CHAPTER XIV
WHICH TREATS OF THE DISCOMFITURE OF M. DE LANDAS
We may take it that M. le Baron d'Inchy, at whose invitation the Duc d'Anjou had come to Cambray, was not likely to let the matter of the midnight duel remain unpunished, the moment he learned the full facts about the affair. The epistle of Maître Jehan had put him on the scent, and it must be remembered that M. le Baron d'Inchy ruled over Cambray and the Cambrésis with the full autocratic power of a conqueror, and that he had therefore more than one means at his disposal for forcing the truth from unwilling witnesses if he had a mind.
That truth, as confessed by the night watchmen, was nothing short of appalling. Monseigneur the governor's first thought had been one of ample—not to say, obsequious—apologies to His Highness for the outrage against his person. But Monsieur being sick, and etiquette forbidding Monseigneur the governor's visit to so humble an hostelry as that of 'Les Trois Rois,' M. d'Inchy had bethought himself of Messire Gilles de Crohin, the equerry, had sent for him and begged him to transmit to His Highness all those excuses which he—the governor—would have wished to offer in person. Fortunately, the equerry had been able to assure Monseigneur that His Highness appeared inclined to look on the affair with leniency. Whereupon d'Inchy had seen him depart again, feeling still very wrathful but decidedly easier in his mind.
Then he sent for de Landas.
De Landas was sick of his wounds, feverish and in the leech's hands; but the order to present himself before the governor was so peremptory that he dared not refuse. He knew well that nothing but unbridled anger would cause Monseigneur to issue such an arbitrary order and that it would neither be wise nor even safe to run counter to his will.
So de Landas had his wounds re-dressed and bandaged; he took the cooling draught which the leech had prepared for him, and then he ordered four of his men to carry him on a stretcher to the Archiepiscopal Palace. But all this show of sickness did not have the effect of softening Monseigneur's mood. He ordered de Landas very curtly to dismiss his stretcher-bearers, then he motioned him to a seat, himself sat down behind his desk and fixed searching eyes upon his young kinsman.
'I have sent for you, José,' he began sternly, 'and for you alone, rather than for the whole of your gang, because you have constituted yourself their leader, and they invariably follow you like so many numskulls, in any mischief which you might devise.'
'Mon cousin——' stammered de Landas, abashed, despite himself, by d'Inchy's dictatorial tone.
'One moment,' broke in the latter harshly. 'Let me tell you at once that explanations and prevarications are useless. I received a hint of what occurred last night primarily from an outside source, but you will understand that a clue once obtained can very easily be followed up. We questioned your varlets, put the night watchmen to the torture; they confessed everything, and you, M. le Marquis de Landas, my kinsman, and half a dozen of your precious friends, stand convicted of an attempt at assassination against the person of a stranger, who happens to be my guest.'
De Landas, feeling himself cornered, made no attempt to deny. It certainly would have been useless. Unfortunately he had allowed his jealousy to get the better of his prudence, and last night had made more than one mistake—such, for instance, as not killing the watchmen outright instead of merely overpowering them, and employing his own men rather than a few paid spadassins, who could not afterwards have been traced. So he sat on, sullen and silent, his arm resting on that of the chair, his chin buried in his hand.
'For that attempted crime,' resumed Monsieur le Baron d'Inchy, after a slight pause, and speaking in a trenchant and staccato tone, 'I have decided to expel you and your five friends out of the city.'
De Landas, forgetting his wounds and his sickness, jumped to his feet as if he had been cut with a lash.
'Expel me——?' he stammered. He could scarcely frame the words. He was grey to the lips and had to steady himself against the table or he would have measured his length on the floor.
'You and your friends,' reiterated d'Inchy with uncompromising severity. 'Would you perchance prefer the block?'
But already de Landas had recovered some of his assurance.
'This is monstrous!' he exclaimed hotly. 'I, your kinsman! Herlaer, Maarege—some of your most devoted friends...!'
'No one is a friend,' retorted d'Inchy firmly, 'who is a law-breaker and a potential assassin!'
'Monseigneur!' protested de Landas.
'Well! What else were you all last night?'
'We had no intention of killing the rogue.'
'And attacked him, six to one!'
'His impudence deserved chastisement. We only desired to administer a lesson.'
'In what form, I pray you?' queried d'Inchy with a short ironical laugh.
'We had some sticks in reserve——"
'Sticks!' thundered d'Inchy, who at the words had jumped to his feet and in his wrath brought down his clenched fist with a crash upon the table. 'Sticks!! You had thought ... you would dare ... to raise your hands against ... against ... Oh, my God!' he exclaimed in horror as he sank down once more into his chair and, resting his elbows on the table, he buried his face in his hands. Evidently he was quite unnerved.
De Landas had remained silent. Of a truth he had been struck dumb by this extraordinary show of what amounted almost to horror on the part of his usually dignified and self-contained kinsman. It seemed as if he—de Landas—had said something awful, something stupendous when he spoke of administering chastisement to a vagabond. A vagabond indeed! What else was this so-called Prince de Froidmont? Whence did he come? What was his purpose in coming to Cambray? And why should Monseigneur the governor be so completely unnerved at the bare possibility of any one laying hands on so obscure a personage?
But this was obviously not the moment for demanding an explanation. De Landas, ere he left his own fatherland in order to seek fortune in Flanders, had already been well schooled in those arts of diplomacy and procrastination for which Spanish statesmen were famous. He scented a mystery here, which he then and there vowed to himself that he would fathom; but this was not the time to betray his own suspicions. He knew well enough that these wooden-headed Flemings were for ever hatching plots for the overthrow of their Spanish conquerors, that His Majesty the King of Spain had hardly one faithful or loyal subject among these boors, who were for ever prating of their independence and of their civil and religious liberties. De Landas' quick, incisive mind had already jumped to the conclusion that, in this mystery which surrounded the personality of this enigmatic Prince de Froidmont, there was no doubt the beginnings of one of those subtle intrigues, which had already filched from the kingdom of Spain more than one of her fair Flemish provinces. But the young man had up to now been too indolent and too self-indulgent to trouble himself much about the dangers which threatened his country through the brewing of these intrigues. He was of a truth ready to find fortune in Flanders and to marry the richest heiress in the land if he could, and then to remain loyal to the country of his adoption if it continued to suit his purpose so to do; but if, as he began now vaguely to fear, his plans with regard to Jacqueline were thwarted for the sake of some unknown suitor, however highly placed, if the golden apple which he had hoped to gather in this mist-laden land turned to dead-sea fruit in his hand, then he would no longer consider himself bound by allegiance to this alien country; rather would his loyalty to King Philip of Spain demand that he should combat every machination which these abominable Flemings might set afoot, for the overthrow of Spanish power.
But all this was for the future. De Landas was astute enough not to betray a single one of his thoughts at the moment—not until he had surveyed the whole situation in cold blood and discussed it with his friends. For the nonce, conciliation was the only possible—the only prudent—course of action, and humility and resignation the only paths thereto.
So he waited a minute or two until d'Inchy had mastered his extraordinary emotion. Then he said meekly:
'Monseigneur, you see me utterly confounded by your anger. On my honour, I and my friends sinned entirely in ignorance. We thought the stranger presumptuous in the presence of Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, who in our sight is almost a divinity. We desired to teach a malapert a lesson for daring to approach the greatest lady in Flanders otherwise than on bended knees. We had no thought,' he added insidiously, 'that in so doing we might be attacking a personage whom Monseigneur desires to hold in especial honour.'
'Even if the stranger was a person of no consequence,' rejoined d'Inchy more calmly, 'your conduct was outrageous——'
'As it is, I am humbled in the dust at thought that it put a spoke in the wheel of some deep-laid political plans.'
'I did not say that——' broke in d'Inchy quickly.
'Oh, Monseigneur!' protested de Landas gently, 'you deign to belittle mine intelligence. I may be a young jackanapes, but I am not such a crass fool as not to realize that the person whom I only thought to chastise, as I might some insignificant groundling, must be a gentleman of more than ordinary consequence, else you would not punish me so severely for so venial an offence.'
'It is my duty——'
'To expel six noble gentlemen from their homes for laying hands on an unknown adventurer? Fie, Monseigneur! Your estimate of my reasoning powers must of a truth be a very low one.'
'You have gravely erred against the laws of hospitality.'
'I am prepared to lick the dust in my abasement.'
'You have offended a stranger who was my guest.'
'I will offer him my abject excuses, tell him that I mistook him for a caitiff.'
'He would not accept your excuses.'
'Is he such a high and mighty prince as all that?' retorted de Landas.
It was an arrow shot into the air, but it evidently hit the mark, for d'Inchy had winced at the taunt.
'M. le Prince de Froidmont has been too gravely affronted,' he said stiffly, 'for excuses to be of any avail.'
'Let me try them, at any rate,' riposted de Landas, almost servilely now.
'I don't know—I——'
'Ah! but Monseigneur, I entreat you, listen. I am your friend, your kinsman, have served this land faithfully, devotedly, for years! I have no wish to pry into your secrets, to learn anything of which you desire to keep me in ignorance. But think—think!! Others would not be so scrupulous as I. Gossip flies about very quickly in this city, and rumours would soon take wider flight, if it became known that you had punished with such unyielding rigour six of your best friends, one of them your own kinsman, for daring to quarrel with a masked stranger whom nobody knows, and who has entered this city in the strictest incognito. People will deduce unpleasant conclusions: some will call the stranger a Spanish spy, and you, Monseigneur, a paid agent of Spain. At best, rumour will be busy with speculations and conjectures which will jeopardize all your plans. In pleading for mercy, Monseigneur,' urged de Landas with well-feigned ingenuous enthusiasm, ''tis not so much mine own cause that I advocate, but rather that of your own peace of mind and the fulfilment of all your secret desires.'
D'Inchy made no immediate reply. No doubt the Spaniard's specious arguments had struck him as sound. He knew well enough how difficult it was, these days, to keep tongues from wagging, and until the affair with Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, was irrevocably concluded, gossip would prove a deadly danger, not only to the plans which he and de Lalain had laid so carefully, but also to themselves and to their adherents. This knowledge caused him to weaken in his attitude toward de Landas. He sat there, frowning, silent, obviously hesitating already.
We must always remember also that the Flemings—whether lords or churls—had never been able to hold their own against Spanish diplomacy and Spanish cunning. Their mind was too straightforward, too simple, yes! too childish, to understand the tortuous subtleties practised by these past masters of mental craftiness.
D'Inchy, de Lalain, de Montigny and their friends had plunged up to the neck in a sea of intrigue. They were already floundering, out of their depth. D'Inchy, ingenuous and inherently truthful, had never suspected de Landas of duplicity—had, of a truth, never had cause to suspect him—therefore now he took the young Spaniard's protestations, his meekness, his well-timed warning, entirely at their face value. De Landas was looking him straight in the face while he spoke, and d'Inchy was duly impressed by the air of straightforwardness, of youthful enthusiasm, wherewith the young man punctuated his impassioned tirade; and the latter, quick to note every change in the Fleming's stern features, pursued his advantage, pressed home his pleadings, half certain already of success.
'Let me go forthwith, Monseigneur,' he begged, 'to offer my humble apologies to—to—Monsieur—er—le Prince de Froidmont. Though you may think that we tried to murder him last night, we crossed swords with him like loyal gentlemen. I and my friends will meekly admit our errors. He is too chivalrous, believe me, not to forgive.'
Obviously d'Inchy was yielding. Perhaps he had never been very determined on punishing those young coxcombs, had been chiefly angered because he feared that in his wrath Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, might incontinently shake the dust of inhospitable Cambray from off his velvet shoes. Above all things, d'Inchy dreaded gossip about the affair, and de Landas had indeed proved himself a master in the art of self-defence when he prophesied the birth of countless rumours if wholesale expulsions and punishments followed the midnight brawl.
'Have I your permission to go, Monseigneur?' insisted de Landas. 'Sick as I am, I can yet crawl as far as the hostelry where lodges the enigmatic Prince de Froidmont.'
Again d'Inchy winced. He felt his secret escaping from the safe haven of his own keeping. He sat on in silence, meditating for awhile. After all, Monsieur's equerry had assured him that His Highness was disposed to look leniently on the episode, and who could be more royalist then the King? more Catholic than the Pope? Gradually the tensity of his attitude relaxed, the dark frown disappeared from between his brows; he still looked sternly on his young kinsman, but the latter saw that the look was no longer menacing.
A few minutes later Monseigneur d'Inchy had spoken the word which caused de Landas to give a deep sigh of relief.
'Very well!' he said. 'You may try. But understand,' he added inflexibly. 'If Monsieur—I mean, if M. le Prince de Froidmont does not accept your apology, if he demands your punishment, you leave Cambray to-night.'
'I understand, Monseigneur,' said de Landas simply.
'And if the Prince does accept your apology, and I do condone your offence this time, your punishment will be all the more severe if you transgress again. It would not be a sentence of expulsion then, but one of death. Now you may go!' he concluded curtly. 'My leniency in the future will depend upon your conduct.'
After which, he dismissed de Landas with a stiff inclination of the head, and the young Spaniard left the presence of the autocratic governor of Cambray with rage in his heart and a veritable whirlpool of conjectures, of surmises and of intrigues seething in his fertile brain.
But right through the wild medley of hypotheses which ran riot in de Landas' mind there raged also furious, unbridled wrath—wrath at his own humiliation, his own impotence—hatred against the man who had brought him to this pass, and mad, ungovernable jealousy whenever his thoughts turned to Jacqueline.
Somehow—it was only instinct, no doubt—he felt that all this pother about the masked stranger centred round the personality of Jacqueline. The first hint which Monseigneur had of last night's affray must of necessity have come from Jacqueline. She alone was there—varlets and wenches did not count—she alone could have a personal interest in putting Monseigneur on the scent.
A personal interest? De Landas' frown became dark and savage when first that possibility rose before his mind. He had ordered his servants, very curtly, to go and wait for him in the main entrance hall, for after his interview with the governor he felt the want of being alone for a few moments, to think over the situation as it so gravely affected him. He was in the same corridor where a couple of hours ago Jacqueline had waylaid and spoken with Messire Gilles de Crohin. On his right was the row of tall windows with their deep embrasures, which gave view upon the park. De Landas felt sick and fatigued, as much from choler and nerve-strain as from the effect of his wounds, and he sat down on one of the wide window-seats to think matters over.
A personal interest?
Yes! That was it. Jacqueline, capricious, hot-headed, impulsive, had been attracted by the mysterious personality of the stranger, and for the moment was forgetting the lover of her youth, the man who felt that he had an inalienable claim upon her allegiance. De Landas had heard rumours of a masked minstrel having serenaded Madame beneath her windows. Pierre, his own henchman, had received a broad hint to that effect from Nicolle, who was Madame's waiting-woman. Was it possible that the masked troubadour and the enigmatic Prince de Froidmont were one and the same person? and was it likely that Jacqueline's romantic fancy had been captured by his wiles?
A wild, unreasoning rage gripped at de Landas' heart at the thought: sheer physical pain caused him to groan aloud. He felt stifled and giddy, and with a rough, impatient gesture, he threw open the casement-window and leaned out, in order to inhale the pure, fresh air which rose from the park. As he did so, he caught sight of Jacqueline, who was wandering in and among the bosquets, attended only by one of her maids. She was dressed in a dark gown and had a hood over her head, but even thus garbed she looked adorable, and de Landas muttered an angry oath as he looked down on her, watching her sedate movements, the queenly walk, that quaint air of demureness and dignity which became her so well. He suddenly realized all that the past few days—nay! weeks—had meant in the shaping of his destiny. Monseigneur the governor's stern decree had already placed her out of his reach; she was slipping away from him, dragged from his side by her accession to wealth and power, by the political intrigues which centred around her—aye! and she was also slipping away from him through the gradual cooling of her attachment for him; that fact he could no longer disguise from himself. He had succeeded in winning her, when she was so young and so inexperienced that she fell readily enough—almost unconsciously—into his arms. He had ensnared her like the skilful fowler succeeds in trapping a fledgling unawares. Since then, so many things had changed. Jacqueline, from an obscure little country wench—almost the handmaid of an adulated brother—had become one of the most important personages in the land. She was fêted, courted, admired, on every side, surrounded by all that was most handsome, most chivalrous, in Europe. She had not actually turned from the lover of her girlhood—no! even de Landas was forced to admit that—but she had learned to appraise him in the same crucible as other men; and, with teeth set, and shame and anger gnawing in his heart, de Landas had to tell himself that she had apparently found him wanting. Time was when nothing on earth would have turned her admiration away from him, when, whatever the appearances might be, she would look up to him as the fount of all bravery and of all honour. But last night she had only been gentle and pitying, and a few hours later had led Monseigneur into investigating the whole affair.
De Landas' fist against the window ledge was clenched until the knuckles of his slender hand gleamed like ivory. Had the masked stranger himself aught to do with Jacqueline's disloyalty? Suddenly the Spaniard felt that at any cost he must know the truth about that, at any cost he must wring an avowal from Jacqueline's lips, whether in her innermost soul she had ever by one single thought been unfaithful to him.
As fast as his gathering weakness would allow, he hurried through the interminable corridors of the Palace, until he found himself down in the hall below, at the foot of the main staircase, not twenty paces away from the room where he had endured such bitter humiliation last night. Instinct drew him to that room, the window of which gave direct access on to a terraced walk and thence on to the park.
He pushed open the door behind which a few brief hours ago he and his friends had laid in wait so shamelessly for their unsuspecting enemy. Almost furtively he stepped over the threshold and peeped in. He scarce recognized the place, thought he had mistaken the door; and yet there were all the landmarks: the desk with its kidney-shaped top, which had proved such a useful rampart for the enemy; the chairs which the masked stranger had brandished like swivels above his head when the cowardly order was given to the varlets to help in the attack; the heavy curtain which had been the last, the most formidable weapon of defence.
All these things had been put back in their respective places; a fresh piece of matting covered the floor; the curtain had been hung once more in front of the window—not a stain, not a mark, not a break testified to the terrible orgy of bloodshed which had desecrated this noble apartment last night.
De Landas looked all about him in astonishment. He stepped further into the room, and even as he did so, a strong current of air caused the heavy door behind him to fall to with a bang. As de Landas looked across the room in order to see what had been the cause of this sudden gust he saw that the window opposite was open to the ground, and that Jacqueline had apparently just entered that way from the terraced walk beyond.
She did not see him just at first, but stood for awhile intent, as he had been, in noting the appearance of the room. The window framed her in like a perfect picture, with her dark gown and her golden hair and soft white skin. The hood of her cloak had fallen back over her shoulders and she held her heavy skirt gathered up in her hand.
'Jacqueline!' exclaimed the young man impulsively.
She looked up and saw him, and, quite serenely, stepped into the room, went forward to greet him with hand outstretched, her face expressing gentle solicitude.
'Why, José!' she said lightly, 'I had no thought of seeing you to-day.'
'Which,' he retorted glumly, 'doth not seem to have greatly troubled you.'
'I knew that you were sick. Surely the leech hath prescribed absolute rest.'
'I did not think of sickness or of rest,' he rejoined, with an undercurrent of grim reproach in his tone. 'I only thought of seeing you.'
'I would have come to you,' she said calmly, 'as soon as the leech advised.'
'And I could not wait,' he riposted with a sigh. 'That is all the difference there is, Jacqueline, between your love and mine.'
Then, as she made no reply, but led him gently, like a sick child, to a chair, he added sombrely:
'I came to bid you farewell, Jacqueline.'
'Farewell? I don't understand.'
'I am going away.'
'Whither?'
He shrugged his shoulders.
'Chien sabe?' he said. 'What does it matter?'
'You are enigmatical, dear cousin,' she retorted. 'Will you not explain?'
'The explanation is over simple, alas! Monseigneur the governor hath expelled me from this city.'
'Expelled you from this city?' she reiterated slowly.
'Yes! for daring to lay hands on His High and Mightiness, Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont.'
'José, you are jesting!'
'I was never so serious in all my life.'
'And you are going?'
'To-night.'
'But whither?' she insisted.
'As I said before: Chien sabe?'
He spoke now in a harsh, husky voice. Obviously his nerves were on edge and he had some difficulty in controlling himself. He was sitting by the desk and his arm lay across the top of it, with fist clenched, while his dark eyes searched the face of the young girl through and through while he spoke. She was standing a few paces away from him, looking down on him with a vague, puzzled expression in her face.
'José,' she said after awhile, 'you are unnerved, angered, for the moment. You think, no doubt, that I am to blame for Monseigneur's knowledge of last night's affair. I swear to you that I am not, that on the other hand I did all that was humanly possible to keep the shameful affair a secret from every one.'
'Shameful, Jacqueline?' he protested.
'Yes, shameful!' she replied firmly. 'Monseigneur, it seems, received an inkling of the truth early this morning—how, I know not. But he sent for the watchmen and had them examined; then he told me what had occurred.'
'And you believed him?'
'I neither believed nor disbelieved. I was hideously, painfully puzzled. Now you tell me that my guardian hath expelled you from this city. He would not have done that, José, if he had not proof positive of your guilt.'
'Well!' he rejoined with sudden, brusque arrogance. 'I'll not deny it!'
'José!'
'I did waylay a malapert, an impudent rogue, with the view to administering a sound correction to his egregious vanity. I do not deny it. I am proud of it! And you, Jacqueline, should commend me for having done you service.'
'I cannot commend you for last night's work, José,' she said earnestly. 'It was cowardly and unchivalrous.'
'Pardieu!' he riposted roughly. 'I am going to be punished for it severely enough, methinks. Expelled from this town! Thrown to the tender mercies of the Duke of Parma and his armies, who will vent on me their resentment for my loyalty to the Flemish cause!'
'Nay, José! I swear to you that Monseigneur will relent.'
'Not he!'
'He only meant to frighten you, to cow you perhaps into submission. He was already angered with you after the banquet, for attacking Messire le Prince de Froidmont. He thought your action of the night not only a dishonourable one, but a direct defiance of his orders.'
'Not he!' quoth de Landas again. Then he added with a sudden burst of bitter resentment. 'He wants to get me out of the way—to separate me from you!'
'You must not be surprised, José,' she retorted quietly, 'that after what happened last night, my guardian's opposition has not undergone a change in your favour. But have I not sworn that he will relent? I will go to him now—I shall know what to say ... he so seldom refuses me anything I ask for.'
'I forbid you to go, Jacqueline!' he interposed quickly, for already she had turned to go.
'Forbid me? Why? I will not compromise your dignity; have no fear of that.'
'I forbid you to go!' he reiterated sullenly.
'You are foolish, José! I assure you that I understand Monseigneur's moods better than any one else in the world. I know that he is always just as ready to pardon as to punish. 'Tis not much pleading that I shall have to do.'
'You'll not plead for me, Jacqueline.'
'José!'
'You'll not plead. 'Tis not necessary.'
'What do you mean?'
'That I am already pardoned.'
'Already pardoned?'
'Yes. I am not expelled from the city.'
'But you told me——'
'It was all a ruse!'
'A ruse?'
'Yes!' he cried with a sudden outburst of rage, long enough held in check. 'Yes! A ruse to find out if you loved me still!'
Then, as instinctively, at sight of his face, which had become distorted with fury, she stepped back in order to avoid closer contact with him, he jumped up from his chair, and while she continued to retreat, he followed her step by step, and she watched him, fascinated and appalled by the look of deathly hatred which gleamed in his eyes.
'A year ago, Jacqueline,' he went on, speaking now through set teeth, so that his voice came to her like the hissing of an angry snake; 'a year—nay, a month, a week ago—if I had told you that I was going away from you, you would have thrown yourself in my arms in the agony of your grief; you would have wept torrents of tears and wrung your hands and yielded your sweet face, your full, red lips unasked to my caresses. But now——'
He paused. She could retreat no further, for her back was against the wall. Instinctively she put out her arms in order to keep him off. But he suddenly seized her with a fury so fierce that she could have screamed with the pain, which seemed literally to break her back in two. He held her close to him, his warm breath scorched her face, his lips sought her throat, her cheeks, her eyes, with a violence of passion so intense that for the moment she felt weak and helpless in his arms. Only for a moment, however. The next, she had recovered that dignified calm which was so characteristic of her quaint personality. She made no resistance, because of a truth she had not the power to shake herself free from his embrace; but her figure suddenly became absolutely rigid, and once or twice he met a look in her eyes which was so laden with contempt, that his exasperation gave itself vent in a long, impassioned tirade, wherein he poured forth the full venom of the pent-up rage, hatred, jealousy which was seething in his heart.
'You! Miserable Flemish cinder-wench!' he cried. 'So you thought that you could toy with the passion of a Spanish gentleman? You thought that you could use him and play with him for just as long as it suited your fancy, and that you could cast him aside like a torn shoe as soon as some one richer, greater, more important, appeared upon the scene. Well! let me tell you this, my fine Madame! That I'll not give you up! I'll not! No! Though I do not love you, any more than I do any slut who tosses me a passing kiss. But I'll not give you up—to that accursed stranger, or to any man; do you hear? You are mine, and I'll keep you—you and your fortune. I have reckoned on it and I want it—and I'll have it, if I have to drag you in the gutter first, or burn this confounded city about your ears!'
His voice had gradually grown more and more husky, until the last words came out of his parched throat like the screech of some wild animal gloating over its prey. But in his present state of health, the effort and the excitement proved too great for his endurance. He turned suddenly dizzy and sick, staggered and would have fallen headlong at her feet, if she herself had not supported him.
She had remained perfectly still while he poured forth that hideous torrent of insults and vituperation, which, in her sight, were akin to the writhings of some venomous reptile. She could not move or stop her ears from hearing, because he held her fast. Tall, stately and impassive, she had stood her ground like some unapproachable goddess whom the ravings of a raging cur could not in any way pollute.
Now that he became momentarily helpless, she gave him the support of her arm and led him quietly back to the chair. When he was once more seated and in a fair way of recovering from this semi-swoon, she—still quite calmly—turned to go.
'You are unnerved, José,' she said coldly, 'and had best remain here now till I fetch your servants. I could wish for your sake as well as for mine own that this had been an everlasting farewell.'
After which she walked quite slowly across the room, opened the door with a firm hand and went out. A moment or two later, de Landas could hear her giving instructions to his servants in a perfectly clear and firm voice. He leaned back in his chair and gave a harsh laugh of triumph.
'And now, Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont,' he murmured under his breath, 'we shall see which of us will be the conqueror in the life and death struggle which is to come.’