The Bronze Eagle Part 50

She shrugged her shoulders and an air of supreme indifference spread over her face. "Is that all?" she asked coldly.

"All? What do you mean? I don't understand."

"I mean that you persuaded me to listen to you on the pretence that you had news to tell me of the doings at Waterloo--news on which my happiness depended. You have not told me a single fact that concerns me in the least."

"It concerns you as it concerns me, Crystal. Your happiness is bound up with mine. You are still my promised wife. I go to win glory for my name which will soon be yours. You and I, Crystal, hand in hand! think of it! our love has survived the political turmoils--united in love, united in glory, you and I will be the most brilliant stars that will s.h.i.+ne at the Imperial Court of France."

She did not try to interrupt his tirade, but looked on him with cool wonderment, as one gazes on some curious animal that is raving and raging behind iron bars. When he had finished she said quietly:

"You are mad, I think, M. de Marmont. At any rate, you had better go now: time is getting on, and you will lose your place in the diligence."

He was less to her than the dust under her feet, and his protestations had not even the power to rouse her wrath. Indeed, all that worried her at this moment was vexation with herself for having troubled to listen to him at all: it had been worse than foolish to suppose that he had any news to impart which did not directly concern himself. So now, while he, utterly taken aback, was staring at her open-mouthed and bewildered, she turned away, cold and full of disdain, gathering her draperies round her, and started to walk slowly toward the stairs. Her clinging white skirt made a soft, swis.h.i.+ng sound as it brushed the tiled floor, and she herself--with her slender figure, graceful neck and crown of golden curls, looked, as the gloom of evening wrapped her in, more like an intangible elf--an apparition--gliding through s.p.a.ce, than just a scornful woman who had thought fit to reject the importunate addresses of an unwelcome suitor.

She left de Marmont standing there in the corridor--like some presumptuous beggar--burning with rage and humiliation, too insignificant even to be feared. But he was not the man to accept such a situation calmly: his love for Crystal had never been anything but a selfish one--born of the desire to possess a high-born, elegant wife, taken out of the very caste which had scorned him and his kind: her acquiescence he had always taken for granted: her love he meant to win after his wooing of her hand had been successful--until then he could wait. So certain too was he of his own power to win her, in virtue of all that he had to offer, that he would not take her scorn for real or her refusal to listen to him as final.

IV

Before she had reached the foot of the stairs, he was already by her side, and with a masterful hand upon her arm had compelled her, by physical strength, to turn and to face him once more.

"Crystal," he said, forcing himself to speak quietly, even though his voice quivered with excitement and pa.s.sionate wrath, "as you say, I have only a few moments to spare, but they are just long enough for me to tell you that it is you who are mad. I daresay that it is difficult to believe in the immensity of a disaster. M. de St. Genis no doubt has been filling your ears with tales of the allied armies' victories. But look at me, Crystal--look at me and tell me if you have ever seen a man more in deadly earnest. I tell you that I am on my way to aid the Emperor in reforming his Empire on a more solid basis than it has ever stood before. Have you ever known Napoleon to fail in what he set himself to do? I tell you that he is not crushed--that he is not even defeated. Within a month the allies will be on their knees begging for peace. The era of your Bourbon kings is more absolutely dead to-day than it has ever been. And after to-day there will be nothing for a royalist like your father or like Maurice de St. Genis but exile and humiliation more dire than before. Your father's fate rests entirely in your hands.

I can direct his destiny, his life or his death, just as I please. When you are my wife, I will forgive him the insults which he heaped on me at Brestalou . . . but not before. . . . As for Maurice de St. Genis . . ."

"And what of him, you abominable cur?"

The shout which came from behind him checked the words on de Marmont's lips. He let go his hold of Crystal's arm as he felt two sinewy hands gripping him by the throat. The attack was so swift and so unexpected that he was entirely off his guard: he lost his footing upon the slippery floor, and before he could recover himself he was being forced back and back until his spine was bent nearly double and his head pressed down backward almost to the level of his knees.

"Let him go, Maurice! you might kill him. Throw him out of the door."

It was M. le Comte de Cambray who spoke. He and St. Genis had arrived just in time to save Crystal from a further unpleasant scene. She, however, had not lost her presence of mind. She had certainly listened to de Marmont's final tirade, because she knew that she was helpless in his hands, but she had never been frightened for a moment. Jeanne was within call, and she herself had never been timorous: at the same time she was thankful enough that her father and St. Genis were here.

Maurice was almost blind with rage: he would have killed de Marmont but for the Comte's timely words, which luckily had the effect of sobering him at this critical moment. He relaxed his convulsive grip on de Marmont's throat, but the latter had already lost his balance; he fell heavily, his body sliding along the slippery floor, while his head struck against the projecting woodwork of the door.

He uttered a loud cry of pain as he fell, then remained lying inert on the ground, and in the dim light his face took on an ashen hue.

In an instant Crystal was by his side.

"You have killed him, Maurice," she cried, as woman-like--tender and full of compa.s.sion now--she ran to the stricken man.

"I hope I have," said St. Genis sullenly. "He deserved the death of a cur."

"Father, dear," said Crystal authoritatively, "will you call to Jeanne to bring water, a sponge, towels--quickly: also some brandy."

She paid no heed to St. Genis: and she had already forgotten de Marmont's dastardly att.i.tude toward herself. She only saw that he was helpless and in pain: she knelt by his side, pillowed his head on her lap, and with soothing, gentle fingers felt his shoulders, his arms, to see where he was hurt. He opened his eyes very soon and encountered those tender blue eyes so full of sweet pity now: "It is only my head, I think," he said.

Then he tried to move, but fell back again with a groan of pain: "My leg is broken, I am afraid," he murmured feebly.

"I had best fetch a doctor," rejoined M. le Comte.

"If you can find one, father, dear," said Crystal. "M. de Marmont ought to be moved at once to his home."

"No! no!" protested Victor feebly, "not home! to the Trois Rois . . .

the diligence. . . . I must go to England to-night . . . the Emperor's orders."

"The doctor will decide," said Crystal gently. "Father, dear, will you go?"

Jeanne came with water and brandy. De Marmont drank eagerly of the one, and then sipped the other.

"I must go," he said more firmly, "the diligence starts at nine o'clock."

Again he tried to move, and a great cry of agony rose to his throat--not of physical pain, though that was great too, but the wild, agonising shriek of mental torment, of disappointment and wrath and misery, greater than human heart could bear.

"The Emperor's orders!" he cried. "I must go!"

Crystal was silent. There was something great and majestic, something that compelled admiration and respect in this tragic impotence, this failure brought about by uncontrolled pa.s.sion at the very hour when success--perhaps--might yet have changed the whole destinies of the world. De Marmont lying here, helpless to aid his Emperor--through the furious and jealous attack of a rival--was at this moment more worthy of a good woman's regard than he had been in the flush of his success and of his arrogance, for his one thought was of the Emperor and what he could no longer do for him. He tried to move and could not: "The Emperor's orders!" came at times with pathetic persistence from his lips, and Crystal--woman-like--tried to soothe and comfort him in his failure, even though his triumph would only have aroused her scorn.

And time sped on. From the towers of the cathedral came booming the hour of nine. The shadows in the narrow street were long and dark, only a pale thin reflex of the cold light of the moon struck into the open doorway and the white corridor, and detached de Marmont's pale face from the surrounding gloom.

The Emperor's orders and because of a woman these could now no longer be obeyed. If de Marmont had not seen Crystal on the cathedral steps, if he had not followed her--if he had not allowed his pa.s.sion and arrogant self-will to blind him to time and to surroundings--who knows? but the whole map of Europe might yet have been changed.

A fortune in London was awaiting a gambler who chose to stake everything on a last throw--a fortune wherewith the greatest adventurer the world has ever known might yet have reconst.i.tuted an army and reconquered an Empire--and he who might have won that fortune was lying in the narrow corridor of an humble lodging house--with a broken leg--helpless and eating out his heart now with vain regret. Why? Because of a girl with fair curls and blue eyes--just a woman--young and desirable--another tiny p.a.w.n in the hands of the Great Master of this world's game.

The rain in the morning at Waterloo--Blucher's arrival or Grouchy's--a man's selfish pa.s.sion for a woman who cared nothing for him--who shall dare to say that these tiny, trivial incidents changed the destinies of the world?

Think on it, O ye materialists! ye wors.h.i.+ppers of Chance! Is it indeed the infinitesimal doings of pigmies that bring about the great upheavals of the earth? Do ye not rather see G.o.d's will in that fall of rain?

G.o.d's breath in those dying heroes who fell on Mont Saint Jean? do ye not recognise that it was G.o.d's finger that pointed the way to Blucher and stretched de Marmont down helpless on the ground?

V

The arrival of M. le Comte de Cambray, accompanied by a doctor and two men carrying an improvised stretcher, broke the spell of silence that had fallen on this strange scene of pathetic failure which seemed but an humble counterpart of that great and irretrievable one which was being enacted at this same hour far away on the road to Genappe.

After the booming of the cathedral clock, de Marmont had ceased to struggle: he accepted defeat probably because he, too--in spite of himself--saw that the day of his idol's destiny was over, and that the brilliant Star which had glittered on the firmament of Europe for a quarter of a century had by the will of G.o.d now irretrievably declined.

He had accepted Crystal's ministrations for his comfort with a look of grat.i.tude. Jeanne had put a pillow to his head, and he lay now outwardly placid and quiescent.

Even, perhaps--for such is human nature and such the heart of youth--as he saw Crystal's sweet face bent with so much pity toward him a sense of hope, of happiness yet to be, chased the more melancholy thoughts away. Crystal was kind--he argued to himself--she has already forgiven--women are so ready to forgive faults and errors that spring from an intensity of love.

He sought her hand and she gave it--just as a sweet Sister of Mercy and Gentleness would do, for whom the individual man--even the enemy--does not exist--only the suffering human creature whom her touch can soothe.

He persuaded himself easily enough that when he pressed her hand she returned the pressure, and renewed hope went forth once more soaring upon the wings of fancy.

Then the doctor came. M. le Comte had been fortunate in securing him--had with impulsive generosity promised him ample payment--and then brought him along without delay. He praised Mlle. de Cambray for her kindness to the patient, asked a few questions as to how the accident had occurred, and was satisfied that M. de Marmont had slipped on the tiled floor and then struck his head against the door. He was not likely to examine the purple bruises on the patient's throat: his business began and ended with a broken leg to mend. As M. le Comte de Cambray a.s.sured him that M. de Marmont was very wealthy, the worthy doctor most readily offered his patient the hospitality of his own house until complete recovery.

He then superintended the lifting of the sick man on to the stretcher, and having taken final leave of M. le Comte, Mademoiselle and all those concerned and given his instructions to the bearers, he was the first to leave the house.

M. le Comte, pleasantly conscious of Christian duty toward an enemy n.o.bly fulfilled, nodded curtly to de Marmont, whom he hated with all his heart, and then turned his back on an exceedingly unpleasant scene, fervently wis.h.i.+ng that it had never occurred in his house, and equally fervently thankful that the accident had not more fateful consequences.

He retired to his smoking-room, calling to St. Genis and to Crystal to follow him.

But Crystal did not go at once. She stood in the dark corridor--quite still--watching the stretcher bearers in their careful, silent work, little guessing on what a filmy thread her whole destiny was hanging at this moment. The Fates were spinning, spinning, spinning and she did not know it. Had the solemn silence which hung so ominously in the twilight not been broken till after the sick man had been borne away, the whole of Crystal's future would have been shaped differently.