CHAPTER VIII

AN OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP

It was some nights later that Mlle de Rochambeau, copying serenely according to her wont, came across something which made her eyes flash and her cheeks burn. So far she had written on without paying much heed to the matter before her, her pen pursuing a mechanical task, whilst her thought merely followed its clear, external form, gracing it with fine script and due punctuation. At first, too, the strangeness of her situation had had its share in absorbing her mind, but now she was more at her ease, and began, as babies do, to take notice. Custom had set its tranquillising seal upon her occupation, and perhaps a waking interest in Dangeau set her wondering about his work. Certain it is that, having written as the heading of a chapter "Sins against Liberty," she fell to considering the nature of Liberty and wondering what might be these sins against it, which were treated of, as she began to perceive, in language theological in its fervour of denunciation. Dangeau had written the chapter a year ago, in a white heat of fury against certain facts which had come to his knowledge; and it breathed a very ardent hatred towards tyrants and their rule, towards a hereditary aristocracy and its oppression. Mlle de Rochambeau turned the leaf, and read--"a race unfit to live, since it produces men without honour and justice, and women devoid of virtue and pity." She dropped the sheet as if it burned, and Dangeau, looking up, found her eyes fixed on him with an expression of proud resentment, which stung him keenly.

"What is it?" he asked quickly.

She read the words aloud, with a slow scorn, which went home.

"And Monsieur believes that?" she said, with her eyes still on his.

Dangeau was vexed. He had forgotten the chapter. It must read like an insult. So far had love taken him, but he would not deny what he had written, and after all was it not well she should know the truth, she who had been snatched like some pure pearl from the rottenness and corruption of her order?

"It is the truth," he said; "before Heaven it is the truth."

"The truth--this?" she said, smiling. "Ah no, Monsieur, I think not."

The smile pricked him, and his words broke out hotly.

"You are young, Citoyenne, too young to have known and seen the shameless wickedness, the crushing tyranny, of this aristocracy of France. I tell you the country has bled at every pore that vampires might suck the blood, and fatten on it, they and their children. Do you claim honour for the man who does not shame to dishonour the hearths of the poor, or pity for the woman who will see children starving at her gate that she may buy herself another string of diamonds--hard and cold as her most unpitiful heart?"

"Oh!" said Mademoiselle faintly.

"It is the truth--the truth. I have seen it--and more, much, much more. Tales not fit for innocent girls' ears like yours, and yet innocent girls have suffered the things I dare not name to you. This is a race that must be purged from among us, with sweat of blood, and tears if needs be, and then--let the land enjoy her increase. Those who toiled as brutes, oppressed and ground down below the very cattle they tended, shall work, each man for his own wife and children, and the prosperity of the family shall make the prosperity of France."

Mlle de Rochambeau listened impatiently, her finely cut mouth quivering with anger, and her eyes darkening and deepening from blue to grey. They were those Irish eyes, of all eyes the most changeable: blue under a blue sky, grey in anger, and violet when the soul looked out of them--the beautiful eyes of beautiful Aileen Desmond. They were very dark with her daughter's resentment now.

"Monsieur says I am young," she cried, "but he forgets that I have lived all my life in the country amongst those who, he says, are so oppressed, so enslaved. I have not seen it. Before my parents died and I went to the Convent, I used to visit the peasants with my mother. She was an angel, and they worshipped her. I have seen women kiss the fold of her dress as she passed, and the children would flock to her, like chickens at feeding-time. Then, my father--he was so good, so just. In his youth, I have heard he was the handsomest man at Court; he had the royal favour, the King wished for his friendship, but he chose rather to live on his estates, and rule them justly and wisely. The meanest man in his Marquisate could come to him with his grievance and be sure it would be redressed, and the poorest knew that M. le Marquis would be as scrupulous in defence of his rights as in defence of his own honour. And there were many, many who did the same. They lived on their lands, they feared God, they honoured the King. They did justly and loved mercy."

Dangeau watched her face as it kindled, and felt the flame in her rouse all the smouldering fires of his own heart. The opposition of their natures struck sparks from both. But he controlled himself.

"It is the power," he said in a sombre voice; "they had too much power--might be angel or devil at will. Too many were devil, and brought hell's torments with them. You honour your parents, and it is well, for if they were as you speak of them, all would honour them. Do you not think Liberty would have spoken to them too? But for every seigneur who dealt equal justice, there were hundreds who crushed the poor because they were defenceless. For every woman who fostered the tender lives around her, there were thousands who saw a baby die of starvation at its starving mother's breast with as little concern as if it had been a she-wolf perishing with her whelps, and less than if it were a case of one of my lord's hounds and her litter."

Mademoiselle felt the angry tears come sharply to her eyes. Why should this man move her thus? What, after all, did his opinions matter to her? She chid her own imprudence in having lent herself to this unseemly argument. She had already trusted him too much. A little tremour crept over her heart--she remembered the September madness, the horror, and the blood,--and the colour ebbed slowly from her cheeks as she bent forward and took her pen again.

Dangeau saw her whiten, and in an instant his mood changed. Her hand shook, and he guessed the cause. He had frightened her; she did not trust him. The thought stabbed very deep, but he too fell silent, and resumed his work, though with a heavy heart. When she rose to go, he looked up, hesitated a moment, and then said:

"Citoyenne."

"Yes, Citizen."

"Citoyenne, it would be wiser not to express to others the sentiments you have avowed to-night. They are not safe--for Marie Roche."

"No, Citizen."

Mademoiselle's back was towards him, and he had no means of discovering how she took his warning.

"That process of purging, of which I spoke, goes forward apace," he continued slowly; "those who have sinned against the people must expiate their sins, it may be in blood."

"Yes, Citizen."

Something drove him on--that subtle instinct which drives us all at times, the desire to probe deeply, to try to the uttermost.

"They and their innocent children, perhaps," he said gloomily, and her own case was in his mind. "What do your priests say--is it not 'to the third and fourth generation'?"

She turned and faced him then, very pale, but quite composed. There was no coward blood in her.

"You are trying to tell me that you will denounce me," she said quietly.

The words fell like a thunderbolt. All the blood in Dangeau's body seemed to rush violently to his head, and for a moment he lost himself. He was by her side, his hands catching at her shoulders, where they lay heavy, shaking.

"Look me in the face and say that again!" he thundered in the voice his section knew.

"Ah!" cried Mademoiselle,--"what do you mean, Monsieur? This is an outrage, release me!"

His hands fell, but his eyes held hers. They blazed upon her like heated steel, and the anger in them burned her.

"Ah! you dare not say it again," he said very low.

"Monsieur, I dare." Her gaze met his, and a strange excitement possessed her. She would have been less than woman had she not felt her power--more than woman had she not used it.

Dangeau spoke again, his voice muffled with passion. "You dare say I, Jacques Dangeau, am a spy, an informer, a betrayer of trust?"

Mademoiselle's composure began to return. This man shook when he touched her; she was stronger than he. There was no danger.

"Not quite that, Citizen," she said quietly. "But I did not know what a patriot might consider his duty."

He turned away, and bent over his table, arranging a paper here, closing a drawer there. After a few moments he came to where she stood, and looked fixedly at her for a short time. His former look she had met, but before this her eyes dropped.

"Citoyenne," he said slowly, "I ask your pardon. I had hoped that--" He paused, and began again. "I am no informer--you may have reliance on my honour and my friendship. I warned you because I saw you friendless and inexperienced. These are dangerous times--times of change and development. I believe with all my heart in the goal towards which we are striving, but many will fall by the way--some from weakness, some by the sword. I was but offering a hand to one whom I saw in danger of stumbling."

His altered tone and grave manner softened Aline's mood. "Indeed, Citizen," she cried on the impulse, "you have been very kind to me. I am not ungrateful--I have too few friends for that."

"Do you count me a friend, Citoyenne?"

Mademoiselle drew back a shade.

"What is a friend--what is friendship?" she said more lightly.

And Dangeau sought for cool and temperate words.

"Friendship is mutual help, mutual good-will--a bond which is rooted in honour, confidence, and esteem. A friend is one who will neither be oppressive in prosperity nor faithless in adversity," he said.

"And are you such a friend, Citizen?"

"If you will accept my friendship, you will learn whether I am such a friend or not."

The measured words, the carefully controlled voice, emboldened Mademoiselle. She threw a searching glance at the dark, downcast features above her, and her youth went out to his.

"I will try this friendship of yours, Citizen," she said, with a little smile, and she held out her hand to him.

Dangeau flushed deeply. His self-control shook, but only for a moment. Then he raised the slim hand, and, bending to meet it, kissed it as if it had been the Queen's, and he a devout Loyalist.

It was Aline's turn to wake and wonder that night, acting out the little scene a hundred times. Why that flame of sudden anger--that tempest which had so shaken her? What was this power which drew her on to experiment, to play, with forces beyond her understanding? She felt again the weight of his hands upon her, her flesh tingled, and she blushed hotly in the darkness. No one had ever touched her so before. Wild anger woke in her, and wilder tears came burning to her burning cheeks. Truly a girl's heart is a strange thing. The shyest maid will weave dream-tales of passionate love, in which she plays the heroine to every gallant hero history holds or romance presents. Their dream kisses leave her modesty untouched, their fervent speeches bring no faintest flush to her virgin cheeks. Comes then an actual lover, and all at once is changed. The garment of her dreams falls from her, and leaves her naked and ashamed. A look affronts, a word offends, and a touch goes near to make her swoon.

Aline lay trembling at her thoughts. He had touched, had held her. His strong hands had bruised the tender flesh. She had seen a man in wrath--had known that it was for her to raise or quell the storm. And then that kiss--it tingled yet, and she threw out her hand in protest. All her pride rose armed. She, a Rochambeau, daughter of as haughty a house as any France nourished, to lie here dreaming because a bourgeois had kissed her hand!--this was a scourge to bring blood. It certainly brought many tears, and at the last she knelt for a long while praying. The waters of her soul stilled at the familiar words of peace, and settled back into a virgin calm. As yet only the surface had been ruffled by the first breath which heralded the approaching storm. It had rippled under the touch, tossed for an hour, flung up a drop or two of salt, indignant spray, and sunk again to sleep and silence. Below, the deeps lay all untroubled, but in them strange things were moving. For when she slept she dreamed a strange dream, and disquieting. She thought she was at Rochambeau once more, and she wondered why her heart did not leap for joy, instead of being heavy and troubled, beyond anything she could remember.

The sun was sinking, and all the fields lay golden in the glory, but she was too weary to heed. Her feet were bare and bleeding, her garments torn and scanty, and on her breast lay a little moaning babe. It stretched slow, groping hands to her and wailed for food, and her heart grew heavier and darker with every step she took. Suddenly Dangeau stood by her side. He was angry, his voice thundered, his look was flame, and in loud, terrible tones he cried, "You have starved my child, and it is dead!" Then she thought he took the baby from her arms, and an angel with a flaming sword flew out of the sun, and drew her down--down--down....

She woke terrified, bathed in tears. What a dream! "Holy Mary, Mother and Virgin, shield me!" she prayed, as she crouched breathless in the gloom. "The powers of darkness--the powers of evil! Let dreams be far and phantoms of the night--bind thou the foe. His look, his fearful look, and his deep threatening voice like the trump of the Angel of Judgment! Mary, Virgin, save!"

Thoughts wild and incoherent; prayers softening to a sob, sobs melting again into a prayer! Loneliness and the midnight had their way with her, and it was not until the tranquillising moon shot a silver ray into the small dark room that the haunting agony was calmed, and she sank into a dreamless sleep.