CHAPTER I

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT

The horse Rochefort had captured was a powerful roan, fully caparisoned after the fashion of the officers’ horses of the cavalry, with pistols in the holsters and a saddle-bag for despatches.

Having ridden half a league at full gallop, Rochefort drew rein and glanced back. He was no longer pursued. He hugged himself at the thought of d’Estouteville’s position. D’Estouteville would have to return to Versailles, on a lame horse, and with what explanation? Were he to tell people that Rochefort had run away from him, he would be laughed at, for Rochefort’s reputation for courage was too well founded to be shaken by a tale like that.

Then as Rochefort proceeded swiftly on his way, the saddle-bag attracted him; he was at open war with the Choiseul faction; Choiseul was in power, the Gardes were the servants of Choiseul, and the horse belonged to an officer in the Gardes. It and its trappings were loot, and to examine his loot he opened the saddle-bag as he rode, plunged in his hand, and found nothing but a letter. A large, official letter, sealed with a red seal and addressed in a big firm hand to

“Mademoiselle La Bruyère, “In the Suite of Her Royal Highness “At Compiègne.

“To be left with Madame de La Motte.”

This was the letter which we saw Choiseul writing.

“Oh, ho!” cried Rochefort, “M. de Choiseul writing to a young lady, and that young lady in the suite of the Dauphiness. Well, I have no quarrel with Choiseul’s private affairs and the letter shall go to its destination or be returned to him—but first, let me get to Paris.”

He returned the letter to its place, closed the saddle-bag and urged the horse into a canter.

He did not know that Choiseul had specially commissioned M. de Beautrellis to take this letter, written immediately after the presentation, to its destination, nor the special urgency and secrecy necessary to the business, and with which Choiseul had impressed the servant. Nor would he have had time to think of these things had he known, for he was now catching up with the crowd of Parisians who had returned on foot from Versailles, and his eyes and ears and tongue were fully occupied in avoiding stragglers and warning them out of his way.

At the Octroi of Paris he was stopped by the soldiers for a moment, but he had no difficulty in passing them, despite the fact that he was in full court dress, without spurs, and riding a guard’s horse. He was M. de Rochefort, known to all of them, and this was doubtless one of his many freaks. Then, with the streets of Paris before him, he struck straight for his home in the Rue de Longueville.

Burning as he was to keep his appointment, he knew the vital necessity of money and a change of clothes. Though he had outwitted d’Estouteville, he was still pursued. Choiseul would ransack Paris for him, and failing to find him there—France. He guessed Camus’s part in the business, he guessed that his action in killing Choiseul’s villainous agent had been traced to him, and worse than that, he guessed that the part he had played in disclosing the plan which Camus had put before him to Madame Dubarry was now perfectly well known to Choiseul.

Choiseul would never forgive him for that.

It was absolutely necessary for him to leave France for a time till things blew over, or Choiseul was out of power. Of course in a just age, he might have stood up to the business of the killing, called Javotte as a witness to the facts of the case, and received the thanks of society, not its condemnation; but in the age of the _Lettre de Cachet_ and of Power without mercy, flight was the only safe course, and this child of his age knew his age, and none better.

It was two o’clock when he reached the Rue de la Harpe, adjoining the Rue de Longueville. Here he left the horse tied to a post for anyone to find who might, and taking the letter from his saddle-bag, repaired to his apartments. He let himself in with his private key, and without disturbing his valet changed his clothes, took all the money he could find, some three thousand francs in gold, tore up and burned a few letters and left the house, closing the door gently behind him.

A nice position, truly, for the man who had sworn never to touch politics, alone in the streets of Paris at half-past two in the morning, with only a few thousand francs in his possession and the whole of France at his heels.

But Rochefort, now that he was in the midst of the storm he had always avoided, did not stop to think of the fury of the wind. So far from cursing his folly and his position, he found some satisfaction in it. It seemed to him that he had never lived so vividly before.

It was only a few minutes’ walk from the Rue de Longueville to the Rue St. Dominic, where Mademoiselle Fontrailles lived; one had to go through the Rue de la Harpe, and as he entered that street he saw the horse, which he had left tied to a post, being led away by a man.

“Well, my friend,” said the Count, as he overtook the man, “and where are you going with that fine horse?”

“Monsieur,” replied the other, “I found him tied to a post, and thinking it a pity to leave him there to be misused maybe, or stolen by the first thief, I am taking him home.”

“Just so,” replied the Count, taking a louis from his pocket, “and, as I may be in want of a horse in a few hours, here is a louis for you if you will take him home, give him a feed, change his saddle and be with him on the road that leads from the Porte St. Antoine at eleven o’clock, that is, nine hours from now. Be a quarter of a mile beyond the gate, and if you will do this, I will pay you ten louis for your trouble.”

“Monsieur, I will do it.”

“Can you obtain a plain saddle in exchange for this one?”

“I will try, monsieur.”

“Do not try, simply rip all this stuff off and take the saddle-bag away, then it will be plain enough, take off the chain bridle and leave the leather, and remember ten louis for your trouble.”

He handed the louis to the man, and went on his way.

It was a good idea, though risky; Rochefort, however, took risks; he was of the temper of Jean Bart, who, it will be remembered, once reefed his sails with seaweed, trusting to the wind to blow them loose at the proper moment.

In the Rue St. Dominic he paused at the house indicated in the letter. It was a medium-sized house of good appearance, and all the windows were in darkness, with the exception of the second window on the first floor. He stopped and looked up at this window. To knock at the door would mean rousing the porter. He was quite prepared to do that, but the lit window fascinated him, something told him that the person he sought was there.

He looked about to see if he could find a pebble, but the moon had gone and the roadway was almost invisible in the darkness; he rubbed the sole of his boot about on the ground, but could find nothing, so taking a louis from his pocket and taking careful aim, he flung it up at the window.

The casement was open a few inches, and, as luck would have it, the coin instead of hitting the glass, entered, struck the curtain and fell on the floor.

He waited for a moment, and was just on the point of taking another louis from his pocket, when a shadow appeared on the curtain, the curtain was drawn aside, and the window pushed open. He could see the vague outline of a form above the sill, and then came a woman’s whisper:

“Who is it?”

“Rochefort,” came the answer. He dared not say more, fearing that it might be some servant: then, as the form disappeared with the word, “Wait,” he knew that all was right.

He searched for the door, found it, and stood waiting, his heart beating as it never had beaten before. Choiseul, Camus, his own position, everything, was forgotten.

He heard a step in the passage and then the bolts carefully withdrawn; he could scarcely believe in his luck: Camille Fontrailles, with her own hand, was opening the door for him, at dead of night, secretively, and in a way that cast everything to the winds.

Next moment he was in the hall, holding a warm hand in the darkness, whilst the other little hand of the woman who had admitted him was replacing the bolts.

“Come,” whispered a voice.

He followed, still holding her hand and led as a blind man is led, up the stairs, to a landing, to a door.

The woman pushed the door open, and they entered a room lit by a lamp and with the remnants of a fire in the grate.

The light of the lamp struck on the woman’s face. It was Javotte.

Rochefort dropped her hand, stared round him, and then at the girl who was standing before him with a smile on her lips.

Never had Javotte looked prettier. Though a girl of the people, she had a refinement of her own; compared to Camille, she was the wild violet compared to the cultivated violet, the essential charm was the same; but to Rochefort, suddenly disillusioned, she had neither charm nor grace.

“You!” said he, drawing back and walking towards the window.

The smile vanished from her lips, they trembled, and then, just as if it had started from her lips, a little shiver went all through her.

In a flash, she understood all; he had not discovered her window by some miraculous means, he had not come to see her, he did not care for her. It was her mistress for whom this visit was intended. Ever since he had kissed her in the corridor of the Hôtel Dubarry, she had dreamed of him, looked for him, fancied that he would come to seek her. He had come, but not for her.

The blow to her love, her pride, and her life was brutal in its directness, yet she took it standing, and after the first moment almost without flinching. She had come of a race to whom pride had been denied, a race accustomed to the _Droit de Seigneur_, the whip of the noble and the disdain of the aristocrat, yet the woman in her found the pride that hides suffering, and can find and place its hand even on disdain.

“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I am sorry, but my mistress is from home.”

Rochefort, standing by the window, had recovered himself. He guessed quite well that little Javotte had a more than kindly feeling for him, that at a look or a touch she would be his, body and soul, and that she had led him upstairs thinking that his visit was to her. But he was moving under the dominion of a passion that held his mind from Javotte as steadily as centrifugal force holds the moon from the earth.

“From home?” said he. “Has she not been here, then, to-night?”

“Yes, monsieur, she was here till half-past twelve, then she left for the Rue de Valois with Mademoiselle Chon Dubarry.”

“Mademoiselle Dubarry was with her here, then?”

“Yes, monsieur, and they left together.”

He saw at once that the appointment Camille had given him was no lover’s tryst—or, at least, a lover’s tryst with a chaperon attached to it. This pleased him, somehow. Despite the fact that his heart had leaped in him whilst under the dominion of the thought that Camille had flung all discretion to the winds, the revelation of the truth that it was Javotte who was flinging discretion to the winds came to him as a satisfaction, despite the check to his animal nature. Camille was not to be conquered as easily as that.

She had waited for him till half-past twelve, there was some comfort in that thought; the question now arose as to what he should do. It was clearly impossible to knock the Dubarrys up at that hour in the morning. He must wait, and where better than here; he wanted a friend to talk to, and whom could he find better than Javotte?

There was a chair by the bed, and he sat down on the chair, and then what did he do but take Javotte on his knee.

He told her to come and sit on his knee whilst he explained all his worries and troubles, and she came and sat on his knee like a child. She would have resisted him now as a lover, yet there in that bedroom, in that deserted house, she let him caress her without fear and without thought. There was something great about Rochefort at times, when he forgot Rochefort the _flaneur_ and Rochefort the libertine, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say there was nothing little about him, and nothing base.

“It is this way, Javotte,” said he. “Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul, of whom you have no doubt heard, is pursuing me, and I am running away from Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul, and as I am not used to running away, I run very badly, but still I do my best. Now, you remember the other night when those bad men attacked you?—well, when I chased them away, I followed one of them and he threw a knife at me and I killed him. He was an agent of Monsieur de Choiseul, who, having discovered that I killed his agent, would like very much to kill me. He tried to arrest me at the Palace of Versailles some hours ago, and the agent he employed was Monsieur Camus, the same man whose face I smacked before you——”

“Oh, monsieur,” said Javotte, “that is an evil man; his face, his very glance, took the life away from me.”

“Just so,” said Rochefort; “and I struck that evil man in the stomach, and left him kicking his heels on the steps of his Majesty’s palace, whilst I made my escape. I got a horse and came to Paris, but I cannot stay in Paris. To-morrow I am going to the Rue de Valois to keep that appointment with your mistress, which I failed to keep to-night. Well, I may be taken prisoner or killed before I reach the Hôtel Dubarry. In that case, you will tell your mistress all, and that the fault was not mine, in that I did not arrive here in time. You will be my friend in this, Javotte?”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied Javotte, “I will, indeed, be your friend.”

She who had hoped only to be his lover cast away that hope, or imagined that she cast away that hope, in taking up the reality of friendship.

“I trust you,” he said; “and now to another thing. I have here a letter belonging to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul; it is addressed to a lady at Compiègne, it was in the saddle-bag of the horse which I took to carry me to Paris, and it must be delivered to the lady it is intended for.”

He took the letter from his pocket and gave it to Javotte, who had now risen and was standing before him.

“You must find someone to take it for me, and that someone will expect to be paid for his trouble, so here are two louis——”

“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I do not need money.”

Rochefort returned the coins to his pocket and stood up. He had not offered Javotte money for herself, but he should not have offered it at all. The brutality that spoils a butterfly’s wing may be a touch that would not injure a rose-leaf.

“Nor did I offer it to you,” said he, placing his hand on her shoulder. “One does not offer money to a friend—or only as a loan—I meant you to give it to some footman or other as a reward for his services. But should you ever need a loan, my little Javotte, why, then, Rochefort will be your banker, offering you his life and his services without interest. But there is one thing he will never lend you—and can you guess what that thing is?”

“No, monsieur.”

“His friendship—for it is yours, now and always.”

Javotte bowed her pretty head as if in confirmation and acknowledgment. Still holding the letter in her hand, she turned it over, glancing now at the superscription, now at the seals. Then, moving towards the chair, she sat down. Rochefort watched her, wondering what was in her mind, and waiting for her to speak.

“Monsieur,” said Javotte at last, “you ask me to take this letter to its destination. To do so, I must first read the address, and I find it is addressed to Mademoiselle La Bruyère. You say Monsieur de Choiseul is the writer of it. You say Monsieur de Choiseul is pursuing you. Well, monsieur, is it not possible that, in parting with this letter, you are parting with a weapon that may be very useful to you?”

“Oho!” said Rochefort, laughing, amused at Javotte’s seriousness and her air of subtlety and intrigue, as though some dove were suddenly to assume the garb of a serpent’s wisdom. “What is this you say?”

“Simply, monsieur, that Mademoiselle La Bruyère is one of the greatest enemies of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry. I have heard my mistress say that she obtained her place in the entourage of the Dauphiness In order to poison the mind of the Dauphiness against her. Here is Monsieur de Choiseul writing to Mademoiselle La Bruyère——”

“Ah!” cried Rochefort, striking himself on the forehead, and speaking as though oblivious of Javotte’s presence, “I see. Choiseul writes a despatch to Mademoiselle La Bruyère—and last night of all nights, immediately after the presentation, to tell her, without doubt, of the plan and its failure—and the plan was directed against his Majesty as well as against the Countess. Certainly, that letter may prove a very terrible weapon against Choiseul.”

“And you will use it, monsieur?”

“The letter?”

“Yes, monsieur, the letter.”

“I—no, I cannot use it. I do not even know that it would help me. I may be wrong even in my suspicion. The thing may have no value at all; how do I know that it is not a love-letter?”—he laughed at the idea of Love coupled with the idea of Choiseul—“or about some private matter? No, it is impossible. I cannot open Monsieur de Choiseul’s letter to see if it concerns me, and even were I to open it, and were I to find the blackest conspiracy under the handwriting of Choiseul, I could not use it against him.”

“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I am only a poor girl, but I have seen much in the service of Madame la Comtesse. I have kept my mind about me, and I have been employed in many things that have taught me many things. Living at Luciennes and Versailles, I have observed Monsieur de Choiseul—Look at the affair of yesterday—and there are other things—— Well, I know that if you were Monsieur de Choiseul, you would open this letter.”

Rochefort laughed.

“You have touched the spot,” said he. “If I were Monsieur de Choiseul, I would do as you say, but since I am Monsieur de Rochefort, I cannot. I am only a poor gentleman of Auvergne, without any head for political intrigue or any hand for political matters, and were I to open that letter, I would do the business so badly, that my unaccustomed hand would betray itself.”

“Monsieur, I did not ask you to open this letter.”

“Mademoiselle, had you done so, I would have obeyed you without murmur, for your lightest request would be for me a command. And now put the accursed thing away that it may not tempt us any more, and if you will show me to some room where I may snatch a couple of hours’ sleep, I will lie down, for I have a heavy day before me if I am not very greatly mistaken.”

Javotte rose up and placed the letter in the drawer of a bureau by the door. Then she ran out of the room and returned with a rug of marten skin, which she spread on the bed; she turned the rug back and arranged the pillows. She was offering him her bed.

“I will call you at six o’clock,” said she.

She glanced round the room like a careful housewife who wishes to see that everything is in order, smiled at Rochefort, nodded, and vanished, closing the door behind her.

Rochefort removed his coat and sword-belt, got under the rug, rested his head on the pillow and in five minutes was snoring.

Javotte, crossing the landing, entered her mistress’s bedroom, where a lamp was burning.

She turned the lamp full on and sat down in a chair by the fire-place. She was in love and her love was hopeless, and her power of love may be gauged from the fact that she was thinking less of herself than of Rochefort, and less of Rochefort than his position.

She knew Camille Fontrailles as only a woman can know a woman. That beautiful face, those eyes so capable of betraying interest and love, that charm, that grace—all these had no influence with Javotte. She guessed Camille to be heartless, not cruel, but acardiac, if one may use the expression, without impulse, negative towards men, yet exacting towards them, requiring their homage, yet giving in return no pay—or only promissory notes; capable of real friendship towards women, and more than friendship—absolute devotion to a chosen woman friend. This type of woman is exceedingly common in all high civilizations; it is the stand of the ego against the Race instinct, a refusal of the animal by the sensibilities, a development of the finer feelings at the expense of the natural passions—who knows—— Javotte reasoned only by instinct, and it was instinct that made her guess Rochefort’s passion for Camille to be a hopeless passion, and it was this guess that now brought some trace of comfort to her human and wicked heart.

She was capable of dying for Rochefort, of sacrificing all comfort in life for his comfort, yet of treasuring the thought of his discomfiture at the hands of Camille.

She rose up, and, taking the lamp, stood before the mirror that had so often reflected the beauty of her mistress.

What she saw was charming, yet she saw it through the magic of disenchantment.

It was the wild flower gazing at her reflection in the brook where the lordly dragon-fly pauses for a second, heedless of her, on his way towards the garden of the roses.

Then she placed the lamp on the table again, and went downstairs to make coffee for the dragon-fly, to give him strength on his journey.