“But, then,” he cried, on a high note of confidence, “from such a beginning …”
“Who shall assure me that it is a beginning? May it not be the whole? Had I held you in affection, monsieur, I should have sent for you after the affair of which you have spoken. I should at least not have condemned you without hearing your explanation. As it was …” She shrugged, smiling gently, sadly. “You see …”
But his optimism far from being crushed was stimulated. “But it is to give me hope, mademoiselle. If already I possess so much, I may look with confidence to win more. I shall prove myself worthy. I swear to do that. Who that is permitted the privilege of being near you could do other than seek to render himself worthy?”
And then before she could add a word, M. de Kercadiou came blustering through the window, his spectacles on his forehead, his face inflamed, waving in his hand The Acts of the Apostles, and apparently reduced to speechlessness.
Had the Marquis expressed himself aloud he would have been profane. As it was he bit his lip in vexation at this most inopportune interruption.
Aline sprang up, alarmed by her uncle’s agitation.
“What has happened?”
“Happened?” He found speech at last. “The scoundrel! The faithless dog! I consented to overlook the past on the clear condition that he should avoid revolutionary politics in future. That condition he accepted, and now”—he smacked the news-sheet furiously—“he has played me false again. Not only has he gone into politics, once more, but he is actually a member of the Assembly, and what is worse he has been using his assassin’s skill as a fencing-master, turning himself into a bully-swordsman. My God! Is there any law at all left in France?”
One doubt M. de La Tour d’Azyr had entertained, though only faintly, to mar the perfect serenity of his growing optimism. That doubt concerned this man Moreau and his relations with M. de Kercadiou. He knew what once they had been, and how changed they subsequently were by the ingratitude of Moreau’s own behavior in turning against the class to which his benefactor belonged. What he did not know was that a reconciliation had been effected. For in the past month—ever since circumstances had driven André-Louis to depart from his undertaking to steer clear of politics—the young man had not ventured to approach Meudon, and as it happened his name had not been mentioned in La Tour d’Azyr’s hearing on the occasion of either of his own previous visits. He learnt of that reconciliation now; but he learnt at the same time that the breach was now renewed, and rendered wider and more impassable than ever. Therefore he did not hesitate to avow his own position.
“There is a law,” he answered. “The law that this rash young man himself evokes. The law of the sword.” He spoke very gravely, almost sadly. For he realized that after all the ground was tender. “You are not to suppose that he is to continue indefinitely his career of evil and of murder. Sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the others. You have observed that my cousin Chabrillane is among the number of this assassin’s victims; that he was killed on Tuesday last.”
“If I have not expressed my condolence, Azyr, it is because my indignation stifles at the moment every other feeling. The scoundrel! You say that sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the others. I pray that it may be soon.”
The Marquis answered him quietly, without anything but sorrow in his voice. “I think your prayer is likely to be heard. This wretched young man has an engagement for tomorrow, when his account may be definitely settled.”
He spoke with such calm conviction that his words had all the sound of a sentence of death. They suddenly stemmed the flow of M. de Kercadiou’s anger. The colour receded from his inflamed face; dread looked out of his pale eyes, to inform M. de La Tour d’Azyr, more clearly than any words, that M. de Kercadiou’s hot speech had been the expression of unreflecting anger, that his prayer that retribution might soon overtake his godson had been unconsciously insincere. Confronted now by the fact that this retribution was about to be visited upon that scoundrel, the fundamental gentleness and kindliness of his nature asserted itself; his anger was suddenly whelmed in apprehension; his affection for the lad beat up to the surface, making André-Louis’ sin, however hideous, a thing of no account by comparison with the threatened punishment.
M. de Kercadiou moistened his lips.
“With whom is this engagement?” he asked in a voice that by an effort he contrived to render steady.
M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowed his handsome head, his eyes upon the gleaming parquetry of the floor. “With myself,” he answered quietly, conscious already with a tightening of the heart that his answer must sow dismay. He caught the sound of a faint outcry from Aline; he saw the sudden recoil of M. de Kercadiou. And then he plunged headlong into the explanation that he deemed necessary.
“In view of his relations with you, M. de Kercadiou, and because of my deep regard for you, I did my best to avoid this, even though as you will understand the death of my dear friend and cousin Chabrillane seemed to summon me to action, even though I knew that my circumspection was becoming matter for criticism among my friends. But yesterday this unbridled young man made further restraint impossible to me. He provoked me deliberately and publicly. He put upon me the very grossest affront, and … tomorrow morning in the Bois … we meet.”
He faltered a little at the end, fully conscious of the hostile atmosphere in which he suddenly found
