The Rafael Sabatini Megapack. Rafael Sabatini

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      She looked at him in frank surprise.

      “Do you know, Andre, I sometimes think that you have no heart.”

      “Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence. And what of yourself, Aline? What of your own attitude from the outset where M. de La Tour d’Azyr is concerned? Does that show heart? If I were to tell you what it really shows, we should end by quarrelling again, and God knows I can’t afford to quarrel with you now. I…I shall take another way.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Why, nothing at the moment, for you are not in any danger of marrying that animal.”

      “And if I were?”

      “Ah! In that case affection for you would discover to me some means of preventing it—unless…” He paused.

      “Unless?” she demanded, challengingly, drawn to the full of her sort height, her eyes imperious.

      “Unless you could also tell me that you loved him,” said he simply, whereat she was as suddenly and most oddly softened. And then he added, shaking his head: “But that of course is impossible.”

      “Why?” she asked him, quite gently now.

      “Because you are what you are, Aline—utterly good and pure and adorable. Angels do not mate with devils. His wife you might become, but never his mate, Aline—never.”

      They had reached the wrought-iron gates at the end of the avenue. Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a stand-still beside the yellow chaise—a handsome equipage with polished mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung to earth to throw wide the gates; but in that moment the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving Aline, waved to her and issued a command.

      CHAPTER V

      MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL

      The postilion drew rein, and the footman opened the door, letting down the steps and proffering his arm to his mistress to assist her to alight, since that was the wish she had expressed. Then he opened one wing of the iron gates, and held it for her. She was a woman of something more than forty, who once must have been very lovely, who was very lovely still with the refining quality that age brings to some women. Her dress and carriage alike advertised great rank.

      “I take my leave here, since you have a visitor,” said Andre-Louis.

      “But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre. You remember Mme. la Comtesse de Plougastel?”

      He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now hastening forward to meet, and because she was named to him he recognized her. He must, he thought, had he but looked, have recognized her without prompting anywhere at any time, and this although it was some sixteen years since last he had seen her. The sight of her now brought it all back to him—a treasured memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid by subsequent events.

      When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes, she had come on a visit to his godfather, who was her cousin. It happened that at the time he was taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and there he had been presented to Mme. de Plougastel. The great lady, in all the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle, cultured voice—so cultured that she had seemed to speak a language almost unknown to the little Breton lad—and her majestic air of the great world, had scared him a little at first. Very gently had she allayed those fears of his, and by some mysterious enchantment she had completely enslaved his regard. He recalled now the terror in which he had gone to the embrace to which he was bidden, and the subsequent reluctance with which he had left those soft round arms. He remembered, too, how sweetly she had smelled and the very perfume she had used, a perfume as of lilac—for memory is singularly tenacious in these matters.

      For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac, he had gone daily to the manor, and so had spent hours in her company. A childless woman with the maternal instinct strong within her, she had taken this precociously intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart.

      “Give him to me, Cousin Quintin,” he remembered her saying on the last of those days to his godfather. “Let me take him back with me to Versailles as my adopted child.”

      But the Seigneur had gravely shaken his head in silent refusal, and there had been no further question of such a thing. And then, when she said good-bye to him—the thing came flooding back to him now—there had been tears in her eyes.

      “Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis,” had been her last words.

      He remembered how flattered he had been to have won within so short a time the affection of this great lady. The thing had given him a sense of importance that had endured for months thereafter, finally to fade into oblivion.

      But all was vividly remembered now upon beholding her again, after sixteen years, profoundly changed and matured, the girl—for she had been no more in those old days—sunk in this worldly woman with the air of calm dignity and complete self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he must have known her anywhere again.

      Aline embraced her affectionately, and then answering the questioning glance with faintly raised eyebrows that madame was directing towards Aline’s companion—

      “This is Andre-Louis,” she said. “You remember Andre-Louis, madame?”

      Madame checked. Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple over her face, taking with it some of her colour, leaving her for a moment breathless.

      And then the voice—the well-remembered rich, musical voice—richer and deeper now than of yore, repeated his name:

      “Andre-Louis!”

      Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened memories, memories perhaps of the departed youth with which it was associated. And she paused a long moment, considering him, a little wide-eyed, what time he bowed before her.

      “But of course I remember him,” she said at last, and came towards him, putting out her hand. He kissed it dutifully, submissively, instinctively. “And this is what you have grown into?” She appraised him, and he flushed with pride at the satisfaction in her tone. He seemed to have gone back sixteen years, and to be again the little Breton lad at Gavrillac. She turned to Aline. “How mistaken Quintin was in his assumptions. He was pleased to see him again, was he not?”

      “So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door,” said Andre-Louis.

      “Ah!” She frowned, conning him still with those dark, wistful eyes of hers. “We must change that, Aline. He is of course very angry with you. But it is not the way to make converts. I will plead for you, Andre-Louis. I am a good advocate.”

      He thanked her and took his leave.

      “I leave my case in your hands with gratitude. My homage, madame.”

      And so it happened that in spite of his godfather’s forbidding reception of him, the fragment of a song was on his lips as his yellow chaise whirled him back to Paris and the Rue du Hasard. That meeting with Mme. de Plougastel had enheartened him; her promise to plead his case in alliance with Aline gave him assurance that all СКАЧАТЬ