Rafael Sabatini - The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

“Is there any need, madame?” he asked her, his stoicism deeply shaken. “There is no occasion to take others into our confidence. This is for to-night alone. To-night we are mother and son. To-morrow we resume our former places, and, outwardly at least, forget.”

“Forget? Have you no heart, Andre–Louis?”

The question recalled him curiously to his attitude towards life — that histrionic attitude of his that he accounted true philosophy. Also he remembered what lay before them; and he realized that he must master not only himself but her; that to yield too far to sentiment at such a time might be the ruin of them all.

“It is a question propounded to me so often that it must contain the truth,” said he. “My rearing is to blame for that.”

She tightened her clutch about his neck even as he would have attempted to disengage himself from her embrace.

“You do not blame me for your rearing? Knowing all, as you do, Andre–Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You must be merciful to me. You must forgive me. You must! I had no choice.”

“When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion — the noblest religion any man could have to guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my mother.”

She sprang away from him with a startled cry. Beyond him in the shadows by the door a pale figure shimmered ghostly. It advanced into the light, and resolved itself into Aline. She had come in answer to that forgotten summons madame had sent her by Jacques. Entering unperceived she had seen Andre–Louis in the embrace of the woman whom he addressed as “mother.” She had recognized him instantly by his voice, and she could not have said what bewildered her more: his presence there or the thing she overheard.

“You heard, Aline?” madame exclaimed.

“I could not help it, madame. You sent for me. I am sorry if . . . ” She broke off, and looked at Andre–Louis long and curiously. She was pale, but quite composed. She held out her hand to him. “And so you have come at last, Andre,” said she. “You might have come before.”

“I come when I am wanted,” was his answer. “Which is the only time in which one can be sure of being received.” He said it without bitterness, and having said it stooped to kiss her hand.

“You can forgive me what is past, I hope, since I failed of my purpose,” he said gently, half-pleading. “I could not have come to you pretending that the failure was intentional — a compromise between the necessities of the case and your own wishes. For it was not that. And yet, you do not seem to have profited by my failure. You are still a maid.”

She turned her shoulder to him.

“There are things,” she said, “that you will never understand.”

“Life, for one,” he acknowledged. “I confess that I am finding it bewildering. The very explanations calculated to simplify it seem but to complicate it further.” And he looked at Mme. de Plougastel.

“You mean something, I suppose,” said mademoiselle.

“Aline!” It was the Countess who spoke. She knew the danger of half-discoveries. “I can trust you, child, I know, and Andre–Louis, I am sure, will offer no objection.” She had taken up the letter to show it to Aline. Yet first her eyes questioned him.

“Oh, none, madame,” he assured her. “It is entirely a matter for yourself.”

Aline looked from one to the other with troubled eyes, hesitating to take the letter that was now proffered. When she had read it through, she very thoughtfully replaced it on the table. A moment she stood there with bowed head, the other two watching her. Then impulsively she ran to madame and put her arms about her.

“Aline!” It was a cry of wonder, almost of joy. “You do not utterly abhor me!”

“My dear,” said Aline, and kissed the tear-stained face that seemed to have grown years older in these last few hours.

In the background Andre–Louis, steeling himself against emotionalism, spoke with the voice of Scaramouche.

“It would be well, mesdames, to postpone all transports until they can be indulged at greater leisure and in more security. It is growing late. If we are to get out of this shambles we should be wise to take the road without more delay.”

It was a tonic as effective as it was necessary. It startled them into remembrance of their circumstances, and under the spur of it they went at once to make their preparations.

They left him for perhaps a quarter of an hour, to pace that long room alone, saved only from impatience by the turmoil of his mind. When at length they returned, they were accompanied by a tall man in a full-skirted shaggy greatcoat and a broad hat the brim of which was turned down all around. He remained respectfully by the door in the shadows.

Between them the two women had concerted it thus, or rather the Countess had so concerted it when Aline had warned her that Andre–Louis’ bitter hostility towards the Marquis made it unthinkable that he should move a finger consciously to save him.

Now despite the close friendship uniting M. de Kercadiou and his niece with Mme. de Plougastel, there were several matters concerning them of which the Countess was in ignorance. One of these was the project at one time existing of a marriage between Aline and M. de La Tour d’Azyr. It was a matter that Aline — naturally enough in the state of her feelings — had never mentioned, nor had M. de Kercadiou ever alluded to it since his coming to Meudon, by when he had perceived how unlikely it was ever to be realized.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s concern for Aline on that morning of the duel when he had found her half-swooning in Mme. de Plougastel’s carriage had been of a circumspection that betrayed nothing of his real interest in her, and therefore had appeared no more than natural in one who must account himself the cause of her distress. Similarly Mme. de Plougastel had never realized nor did she realize now — for Aline did not trouble fully to enlighten her — that the hostility between the two men was other than political, the quarrel other than that which already had taken Andre–Louis to the Bois on every day of the preceding week. But, at least, she realized that even if Andre–Louis’ rancour should have no other source, yet that inconclusive duel was cause enough for Aline’s fears.

And so she had proposed this obvious deception; and Aline had consented to be a passive party to it. They had made the mistake of not fully forewarning and persuading M. de La Tour d’Azyr. They had trusted entirely to his anxiety to escape from Paris to keep him rigidly within the part imposed upon him. They had reckoned without the queer sense of honour that moved such men as M. le Marquis, nurtured upon a code of shams.

Andre–Louis, turning to scan that muffled figure, advanced from the dark depths of the salon. As the light beat on his white, lean face the pseudo-footman started. The next moment he too stepped forward into the light, and swept his broad-brimmed hat from his brow. As he did so Andre–Louis observed that his hand was fine and white and that a jewel flashed from one of the fingers. Then he caught his breath, and stiffened in every line as he recognized the face revealed to him.

“Monsieur,” that stern, proud man was saying, “I cannot take advantage of your ignorance. If these ladies can persuade you to save me, at least it is due to you that you shall know whom you are saving.”

He stood there by the table very erect and dignified, ready to perish as he had lived — if perish he must — without fear and without deception.

Andre–Louis came slowly forward until he reached the table on the other side, and then at last the muscles of his set face relaxed, and he laughed.