Then John Bulmer, too, attacked. "For Guiton!" said he, as his point slipped into Cazaio's breast. John Bulmer recoiled and lodged another thrust in the brigand's throat. "For attempting to assassinate me!" His foot stamped as his sword ran deep into Cazaio's belly. "For insulting my wife by thinking of her obscenely! You are a dead man, friend Achille."
Cazaio had dropped his sword, reeling as if drunken against the western battlement. "My comfort," he said, hoarsely, while one hand tore at his jetting throat—"my comfort is that I could not perish slain by a braver enemy." He moaned and stumbled backward. Momentarily his knees gripped the low embrasure. Then his feet flipped upward, convulsively, so that John Bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and John Bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of Cazaio's body upon the turf.
"May he find more mercy than he has merited," said John Bulmer, "for the man had excellent traits. Yes, in him the making of a very good swordsman was spoiled by that abominable Boisrobert."
But Claire had caught him by the shoulder. "Look, Jean!"
He turned toward the Duardenez. A troop of horsemen was nearing. Now they swept about the curve in the highway and at their head was de Puysange, laughing terribly. The dragoons went by like a tumult in a sick man's dream, and the Hugonet Wing had screened them.
"Then Bellegarde is relieved," said John Bulmer, "and your life, at least, is saved."
The girl stormed. "You—you abominable trickster! You would not be content with the keys of heaven if you had not got them by outwitting somebody! Do you fancy I had never seen the Duke of Ormskirk's portrait? Gaston sent me one six months ago."
"Ah!" said John Bulmer, very quietly. He took up the discarded scabbard, and he sheathed his sword without speaking.
Presently he said, "You have been cognizant all along that I was the Duke of Ormskirk?"
"Yes," she answered, promptly.
"And you married me, knowing that I was—God save the mark!—the great Duke of Ormskirk? knowing that you made what we must grossly term a brilliant match?"
"I married you because, in spite of Jean Bulmer, you had betrayed yourself to be a daring and a gallant gentleman,—and because, for a moment, I thought that I did not dislike the Duke of Ormskirk quite so much as I ought to."
He digested this.
"O Jean Bulmer," the girl said, "they tell me you were ever a fortunate man, but I consider you the unluckiest I know of. For always you are afraid to be yourself. Sometimes you forget, and are just you—and then, ohe! you remember, and are only a sulky, fat old gentleman who is not you at all, somehow; so that at times I detest you, and at times I cannot thoroughly detest you. So that I played out the comedy, Jean Bulmer. I meant in the end to tell Louis who you were, of course, and not let them hang you; but I never quite trusted you; and I never knew whether I detested you or no, at bottom, until last night."
"Last night you left the safe Inner Tower to come to me—to save me at all hazards, or else to die with me—And for what reason, did you do this?"
"You are bullying me!" she wailed.
"And for what reason, did you do this?" he repeated, without any change of intonation.
"Can you not guess?" she asked. "Oh, because I am a fool!" she stated, very happily, for his arms were about her.
"Eh, in that event—" said the Duke of Ormskirk. "Look!" said he, with a deeper thrill of speech, "it is the dawn."
They turned hand in hand; and out of the east the sun came statelily, and a new day was upon them.
VIII
HEART OF GOLD
As Played at Paris, in the May of 1750
"Cette amoureuse ardeur qui dans les coeurs s'excite N'est point, comme l'on scait, un effet du merite; Le caprice y prend part, et, quand quelqu'un nous plaist, Souvent nous avons peine a dire pourquoy c'est. Mais on vois que l'amour se gouverne autrement."
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DUC DE PUYSANGE, somewhat given to women, and now and then to good-fellowship, but a man of excellent disposition.
MARQUIS DE SOYECOURT, his cousin, and loves de Puysange's wife.
DUKE OF ORMSKIRK.
DUCHESSE DE PUYSANGE, a precise, but amiable and patient, woman.
ANTOINE, LACKEYS to de Puysange, Etc.
SCENE
Paris, mostly within and about the Hotel de Puysange.
HEART OF GOLD
PROEM:—Necessitated by a Change of Scene
You are not to imagine that John Bulmer debated an exposure of de Soyecourt. "Live and let live" was the Englishman's axiom; the exuberant Cazaio was dead, his men were either slain or dispersed, and the whole tangle of errors—with judicious reservations—had now been unravelled to Gaston's satisfaction. And Claire de Puysange was now Duchess of Ormskirk. Why, then, meddle with Destiny, who appeared, after all, to possess a certain sense of equity?
So Ormskirk smiled as he presently went about Paris, on his own business, and when he and Louis de Soyecourt encountered each other their friendliness was monstrous in its geniality.
They were now one and all in Paris, where Ormskirk's marriage had been again, and more publicly, solemnized. De Puysange swore that his sister was on this occasion the loveliest person affordable by the resources of the universe, but de Soyecourt backed another candidate; so that over their wine the two gentlemen presently fell into a dispute.
"Nay, but I protest to you she is the most beautiful woman in all Paris!" cried the Marquis de Soyecourt, and kissed his finger-tips gallantly.
"My dear Louis," the Duc de Puysange retorted, "her eyes are noticeable, perhaps; and I grant you," he added, slowly, "that her husband is not often troubled by—that which they notice."
"—And the cleverest!"
"I have admitted she knows when to be silent. What more would you demand of any woman?"
"And yet—" The little Marquis waved a reproachful forefinger.
"Why, but," said the Duke, with utter comprehension, "it is not for nothing that our house traces from the great Jurgen—"
He was in a genial midnight mood, and, on other subjects, inclined to be garrulous; for the world, viewed through a slight haze, of vinous origin, seemed a pleasant place, and inspired a kindly desire to say diverting things about the world's contents. He knew the Marquis to be patient, and even stolid, under a fusillade of epigram and paradox; in short, de Puysange knew the hour and the antagonist for midnight talk to be at hand. And a saturnalia of phrases whirled in his brain, demanding utterance.
He waved them aside. Certain inbred ideas are strangely tenacious of existence, and it happened to be his wife they were discussing. It would not be good form, de Puysange felt, for him to evince great interest in this topic….
I
"And yet," de Puysange queried, as he climbed democratically into a public hackney coach, "why not? For my part, I see no good and sufficient reason for discriminating against the only woman one has sworn to love and cherish and honor. It is true that several hundred people witnessed the promise, with a perfect understanding of the jest, and that the keeping of this oath involves a certain breach of faith with society. Eh bien! let us, then, deceive the world—and the flesh—and the devil! Let us snap our fingers at this unholy trinity, and assert the right, when the whim takes us, to make unstinted love to our own wives!"