of eavesdropping."

"What is your meaning?" She had now risen to her feet.

"Nay, but I am requited," the Duke rea.s.sured her, and laughed with discreetly tempered bitterness. "Figure to yourself, madame! I had planned for us a life during which our new-born friendship was always to endure untarnished. Eh bien, man proposes! De Soyecourt is of a jealous disposition; and here I sit, amid my fallen aircastles, like that tiresome Marius in his Carthaginian debris."

"De Soyecourt?" she echoed, dully.

"Ah, my poor child!" said the Duke and, rising, took her hand in a paternal fashion, "did you think that, at this late day, the disease of matrimony was still incurable? Nay, we progress, madame. You shall have grounds for a separation--sufficient, unimpeachable grounds. You shall have your choice of desertion, infidelity, cruelty in the presence of witnesses--oh, I shall prove a yeritabie Gilles de Retz!" He laughed, not unkindlily, at her bewilderment.

"You heard everything?" she queried.

"I have already confessed," the Duke reminded her. "And speaking as an unprejudiced observer, I would say the little man really loves you. So be it! You shall have your separation, you shall marry him in all honor and respectability; and if everything goes well, you shall be a grand d.u.c.h.ess one of these days--Behold a fact accomplished!" De Puysange snapped his fingers and made a pirouette; he began to hum, "Songez de bonne a suivre--"

There was a little pause.

"You, in truth, desire to restore to me my freedom?" she asked, in wonder, and drew near to him.

The Duc de Puysange seated himself, with a smile. "Mon Dieu!" he protested, "who am I to keep lovers apart? As the first proof of our new-sworn friendship, I hereby offer you any form of abuse or of maltreatment you may select."

She drew yet nearer to him. Afterward, with a sigh as if of great happiness, her arms clasped about his neck. "Mountebank! do you, then, love me very much?"

"I?" The Duke raised his eyebrows. Yet, he reflected, there was really no especial harm in drawing his cheek a trifle closer to hers, and he found the contact to be that of cool velvet.

"You love me!" she repeated, softly.

"It pains me to the heart," the Duke apologized--"it pains me, pith and core, to be guilty of this rudeness to a lady; but, after all, honesty is a proverbially recommended virtue, and so I must unblushingly admit I do nothing of the sort."

"Gaston, why will you not confess to your new friend? Have I not pardoned other amorous follies?" Her cheeks were warmer now, and softer than those of any other woman in the world.

"Eh, ma mie," cried the Duke, warningly, "do not be unduly elated by little Louis' avowal! You are a very charming person, but--'_de gustibus_--'"

"Gaston--!" she murmured.

"Ah, what is one to do with such a woman!" De Puysange put her from him, and he paced the room with quick, unequal strides.

"Yes, I love you with every nerve and fibre of my body--with every not unworthy thought and aspiration of my misguided soul! There you have the ridiculous truth of it, the truth which makes me the laughing-stock of well bred persons for all time. I adore you. I love you, I cherish you sufficiently to resign you to the man your heart has chosen. I--But pardon me,"--and he swept a white hand over his brow, with a little, choking laugh,--"since I find this new emotion somewhat boisterous. It stifles one unused to it."

She faced him, inscrutably; but her eyes were deep wells of gladness.

"Monsieur," she said, "yours is a n.o.ble affection. I will not palter with it, I accept your offer--"

"Madame, you act with your usual wisdom," said the Duke.

"--Upon condition," she continued,--"that you resume your position as eavesdropper."

The Duke obeyed her pointing finger. When he had reached the portieres, the proud, black-visaged man looked back into the salon, wearily. She had seated herself in the _fauteuil_, where the Marquis de Soyecourt had bent over her and she had kissed the little gold locket. Her back was turned toward, her husband; but their eyes met in the great mirror, supported by frail love-G.o.ds, who contended for its possession.

"Comedy for comedy," she murmured. He wondered what purblind fool had called her eyes sea-cold?

"I do not understand," he said. "You saw me all the while--Yes, but the locket--?" cried de Puysange.

"Open it!" she answered, and her speech, too, was breathless.

Under his heel the Duc de Puysange ground the trinket. The long, thin chain clashed and caught about his foot; the face of his youth smiled from the fragment in his not quite steady hands. "O heart' of gold! O heart of gold!" he said, with, a strange meditative smile, now that his eyes lifted toward the glad and glorious eyes of his wife; "I am not worthy! Indeed, my dear, I am not worthy!"

IX

THE SCAPEGOATS

_As Played at Manneville, September 18, 1750_

"_L'on a choisi justement le temps que je parlois a mon traiste de fils.

Sortons! Je veux aller querir la justice, et faire donner la question a toute ma maison; a servantes, a valets, a fils, a fille, et a moi aussi._"

DRAMATIS PERSONae

PRINCE DE GATINAIS, an old n.o.bleman, who affects yesterday's fashion.

Louis QUILLAN, formerly LOUIS DE SOYECOURT, son to the Prince, and newly become GRAND DUKE OF NOUMARIA.

VANRINGHAM, valet to the Prince.

NELCHEN THORN, daughter to Hans Thorn, landlord of the _Golden Pomegranate_, and loves Louis Quillan.

And In the Proem, DUKE OF OSMSKIRK.

SCENE

The Dolphin Room of the _Golden Pomegranate_, an inn at Manneville-en-Poictesme.

THE SCAPEGOATS

_PROEM:-To Present Mr. Vanringham as Nuntius_