The Strollers Part 43

Suddenly the reader in a frenzy threw the letter to the floor and trampled on it. He regarded the face in the miniature with fear and hatred, and das.h.i.+ng it into the drawer, called down maledictions on her. He ceased abruptly, weak and wavering.

"I am going insane," he said, laughing harshly. "Fool! To let that woman's memory disturb me. So much for her dire prophecy!" And he snapped his fingers and dropped the letter in the fire.

"What can her curse avail?" he said aloud. "She is gone, turned to ashes like that paper and there is no life after this one. All then is nothing--emptiness--a blank! I need rest. It is this cursed dyspepsia which has made me nervous. Something to compose me, and then to bed!"

In spite of soothing powders, however, he pa.s.sed a restless night and arose unrefreshed, but ordered his valet to bring one of his lightest suits, and, having dressed, he set a white flower upon his coat, while the servant proceeded to apply various pigments to the wrinkled face, until it took on a mocking semblance to the countenance of a man fifteen years younger. The marquis leered at himself in the pier-gla.s.s and a.s.sumed a jauntiness of demeanor he was far from feeling.

"I do not look tired or worried, Francois?"

"Not at all, my lord," replied the obsequious valet. "I never saw you, my lord, appear so young and well."

"Beneath the surface, Francois, there is age and weakness," answered the marquis in a melancholy tone.

"It is but a pa.s.sing indisposition, my lord," a.s.serted the servant, soothingly.

"Perhaps. But, Francois"--peering around--"as I look over my shoulder, do you know what I see?"

The almost hideous expression of the roue's face alarmed the servant.

"No, my lord, what is it?"

"A figure stands there in black and is touching me. It is the spirit of death, Francois. You can not see it, but there it is--"

"My lord, you speak wildly."

"I have seen some strange things, Francois. The dead have arisen. And I have received my warning. Soon I shall join those dark specters which once gaily traversed this bright world. A little brandy and soda, Francois."

The servant brought it to him. The marquis leered awfully over his shoulder once more. "Your health, my guest!" he exclaimed, laughing harshly. "But my hat, Francois; I have business to perform, important business!"

He ambled out of the room. On the street he was all politeness, removing his hat to a dark brunette who rolled by in her carriage, and pausing to chat with another representative of the s.e.x of the blond type. Then he gaily sauntered on, until reaching the theater he stopped and made a number of inquiries. Who was the manager of Constance Carew? Where was he to be found? "At the St. Charles hotel?"

He was obliged to Monsieur, the ticket-seller, and wished him good-day.

Entering the hotel, he sent his card to Barnes, requesting an interview, and the manager, overcome by the honor of such a visit, responded with alacrity. The customary formalities over, the n.o.bleman congratulated Barnes on the performance and led the conversation to the young actress.

"Pardon my curiosity," he said, with apparent carelessness, "but I'm sure I remember an actress of the same name in London--many years ago?"

"Her mother, undoubtedly," replied the manager, proudly.

"She was married, was she not, to--"

"A scoundrel who took her for his wife in one church and repudiated the ties through another denomination!"

"Ah, a French-English marriage!" said the marquis, blandly. "An old device! But what was this lover's name?"

"This husband's, my lord!"

"Lover or husband, I fancy it is all the same to her now," sneered the caller. "She has pa.s.sed the point where reputation matters."

"Her reputation is my concern, Monsieur le Marquis!"

"You knew her?" asked the n.o.bleman, as though the conversation wearied him. "And she was faithful to his memory? No scandals--none of those little affairs women of her cla.s.s are p.r.o.ne to? There"--as Barnes started up indignantly--"spare me your reproaches! I'm too feeble to quarrel. Besides, what is it to me? I was only curious about her--that is all! But she never spoke the name of her husband?"

"Not even to her own child!"

"She does not know her father's name?" repeated the marquis. "But I thank you; Mademoiselle Constance is so charming I must needs call to ask if she were related to the London actress! Good-day, Monsieur! You are severe on the lover. Was it not the fas.h.i.+on of the day for the actresses to take lovers, or for the fops to have an opera girl or a comedienne? Did your most popular performers disdain such diversions?"

he sneered. "_Pardie_, the world has suddenly become moral! A gentleman can no longer, it would seem, indulge in gentlemanly follies."

Mumbling about the decadence of fas.h.i.+on, the marquis departed, his manner so strange the manager gazed after him in surprise.

With no thought of direction, his lips moving, talking to himself in adynamic fas.h.i.+on, the n.o.bleman walked mechanically on until he reached the great cathedral. The organ was rolling and voices arose sweet as those of seraphim. He hesitated at the portal and then laughed to himself. "Well has Voltaire said: 'Pleasure has its time; so, too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age, attend to thy salvation.'" He repeated the latter words, but, although he paused at the threshold and listened, he did not enter.

As he stood there, uncertain and trembling, a figure replete with youth and vigor approached, and, glancing at her, an exclamation escaped him that caused her to pause and turn.

"You are not well," she said, solicitously. "Can I help you?"

"It is nothing, nothing!" answered the marquis, ashy pale at the sight of her and the proximity of that face which regarded him with womanly sympathy. "Go away."

"At least, let me a.s.sist you. You were going to the cathedral? Come!"

His hand rested upon her strong young arm; he felt himself too weak to resist, so, together--father and daughter!--they entered the cathedral. Side by side they knelt--he to keep up the farce, fearing to undeceive her--while yet only mocking words came to the old man's heart, as the bitterness of the situation overwhelmed him. She was a daughter in whom a prince might have found pride, but he remained there mute, not daring to speak, experiencing all the tortures of remorse and retribution. Of what avail had been ambition? How had it overleaped content and ease of mind! Into what a nest of stings and thorns his loveless marriage had plunged him! And now but the black shadow remained; he walked in the darkness of unending isolation. So he should continue to walk straight to the door of death.

He scarcely heard the organ or the voice of the priest. The high altar, with its many symbols, suggested the thousands that had wors.h.i.+ped there and gone away comforted. Here was abundant testimony of the blessings of divine mercy in the numerous costly gifts and in the discarded crutches, and here faith had manifested itself for generations.

The marquis' throat was hoa.r.s.e; he could have spoken no words if he had tried. He laughed in his heart at the gifts of the grateful ones; those crosses of ivory and handsome lamps were but symbols of barbarism and superst.i.tion. The tablets, with their inscriptions, _"Merci"_ and _"Ex voto,"_ were to him absurd, and he gibed at the simple credulity of the people who could thus be misled. All these evidences of thanksgiving were but c.u.mulative testimony that men and women are like little children, who will be pleased over fairy tales or frightened over ghost stories. The promise of paradise, but the fairy tale told by priests to men and women; the threats of punishment, the ghost stories to awe them! A malicious delight crept into his diseased imagination that he alone in the cathedral possessed the extreme divination, enabling him to perceive the emptiness of all these signs and symbols. He labored in a fever of mental excitement and was only recalled to himself as his glance once more rested upon the young girl.

He became dimly conscious that people were moving past them, and he suddenly longed to cry out, "My child!" but he fought down the impulse. There could be no turning back now at the eleventh hour; the marquis was a philosopher, and did not believe that, in a twinkling of an eye, a man may set behind all that has transpired and regard it as naught. Something within held him from speaking to her--perhaps his own inherent sense of the consistency of things; his appreciation of the legitimate finale to a miserable order of circ.u.mstances! Even pride forbade departure from long-established habit. But while this train of thought pa.s.sed through his mind, he realized she was regarding him with clear, compa.s.sionate eyes, and he heard her voice:

"Shall we go now? The services are over."

He obeyed without question.

"Over!"

Those moments by her side would never return! They were about to part to meet no more on earth. He leaned heavily upon her arm and his steps were faltering. Out into the warm suns.h.i.+ne they pa.s.sed, the light revealing more plainly the ravages of time in his face.

"You must take a carriage," she said to the old man.

"Thank you, thank you," he replied. "Leave me here on the bench. I shall soon be myself. I am only a little weak. You are good to an old man. May I not"--asking solely for the pleasure of hearing her speak--"may I not know the name of one who is kind to an old man?"

"My name is Constance Carew."

He shook as with the palsy. "A good name, a good name!" he repeated.

"I remember years ago another of that name--an actress in London. A very beautiful woman, and good! But even she had her detractors and none more bitter than the man who wronged her. You--you resemble her!

But there, don't let me detain you. I shall do very well here. You are busy, I dare say."

"Yes, I should be at rehearsal," she replied regretfully.

"At rehearsal!" he repeated. "Yes!--yes!--. But the stage is no place for you!" he added, suddenly. "You should leave it--leave it!"