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

gesture.

He fumbled in his blouse. Had his mind been less blunted he would have thought twice before trusting the missive into her keeping. But he gave it to her docilely. There beat but one thought in his brain: she was here in Quebec.

She took down a candle from the mantel. She read aloud, and her tone was flippant. "'Forgive! How could I have doubted so gallant a gentleman!' What was it I doubted?" puckering her brow. "No matter." She went on: "'You have asked me if I love you. Find me and put the question. France is large. If you love me you will find me. You have complained that I have never permitted you to kiss me.'" She paused, glanced obliquely at the scrawl, and shrugged. "Can it be possible that I wrote this-'I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times'?" Calmly she folded the letter. "Well, Monsieur, and you searched thoroughly, I have no doubt. This would be an incentive to the most laggard gallant."

"I . . . I was in deep trouble." The words choked him. "I was about to start . . ." He glanced about helplessly.

"And . . . ?" The scorn on her face deepened. He became conscious that the candle and the letter were drawing dangerously close.

"Good God, Diane! how can I tell you? You would not understand! . . . What are you doing?" springing toward her to stay her arm. But he was too late. The flame was already eating into the heart of that precious testament.

She moved swiftly, and a table stood between them. He was powerless. The letter crumbled into black flakes upon the table. She set down the candle, breathing quickly, her amber eyes blazing with triumph.

"That was not honorable. I trusted you."

"I trusted, too, Monsieur; I trusted overmuch. Besides, desiring to become a nun, it would have compromised me."

"Did you come three thousand miles to accomplish this?" anger swelling his tones.

"It was a part of my plans," coolly. "To how many gallants have you shown this ridiculous letter?"

His brain began to clear; for he saw that his love hung in the balance. "And had I followed you to the four ends of France, had I sought you from town to city and from city to town . . . ?"

"You would have grown thin, Monsieur."

"And mad! For you would have been here in Quebec. And I have kissed that letter a thousand times!"

"Is it possible?"

"Diane . . ."

"I am Diane no longer," she interrupted.

"In God's name, what shall I call you, then?" his despair maddening him.

"You may call me . . . a dream. And I advise you to wake soon."

The man in him came to his rescue. He suddenly reached across the table and caught her wrist. With his unengaged hand he caught up the ashes and let them flutter back to the table.

"A lie, a woman's lie! Is that why the ash is black? Have I wronged you in any way? Has my love been else than honest? Who are you?" vehemently.

"I am play, Monsieur; pastime, frolic," insolently. "Was not that what you named me in the single hours?"

"Are you some prince's light-o'-love?" roughly.

The blood of wrath spread over her cheeks.

"Your name?"

"I am not afraid of you, Monsieur; but you are twisting my arm cruelly. Will you not let go? Thank you!"

"You will not tell me who you are?"

"No."

"Nor what your object was in playing with my heart?"

"Perhaps I had best tell you the truth. Monsieur, it was a trap I set for you that night in Paris, when I came dressed as a musketeer. My love of mischief was piqued. I had heard so much about the fascinating Chevalier du Cévennes and his conquests. There was Mademoiselle de Longueville, Mademoiselle de Fontrailles, the little Coislin, and I know not how many others. And you walked over their hearts in such a cavalierly way, rumor had it, that I could not resist the temptation to see what manner of man you were. You were only the usual lord of creation, a trite pattern. You amused me, and I was curious to see how long you would remain constant."

"Are you not also a trite pattern?"

"I constituted myself a kind of vengeance. Mademoiselle Catharine expected you to establish her in the millinery. Have you done so?"

The Chevalier fell back from the table. This thrust utterly confused and bewildered him. It was so groundless and unexpected.

"She is very plump, and her cheeks are like winter apples. She had at one time been in my service, but I had reasons to discharge her. I compliment you upon your taste. After kissing my hands, these," holding out those beautiful members of an exquisite anatomy, "you could go and kiss the cheeks of a serving-wench! Monsieur, I come from a proud and noble race. A man can not, after having kissed my hands, press his lips to the cheeks of a Catharine and return again to me. I wrote that letter to lead you a dance such as you would not soon forget. And see! you did not trouble yourself to start to find me. And a Catharine! Faugh! Her hands are large and red, her eyes are bold; when she is thirty she will be fat and perhaps dispensing cheap wine in a low cabaret. And you called me Rosalind between times and signed your verses and letters Orlando! You quoted from Petrarch and said I was your Laura. My faith! man is a curious animal. I have been told that I am beautiful; and from me you turned to a Catharine! I suspect she is lodged somewhere here in Quebec."

"A Catharine!" he repeated, wildly. The devil gathered up the reins. "This is a mad, fantastic world! You kiss my handsome grey eyes a thousand times, then? What rapture! Catharine? What a pretext! It has no saving grace. You are mad, I am mad; the world is one of those Italian panoramas! A thousand kisses, Diane . . . No; you have ceased to be the huntress. You are Daphne. Well, I will play Apollo to your Daphne. Let us see if you will change into laurel!" Lightly he leaped the table, and she was locked in his arms. "What! daughter of Perseus and Terra, you are still in human shape? Ah! then the gods themselves are lies!"

She said nothing, but there was fear and rage in her eyes; and her heart beat furiously against his.

Presently he pressed her from him with a pressure gentle but steady. "Have no fear, Diane, or Daphne, or whatever you may be pleased to call yourself. I am a gentleman. I will not take by force what you would not willingly give. I have never played with a woman's heart nor with a man's honor. And as for Catharine, I laugh. It is true that I kissed her cheeks. I had been drinking, and the wine was still in my head. I had left you. My heart was light and happy. I would have kissed a spaniel, had a spaniel crossed my path instead of a Catharine. There was no more taint to those kisses I gave to her than to those you have often thoughtlessly given to the flowers in your garden. I loved you truly; I love you still. Catharine is a poor pretext. There is something you have not told me. Say truthfully that your belief is that I was secretly paying court to that poor Madame de Brissac, and that I wore the grey cloak that terrible night; that I fled from France because of these things. You say that you are about to become a nun. You do, then, believe in God. Well," releasing her, "I swear to you by that God that I never saw Madame de Brissac; that I was far away from Paris on the nineteenth of February. You have wantonly and cruelly destroyed the only token I had which was closely associated with my love of you. This locket means nothing." He pulled it forth, took the chain from round his neck. "You never wore it; it is nothing. I do not need it to recall your likeness. Since I have been the puppet, since even God mocks me by bringing you here, take the locket."

She looked, not at the locket nor at the hand which held it, but into his eyes. In hers the wrath was gone; there was even a humorous sparkle under the heavy lashes. She made no sign that she saw the jeweled miniature. She was thinking how strong he was, how handsomely dignity and pride sat upon his face.

"Will you take it?" he repeated.

Her hands went slowly behind her back.

"Does this mean that, having lain upon my heart for more than a year, it is no longer of value to you?" He laid the chain and locket upon the table. "Yesterday I had thought my cup was full." The mask lay crumpled at his feet, and he recovered it absently. "You?" he cried, suddenly, as the picture came back. He looked at the mask, then at her. "Was it you who came into that room at the Corne d'Abondance in Rochelle, and when I addressed you, would not speak? Oh! You, were implicated in a conspiracy, and you were on the way to Spain. Saumaise! He knows who you are, and by the friendship he holds for me and I for him, he shall tell me!" He became all eagerness again. "Vervain! I might have known. Diane, give me some hope that all this mystery shall some day be brushed aside. I am innocent of any evil; I have committed no crime. Will you give me some hope, the barest straw?"

She did not answer. She was nervously fingering the ashes of her letter.

"You do not answer? So be it. You have asked me why I did not seek you. Some day you will learn. Since you refuse to take the locket, I will keep it. Poor fool that I have been, with all these dreams!"

"You are destroying my mask, Monsieur."

He pressed his lips against the silken lips where hers had been so often.

"Keep it," she said, carelessly, "or destroy it. It is valueless. Will you stand aside? I wish to go."

He stood back, and she passed out. Her face remained in the shadow. He strove to read it, in vain. Ah, well, Quebec was small. And she had taken the voyage on the same ship as his father. . . . She had not heard; she could not have heard! Ah, where was this labyrinth to lead, and who was to throw him the guiding thread? He