gnal  a success as a mime?  Was not this
really all  that he had ever  been, the thing for which Nature had  designed
him?
     On the following night they played "The Shy Lover" to a full house, the
fame of  their  debut  having  gone abroad,  and  the  success of Monday was
confirmed.  On Wednesday  they  gave "Figaro-Scaramouche,"  and on  Thursday
morning the  "Courrier Nantais" came  out with an  article of  more  than  a
column  of praise of these brilliant improvisers, for  whom it  claimed that
they utterly put to shame the mere reciters of memorized parts.
     Andre-Louis, reading the sheet at breakfast, and having no delusions on
the score of  the falseness of that statement, laughed inwardly. The novelty
of  the thing, and the  pretentiousness in which  he had  swaddled  it,  had
deceived them finely. He turned to  greet Binet and Climene, who entered  at
that moment. He waved the sheet above his head.
     "It is settled," he announced, "we stay in Nantes until Easter."
     "Do we?" said Binet, sourly. "You settle everything, my friend."
     "Read for yourself." And he handed him the paper.
     Moodily M. Binet read. He set the sheet down in silence, and turned his
attention to his breakfast.
     "Was I  justified  or not?"  quoth  Andre-Louis, who  found M.  Binet's
behaviour a thought intriguing.
     "In what?"
     "In coming to Nantes?"
     "If I had not thought so, we should not have come," said Binet,  and he
began to eat.
     Andre-Louis dropped the subject, wondering.
     After breakfast  he and Climene sallied forth to  take the air upon the
quays. It was a day of brilliant sunshine and less  cold than  it had lately
been.  Columbine  tactlessly joined them as they were setting out, though in
this respect  matters were  improved a  little when Harlequin  came  running
after them, and attached himself to Columbine.
     Andre-Louis, stepping  out ahead  with Climene, spoke of the thing that
was uppermost in his mind at the moment.
     "Your father is behaving very oddly towards me," said he. "It is almost
as if he had suddenly become hostile."
     "You imagine it," said she. "My father is very grateful  to you, as  we
all are."
     "He is anything but grateful. He is infuriated against me; and I  think
I know the reason. Don't you? Can't you guess?"
     "I can't, indeed."
     "If you were my daughter, Climene, which  God be thanked you are not, I
should feel aggrieved against the man who carried you away from me. Poor old
Pantaloon! He  called me a corsair when I  told him  that I  intend to marry
you."
     "He was right. You are a bold robber, Scaramouche."
     "It  is in the character," said he. "Your father believes in having his
mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit their natural temperaments."
     "Yes, you take everything you  want, don't you?" She  looked up at him,
half adoringly, half shyly.
     "If  it  is possible," said he. "I took his consent to our  marriage by
main  force from him.  I never waited for him to give  it. When, in fact, he
refused  it, I just snatched it  from him,  and I'll defy him  now to win it
back from me. I think that is what he most resents."
     She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer. But  he did not hear
a word of  it. Through the  bustle of traffic  on the quay  a cabriolet, the
upper half of which was almost entirely made of glass,  had approached them.
It was  drawn by two magnificent bay horses and driven by a superbly livened
coachman.
     In  the cabriolet alone sat a slight young  girl wrapped in  a lynx-fur
pelisse, her  face of a  delicate loveliness.  She  was leaning forward, her
lips  parted, her eyes devouring Scaramouche until they drew  his gaze. When
that happened, the shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumfounded halt.
     Climene, checking in  the  middle of  a  sentence, arrested  by his own
sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
     "What is it, Scaramouche?"
     But he made no attempt to answer her, and  at that moment the coachman,
to whom  the little lady  had  already signalled, brought the  carriage to a
standstill beside them. Seen in the gorgeous setting of that coach  with its
escutcheoned panels, its portly coachman and  its white-stockinged footman -
who  swung instantly to  earth as the  vehicle stopped - its dainty occupant
seemed  to Climene a princess out of a  fairy-tale. And this princess leaned
forward, with eyes aglow and cheeks aflush, stretching out a choicely gloved
hand to Scaramouche.
     "Andre-Louis!" she called him.
     And Scaramouche took the  hand of that exalted  being, just as he might
have taken the hand of Climene  herself,  and  with eyes  that reflected the
gladness of her own, in a voice  that echoed the joyous surprise of hers, he
addressed her familiarly by name, just as she had addressed him.
     "Aline!"

        CHAPTER VIII. THE DREAMIII


     "The door," Aline commanded  her  footman,  and "Mount here beside me,"
she commanded Andre-Louis, in the same breath.
     "A moment, Aline."
     He turned to his companion, who was all amazement, and to Harlequin and
Columbine, who  had  that  moment come  up  to  share  it. "You  permit  me,
Climene?"  said he,  breathlessly.  But  it  was  more  a  statement than  a
question.  "Fortunately you are  not alone. Harlequin will take care of you.
Au revoir, at dinner."
     With that he sprang into the cabriolet without waiting for a reply. The
footman  dosed  the  door,  the  coachman  cracked his  whip, and the  regal
equipage rolled  away along the  quay,  leaving the  three comedians staring
after it, open-mouthed... Then Harlequin laughed.
     "A prince in disguise, our Scaramouche!" said he.
     Columbine clapped her hands and flashed her  strong teeth.  "But what a
romance for you, Climene! How wonderful!"
     The  frown  melted  from  Climene's   brow.   Resentment   changed   to
bewilderment.
     "But who is she?"
     "His sister, of course," said Harlequin, quite definitely.
     "His sister? How do you know?"
     "I know what he will tell you on his return."
     "But why?"
     "Because you wouldn't believe him if he said she was his mother."
     Following the  carriage with  their  glance, they  wandered on  in  the
direction  it   had  taken.  And  in  the  carriage  Aline  was  considering
Andre-Louis  with grave  eyes, lips slightly compressed, and  a  tiny  frown
between her finely drawn eyebrows.
     "You have taken to queer  company, Andre," was the first thing she said
to him.  "Or else I am mistaken in thinking  that  your companion  was Mlle.
Binet of the Theatre Feydau."
     "You are not mistaken.  But I  had  not imagined Mlle. Binet  so famous
already."
     "Oh, as to  that... " mademoiselle shrugged, her tone quietly scornful.
And she  explained. "It  is  simply  that  I  was at the play  last night. I
thought I recognized her."
     "You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw you!"
     "Were you there, too?"
     "Was  I there!"  he cried. Then he  checked,  and abruptly  changed his
tone. "Oh, yes,  I was there," he said, as commonplace as he could, beset by
a  sudden reluctance  to avow that he had  so  willingly descended to depths
that she must account unworthy, and  grateful that  his disguise of face and
voice should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him so very well.
     "I  understand,"  said  she,  and compressed  her  lips a  little  more
tightly.
     "But what do you understand?"
     "The  rare  attractions of Mlle.  Binet. Naturally you would be  at the
theatre. Your tone conveyed it very clearly. Do you know that you disappoint
me, Andre? It is stupid of me, perhaps; it  betrays, I suppose, my imperfect
knowledge of your sex. I am aware  that  most young men of  fashion  find an
irresistible attraction  for creatures who parade themselves upon the stage.
But I did not expect you  to ape the ways of a man of fashion. I was foolish
enough to imagine you to be different; rather above such trivial pursuits. I
conceived you something of an idealist."
     "Sheer flattery."
     "So  I  perceive. But you misled me. You talked so  much morality  of a
kind, you  made  philosophy so readily, that I came to be deceived. In fact,
your hypocrisy was  so  consummate that I never suspected it. With your gift
of acting I wonder that you haven't joined Mlle. Binet's troupe."
     "I have," said he.
     It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice of the lesser
of the two evils with which she confronted him.
     He  saw  first  incredulity,  then  consternation,  and lastly  disgust
overspread her face.
     "Of  course," said  she,  after  a  long  pause, "that  would  have the
advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer."
     "That  was  only one of  the  inducements. There was  another.  Finding
myself  forced  to  choose between  the  stage and the gallows,  I  had  the
incredible weakness to prefer  the former. It was utterly unworthy  of a man
of  my lofty ideals, but - what would you? Like other ideologists, I find it
easier to preach than to practise. Shall  I stop the carriage and remove the
contamination of my disgusting person? Or shall I tell you how it happened?"
     "Tell me how it happened first. Then we will decide."
     He  told  her how  he met  the  Binet Troupe, and how  the men  of  the
marechaussee forced  upon him  the discovery that in its  bosom he could lie
safely lost until the hue and  cry had died  down. The explanation dissolved
her iciness.
     "My poor Andre, why didn't you tell me this at first?"
     "For one thing, you didn't give me time; for another, I feared to shock
you with the spectacle of my degradation."
     She took  him seriously. "But where was the need of it? And why did you
not send us word as I required you of your whereabouts?"
     "I  was thinking of  it only yesterday. I  have  hesitated for  several
reasons."
     "You thought it would offend us to know what you were doing?"
     "I  think  that  I preferred to  surprise  you by  the  magnitude of my
ultimate achievements."
     "Oh, you are to become a great actor?" She was frankly scornful.
     "That  is not impossible.  But  I am more concerned to  become  a great
author.  There is  no  reason  why  you  should  sniff.  The calling  is  an
honourable one. All  the world is proud to know such men as Beaumarchais and
Chenier."
     "And you hope to equal them?"
     "I hope  to  surpass them, whilst  acknowledging that it  was they  who
taught me how to walk. What did you think of the play last night?"
     "It was amusing and well conceived."
     "Let me present you to the author."
     "You? But the company is one of the improvisers."
     "Even improvisers  require an author to write their  scenarios. That is
all I write at present. Soon I shall be writing plays in the modern manner."
     "You  deceive yourself, my poor Andre. The  piece last night would have
been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your Scaramouche."
     "In confidence - I present you to him."
     "You - Scaramouche? You?" She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his
close-lipped smile that made wrinkles  like gashes in his cheeks. He nodded.
"And I didn't recognize you!"

     "I thank  you for the  tribute.  You imagined, of course,  that I was a
scene-shifter. And now that you  know all about me,  what of Gavrillac? What
of my godfather?"
     He  was  well,  she  told  him,  and  still profoundly  indignant  with
Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his behalf.
     "I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you."
     "Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say no more. Do not
tell him what  I am doing. He  has his prejudices too. Besides, it might not
be prudent. And now the question  I  have been  burning  to ask ever since I
entered your carriage. Why are you in Nantes, Aline?"
     "I am on a visit to my  aunt, Mme. de Sautron.  It was  with her that I
came to the play yesterday. We have been dull at the chateau; but it will be
different now. Madame my aunt  is receiving several guests to-day. M. de  La
Tour d'Azyr is to be one of them."
     Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. "Did  you ever  hear,  Aline, how  poor
Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end?"
     "Yes; I  was  told, first by my uncle; then  by  M. de  La Tour d'Azyr,
himself."
     "Did not that help you to decide this marriage question?"
     "How could it? You forget that I am but a woman. You don't expect me to
judge between men in matters such as these?"
     "Why not? You are well able to do so. The more since you have heard two
sides. For my godfather would tell you the truth. If you cannot judge, it is
that  you do not wish to judge." His tone became  harsh. "Wilfully you close
your  eyes  to  justice  that  might  check  the course  of  your unhealthy,
unnatural ambition."
     "Excellent!"  she  exclaimed, and  considered him  with  amusement  and
something else.  "Do you know that you are almost droll? You rise unblushing
from  the dregs of life in which I find you, and  shake off the  arm of that
theatre girl, to come and preach to me."
     "If these  were the dregs of life  I might  still speak  from  them  to
counsel you out of my respect and devotion  ,Aline."  He was very stiff  and
stern. "But they are  not the dregs of life. Honour and virtue are  possible
to  a  theatre  girl;  they  are impossible  to a lady who sells herself  to
gratify  ambition;  who for  position,  riches, and  a great  title  barters
herself in marriage."
     She looked at him breathlessly.  Anger turned her pale. She reached for
the cord.
     "I  think  I  had  better let you alight  so that  you may go  back  to
practise virtue and honour with your theatre wench."
     "You shall not speak so of her, Aline."
     "Faith,  now  we are to have  heat on  her behalf.  You think I am  too
delicate? You think I should speak of her as a... "
     "If you must speak of her at all," he interrupted, hotly, "you'll speak
of her as my wife."
     Amazement smothered her anger. Her pallor deepened. "My God!" she said,
and looked at him in horror. And in horror she asked him presently: "You are
married - married to that -?"
     "Not yet. But I shall be, soon. And let me tell you that this girl whom
you visit with your ignorant contempt is as good and pure as you are, Aline.
She has  wit and talent  which  have placed her where she is and shall carry
her  a  deal  farther. And she has  the womanliness to be  guided by natural
instincts in the selection of her mate."
     She was trembling with passion. She tugged the cord.
     "You  will  descend  this  instant!" she told him fiercely.  "That  you
should dare to make a comparison between me and that... "
     "And  my  wife-to-be,"  he  interrupted, before  she  could  speak  the
infamous  word.  He  opened  the  door  for himself without waiting for  the
footman,  and  leapt down.  "My  compliments,"  said he, furiously,  "to the
assassin you are to marry." He slammed  the door.  "Drive on," he  bade  the
coachman.
     The carriage rolled away  up the  Faubourg Gigan, leaving  him standing
where he had alighted, quivering with rage. Gradually, as he  walked back to
the inn, his anger cooled. Gradually, as he cooled,  he perceived  her point
of view, and in  the end forgave her. It was not her fault that she  thought
as she thought.  Her rearing had been  such as to  make  her look upon every
actress as  a trull, just as it  had qualified her  calmly to  consider  the
monstrous marriage of convenience into which she was invited.
     He  got back to the inn to find the company at table. Silence fell when
he entered, so suddenly that of necessity it must be supposed he was himself
the subject of the conversation. Harlequin and Columbine had spread the tale
of this  prince in  disguise caught up  into the chariot of  a princess  and
carried off by her; and it was a tale that had lost nothing in the telling.
     Climene had  been silent and thoughtful, pondering what  Columbine  had
called  this romance of  hers. Clearly her Scaramouche must be  vastly other
than he had  hitherto appeared,  or else that great lady  and he would never
have used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him no  better than he
was, Climene had made him her own. And now she was to  receive the reward of
disinterested affection.
     Even  old Binet's  secret  hostility towards  Andre-Louis melted before
this  astounding  revelation.  He  had  pinched  his  daughter's  ear  quite
playfully. "Ah, ah, trust you to have penetrated his disguise, my child!"
     She shrank resentfully from that implication.
     "But I did not. I took him for what he seemed."
     Her father  winked  at her very solemnly and laughed.  "To be sure, you
did. But like your father, who was  once  a gentleman, and knows the ways of
gentlemen, you detected in him a  subtle something different from those with
whom  misfortune  has compelled you hitherto to  herd. You knew as well as I
did  that he  never  caught  that trick of haughtiness,  that  grand  air of
command, in a lawyer's musty office, and that his speech had hardly the ring
or his thoughts the complexion of the bourgeois that he pretended to be. And
it was shrewd of  you to have made  him yours. Do you  know that I shall  be
very proud of you yet, Climene?"
     She moved away without  answering. Her father's  oiliness offended her.
Scaramouche was clearly a great gentleman, an eccentric if you please, but a
man  born.  And she was to be his  lady. Her father must learn to  treat her
differently.
     She looked shyly - with a new shyness - at her lover when he  came into
the room where  they were dining. She observed for the first time that proud
carriage of the head, with the chin thrust forward, that was a trick of his,
and she noticed with what a grace he moved
     -  the  grace  of  one  who  in youth has had his  dancing-masters  and
fencing-masters.
     It almost hurt her when he flung himself into a chair and  exchanged  a
quip with Harlequin  in the  usual  manner as with an equal, and it offended
her still more that Harlequin, knowing what he now knew, should use him with
the same unbecoming familiarity.

        CHAPTER XI. THE AWAKENINGX


     "Do you  know," said Climene, "that I am  waiting  for the  explanation
which I think you owe me?"
     They  were  alone together,  lingering  still  at  the  table to  which
Andre-Louis had come belatedly, and  Andre-Louis was loading himself a pipe.
Of  late - since  joining  the Binet Troupe - he had acquired the  habit  of
smoking.  The  others had gone, some to  take the air and others, like Binet
and Madame, because  they felt that it were  discreet  to leave those two to
the explanations that must pass. It  was  a feeling that Andre-Louis did not
share. He kindled a light and leisurely applied it to his pipe. A frown came
to settle on his brow.
     "Explanation?" he questioned presently, and looked at her. "But on what
score?"
     "On the score of the deception you have practised on us - on me."
     "I have practised none," he assured her.
     "You mean  that  you  have simply  kept your own  counsel, and  that in
silence  there is  no  deception.  But  it  is  deceitful  to withhold facts
concerning yourself and your  true station from your future wife. You should
not have pretended to be a  simple country lawyer, which, of course, any one
could see that you  are not. It may have been  very  romantic, but... Enfin,
will you explain?"
     "I see," he said, and pulled at his  pipe. "But you are wrong, Climene.
I have  practised no deception. If there are things about me that I have not
told you, it is that I  did  not account them of much importance. But I have
never  deceived you by pretending to be  other than  I am. I am neither more
nor less than I have represented myself."
     This  persistence began to annoy her, and the  annoyance  showed on her
winsome face, coloured her voice.
     "Ha! And  that fine lady of the nobility with whom you are so intimate,
who carried you off in her cabriolet with so little ceremony towards myself?
What is she to you?"
     "A sort of sister," said he.
     "A  sort of sister!"  She was  indignant. "Harlequin  foretold that you
would say so; but he was amusing himself. It  was not very funny. It is less
funny still from you. She has a name, I suppose, this sort of sister?"
     "Certainly she has a  name. She is Mlle.  Aline de Kercadiou, the niece
of Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac."
     "Oho! That's  a sufficiently fine  name for your sort  of sister.  What
sort of sister, my friend?"
     For the first time in their relationship he observed  and  deplored the
taint of vulgarity, of shrewishness, in her manner.
     "It would have been more accurate in  me to have said a sort of reputed
left-handed cousin."
     "A  reputed left-handed cousin! And what  sort of relationship may that
be? Faith, you dazzle me with your lucidity."
     "It requires to be explained."
     "That is what I have been telling you. But you seem very reluctant with
your explanations."
     "Oh, no. It is only that they are so unimportant. But be you the judge.
Her  uncle,  M. de  Kercadiou, is  my godfather,  and  she  and I have  been
playmates  from  infancy as  a consequence.  It  is  popularly  believed  in
Gavrillac that  M. de Kercadiou is my father. He has certainly cared  for my
rearing from my tenderest years, and it is entirely owing to him  that I was
educated  at  Louis  le Grand. I  owe  to him  everything that I have -  or,
rather, everything  that  I had;  for of my own free  will I have cut myself
adrift, and to-day I possess nothing save what I  can earn for myself in the
theatre or elsewhere."
     She sat stunned and pale under  that cruel  blow to her swelling pride.
Had he told  her  this but yesterday, it  would have made no impression upon
her,  it  would  have mattered not  at all;  the event of to-day coming as a
sequel would but have  enhanced him  in her eyes.  But coming now, after her
imagination had woven for him so magnificent a  background, after the rashly
assumed discovery of  his  splendid identity had  made her the envied of all
the company,  after  having  been in her  own  eyes and theirs  enshrined by
marriage with  him  as a great lady,  this disclosure crushed and humiliated
her.  Her prince in disguise  was merely  the outcast  bastard of a  country
gentleman! She would  be the laughing-stock of every member of her  father's
troupe,  of  all  those who had so  lately  envied  her this  romantic  good
fortune.
     "You should have told me this before,"  she said, in a  dull voice that
she strove to render steady.
     "Perhaps I should. But does it really matter?"
     "Matter?" She  suppressed  her fury  to  ask another question. "You say
that  this  M. de  Kercadiou is popularly believed to  be your father.  What
precisely do you mean?"
     "Just that. It is a  belief that I  do  not  share. It is  a matter  of
instinct,  perhaps,  with  me.  Moreover,  once  I  asked  M.  de  Kercadiou
point-blank, and I received from him a denial.  It is not, perhaps, a denial
to  which one would attach too much importance in all the circumstances. Yet
I have never known M de Kercadiou for other than  a man of strictest honour,
and I should hesitate to disbelieve him
     -  particularly when  his statement  leaps  with  my own instincts.  He
assured me that he did not know who my father was."
     "And your mother,  was he equally ignorant?" She was  sneering, but  he
did not remark it. Her back was to the light.
     "He would not disclose  her name  to me. He confessed her to be a  dear
friend of his."
     She startled him by laughing, and her laugh was not pleasant.
     "A very dear friend, you  may be sure, you simpleton. What name do  you
bear?"
     He restrained his own rising indignation to answer her question calmly:
"Moreau. It was given me, so I am told, from the Brittany village in which I
was born.  But I have  no claim to it. In fact I have no name,  unless it be
Scaramouche, to  which I have earned a title. So that  you see, my dear," he
ended with a smile, "I have practised no deception whatever."
     "No, no. I see  that now." She laughed without mirth,  then drew a deep
breath and rose. "I am very tired," she said.
     He was on his feet in an  instant,  all solicitude.  But she waved  him
wearily back.
     "I think I will  rest until it is time to go to the theatre." She moved
towards  the door, dragging her feet a little. He sprang to open it, and she
passed out without looking at him.
     Her  so  brief romantic  dream was ended. The  glorious  world of fancy
which in the last hour she had built with such elaborate  detail, over which
it should be her  exalted destiny to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its
debris so many stumbling-blocks that prevented her from  winning back to her
erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he really was.
     Andre-Louis  sat in the  window embrasure, smoking and looking idly out
across the river.  He  was intrigued and meditative. He had shocked her. The
fact was clear; not  so the  reason. That he should confess himself nameless
should not particularly injure him  in the eyes of a girl  reared  amid  the
surroundings that  had been  Climene's. And yet that  his confession had  so
injured him was fully apparent.
     There, still at his  brooding, the returning Columbine discovered him a
half-hour later.
     "All alone, my prince!" was her laughing greeting, which suddenly threw
light upon his mental  darkness. Climene had been disappointed of hopes that
the wild imagination of these players had suddenly erected upon the incident
of his meeting with Aline. Poor child! He smiled whimsically at Columbine.
     "I am likely to be so for some little time," said he, "until it becomes
a commonplace that I am not, after all, a prince.
     "Not a prince? Oh, but a duke, then - at least a marquis."
     "Not even a chevalier, unless it be  of the order of fortune. I am just
Scaramouche. My castles are all in Spain."
     Disappointment clouded the lively, good-natured face.
     "And I had imagined you... "
     "I know," he interrupted. "That is the mischief." He might  have gauged
the extent of that mischief  by Climene's conduct that  evening  towards the
gentlemen of fashion who clustered now in the green-room between the acts to
pay their  homage to the  incomparable amoureuse.  Hitherto she had received
them with a circumspection compelling respect. To-night she  was  recklessly
gay, impudent, almost wanton.
     He spoke of it gently to her as  they walked home together, counselling
more prudence in the future.
     "We are not married yet," she told him, tartly. "Wait until then before
you criticize my conduct."
     "I trust that there will be no occasion then," said he.
     "You trust? Ah, yes. You are very trusting."
     "Climene, I have offended you. I am sorry."
     "It is  nothing," said she.  "You  are what you are. Still  was  he not
concerned.  He  perceived the  source of her ill-humour; understood,  whilst
deploring  it; and, because he  understood, forgave.  He perceived also that
her ill-humour  was shared by her father, and by this he was frankly amused.
Towards M.  Binet  a tolerant  contempt was the only feeling  that  complete
acquaintance could beget. As for the rest of the company, they were disposed
to be very kindly towards Scaramouche. It was almost as if in reality he had
fallen from the high estate to which their own  imaginations had raised him;
or  possibly it  was because they saw  the effect  which that fall from  his
temporary and fictitious elevation had produced upon Climene.
     Leandre alone made himself an exception. His habitual melancholy seemed
to  be   dispelled  at  last,  and  his  eyes  gleamed  now  with  malicious
satisfaction  when  they  rested  upon  Scaramouche,  whom  occasionally  he
continued to address with sly mockery as "mon prince."
     On the morrow Andre-Louis  saw but little  of Climene. This was  not in
itself extraordinary, for he was very hard at work again, with  preparations
now for "Figaro-Scaramouche" which was to  be  played on  Saturday. Also, in
addition to  his manifold  theatrical occupations,  he  now devoted an  hour
every morning to the study of fencing  in an academy of arms. This  was done
not only to  repair an omission in his education, but  also, and chiefly, to
give  him  added grace and  poise  upon the  stage. He found his  mind  that
morning distracted by thoughts of both  Climene and Aline. And oddly  enough
it  was Aline  who provided the  deeper  perturbation. Climene's attitude he
regarded as  a passing phase  which need  not seriously  engage him. But the
thought of  Aline's conduct towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply
rankled the thought of her possible betrothal to M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
     This it  was that brought forcibly to his  mind the self-imposed but by
now half-forgotten  mission that he had made his own. He had boasted that he
would make the voice  which M. de La Tour  d'Azyr had sought to silence ring
through the length and breadth of the land. And what had he done of all this
that he had boasted? He had incited  the mob of Rennes and the mob of Nantes
in such  terms  as poor Philippe might have employed,  and then because of a
hue  and cry he had fled like a  cur and taken shelter in  the first  kennel
that offered,  there  to lie  quiet and  devote himself  to  other things  -
self-seeking  things.  What  a  fine  contrast  between the promise  and the
fulfilment!
     Thus Andre-Louis to himself in his self-contempt. And whilst he trifled
away his time and played Scaramouche, and centred all his hopes in presently
becoming the rival of such men as Chenier and Mercier, M. de  La Tour d'Azyr
went his proud ways unchallenged and wrought his  will. It was idle  to tell
himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit. That the demands he had
voiced in Nantes  for the Third Estate had been granted by M. Necker, thanks
largely to the  commotion which his anonymous speech had made. That  was not
his concern or his  mission. It was no part  of his concern to set about the
regeneration of mankind, or even the regeneration of the social structure of
France. His  concern  was to  see  that  M. de La Tour d'Azyr  paid  to  the
uttermost  liard for the brutal wrong he  had done Philippe de Vilmorin. And
it did not increase his self-respect to find that the danger in  which Aline
stood of being married to  the Marquis was the real spur  to his rancour and
to  remembrance  of his vow. He  was  - too  unjustly, perhaps - disposed to
dismiss  as  mere sophistries  his own  arguments that  there was nothing he
could do;  that, in fact, he had but to  show his head to find himself going
to Rennes  under arrest and making his  final exit from the world's stage by
way of the gallows.
     It is impossible to read that part of his "Confessions" without feeling
a  certain pity  for him. You realize what must have been his state of mind.
You realize what a prey he was to emotions  so conflicting, and  if you have
the imagination that will enable you to put yourself  in his place, you will
also realize how impossible was any  decision  save the one to which he says
he came, that he would move,  at the  first moment that he perceived in what
direction it would serve his real aims to move.
     It happened that the first person he saw when he took the stage on that
Thursday evening was Aline;  the second was the Marquis de La  Tour  d'Azyr.
They occupied a box on the right of, and immediately above, the stage. There
were  others  with them  - notably a  thin,  elderly, resplendent lady  whom
Andre-Louis supposed to be Madame la Comtesse de Sautron. But at the time he
had no eyes for  any but those two, who of late had so haunted his thoughts.
The sight of either of  them would have been sufficiently disconcerting. The
sight of both together very nearly made him  forget the purpose for which he
had come  upon  the stage. Then he pulled himself  together,  and played. He
played,  he says, with  an unusual nerve, and never  in  all  that brief but
eventful career of his was he more applauded.
     That was the evening's first shock. The next came after the second act.
Entering the green-room he found it more thronged than usual, and at the far
end with Climene, over whom  he was  bending from his fine height,  his eyes
intent  upon  her face, what time  his smiling lips moved in talk, M. de  La
Tour d'Azyr. He had  her entirely to himself, a privilege none of the men of
fashion  who  were in the habit of visiting the coulisse  had  yet  enjoyed.
Those  lesser gentlemen  had all  withdrawn before the Marquis,  as  jackals
withdraw before the lion.
     Andre-Louis  stared  a  moment,  stricken.  Then  recovering  from  his
surprise he became critical  in his study of the Marquis. He considered  the
beauty  and  grace and splendour  of him, his courtly air,  his complete and
unshakable self-possession. But more than  all he  considered the expression
of the dark eyes that were devouring Climene's lovely face, and his own lips
tightened.
     M.  de La  Tour d'Azyr  never heeded him or his stare; nor, had he done
so, would he  have known  who  it was that looked  at him  from  behind  the
make-up of Scaramouche; nor, again, had  he known, would he have been in the
least troubled or concerned.
     Andre-Louis sat down apart, his mind in  turmoil. Presently  he found a
mincing  young gentleman  addressing him,  and  made shift to  answer as was
expected.  Climene having been thus sequestered, and Columbine being already
thickly besieged by gallants, the lesser visitors had to  content themselves
with Madame and  the  male members of the troupe. M. Binet,  indeed, was the
centre of a gay cluster that shook with laughter at  his sallies.  He seemed
of  a sudden  to  have emerged from the gloom of the last two days into high
good-humour,  and  Scaramouche  observed  how  persistently  his  eyes  kept
flickering upon his daughter and her splendid courtier.
     That night  there, were high words between Andre-Louis and Climene, the
high  words  proceeding  from  Climene.  When  Andre-Louis  again,  and more
insistently, enjoined prudence upon  his betrothed, and begged her to beware
how far  she  encouraged the advances of such a man as M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
she became  roundly abusive. She shocked and stunned  him by her  virulently
shrewish tone, and her still more unexpected force of invective.
     He  sought to  reason with her, and  finally  she came to certain terms
with him.
     "If you have become betrothed to me  simply to stand as an obstacle  in
my path, the sooner we make an end the better."
     "You do not love me then, Climene?"
     "Love  has  nothing to do  with  it. I'll  not tolerate  your insensate
jealousy.  A girl in the theatre must make it her business  to accept homage
from all."
     "Agreed; and there is no harm, provided she gives nothing in exchange."
     White-faced, with flaming eyes she turned on him at that.
     "Now, what exactly do you mean?"
     "My meaning is clear.  A  girl in  your  position may  receive all  the
homage that is offered, provided she receives it with  a dignified aloofness
implying  clearly  that she has no favours  to  bestow  in return beyond the
favour of her smile. If  she is  wise  she will see to it that the homage is
always offered collectively  by her admirers, and that no single one amongst
them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone. If she is  wise
she  will  give no encouragement, nourish no hopes that it may afterwards be
beyond her power to deny realization."
     "How? You dare?"
     "I  know  my world. And  I know M. de La Tour d'Azyr," he answered her.
"He is a  man without charity, without humanity almost; a man who takes what
he wants wherever he finds  it  and whether  it is given willingly or not; a
man who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his self-indulgent way;
a man  whose only law is force. Ponder it, Climene, and ask yourself if I do
you less than honour in warning you."
     He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing the subject.
     The days that followed  were unhappy days for him, and for at least one
other.  That other was Leandre, who  was cast into the profoundest dejection
by M. de La Tour d'Azyr's assiduous attendance upon Climene. The Marquis was
to be seen at every performance; a box was perpetually reserved for him, and
invariably he came either alone or else with his cousin M. de Chabrillane.
     On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went  out alone  early in
the  morning.  He was  out of  temper,  fretted by an  overwhelming sense of
humiliation,  and  he hoped  to  clear  his mind  by walking. In turning the
corner   of   the  Place   du  Bouffay   he  ran  into   a  slightly  built,
sallow-complexioned  gentleman  very  neatly dressed  in  black,  wearing  a
tie-wig under a  round hat. The  man fell back at sight of  him, levelling a
spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang with amazement.
     "Moreau! Where the devil have you been hiding your-self these months?"
     It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer,  the leader of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes.
     "Behind the skirts of Thespis," said Scaramouche.
     "I don't understand."
     "I  didn't intend that you should. What of yourself, Isaac? And what of
the world which seems to have been standing still of late?"
     "Standing still!" Le Chapelier laughed. "But where have you been, then?
Standing still!" He pointed across  the square to a caf' under the shadow of
the gloomy prison. "Let us  go and drink a bavaroise. You are of all men the
man we want, the man we have been  seeking everywhere, and - behold!  -  you
drop from the skies into my path."
     They crossed the square and entered the caf'.
     "So  you  think the  world has been  standing  still! Dieu  de  Dieu! I
suppose you haven't heard  of the  royal order  for the  convocation of  the
States General, or the terms of them - that we are to have what we demanded,
what you demanded for  us here in  Nantes! You haven't heard that  the order
has gone forth for  the primary elections  - the elections of the  electors.
You haven't heard of the fresh uproar in  Rennes, last month. The order  was
that  the three  estates should  sit together  at the  States General of the
bailliages,  but  in  the  bailliage  of  Rennes  the  nobles  must ever  be
recalcitrant. They  took up arms actually  - six hundred of them with  their
valetaille, headed by  your  old friend M. de La Tour d'Azyr,  and they were
for slashing us - the members of the  Third  Estate - into ribbons  so as to
put an end to our insolence." He laughed delicately. "But, by God, we showed
them that we, too, could take up arms.  It  was what you yourself  advocated
here  in  Nantes,  last November.  We  fought them  a pitched battle  in the
streets, under the leadership of your namesake Moreau, the provost,  and  we
so peppered  them that  they  were  glad to take  shelter  in  the Cordelier
Convent. That is the end of their resistance to the royal authority  and the
people's will."
     He ran on at great speed detailing the events that had taken place, and
finally came to the matter which had, he announced, been causing him to hunt
for Andre-Louis until he had all but despaired of finding him.
     Nantes was  sending fifty delegates to the assembly of Rennes which was
to  select  the  deputies  to  the  Third Estate  and edit  their  cahier of
grievances. Rennes  itself  was  being  as  fully  represented, whilst  such
villages  as  Gavrillac were  sending two  delegates  for every two  hundred
hearths or less.  Each of these three had  clamoured that Andre-Louis Moreau
should be  one of its delegates. Gavrillac wanted him because he belonged to
the  village,  and it  was  known  there what sacrifices he had  made in the
popular  cause; Rennes wanted him because it  had heard his spirited address
on  the day  of  the  shooting of the students;  and  Nantes -  to  whom his
identity was  unknown - asked for him as the speaker who had  addressed them
under the name of Omnes Omnibus and  who  had framed for  them the  memorial
that was believed so largely to have influenced M. Necker in formulating the
terms of the convocation.
     Since he could not be found,  the delegations  had been made up without
him.  But  now it happened that one  or  two  vacancies had occurred in  the
Nantes representation;  and it was  the business  of filling these vacancies
that had brought Le Chapelier to Nantes.
     Andre-Louis firmly shook his head in answer to Le Chapelier's proposal.
     "You  refuse?" the  other  cried. "Are  you mad?  Refuse,  when you are
demanded from so  many sides?  Do  you realize that it is more than probable
you will be elected one of the deputies, that you will be sent to the States
General at Versailles to represent us in this work of saving France?"
     But  Andre-Louis, we know,  was  not  concerned to save  France. At the
moment he was concerned to save two women, both of whom he loved, though  in
vastly different ways, from a man he had vowed to ruin. He stood firm in his
refusal until Le Chapelier dejectedly abandoned the attempt to persuade him.
     "It is  odd,"  said Andre-Louis,  "that  I  should have been so  deeply
immersed  in  trifles  as  never  to  have perceived  that  Nantes is  being
politically active."
     "Active! My friend, it is a seething cauldron of political emotions. It
is kept quiet on the surface only by the persuasion that all goes well. At a
hint to the contrary it would boil over."
     "Would it  so?" said Scaramouche,  thoughtfully. "The knowledge may  be
useful."  And  then he changed the subject. "You know that La Tour d'Azyr is
here?"
     "In Nantes? He has  courage if he shows himself. They are not a  docile
people,  these  Nantais, and they know his record and  the part he played in
the rising  at  Rennes.  I  marvel they haven't  stoned him. But  they will,
sooner or later. It only needs that some one should suggest it."
     "That is  very  likely," said Andre-Louis, and smiled. "He doesn't show
himself  much;  not in the streets, at least. So that he has not the courage
you  suppose; nor any kind of  courage,  as  I  told him once.  He  has only
insolence."
     At parting Le Chapelier again exhorted  him to  give thought to what he
proposed.  "Send  me word if you change  your mind. I am lodged at the Cerf,
and  I shall be here  until the day  after to-morrow. If you have  ambition,
this is your moment."
     "I have no ambition, I suppose," said Andre-Louis, and went his way.
     That night at the theatre he  had a mischievous impulse to test what Le
Chapelier had told him of the state of public feeling in the city. They were
playing "The Terrible Captain," in the last act of which the empty cowardice
of the bullying braggart Rhodomont is revealed by Scaramouche.
     After the laughter which the exposure of the roaring captain invariably
produced, it remained for  Scaramouche  contemptuously to  dismiss him  in a
phrase that varied nightly, according to the inspiration of the moment. This
time he chose to give his phrase a political complexion:
     "Thus, 0 thrasonical coward, is your emptiness exposed. Because of your
long  length and the great sword you carry  and  the angle at which you cock
your hat,  people have  gone in  fear of you,,  have believed  in  you, have
imagined  you to  be  as terrible and as  formidable as you  insolently make
yourself  appear. But at the first touch  of true spirit you crumple up, you
tremble, you whine pitifully, and the great  sword remains in your scabbard.
You remind me of the Privileged Orders when confronted by the Third Estate."
     It was audacious  of him, and  he  was prepared for anything - a laugh,
applause, indignation, or all together.  But  he  was not prepared for  what
came. And it came so suddenly and spontaneously from the groundlings and the
body of those in the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it - as a boy
may  be  scared who has held  a  match  to a sun-scorched hayrick. It was  a
hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their feet, sprang  up on to the
benches,  waving their hats in the air,  deafening  him  with  the  terrific
uproar of their acclamations. And it rolled  on and on, nor ceased until the
curtain fell.
     Scaramouche stood  meditatively smiling  with  tight lips.  At the last
moment he had caught a glimpse of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's face thrust farther
forward than usual from the shadows of  his box, and  it  was a  face set in
anger, with eyes on fire.
     "Mon Dieu!" laughed Rhodomont, recovering from the real scare that  had
succeeded his histrionic terror,  "but you have  a  great trick of  tickling
them in the right place, Scaramouche."
     Scaramouche  looked up  at  him  and  smiled.  "It can  be  useful upon
occasion," said he, and went off to his dressing-room to change.
     But a  reprimand awaited him. He was delayed  at the theatre by matters
concerned with the  scenery of the  new  piece they were  to mount upon  the
morrow. By the  time he was rid of the business the rest of the  company had
long since left.  He called a chair and had himself carried back to the  inn
in  solitary state.  It was one of  many  minor  luxuries his  comparatively
affluent present circumstances permitted.
     Coming into  that  upstairs room  that was common to all the troupe, he
found M. Binet talking loudly and vehemently. He  had caught sounds  of  his
voice whilst  yet upon the stairs. As  he entered Binet broke off short, and
wheeled to face him.
     "You are here  at  last!" It was so odd a greeting that Andre-Louis did
no more than look his mild  surprise. "I  await  your  explanations  of  the
disgraceful scene you provoked to-night."
     "Disgraceful? Is it disgraceful that the public should applaud me?"
     "The public? The  rabble, you mean.  Do you want  to deprive  us of the
patronage of all gentlefolk  by vulgar appeals  to the  low  passions of the
mob.?"
     Andre-Louis stepped past M. Binet and forward to the table. He shrugged
contemptuously. The man offended him, after all.
     "You exaggerate grossly - as usual."
     "I do not exaggerate.  And I am the master  in my  own theatre. This is
the Binet Troupe, and it shall be conducted in the Binet way."
     "Who are the gentlefolk the loss of whose patronage to the  Feydau will
be so poignantly felt?" asked Andre-Louis.
     "You imply that  there are none? See how wrong you are.  After the play
to-night M. le Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr came to me, and spoke to me  in the
severest terms  about your scandalous outburst.  I was  forced to apologize,
and... "
     "The  more fool you,"  said Andre-Louis. "A man  who respected  himself
would  have  shown  that gentleman  the  door."  M.  Binet's  face  began to
empurple. "You call  yourself the  head of the  Binet Troupe, you boast that
you will be master in your own theatre, and you  stand like a lackey to take
the orders of the first insolent fellow who comes to your green-room to tell
you that he does not  like a line spoken by one of your company! I say again
that had you really respected yourself you would have turned him out."
     There  was  a  murmur of approval from several members of  the company,
who, having heard the arrogant tone assumed by the Marquis, were filled with
resentment against the slur cast upon them all.
     "And  I say further,"  Andre-Louis went on,  "that a  man  who respects
himself,  on  quite other grounds, would  have  been only too  glad  to have
seized this pretext to show M. de La Tour d'Azyr the door."
     "What  do you  mean by that?" There was a  rumble  of  thunder  in  the
question.
     Andre-Louis'   eyes  swept   round   the  company   assembled   at  the
supper-table. "Where is Climene?" he asked, sharply.
     Leandre leapt  up to answer him, white in the face, tense and quivering
with excitement.
     "She left  the  theatre  in the Marquis de  La  Tour d'Azyr's  carriage
immediately  after the performance. We heard him offer to  drive her to this
inn."
     Andre-Louis  glanced  at the timepiece  on  the  overmantel. He  seemed
unnaturally calm.
     "That would be an hour ago - rather more. And she has not yet arrived?"
     His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet's eyes eluded his glance. Again it
was Leandre who answered him.
     "Not yet."
     "Ah!" Andre-Louis sat down,  and  poured  himself  wine.  There was  an
oppressive silence in the room. Leandre watched  him  expectantly, Columbine
commiseratingly.  Even M.  Binet  appeared  to  be  waiting for  a  cue from
Scaramouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him. "Have you left me anything to
eat?" he asked.
     Platters were pushed towards him. He helped himself calmly to food, and
ate in silence, apparently with a good  appetite. M. Binet  sat down, poured
himself  wine, and  drank. Presently  he attempted to make conversation with
one and another. He was answered curtly,  in monosyllables. M. Binet did not
appear to be in favour with his troupe that night.
     At long length  came a rumble of wheels  below and a rattle  of halting
hooves. Then voices, the high, trilling laugh  of Climene floating  upwards.
Andre-Louis went on eating unconcernedly.
     "What an actor!" said Harlequin  under his breath to Polichinelle,  and
Polichinelle nodded gloomily.
     She came in,  a leading  lady taking the stage,  head high, chin thrust
forward,  eyes  dancing with  laughter; she expressed triumph and arrogance.
Her  cheeks  were  flushed,  and there  was some  disorder  in  the mass  of
nut-brown hair  that crowned her  head. In  her  left  hand she  carried  an
enormous bouquet of white camellias. On its middle finger a diamond of great
price drew almost at once by its effulgence the eyes of all.
     Her  father sprang  to  meet  her with an  unusual display  of paternal
tenderness. "At last, my child!"
     He conducted her to the table. She sank into a chair, a little wearily,
a little nervelessly,  but  the smile did  not leave her face, not even when
she glanced  across  at  Scaramouche.  It  was  only Leandre, observing  her
closely, with  hungry, scowling stare, who detected something as  of fear in
the hazel eyes momentarily seen between the fluttering of her lids.
     Andre-Louis, however, still went on eating stolidly, without so much as
a look in  her direction. Gradually the company came to realize that just as
surely as  a scene was  brooding, just so surely  would there be no scene as
long as they remained. It was Polichinelle, at  last, who gave the signal by
rising and withdrawing, and within two minutes none remained in the room but
M. Binet, his daughter, and Andre-Louis. And  then, at last, Andre-Louis set
down knife and  fork, washed his  throat with a draught of Burgundy, and sat
back in his chair to consider Climene.
     "I trust," said he, "that you had a pleasant ride, mademoiselle."
     "Most  pleasant,  monsieur.  Impudently   she  strove  to  emulate  his
coolness, but did not completely succeed.
     "And not unprofitable, if  I may judge that jewel  at this distance. It
should be worth at least a couple of hundred louis, and that is a formidable
sum even to  so  wealthy  a nobleman as M. de La  Tour  d'Azyr.  Would it be
impertinent in one  who has had some notion of becoming your husband, to ask
you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?"
     M.  Binet  uttered a  gross  laugh,  a  queer  mixture  of cynicism and
contempt.
     "I have given nothing," said Climene, indignantly.
     "Ah! Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in advance."
     "My God, man, you're not decent!" M. Binet protested.
     "Decent?"  Andre-Louis' smouldering  eyes  turned to  discharge upon M.
Binet  such  a  fulmination  of  contempt  that the  old  scoundrel  shifted
uncomfortably in his chair. "Did you mention decency, Binet? Almost you make
me lose my temper,  which is a thing that I detest above all others!" Slowly
his  glance  returned to Climene, who sat with elbows on the table, her chin
cupped  in  her  palms, regarding  him  with  something  between  scorn  and
defiance.  "Mademoiselle," he said, slowly, "I desire you purely in your own
interests to consider whither you are going."
     "I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide without advice
from you, monsieur."
     "And now you've got your answer," chuckled Binet. "I hope you like it."
     Andre-Louis  had paled a  little; there  was  incredulity in  his great
sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard her. Of M. Binet he took no
notice.
     "Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean  that willingly,  with open eyes
and a  full  understanding of what you do, you would  exchange an honourable
wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour d'Azyr may have
in store for you?"
     M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him,
the mealy-mouthed prude!  Perhaps you'll believe  at last that marriage with
him  would  be the  ruin of you. He  would always be  there the inconvenient
husband - to mar your every chance, my girl."
     She tossed her lovely head  in  agreement with  her father  "I begin to
find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a husband I
am afraid he would be impossible."
     Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But - always the  actor -
he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and rose.
     "I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not regret it"
     "Regret  it?"  cried M.  Binet.  He was  laughing, relieved to  see his
daughter at last  rid of  this suitor of whom  he had never  approved, if we
except those few hours when he really  believed him  to  be  an eccentric of
distinction. "And what shall she regret? That she accepted the protection of
a nobleman so powerful and wealthy  that  as a mere  trinket he  gives her a
jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year at the Comedie Francaise?"
He got  up, and advanced towards Andre-Louis. His mood became  conciliatory.
"Come, come, my friend, no  rancour now. What the devil! You wouldn't  stand
in  the girl's way? You can't really blame her  for making this choice? Have
you thought what it means to her? Have you thought that under the protection
of such a gentleman there are no heights which she may not reach? Don't  you
see  the wonderful  luck  of it? Surely, if you're fond of her, particularly
being of a jealous temperament, you wouldn't wish it otherwise?"
     Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment. Then he laughed
again. "Oh, you are fantastic," he said. "You are  not real."  He turned  on
his heel and strode to the door.
     The action, and  more the contempt of his look, laugh, and  words stung
M. Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.
     "Fantastic,  are  we?"  he  cried,  turning  to  follow  the  departing
Scaramouche  with  his  little  eyes  that  now   were  inexpressibly  evil.
"Fantastic that we  should  prefer the  powerful  protection  of this  great
nobleman to marriage with beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are fantastic!"
     Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. No," he said, "I was
mistaken. You are not  fantastic.  You are just vile - both of you."  And he
went out.

        CHAPTER X. CONTRITION


     Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her  aunt in the bright morning sunshine
of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
     For  one of  her natural sweetness of  disposition she  had been  oddly
irritable  of late,  manifesting  signs  of  a  cynical  worldliness,  which
convinced Mme. de  Sautron  more  than  ever that  her  brother  Quintin had
scandalously conducted the child's education. She appeared to  be instructed
in all the things  of which a girl is  better ignorant, and ignorant  of all
the things that a  girl should know. That at least  was the point of view of
Mme. de Sautron.
     "Tell  me, madame,"  quoth  Aline, "are  all  men beasts?"  Unlike  her
brother, Madame la Comtesse  was tall  and majestically built.  In  the days
before her marriage with  M. de Sautron,  ill-natured folk  described her as
the only  man in the family. She looked down now  from her noble height upon
her little niece with startled eyes.
     "Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the  most disconcerting  and
improper questions."
     "Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper.
     "Life? A young girl should not discuss life."
     "Why not,  since  I  am  alive?  You  do  not  suggest  that  it  is an
impropriety to be alive?"
     "It is an impropriety for  a young unmarried  girl  to seek to know too
much  about life. As for your absurd  question about  men, when I remind you
that man  is the  noblest  work of  God,  perhaps you will consider yourself
answered."
     Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de
Kercadiou's outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
     "That  being so," said she,  will  you tell me  why  they find  such an
overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?"
     Madame  stood still and raised shocked  hands. Then she looked down her
handsome, high-bridged nose.
     "Sometimes   -  often,  in   fact,  my  dear  Aline  -  you   pass  all
understanding.  I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the
better it will be for all."
     "Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding," Aline reminded
her.
     "That," said  madame  with complete  conviction, "is the last  and most
outrageous of his  errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide the
matter  of her own  marriage?  It is... indelicate  almost to expose  her to
thoughts of such things." Mme. de Sautron shuddered. "Quintin is a boor. His
conduct  is  unheard  of. That  M.  de La  Tour d'Azyr should parade himself
before you so that  you may make up your mind whether he  is the proper  man
for you!" Again she shuddered.  "It is of  a grossness, of... of a prurience
almost... Mon Dieu! When I married your uncle, all this was arranged between
our  parents. I first saw him when he came to  sign  the contract. I  should
have  died of  shame  had it  been otherwise. And that is how  these affairs
should be conducted."
     "You are no doubt right, madame. But  since that is not how my own case
is being conducted, you will forgive me if I deal with it apart from others.
M.  de La  Tour d'Azyr desires to marry me. He has been permitted to pay his
court. I should be glad to have him informed that he may cease to do so."
     Mme. de  Sautron stood still, petrified  by  amazement.  Her  long face
turned white; she seemed to breathe with difficulty.
     "But.., but.. what are you saying?" she gasped.
     Quietly Aline repeated her statement.
     "But this is outrageous! You cannot be permitted to play fast-and-loose
with  a gentleman of M.  le Marquis' quality! Why, it is little more  than a
week since you permitted him to be informed that you would become his wife!"
     "I did  so in  a moment of... rashness. Since then M. le  Marquis'  own
conduct has convinced me of my error."
     "But  - mon  Dieu!"  cried the Countess.  "Are you  blind  to the great
honour that is being paid you? M. le Marquis will make you the first lady in
Brittany. Yet, little fool  that you are, and greater  fool that Quintin is,
you trifle with  this  extraordinary  good fortune!  Let me  warn  you." She
raised an admonitory forefinger. "If  you continue in this stupid  humour M.
de La Tour d'Azyr  may definitely withdraw his offer and depart in justified
mortification."
     "That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you,  is  what  I most
desire."
     "Oh, you are mad."
     "It may  be, madame, that I  am sane in preferring to  be guided  by my
instincts. It may be  even that I am justified in resenting that the man who
aspires  to  become  my husband  should  at the  same  time  be paying  such
assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau."
     "Aline!"
     "Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find  it strange  that M. de  La
Tour d'Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?"
     "Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me  by
the indecency of your expressions; at others you  amaze  me by the excess of
your  prudery. You have been brought up like  a  little bourgeoise, I think.
Yes, that is  it  - a little  bourgeoise. Quintin was always something of  a
shopkeeper at heart."
     "I  was  asking  your opinion  on the conduct of M. de La  Tour d'Azyr,
madame. Not on my own."
     "But it is an  indelicacy in you to observe such things.  You should be
ignorant of them, and I can't think  who is so... so unfeeling as to  inform
you. But  since you  are informed, at  least you should be modestly blind to
things  that  take  place  outside  the... orbit  of  a  properly  conducted
demoiselle."
     "Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married?"
     "If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge of them. It... it
deflowers  your  innocence.  I  would  not for the world that  M. de La Tour
d'Azyr should know you so extraordinarily instructed. Had you  been properly
reared in a convent this would never have happened to you."
     "But you do not answer me, madame!" cried Aline in despair. "It  is not
my chastity that is in question; but that of M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
     "Chastity!" Madame's  lips trembled  with horror. Horror overspread her
face. "Wherever did you learn that dreadful, that so improper word?"
     And  then  Mme. de Sautron did violence to  her feelings. She  realized
that here great  calm and prudence were  required. "My child, since you know
so much that you ought not to know, there can be no harm in my adding that a
gentleman must have these little distractions."
     "But why, madame? Why is it so?"
     "Ah, mon Dieu, you are asking me riddles of nature. It is so because it
is so. Because men are like that."
     "Because men are  beasts, you mean  - which is  what I began by  asking
you."
     "You are incorrigibly stupid, Aline."
     "You mean that  I do  not  see things  as you  do,  madame.  I  am  not
over-expectant as you appear to think; yet surely I have the right to expect
that whilst M. de La Tour d'Azyr is wooing me, he shall not be wooing at the
same time  a drab  of the theatre.  I feel that in  this  there is a  subtle
association of myself with that unspeakable creature which soils and insults
me. The Marquis is a dullard whose wooing  takes the form at best of stilted
compliments,  stupid and unoriginal. They  gain nothing  when they fall from
lips still warm from the contamination of that woman's kisses."
     So utterly  scandalized was  madame  that  for a  moment  she  remained
speechless. Then -
     "Mon Dieu!" she  exclaimed.  "I should never have suspected  you of  so
indelicate an imagination."
     "I cannot help it, madame. Each time his lips touch my fingers  I  find
myself thinking of the last object that  they touched. I  at once retire  to
wash my hands. Next time, madame, unless  you are good  enough to  convey my
message to him, I shall call for water and wash them in his presence."
     "But what am I  to  tell him?  How... in what words can I convey such a
message?" Madame was aghast.
     "Be  frank with him, madame.  It  is easiest in the end.  Tell him that
however impure may have been his  life in the past, however impure he intend
that it  shall be  in the  future,  he must  at  least study  purity  whilst
approaching with a view to marriage a virgin who is herself pure and without
stain."
     Madame recoiled,  and  put her hands to her ears, horror stamped on her
handsome face. Her massive bosom heaved.
     "Oh, how can you?" she panted.  "How can you  make use of such terrible
expressions? Wherever have you learnt them?"
     "In church," said Aline.
     "Ah, but in  church  many  things are said that... that  one would  not
dream of saying in the world. My dear child, how could I possibly say such a
thing to M. le Marquis? How could I possibly?"
     "Shall I say it?"
     "Aline!"
     "Well, there it  is," said Aline. "Something must be done to shelter me
from insult. I am utterly disgusted with M. le Marquis
     -  a disgusting  man.  And  however fine a  thing it  may be to  become
Marquise  de La Tour d'Azyr,  why, frankly,  I'd sooner marry a  cobbler who
practised decency."
     Such was her vehemence and obvious  determination that  Mme. de Sautron
fetched  herself  out of  her despair  to attempt persuasion. Aline  was her
niece, and such a marriage in the family would be to the credit of the whole
of it. At all costs nothing must frustrate it.
     "Listen, my dear," she said. "Let us  reason. M. le Marquis is away and
will not be back until to-morrow."
     "True. And I  know where he  has  gone - or at  least whom he  has gone
with. Mon Dieu, and the drab has a father and a lout of a fellow who intends
to make her his wife, and neither of them chooses to  do anything. I suppose
they agree with you, madame,  that  a great gentleman  must have his  little
distractions." Her  contempt was as scorching as a thing of fire.  "However,
madame, you were about to say?"
     "That on the day  after to-morrow you are returning to Gavrillac. M. de
La Tour d'Azyr will most likely follow at his leisure."
     "You mean when this dirty candle is burnt out?"
     "Call  it  what  you  will."  Madame,  you  see, despaired  by  now  of
controlling the impropriety  of her niece's expressions. "At Gavrillac there
will be no Mlle. Binet. This thing will be  in  the past. It  is unfortunate
that  he should have met her at such a moment. The chit is very  attractive,
after all. You cannot deny that. And you must make allowances."
     "M.  le Marquis formally proposed to me a  week ago. Partly  to satisfy
the wishes of  the  family,  and  partly...  "  She broke  off, hesitating a
moment, to resume on a  note of dull  pain, "Partly because it does not seem
greatly to matter whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent, for the
reasons I have given you, madame, I desire now definitely to withdraw."
     Madame  fell  into  agitation of the  wildest.  "Aline, I should  never
forgive you! Your uncle Quintin would be  in  despair. You do not know  what
you are saying, what a  wonderful thing you are refusing. Have you  no sense
of your position, of the station into which you were born?"
     "If I had not,  madame, I should have made an end long since. If I have
tolerated  this  suit for  a  single  moment,  it  is because  I realize the
importance  of  a suitable marriage  in  the worldly  sense.  But  I ask  of
marriage something more; and Uncle Quintin  has  placed the  decision  in my
hands."
     "God forgive him!" said madame. And then she hurried on: "Leave this to
me  now, Aline. Be  guided by me - oh,  be  guided  by  me!"  Her  tone  was
beseeching.  "I  will  take  counsel  with your  uncle  Charles. But  do not
definitely decide until this unfortunate affair has blown over. Charles will
know  how to arrange it. M. le  Marquis shall do penance, child,  since your
tyranny demands it; but not in sackcloth and ashes. you'll not ask so much?"
     Aline  shrugged. "I ask nothing  at  all," she said, which  was neither
assent nor dissent.
     So Mme.  de Sautron interviewed her husband, a slight, middle-aged man,
very aristocratic in appearance and gifted with a certain shrewd sense.  She
took with him precisely the tone that Aline had taken with herself and which
in  Aline  she  had found so disconcertingly indelicate.  She even  borrowed
several of Aline's phrases.
     The result was that on the Monday afternoon when at  last M. de La Tour
d'Azyr's returning berline  drove up to the  chateau, he  was  met by  M. le
Comte de Sautron who desired a word with him even before he changed.
     "Gervais,  you're a  fool,"  was  the  excellent opening made by  M. le
Comte.
     "Charles,  you  give me  no news,"  answered  M.  le Marquis. "Of  what
particular folly do you take the trouble to complain?"
     He flung  himself  wearily upon  a  sofa,  and  his  long graceful body
sprawling  there he looked up at his friend with a tired smile on that nobly
handsome pale face that seemed to defy the onslaught of age.
     "Of your last. This Binet girl."
     "That! Pooh! An incident; hardly a folly."
     "A folly -  at  such a time,"  Sautron  insisted. The  Marquis looked a
question. The  Count answered  it. "Aline," said he, pregnantly. "She knows.
How she knows I can't tell you, but she knows, and she is deeply offended."
     The smile perished on the Marquis' face. He gathered himself up.
     "Offended?" said he, and his voice was anxious.
     "But yes. You know what she is. You  know the ideals she has formed. It
wounds  her that at such a  time - whilst you  are here  for  the purpose of
wooing her -  you should at the same time be pursuing  this affair with that
chit of a Binet girl."
     "How do you know?" asked La Tour d'Azyr.
     "She has confided  in  her aunt. And  the poor child seems to have some
reason. She says she will not tolerate that you should come to kiss her hand
with  lips  that  are  still contaminated  from... Oh, you  understand.  You
appreciate the impression of such a  thing upon a pure, sensitive  girl such
as Aline. She said - I had better tell you - that the next time you kiss her
hand, she will call for water and wash it in your presence."
     The  Marquis'  face  flamed  scarlet.  He  rose. Knowing  his  violent,
intolerant spirit,  M.  de  Sautron was prepared for  an  outburst.  But  no
outburst  came. The Marquis turned away  from him,  and paced  slowly to the
window,  his head bowed, his hands behind his  back. Halted there he  spoke,
without turning, his voice was at once scornful and wistful.
     "You  are right,  Charles, I  am a fool - a wicked  fool!  I  have just
enough  sense left to perceive it. It is the way I have  lived, I suppose. I
have never known the need to deny myself anything  I  wanted." Then suddenly
he swung round, and  the outburst came. "But, my God, I want Aline as I have
never wanted  anything yet! I  think I should kill myself in rage if through
my folly I should have lost her." He struck his  brow with his hand. "I am a
beast!" he said. "I should  have known that if  that sweet saint got word of
these petty devilries of mine she would despise me; and I tell you, Charles,
I'd go through fire to regain her respect."
     "I hope it is to  be regained on easier terms," said  Charles; and then
to  ease  the situation which  began to  irk him by its solemnity, he made a
feeble joke. "It  is merely asked of you that you refrain from going through
certain  fires  that are not accounted  by mademoiselle of too  purifying  a
nature."
     "As to that Binet girl, it is finished - finished," said the Marquis.
     "I congratulate you. When did you make that decision?"
     "This moment. I would to God I had made it twenty-four hours ago. As it
is-" he shrugged - "why, twenty-four hours of her have been enough for me as
they would have been for any man - a mercenary, self-seeking  little baggage
with the soul of a trull. Bah!" He shuddered in disgust of himself and her.
     "Ah! That makes it easier for you," said M. de Sautron, cynically.
     Don't  say it, Charles.  It is not so. Had you been less of a fool, you
would have warned me sooner."
     "I may  prove to  have warned you soon enough  if you'll profit  by the
warning."
     "There is  no penance I will not do.  I  will prostrate myself  at  her
feet. I will  abase myself before her. I will  make confession in the proper
spirit  of contrition,  and  Heaven helping  me, I'll  keep to my purpose of
amendment for her sweet sake." He was tragically in earnest.
     To M.  de Sautron,  who had never  seen him  other than self-contained,
supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing revelation. He shrank from it
almost; it  gave him the feeling of prying, of peeping through a keyhole. He
slapped his friend's shoulder.
     "My dear Gervais, here  is a magnificently romantic mood.  Enough said.
Keep to  it, and I  promise you that all will presently be well.  I will  be
your ambassador, and you shall have no cause to complain."
     "But may I not go to her myself?"
     "If you are wise you will at once efface yourself. Write to her  if you
will - make  your act of  contrition by letter. I will explain why you  have
gone without seeing her. I will tell her that you did so upon my advice, and
I will do it tactfully. I am a good diplomat, Gervais. Trust me."
     M. le Marquis raised his head, and showed a face that pain was searing.
He held out  his  hand. "Very well,  Charles. Serve me in this, and count me
your friend in all things."

        CHAPTER XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAUI


     Leaving his host to  act  as his plenipotentiary with  Mademoiselle  de
Kercadiou, and to explain  to her that it was his  profound  contrition that
compelled him to  depart without  taking formal  leave  of  her, the Marquis
rolled away  from  Sautron  in a cloud of gloom. Twenty-four  hours  with La
Binet had  been more than  enough for a man of his fastidious and discerning
taste.  He  looked  back  upon the  episode with  nausea  -  the  inevitable
psychological  reaction -  marvelling  at himself  that until  yesterday  he
should have found her so desirable, and cursing himself that for the sake of
that  ephemeral  and   worthless  gratification  he  should  seriously  have
imperilled his chances of winning  Mademoiselle de Kercadiou to  wife. There
is, after all,  nothing very extraordinary in his  frame of mind, so that  I
need  not elaborate  it further. It resulted from the conflict  between  the
beast and the angel that go to make up the composition of every man.
     The  Chevalier  de  Chabrillane -  who in  reality occupied towards the
Marquis  a position  akin to that of gentleman-in-waiting -  sat opposite to
him  in  the enormous  travelling  berline. A  small folding table had  been
erected between them, and the Chevalier suggested piquet. But M. le  Marquis
was in no humour for cards. His thoughts absorbed him. As they were rattling
over the cobbles of  Nantes' streets, he remembered a promise to La Binet to
witness  her performance that night in "The Faithless Lover." And now he was
running away from her.  The thought was  repugnant to him on two scores.  He
was breaking his pledged word, and  he was acting  like  a coward. And there
was  more than that. He had led the mercenary little strumpet -  it was thus
he thought of her at present, and with some justice - to expect favours from
him  in addition  to the  lavish awards which  already he had made her.  The
baggage had almost sought to drive a  bargain with him as to  her future. He
was to take her to Paris, put her into her own furniture - as the expression
ran, and  still runs - and under  the shadow  of his powerful protection see
that the doors  of the great theatres of the capital should be opened to her
talents.  He  had  not -  he was thankful  to  reflect  - exactly  committed
himself. But neither had  he definitely refused her. It became necessary now
to  come to an understanding, since he  was compelled to choose  between his
trivial passion for her -  a passion quenched already - and his deep, almost
spiritual devotion to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
     His honour, he considered,  demanded  of  him  that  he should at  once
deliver  himself from  a false  position. La  Binet would make a  scene,  of
course; but he knew the proper specific to apply to hysteria of that nature.
Money, after all, has its uses.
     He pulled  the cord. The  carriage rolled to  a  standstill; a  footman
appeared at the door.
     "To the Theatre Feydau," said he.
     The footman  vanished  and  the berline  rolled  on. M.  de Chabrillane
laughed cynically.
     "I'll  trouble you  not to be amused,"  snapped the Marquis. "You don't
understand." Thereafter he explained himself. It was a rare condescension in
him. But, then, he could  not  bear  to be misunderstood  in such a  matter.
Chabrillane grew serious in reflection of the Marquis' extreme seriousness.
     "Why not write?" he suggested. "Myself, I confess that I should find it
easier.
     Nothing could  better have  revealed M. le  Marquis' state of mind than
his answer.
     "Letters  are liable  both to miscarriage  and  to misconstruction. Two
risks I will  not run. If she did not answer, I should never know  which had
been incurred. And  I shall have no peace of  mind  until I know that I have
set a term to this affair. The berline can wait while we are at the theatre.
We will go on afterwards. We will travel all night if necessary."
     "Peste!" said M. de Chabrillane with a grimace. But that was all.
     The great  travelling carriage drew  up at the  lighted portals of  the
Feydau,  and  M.  le  Marquis  stepped out.  He  entered  the  theatre  with
Chabrillane,  all  unconsciously  to  deliver  himself  into  the  hands  of
Andre-Louis.
     Andre-Louis was in a  state of exasperation produced by Climene's  long
absence  from  Nantes  in  the  company  of M. le  Marquis,  and fed by  the
unspeakable complacency with which  M.  Binet  regarded  that event of quite
unmistakable import.
     However much he might affect the frame of mind  of the stoics, and seek
to  judge  with  a  complete  detachment,  in  the  heart  and  soul of  him
Andre-Louis was tormented and revolted. It was not Climene he blamed. He had
been mistaken in her. She was just a poor weak vessel  driven helplessly  by
the first breath, however foul,  that promised her advancement. She suffered
from  the  plague  of  greed;  and  he  congratulated  himself  upon  having
discovered it before making her his wife. He felt for her now nothing but  a
deal of pity and some contempt.  The pity was begotten  of the  love she had
lately inspired in him. It  might be likened to the  dregs of love, all that
remained  after the potent wine of  it  had been  drained off. His anger  he
reserved for her father and her seducer.
     The thoughts that were  stirring in him on that Monday morning, when it
was discovered  that  Climene had not yet returned from her excursion of the
previous day  in the coach  of  M. le Marquis, were  already  wicked  enough
without the spurring they received from the distraught Leandre.
     Hitherto the attitude of each of these men  towards the  other had been
one of mutual contempt.  The phenomenon has frequently been observed in like
cases. Now, what appeared to be a common misfortune brought them into a sort
of alliance. So, at  least,  it seemed to  Leandre when he went in quest  of
Andre-Louis, who with apparent unconcern was smoking  a pipe  upon the  quay
immediately facing the inn.
     "Name of a pig!" said Leandre. "How can you take your ease and smoke at
such a time?"
     Scaramouche surveyed the sky.  "I  do not find it  too  cold," said he.
"The sun is shining. I am very well here."
     "Do I talk of the weather?" Leandre was very excited.
     "Of what, then?"
     "Of Climene, of course."
     "Oh! The lady has ceased to interest me," he lied.
     Leandre stood squarely  in front of him, a  handsome figure  handsomely
dressed in these days, his hair  well  powdered, his  stockings of silk. His
face was pale, his large eyes looked larger than usual.
     "Ceased  to  interest  you?  Are  you  not to  marry her?"  Andre-Louis
expelled a cloud  of smoke. "You cannot wish to be offensive. Yet you almost
suggest that I live on other men's leavings."
     "My God!" said  Leandre, overcome, and he  stared awhile. Then he burst
out afresh. "Are you quite heartless? Are you always Scaramouche?"
     "What do  you expect me to do?" asked Andre-Louis, evincing surprise in
his own turn, but faintly.
     "I do not expect you to let her go without a struggle."
     "But she  has  gone already."  Andre-Louis pulled at his pipe a moment,
what time Leandre clenched and unclenched his hands  in impotent  rage. "And
to  what  purpose struggle against the  inevitable? Did you struggle  when I
took her from you?"
     "She was not  mine to be taken from  me. I but aspired, and you won the
race.  But even had  it been  otherwise where is the comparison? That  was a
thing in honour; this - this is hell."
     His emotion  moved Andre-Louis.  He  took Leandre's arm. "You're a good
fellow, Leandre. I am glad I intervened to save you from your fate."
     "Oh, you don't love her!"  cried the other,  passionately.  "You  never
did. You don't  know what it means  to love, or you'd not talk like this. My
God! if she had been  my affianced wife and this had happened, I should have
killed the man - killed him!  Do you hear me? But you... Oh,  you, you  come
out here and smoke,  and  take  the  air,  and talk  of her as another man's
leavings. I wonder I didn't strike you for the word."
     He tore his arm from the other's grip, and looked almost as if he would
strike him now.
     "You should have done it," said Andre-Louis. "It's in your part."
     With  an imprecation  Leandre  turned  on  his heel to  go. Andre-Louis
arrested his departure.
     "A moment, my friend. Test me by yourself. Would you marry her now?"
     "Would I?"  The young man's eyes blazed with passion. "Would I? Let her
say that she will marry me, and I am her slave."
     "Slave is the right word - a slave in hell."
     "It would never  be hell to me where she  was, whatever she had done. I
love her, man, I am not like you. I love her, do you hear me?"
     "I have known, it  for some time,"  said Andre-Louis.  "Though I didn't
suspect your attack of the disease to be quite so violent. Well, God knows I
loved  her, too, quite enough to share your  thirst for killing. For myself,
the blue blood of La Tour d'Azyr would hardly  quench this  thirst. I should
like to add to it the dirty fluid that flows in the veins of the unspeakable
Binet."
     For  a  second  his emotion  had been out of hand, and  he revealed  to
Leandre in the mordant  tone of those last words something of the fires that
burned under his icy exterior. The young man caught him by the hand.
     "I knew you were acting," said he. "You feel - you feel as I do."
     "Behold  us, fellows in viciousness.  I have betrayed myself, it seems.
Well,  and what now? Do  you want to see this pretty  Marquis torn limb from
limb? I might afford you the spectacle."
     "What?"  Leandre  stared, wondering  was this another of  Scaramouche's
cynicisms.
     "It  isn't  really difficult provided  I  have aid. I  require  only  a
little. Will you lend it me?"
     "Anything you ask," Leandre exploded. "My life if you require it."
     Andre-Louis  took  his arm  again.  "Let  us  walk," he  said. "I  will
instruct you."
     When they came back the company was already at dinner. Mademoiselle had
not yet returned.  Sullenness presided at  the table.  Columbine and  Madame
wore anxious expressions. The fact was that relations between  Binet and his
troupe were daily growing more strained.
     Andre-Louis  and Leandre  went each  to his accustomed  place.  Binet's
little eyes followed them with a malicious gleam, his thick lips pouted into
a crooked smile.
     "You two are grown very friendly of a sudden," he mocked.
     "You are  a man  of discernment, Binet,"  said  Scaramouche,  the  cold
loathing of his voice itself an insult. "Perhaps you discern the reason?"
     "It is readily discerned."
     "Regale  the  company  with  it!"  he  begged; and  waited.  "What? You
hesitate? Is it possible that there are limits to your shamelessness?"
     Binet  reared  his  great  head.  "Do  you  want  to  quarrel  with me,
Scaramouche?" Thunder was rumbling in his deep, voice.
     "Quarrel? You  want to laugh. A man doesn't quarrel with creatures like
you. We all know the place held in the public esteem by complacent husbands.
But, in God's name, what place is there at all for complacent fathers?"
     Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood. Violently he
shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot who sat on his left.
     "A  thousand  devils!" he  roared; "if you take that tone with me, I'll
break every bone in your filthy body."
     "If you were  to lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the  only
provocation I still need to kill you." Andre-Louis was as  calm as ever, and
therefore the more menacing. Alarm  stirred the company. He  protruded  from
his pocket the butt of a pistol - newly purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is
only fair  to give you warning. Provoke me  as you  have suggested, and I'll
kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all
is the thing you most resemble - a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy  body; foulness
without soul and without intelligence. When  I come to think of  it I  can't
suffer to sit at table with you. It turns my stomach."
     He pushed away his platter and got up. "I'll go and eat at the ordinary
below stairs."
     Thereupon up jumped Columbine.
     "And I'll come with you, Scaramouche!" cried she.
     It acted like  a signal. Had  the thing been concerted it couldn't have
fallen out  more uniformly.  Binet, in fact, was  persuaded of a conspiracy.
For in  the  wake  of  Columbine  went Leandre,  in  the  wake  of  Leandre,
Polichinelle  and  then  all  the rest together,  until Binet  found himself
sitting alone  at the  head of an empty  table  in  an empty  room - a badly
shaken man whose rage could afford him no support against the dread by which
he was suddenly invaded.
     He sat down  to think things out,  and  he was still at that melancholy
occupation when perhaps  a half-hour later  his  daughter entered  the room,
returned at last from her excursion.
     She  looked  pale,  even  a  little  scared  - in  reality  excessively
self-conscious now that the ordeal of facing all the company awaited her.
     Seeing no one but her father in the room, she checked on the threshold.
     "Where is everybody?" she asked, in a voice rendered natural by effort.
     M. Binet reared  his  great head  and  turned  upon her eyes  that were
blood-injected. He scowled, blew out his thick lips and made harsh noises in
his throat. Yet he took stock of her, so graceful and comely and  looking so
completely the lady  of fashion  in  her long fur-trimmed travelling coat of
bottle green, her  muff and her broad hat adorned  by a sparkling Rhinestone
buckle above  her adorably coiffed brown hair. No  need  to fear  the future
whilst he owned such a daughter, let Scaramouche play what tricks he would.
     He expressed, however, none of these comforting reflections.
     "So  you're back at last, little fool,"  he growled in greeting. "I was
beginning to  ask  myself if  we  should  perform  this evening. It wouldn't
greatly have surprised me if you had not returned in time. Indeed, since you
have chosen to play the fine hand you held in  your own way and  scorning my
advice, nothing can surprise me."
     She crossed the room  to the table, and leaning against it, looked down
upon him almost disdainfully.
     "I have nothing to regret," she said.
     "So every fool  says at first. Nor  would you admit it if you had.  You
are  like that.  You go your own  way  in spite of advice  from older heads.
Death of my life, girl, what do you know of men?"
     "I am not complaining," she reminded him.
     "No, but you may be presently, when  you discover  that you  would have
done better to have been guided  by your old father. So long as your Marquis
languished for you, there was nothing you could not have done with the fool.
So long as you let him have no more than your fingertips to kiss... ah, name
of a name!  that was  the  time to build  your future. If you live  to  be a
thousand you'll never  have such a chance again,  and you've squandered  it,
for what?"
     Mademoiselle sat down.- "You're sordid," she said, with disgust.
     "Sordid, am I?" His thick  lips curled again. "I have had enough of the
dregs of life, and so  I should have thought  have you.  You  held a hand on
which to have won a fortune if you had played it as I bade you. Well, you've
played  it, and  where's the fortune?  We  can whistle  for that as a sailor
whistles for  wind. And, by Heaven, we'll need to whistle presently  if  the
weather  in  the troupe continues as it's set in. That scoundrel Scaramouche
has been at his ape's tricks  with them. They've suddenly turned moral. They
won't sit at table with me any more."  He  was spluttering between anger and
sardonic mirth.  "It  was  your friend Scaramouche  set them the example  of
that. He threatened my  life actually. Threatened  my life! Called me... Oh,
but what does that matter? What matters is that the next thing  to happen to
us will  be  that  the Binet Troupe will  discover it can  manage without M.
Binet and his daughter. This scoundrelly bastard I've befriended  has little
by little robbed me of everything. It's in his power to-day to  rob me of my
troupe, and the knave's ungrateful enough and vile enough to make use of his
power.
     "Let him," said mademoiselle contemptuously.
     "Let him?" He was aghast. "And what's to become of us?"

     "In no  case will the Binet Troupe interest  me much longer," said she.
"I  shall be going to Paris soon.  There are better  theatres there than the
Feydau.  There's Mlle. Montansier's theatre in the Palais Royal; there's the
Ambigu Comique; there's the Comedie Francaise; there's even a possibility  I
may have a theatre of my own."
     His eyes grew big for once. He stretched out a fat hand, and  placed it
on one of hers. She noticed that it trembled.
     "Has he promised that? Has he promised?"
     She  looked  at  him  with her  head on one side,  eyes sly and a queer
little smile on her perfect lips.
     "He did not refuse  me when I asked it," she answered,  with conviction
that all was as she desired it.
     "Bah!" He  withdrew his hand, and heaved himself up. There was  disgust
on his face. "He did not refuse!" he mocked her; and then with passion: "Had
you  acted as  I  advised you, he  would have consented to anything that you
asked,  and what  is more  he  would have provided anything that you asked -
anything  that lay  within his means,  and  they are inexhaustible. You have
changed  a certainty into a  possibility, and I hate possibilities -  God of
God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them."
     Had  she  known  of the interview taking place  at that  moment at  the
Chateau de  Sautron she would have laughed less confidently  at her father's
gloomy forebodings. But she was destined never to know, which indeed was the
cruellest  punishment of  all. She was  to attribute all the evil  that of a
sudden overwhelmed  her,  the  shattering of  all the  future  hopes she had
founded upon the Marquis  and the sudden disintegration of the Binet Troupe,
to the wicked interference of that villain Scaramouche.
     She had this much justification that possibly, without the warning from
M. de Sautron, the Marquis would have found in the events of that evening at
the  Theatre  Feydau a sufficient reason for ending an entanglement that was
fraught  with too much unpleasant excitement, whilst  the breaking-up of the
Binet  Troupe was most certainly the result of Andre-Louis' work. But it was
not a result that he intended or even foresaw.
     So much was this the case that in the interval after the second act, he
sought the dressing-room  shared by Polichinelle and Rhodomont. Polichinelle
was in the act of changing.
     "I shouldn't trouble to change," he said. "The piece isn't likely to go
beyond my opening scene of the next act with Leandre."
     "What do you mean?"
     "You'll  see."  He  put  a  paper  on  Polichinelle's  table  amid  the
grease-paints.  "Cast your  eye  over  that.  It's a sort of  last will  and
testament in favour  of the troupe. I was  a lawyer once; the document is in
order.  I relinquish to all of you the share produced by  my  partnership in
the company."
     "But you don't mean that  you are  leaving us?"  cried  Polichinelle in
alarm, whilst Rhodomont's sudden stare asked the same question.
     Scaramouche's  shrug  was eloquent.  Polichinelle  ran on gloomily: "Of
course it was to have been foreseen. But why should you be the one to go? It
is you who have  made us; and it is  you who are the real head and brains of
the troupe; it is you who have raised it  into a real theatrical company. If
any one must go, let it be  Binet - Binet and  his  infernal daughter. Or if
you go, name of a name! we all go with you!"
     "Aye," added Rhodomont, "we've had enough of that fat scoundrel."
     "I had thought of it, of course," said Andre-Louis. "It was not vanity,
for once; it was trust in your friendship. After to-night we may consider it
again, if I survive."
     "If you survive?" both cried.
     Polichinelle got up. "Now, what madness have you in mind?" he asked.
     "For  one  thing  I  think I am  indulging Leandre; for  another  I  am
pursuing an old quarrel."
     The three knocks sounded as he spoke.
     "There, I must go. Keep that paper, Polichinelle. After all, it may not
be necessary.
     He  was gone. Rhodomont stared at Polichinelle. Polichinelle stared  at
Rhodomont.

     "What the devil is he thinking of?" quoth the latter.
     "That   is   most  readily   ascertained  by  going  to  see,"  replied
Polichinelle. He  completed changing  in haste, and despite what Scaramouche
had said; and then followed with Rhodomont.
     As  they approached  the wings a roar  of applause met them coming from
the  audience. It was applause  and something else;  applause  on an unusual
note. As it faded away they heard the voice of Scaramouche  ringing clear as
a bell:
     "And  so you see, my dear M. Leandre, that when you  speak of the Third
Estate,  it  is necessary to be more  explicit.  What precisely is the Third
Estate?"
     "Nothing," said Leandre.
     There was a gasp from the  audience,  audible  in  the wings,  and then
swiftly followed Scaramouche's next question:
     "True. Alas! But what should it be?"
     "Everything," said Leandre.
     The audience roared  its acclamations, the  more violent because of the
unexpectedness of that reply.
     "True again," said Scaramouche. "And what is more, that is what it will
be; that is what it already is. Do you doubt it?"
     "I hope it," said the schooled Leandre.
     "You  may believe  it,"  said Scaramouche, and again  the  acclamations
rolled into thunder.
     Polichinelle  and  Rhodomont  exchanged  glances:  indeed,  the  former
winked, not without mirth.
     "Sacred name!"  growled a voice behind  them. "Is the scoundrel  at his
political tricks again?"
     They turned to confront M.  Binet. Moving with that noiseless tread  of
his, he  had  come up unheard behind  them, and there he  stood now  in  his
scarlet suit of Pantaloon under a trailing  bedgown, his little eyes glaring
from either  side  of his  false  nose. But their attention  was held by the
voice of Scaramouche. He had stepped to the front of the stage.
     "He doubts it," he  was felling the audience. "But then this M. Leandre
is himself akin  to those who worship the worm-eaten  idol of Privilege, and
so he is a little afraid to believe a truth that is becoming apparent to all
the world. Shall I convince him?  Shall I tell him how a company of noblemen
backed  by their  servants under arms - six hundred men in  all -  sought to
dictate to the Third Estate of Rennes a few  short  weeks ago? Must I remind
him of the martial front shown on that occasion by the Third Estate, and how
they  swept  the  streets clean of that rabble of  nobles -  cette  canaille
noble... "
     Applause  interrupted him. The phrase had struck home and caught. Those
who had  writhed under that infamous designation from their betters leapt at
this turning of it against the nobles themselves.
     "But let me tell you of their leader - le pins noble de cette canaille,
on bien le plus canaille de ces nobles! You know him
     - that one. He fears many things, but the voice of truth he fears most.
With  such as him the  eloquent truth eloquently spoken is a thing instantly
to be silenced. So  he marshalled  his peers and  their valetailles, and led
them out to slaughter these miserable bourgeois who dared to  raise a voice.
But these same miserable bourgeois did  not choose to  be slaughtered in the
streets of Rennes. It  occurred  to  them that since the nobles decreed that
blood should  flow,  it  might as  well  be  the blood of  the nobles.  They
marshalled themselves too - this noble rabble against the rabble of nobles -
and they marshalled themselves so well that they drove M. de La Tour  d'Azyr
and  his warlike  following from  the field with broken  heads and shattered
delusions.  They  sought shelter  at the hands  of  the Cordeliers; and  the
shavelings gave them sanctuary in their convent - those  who survived, among
whom was  their proud  leader,  M. de La Tour d'Azyr. You have heard of this
valiant Marquis, this great lord of life and death?"
     The  pit  was  in an uproar a  moment. It  quieted again as Scaramouche
continued:
     "Oh,  it was a fine spectacle to  see this  mighty hunter  scuttling to
cover like a hare, going to  earth in the Cordelier Convent. Rennes  has not
seen him since. Rennes  would like  to see him again. But if he is valorous,
he is  also discreet. And where do you think he has taken refuge, this great
nobleman who wanted to see the streets of Rennes washed in the blood  of its
citizens,  this  man  who  would  have  butchered   old  and  young  of  the
contemptible canaille to  silence the  voice  of reason  and of liberty that
presumes to ring through France to-day? Where do you think he hides himself?
Why, here in Nantes."
     Again there was uproar.
     "What  do  you say? Impossible? Why,  my friends,  at this moment he is
here in this theatre - skulking up there in that  box. He is too shy to show
himself - oh, a very modest gentleman.  But there he is behind the curtains.
Will  you not  show yourself to your friends, M. de La Tour d'Azyr, Monsieur
le Marquis who considers eloquence so very dangerous a gift? See, they would
like a  word with you; they do not believe me when  I tell them that you are
here."
     Now,  whatever he  may have been, and whatever  the views  held  on the
subject by Andre-Louis,  M. de La Tour d'Azyr was certainly not a coward. To
say that he was hiding in Nantes was not true. He came and went there openly
and  unabashed.  It happened, however, that the Nantais were  ignorant until
this moment of his  presence among them. But then he would have disdained to
have informed them of it just as he would  have disdained to have  concealed
it from them.
     Challenged thus, however, and  despite the ominous  manner in which the
bourgeois element in the audience had responded  to  Scaramouche's appeal to
its passions, despite the  attempts made by Chabrillane to restrain him, the
Marquis  swept aside the curtain at the side of the box, and suddenly showed
himself,  pale  but self-contained and  scornful  as he  surveyed first  the
daring  Scaramouche  and then those others who at  sight of  him  had  given
tongue to their hostility.
     Hoots and  yells  assailed him, fists were  shaken at  him,  canes were
brandished menacingly.
     "Assassin! Scoundrel! Coward! Traitor!"
     But he braved the storm,  smiling upon them his ineffable  contempt. He
was waiting for the noise to cease; waiting to address them in his turn. But
he waited in vain, as he very soon perceived.
     The contempt  he  did not trouble to dissemble served but to  goad them
on.
     In the  pit pandemonium  was  already raging.  Blows  were being freely
exchanged; there were scuffling groups, and here and there swords were being
drawn, but fortunately the press was too dense to permit of their being used
effectively.  Those who had women with them and  the timid  by  nature  were
making haste to  leave a house that  looked like becoming  a cockpit,  where
chairs were being smashed to provide weapons, and parts of  chandeliers were
already being used as missiles.
     One  of  these hurled by  the hand of  a gentleman in one of  the boxes
narrowly missed Scaramouche where he  stood, looking  down in a sort of grim
triumph  upon  the  havoc  which his  words  had wrought.  Knowing  of  what
inflammable  material the audience was composed, he  had  deliberately flung
down  amongst  them  the  lighted  torch  of  discord,   to   produce   this
conflagration.
     He saw men falling  quickly  into groups representative of one  side or
the other of this  great quarrel  that already was beginning to agitate  the
whole of France. Their rallying cries were ringing through the theatre.
     "Down with the canaille!" from some.
     "Down with the privileged!" from others.
     And  then  above  the   general  din  one  cry  rang  out  sharply  and
insistently:
     "To the  box!  Death to the butcher of Rennes! Death  to La Tour d'Azyr
who makes war upon the people!"
     There was  a rush for one of the doors of the pit that opened  upon the
staircase leading to the boxes.
     And now, whilst  battle and  confusion spread with the  speed of  fire,
overflowing from the  theatre into the  street itself, La Tour d'Azyr's box,
which had become  the main object of the attack of the bourgeoisie, had also
become the rallying ground for such gentlemen as were present in the theatre