The Grey Cloak, Harold MacGrath [smart books to read TXT] 📗

"A woman entered here by mistake . . . ?"

"She is gone," indifferently. "She was a lady of quality, for I could see that the odor of wine and the disorder of the room were distasteful to her."

"She left . . . wearing her mask?" asked the poet, looking everywhere but at the Chevalier, who was growing curious.

"Yes. Her figure was charming. That blockhead of a host! . . . to have shown her in here!"

"She was in distress?"

"Evidently. In the old days I should have striven to console. What is it all about, lad? Your hand trembles. Do you know her?"

"I know something of her history," with half a truth. Victor's forehead was cold and dry to the touch of his hand.

"She is in trouble?"

"Yes."

The Chevalier arranged a log on the irons. "Whither is she bound?"

"Spain."

"Ah! A matter of careless politics, doubtless."

"Good!" thought the poet. "He does not ask her name."

"Has she a pleasant voice? I spoke to her, but she remained dumb. Spain," ruminating. "For me, New France. Lad, the thought of reaching that far country is inspiriting. I shall mope a while; but there is metal in me which needs but proper molding. . . . For what purpose had you drawn your sword?"

"I challenged the vicomte, and he refused to fight."

"On my account?" sternly. "You did wrong."

"I can not change the heat of my blood," carelessly.

"No; but you can lose it, and at present it is very precious to me. He refused? The vicomte has sound judgment."

"Oh, he and I shall be killing each other one of these fine days; but not wholly on your account, Paul," gloom wrinkling his brow, as if the enlightening finger of prescience had touched it. "It is fully one o'clock; you will be wanting sleep."

"Sleep?" The ironist twisted his mouth. "It will be many a day ere sleep makes contest with my eyes . . . unless it be cold and sinister sleep. Sleep? You are laughing! Only the fatuous and the self-satisfied sleep . . . and the dead. So be it." He took the tongs and stirred the log, from which flames suddenly darted. "I wonder what they are doing at Voisin's to-night?" irrelevantly. "There will be some from the guards, some from the musketeers, and some from the prince's troops. And that little Italian who played the lute so well! Do you recall him? I can see them now, calling Mademoiselle Pauline to bring Voisin's old burgundy." The Chevalier continued his reminiscence in silence, forgetting time and place, forgetting Victor, who was gazing at him with an expression profoundly sad.

The poet mused for a moment, then tiptoed from the room. An idea had come to him, but as yet it was not fully developed.

"Should I have said 'good night'? Good night, indeed! What mockery there is in commonplaces! That idea of mine needs some thought." So, instead of going to bed he sat down on one of the chimney benches.

A sleepy potboy went to and fro among the tables, clearing up empty tankards and breakage. Maître le Borgne sat in his corner, reckoning up the day's accounts.

Suddenly Victor slapped his thigh and rose. "Body of Bacchus and horns of Panurge! I will do it. Mazarin will never look for me there. It is simple." And a smile, genuine and pleasant, lit up his face. "I will forswear Calliope and nail my flag to Clio; I will no longer write poetry, I will write history and make it."

He climbed to his room, cast off his hostler's livery and slid into bed, to dream of tumbling seas, of vast forests, of mighty rivers . . . and of grey masks.

Promptly at seven he rejoined the Chevalier. Breton was packing a large portmanteau. He had gathered together those things which he knew his master loved.

"Monsieur," said the lackey, holding up a book, "this will not go in."

"What is it?" indifferently.

"Rabelais, Monsieur."

"Keep it, lad; I make you a present of it. You have been writing, Victor?"

Victor was carelessly balancing a letter in his hand. "Yes. A thousand crowns,-which I shall own some day,-that you can not guess its contents," gaily.

"You have found Madame de Brissac and are writing to her?" smiling.

For a moment Victor's gaiety left him. The Chevalier's suggestion was so unexpected as to disturb him. He quickly recovered his poise, however. "You have lost. It is a letter to my good sister, advising her of my departure to Quebec. Spain is too near Paris, Paul."

"You, Victor?" cried the Chevalier, while Breton's face grew warm with regard for Monsieur de Saumaise.

"Yes. Victor loves his neck. And it will be many a day ere monseigneur turns his glance toward New France in quest."

"But supposing he should not find these incriminating papers? You would be throwing away a future."

"Only temporarily. I have asked my sister to watch her brother's welfare. I will go. Come, be a good fellow. Let us go and sign the articles which make two soldiers of fortune instead of one. I have spoken to Du Puys and Chaumonot. It is all settled but the daub of ink. Together, Paul; you will make history and I shall embalm it." He placed a hand upon the Chevalier's arm, his boyish face beaming with the prospect of the exploit.

"And Madame de Brissac?" gently.

"We shall close that page," said the poet, looking out of the window. She would be in Spain. Ah well!"

"Monsieur," said Breton, "will you take this?"

The two friends turned. Breton was holding at arm's length a grey cloak.

"The cloak!" cried Victor.

"Pack it away, lad," the Chevalier said, the lines in his face deepening, "It will serve to recall to me that vanity is a futile thing."

"The devil! but for my own vanity and miserable purse neither of us would have been here." Victor made as though to touch the cloak, but shrugged, and signified to Breton to put it out of sight.

When Breton had buckled the straps he exhibited a restlessness, standing first on one foot, then on the other. He folded his arms, then unfolded them, and plucked at his doublet. The Chevalier was watching him from the corner of his eye.

"Speak, lad; you have something to say."

"Monsieur, I can not return to the hôtel. Monsieur le Marquis has forbidden me." Breton's eyes filled with tears. It was the first lie he had ever told his master.

"Have you any money, Victor?" asked the Chevalier, taking out the fifty pistoles won from the vicomte and dividing them.

"Less than fifty pistoles; here is half of them."

The Chevalier pushed the gold toward the lackey. "Take these, lad; they will carry you through till you find a new master. You have been a good and faithful servant."

Breton made a negative gesture. "Monsieur," timidly, "I do not want money, and I could never grow accustomed to a new master. I was born at the château in Périgny. My mother was your nurse and she loved you. I know your ways so well, Monsieur Paul. Can I not accompany you to Quebec? I ask no wages; I ask nothing but a kind word now and again, and a fourth of what you have to eat. I have saved a little, and out of that I will find my clothing."

The Chevalier smiled at Victor. "We never find constancy where we look for it. Lad," he said to Breton, "I can not take you with me. I am going not as a gentleman but as a common trooper, and they are not permitted to have lackeys. Take the money; it is all I can do for you."

Breton stretched a supplicating hand toward the poet.

"Let him go, Paul," urged Victor. "Du Puys will make an exception in your case. Let him go. My own lad Hector goes to my sister's, and she will take good care of him. You can't leave this lad here, Paul. Take him along."

"But your future?" still reluctant to see Victor leave France.

"It is there," with a nod toward the west.

"The vicomte . . ."

"We have signed a truce till we return to French soil."

"Well, if you will go," a secret joy in his heart. How he loved this poet!

"It is the land of fortune, Paul; it is calling to us. True, I shall miss the routs, the life at court, the plays and the gaming. But, horns of Panurge! I am only twenty-three. In three years I shall have conquered or have been conquered, and that is something. Do not dissuade me. You will talk into the face of the tempest. Rather make the going a joy for me. You know that at the bottom of your heart you are glad."

"Misery loves company; we are all selfish," replied the Chevalier, "My selfishness cries out for joy, but my sense of honesty tells me not to let you go. I shall never return to France. You will not be happy there."

"I shall be safer; and happiness is a matter of temperament, not of time and place. You put up a poor defense. Look! we have been so long together, Paul; eight years, since I was sixteen, and a page of her Majesty's. I should not know what to do without you. We have shared the same tents on the battlefield; I have borrowed your clothes and your money, and you have borrowed my sword, for that is all I have. Listen to me. There will be exploits over there, and the echo of them will wander back here to France. Fame awaits us. Are we not as brave and inventive as De Champlain, De Montmagny, De Lisle, and a host of others who have made money and name? Come; take my hand. Together, Paul, and what may not fortune hold for us!"

There was something irresistible in his pleading; and the Chevalier felt the need of some one on whom to spend his brimming heart of love. His face showed that he was weighing the matter and viewing it from all points. Presently the severe lines of his face softened.

"Very well, we shall go together, my poet," throwing an arm across Victor's shoulders. "We shall go together, as we have always gone. And, after all, what is a name but sounding brass? 'Tis a man's arm that makes or unmakes his honesty, not his thrift; his loyalty, rather than his self-interest. We shall go together. Come; we'll sign the major's papers, and have done with it."

Victor threw his hat into the air.

"And I, Monsieur Paul?" said Breton, trembling in his shoes, with expectancy or fear.

"If they