CHAPTER XII.
As a Man Possessed.
HE dim light served no further than to show that a man was there.
“Well, Jean, what news?” asked the duke, drawing the door close behind him.
“I am not Jean,” said I.
“Then who the devil are you, and what are you doing here?” He advanced and held up the lantern. “Why, what are you hanging about for?” he exclaimed the next moment, with a start of surprise.
“And I am not George Sampson either,” said I composedly. I had no mind to play any more tricks. As I must meet him, it should be in my own character.
The duke studied me from top to toe. He twirled his mustache, and a slight smile appeared on his full lips.
“Yet I know you as George Sampson, I think, sir,” said he, but in an altered tone. He spoke now as though to an equal—to an enemy perhaps, but to an equal.
I was in some perplexity; but a moment later he relieved me.
“You need trouble yourself with no denials,” he said. “Lafleur’s story of the gentleman at Avranches, with the description of him, struck me as strange; and for the rest—there were two things.”
He seated himself on a stool. I leaned against the wall.
“In the first place,” he continued, “I know my wife pretty well; in the second, a secret known to four maidservants—— Really, sir, you were very confiding!”
“I was doing no wrong,” said I; though not, I confess, in a very convinced tone.
“Then why the masquerade?” he answered quickly, hitting my weak point.
“Because you were known to be unreasonable.”
His smile broadened a little.
“It’s the old crime of husbands, isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, sir, I’m no lawyer, and it’s not my purpose to question you on that matter. I will put you to no denials.”
I bowed. The civility of his demeanor was a surprise to me.
“If that were the only affair, I need not keep you ten minutes,” he went on. “At least, I presume that my friend would find you when he wanted to deliver a message from me?”
“Certainly. But may I ask why, if that is your intention, you have delayed so long? You guessed I was at Avranches. Why not have sent to me?”
The duke tugged his mustache.
“I do not know your name, sir,” he remarked.
“My name is Aycon.”
“I know the name,” and he bowed slightly. “Well, I didn’t send to you at Avranches because I was otherwise occupied.”
“I am glad, sir, that you take it so lightly,” said I.
“And by the way, Mr. Aycon, before you question me, isn’t there a question I might ask you? How came you here to-night?” And, as he spoke, his smile vanished.
“I have nothing to say, beyond that I hoped to see your servant Jean.”
“For what purpose? Come, sir, for what purpose? I have a right to ask for what purpose.” And his tone rose in anger.
I was going to give him a straightforward answer. My hand was actually on the way to the spot where I felt the red box pressing against my side, when he rose from his seat and strode toward me; and a sudden passion surged in his voice.
“Answer me! answer me!” he cried. “No, I’m not asking about my wife; I don’t care a farthing for that empty little parrot. Answer me, sir, as you value your life! What do you know of Marie Delhasse?”
And he stood before me with uplifted hand, as though he meant to strike me. I did not move, and we looked keenly into one another’s eyes. He controlled himself by a great effort, but his hands trembled, as he continued:
“That old hag who came to-night and dared to show her filthy face here without her daughter—she told me of your talks and walks. The girl was ready to come. Who stopped her? Who turned her mind? Who was there but you—you—you?”
And again his passion overcame him, and he was within an ace of dashing his fist in my face.
My hands hung at my side, and I leaned easily against the wall.
“Thank God,” said I, “I believe I stopped her! I believe I turned her mind. I did my best, and except me, nobody was there.”
“You admit it?”
“I admit the crime you charged me with. Nothing more.”
“What have you done with her? Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah!” he cried, in angry incredulity. “You don’t know, don’t you?”
“And if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I’m sure of that,” he sneered. “It is knowledge a man keeps to himself, isn’t it? But, by Heaven, you shall tell me before you leave this place, or——”
“We have already one good ground of quarrel,” I interrupted. “What need is there of another?”
“A good ground of quarrel?” he repeated, in a questioning tone.
Honestly I believe that he had for the moment forgotten. His passion for Marie Delhasse and fury at the loss of her filled his whole mind.
“Oh, yes,” he went on. “About the duchess? True, Mr. Aycon. That will serve—as well as the truth.”
“If that is not a real ground, I know none,” said I.
“Haven’t you told me that you kept her from me?”
“For no purposes of my own.”
He drew back a step, smiling scornfully.
“A man is bound to protest that the lady is virtuous,” said he; “but need he insist so much on his own virtue?”
“As it so happens,” I observed, “it’s not a question of virtue.”
I suppose there was something in my tone that caught his attention, for his scornful air was superseded by an intent puzzled gaze, and his next question was put in lower tones:
“What did you stay in Avranches for?”
“Because your wife asked me,” said I. The answer was true enough, but, as I wished to deal candidly with him, I added: “And, later on, Mlle. Delhasse expressed a similar desire.”
“My wife and Mlle. Delhasse! Truly you are a favorite!”
“Honest men happen to be scarce in this neighborhood,” said I. I was becoming rather angry.
“If you are one, I hope to be able to make them scarcer by one more,” said the duke.
“Well, we needn’t wrangle over it any more,” said I; and I sat down on the lid of a chest that stood by the hearth. But the duke sprang forward and seized me by the arm, crying again in ungovernable rage:
“Where is she?”
“She is safe from you, I hope.”
“Aye—and you’ll keep her safe!”
“As I say, I know nothing about her, except that she’d be an honest girl if you’d let her alone.”
He was still holding my arm, and I let him hold it: the man was hardly himself under the slavery of his passion. But again, at my words, the wonder which I had seen before stole into his eyes.
“You must know where she is,” he said, with a straining look at my face, “but—but——”
He broke off, leaving his sentence unfinished. Then he broke out again:
“Safe from me? I would make life a heaven for her!”
“That’s the old plea,” said I.
“Is a thing a lie because it’s old? There’s nothing in the world I would not give her—nothing I have not offered her.” Then he looked at me, repeating again: “You must know where she is.” And then he whispered: “Why aren’t you with her?”
“I have no wish to be with her,” said I. Any other reason would not have appealed to him.
He sank down on the stool again and sat in a heap, breathing heavily and quickly. He was wonderfully transfigured, and I hardly knew in him the cold harsh man who had been my temporary master and was the mocking husband of the duchess. Say all that may be said about his passion, I could not doubt that it was life and death to him. Justification he had none; excuse I found in my heart for him, for it struck me—coming over me in a strange sudden revelation as I sat and looked at him—that had he given such love to the duchess, the gay little lady would have been marvelously embarrassed. It was hers to dwell in a radiant mid-ether, neither to mount to heaver nor descend to hell. And in one of theses two must dwell such feelings as the dukes’s.
He roused himself, and leaning forward spoke to me again:
“You’ve lived in the same house with her and talked to her. You swear you don’t love her? What? Has Elsa’s little figure come between?”
His tone was full of scorn. He seemed angry with me, not for presuming to love his wife (nay, he would not believe that), but for being so blind as not to love Marie.
“I didn’t love her!” I answered, with a frown on my face and slow words.
“You have never felt attracted to her?”
I did not answer that question. I sat frowning in silence till the duke spoke again, in a low hoarse whisper:
“And she? What says she to you?”
I looked up with a start, and met his searching wrathful gaze. I shook my head; his question was new to me—new and disturbing.
“I don’t know,” said I; and on that we sat in silence for many moments.
Then he rose abruptly and stood beside me.
“Mr. Aycon,” he said, in the smoother tones in which he had begun our curious interview, “I came near a little while ago to doing a ruffianly thing, of a sort I am not wont to do. We must fight out our quarrel in the proper way. Have you any friends in the neighborhood?”
“I am quite unknown,” I answered.
He thought for an instant, and then continued:
“There is a regiment quartered at Pontorson, and I have acquaintances among the officers. If agreeable to you, we will drive over there; we shall find gentlemen ready to assist us.”
“You are determined to fight?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, with a snap of his lips. “Have we not matters enough and to spare to fight about?”
“I can’t of course deny that you have a pretext.”
“And I, Mr. Aycon, know that I have also a cause. Will this morning suit you?”
“It is hard on two now.”
“Precisely. We have time for a little rest; then I will order the carriage and we will drive together to Pontorson.”
“You mean that I should stay in your house?”
“If you will so far honor me. I wish to settle this affair at once, so as to be moving.”
“I can but accept.”
“Indeed you could hardly get back to Avranches, if, as I presume, you came on foot. Ah! you’ve never told me why you wished to see Jean;” and he turned a questioning look on me again, as he walked toward the door of the cottage.
“It was——” I began.
“Stay; you shall tell me in the house. Shall I lead the way? Ah, but you know it!” and he smiled grimly.
With a bow, I preceded him along the little path where I had once waited for the duchess, and where Pierre, the new servant, had found me. No words passed between us as we went. The duke advanced to the door and unlocked it. We went in, nobody was about, and we crossed the dimly lighted hall into the small room where supper had been laid for three (three who should have been four) on the night of my arrival. Meat, bread, and wine stood on the table now, and with a polite gesture the duke invited me to a repast. I was tired and hungry, and I took a hunch of bread and poured out some wine.
“What keeps Jean, I wonder?” mused the duke, as he sat down. “Perhaps he has found her!” and a gleam of eager hope flashed from his eyes.
I made no comment—where was the profit in more sparring of words? I munched my bread and drank my wine, thinking, by a whimsical turn of thought, of Gustave de Berensac and his horror at the table laid for three. Soon I laid down my napkin, and the duke held out his cigarette case toward me:
“And now, Mr. Aycon, if I’m not keeping you up——”
“I do not feel sleepy,” said I.
“It is the same for both of us,” he reminded me, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, then, if you are willing—of course you can refuse if you choose—I should like to hear what brought you to Jean’s quarters on foot from Avranches in the middle of the night.”
“You shall hear. I did not desire to meet you, if I could avoid it, and therefore I sought old Jean, with the intention of making him a messenger to you.”
“For what purpose?”
“To restore to you something which has been left on my hands and to which you have a better right than I.”
“Pray, what is that?” he asked, evidently puzzled. The truth never crossed his mind.
“This,” said I; and I took the red leathern box out of my pocket, and set it down on the table in front of the duke. And I put my cigarette between my lips and leaned back in my chair.