The Bronze Eagle Part 31

"He will never know from me, from whence it comes."

"He will wish to know. . . ."

"Come, M. de St. Genis," broke in Clyffurde, with a slight hint of impatience, "is it for me to tell you that Great Britain has more than one agent in France these days--that the money will reach His Majesty the King ultimately through the hands of his foreign minister M. le Comte de Jaucourt . . . and that my name will never appear in connection with the matter? . . . I am a mere servant of Great Britain--doing my duty where I can . . . nothing more."

"You mean that you are in the British Secret Service? No?--Well! I don't profess to understand you English people, and you seem to me more incomprehensible than any I have known. Not that I ever believed that you were a mere tradesman. But what shall I say to M. le Comte de Cambray?" he added, after a slight pause, during which a new and strange train of thought altered the expression of wonderment on his face, to one that was undefinable, almost furtive, certainly undecided.

"All you need say to M. le Comte," replied Clyffurde, with a slight tone of impatience, "is that you are personally satisfied that the money will reach His Majesty's hand safely, and in due course. At least, I presume that you are satisfied, M. de St. Genis," he continued, vaguely wondering what was going on in the young Frenchman's brain.

"Yes, yes, of course I am satisfied," murmured the other, "but . . ."

"But what?"

"Mlle. Crystal would want to know something more than that. She will ask me questions . . . she . . . she will insist . . . I had promised her to get the money back myself . . . she will expect an explanation . . .

she . . ."

He continued to murmur these short, jerky sentences almost inaudibly, avoiding the while to meet the enquiring and puzzled gaze of the Englishman.

When he paused--still murmuring, but quite inaudibly now--Clyffurde made no comment, and once more there fell a silence over the narrow room. The candles flickered feebly, and Bobby picked up the metal snuffers from the table and with a steady and deliberate hand set to work to trim the wicks.

So absorbed did he seem in this occupation that he took no notice of St.

Genis, who with arms crossed in front of him, was pacing up and down the narrow room, a heavy frown between his deep-set eyes.

III

Somewhere in the house down below, an old-fas.h.i.+oned clock had just struck two. Clyffurde looked up from his absorbing task.

"It is late," he remarked casually; "shall we say good-night, M. de St.

Genis?"

The sound of the Englishman's voice seemed to startle Maurice out of his reverie. He pulled himself together, walked firmly up to the table and resting his hand upon it, he faced the other man with a sudden gaze made up partly of suddenly conceived resolve and partly of lingering shamefacedness.

"Mr. Clyffurde," he began abruptly.

"Yes?"

"Have you any cause to hate me?"

"Why no," replied Clyffurde with his habitual good-humoured smile. "Why should I have?"

"Have you any cause to hate Mlle. Crystal de Cambray?"

"Certainly not."

"You have no desire," insisted Maurice, "to be revenged on her for the slight which she put upon you the other night?"

His voice had grown more steady and his look more determined as he put these rapid questions to Clyffurde, whose expressive face showed no sign of any feeling in response save that of complete and indifferent puzzlement.

"I have no desire with regard to Mlle. de Cambray," replied Bobby quietly, "save that of serving her, if it be in my power."

"You can serve her, Sir," retorted Maurice firmly, "and that right n.o.bly. You can render the whole of her future life happy beyond what she herself has ever dared to hope."

"How?"

Maurice paused: once more, with a gesture habitual to him, he crossed his arms over his chest and resumed his restless march up and down the narrow room.

Then again he stood still, and again faced the Englishman, his dark enquiring eyes seeming to probe the latter's deepest thoughts.

"Did you know, Mr. Clyffurde," he asked slowly, "that Mlle. Crystal de Cambray honours me with her love?"

"Yes. I knew that," replied the other quietly.

"And I love her with my heart and soul," continued Maurice impetuously.

"Oh! I cannot tell you what we have suffered--she and I--when the exigencies of her position and the will of her father parted us--seemingly for ever. Her heart was broken and so was mine: and I endured the tortures of h.e.l.l when I realised at last that she was lost to me for ever and that her exquisite person--her beautiful soul--were destined for the delight of that low-born traitor Victor de Marmont."

He drew breath, for he had half exhausted himself with the volubility and vehemence of his diction. Also he seemed to be waiting for some encouragement from Clyffurde, who, however, gave him none, but sat unmoved and apparently supremely indifferent, while a suffering heart was pouring out its wails of agony into his unresponsive ear.

"The reason," resumed St. Genis somewhat more calmly, "why M. le Comte de Cambray was opposed to our union, was purely a financial one. Our families are of equal distinction and antiquity, but alas! our fortunes are also of equal precariousness: we, Sir, of the old n.o.blesse gave up our all, in order to follow our King into exile. Victor de Marmont was rich. His fortune could have repurchased the ancient Cambray estates and restored to that honoured name all the brilliance which it had sacrificed for its principles."

Still Clyffurde remained irritatingly silent, and St. Genis asked him somewhat tartly:

"I trust I am making myself clear, Sir?"

"Perfectly, so far," replied the other quietly, "but I am afraid I don't quite see how you propose that I could serve Mlle. Crystal in all this."

"You can with one word, one generous action, Sir, put me in a position to claim Crystal as my wife, and give her that happiness which she craves for, and which is rightly her due."

A slight lifting of the eyebrows was Clyffurde's only comment.

"Mr. Clyffurde," now said Maurice, with the obvious firm resolve to end his own hesitancy at last, "you say yourself that by taking this money to His Majesty, or rather to his minister, you, individually, will get neither glory nor even grat.i.tude--your name will not appear in the transaction at all. I am quoting your own words, remember. That is so, is it not?"

"It is so--certainly."

"But, Sir, if a Frenchman--a royalist--were able to render his King so signal a service, he would not only gain grat.i.tude, but recognition and glory. . . . A man who was poor and obscure would at once become rich and distinguished. . . ."

"And in a position to marry the woman he loved," concluded Bobby, smiling.

Then as Maurice said nothing, but continued to regard him with glowing, anxious eyes, he added, smiling not altogether kindly this time,

"I think I understand, M. de St. Genis."

"And . . . what do you say?" queried the other excitedly.

"Let me make the situation clear first, as I understand it, Monsieur,"

continued Bobby drily. "You are--and I mistake not--suggesting at the present moment that I should hand over the twenty-five millions to you, in order that you should take them yourself to the King in Paris, and by this act obtain not only favours from him, but probably a goodly share of the money, which you--presumably--will have forced some unknown highwayman to give up to you. Is that it?"

"It was not money for myself I thought of, Sir," murmured St. Genis somewhat shamefacedly.