It is doubtful if the Comte de Brencourt realised how his false tidings about her husband would sweep out of Mme de Trélan’s head almost all thought of himself, his proximity and his enterprise; and quite certain that he would not have been pleased had he known where she spent the greater part of the following morning. For she had deliberately gone up to a part of the chateau which she had not yet entered, a part shut to visitors—the Duc’s private apartments. Stripped, dusty, neglected, they were yet the rooms which Gaston had inhabited, and she wandered there too miserable, too self-reproachful even for weeping. Mort! the word with its hollow vowel seemed to go echoing through the emptiness that had once been so different. No chance now of reconciliation; no chance of that ultimate meeting somewhere, somehow, to the hope of which, in spite of herself, she knew at last that she had been desperately clinging—which had even, perhaps unknown to her, been the determining factor in her acceptance of the post at Mirabel. Whatever unsubstantial edifice she had been rearing was all in ruins now, and neither in pride and resentment, nor in the love that forgives everything, could they meet again on earth.
Now she knew the truth: she had always loved him, she always would. And since, in its own surroundings, there was not a single possession of his remaining, she went to the Galerie de Psyché, and, under the paintings of that wife of fable who also lost her mate, she knelt down by Gaston’s beautiful escritoire, and bowing her head upon it, kissed the place on the tortoiseshell where his hand had used to rest. He was dead—so what did it matter that he had long ceased to love her? He was dead; he was hers now; she could love for both.
It was neither a cleaning nor a visiting day, and Valentine could not be too thankful that, with these tidings fresh upon her heart, she would not be obliged to act just yet the intolerable part she had so lightly taken up. But, to her utter dismay, she heard, about two o’clock in the afternoon, voices on the steps leading down to her room, and then the sound of the entrance door opening, which showed that the arrivals must include her master Camain, who now used the key he had had, it appeared, all the time. And when Valentine went out unwillingly into the passage she found him in the midst of a whole cortège of visitors, mostly feminine. Hanging on to his arm was a pretty, plump woman of about thirty-five, whom she recognised at once from the frequent prints of her in Paris. It was Rose Dufour, the actress of the Ambigu-Comique.
A violent gust of repulsion went through the Duchesse de Trélan. True, she had never been able to believe that her husband had really admired Mlle Dufour, but nine or ten years ago rumour had certainly linked their names for a space, and to see her in person to-day, of all days . . .
“Ha, here is our good friend, Mme Vidal!” said Camain, advancing. “Rose, if you wish to leave your wrap in her care——” And without waiting for permission he removed from the nymph’s very scantily attired shoulders a handsome pelisse of violet satin edged with ermine.
“Good God, Camain, do you want me to die of cold in your old tomb of a chateau!” exclaimed she, snatching at it.
“Well, it is true that you will not be suffocated without it. You might almost as well have nothing on,” observed her admirer frankly, looking at her transparent white muslin gown of classic cut, worn slightly damp, according to the insane fashion of the day, to make it cling. Even Mlle Dufour’s arms were bare to the shoulder, for the actress was not of those who had to endure the accusation launched at the wearers of sleeves, that they feared to show those members. And her mythological garb, slit for a considerable distance up the side, revealed the golden fastenings of the buskin clambering half-way up her leg, where a gilded acorn clasped them. For that reason, presumably, she was not wearing, like one of her companions, a jewelled thong around her ankle. But upon her fair coiffure—probably a wig, for which the rage was extreme—rose a confection of lilac crêpe, adorned with two rows of pearls and surmounted by a rose and a pansy.
Valentine had turned her back, pretending to be busy. For nothing on earth would she touch any of that creature’s belongings! However, the dispute about the pelisse resolved itself into the lady’s decreeing that her swain should carry it over his arm, lest she should wish to resume it, and presently the whole party, laughing and talking, swept up the stairway to the ground floor. Mme de Trélan, conscious of jangled nerves, would fain have stayed behind, but Camain insisted on her accompanying them, as was indeed her duty. He did not present her to his mistress, but his affability stopped short only of that mark of distinction.
In the great Salle Verte, for which they presently made, he acted showman, while many remarks were passed on its size and decorations, and surmises made as to what scenes (“orgies,” one of the male members of the party termed them) had occurred in it.
“And there is an inner room, somewhat curious,” said the Deputy. “It was designed, I believe, to be a sort of retreat for the prince—since the chateau, as I daresay you know, was originally built for King Fran?ois I. It is worth looking at, Mesdames.” So the company obediently followed him along the Salle Verte.
Valentine was conscious of a violent wish that they should not enter the sallette. Till this moment she had been too much absorbed in the thought of her dead husband to give much consideration to the Comte de Brencourt and his doings. Now, although she knew that he had not attacked the masonry, and although he would surely not be so rash as to attempt anything in daylight, she had a premonition of disaster. But Camain waved his hand towards the door, and there was nothing for it but to open it.
However, to Mme de Trélan’s great relief—for she had somehow, against her better sense, expected to see de Brencourt standing where she had found him last night—the sallette was empty. And the company were called on by the Deputy to admire the cheminée royale, with its carving of Apollo and Daphne, and its nymph and pipe-playing satyr on either side, but some of the ladies, unversed in mythological lore, despite their present attire, were intrigued by the main subject, and among these was the Citoyenne Dufour.
“What on earth is happening to that woman, Camain?” she demanded. “Her arms are sprouting at the ends. And who is the man?”
“That, ma belle,” responded her admirer, “is the nymph Daphne, turning into a laurel to escape the attentions of the god Apollo—a pretty prudery not likely, I fancy, to find many imitators in these days, eh, ladies?”
Violent protests from the ladies of the party.
“Oh, oh, Citizen Deputy, you have left some fleur-de-lys on the wall!” observed one of them. “Is that to be on the safe side—in case a Bourbon should return?”
“Fleur-de-lys? Nonsense!” returned M. Camain, putting up his spy-glass to look at the poor scorched remnant of tapestry hanging there. “Those things you see round that bit of border are . . . humming-birds, heraldic humming-birds!”
Much laughter greeted this sally. “And what is this queer long beast over the hearth?” demanded another voice.
“With a crown on its head, too! Oh fie!”
“It is not, at any rate,” said one of the two youngish men of the party, in the extraordinary lisp cultivated by the would-be fashionable, “the strange fowl to whose nest some one has set fire just as she was going to lay, which we saw in the Salle Verte!”
So it went on, the flow of humour; and after visiting most of the apartments on the first floor, where M. Camain tripped badly as an expositor of the story of Psyche, and where Valentine’s own apartments, though arousing much interest, were voted horribly old-fashioned in decoration, they came to the second, to the door of the locked gallery with the china and portraits. Mme de Trélan had hoped that she might have been spared that—for how should she look upon that portrait in primrose satin to-day?—and sick at heart as never before, she had contrived to trail behind. She heard Camain’s voice explaining what was in the room while he waited for her to unlock the door. Then she realised that the key, being a special one, was not on the concierge’s bunch, and that she had in consequence forgotten to bring it with her. She came forward and said so. “But I will go and fetch it instantly, Monsieur le Député.”
“Do, pray,—though I regret to put you to the trouble,” said her employer. “Meanwhile, ladies, come out on to this balcony, and you will see——”
Valentine hastened down the nearest stairs. Better to get it over as soon as possible, the visit to that room, for it had to be gone through with, and she had no one but herself to thank for that fact.
She had come down a minor staircase which deposited her at some distance from her own quarters, and having arrived on the basement floor she began to run, for she was still as light-footed as a girl, and she had a constitutional dislike, for all her upbringing, to keeping people waiting. And thus, round a corner, she almost collided with a man hastening in the opposite direction. A second of stupefaction, and she saw that it was the Comte de Brencourt.
“What!” she stammered out. “M. le Comte—what madness! Camain is here himself!”
“I know!” returned he rather breathlessly. “They are after me—never mind what happened—a folly of my own. I am trying to get as far away from your rooms as possible.”
“But for God’s sake go back there!” said the Duchesse, seizing hold of his arm, and all but pushing him. “Go to my room—you will be safe there. They will not go in!”
“Never!” he exclaimed. “The last thing I should do—compromise you in this affair!” And breaking away from her he disappeared without another word, and was out of sight or hearing before she could even think of some spot in which he could hide. And since her quick wit told her that any delay in returning with the key might lead to Camain himself descending to investigate, she ran on to her little parlour, snatched it up and set off again with all haste. Terrible though it was to leave the Comte to his fate, or at least to his own devices—for she heard no sounds of pursuit yet—it was out of her power to help him now.
From what she caught, as she returned to............