A Gentleman of France: Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne Sieur de Marsac, - [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .txt] 📗

‘Well, sir,’ she answered, looking up at she after a moment’s silence, and ceasing on a sudden to play with her toy, ‘what is it?’

‘You spoke of favours,’ I continued, with an effort. ‘I never received but one from a lady. That was at Rosny, and from your hand.’

‘From my hand?’ she answered, with an air of cold surprise.

‘It was so, mademoiselle.’

‘You have fallen into some strange mistake, sir,’ she replied, rousing herself, and looking at me indifferently ‘I never gave you a favour.’

I bowed low. ‘If you say you did not, mademoiselle, that is enough,’ I answered.

‘Nay, but do not let me do you an injustice, M. de Marsac,’ she rejoined, speaking more quickly and in an altered tone. ‘If you can show me the favour I gave you, I shall, of course, be convinced. Seeing is believing, you know,’ she added, with a light nervous laugh, and a gesture of something like shyness.

If I had not sufficiently regretted my carelessness, and loss of the bow at the time, I did so now. I looked at her in silence, and saw her face, that had for a moment shown signs of feeling, almost of shame, grow slowly hard again.

‘Well, sir?’ she said impatiently. ‘The proof is easy.’

‘It was taken from me; I believe, by M. de Rosny,’ I answered lamely, wondering what ill-luck had led her to put the question and press it to this point.

‘It was taken from you!’ she exclaimed, rising and confronting me with the utmost suddenness, while her eyes flashed, and her little hand crumpled the mask beyond future usefulness. ‘It was taken from you, sir!’ she repeated, her voice and her whole frame trembling with anger and disdain. ‘Then I thank you, I prefer my version. Yours is impossible. For let me tell you, when Mademoiselle de la Vire does confer a favour, it will be on a man with the power and the wit—and the constancy, to keep it, even from M. de Rosny!’

Her scorn hurt, though it did not anger me. I felt it to be in a measure deserved, and raged against myself rather than against her. But aware through all of the supreme importance of placing her in safety, I subjected my immediate feelings to the exigencies of the moment and stooped to an argument which would, I thought, have weight though private pleading failed.

‘Putting myself aside, mademoiselle,’ I said, with more formality than I had yet used, ‘there is one consideration which must weigh with you. The king—’

‘The king!’ she cried, interrupting me violently, her face hot with passion and her whole person instinct with stubborn self-will. ‘I shall not see the king!’

‘You will not see the king?’ I repeated in amazement.

‘No, I will not!’ she answered, in a whirl of anger, scorn, and impetuosity. ‘There! I will not! I have been made a toy and a tool long enough, M. de Marsac,’ she continued, ‘and I will serve others’ ends no more. I have made up my mind. Do not talk to me; you will do no good, sir. I would to Heaven,’ she added bitterly, ‘I had stayed at Chize and never seen this place!’

‘But, mademoiselle,’ I said, ‘you have not thought—’

‘Thought!’ she exclaimed, shutting her small white teeth so viciously I all but recoiled. ‘I have thought enough. I am sick of thought. I am going to act now. I will be a puppet no longer. You may take me to the castle by force if you will; but you cannot make me speak.’

I looked at her in the utmost dismay, and astonishment; being unable at first to believe that a woman who had gone through so much, had run so many risks, and ridden so many miles for a purpose, would, when all was done and the hour come, decline to carry out her plan. I could not believe it, I say, at first; and I tried arguments, and entreaties without stint, thinking that she only asked to be entreated or coaxed.

But I found prayers and even threats breath wasted upon her; and beyond these I would not go. I know I have been blamed by some and ridiculed by others for not pushing the matter farther; but those who have stood face to face with a woman of spirit—a woman whose very frailty and weakness fought for her—will better understand the difficulties with which I had to contend and the manner in which conviction was at last borne in on my mind. I had never before confronted stubbornness of this kind. As mademoiselle said again and again, I might force her to Court, but I could not make her speak.

When I had tried every means of persuasion, and still found no way of overcoming her resolution the while Fanchette looked on with a face of wood, neither aiding me nor taking part against me—I lost, I confess, in the chagrin of the moment that sense of duty which had hitherto animated me; and though my relation to mademoiselle should have made me as careful as ever of her safety, even in her own despite, I left her at last in anger and went out without saying another word about removing her—a thing which was still in my power. I believe a very brief reflection would have recalled me to myself and my duty; but the opportunity was not given me, for I had scarcely reached the head of the stairs before Fanchette came after me, and called to me in a whisper to stop.

She held a taper in her hand, and this she raised to my face, smiling at the disorder which she doubtless read there. ‘Do you say that this house is not safe?’ she asked abruptly, lowering the light as she spoke.

‘You have tried a house in Blois before?’ I replied with the same bluntness. ‘You should know as well as I, woman.’

‘She must be taken from here, then,’ she answered, nodding her head, cunningly. ‘I can persuade her. Do you send for your people, and be here in half an hour. It may take me that time to wheedle her. But I shall do it.’

‘Then listen,’ I said eagerly, seizing the opportunity and her sleeve and drawing her farther from the door. ‘If you can persuade her to that, you can persuade to all I wish. Listen, my friend,’ I continued, sinking my voice still lower. ‘If she will see the king for only ten minutes, and tell him what she knows, I will give you—’

‘What?’ the woman asked suddenly and harshly, drawing at the same time her sleeve from my hand.

‘Fifty crowns,’ I replied, naming in my desperation a sum which would seem a fortune to a person in her position. ‘Fifty crowns down, the moment the interview is over.’

‘And for that you would have me sell her!’ the woman cried with a rude intensity of passion which struck me like a blow. ‘For shame! For shame, man! You persuaded her to leave her home and her friends, and the country where she was known; and now you would have me sell her! Shame on you! Go!’ she added scornfully. ‘Go this instant and get your men. The king, say you? The king! I tell you I would not