The Master-Christian Part 41

And with these words he bowed haughtily to all present, and left the scene of noisy disorder.

Out in the streets the moonlight lay in broad silver bands, like white glistening ribbon spread in s.h.i.+ning strips across the blackness, and there was a moisture in the air which,--dropped as it were fresh, from the surrounding hills,--cooled Fontenelle's flushed face and burning brows. He walked rapidly,--he had a vague, unformed desire in his mind to see Sylvie again if possible. He knew where she lived, and he soon turned down the street where the quaint old central balcony of the Casa D'Angeli thrust itself forward into the moon-rays among the sculptured angels' wings,--and he saw that the windows were open. Pausing underneath he waited, hesitating--full of strange thoughts and stranger regrets. How poor and valueless seemed his life as he regarded it now!--now when he had voluntarily placed it in jeopardy! What had he done with his days of youth and prime? Frittered away every valuable moment,--thrown to the winds every costly opportunity,--spent his substance on light women who had kissed and clung to him one day, and repulsed him the next. Well--and after? His heart beat thickly,--if he could only see Sylvie for a moment! Hus.h.!.+ There was a murmur--a voice--a ripple of sweet laughter; and moving cautiously back into the shadows, he looked up--yes!--there she was--clad in some soft silvery stuff that gathered a thousand sparkles from the light of the moon,--her fair hair caught up in a narrow circlet of diamonds, and her sweet face purely outlined against the dark worn stone of one of the great carved angel-wings. But someone was with her,--someone whom Fontenelle recognised at once by the cla.s.sic shape of his head and bright curly hair,--the man whom he had seen that very day on the Pincio,--Aubrey Leigh. With a jealous tightening at his heart, Fontenelle saw that Leigh held the soft plume of downy feathers which served Sylvie for a fan, and that he was lightly waving it to and fro as he talked to her in the musical, all-potent voice which had charmed thousands, and would surely not be without its fascination for the sensitive ears of a woman. Moving a little closer he tried to hear what was being said,--but Leigh spoke very softly, and Sylvie answered with equal softness, so that he could catch no distinct word. Yet the mere tone of these two voices melted into a harmony more dulcet and perfect than could be endured by Fontenelle with composure, and uttering an impatient exclamation at his own folly he hastily left his retreat, and with one parting glance up at the picture of fair loveliness above him walked swiftly away. Returning to his hotel he saw the letter that he had written to Sylvie lying on the table, and he at once posted it.

Then he began to prepare for his encounter with Miraudin. He dressed quickly,--wrote a few business letters,--and was about to lie down for a rest of an hour or so when the swift and furious galloping of a horse's hoofs awoke the echoes of the quiet street, and almost before he had time to realise what had happened, his friend Ruspardi stood before him, breathless and wild with excitement.

"Marquis, you are tricked!" he cried, "Everything is prepared--seconds,--pistols,--all! But your man--your man has gone!"

"Gone!" exclaimed Fontenelle furiously, "Where?"

"Out of Rome! In a common fiacre--taking his latest mistress, one of the stage-women with him. They were seen driving by the Porta Pia towards the Campagna half an hour ago! He dare not face fire--bully and coward that he is!"

"I will go after him!" said Fontenelle promptly, "Half an hour ahead, you say! Good!--I will catch him up. Can I get a horse anywhere?"

"Take mine," said Ruspardi eagerly, "he is perfectly fresh--just out of the stable. Have you weapons?"

"Yes," and the Marquis unlocked a case, and loading two, placed them in a travelling holder. Then, turning to Ruspardi he shook hands.

"Thanks, a thousand times! There are a few letters here--see to them if I should not come back."

"What are you going to do?" asked Ruspardi, his excitement beginning to cool a little, now that he saw the possible danger into which Fontenelle was voluntarily rus.h.i.+ng.

"Persuade the worthy mountebank either to come back or fight at once on whatever ground I find him, and a.s.sume to be a gentleman--for once!"

said Fontenelle, carelessly. "Addio!"

And without further words he hurried off, and tossing a twenty-franc piece to the sleepy hotel porter who was holding Ruspardi's horse outside, he flung himself into the saddle and galloped away. Ruspardi, young and hotblooded, was of too mercurial a disposition to antic.i.p.ate any really serious results of the night's adventure;--his contempt for a coward was far greater than his fear of death, and he was delighted to think that in all probability the Marquis would use his riding-whip on Miraudin's back rather than honour him by a pistol shot. And so dismissing all fears from his mind he took Fontenelle's letters in his charge, and went straight out of the hotel singing gaily, charmed with the exciting thought of the midnight chase which was going on, and the possible drubbing and discomfiture of the "celebrated" Miraudin.

Meanwhile, under the flas.h.i.+ng stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch,--the resolve of his urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi's hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and felt, rather than saw the outline of the Villa Torlonia, as he rushed past, and the Basilica of St.

Agnese Fuori le Mura, which is supposed to cover the tomb of the child-martyr St. Agnes,--then across the Ponte Nomentano, till, two miles further on, in the white radiance of the moon, he perceived, driving rapidly ahead of him, the vehicle of which he was in pursuit.

Letting the reins fall loosely on the neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his stirrups, and by his own movements a.s.sisted the animal's now perfectly reckless gallop,--and at last, hearing the flying hoofs behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly pulled up and came to a dead halt. A head was thrust out of the carriage window,--Miraudin's head,--and Miraudin's voice shouted in bad Italian,

"What are you stopping for, rascal! On with you! On with you! Five hundred francs for your best speed!"

Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Marquis gained the side of the vehicle, and pulling up his horse till it almost fell in rearing backwards, he cried furiously,

"Lache! Tu vas te crever sur terre avant je te quitte!"

And he struck his riding-whip full in the actor's face.

Springing out of the fiacre Miraudin confronted his antagonist. His hat was off--and his countenance, marked as it was with the crimson line of the lash, lightened with laughter.

"Again! Monsieur le Marquis, je vous salue!" he said, "Kismet! One cannot escape it! Better to fight with you, beau sire, than with destiny! I am ready!"

Fontenelle at once dismounted, and tied his horse to the knotted bough of a half-withered tree. Taking his pistols out of their holder he proffered them to Miraudin.

"Choose!" he said curtly, "Or use your own if you have any,--but mine are loaded,--take care yours are! Play no theatrical tricks on such a stage as this! "And then he gave a comprehensive wave of his hand towards the desolate waste of the Campagna around them, and the faint blue misty lines of the Alban hills just rimmed with silver in the rays of the moon.

At the first sight of the pistols the driver of the fiacre, who had been more or less stupefied till now, by the suddenness of the adventure, gave a sort of whining cry, and climbing down from his box fell on his knees before Miraudin, and then ran a few paces and did the same thing in front of the Marquis, imploring both men not to fight,--not to get killed, on account of the trouble it would cause to him, the coachman;--and with a high falsetto shriek a lady flung herself out of the recesses of the closed vehicle, and clung to the actor's arm.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! What is it you would do?" she cried, "Be killed out here on the Campagna? and not a soul in sight--not a house--not a shelter? And what is to become of me!--Me!--Me!--" and she tapped her heaving bosom in melodramatic style, "Have you thought of ME?"

"You--you!" laughed Miraudin, tearing off the lace veil which she wore wrapped loosely round her head and shoulders, "You, Jeanne Richaud!

What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a dozen more lovers after me--then old age, and the care of a third-cla.s.s lodging-house for broken-down actors!" Here he chose his weapon. "At your service, Marquis!"

Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle.

"Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal--out of rule! You are a gentleman,--a man of honour!--would you fight without seconds? It is murder--murder--!"

Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the immovability of Fontenelle's att.i.tude, and the coldness of his eyes.

"I regret to pain you, Madame," he said stiffly, "This combat was arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some hours since--and though it seems he did not intend to keep his engagement I intend to keep mine! The princ.i.p.als in the fight are here,--seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter. We must do without them."

"By no means!" exclaimed Miraudin, "We have them! Here they are! You, Jeanne, will you be my second--how often you have seconded me in many a devil's game--and you--cochon d'un cocher!--you will for once in your life support the honour of a Marquis!"

And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the gra.s.s, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting. Mademoiselle Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of. Throwing herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her "protector" throw off his coat, and, standing in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, take close observation of the pistol he held.

"Is this your care of me?" she cried, "Mon Dieu! What a thing is a man!

Here am I alone in a strange country--and you endanger your life for some quarrel of which I know nothing,--yet you pretend to love me! Nom de Jesus! What is your love!"

"You do well to ask," said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, "What is my love! A pa.s.sing fancy, chere pet.i.te! We actors simulate love too well to ever feel it! Out of the way, jou-jou! Your life will be amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable. After that--the lodging-house!"

He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm.

"Victor! Victor!" she wailed, "Will you not look at me--will you not kiss me!"

Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed.

"Kiss you!" he echoed, "Pardieu! Would you care! Jeanne! Jeanne! You are a little mad,--the moonlight is too much for you! To-morrow I will kiss you, when the sun rises--or if I am not here--why, somebody else will!"

"Who is the woman you are fighting for?" she suddenly demanded, springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes. Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration.

"I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage," he said, "You would have brought down the house! 'Woman!' No 'woman' at all, but WOMEN! The glamour of them--the witchery of them--women!--the madness of them! Women!--The ONE woman saves when the ONE woman exists, but then,--we generally kill HER! Now, once more, Jeanne,--out of the way! Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste. He has many fas.h.i.+onable engagements!"

He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced.

"You are ready?" he enquired civilly.

"Ready!"

"Shall we say twelve paces?"

"Excellent!"

Deliberately Fontenelle dug his heel into the ground and measured twelve paces from that mark between himself and his antagonist. Then with cold courtesy he stood aside for Miraudin to a.s.sure himself that the measurement was correct. The actor complied with this formality in a sufficiently composed way, and with a certain grace and dignity which Fontenelle might almost have taken for bravery if he had not been so convinced that the man was "acting" still in his mind, and was going through a "part" which he disliked, but which he was forced to play.

And with it all there was something indefinable about him--something familiar in the turn of his head, the glance of his eye, the movement of his body, which annoyed Fontenelle, because he saw in all these little personal touches such a strong resemblance to himself. But there was now no time to think, as the moment for the combat drew near.

Jeanne Richaud was still weeping hysterically and expostulating with the cab-driver, who paid no attention whatsoever to her pleadings, but remained obstinately on his knees out of harm's way, begging the "Santissima Madonna" and all his "patron saints" to see him safely with his fiacre back to the city. That was all he cared for.

"We have no one to give us a signal," said Miraudin lightly, "But there is a cloud on the moon. When it pa.s.ses, shall we fire?"

The Marquis bowed a.s.sent.