The Marquis De Morès was ready to climb into the carriage. He had already handed Madame up onto the seat. Facing Pack he stood with feet braced apart and whapped the weighted bamboo stick into his open palm.
Pack said, “Roosevelt has had a gruelling adventure—”
“Yes. Arthur, don’t you find it a wonderful irony that he should be the man to arrest Dutch Reuter? Think of the trouble he could have saved himself if he’d simply let me have the old fool to begin with.”
Madame Medora said, “Antoine, you must see that Arthur’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of his weakened condition.”
“If he says he’s prepared to meet me, then I assume he has come prepared to decide the matter.”
Madame la Marquise leaned over, reached out and touched a palm to her husband’s cheek.
Pack watched her with an altogether new fascination.
Most women were realists, he had found—much more so than men were. A thing that fascinated him about Medora was that unlike most women she was not such a realist. No matter how accomplished, she was not practical; she was a romantic.
Whatever her feelings about Roosevelt might be, she was indeed in love with the Marquis. She wasn’t blind to his arrogance and prejudices, any more than Pack was; she was able to ignore them because the great shining light of her romantic faith washed away all the shadows from her picture of him. Soft as she was, she had the will not to see things if they were unimportant by comparison with the man’s true greatness.
Pack was able to recognize those qualities in her because he shared some of them.
“Antoine—if Theodore were to be killed in the Bad Lands, by you, I’m rather afraid there might be repercussions throughout New York Society.”
She said no more than that; and Pack did not understand why her words made the Marquis stop dropping the heavy stick into his palm.
The Marquis looked away from her and met Pack’s inquiring stare. A sort of snarl curled one corner of the lip beneath the meticulously pointed mustache. The Marquis lifted his Winchester out of the carriage, jacked it half open to see the cartridge in the chamber, made a grunting sound in his throat that Pack couldn’t decipher at all, climbed up onto the seat and tapped the driver’s shoulder with the muzzle of the rifle. “Let’s go.”
Roosevelt threaded the crowd to climb onto the platform with his rifle in hand. Joe Ferris watched with a scowl. “You shouldn’t be here. If he sees you he won’t have any choice but to fight.”
“On the contrary—there is a choice, and it’s his to make.”
“Sir, begging to differ. Look at the size of the crowd watching here. In my experience it’s always better to let the other chap keep his dignity intact.”
“I shan’t impugn his dignity. I shall say nothing inflammatory to him. But I am here, and here I shall stay. You may as well give up the argument, old fellow.”
Joe opened his mouth to speak again but thought better of it; there was too much steel in Roosevelt’s eye.
They hadn’t long to wait. The eastbound train pulled in with a good deal of steamy chuffing—and the Marquis and Marquise arrived in their surrey. Arthur Packard came puffing along behind them, on foot.
The crowd made way. The Marquis stepped down. He carried his stick in one hand and a rifle in the other. He handed the stick up to Medora. The weight of it brought her arms down to the seat.
The Marquis kept his rifle in one hand, aimed at the ground. He faced Theodore Roosevelt. The crowd hung back, fascinated; no one made a sound. Joe recognized all the familiar faces—Johnny Goodall, Dan McKenzie, Eaton, Huidekoper, Deacon Osterhaut, Bob Roberts, dozens of others; and over at the edge with his two guns protruding from their shoulder holsters stood Jerry Paddock. Joe put his hand on his Remington revolver and made sure Jerry Paddock knew he was watching him. Jerry’s expression did not change but his hands dropped to his sides and that was enough to provoke Joe Ferris’s tight cool smile.
“Well, then,” said the Marquis, “here we are.”
Roosevelt nodded. His eyeglasses were sparkling clean, Joe noted. He must have washed them yet again.
There was a long run of silence—long enough to make sweat stand out on Pack’s brow. Joe kept one eye on Jerry Paddock the whole time. He heard restless stirrings amid the crowd.
Roosevelt stood rock-steady, jaw jutting. The rifle was in his hand; his thumb was curled over its hammer.
The Marquis looked at that, and at Roosevelt’s face. Then his faithless glance wandered toward the tops of the bluffs.
Roosevelt’s grasp whitened on the rifle and the Marquis said, “May I pass?”
Theodore Roosevelt breathed deep. “The platform is open to any one. It’s a free country, sir.”
There was something like a low moan from the collective throats of the crowd.
The Marquis still didn’t look Roosevelt in the face. He was looking across the river, uphill toward the château. “I am going east on business. Then my wife will join me in New York and we intend to go home to Paris for a season of civilized amusements.”
“Paris is at its best in the spring,” Roosevelt said.
“Yes. Quite.” The Marquis turned, finally met Roosevelt’s eye and said, “I’m glad you agree there are always ways by which gentlemen can settle their differences amicably.”
“However you prefer it, Mr. De Morès.”
The Marquis said to Pack, “You may put it in your newspaper that I will return in the summer. I am a Dakotan—I have come to stay.”
Pack wrote it down and Joe Ferris had the feeling they never would see the Marquis De Morès again.
The crowd stirred, uncertain. The Marquis boarded the train. The driver carried his luggage across the platform and then returned to the carriage; he lifted the reins but Madame stayed him. She watched the train until it pulled out; she waved, and the Marquis’s colorfully sleeved arm waved back from the departing window.
Madame regarded Theodore Roosevelt with unhurried gravity.
The ranchman returned her glance; he smiled and bowed low. It was, Joe realized, a gesture of gratitude and respect.
Madame nodded graciously, acknowledging it. Then she gave Pack a warm smile—Joe was amused to see how it nearly melted Pack to a puddle. She prodded the driver with her husband’s heavy stick, and the surrey pulled away.
Jerry Paddock uttered a loud clear obscenity before he wheeled away.
That was the signal for the crowd to disperse. Joe let his hand fall away from the revolver’s handle. When he sucked in a long ragged lungful of wind he realized he had not been breathing at all.
Roosevelt said, “Thank you, Arthur. I’m deeply grateful. It’s quite possible I owe you my life.”
“I’ve been objective and non-partisan. I’m pleased if my efforts have helped to keep the peace.”
“You can’t remain aloof under the pretense of objectivity, you know. You must commit your soul to the values in which you believe. Defend them, and be damned to noncommittal dispassion. You must have a firmly defined public spirit if you’re to be one of the governing class. It’s your plain duty—as it is mine. And now if you don’t mind I think I’ll repair upstairs and read for a bit.”
When the New Yorker had gone to his room Joe said, “He’ll sleep a week now.”
“Public spirit,” said Pack. He scowled at Joe. “He’s always making speeches, like a stuffed-shirt schoolmaster.”
“Seems to me his speeches make pretty good sense.”
Pack was irritable. “I didn’t expect the Marquis to back down.”
“A lot of folks didn’t. Maybe they see now the kind of bully he is. Only fights when he knows he’s got the advantage.”
“That’s not a fair judgment. There were a lot of factors,” Pack said. “But I admit too many things have taken me by surprise today. One was when Madame agreed so readily to talk to him.”
“What did she say to the Markee?”