fashion on such a day of days? Perish the thought! There will probably be six suns, and, I dare say, a meteor or two.'
'I perceive, sir,' Raoul said here, 'that after all you have not forgotten the young Raymond of whom I spoke.'
'That was a long while ago,' snapped Sieur Raymond. 'I know a deal more of the world nowadays; and a level-headed world would be somewhat surprised at such occurrences, and suggest that for the future Phyllis remain at home. For whether you—or I—or any one—be in love or no is to our fellow creatures an affair of astonishingly trivial import. Not since Noe that great admiral, repeopled the world by begetting three sons upon Dame Noria has there been a love-business worthy of consideration; nor, if you come to that, not since sagacious Solomon went a-wenching has a wise man wasted his wisdom on a lover. So love one another, my children, by all means: but do you, Matthiette, make ready to depart into Normandy as a true and faithful wife to Monsieur de Puysange; and do you, Raoul de Prison, remain at Arnaye, and attend to my falcons more carefully than you have done of late,—or, by the cross of Saint Lo! I will clap the wench in a convent and hang the lad as high as Haman!'
Whereon Sieur Raymond smiled pleasantly, and drained his wine-cup as one considering the discussion ended.
Raoul sat silent for a moment. Then he rose. 'Monsieur d'Arnaye, you know me to be a gentleman of unblemished descent, and as such entitled to a hearing. I forbid you before all-seeing Heaven to wed your niece to a man she does not love! And I have the honor to request of you her hand in marriage.'
'Which offer I decline,' said Sieur Raymond, grinning placidly,—'with every imaginable civility. Niece,' he continued, 'here is a gentleman who offers you a heartful of love, six months of insanity, and forty years of boredom in a leaky, wind-swept chateau. He has dreamed dreams concerning you: allow me to present to you the reality.'
With some ceremony Sieur Raymond now grasped Matthiette's hand and led her mirror-ward. 'Permit me to present the wife of Monsieur de Puysange. Could he have made a worthier choice? Ah, happy lord, that shall so soon embrace such perfect loveliness! For, frankly, my niece, is not that golden hair of a shade that will set off a coronet extraordinarily well? Are those wondrous eyes not fashioned to surfeit themselves upon the homage and respect accorded the wife of a great lord? Ouais, the thing is indisputable: and, therefore, I must differ from Monsieur de Frison here, who would condemn this perfection to bloom and bud unnoticed in a paltry country town.'
There was an interval, during which Matthiette gazed sadly into the mirror. 'And Arnaye—?' said she.
'Undoubtedly,' said Sieur Raymond,—'Arnaye must perish unless Puysange prove her friend. Therefore, my niece conquers her natural aversion to a young and wealthy husband, and a life of comfort and flattery and gayety; relinquishes you, Raoul; and, like a feminine Mettius Curtius, sacrifices herself to her country's welfare. Pierre may sleep undisturbed; and the pigs will have a new sty. My faith, it is quite affecting! And so,' Sieur Raymond summed it up, 'you two young fools may bid adieu, once for all, while I contemplate this tapestry.' He strolled to the end of the room and turned his back. 'Admirable!' said he; 'really now, that leopard is astonishingly lifelike!'
Raoul came toward Matthiette. 'Dear love,' said he, 'you have chosen wisely, and I bow to your decision. Farewell, Matthiette,—O indomitable heart! O brave perfect woman that I have loved! Now at the last of all, I praise you for your charity to me, Love's mendicant,—ah, believe me, Matthiette, that atones for aught which follows now. Come what may, I shall always remember that once in old days you loved me, and, remembering this, I shall always thank God with a contented heart.' He bowed over her unresponsive hand. 'Matthiette,' he whispered, 'be happy! For I desire that very heartily, and I beseech of our Sovereign Lady—not caring to hide at all how my voice shakes, nor how the loveliness of you, seen now for the last time, is making blind my eyes—that you may never know unhappiness. You have chosen wisely, Matthiette; yet, ah, my dear, do not forget me utterly, but keep always a little place in your heart for your boy lover!'
Sieur Raymond concluded his inspection of the tapestry, and turned with a premonitory cough. 'Thus ends the comedy,' said he, shrugging, 'with much fine, harmless talking about 'always,' while the world triumphs. Invariably the world triumphs, my children. Eheu, we are as God made us, we men and women that cumber His stately earth!' He drew his arm through Raoul's. 'Farewell, niece,' said Sieur Raymond, smiling; 'I rejoice that you are cured of your malady. Now in respect to gerfalcons—' said he. The arras fell behind them.
3.
Matthiette sat brooding in her room, as the night wore on. She was pitifully frightened, numb. There was in the room, she dimly noted, a heavy silence that sobs had no power to shatter. Dimly, too, she seemed aware of a multitude of wide, incurious eyes which watched her from every corner, where panels snapped at times with sharp echoes. The night was well-nigh done when she arose.
'After all,' she said, wearily, 'it is my manifest duty.' Matthiette crept to the mirror and studied it.
'Madame de Puysange,' said she, without any intonation; then threw her arms above her head, with a hard gesture of despair. 'I love him!' she cried, in a frightened voice.
Matthiette went to a great chest and fumbled among its contents. She drew out a dagger in a leather case, and unsheathed it. The light shone evilly scintillant upon the blade. She laughed, and hid it in the bosom of her gown, and fastened a cloak about her with impatient fingers. Then Matthiette crept down the winding stair that led to the gardens, and unlocked the door at the foot of it.
A sudden rush of night swept toward her, big with the secrecy of dawn. The sky, washed clean of stars, sprawled above,—a leaden, monotonous blank. Many trees whispered thickly over the chaos of earth; to the left, in an increasing dove-colored luminousness, a field of growing maize bristled like the chin of an unshaven Titan.
Matthiette entered an expectant world. Once in the tree-chequered gardens, it was as though she crept through the aisles of an unlit cathedral already garnished for its sacred pageant. Matthiette heard the querulous birds call sleepily above; the margin of night was thick with their petulant complaints; behind her was the monstrous shadow of the Chateau d'Arnaye, and past that was a sullen red, the red of contused flesh, to herald dawn. Infinity waited a-tiptoe, tense for the coming miracle, and against this vast repression, her grief dwindled into irrelevancy: the leaves whispered comfort; each tree-bole hid chuckling fauns. Matthiette laughed. Content had flooded the universe all through and through now that yonder, unseen as yet, the scarlet-faced sun was toiling up the rim of the world, and matters, it somehow seemed, could not turn out so very ill, in the end.
Matthiette came to a hut, from whose open window a faded golden glow spread out into obscurity like a tawdry fan. From without she peered into the hut and saw Raoul. A lamp flickered upon the table. His shadow twitched and wavered about the plastered walls,—a portentous mass of head upon a hemisphere of shoulders,—as Raoul bent over a chest, sorting the contents, singing softly to himself, while Matthiette leaned upon the sill without, and the gardens of Arnaye took form and stirred in the heart of a chill, steady, sapphire-like radiance.
Sang Raoul:
