Gallantry. Dizain des Fetes Galantes

cried the Duke; 'I trust that your wife and doubtless very charming children have good health?'

'Beyond question, monseigneur,' the man answered, stolidly.

'That is excellent hearing,' de Puysange said, 'and it rejoices me to be reassured of their welfare. For the happiness of others, Antoine, is very dear to the heart of a father—and of a husband.' The Duke chuckled seraphically as he passed down the hall. The man stared after him, and shrugged.

'Rather worse than usual,' Antoine considered.

II

Next morning the Duchesse de Puysange received an immoderate armful of roses, with a fair copy of some execrable verses. De Puysange spent the afternoon, selecting bonbons and wholesome books,—'for his fiancee,' he gravely informed the shopman.

At the Opera he never left her box; afterward, at the Comtesse de Hauteville's, he created a furor by sitting out three dances in the conservatory with his wife. Mademoiselle Tiercelin had already received his regrets that he was spending that night at home.

III

The month wore on.

'It is the true honeymoon,' said the Duke.

In that event he might easily have found a quieter place than Paris wherein to spend it. Police agents had of late been promised a premium for any sturdy beggar, whether male or female, they could secure to populate the new plantation of Louisiana; and as the premium was large, genteel burgesses, and in particular the children of genteel burgesses, were presently disappearing in a fashion their families found annoying. Now, from nowhere, arose and spread the curious rumor that King Louis, somewhat the worse for his diversions in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, daily restored his vigor by bathing in the blood of young children; and parents of the absentees began to manifest a double dissatisfaction, for the deduction was obvious.

There were riots. In one of them Madame de Pompadour barely escaped with her life, [Footnote: This was on the afternoon of the famous ball given by the Pompadour in honor of the new Duchess of Ormskirk.] and the King himself on his way to Compiegne, was turned back at the Porte St. Antoine, and forced to make a detour rather than enter his own capital. After this affair de Puysange went straight to his brother-in-law.

'Jean,' said he, 'for a newly married man you receive too much company. And afterward your visitors talk blasphemously in cabarets and shoot the King's musketeers. I would appreciate an explanation.'

Ormskirk shrugged. 'Merely a makeshift, Gaston. Merely a device to gain time wherein England may prepare against the alliance of France and Austria. Your secret treaty will never be signed as long as Paris is given over to rioters. Nay, the Empress may well hesitate to ally herself with a king who thus clamantly cannot govern even his own realm. And meanwhile England will prepare herself. We will be ready to fight you in five years, but we do not intend to be hurried about it.'

'Yes,' de Puysange assented;—'yet you err in sending Cumberland to defend Hanover. You will need a better man there.'

Ormskirk slapped his thigh. 'So you intercepted that last despatch, after all! And I could have sworn Candale was trustworthy!'

'My adored Jean,' replied de Puysange, 'he has been in my pay for six months! Console yourself with the reflection that you overbid us in Noumaria.'

'Yes, but old Ludwig held out for more than the whole duchy is worth. We paid of course. We had to pay.'

'And one of course congratulates you upon securing the quite essential support of that duchy. Still, Jean, if there were any accident—' De Puysange was really unbelievably ugly when he smiled. 'For accidents do occur…. It is war, then?'

'My dear fellow,' said Ormskirk, 'of course it is war. We are about to fly at each other's throats, with half of Europe to back each of us. We begin the greatest game we have ever played. And we will manage it very badly, I dare say, since we are each of us just now besotted with adoration of our wives.'

'At times,' said de Puysange, with dignity, 'your galimatias are insufferable. Now let us talk like reasonable beings. In regard to Pomerania, you will readily understand that the interests of humanity—'

IV

Still the suggestion haunted him. It would be a nuance too ridiculous, of course, to care seriously for one's wife, and yet Helene de Puysange was undeniably a handsome woman. As they sat over the remains of their dinner,—a deux, by the Duke's request,—she seemed to her husband quite incredibly beautiful. She exhaled the effects of a water-color in discreet and delicate tinctures. Lithe and fine and proud she was to the merest glance; yet patience, a thought conscious of itself, beaconed in her eyes, and she appeared, with urbanity, to regard life as, upon the whole, a countrified performance. De Puysange liked that air; he liked the reticence of every glance and speech and gesture,—liked, above all, the thinnish oval of her face and the staid splendor of her hair. Here was no vulgar yellow, no crass and hackneyed gold … and yet there was a clarified and gauzier shade of gold … the color of the moon by daylight, say…. Then, as the pleasures of digestion lapsed gently into the initial amenities of sleep, she spoke.

'Monsieur,' said she, 'will you be pleased to tell me the meaning of this comedy?'

'Madame,' de Puysange answered, and raised his gloomy eyebrows, 'I do not entirely comprehend.'

'Ah,' said she, 'believe me, I do not undervalue your perception. I have always esteemed your cleverness, monsieur, however much'—she paused for a moment, a fluctuating smile upon her lips,—'however much I may have regretted its manifestations. I am not clever, and to me cleverness has always seemed to be an infinite incapacity for hard work; its results are usually a few sonnets, an undesirable wife, and a warning for one's acquaintances. In your case it is, of course, different; you have your statesmanship to play with—'

'And statesmen have no need of cleverness, you would imply, madame?'

'I do not say that. In any event, you are the Duc de Puysange, and the weight of a great name stifles stupidity and cleverness without any partiality. With you, cleverness has taken the form of a tendency to intoxication, amours, and—amiability. I have acquiesced in this. But, for the past month—'

'The happiest period of my life!' breathed the Duke.

'—you have been pleased to present me with flowers, bonbons, jewels, and what not. You have actually accorded your wife the courtesies you usually preserve for the ladies of the ballet. You have dogged my footsteps, you have attempted to intrude into my bedroom, you have talked to me as—well, very much as—'

'Much as the others do?' de Puysange queried, helpfully. 'Pardon me, madame, but, in one's own husband, I had thought this very routine might savor of originality.'

The Duchess flushed, 'All the world knows, monsieur, that in your estimation what men have said to me, or I to them, has been for fifteen years a matter of no moment! It is not due to you that I am still—'

'A pearl,' finished the Duke, gallantly,—then touched himself upon the chest,—'cast before swine,' he sighed.

She rose to her feet. 'Yes, cast before swine!' she cried, with a quick lift of speech. She seemed very tall as she stood tapping her fingers upon the table, irresolutely; but after an instant she laughed and spread out her fine hands in an impotent gesture. 'Ah, monsieur,' she said, 'my father entrusted to your keeping a clean-minded girl! What have you made of her, Gaston?'