"You think that?"
"Oh, I know it! You arrive in a bad moment. He is peevish and cross-grained, poor man, since he came here. These soft surroundings are all so strange to him. He wearies himself away from his beloved Gavrillac, his hunting and tillage, and the truth is that in his mind he very largely blames you for what has happened--for the necessity, or at least, the wisdom, of this change. Brittany, you must know, was becoming too unsafe. The chateau of La Tour d"Azyr, amongst others, was burnt to the ground some months ago. At any moment, given a fresh excitement, it may be the turn of Gavrillac. And for this and his present discomfort he blames you and your friends. But he will come round presently. He will be sorry that he sent you away like this--for I know that he loves you, Andre, in spite of all. I shall reason with him when the time comes. And then we shall want to know where to find you."
"At number 13, Rue du Hasard. The number is unlucky, the name of the street appropriate. Therefore both are easy to remember."
She nodded. "I will walk with you to the gates." And side by side now they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the long avenue in the June sunshine dappled by the shadows of the bordering trees. "You are looking well, Andre; and do you know that you have changed a deal? I am glad that you have prospered." And then, abruptly changing the subject before he had time to answer her, she came to the matter uppermost in her mind.
"I have so wanted to see you in all these months, Andre. You were the only one who could help me; the only one who could tell me the truth, and I was angry with you for never having written to say where you were to be found."
"Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met in Nantes."
"What? Still resentful?"
"I am never resentful. You should know that." He expressed one of his vanities. He loved to think himself a Stoic. "But I still bear the scar of a wound that would be the better for the balm of your retraction."
"Why, then, I retract, Andre. And now tell me."
"Yes, a self-seeking retraction," said he. "You give me something that you may obtain something." He laughed quite pleasantly. "Well, well; command me."
"Tell me, Andre." She paused, as if in some difficulty, and then went on, her eyes upon the ground: "Tell me--the truth of that event at the Feydau."
The request fetched a frown to his brow. He suspected at once the thought that prompted it. Quite simply and briefly he gave her his version of the affair.
She listened very attentively. When he had done she sighed; her face was very thoughtful.
"That is much what I was told," she said. "But it was added that M.
de La Tour d"Azyr had gone to the theatre expressly for the purpose of breaking finally with La Binet. Do you know if that was so?"
"I don"t; nor of any reason why it should be so. La Binet provided him the sort of amus.e.m.e.nt that he and his kind are forever craving..."
"Oh, there was a reason," she interrupted him. "I was the reason.
I spoke to Mme. de Sautron. I told her that I would not continue to receive one who came to me contaminated in that fashion." She spoke of it with obvious difficulty, her colour rising as he watched her half-averted face.
"Had you listened to me..." he was beginning, when again she interrupted him.
"M. de Sautron conveyed my decision to him, and afterwards represented him to me as a man in despair, repentant, ready to give proofs--any proofs--of his sincerity and devotion to me. He told me that M. de La Tour d"Azyr had sworn to him that he would cut short that affair, that he would see La Binet no more. And then, on the very next day I heard of his having all but lost his life in that riot at the theatre. He had gone straight from that interview with M. de Sautron, straight from those protestations of future wisdom, to La Binet. I was indignant. I p.r.o.nounced myself finally. I stated definitely that I would not in any circ.u.mstances receive M. de La Tour d"Azyr again! And then they pressed this explanation upon me. For a long time I would not believe it."
"So that you believe it now," said Andre quickly. "Why?"
"I have not said that I believe it now. But... but... neither can I disbelieve. Since we came to Meudon M. de La Tour d"Azyr has been here, and himself he has sworn to me that it was so."
"Oh, if M. de La Tour d"Azyr has sworn..." Andre-Louis was laughing on a bitter note of sarcasm.
"Have you ever known him lie?" she cut in sharply. That checked him.
"M. de La Tour d"Azyr is, after all, a man of honour, and men of honour never deal in falsehood. Have you ever known him do so, that you should sneer as you have done?"
"No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that he should admit that virtue at least in his enemy. "I have not known him lie, it is true. His kind is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth.
But I have known him do things as vile..."
"Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the code by which she had been reared. "It is for liars only--who are first cousin to thieves--that there is no hope. It is in falsehood only that there is real loss of honour."
"You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
"I desire to be just."
"Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last you shall have resolved yourself to become Marquise de La Tour d"Azyr." He spoke bitterly.
"I don"t think that I shall ever take that resolve."
"But you are still not sure--in spite of everything."
"Can one ever be sure of anything in this world?"
"Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
"You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not as M. de La Tour d"Azyr a.s.serts--that he went to the Feydau that night?"
"I don"t," he admitted. "It is of course possible. But does it matter?"
"It might matter. Tell me; what became of La Binet after all?"
"I don"t know."
"You don"t know?" She turned to consider him. "And you can say it with that indifference! I thought... I thought you loved her, Andre."
"So did I, for a little while. I was mistaken. It required a La Tour d"Azyr to disclose the truth to me. They have their uses, these gentlemen. They help stupid fellows like myself to perceive important truths. I was fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I can now look back upon the episode with equanimity and thankfulness for my near escape from the consequences of what was no more than an aberration of the senses. It is a thing commonly confused with love. The experience, as you see, was very instructive."
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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 short 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.