The Bronze Eagle Part 34

"How could you think that, _ma tante_?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Crystal hotly: "a good motive? to rob us at dead of night--he, a friend of Victor de Marmont--an adherent of the Corsican! . . ."

"Englishmen are not adherents of the Corsican, my dear," retorted Madame drily, "and until Maurice's appearance this morning, I was satisfied that the money would ultimately reach His Majesty's own hands."

"But we were taking the money to His Majesty ourselves."

"And Victor de Marmont was after it. Mr. Clyffurde may have known that.

. . . Remember, my dear," continued Madame, "that these were my impressions last night. Maurice's account of the den of cutthroats has modified these entirely."

Again Crystal was silent. The frown had darkened on her face: there was a line of bitter resentment round her lips--a look of contempt, of hate, of a desire to hurt, in her eyes.

"Maurice," she said abruptly at last.

"Yes?"

"I did wound that thief, did I not?"

"Yes. In the shoulder . . . it gave me a slight advantage . . ." he said with affected modesty.

"I am glad. And you . . . you were able to punish him too, I hope."

"Yes. I punished him."

He was watching her very closely, for inwardly he had been wondering how she had taken his news. She was strangely agitated, so Maurice's troubled, jealous heart told him; her face was flushed, her eyes were wet and a tiny lace handkerchief which she twisted between her fingers was nothing but a damp rag.

"Oh! I hate him! I hate him!" she murmured as with an impatient gesture she brushed the gathering tears from her eyes. "Father had been so kind to him--so were we all. How could he? how could he?"

"His duty, I suppose," said St. Genis magnanimously.

"His duty?" she retorted scornfully.

"To the cause which he served."

"Duty to a usurper, a brigand, the enemy of his country. Was he, then, paid to serve the Corsican?"

"Probably."

"His being in trade--buying gloves at Gren.o.ble--was all a plant then?"

"I am afraid so," said St. Genis, who much against his will now was sinking ever deeper and deeper in the quagmire of lying and cowardice into which he had allowed himself to drift.

"And he was nothing better than a spy!"

No one, not even Crystal herself, could have defined with what feelings she said this. Was it solely contempt? or did a strange mixture of regret and sorrow mingle with the scorn which she felt? Swiftly her thoughts had flown back to that Sunday evening--a very few days ago--when the course of her destiny was so suddenly changed once more, when her marriage with a man whom she could never love was broken off, when the possibilities once more rose upon the horizon of her life, of a renewed existence of poverty and exile in the wake of a dispossessed king.

That same evening a man whom she had hardly noticed before--a man neither of her own nationality nor of her own caste--this same Englishman, Clyffurde, had entered into her life--not violently or aggressively, but just with a few words of intense sympathy and with a genuine offer of friends.h.i.+p; and she somehow, despite much kindness which encompa.s.sed her always, had felt cheered and warmed by his words, and a strange and sweet sense of security against hurt and sorrow had entered her heart as she listened to them.

And now she knew that all that was false--false his sympathy, false his offers of friends.h.i.+p--his words were false, his hand-grasp false.

Treachery lurked behind that kindly look in his eyes, and falsehood beneath his smile.

"He was nothing better than a spy!" The sting of that thought hurt her more than she could have thought possible. She had so few real friends and this one had proved a sham. Had she been alone she would have given way to tears, but before Maurice or even her aunt she was ashamed of her grief, ashamed of her feelings and of her thoughts. There was a great deal yet that she wished to know, but somehow the words choked her when she wanted to ask further questions. Fortunately Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse was taking Maurice thoroughly to task. She asked innumerable questions, and would not spare him the relation of a single detail.

"Tell us all about it from the beginning, Maurice," she said. "Where did you first meet the rogue?"

And Maurice--weary and ashamed--was forced to embark on a minute account of adventures that were lies from beginning to end: he had stumbled across the wayside hostelry on a lonely by-path: he had found it full of cut-throats: he had stalked and waylaid their chief in his own room, and forced him to give up the money by the weight of his fists.

It was paltry and pitiable: nevertheless, St. Genis, as he warmed to his tale, lost the shame of it; only wrath remained with him: anger that he should be forced into this despicable role through the intrigues of a rival.

In his heart he was already beginning to find innumerable excuses for his cowardice: and his rage and hatred grew against Clyffurde as Madame's more and more persistent questions taxed his imagination almost to exhaustion.

When, after half an hour of this wearying cross-examination, Madame at last granted him a respite, he made a pretext of urgent business at M.

le Comte d'Artois' headquarters and took his leave of the ladies. He waited in vain hope that the d.u.c.h.esse's tact would induce her to leave him alone for a moment with Crystal. Madame stuck obstinately to her chair and was blind and deaf to every hint of appeal from him, whilst Crystal, who was singularly absorbed and had lent but a very indifferent ear to his narrative, made no attempt to detain him.

She gave him her hand to kiss, just as Madame had done; it lay hot and moist in his grasp.

"Crystal," he continued to murmur as his lips touched her fingers, "I love you . . . I worked for you . . . it is not my fault that I failed."

She looked at him kindly and sympathetically through her tears, and gave his hand a gentle little pressure.

"I am sure it was not your fault," she replied gently, "poor Maurice.

It was not more than any kind friend would say under like circ.u.mstances, but to a lover every little word from the beloved has a significance of its own, every look from her has its hidden meaning. Somewhat satisfied and cheered Maurice now took his final leave:

"Does M. le Comte propose to continue his journey to Paris?" he asked at the last.

"Oh, yes!" Crystal replied, "he could not stay away while he feels that His Majesty may have need of him. Oh, Maurice!" she added suddenly, forgetting her absorption, her wrath against Clyffurde, her own disappointment--everything--in face of the awful possible calamity, and turning anxious, appealing eyes upon the young man, "you don't think, do you, that that abominable usurper will succeed in ousting the King once more from his throne?"

And St. Genis--remembering Laffray and Gren.o.ble, remembering what was going on in Lyons at this moment, the silent grumblings of the troops, the defaced white c.o.c.kades, the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" which he himself had heard as he rode through the town--St. Genis, remembering all this, could only shake his head and shrug his shoulders in miserable doubt.

When he had gone at last, Crystal's thoughts veered back once more to Clyffurde and to his treachery.

"What abominable deceit, _ma tante_!" she cried, and quite against her will tears of wrath and of disappointment rose to her eyes. "What villainy! what odious, execrable treachery!"

Madame shrugged her shoulders and took up her knitting.

"These days, my dear," she said with unwonted placidity, "the world is so full of treachery that men and women absorb it by every pore."

"But I shall not leave it at that," rejoined Crystal resolutely. "I'll find a means of punis.h.i.+ng that vile traitor . . . I'll make him feel the hatred which he has so richly deserved--I shall not rest till I have made him suffer as he makes me suffer now. . . ."

"My dear--my dear--" protested Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse, not a little shocked at the girl's vehemence.

Indeed, Crystal's otherwise sweet, gentle, yielding personality seemed completely transformed: for the moment she was just a sensitive woman who has been hit and hurt, and whose desire for retaliation is keener, more relentless than that of a man. All the soft look in her blue eyes had gone--they looked dark and hard--her fair curls were matted against her damp forehead; indeed, Madame thought that for the moment all Crystal's beauty had gone--the sweet, submissive beauty of the girl, the grace of movement, the shy, appealing gentleness of her ways. She now looked all determination, resentment, and, above all, revenge.

"The dear child," sighed the d.u.c.h.esse over her knitting, "it is the English blood in her. Those people never know how to accept the inevitable: they are always wanting to fight someone for something and never know when they are beaten."