"You are happy, Crystal, are you not?"

"Of course I am happy, _ma tante_," replied Crystal quickly, "why should you ask?"

But still she would not look straight into Madame's eyes, and the tone of Madame's voice sounded anything but satisfied.

"Well!" she said, "I ask, I suppose, because I want an answer . . . a satisfactory answer."

"You have had it, _ma tante_, have you not?"

"Yes, my dear. If you are happy, I am satisfied. But last night it seemed to me as if your ideas of your own happiness and those of your father on the same subject were somewhat at variance, eh?"

"Oh no, _ma tante_," rejoined Crystal quietly, "father and I are quite of one mind on that subject."

"But your heart is pulling a different way, is that it?"

Then as Crystal once more relapsed into silence and two hot tears dropped on the d.u.c.h.esse's wrinkled hands, the old woman added softly:

"St. Genis, who hasn't a sou, was out of the question, I suppose."

Crystal shook her head in silence.

"And that young de Marmont is very rich?"

"He is his uncle's heir," murmured Crystal.

"And you, child, are marrying a kinsman of that abominable Duc de Raguse in order to regild our family escutcheon."

"My father wished it so very earnestly," rejoined Crystal, who was bravely swallowing her tears, "and I could not bear to run counter to his desire. The Duc de Raguse has promised father that when I am a de Marmont he will buy back all the forfeited Cambray estates and restore them to us: Victor will be allowed to take up the name of Cambray and . . . and . . . Oh!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately, "father has had such a hard life, so much sorrow, so many disappointments, and now this poverty is so horribly grinding. . . . I couldn't have the heart to disappoint him in this!"

"You are a good child, Crystal," said Madame gently, "and no doubt Victor de Marmont will prove a good husband to you. But I wish he wasn't a Marmont, that's all."

But this remark, delivered in the old lady's most uncompromising manner, brought forth a hot protest from Crystal:

"Why, aunt," she said, "the Duc de Raguse is the most faithful servant the king could possibly wish to have. It was he and no one else who delivered Paris to the allies and thus brought about the downfall of Bonaparte, and the restoration of our dear King Louis to the throne of France."

"Tush, child, I know that," said Madame with her habitual tartness of speech, "I know it just as well as history will know it presently, and methinks that history will pa.s.s on the Duc de Raguse just about the same judgment as I pa.s.sed on him in my heart last year. G.o.d knows I hate that Bonaparte as much as anyone, and our Bourbon kings are almost as much a part of my religion as is the hierarchy of saints, but a traitor like de Marmont I cannot stomach. What was he before Bonaparte made him a marshal of France and created him Duc de Raguse?--An out-at-elbows ragam.u.f.fin in the ranks of the republican army. To Bonaparte he owed everything, t.i.tle, money, consideration, even the military talents which gave him the power to turn on the hand that had fed him. Delivered Paris to the allies indeed!" continued the d.u.c.h.esse with ever-increasing indignation and volubility, "betrayed Bonaparte, then licked the boots of the Czar of Russia, of the Emperor, of King Louis, of all the deadly enemies of the man to whom he owed his very existence. Pouah! I hate Bonaparte, but men like Ney and Berthier and de Marmont sicken me! Thank G.o.d that even in his life-time, de Marmont, Duc de Raguse, has already an inkling of what posterity will say of him. Has not the French language been enriched since the capitulation of Paris with a new word that henceforth and for all times will always spell disloyalty: and to-day when we wish to describe a particularly loathsome type of treachery, do we not already speak of a 'ragusade'?"

Crystal had listened in silence to her aunt's impa.s.sioned tirade. Now when Madame paused--presumably for want of breath--she said gently:

"That is all quite true, _ma tante_, but I am afraid that father would not altogether see eye to eye with you in this. After all," she added naively, "a pagan may become converted to Christianity without being called a traitor to his false G.o.ds, and the Duc de Raguse may have learnt to hate the idol whom he once worshipped, and for this profession of faith we should honour him, I think."

"Yes," grunted Madame, unconvinced, "but we need not marry into his family."

"But in any case," retorted Crystal, "poor Victor cannot help what his uncle did."

"No, he cannot," a.s.sented the d.u.c.h.esse decisively, "and he is very rich and he loves you, and as your husband he will own all the old Cambray estates which his uncle of ragusade fame will buy up for him, and presently your son, my darling, will be Comte de Cambray, just as if that awful revolution and all that robbing and spoliation had never been. And of course everything will be for the best in the best possible world, if only," concluded the old lady with a sigh, "if only I thought that you would be happy."

Crystal took care not to meet Madame's kindly glance just then, for of a surety the tears would have rushed in a stream to her eyes. But she would not give way to any access of self-pity: she had chosen her part in life and this she meant to play loyally, without regret and without murmur.

"But of course, _ma tante_, I shall be happy," she said after a while; "as you say, M. de Marmont is very kind and good and I know that father will be happy when Brestalou and Cambray and all the old lands are once more united in his name. Then he will be able to do something really great and good for the King and for France . . . and I too, perhaps.

"You, my poor darling!" exclaimed Madame, "what can you do, I should like to know."

A curious, dreamy look came into the girl's eyes, just as if a foreknowledge of the drama in which she was so soon destined to play the chief _role_ had suddenly appeared to her through the cloudy and distant veils of futurity.

"I don't know, _ma tante_," she said slowly, "but somehow I have always felt that one day I might be called upon to do something for France.

There are times when that feeling becomes so strong that all thoughts of myself and of my own happiness fade from my knowledge, and it seems as if my duty to France and to the King were more insistent than my duty to G.o.d."

"Poor France!" sighed Madame.

"Yes! that is just what I feel, _ma tante_. Poor France! She has suffered so much more than we have, and she has regained so much less!

Enemies still lurk around her; the prowling wolf is still at her gate: even the throne of her king is still insecure! Poor, poor France! our country, _ma tante_! she should be our pride, our glory, and she is weak and torn and beset by treachery! Oh, if only I could do something for France and for the King I would count myself the happiest woman on G.o.d's earth."

Now she was a woman transformed. She seemed taller and stronger. Her girlishness, too, had vanished. Her cheeks burned, her eyes glowed, her breath came and went rapidly through her quivering nostrils. Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse d'Agen looked down on her niece with naive admiration.

"_He_ my little Joan of Arc!" she said merrily, "_par Dieu_, your eloquence, _ma mignonne_, has warmed up my old heart too. But, please G.o.d, our dear old country will not have need of heroism again."

"I am not so sure of that, _ma tante_."

"You are thinking of that ugly rumour which was current in Gren.o.ble yesterday."

"Yes!"

"If that Corsican brigand dares to set his foot again upon this land . . ." began the old lady vehemently.

"Let him come, _ma tante_," broke in Crystal exultantly, "we are ready for him. Let him come, and this time when G.o.d has punished him again, it won't be to Elba that he will be sent to expiate his villainies!"

"Amen to that, my child," concluded Madame fervently. "And now, my dear, don't let me forget the hour of my audience. Hector will be back in a moment or two, and I must not lose any more time gossiping. But before I go, little one, will you tell me one thing?"

"Of course I will, _ma tante_."

"Quite frankly?"

"Absolutely."

"Well then, I want to know . . . about that English friend of yours.

"Mr. Clyffurde, you mean?" asked Crystal. "What about him?"

"I want to know, my dear, what I ought to make of this Mr. Clyffurde."

Crystal laughed lightly, and looked up with astonished, inquiring, wide-open eyes to her aunt.

"What should you want to make of him, _ma tante_?" she asked, wholly unperturbed under the scrutinising gaze of Madame.

"Nothing," said the d.u.c.h.esse abruptly. "I have had my answer, thank you, dear."