We must skip a little time. I was foolish. How many threads there are in this tangle men call life!" And with this he read over the letters just come that morning from Germany. Then he considered Carteaux again.

"If that fellow is tormented into taking his revenge, and I should be away, as I may be, there will be the deuce to pay.

"Perhaps I might have given Rene wiser advice; but with no proof concerning the fate of the despatch, there was no course which was entirely satisfactory. Best to let the sleeping dog lie. But why did I leave them on the ice? _Sapristi!_ I am as bad as Mistress Gainor. But she is not caught yet, Master Rene."

XXIII

In few days Margaret was able to be afoot, although still lame; but Rene had no chance to see her. She was not to be caught alone, and would go on a long-promised visit to Merion. Thus February pa.s.sed, and March, and April came, when personal and political matters abruptly broke up for a time their peaceful household.

Margaret had been long at home again, but still with a woman's wit she avoided her lover. Aunt Gainor, ever busy, came and went, always with a dozen things to do.

Her attentions to Madame de Courval lessened when that lady no longer needed her kindness and, as soon happened, ceased to be interesting. She would not gamble, and the two women had little in common. Miss Gainor's regard for Rene was more lasting. He was well-built and handsome, and all her life she had had a fancy for good looks in men. He had, too, the virile qualities she liked and a certain steadiness of purpose which took small account of obstacles and reminded her of her nephew Hugh Wynne. Above all, he had been successful, and she despised people who failed and too often regarded success as a proof of the right to succeed, even when the means employed were less creditable than those by which Rene had made his way. Moreover, had he not told her once that her French was wonderful? Miss Gainor changed her favorites often, but Rene kept in her good graces and was blamed only because he did not give her as much of his time as she desired; for after she heard his history from Schmidt, he won a place in her esteem which few men had ever held.

She had set her heart at last on his winning Margaret, and the lifelong game of gambling with other folks' fortunes and an honest idolatry for the heroic, inclined her to forgive a lack of attention due in a measure to his increasing occupations.

To keep her eager hands off this promising bit of match-making had been rather a trial, but Schmidt was one of the few people of whom she had any fear, and she had promised not to meddle. At present she had begun to think that the two human p.a.w.ns in the game she loved were becoming indifferent, and to let things alone was something to which she had never been inclined. Had she become aware of the German's mild treachery that night on the ice, she would in all likelihood have been angry at first and then pleased or annoyed not to have had a hand in the matter.

Mistress Wynne, even in the great war, rarely allowed her violent politics to interfere with piquet, and now Mr. Dallas had asked leave to bring Fauchet, the new French minister, to call upon her. He was gay, amusing, talked no politics, played piquet nearly as well as she, and was enchanted, as he a.s.sured her, to hear French spoken without accent.

If to De la Foret, the consul-general, he made merry concerning his travels in China, as he called her drawing-room, saying it was perilously over-populous with strange G.o.ds, she did not hear it, nor would she have cared so long as she won the money of the French republic.

One evening in early April, after a long series of games, he said: "I wish I could have brought here my secretary Carteaux. He did play to perfection, but now, poor devil, the wound he received has palsied his right arm, and he will never hold cards again--or, what he thinks worse, a foil. It was a strange attack."

"Does he suffer? I have heard about him."

"Horribly. He is soon going home to see if our surgeons can find the bullet; but he is plainly failing."

"Oh, he is going home?"

"Yes; very soon."

"How did it all happen? It has been much talked about, but one never knows what to believe."

"I sent him to New York with despatches for our foreign office, but the _Jean Bart_ must have sailed without them; for he was waylaid, shot, and robbed of the papers, but lost no valuables."

"Then it was not highwaymen?"

"No; I can only conjecture who were concerned. It was plainly a robbery in the interest of the Federalists. I do not think Mr. Randolph could have these despatches, or if he has, they will never be heard of." Upon this he smiled.

"Then they are lost?"

"Yes. At least to our foreign office. I think Mr. Wolcott of the Treasury would have liked to see them."

"But why? Why Mr. Wolcott?" She showed her curiosity quite too plainly.

"Ah, that is politics, and Madame forbids them."

"Yes--usually; but this affair of Monsieur Carteaux cannot be political.

It seems to me an incredible explanation."

"Certainly a most unfortunate business," said the minister.

He had said too much and was on his guard. He had, however, set the spinster to thinking, and remembering what Schmidt had told her of De Courval, her reflections were fertile. "Shall we have another game?"

A month before the day on which they played, the _Jean Bart_, since November of 1794 at sea, after seizing an English merchantman was overhauled in the channel by the British frigate _Cerberus_ and compelled to surrender. The captain threw overboard his lead-weighted signal-book and the packet of Fauchet's despatches. A sailor of the merchant ship, seeing it float, jumped overboard from a boat and rescued it. Upon discovering its value, Captain Drew of the _Cerberus_ forwarded the despatches to Lord Grenville in London, who in turn sent them as valuable weapons to Mr. Hammond, the English minister in Philadelphia.

There was that in them which might discredit one earnest enemy of the English treaty, but months went by before the papers reached America.

Miss Gainor, suspecting her favorite's share in this much-talked-of affair, made haste to tell Schmidt of the intention of Carteaux to sail, to the relief of the German gentleman, who frankly confided to her the whole story. He spoke also once more of De Courval and urged her for every reason to leave the young people to settle their own affairs.

Meanwhile Josiah was in bed with well-earned gout.

On the afternoon of the 14th of April, Rene came home from the State office and said to Schmidt: "I have had paid me a great compliment, but whether I entirely like it or not, I do not know. As usual, I turn to you for advice."

"Well, what is it!"

"The President wants some one he can trust to go to the western counties of this State and report on the continued disturbance about the excise tax. I thought the thing was at an end. Mr. Hamilton, who seems to have the ear of the President, advised him that as a thoroughly neutral man I could be trusted. Mr. Randolph thinks it a needless errand."

"No. It is by no means needless. I have lands near Pittsburg, as you know, and I hear of much disaffection. The old fox, Jefferson, at Monticello talks about the excise tax as 'infernal,' and what with the new treaty and Congress and other things the Democrats are making trouble enough for a weak cabinet and a strong President. I advise you to accept. You can serve me, too. Take it. You are fretting here for more reasons than one. I hear that Carteaux is out of bed, a crippled wreck, and Fauchet says is soon to go to France. In August the minister himself will leave and one Adet take his place. I think you may go with an easy mind. We are to be rid of the whole pestilent lot."

"Then I shall accept and go as soon as I receive my instructions. But I do dread to leave town. I shall go, but am at ease only since you will be here."

"But I shall not be, Rene. I have hesitated to tell you. I am called home to Germany, and shall sail from New York for England on to-day a week. I shall return, I think; but I am not sure, nor if then I can remain. It is an imperative call. I am, it seems, pardoned, and my father is urgent, and my elder brother is dead. If you have learned to know me, you will feel for me the pain with which I leave this simpler life for one which has never held for me any charm. Since Carteaux is soon to sail, and I hear it is certain, I feel less troubled. I hope to be here again in August or later. You may, I think, count on my return."

"Have you told Mrs. Swanwick, sir?"

"Yes, and the Pearl. Ah, my son, the one thing in life I have craved is affection; and now--"

"No one will miss you as I shall--no one--" He could say no more.

"You will of course have charge of my affairs, and Mr. Wilson has my power of attorney, and there is Hamilton at need. Ah, but I have had a scene with these most dear people!"

The time pa.s.sed quickly for De Courval. He himself was to be gone at least two months. There was a week to go, as he must, on horseback, and as much to return. There were wide s.p.a.ces of country to cover and much business to settle for Schmidt. His stay was uncertain and not without risks.

Over three weeks went by before he could be spared from the thinly officered department. Schmidt had long since gone, and Rene sat alone in the library at night and missed the large mind and a temperament gayer than his own. His mother had asked no questions concerning Carteaux, and as long as there was doubt in regard to his course, he had been unwilling to mention him; but now he felt that he should speak freely and set his mother's mind at rest before he went away.

Neither, despite what he was sure would be the stern opposition he would have to encounter from his mother, could he go without a word to Margaret--a word that would settle his fate and hers. The Carteaux business was at an end. He felt free to act. Fortune for once favored him. Since he had spoken to his mother of his journey and the lessened household knew of it, Pearl had even more sedulously avoided the pleasant talks in the garden and the rides, now rare, with Aunt Gainor and himself. The mother, more and more uneasy, had spoken to her daughter very decidedly, and Madame grew less familiarly kind to the girl; while she herself, with a mind as yet in doubt, had also her share of pride and believed that the young vicomte had ceased to care for her, else would he not have created an opportunity to say what long ago that night on the ice seemed to make a matter of honor? She was puzzled by his silence, a little vexed and not quite sure of herself.

He put off to the last moment his talk with his mother and watched in vain for a chance to speak to Margaret. His instructions were ready, his last visits made. He had had an unforgettable half-hour with the President and a talk with Hamilton, now on a visit from New York. The ex-secretary asked him why he did not cast in his lot frankly with the new land, as he himself had done. He would have to give notice in court and renounce his allegiance to his sovereign, so ran the new law.

"I have no sovereign," he replied, "and worthless as it now seems, I will not renounce my t.i.tle, as your law requires."

"Nor would I," said Hamilton. "You will go home some day. The chaos in France will find a master. The people are weary of change and will accept any permanent rule."

"Yes, I hope to return. Such is my intention," and they fell into talk of Schmidt.

De Courval's last day in the city had come. Schmidt had left him the free use of his horses, and he would try one lately bought to see how it would answer for his long journey.

About eleven of a sunny June morning he mounted and rode westward up Chestnut Street. At Fifth and Chestnut streets, Congress having just adjourned, the members were coming out of the brick building which still stands at the corner. He knew many, and bowed to Gallatin and Fisher Ames. Mr. Madison stopped him to say a word about the distasteful English treaty. Then at a walk he rode on toward the Schuylkill, deep in thought.