Chapter 7

"THE LEAP IS TAKEN"

"Who is this Monsieur de Répentigny, Chevalier?--tell me," asked the Princess, who was holding her little evening court in full circle on the balustraded terrace behind the château. She sat well out where there was plenty of room for the swell and spread of her vast garland-flounced skirts,--a woman of something less than forty, the incarnation of inane condescension. At her feet were her two pages--rosy little boys, dressed exactly like full-grown gentlemen. The ladies of her circle sat around her, each likewise skirt-voluminous, all pretending to be negligently engaged unravelling scraps of gold and silver lace, the great fashionable occupation of the day. Her reader stood behind her.

The Chevalier, when addressed, had just remounted the steps from the lawn to the terrace with the Prince. He made a smiling bow.

"Monsieur de Répentigny?" he inquired. "I do not know of whom--ah, it is of Germain you speak."

Only the little Abbé, crouching, noted the first half of his answer. He treasured it away in his memory.

"Monsieur Germain then," continued the Princess--"this Canadian gentleman. Is he one of your relations?"

"One of my dearest, Madame. Why do you ask?"

"Because he is the most adorable of men. He has explained to me the _coiffure Montgolfier_."

"He is a picture," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"A man, Mademoiselle," returned de Bailleul warmly.

"Has he a fortune then, Chevalier?" she laughed.

"Perhaps he shall have mine," quizzed the old soldier.

"He must come with us to Versailles, Chevalier," said the Princess. "So agreeable a person will be indispensable to me."

Germain, dallying behind the Chevalier, approached the foot of the terrace steps.

"Monsieur-Germain," she cried to him, "will you do me the honour of returning to Versailles with us?"

What could the poor fellow do but thank her with his profoundest bow, though the situation set his head in a whirl.

"Is it the pleasure of Madame that I should read?" interrupted a harsh and ruffled voice. The Princess, for reply, took out of her work-bag a book of devotions and handed it to the Abbé. He received it with a cringing bow, but as he glanced at it a suggestion of repugnance flitted across his lips. "Or does she care first to hear the trifle of news which I brought from Fontainebleau?"

"What, have you dared conceal a scandal so long, Abbé? Let us have it instantly," cried the Canoness.

"He is certainly an offender," echoed Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"Ladies, listen to the Abbé," said the Princess languidly.

The pseudo-Abbé scanned the faces about him with a cunning look, especially that of Germain, as one he would read through and through were it possible.

"In the name of mercy, Abbé, proceed," the Canoness cried.

"It is a trifle, a piece of mere common talk," he said demurely.

"Speak, Abbé," commanded the Princess de Poix.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour----" he began deliberately.

"Hélène?" all exclaimed in astonishment. "Proceed--tell us."

"She is my best friend," the Baroness murmured.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour," he repeated, still delaying. "Have you heard why she looked so disdainful at the Queen's Game last evening?"

"We never guess your enigmas. Go on."

"She has need to look brave."

"She is about to marry Monsieur de Sillon," said Cyrène. "Perhaps that explains any unusual expression."

"Ah, Monsieur de Sillon--yes, Mademoiselle, Monsieur de Sillon--but, ladies, do you know there is no Monsieur de Sillon?"

"No Monsieur de Sillon?"

"Is Monsieur dead?" gasped Cyrène, her hand darting to her breast.

"Monsieur de Sillon will never die, Mademoiselle. It is a maxim of the philosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist. What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himself into that colonelship of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scattered those broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, and boasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, this Monsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right of his four centuries of _noblesse_, whose coat bore no less than eighteen fine quarterings, whose crest was an eagle and his betrothed a Merecour, is the son of a tanner of Tours."

"Incredible!"

"Impossible!"

"You fable exquisitely!"

"The contract of marriage, they said, had actually been signed by the King----"

"Go on, you are a snail!" snapped the Canoness.

"Only then was it discovered that his father had amassed a fortune in ox-skins, that the son had picked up some manners, riding, fencing, and blazonry; none knows how; and that his first introductions were bought and paid for. He is now, some say, in the Bastille, some in Vincennes Dungeon, nobody will ever know exactly which. That is all, ladies."

"Let us thank the saints for Mademoiselle's deliverance!" cried the Princess piously.

Cyrène gasped and said nothing, but tears filled her eyes.

"The horror of but touching one of those creatures--those diners in the kitchen!" exclaimed the Canoness.

"Of his daring to approach a lady in marriage!" added Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"Were she one of _my_ blood, he should die," asserted d'Estaing.

An uncanny, silent light passed across the half-shut eyes of Abbé Jude, and gleamed towards one and another of these haughty exclusives as they talked together so regardlessly before the face of him they thought the only plebeian among them. His eye at last met that of Lecour, and he caught a confusion on the Canadian's countenance which he stored away carefully with the words of de Bailleul.

The evening fell, and a faint silver moon rose in the sky and grew brighter and brighter over park and mere. The Princess went in to play cards, followed by the others. Germain and the Baroness walked up and down the terrace alone, talking of the stars and the delightful speculations about them in the book of Fontenelle.

Under the moonlight the girl's fragile beauty wove its fascination deeper over him. He launched himself upon the strange sea of emotions which were more and more crowding upon him.

"Oh, my God!" he thought, "am I walking the celestial gardens? Am I a spirit doomed to banishment? Am I at the same moment both ravished and damned?"

Once when they came to the end of the terrace they leaned on the balustrade and looked down at the water. Glossy dark in the shadows of the old castle which stood in its midst, and in those of the grove on the further side, it glittered tranquilly where the moonshine fell on its surface, and the foliage around it wore a soft, glittering veil. Some mighty witch, some spirit combining Beauty, Power, and the Centuries, seemed to reign over the lake, holding silent court in the peaked and clustered white walls and turrets of the ancient stronghold.

"Mademoiselle," he said very quietly, "_I_ have reason to be silent; but tell me why _you_ are so pensive?"

"I was sad for my friend Hélène. Love must be so sacred."

"Did you know her suitor?"

"Sillon--yes; he had _dared_ to speak to me."

They were silent. It was not he who next spoke. Her clear eyes looked as if into his soul as she said after a long time--

"Monsieur de Répentigny, what would you do were you Hélène's brother?"

Germain's sword in an instant slid half-drawn from its sheath, and he gasped, "I would find him."

She drew her slender figure up in the dusk and looked at him with an approving glance as if to say, "_You_ are of other fibre than the baseborn."

"Oh, sweet Cyrène!" he exclaimed, then checked himself, appalled at his presumption, and added, "Alas, what am I saying? Heaven knows I am mad."

"Hush, hush!" she shuddered, glancing back over her shoulder.

Germain turned and caught sight of a shadow advancing. It proved to be the Abbé.

"Excuse the messenger of Madame," said he. "She asks you, Baroness, to take a hand at piquet."

She courtesied graciously to Germain and moved away, followed by the Princess's black parasite. When she passed through the immense glass door which looked from the card-room upon the terrace, and his eyes could no longer follow her loveliness, Lecour turned towards the lake and exclaimed in a low voice--

"There must be some way to win the paradise on earth and this seraph. Castle of ages past, frown not too hardly upon me. You represent what I love--the grand, the brave, the historic, the fair."

* * * * *

As he paced his chamber after the household had retired, the recollection of the day became an elixir, exciting and delicious.

The room was in one of the four towers of the château. Sitting down, he looked out through an open window upon the peace of the night-world. There were the gardens, quiet, lovely and ghostly, the weird water, the stately grove beyond it. He sat by the window more than two hours, while the events just over crowded through his brain.

After a time the moonlight lit an unhappy countenance; next it grew fixed and studious. He paced the room, he threw himself back into his chair, rose once more, drew long breaths of cool air at the windows, and knelt at the _prie-Dieu_ in the inmost corner. A violent tempest had arisen within. The sails and yards of the soul-ship were strained, and it was fleeing without a rudder.

At last he undressed quickly and got into bed. He could not sleep, but tossed from side to side. Finally he sprang up and sat on the side of the couch lost in swift, fevered thought.

"For her," he whispered in intensest passion--"yes, for her." Then he hesitated. Suddenly, with fierce decision, he added, "The leap is taken."

At once the inward storm subsided, sleep overpowered him, and he dropped back at rest. The moon laid its rays like bars of silver across the bed, and illuminated his unconscious face and flowing hair with a patch of brightness. Such is the serene look of heaven upon its wandering children.