The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ shams to claim the core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender all for a parcel of make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr.”

      “You are indelicate,” said she, and though she frowned her eyes laughed. “And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to more than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip.”

      He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his pale cheeks.

      “You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!” he cried. “Ah, well, I forgive you out of my relief.”

      “Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre I have permitted my uncle to consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look of the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting to be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and I think, when all is considered, that I shall probably — very probably — decide to do so.”

      He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the life seemed to go out of his own countenance.

      “God help you, Aline!” he groaned.

      She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating, and something presumptuous too, she thought.

      “You are insolent, monsieur.”

      “It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than pray, as I shall continue to do. You’ll need my prayers, I think.”

      “You are insufferable!” She was growing angry, as he saw by the deepening frown, the heightened colour.

      “That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think well of what you do; think well of the realities you will be bartering for these shams — the realities that you will never know, because these cursed shams will block your way to them. When M. de La Tour d’Azyr comes to make his court, study him well; consult your fine instincts; leave your own noble nature free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider that . . . ”

      “I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness I have always shown you. You abuse the position of toleration in which you stand. Who are you? What are you, that you should have the insolence to take this tone with me?”

      He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and resumed the mockery that was his natural habit.

      “My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play.”

      “Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur,” she retorted angrily, and turned her shoulder to him.

      “To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I hope I shall know my place in future.”

      The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him was quenched in contrition.

      “Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!” he cried, as he advanced. “Forgive me if you can.”

      Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition removed the need.

      “I’ll try,” said she, “provided that you undertake not to offend again.”

      “But I shall,” said he. “I am like that. I will fight to save you, from yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not.”

      They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.

      First came the Marquis of La Tour d’Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies of the King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was magnificently dressed in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered silk; he carried a little three-cornered hat under his arm, and a gold-hilted slender dress-sword hung at his side.

      Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre–Louis trembled for Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands with attractive wives.

      He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast. On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance was pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point of untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never married — disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself with an heir — he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by the countryside.

      After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.

      To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s cousin, who whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable interest — his own presence unsuspected — the perambulations of Andre–Louis and mademoiselle.

      Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d’Azyr detached himself from the others, and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.

      To Andre–Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he ranked neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the two classes, and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly by both. Coldly now he returned M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s greeting, and discreetly removed himself to go and join his friend.

      The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing over it, bore it to his lips.

      “Mademoiselle,” he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that met his gaze smiling and untroubled, “monsieur your uncle does me the honour to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle, do me the honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have something of great importance for your ear.”

      “Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me.” But there was no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not for nothing that she had graduated in the Versailles school of artificialities.

      “That,” said he, “is very far from my design.”

      “But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?”

      “To us both, I hope,” he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine, ardent eyes.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ