cted
demoiselle."
     "Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married?"
     "If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge of them. It... it
deflowers  your  innocence.  I  would  not for the world that  M. de La Tour
d'Azyr should know you so extraordinarily instructed. Had you  been properly
reared in a convent this would never have happened to you."
     "But you do not answer me, madame!" cried Aline in despair. "It  is not
my chastity that is in question; but that of M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
     "Chastity!" Madame's  lips trembled  with horror. Horror overspread her
face. "Wherever did you learn that dreadful, that so improper word?"
     And  then  Mme. de Sautron did violence to  her feelings. She  realized
that here great  calm and prudence were  required. "My child, since you know
so much that you ought not to know, there can be no harm in my adding that a
gentleman must have these little distractions."
     "But why, madame? Why is it so?"
     "Ah, mon Dieu, you are asking me riddles of nature. It is so because it
is so. Because men are like that."
     "Because men are  beasts, you mean  - which is  what I began by  asking
you."
     "You are incorrigibly stupid, Aline."
     "You mean that  I do  not  see things  as you  do,  madame.  I  am  not
over-expectant as you appear to think; yet surely I have the right to expect
that whilst M. de La Tour d'Azyr is wooing me, he shall not be wooing at the
same time  a drab  of the theatre.  I feel that in  this  there is a  subtle
association of myself with that unspeakable creature which soils and insults
me. The Marquis is a dullard whose wooing  takes the form at best of stilted
compliments,  stupid and unoriginal. They  gain nothing  when they fall from
lips still warm from the contamination of that woman's kisses."
     So utterly  scandalized was  madame  that  for a  moment  she  remained
speechless. Then -
     "Mon Dieu!" she  exclaimed.  "I should never have suspected  you of  so
indelicate an imagination."
     "I cannot help it, madame. Each time his lips touch my fingers  I  find
myself thinking of the last object that  they touched. I  at once retire  to
wash my hands. Next time, madame, unless  you are good  enough to  convey my
message to him, I shall call for water and wash them in his presence."
     "But what am I  to  tell him?  How... in what words can I convey such a
message?" Madame was aghast.
     "Be  frank with him, madame.  It  is easiest in the end.  Tell him that
however impure may have been his  life in the past, however impure he intend
that it  shall be  in the  future,  he must  at  least study  purity  whilst
approaching with a view to marriage a virgin who is herself pure and without
stain."
     Madame recoiled,  and  put her hands to her ears, horror stamped on her
handsome face. Her massive bosom heaved.
     "Oh, how can you?" she panted.  "How can you  make use of such terrible
expressions? Wherever have you learnt them?"
     "In church," said Aline.
     "Ah, but in  church  many  things are said that... that  one would  not
dream of saying in the world. My dear child, how could I possibly say such a
thing to M. le Marquis? How could I possibly?"
     "Shall I say it?"
     "Aline!"
     "Well, there it  is," said Aline. "Something must be done to shelter me
from insult. I am utterly disgusted with M. le Marquis
     -  a disgusting  man.  And  however fine a  thing it  may be to  become
Marquise  de La Tour d'Azyr,  why, frankly,  I'd sooner marry a  cobbler who
practised decency."
     Such was her vehemence and obvious  determination that  Mme. de Sautron
fetched  herself  out of  her despair  to attempt persuasion. Aline  was her
niece, and such a marriage in the family would be to the credit of the whole
of it. At all costs nothing must frustrate it.
     "Listen, my dear," she said. "Let us  reason. M. le Marquis is away and
will not be back until to-morrow."
     "True. And I  know where he  has  gone - or at  least whom he  has gone
with. Mon Dieu, and the drab has a father and a lout of a fellow who intends
to make her his wife, and neither of them chooses to  do anything. I suppose
they agree with you, madame,  that  a great gentleman  must have his  little
distractions." Her  contempt was as scorching as a thing of fire.  "However,
madame, you were about to say?"
     "That on the day  after to-morrow you are returning to Gavrillac. M. de
La Tour d'Azyr will most likely follow at his leisure."
     "You mean when this dirty candle is burnt out?"
     "Call  it  what  you  will."  Madame,  you  see, despaired  by  now  of
controlling the impropriety  of her niece's expressions. "At Gavrillac there
will be no Mlle. Binet. This thing will be  in  the past. It  is unfortunate
that  he should have met her at such a moment. The chit is very  attractive,
after all. You cannot deny that. And you must make allowances."
     "M.  le Marquis formally proposed to me a  week ago. Partly  to satisfy
the wishes of  the  family,  and  partly...  "  She broke  off, hesitating a
moment, to resume on a  note of dull  pain, "Partly because it does not seem
greatly to matter whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent, for the
reasons I have given you, madame, I desire now definitely to withdraw."
     Madame  fell  into  agitation of the  wildest.  "Aline, I should  never
forgive you! Your uncle Quintin would be  in  despair. You do not know  what
you are saying, what a  wonderful thing you are refusing. Have you  no sense
of your position, of the station into which you were born?"
     "If I had not,  madame, I should have made an end long since. If I have
tolerated  this  suit for  a  single  moment,  it  is because  I realize the
importance  of  a suitable marriage  in  the worldly  sense.  But  I ask  of
marriage something more; and Uncle Quintin  has  placed the  decision  in my
hands."
     "God forgive him!" said madame. And then she hurried on: "Leave this to
me  now, Aline. Be  guided by me - oh,  be  guided  by  me!"  Her  tone  was
beseeching.  "I  will  take  counsel  with your  uncle  Charles. But  do not
definitely decide until this unfortunate affair has blown over. Charles will
know  how to arrange it. M. le  Marquis shall do penance, child,  since your
tyranny demands it; but not in sackcloth and ashes. you'll not ask so much?"
     Aline  shrugged. "I ask nothing  at  all," she said, which  was neither
assent nor dissent.
     So Mme.  de Sautron interviewed her husband, a slight, middle-aged man,
very aristocratic in appearance and gifted with a certain shrewd sense.  She
took with him precisely the tone that Aline had taken with herself and which
in  Aline  she  had found so disconcertingly indelicate.  She even  borrowed
several of Aline's phrases.
     The result was that on the Monday afternoon when at  last M. de La Tour
d'Azyr's returning berline  drove up to the  chateau, he  was  met by  M. le
Comte de Sautron who desired a word with him even before he changed.
     "Gervais,  you're a  fool,"  was  the  excellent opening made by  M. le
Comte.
     "Charles,  you  give me  no news,"  answered  M.  le Marquis. "Of  what
particular folly do you take the trouble to complain?"
     He flung  himself  wearily upon  a  sofa,  and  his  long graceful body
sprawling  there he looked up at his friend with a tired smile on that nobly
handsome pale face that seemed to defy the onslaught of age.
     "Of your last. This Binet girl."
     "That! Pooh! An incident; hardly a folly."
     "A folly -  at  such a time,"  Sautron  insisted. The  Marquis looked a
question. The  Count answered  it. "Aline," said he, pregnantly. "She knows.
How she knows I can't tell you, but she knows, and she is deeply offended."
     The smile perished on the Marquis' face. He gathered himself up.
     "Offended?" said he, and his voice was anxious.
     "But yes. You know what she is. You  know the ideals she has formed. It
wounds  her that at such a  time - whilst you  are here  for  the purpose of
wooing her -  you should at the same time be pursuing  this affair with that
chit of a Binet girl."
     "How do you know?" asked La Tour d'Azyr.
     "She has confided  in  her aunt. And  the poor child seems to have some
reason. She says she will not tolerate that you should come to kiss her hand
with  lips  that  are  still contaminated  from... Oh, you  understand.  You
appreciate the impression of such a  thing upon a pure, sensitive  girl such
as Aline. She said - I had better tell you - that the next time you kiss her
hand, she will call for water and wash it in your presence."
     The  Marquis'  face  flamed  scarlet.  He  rose. Knowing  his  violent,
intolerant spirit,  M.  de  Sautron was prepared for  an  outburst.  But  no
outburst  came. The Marquis turned away  from him,  and paced  slowly to the
window,  his head bowed, his hands behind his  back. Halted there he  spoke,
without turning, his voice was at once scornful and wistful.
     "You  are right,  Charles, I  am a fool - a wicked  fool!  I  have just
enough  sense left to perceive it. It is the way I have  lived, I suppose. I
have never known the need to deny myself anything  I  wanted." Then suddenly
he swung round, and  the outburst came. "But, my God, I want Aline as I have
never wanted  anything yet! I  think I should kill myself in rage if through
my folly I should have lost her." He struck his  brow with his hand. "I am a
beast!" he said. "I should  have known that if  that sweet saint got word of
these petty devilries of mine she would despise me; and I tell you, Charles,
I'd go through fire to regain her respect."
     "I hope it is to  be regained on easier terms," said  Charles; and then
to  ease  the situation which  began to  irk him by its solemnity, he made a
feeble joke. "It  is merely asked of you that you refrain from going through
certain  fires  that are not accounted  by mademoiselle of too  purifying  a
nature."
     "As to that Binet girl, it is finished - finished," said the Marquis.
     "I congratulate you. When did you make that decision?"
     "This moment. I would to God I had made it twenty-four hours ago. As it
is-" he shrugged - "why, twenty-four hours of her have been enough for me as
they would have been for any man - a mercenary, self-seeking  little baggage
with the soul of a trull. Bah!" He shuddered in disgust of himself and her.
     "Ah! That makes it easier for you," said M. de Sautron, cynically.
     Don't  say it, Charles.  It is not so. Had you been less of a fool, you
would have warned me sooner."
     "I may  prove to  have warned you soon enough  if you'll profit  by the
warning."
     "There is  no penance I will not do.  I  will prostrate myself  at  her
feet. I will  abase myself before her. I will  make confession in the proper
spirit  of contrition,  and  Heaven helping  me, I'll  keep to my purpose of
amendment for her sweet sake." He was tragically in earnest.
     To M.  de Sautron,  who had never  seen him  other than self-contained,
supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing revelation. He shrank from it
almost; it  gave him the feeling of prying, of peeping through a keyhole. He
slapped his friend's shoulder.
     "My dear Gervais, here  is a magnificently romantic mood.  Enough said.
Keep to  it, and I  promise you that all will presently be well.  I will  be
your ambassador, and you shall have no cause to complain."
     "But may I not go to her myself?"
     "If you are wise you will at once efface yourself. Write to her  if you
will - make  your act of  contrition by letter. I will explain why you  have
gone without seeing her. I will tell her that you did so upon my advice, and
I will do it tactfully. I am a good diplomat, Gervais. Trust me."
     M. le Marquis raised his head, and showed a face that pain was searing.
He held out  his  hand. "Very well,  Charles. Serve me in this, and count me
your friend in all things."

        CHAPTER XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAUI


     Leaving his host to  act  as his plenipotentiary with  Mademoiselle  de
Kercadiou, and to explain  to her that it was his  profound  contrition that
compelled him to  depart without  taking formal  leave  of  her, the Marquis
rolled away  from  Sautron  in a cloud of gloom. Twenty-four  hours  with La
Binet had  been more than  enough for a man of his fastidious and discerning
taste.  He  looked  back  upon the  episode with  nausea  -  the  inevitable
psychological  reaction -  marvelling  at himself  that until  yesterday  he
should have found her so desirable, and cursing himself that for the sake of
that  ephemeral  and   worthless  gratification  he  should  seriously  have
imperilled his chances of winning  Mademoiselle de Kercadiou to  wife. There
is, after all,  nothing very extraordinary in his  frame of mind, so that  I
need  not elaborate  it further. It resulted from the conflict  between  the
beast and the angel that go to make up the composition of every man.
     The  Chevalier  de  Chabrillane -  who in  reality occupied towards the
Marquis  a position  akin to that of gentleman-in-waiting -  sat opposite to
him  in  the enormous  travelling  berline. A  small folding table had  been
erected between them, and the Chevalier suggested piquet. But M. le  Marquis
was in no humour for cards. His thoughts absorbed him. As they were rattling
over the cobbles of  Nantes' streets, he remembered a promise to La Binet to
witness  her performance that night in "The Faithless Lover." And now he was
running away from her.  The thought was  repugnant to him on two scores.  He
was breaking his pledged word, and  he was acting  like  a coward. And there
was  more than that. He had led the mercenary little strumpet -  it was thus
he thought of her at present, and with some justice - to expect favours from
him  in addition  to the  lavish awards which  already he had made her.  The
baggage had almost sought to drive a  bargain with him as to  her future. He
was to take her to Paris, put her into her own furniture - as the expression
ran, and  still runs - and under  the shadow  of his powerful protection see
that the doors  of the great theatres of the capital should be opened to her
talents.  He  had  not -  he was thankful  to  reflect  - exactly  committed
himself. But neither had  he definitely refused her. It became necessary now
to  come to an understanding, since he  was compelled to choose  between his
trivial passion for her -  a passion quenched already - and his deep, almost
spiritual devotion to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
     His honour, he considered,  demanded  of  him  that  he should at  once
deliver  himself from  a false  position. La  Binet would make a  scene,  of
course; but he knew the proper specific to apply to hysteria of that nature.
Money, after all, has its uses.
     He pulled  the cord. The  carriage rolled to  a  standstill; a  footman
appeared at the door.
     "To the Theatre Feydau," said he.
     The footman  vanished  and  the berline  rolled  on. M.  de Chabrillane
laughed cynically.
     "I'll  trouble you  not to be amused,"  snapped the Marquis. "You don't
understand." Thereafter he explained himself. It was a rare condescension in
him. But, then, he could  not  bear  to be misunderstood  in such a  matter.
Chabrillane grew serious in reflection of the Marquis' extreme seriousness.
     "Why not write?" he suggested. "Myself, I confess that I should find it
easier.
     Nothing could  better have  revealed M. le  Marquis' state of mind than
his answer.
     "Letters  are liable  both to miscarriage  and  to misconstruction. Two
risks I will  not run. If she did not answer, I should never know  which had
been incurred. And  I shall have no peace of  mind  until I know that I have
set a term to this affair. The berline can wait while we are at the theatre.
We will go on afterwards. We will travel all night if necessary."
     "Peste!" said M. de Chabrillane with a grimace. But that was all.
     The great  travelling carriage drew  up at the  lighted portals of  the
Feydau,  and  M.  le  Marquis  stepped out.  He  entered  the  theatre  with
Chabrillane,  all  unconsciously  to  deliver  himself  into  the  hands  of
Andre-Louis.
     Andre-Louis was in a  state of exasperation produced by Climene's  long
absence  from  Nantes  in  the  company  of M. le  Marquis,  and fed by  the
unspeakable complacency with which  M.  Binet  regarded  that event of quite
unmistakable import.
     However much he might affect the frame of mind  of the stoics, and seek
to  judge  with  a  complete  detachment,  in  the  heart  and  soul of  him
Andre-Louis was tormented and revolted. It was not Climene he blamed. He had
been mistaken in her. She was just a poor weak vessel  driven helplessly  by
the first breath, however foul,  that promised her advancement. She suffered
from  the  plague  of  greed;  and  he  congratulated  himself  upon  having
discovered it before making her his wife. He felt for her now nothing but  a
deal of pity and some contempt.  The pity was begotten  of the  love she had
lately inspired in him. It  might be likened to the  dregs of love, all that
remained  after the potent wine of  it  had been  drained off. His anger  he
reserved for her father and her seducer.
     The thoughts that were  stirring in him on that Monday morning, when it
was discovered  that  Climene had not yet returned from her excursion of the
previous day  in the coach  of  M. le Marquis, were  already  wicked  enough
without the spurring they received from the distraught Leandre.
     Hitherto the attitude of each of these men  towards the  other had been
one of mutual contempt.  The phenomenon has frequently been observed in like
cases. Now, what appeared to be a common misfortune brought them into a sort
of alliance. So, at  least,  it seemed to  Leandre when he went in quest  of
Andre-Louis, who with apparent unconcern was smoking  a pipe  upon the  quay
immediately facing the inn.
     "Name of a pig!" said Leandre. "How can you take your ease and smoke at
such a time?"
     Scaramouche surveyed the sky.  "I  do not find it  too  cold," said he.
"The sun is shining. I am very well here."
     "Do I talk of the weather?" Leandre was very excited.
     "Of what, then?"
     "Of Climene, of course."
     "Oh! The lady has ceased to interest me," he lied.
     Leandre stood squarely  in front of him, a  handsome figure  handsomely
dressed in these days, his hair  well  powdered, his  stockings of silk. His
face was pale, his large eyes looked larger than usual.
     "Ceased  to  interest  you?  Are  you  not to  marry her?"  Andre-Louis
expelled a cloud  of smoke. "You cannot wish to be offensive. Yet you almost
suggest that I live on other men's leavings."
     "My God!" said  Leandre, overcome, and he  stared awhile. Then he burst
out afresh. "Are you quite heartless? Are you always Scaramouche?"
     "What do  you expect me to do?" asked Andre-Louis, evincing surprise in
his own turn, but faintly.
     "I do not expect you to let her go without a struggle."
     "But she  has  gone already."  Andre-Louis pulled at his pipe a moment,
what time Leandre clenched and unclenched his hands  in impotent  rage. "And
to  what  purpose struggle against the  inevitable? Did you struggle  when I
took her from you?"
     "She was not  mine to be taken from  me. I but aspired, and you won the
race.  But even had  it been  otherwise where is the comparison? That  was a
thing in honour; this - this is hell."
     His emotion  moved Andre-Louis.  He  took Leandre's arm. "You're a good
fellow, Leandre. I am glad I intervened to save you from your fate."
     "Oh, you don't love her!"  cried the other,  passionately.  "You  never
did. You don't  know what it means  to love, or you'd not talk like this. My
God! if she had been  my affianced wife and this had happened, I should have
killed the man - killed him!  Do you hear me? But you... Oh,  you, you  come
out here and smoke,  and  take  the  air,  and talk  of her as another man's
leavings. I wonder I didn't strike you for the word."
     He tore his arm from the other's grip, and looked almost as if he would
strike him now.
     "You should have done it," said Andre-Louis. "It's in your part."
     With  an imprecation  Leandre  turned  on  his heel to  go. Andre-Louis
arrested his departure.
     "A moment, my friend. Test me by yourself. Would you marry her now?"
     "Would I?"  The young man's eyes blazed with passion. "Would I? Let her
say that she will marry me, and I am her slave."
     "Slave is the right word - a slave in hell."
     "It would never  be hell to me where she  was, whatever she had done. I
love her, man, I am not like you. I love her, do you hear me?"
     "I have known, it  for some time,"  said Andre-Louis.  "Though I didn't
suspect your attack of the disease to be quite so violent. Well, God knows I
loved  her, too, quite enough to share your  thirst for killing. For myself,
the blue blood of La Tour d'Azyr would hardly  quench this  thirst. I should
like to add to it the dirty fluid that flows in the veins of the unspeakable
Binet."
     For  a  second  his emotion  had been out of hand, and  he revealed  to
Leandre in the mordant  tone of those last words something of the fires that
burned under his icy exterior. The young man caught him by the hand.
     "I knew you were acting," said he. "You feel - you feel as I do."
     "Behold  us, fellows in viciousness.  I have betrayed myself, it seems.
Well,  and what now? Do  you want to see this pretty  Marquis torn limb from
limb? I might afford you the spectacle."
     "What?"  Leandre  stared, wondering  was this another of  Scaramouche's
cynicisms.
     "It  isn't  really difficult provided  I  have aid. I  require  only  a
little. Will you lend it me?"
     "Anything you ask," Leandre exploded. "My life if you require it."
     Andre-Louis  took  his arm  again.  "Let  us  walk," he  said. "I  will
instruct you."
     When they came back the company was already at dinner. Mademoiselle had
not yet returned.  Sullenness presided at  the table.  Columbine and  Madame
wore anxious expressions. The fact was that relations between  Binet and his
troupe were daily growing more strained.
     Andre-Louis  and Leandre  went each  to his accustomed  place.  Binet's
little eyes followed them with a malicious gleam, his thick lips pouted into
a crooked smile.
     "You two are grown very friendly of a sudden," he mocked.
     "You are  a man  of discernment, Binet,"  said  Scaramouche,  the  cold
loathing of his voice itself an insult. "Perhaps you discern the reason?"
     "It is readily discerned."
     "Regale  the  company  with  it!"  he  begged; and  waited.  "What? You
hesitate? Is it possible that there are limits to your shamelessness?"
     Binet  reared  his  great  head.  "Do  you  want  to  quarrel  with me,
Scaramouche?" Thunder was rumbling in his deep, voice.
     "Quarrel? You  want to laugh. A man doesn't quarrel with creatures like
you. We all know the place held in the public esteem by complacent husbands.
But, in God's name, what place is there at all for complacent fathers?"
     Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood. Violently he
shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot who sat on his left.
     "A  thousand  devils!" he  roared; "if you take that tone with me, I'll
break every bone in your filthy body."
     "If you were  to lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the  only
provocation I still need to kill you." Andre-Louis was as  calm as ever, and
therefore the more menacing. Alarm  stirred the company. He  protruded  from
his pocket the butt of a pistol - newly purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is
only fair  to give you warning. Provoke me  as you  have suggested, and I'll
kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all
is the thing you most resemble - a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy  body; foulness
without soul and without intelligence. When  I come to think of  it I  can't
suffer to sit at table with you. It turns my stomach."
     He pushed away his platter and got up. "I'll go and eat at the ordinary
below stairs."
     Thereupon up jumped Columbine.
     "And I'll come with you, Scaramouche!" cried she.
     It acted like  a signal. Had  the thing been concerted it couldn't have
fallen out  more uniformly.  Binet, in fact, was  persuaded of a conspiracy.
For in  the  wake  of  Columbine  went Leandre,  in  the  wake  of  Leandre,
Polichinelle  and  then  all  the rest together,  until Binet  found himself
sitting alone  at the  head of an empty  table  in  an empty  room - a badly
shaken man whose rage could afford him no support against the dread by which
he was suddenly invaded.
     He sat down  to think things out,  and  he was still at that melancholy
occupation when perhaps  a half-hour later  his  daughter entered  the room,
returned at last from her excursion.
     She  looked  pale,  even  a  little  scared  - in  reality  excessively
self-conscious now that the ordeal of facing all the company awaited her.
     Seeing no one but her father in the room, she checked on the threshold.
     "Where is everybody?" she asked, in a voice rendered natural by effort.
     M. Binet reared  his  great head  and  turned  upon her eyes  that were
blood-injected. He scowled, blew out his thick lips and made harsh noises in
his throat. Yet he took stock of her, so graceful and comely and  looking so
completely the lady  of fashion  in  her long fur-trimmed travelling coat of
bottle green, her  muff and her broad hat adorned  by a sparkling Rhinestone
buckle above  her adorably coiffed brown hair. No  need  to fear  the future
whilst he owned such a daughter, let Scaramouche play what tricks he would.
     He expressed, however, none of these comforting reflections.
     "So  you're back at last, little fool,"  he growled in greeting. "I was
beginning to  ask  myself if  we  should  perform  this evening. It wouldn't
greatly have surprised me if you had not returned in time. Indeed, since you
have chosen to play the fine hand you held in  your own way and  scorning my
advice, nothing can surprise me."
     She crossed the room  to the table, and leaning against it, looked down
upon him almost disdainfully.
     "I have nothing to regret," she said.
     "So every fool  says at first. Nor  would you admit it if you had.  You
are  like that.  You go your own  way  in spite of advice  from older heads.
Death of my life, girl, what do you know of men?"
     "I am not complaining," she reminded him.
     "No, but you may be presently, when  you discover  that you  would have
done better to have been guided  by your old father. So long as your Marquis
languished for you, there was nothing you could not have done with the fool.
So long as you let him have no more than your fingertips to kiss... ah, name
of a name!  that was  the  time to build  your future. If you live  to  be a
thousand you'll never  have such a chance again,  and you've squandered  it,
for what?"
     Mademoiselle sat down.- "You're sordid," she said, with disgust.
     "Sordid, am I?" His thick  lips curled again. "I have had enough of the
dregs of life, and so  I should have thought  have you.  You  held a hand on
which to have won a fortune if you had played it as I bade you. Well, you've
played  it, and  where's the fortune?  We  can whistle  for that as a sailor
whistles for  wind. And, by Heaven, we'll need to whistle presently  if  the
weather  in  the troupe continues as it's set in. That scoundrel Scaramouche
has been at his ape's tricks  with them. They've suddenly turned moral. They
won't sit at table with me any more."  He  was spluttering between anger and
sardonic mirth.  "It  was  your friend Scaramouche  set them the example  of
that. He threatened my  life actually. Threatened  my life! Called me... Oh,
but what does that matter? What matters is that the next thing  to happen to
us will  be  that  the Binet Troupe will  discover it can  manage without M.
Binet and his daughter. This scoundrelly bastard I've befriended  has little
by little robbed me of everything. It's in his power to-day to  rob me of my
troupe, and the knave's ungrateful enough and vile enough to make use of his
power.
     "Let him," said mademoiselle contemptuously.
     "Let him?" He was aghast. "And what's to become of us?"

     "In no  case will the Binet Troupe interest  me much longer," said she.
"I  shall be going to Paris soon.  There are better  theatres there than the
Feydau.  There's Mlle. Montansier's theatre in the Palais Royal; there's the
Ambigu Comique; there's the Comedie Francaise; there's even a possibility  I
may have a theatre of my own."
     His eyes grew big for once. He stretched out a fat hand, and  placed it
on one of hers. She noticed that it trembled.
     "Has he promised that? Has he promised?"
     She  looked  at  him  with her  head on one side,  eyes sly and a queer
little smile on her perfect lips.
     "He did not refuse  me when I asked it," she answered,  with conviction
that all was as she desired it.
     "Bah!" He  withdrew his hand, and heaved himself up. There was  disgust
on his face. "He did not refuse!" he mocked her; and then with passion: "Had
you  acted as  I  advised you, he  would have consented to anything that you
asked,  and what  is more  he  would have provided anything that you asked -
anything  that lay  within his means,  and  they are inexhaustible. You have
changed  a certainty into a  possibility, and I hate possibilities -  God of
God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them."
     Had  she  known  of the interview taking place  at that  moment at  the
Chateau de  Sautron she would have laughed less confidently  at her father's
gloomy forebodings. But she was destined never to know, which indeed was the
cruellest  punishment of  all. She was  to attribute all the evil  that of a
sudden overwhelmed  her,  the  shattering of  all the  future  hopes she had
founded upon the Marquis  and the sudden disintegration of the Binet Troupe,
to the wicked interference of that villain Scaramouche.
     She had this much justification that possibly, without the warning from
M. de Sautron, the Marquis would have found in the events of that evening at
the  Theatre  Feydau a sufficient reason for ending an entanglement that was
fraught  with too much unpleasant excitement, whilst  the breaking-up of the
Binet  Troupe was most certainly the result of Andre-Louis' work. But it was
not a result that he intended or even foresaw.
     So much was this the case that in the interval after the second act, he
sought the dressing-room  shared by Polichinelle and Rhodomont. Polichinelle
was in the act of changing.
     "I shouldn't trouble to change," he said. "The piece isn't likely to go
beyond my opening scene of the next act with Leandre."
     "What do you mean?"
     "You'll  see."  He  put  a  paper  on  Polichinelle's  table  amid  the
grease-paints.  "Cast your  eye  over  that.  It's a sort of  last will  and
testament in favour  of the troupe. I was  a lawyer once; the document is in
order.  I relinquish to all of you the share produced by  my  partnership in
the company."
     "But you don't mean that  you are  leaving us?"  cried  Polichinelle in
alarm, whilst Rhodomont's sudden stare asked the same question.
     Scaramouche's  shrug  was eloquent.  Polichinelle  ran on gloomily: "Of
course it was to have been foreseen. But why should you be the one to go? It
is you who have  made us; and it is  you who are the real head and brains of
the troupe; it is you who have raised it  into a real theatrical company. If
any one must go, let it be  Binet - Binet and  his  infernal daughter. Or if
you go, name of a name! we all go with you!"
     "Aye," added Rhodomont, "we've had enough of that fat scoundrel."
     "I had thought of it, of course," said Andre-Louis. "It was not vanity,
for once; it was trust in your friendship. After to-night we may consider it
again, if I survive."
     "If you survive?" both cried.
     Polichinelle got up. "Now, what madness have you in mind?" he asked.
     "For  one  thing  I  think I am  indulging Leandre; for  another  I  am
pursuing an old quarrel."
     The three knocks sounded as he spoke.
     "There, I must go. Keep that paper, Polichinelle. After all, it may not
be necessary.
     He  was gone. Rhodomont stared at Polichinelle. Polichinelle stared  at
Rhodomont.

     "What the devil is he thinking of?" quoth the latter.
     "That   is   most  readily   ascertained  by  going  to  see,"  replied
Polichinelle. He  completed changing  in haste, and despite what Scaramouche
had said; and then followed with Rhodomont.
     As  they approached  the wings a roar  of applause met them coming from
the  audience. It was applause  and something else;  applause  on an unusual
note. As it faded away they heard the voice of Scaramouche  ringing clear as
a bell:
     "And  so you see, my dear M. Leandre, that when you  speak of the Third
Estate,  it  is necessary to be more  explicit.  What precisely is the Third
Estate?"
     "Nothing," said Leandre.
     There was a gasp from the  audience,  audible  in  the wings,  and then
swiftly followed Scaramouche's next question:
     "True. Alas! But what should it be?"
     "Everything," said Leandre.
     The audience roared  its acclamations, the  more violent because of the
unexpectedness of that reply.
     "True again," said Scaramouche. "And what is more, that is what it will
be; that is what it already is. Do you doubt it?"
     "I hope it," said the schooled Leandre.
     "You  may believe  it,"  said Scaramouche, and again  the  acclamations
rolled into thunder.
     Polichinelle  and  Rhodomont  exchanged  glances:  indeed,  the  former
winked, not without mirth.
     "Sacred name!"  growled a voice behind  them. "Is the scoundrel  at his
political tricks again?"
     They turned to confront M.  Binet. Moving with that noiseless tread  of
his, he  had  come up unheard behind  them, and there he  stood now  in  his
scarlet suit of Pantaloon under a trailing  bedgown, his little eyes glaring
from either  side  of his  false  nose. But their attention  was held by the
voice of Scaramouche. He had stepped to the front of the stage.
     "He doubts it," he  was felling the audience. "But then this M. Leandre
is himself akin  to those who worship the worm-eaten  idol of Privilege, and
so he is a little afraid to believe a truth that is becoming apparent to all
the world. Shall I convince him?  Shall I tell him how a company of noblemen
backed  by their  servants under arms - six hundred men in  all -  sought to
dictate to the Third Estate of Rennes a few  short  weeks ago? Must I remind
him of the martial front shown on that occasion by the Third Estate, and how
they  swept  the  streets clean of that rabble of  nobles -  cette  canaille
noble... "
     Applause  interrupted him. The phrase had struck home and caught. Those
who had  writhed under that infamous designation from their betters leapt at
this turning of it against the nobles themselves.
     "But let me tell you of their leader - le pins noble de cette canaille,
on bien le plus canaille de ces nobles! You know him
     - that one. He fears many things, but the voice of truth he fears most.
With  such as him the  eloquent truth eloquently spoken is a thing instantly
to be silenced. So  he marshalled  his peers and  their valetailles, and led
them out to slaughter these miserable bourgeois who dared to  raise a voice.
But these same miserable bourgeois did  not choose to  be slaughtered in the
streets of Rennes. It  occurred  to  them that since the nobles decreed that
blood should  flow,  it  might as  well  be  the blood of  the nobles.  They
marshalled themselves too - this noble rabble against the rabble of nobles -
and they marshalled themselves so well that they drove M. de La Tour  d'Azyr
and  his warlike  following from  the field with broken  heads and shattered
delusions.  They  sought shelter  at the hands  of  the Cordeliers; and  the
shavelings gave them sanctuary in their convent - those  who survived, among
whom was  their proud  leader,  M. de La Tour d'Azyr. You have heard of this
valiant Marquis, this great lord of life and death?"
     The  pit  was  in an uproar a  moment. It  quieted again as Scaramouche
continued:
     "Oh,  it was a fine spectacle to  see this  mighty hunter  scuttling to
cover like a hare, going to  earth in the Cordelier Convent. Rennes  has not
seen him since. Rennes  would like  to see him again. But if he is valorous,
he is  also discreet. And where do you think he has taken refuge, this great
nobleman who wanted to see the streets of Rennes washed in the blood  of its
citizens,  this  man  who  would  have  butchered   old  and  young  of  the
contemptible canaille to  silence the  voice  of reason  and of liberty that
presumes to ring through France to-day? Where do you think he hides himself?
Why, here in Nantes."
     Again there was uproar.
     "What  do  you say? Impossible? Why,  my friends,  at this moment he is
here in this theatre - skulking up there in that  box. He is too shy to show
himself - oh, a very modest gentleman.  But there he is behind the curtains.
Will  you not  show yourself to your friends, M. de La Tour d'Azyr, Monsieur
le Marquis who considers eloquence so very dangerous a gift? See, they would
like a  word with you; they do not believe me when  I tell them that you are
here."
     Now,  whatever he  may have been, and whatever  the views  held  on the
subject by Andre-Louis,  M. de La Tour d'Azyr was certainly not a coward. To
say that he was hiding in Nantes was not true. He came and went there openly
and  unabashed.  It happened, however, that the Nantais were  ignorant until
this moment of his  presence among them. But then he would have disdained to
have informed them of it just as he would  have disdained to have  concealed
it from them.
     Challenged thus, however, and  despite the ominous  manner in which the
bourgeois element in the audience had responded  to  Scaramouche's appeal to
its passions, despite the  attempts made by Chabrillane to restrain him, the
Marquis  swept aside the curtain at the side of the box, and suddenly showed
himself,  pale  but self-contained and  scornful  as he  surveyed first  the
daring  Scaramouche  and then those others who at  sight of  him  had  given
tongue to their hostility.
     Hoots and  yells  assailed him, fists were  shaken at  him,  canes were
brandished menacingly.
     "Assassin! Scoundrel! Coward! Traitor!"
     But he braved the storm,  smiling upon them his ineffable  contempt. He
was waiting for the noise to cease; waiting to address them in his turn. But
he waited in vain, as he very soon perceived.
     The contempt  he  did not trouble to dissemble served but to  goad them
on.
     In the  pit pandemonium  was  already raging.  Blows  were being freely
exchanged; there were scuffling groups, and here and there swords were being
drawn, but fortunately the press was too dense to permit of their being used
effectively.  Those who had women with them and  the timid  by  nature  were
making haste to  leave a house that  looked like becoming  a cockpit,  where
chairs were being smashed to provide weapons, and parts of  chandeliers were
already being used as missiles.
     One  of  these hurled by  the hand of  a gentleman in one of  the boxes
narrowly missed Scaramouche where he  stood, looking  down in a sort of grim
triumph  upon  the  havoc  which his  words  had wrought.  Knowing  of  what
inflammable  material the audience was composed, he  had  deliberately flung
down  amongst  them  the  lighted  torch  of  discord,   to   produce   this
conflagration.
     He saw men falling  quickly  into groups representative of one  side or
the other of this  great quarrel  that already was beginning to agitate  the
whole of France. Their rallying cries were ringing through the theatre.
     "Down with the canaille!" from some.
     "Down with the privileged!" from others.
     And  then  above  the   general  din  one  cry  rang  out  sharply  and
insistently:
     "To the  box!  Death to the butcher of Rennes! Death  to La Tour d'Azyr
who makes war upon the people!"
     There was  a rush for one of the doors of the pit that opened  upon the
staircase leading to the boxes.
     And now, whilst  battle and  confusion spread with the  speed of  fire,
overflowing from the  theatre into the  street itself, La Tour d'Azyr's box,
which had become  the main object of the attack of the bourgeoisie, had also
become the rallying ground for such gentlemen as were present in the theatre