The Bronze Eagle (34 page)

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Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with
his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his
cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with
many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate
entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or
Crystal again.

He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and
fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back
again in Belgium—as a fighting man, ready for the work which was
expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now.

And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what
you will, had told him that he would meet her here—and to his weary
eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had
never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in
white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint
mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had
a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace
that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which
gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin.

She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of
English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and
her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living,
breathing person in the room—all the others were phantoms or puppets
that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background
for her.

And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for
the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall
at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of
comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it
seemed
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absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice
de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to
hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery
which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to
smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips.

Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching
Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her
hand in that of St. Genis.

"They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in
broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are
you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?"

He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so
sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound
of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little
hand which was being so cordially held out to him.

"Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of
bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that
you knew me last."

"It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted
tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the
gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she
added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he
ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a
quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally
behaves like a fool."

"Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile.

"All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things.
Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to
de Marmont, and is no hap
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pier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she
would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good
sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish
masculine way."

"Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is
formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis."

"She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly
put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But
she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war
alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect—comes into
his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes
under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative
appointment at his court—if he ever has a court again."

"Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which—if I dare
say so—I am heartily rejoiced."

"So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell
you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in
certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea
idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your
case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the
present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in
mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense—the most
obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed,
whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is
any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of
lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you
that information for what you may choose to make of it."

And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic
hand on his, which warmed and comforted
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Bobby's sore heart, she turned
away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd.

In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom—as the
evening progressed—became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing
and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that
inspiriting new dance—the latest importation from Vienna—a dreamy
waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious,
indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted
in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the
proprieties.

Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from
the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from
outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and
petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of
seats—obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired
quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears.

Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an
hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the
gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of
sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal
didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the
sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils.
Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly,
the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream.

She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the
strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved
proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird
incantations and wizard-
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like acts, whereby people—sensible women and
men—were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither
sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense
of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and
unearthly.

And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in
her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some
unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of
wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the
alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming
struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in
a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he
expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never
waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to
attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most
effectual weapons."

And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he
spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell.
Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love
for her—a love, the strength of which—he said—she would never be able
to gauge.

"If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said
almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow
. . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my
sin."

And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal
murmured vaguely:

"Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?"

But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only
of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice
with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on
earth. Love
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is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything.
Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else—even sin,
even cowardice—seem insignificant and meaningless."

She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the
point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she
felt out of tune with him to-night—with him—Maurice—the lover of her
girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache
three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if
the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had
gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the
favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him
possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of
tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her
heart.

For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own
self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the
heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of
her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What
had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis
with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on
which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle
clay?

He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had
always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country,
ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently;
he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she
was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for
they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which
momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged
mysterious angels, and filled the
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air with soft murmurings and sweet
sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth.

It must have been that she grew very sleepy—probably the heat weighed
her eyelids down—certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes
open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the
same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could
he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?"

Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect
solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor
which paralysed her brain and limbs—tired, sleepy, or under the subtle
influence of some mysterious agency—she did not know which she was; but
she did know that she would have given everything she could at this
moment for a few minutes' complete solitude.

So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's
anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little
bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go
honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could
you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice,
will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a
little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be
all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep."

"You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and
anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her
head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that
now—where she sat—no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in
response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had
embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed.

"I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had
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assured
himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite
well, but must not be disturbed."

She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze.

"You are kind, Maurice," she murmured.

She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so
comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother
could have been dearer.

"You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down
to kiss her.

"No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before
ten."

The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of
isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the
soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music.