Henry Seton Merriman – The Complete Collection

Chapter 9

He made a little gesture of annoyance on being told by the servant that Sebastian was out. After a moment's reflection, he seemed to make up his mind to ignore the conventionalities.

"It is merely," he said in his friendly and confidential manner to the servant, in perfect German, "that I have news from Monsieur Darragon, the husband of Mademoiselle Desiree. Madame is out--you say. Well, then, what is to be done?"

He had a most charming, grave manner of asking advice which few could resist.

The servant nodded at him with a twinkle of understanding in her eye.

"There is Fraulein Mathilde."

"But . . . well, ask her if she will do me the honour of speaking to me for an instant. I leave it to you . . . ."

"But come in," protested the servant. "Come upstairs. She will see you; why not?"

And she led the way upstairs. Papa Barlasch, sitting just within the kitchen door, where he sat all day doing nothing, glanced upwards through his overhanging eyebrows at the clink of spurs and the clatter of de Casimir's sword against the banisters. He had the air of a watchdog.

Mathilde was not in the drawing-room, and the servant left the visitor there alone, saying that she would seek her mistress. There were one or two books on the tables. One table was rather untidy; it was Desiree's. A writing-desk stood in the corner of the room. It was locked--and the lock was a good one. De Casimir was an observant man. He had time to make this observation, and to see that there were no letters in Desiree's work-basket; to note the titles of the books and the absence of name on the flyleaf, and was looking out of the window when the door opened and Mathilde came in.

This was a day when women were treated with a great show of deference, while in reality they had but little voice in the world's affairs. De Casimir's bow was deeper and more elaborate than would be considered polite to-day. On standing erect he quickly suppressed a glance of surprise.

Mathilde must have expected him. She was dressed in white, and her hair was tied with a bright ribbon. In her cheeks, usually so pale, was a little touch of colour. It may have been because Desiree was not near, but de Casimir had never known until this moment how pretty Mathilde really was. There was something in her eyes, too, which gripped his attention. He remembered that at the wedding he had never seen her eyes. They had always been averted. But now they met his with a troubling directness.

De Casimir had a gallant manner. All women commanded his eager respect, which they could assess at such value as their fancy painted, remembering that it is for the woman to measure the distance. On the few occasions of previous encounters, de Casimir had been empresse in his manner towards Mathilde. As he looked at her, his quick mind ran back to former meetings. He had no recollection of having actually made love to her.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "for a soldier--in time of war--the conventions may, perhaps, be slightly relaxed. I was told that you were alone--that your father is out, and yet I persisted--"

He spread out his hands and laughed appealingly, begging her, it would seem, to help him out of the social difficulty in which he found himself.

"My father will be sorry--" she began.

"That is hardly the question," he interrupted; "I was thinking of your displeasure. But I have an excuse, I assure you. I only ask a moment to tell you that I have heard from Konigsberg that Charles Darragon is in good health there, and is moving forward with the advance-guard to the frontier."

"You are kind to come so soon," answered Mathilde, and there was an odd note of disappointment in her voice. De Casimir must have heard it, for he glanced at her again with a gleam of surprise in his eyes.

"That is my excuse, Mademoiselle," he said with a tentative emphasis, as if he were feeling his way. He was an opportunist with all the quickness of one who must live by his wits among others existing on the same uncertain fare. He saw her flush, and again he hesitated as a wayfarer may hesitate when he finds an easy road where he had expected to climb a hill. What was the meaning of it? he seemed to ask himself.

"Charles does not interest you so much as he interests your sister?" he suggested.

"He has never interested me much," she replied indifferently. She did not ask him to sit down. It would not have been etiquette in an age when women were by some odd misjudgment considered incapable of managing their own hearts.

"Is that because he is in love, Mademoiselle?" inquired de Casimir with a guarded laugh.

"Perhaps so."

She did not look at him. De Casimir had not missed this time. His air of candid confidence had met with a quick response. He laughed again and moved towards the door. Mathilde stood motionless, and although she said no word, nor by any gesture bade him stay, he stopped on the threshold and turned again towards her.

"It was my conscience," he said, looking at her over his shoulder, "that bade me go."

Her face and her averted eyes asked why, but her straight lips were silent.

"Because I cannot claim to be more interesting than Charles Darragon," he hazarded. "And you, Mademoiselle, confess that you have no tolerance for a man who is in love."

"I have no tolerance for a man who is weakened by love. He should be strengthened and hardened by it."

"To--?"

"To do a man's work in the world," said Mathilde coldly.

De Casimir was standing by the open door. He closed it with his foot. He was professedly a man alert for the chance of a moment, which he was content to grasp without pausing to look ahead. Should there be difficulties yet unperceived, these in turn might present an opportunity to be seized by the quick-witted.

"Then you would admit, Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "that there may be good in a love that fights continually against ambition, and- -does not prevail."

Mathilde did not answer at once. There was an odd suggestion of antagonism in their attitude towards each other--not irreconcilable, the poets tell us, with love--but this is assuredly not the Love that comes from Heaven and will go back there to live through eternity.

"Yes," said she at length.

"Such is my love for you," he said, his quick instinct telling him that with Mathilde few words were best.

He only spoke the thoughts of his age; for ambition was the ruling passion in men's hearts at this time. All who served the Great Adventurer gave it the first place in their consideration, and de Casimir only aped his betters. Though oddly enough the only two of all the great leaders who were to emerge still greater from the coming war--Ney and Eugene--thought otherwise on these matters.

"I mean to be great and rich, Mademoiselle," he added after a pause. "I have risked my life for that purpose half a dozen times."

Mathilde stood looking across the room towards the window. He could only see her profile and the straight line of her lips. She too was the product of a generation in which men rose to dazzling heights without the aid of women.

"I should not have troubled you with these details, Mademoiselle," he said, watching her. His instinct was very keen, for not one woman in a thousand, even in those days, would have admitted that love was a detail. "I should not have mentioned it--had you not given me your views--so strangely in harmony with my own."

Whatever his nationality, his voice was that of a Pole--rich, musical, and expressive. He could have made, one would have thought, a very different sort of love had he wished, or had he been sincere. But he was an opportunist. This was the sort of love that Mathilde wanted.

He came a step nearer to her and stood resting on his sword--a lean hard man who had seen much war.

"Until you opened my eyes," he said, "I did not know, or did not care to know, that love, far from being a drag on ambition, may be a help."

Mathilde made a little movement towards him which she instantly repressed. The heart is quicker, but the head nearly always has the last word.

"Mademoiselle," he said--and no doubt he saw the movement and the restraint--"will you help me now at the beginning of the war, and listen to me again at the end of it--if I succeed?"

After all, he was modest in his demands.

"Will you help me? Together, Mademoiselle--to what height may we not rise in these days?"

There was a ring of sincerity in his voice, and her eyes answered it.

"How can I help you?" she asked in a doubting voice.

"Oh, it is a small matter," was the reply. "But it is one in which the Emperor is personally interested. Such things have a special attraction for him. The human interest never fails to hold his attention. If I do well, he will know it and remember me. It is a question, Mademoiselle, of secret societies. You know that Prussia is riddled with them."

Mathilde did not answer. He studied her face, which was clean cut and hard like a marble bust--a good face to hide a secret.

"It is my duty to watch here in Dantzig and to report to the Emperor. In serving myself I could also perhaps serve a friend, one who might otherwise run into danger--who may be in danger while you and I stand here. For the Emperor strikes hard and quickly. I speak of your father, Mademoiselle--and of the Tugendbund."

Still he could not see from the pale profile whether Mathilde knew anything at all.

"And if I procure information for you?" asked she at length, in a quiet and collected voice.

"You will help me to attain a position such as I could ask--even you--to share with me. And you would do your father no harm. You would even render him a service. For all the secret societies in Germany will not stop Napoleon. It is only God who can stop him now, Mademoiselle. All men who attempt it will only be crushed beneath the wheels. I might save your father."

But Mathilde did not seem to be thinking of her father.

"I am hampered by poverty," de Casimir said, changing his ground. "In the old days it did not matter. But now, in the Empire, one must be rich. I shall be rich--at the end of this campaign."

Again his voice was sincere, and again her eyes responded. He made a step forward, and gently taking her hand, he raised it to his lips.

"You will help me!" he said, and, turning abruptly on his heel, he left her.

De Casimir's quarters were in the Langenmarkt. On returning to them, he took from his despatch-case a letter which he turned over thoughtfully in his hand. It was addressed to Desiree, and sealed carefully with a wafer.

"She may as well have it," he said. "It will be as well that she should be occupied with her own affairs."

CHAPTER VIII.

A VISITATION.

Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.

Whenever Papa Barlasch caught sight of his unwilling host's face, he turned his own aside with a despairing upward nod. Once or twice, during the early days of his occupation of the room behind the kitchen in the Frauengasse, he smote himself sharply on the brow, as if calling upon his brain to make an effort. But afterwards he seemed to resign himself to this lapse of memory, and the upward despairing nod gradually lost intensity until at last he brought himself to pass Antoine Sebastian in the narrow passage with no more emphatic notice than a scowl.