'Then I prescribe another glass of this really excellent wine,' laughed little Louis de Soyecourt. At heart he was not merry, and his own unreasoning nervousness irritated him, for it seemed to the Marquis, quite irrationally, that the atmosphere of the cheery room was, without forerunnership, become tense and expectant, and was now quiet with much the hush which precedes the bursting of a thunder-storm. And accordingly he laughed.
'I prescribe another glass, monsieur,' said he. 'Eh, that is the true panacea for faintness—for every ill. Come, we will drink to the most beautiful woman in Poictesme—nay, I am too modest,—to the most beautiful woman in France, in Europe, in the whole universe!
Vanringham had blurted out an odd, unhuman sound. His extended hand shook and jerked, as if in irresolution, and presently struck the proffered glass from de Soyecourt's grasp. You heard the tiny crash, very audible in the stillness, and afterward the irregular drumming of the old Prince's finger-tips. He had not raised his head, had not moved.
Louis de Soyecourt came to him, without speaking, and placed one hand under his father's chin, and lifted the Prince's countenance, like a dead weight, toward his own. Thus the two men regarded each the other. Their silence was rather horrible.
'It was not in vain that I dabbled with chemistry all these years,' said the guttural voice of the Prince de Gatinais, 'Yes, the child is dead by this. Let us recognize the fact we are de Soyecourts, you and I.'
But Louis de Soyecourt had flung aside the passive, wrinkled face, and then, with a straining gesture, wiped the fingers that had touched it upon the sleeve of his left arm. He turned to the stairway. His hand grasped the newelpost and gripped it so firmly that he seemed less to walk than by one despairing effort to lift an inert body to the first step. He ascended slowly, with a queer shamble, and disappeared into Nelchen's room.
VI
'What next, monseigneur?' said Vanringham, half-whispering.
'Why, next,' said the Prince de Gatinais, 'I imagine that he will kill us both. Meantime, as Louis says, the wine is really excellent. So you may refill my glass, my man, and restore to me my vial of little tablets'….
He was selecting a bonbon from the comfit-dish when his son returned into the apartment. Very tenderly Louis de Soyecourt laid his burden upon a settle, and then drew the older man toward it. You noted first how the thing lacked weight: a flower snapped from its stalk could hardly have seemed more fragile. The loosened hair strained toward the floor and seemed to have sucked all color from the thing to inform that thick hair's insolent glory; the tint of Nelchen's lips was less sprightly, and for the splendor of her eyes Death had substituted a conscientious copy in crayons: otherwise there was no change; otherwise she seemed to lie there and muse on something remote and curious, yet quite as she would have wished it to be.
'See, my father,' Louis de Soyecourt said, 'she was only a child, more little even than I. Never in her brief life had she wronged any one,—never, I believe, had she known an unkind thought. Always she laughed, you understand—Oh, my father, is it not pitiable that Nelchen will never laugh any more?'
'I entreat of God to have mercy upon her soul,' said the old Prince de Gatinais. 'I entreat of God that the soul of her murderer may dwell eternally in the nethermost pit of hell.'
'I would cry amen,' Louis de Soyecourt said, 'if I could any longer believe in God.'
The Prince turned toward him. 'And will you kill me now, Louis?'
'I cannot,' said the other. 'Is it not an excellent jest that I should be your son and still be human? Yet as for your instrument, your cunning butler—Come, Vanringham!' he barked. 'We are unarmed. Come, tall man, for I who am well-nigh a dwarf now mean to kill you with my naked hands.'
'Vanringham!' The Prince leaped forward. 'Behind me, Vanringham!' As the valet ran to him the old Prince de Gatinais caught a knife from the table and buried it to the handle in Vanringham's breast. The lackey coughed, choked, clutched his assassin by each shoulder; thus he stood with a bewildered face, shuddering visibly, every muscle twitching. Suddenly he shrieked, with an odd, gurgling noise, and his grip relaxed, and Francis Vanringham seemed to crumple among his garments, so that he shrank rather than fell to the floor. His hands stretched forward, his fingers spreading and for a moment writhing in agony, and then he lay quite still.
'You progress, my father,' said Louis de Soyecourt, quietly. 'And what new infamy may I now look for?'
'A valet!' said the Prince. 'You would have fought with him—a valet! He topped you by six inches. And the man was desperate. Your life was in danger. And your life is valuable.'
'I have earlier perceived, my father, that you prize human life very highly.'
The Prince de Gatinais struck sharply upon the table. 'I prize the welfare of France. To secure this it is necessary that you and no other reign in Noumaria. But for the girl you would have yielded just now. So to the welfare of France I sacrifice the knave at my feet, the child yonder, and my own soul. Let us remember that we are de Soyecourts, you and I.'
'Rather I see in you,' began the younger man, 'a fiend. I see in you a far ignobler Judas—'
'And I see in you the savior of France. Nay, let us remember that we are de Soyecourts, you and I. And for six centuries it has always been our first duty to serve France. You behold only a man and a woman assassinated; I behold thousands of men preserved from death, many thousands of women rescued from hunger and degradation. I have sinned, and grievously; ages of torment may not purge my infamy; yet I swear it is well done!'
'And I—?' the little Marquis said.
'Why, your heart is slain, my son, for you loved this girl as I loved your mother, and now you can nevermore quite believe in the love God bears for us all; and my soul is damned irretrievably: but we are de Soyecourts, you and I, and accordingly we rejoice and drink to France, to the true love of a de Soyecourt! to France preserved! to France still mighty among her peers!'
Louis de Soyecourt stood quite motionless. Only his eyes roved toward his father, then to the body that had been Nelchen's. He began to laugh as he caught up his glass. 'You have conquered. What else have I to live for now? To France, you devil!'
'To France, my son!' The glasses clinked. 'To the true love of a de Soyecourt!'
And immediately the Prince de Gatinais fell at his son's feet. 'You will go into Noumaria?'
'What does that matter now?' the other wearily said. 'Yes, I suppose so. Get up, you devil!'
But the Prince de Gatinais detained him, with hands like ice. 'Then we preserve France, you and I! We are both damned, I think, but it is worth while, Louis. In hell we may remember that it was well worth while. I have slain your very soul, my dear son, but that does not matter: France is saved.' The old man still knelt, looking upward. 'Yes, and you must forgive me, my son! For, see, I yield you what reparation I may. See, Louis,—I was chemist enough for two. Wine of my own vintage I have tasted, of the brave vintage which now revives all France. And I swear to you the child did not suffer, Louis, not—not much. See, Louis! she did not suffer.' A convulsion tore at and shook the aged body, and twitched awry the mouth that had smiled so resolutely. Thus the Prince died.
Presently Louis de Soyecourt knelt and caught up the wrinkled face between both hands. 'My father—!' said Louis de Soyecourt. Afterward he kissed the dead lips tenderly. 'Teach me how to live, my father,' said Louis de Soyecourt, 'for I begin to comprehend—in part I comprehend.' Throughout the moment Nelchen Thorn was forgotten: and to himself he too seemed to be fashioned of heroic stuff.
X
THE DUCAL AUDIENCE
