They say the road to h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions. My intentions were the best that ever made excellent cobblestones toward the infernal gate. Only a few days and I would be gone; surely those could be pa.s.sed through in peace. She was a wife--I would never let her know that all my heart was hers. This I determined. But man is weak, and the very atmosphere of France dried up the springs of every honest impulse. Everywhere was scoffing, raillery and disbelief. Honor, friendship and virtue were regarded as the vain chimeras of a fool.

Why should not I enjoy life while I might?

Directly Madame Chartrain entered without intruding, and composedly took her place among the ladies who made room for her near Madame.

Nothing in her manner bore evidence of her recent conflict. It was really marvelous how the life these women led schooled them to a stoicism any Choctaw brave daring the stake might envy. She nodded to me gaily, and I stopped to touch her hand.

"Where is M. de Greville? Is he not to be with us this afternoon?"

I looked her in the face, wondering, for could she not answer her own question far better than I? She read my meaning, but her glance never wavered.

"Ah! There he is, among the gentlemen. I feared he found Sceaux too dull after Paris, and he had promised us a bit of his work. You know he composes famous verses to some fair and distant inamorata."

"Indeed, Madame, I suspected not his talents," I replied. Our conversation lagged, for the programme had already commenced, and we gave our attention to the reading of some curious letters, said to have been written by two Persians of distinction then traveling in Europe, which were being published anonymously in Paris. At first, I could not bring myself to listen to such twaddle, dubiously moral, which, under the guise of light, small talk, struck at the foundations of government, religious beliefs, and all which I had before held sacred.

Listening only to contradict, I grew interested in spite of myself, and only at some allusion more than usually out of place, as it seemed to me, among so many ladies, did I take my eyes from the reader's countenance, and suffer them to roam about the company.

Feeling again the subtle influence of Agnes' gaze fixed full upon me, it caused my cheeks to flush, my knees to quake, and verily, my legs were as like to carry me away as to sustain me where I leaned against a tree. The girl was looking straight at me; I dared not return her stare which had something more than mere curiosity in it, and disturbed me greatly.

The reading was finished without my knowledge, a piece of buffoonery, or play acting gone through with, which I did not see, when my own name, called by Madame, brought me to my proper good sense again.

I found myself, before I was quite aware, bending before Madame and receiving her command that I should do something for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the company.

"M. Jerome has favored us, you know--we have no drones here," she went on pleasantly, "and it is the rule at Sceaux that all must join our merriment."

"Jerome?" I answered in a bewildered fashion, for I had no recollection of seeing aught he did; then I remembered hearing him recite some languishing verses about a white rose, a kiss, a lady's lips--some sighs, and such other stuff that now escapes me--but I had paid no attention to it all.

Jerome, the villain, seconded Madame's request so vigorously I could not decline, though he well knew I was no carpet knight capable of entertaining ladies fair on the tourney field of wit.

"The Captain sings divinely, Madame, but is becomingly modest, as you see." The wretch laughed in his sleeve; I could have strangled him.

"Ah, so rare," she retorted, "you men are vainer than my ladies."

I knew myself the target for dozens of curious eyes, under the heat of which I near melted away.

"Sing, comrade, sing some sweet love ditty of a lonely forest maiden and her lover, robed in the innocence of Eden."

Had the fool no sense? I caught the imploring expression of interest on the girl's sweet face behind Madame, and determined at all hazards they should not have the laugh at me. I saw it all then; they were in league with Jerome to play a game of "bait the bear," with me for bear.

So I pitched in and sang, such a song I warrant as my lords and ladies had never bent their ears to hear before, a crooning death incantation of the Choctaws, which fell as naturally from my lips as my own mother tongue.

Their laughter hushed, for even in the court of France, sated as it was with novelties, laying a world under tribute for amus.e.m.e.nts, that wild, weird melody never rose before nor since. One stanza I sang translated into French that they might understand;

"Yuh! Listen. Quickly you have drawn near to hearken; Listen! Now I have come to step over your soul; You are of the Wolf Clan; Your name is Ayuni; Toward the Black Coffin of the upland, in the upland of the Darkening Land your path shall stretch out.

With the Black Coffin and the Black Slabs I have come to cover you.

When darkness comes your spirit shall grow less and dwindle away never to reappear. Listen."

And they did listen; yea, attentively did they hearken, for a great pall of silence lowered upon them, so new, so strange to them was the song.

When I had quite finished, the soft, Indian words dropping as the splash of unknown, unseen waters, Madame besought me with earnestness to tell her more, and the others crowded round to hear. I do not know what evil genius of folly prompted the childish deed, but feeling safe in having found what we wanted, and moved more than I would admit by the now admiring eyes of the girl, I gathered up half a dozen daggers from the gentlemen who stood about. Selecting those whose weight and balance commended themselves most to my purpose, I cleared a small s.p.a.ce, and having sent a serving man for a pack of cards, chose a five spot and pinned it to a tree. Standing back some ten to fifteen paces, I cast the four knives at the corner pips in quick succession, piercing them truly, then paused a minute and cast the fifth knife at the center, striking accurately between the other four. It was an act of idle vanity, yet I hated for Jerome to taunt me on the way home.

By these petty means I gained a cheap applause from the belles and gallants at Sceaux, and Jerome opened not his lips to jibe me, as I feared, but like the rest, applauded.

I had now quite regained my courage, but for the girl. I loved to think of her as but a girl; that she was also a wife I barred out of our castle in Spain. Why should I be afraid of such a timid child?

Verily, I knew not.

My folly had one result I could not then foresee; it told some of those present, whose hand it was had cast the hunting knife which struck Yvard. I did not learn this for days after.

The approving and pleased look on the little lady's face fired me with an insane desire to further win her notice, whereat I chided myself for a vain c.o.xcomb, and drew imperceptibly away from the company, until I gained a shady and secluded walk which led to a retired nook overlooking the valley.

The quietude of the evening's close jarred on my turbulence of spirit.

For the first time a woman's voice lingered in my ears after her speech was done, a woman's smile played as the fitful summer's lightning before my eyes. Oh, fool, fool! What place had women in a soldier's life. What a discordant harmony would one angel create amid the rough denizens of Biloxi. So I reasoned, forgetful that reasons never yet convinced the heart.

CHAPTER XVI

THE UNEXPECTED

As one who pauses at the threshold of some fabled palace of the houri, so did I stop, bewildered by the beauty of this virgin field of love, by fancy decked with blossoms, now spreading all the allurements of fetterless imaginings before me. A sudden whiff brought me the perfume of her presence, and, turning, she appeared before me, whether in the spirit or the flesh, I could hardly tell, so transported was I by the swift changes of my thought, merging beauties ever new, ever sparkling, with those scarce tasted ones but just discarded. Yet there she was, a dainty thing in white. White of dress, white of face, white of spirit.

In frightened tones of far-away sweetness, her voice mingled with the air, so low, so melodious one could scarce determine when she commenced to speak.

"Monsieur, quick, listen. You are in danger. I was in Madame de Chartrain's chamber and overheard. You have letters. M. de Greville will take them from you--for her sake--they compromise her. There is other danger," she spoke breathlessly on, "other more deadly danger lurking for you here; I beseech you to leave--at once. M. de Greville will take those letters from you by force or guile. Oh, tarry not, there has been so much of blood, and this place so seeming fair; the a.s.sa.s.sin, the poison and prison houses."

The eloquence of fear trembled in her words. Half starting forward I drank in every syllable, not for the warning she would fain convey, but for their sweetness. All I could realize for the moment was that she had sought me, sought me freely. Then she was gone. Swiftly, noiselessly as she came, she disappeared. The distant flutter of her skirts among the sombre trees marked the path she went. Through it all I spoke no word, returning, as one who has received an angel's visit, to my reverie.

I was not suffered long to spend my time alone. The old beau, de Virelle, in his bluff and hearty way directed the attention of a party of ladies who were with him to where I hung over a marble bal.u.s.trade enraptured at the broad expanse of valley, rosy tinted with the hues of ebbing light, boundless as the dim horizon of my own sweet dreams.

"By my faith, Captain, you should have heard the clamor over your departure. Already famous, and so soon weary of your laurels. Ah! a tryst," he exclaimed. "Verily you do better than I thought," for he had picked up a muslin handkerchief, edged with lace, which sought in vain to hide itself among the leaves. So busied had I been it escaped my notice. Instinctively I reclaimed the prize and with no gentle hand I doubt, for his touch and jeering manner desecrated the sacred relic of my vanished saint.

De Virelle scowled somewhat at my precipitation, but, meeting a no less determined air, pa.s.sed the matter by. His ladies affected not to see.

They in their turn plied me with inquiries about the savages in America, asked all manner of silly questions, and completed with their foolish simperings the disgust I already felt at such an interruption to my thought. Yet so great is the force of novelty to women they clung about me as if I were some strange tame animal brought to Paris for their divertis.e.m.e.nt.

"Zounds, Margot dear," de Virelle blurted out aside, for even his dull senses saw I was not pleased, "our good Moliere must have had this hermit captain in his mind when he made Alceste to rail so at the hypocrisies of the world, and urge the telling of truth and looking of truth at all times."

"How brutally frank! What bad breeding," a.s.sented that young woman.

"This captain seems so full of weariness at our coming, and lacks the grace to veil it decently; let us go."

Finding no hand of mine raised to hinder them, these fair dames and demoiselles, with many pretty pouts and flutters and flounces, betook themselves away, followed by their faithful squire.

I began then to feel sorry at having disgraced Jerome's gentle teachings. The light dying away across the distant fields and streams, I resigned my solitary communion and set out slowly toward the villa.

The meaning of all the girl had said now forced itself upon my attention. If this were true, and it seemed plausible enough in view of all that had transpired here, I was indeed confronted by a new and serious danger. Happily danger was not a new fellow-traveler; I merely turned over in my mind the best means to meet it.

Going rather out of my way, I found the grooms without much difficulty, and telling them we were to leave Sceaux at once, ordered the horses saddled, and made ready at a side door where I directed them to wait.

My own mind was to tell Jerome nothing of it, but simply to mount the best horse and ride away alone--if that course became necessary.