The Bronze Eagle (29 page)

If this explanation of Clyffurde's strangely magnanimous conduct was the
true one, then indeed St. Genis felt that he would have everything to
fear from him. For indeed was it so very unlikely that the Englishman
was throughout acting in collusion with Victor de Marmont, who was known
to be his friend?

Was it so very unlikely that—seeing himself unmasked—he had found a
sure and rapid way of allowing the money to pass through St. Genis'
hands into those of de Marmont, and at the same time hopelessly
humiliating and discrediting his rival in the affections of Mlle. de
Cambray?

[Pg 227]
That the suggestion of handing the money over to him had come originally
from Maurice de St. Genis himself, the young man did not trouble himself
to remember. The more he thought this new explanation of past events
over, the more plausible did it seem and the more likely of acceptance
by M. le Comte de Cambray and by Crystal, and St. Genis at last saw his
way to appearing before them not only zealous but heroic—even if
unfortunate—and it was with a much lightened heart that he finally drew
rein outside the Hotel Bourbon.

M. le Comte de Cambray, it seems, was staying at the Hotel for a few
days, so the proprietor informed M. de St. Genis. M. le Comte had gone
out, but Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen was upstairs with Mlle. de Cambray.

With somewhat uncertain step St. Genis followed the obsequious
proprietor, who had insisted on conducting M. le Marquis to the ladies'
apartments himself. They occupied a suite of rooms on the first floor,
and after a timid knock at the door, it was opened by Jeanne from
within, and Maurice found himself in the presence of Crystal and of the
Duchesse and obliged at once to enter upon the explanation which, with
their first cry of surprise, they already asked of him.

"Well!" exclaimed Crystal eagerly, "what news?"

"Of the money?" murmured Maurice vaguely, who above all things was
anxious to gain time.

"Yes! the King's money!" rejoined the girl with slight impatience. "Have
you tracked the thieves? Do you know where they are? Is there any hope
of catching them?"

"None, I am afraid," he replied firmly.

Crystal gave a cry of bitter disappointment and reproach. "Then,
Maurice," she exclaimed almost involuntarily, "why are you here?"

[Pg 228]
And Mme. la Duchesse, folding her mittened hands before her, seemed
mutely to be asking the same question.

"But did you come upon the thieves at all?" continued Crystal with eager
volubility. "Where did they go to for the night? You must have come on
some traces of their passage. Oh!" she added vehemently, "you ought not
to have deserted your post like this!"

"What could I do," he murmured. "I was all alone . . . against so many.
. . ."

"You said that you would get on the track of the thieves," she urged,
"and father told you that he would speak with M. le Comte d'Artois as
soon as possible. Monsieur has promised that an armed patrol would be
sent out to you, and would be on the lookout for you on the road."

"An armed patrol would be no use. I came back on purpose to stop one
being sent."

"But why, in Heaven's name?" exclaimed the Duchesse.

"Because a troop of deserters with that traitor Victor de Marmont is
scouring the road, and . . ."

"We know that," said Crystal, "we were stopped by them last night, after
you left us. They were after the money for the usurper, who had sent
them, and I thanked God that twenty-five millions had enriched a common
thief rather than the Corsican brigand."

"Surely, Maurice," said the Duchesse with her usual tartness, "you were
not fool enough to allow the King's money to fall into that abominable
de Marmont's hands?"

"How could I help it?" now exclaimed the young man, as if driven to the
extremity of despair. "The whole thing was a huge plot beyond one man's
power to cope with. I tracked the thieves," he continued with vehemence
as eager as Crystal's, "I tracked them to a lonely hostelry off the
beaten track—at dead of night—a den of cutthroats and conspirators. I
tracked the thief to his lair and forced him to give the money up to
me."

[Pg 229]
"You forced him? . . . Oh! how splendid!" cried Crystal. "But then
. . ."

"Ah, then! there was the hideousness of the plot. The thief, feeling
himself unmasked, gave up his stolen booty; I forced him to his knees,
and five wallets containing twenty-five million francs were safely in my
pockets at last."

"You forced him—how splendid!" reiterated Crystal, whose glowing eyes
were fixed upon Maurice with all the admiration which she felt.

"Yes! that money was in my pocket for the rest of the happy night, but
the abominable thief knew well that his friend Victor de Marmont was on
the road with five and twenty armed deserters in the pay of the Corsican
brigand. Hardly had I left the hostelry and found my way back to the
main road when I was surrounded, assailed, searched and robbed. I
repeat!" continued St. Genis, warming to his own narrative, "what could
I do alone against so many?—the thief and his hirelings I managed
successfully, but with the money once in my possession I could not risk
staying an hour longer than I could help in that den of cutthroats. But
they were in league with de Marmont, and, though I would have guarded
the King's money with my life, it was filched from me ere I could draw a
single weapon in its defence."

He had sunk in a chair, half exhausted with the effort of his own
eloquence, and now, with elbows resting on his knees and head buried in
his hands, he looked the picture of heroic misery.

Crystal said nothing for a while; there was a deep frown of puzzlement
between her eyes.

"Maurice," she said resolutely at last, "you said just now that the
thief was in collusion with his friend de Marmont. What did you mean by
that?"

"I would rather that you guessed what I meant, Crystal," replied Maurice
without looking up at her.

[Pg 230]
"You mean . . . that . . ." she began slowly.

"That it was Mr. Clyffurde, our English friend," broke in Madame tartly,
"who robbed us on the broad highway. I suspected it all along."

"You suspected it,
ma tante
, and said nothing?" asked the girl, who
obviously had not taken in the full significance of Maurice's statement.

"I said absolutely nothing," replied Madame decisively, "firstly,
because I did not think that I would be doing any good by putting my own
surmises into my brother's head, and, secondly, because I must confess
that I thought that nice young Englishman had acted pour le bon motif."

"How could you think that,
ma tante
?" ejaculated Crystal hotly: "a
good motive? to rob us at dead of night—he, a friend of Victor de
Marmont—an adherent of the Corsican! . . ."

"Englishmen are not adherents of the Corsican, my dear," retorted Madame
drily, "and until Maurice's appearance this morning, I was satisfied
that the money would ultimately reach His Majesty's own hands."

"But we were taking the money to His Majesty ourselves."

"And Victor de Marmont was after it. Mr. Clyffurde may have known that.
. . . Remember, my dear," continued Madame, "that these were my
impressions last night. Maurice's account of the den of cutthroats has
modified these entirely."

Again Crystal was silent. The frown had darkened on her face: there was
a line of bitter resentment round her lips—a look of contempt, of hate,
of a desire to hurt, in her eyes.

"Maurice," she said abruptly at last.

"Yes?"

"I did wound that thief, did I not?"

[Pg 231]
"Yes. In the shoulder . . . it gave me a slight advantage . . ." he said
with affected modesty.

"I am glad. And you . . . you were able to punish him too, I hope."

"Yes. I punished him."

He was watching her very closely, for inwardly he had been wondering how
she had taken his news. She was strangely agitated, so Maurice's
troubled, jealous heart told him; her face was flushed, her eyes were
wet and a tiny lace handkerchief which she twisted between her fingers
was nothing but a damp rag.

"Oh! I hate him! I hate him!" she murmured as with an impatient gesture
she brushed the gathering tears from her eyes. "Father had been so kind
to him—so were we all. How could he? how could he?"

"His duty, I suppose," said St. Genis magnanimously.

"His duty?" she retorted scornfully.

"To the cause which he served."

"Duty to a usurper, a brigand, the enemy of his country. Was he, then,
paid to serve the Corsican?"

"Probably."

"His being in trade—buying gloves at Grenoble—was all a plant then?"

"I am afraid so," said St. Genis, who much against his will now was
sinking ever deeper and deeper in the quagmire of lying and cowardice
into which he had allowed himself to drift.

"And he was nothing better than a spy!"

No one, not even Crystal herself, could have defined with what feelings
she said this. Was it solely contempt? or did a strange mixture of
regret and sorrow mingle with the scorn which she felt? Swiftly her
thoughts had flown back to that Sunday evening—a very few days
ago—when the course of her destiny was so suddenly changed once more,
when her marriage with a man whom she could never
[Pg 232]
love was broken off,
when the possibilities once more rose upon the horizon of her life, of a
renewed existence of poverty and exile in the wake of a dispossessed
king.

That same evening a man whom she had hardly noticed before—a man
neither of her own nationality nor of her own caste—this same
Englishman, Clyffurde, had entered into her life—not violently or
aggressively, but just with a few words of intense sympathy and with a
genuine offer of friendship; and she somehow, despite much kindness
which encompassed her always, had felt cheered and warmed by his words,
and a strange and sweet sense of security against hurt and sorrow had
entered her heart as she listened to them.

And now she knew that all that was false—false his sympathy, false his
offers of friendship—his words were false, his hand-grasp false.
Treachery lurked behind that kindly look in his eyes, and falsehood
beneath his smile.

"He was nothing better than a spy!" The sting of that thought hurt her
more than she could have thought possible. She had so few real friends
and this one had proved a sham. Had she been alone she would have given
way to tears, but before Maurice or even her aunt she was ashamed of her
grief, ashamed of her feelings and of her thoughts. There was a great
deal yet that she wished to know, but somehow the words choked her when
she wanted to ask further questions. Fortunately Mme. la Duchesse was
taking Maurice thoroughly to task. She asked innumerable questions, and
would not spare him the relation of a single detail.

"Tell us all about it from the beginning, Maurice," she said. "Where did
you first meet the rogue?"

And Maurice—weary and ashamed—was forced to embark on a minute account
of adventures that were lies from beginning to end: he had stumbled
across the wayside hostelry on a lonely by-path: he had found it full of
cut-throats: he had stalked and waylaid their chief in his own room,
[Pg 233]
and forced him to give up the money by the weight of his fists.

It was paltry and pitiable: nevertheless, St. Genis, as he warmed to his
tale, lost the shame of it; only wrath remained with him: anger that he
should be forced into this despicable rôle through the intrigues of a
rival.

In his heart he was already beginning to find innumerable excuses for
his cowardice: and his rage and hatred grew against Clyffurde as
Madame's more and more persistent questions taxed his imagination almost
to exhaustion.

When, after half an hour of this wearying cross-examination, Madame at
last granted him a respite, he made a pretext of urgent business at M.
le Comte d'Artois' headquarters and took his leave of the ladies. He
waited in vain hope that the Duchesse's tact would induce her to leave
him alone for a moment with Crystal. Madame stuck obstinately to her
chair and was blind and deaf to every hint of appeal from him, whilst
Crystal, who was singularly absorbed and had lent but a very indifferent
ear to his narrative, made no attempt to detain him.

She gave him her hand to kiss, just as Madame had done; it lay hot and
moist in his grasp.

"Crystal," he continued to murmur as his lips touched her fingers, "I
love you . . . I worked for you . . . it is not my fault that I failed."

She looked at him kindly and sympathetically through her tears, and gave
his hand a gentle little pressure.

"I am sure it was not your fault," she replied gently, "poor Maurice.
. . ."

It was not more than any kind friend would say under like circumstances,
but to a lover every little word from the beloved has a significance of
its own, every look from her has its hidden meaning. Somewhat satisfied
and cheered Maurice now took his final leave:

[Pg 234]
"Does M. le Comte propose to continue his journey to Paris?" he asked at
the last.

"Oh, yes!" Crystal replied, "he could not stay away while he feels that
His Majesty may have need of him. Oh, Maurice!" she added suddenly,
forgetting her absorption, her wrath against Clyffurde, her own
disappointment—everything—in face of the awful possible calamity, and
turning anxious, appealing eyes upon the young man, "you don't think, do
you, that that abominable usurper will succeed in ousting the King once
more from his throne?"

And St. Genis—remembering Laffray and Grenoble, remembering what was
going on in Lyons at this moment, the silent grumblings of the troops,
the defaced white cockades, the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" which he
himself had heard as he rode through the town—St. Genis, remembering
all this, could only shake his head and shrug his shoulders in miserable
doubt.