The Grey Cloak - Page 167/256

The Chevalier stepped aside and uncovered.

"Monsieur, you have lost a valuable art." There was a fleeting glance,

and she vanished within, leaving him puzzled and astonished by the

unexpected softening of her voice. How long he stood there, with his

gaze fixed upon the vacant doorway, he never knew. What did she mean?

"Well, Paul?" And Victor, having come up behind, laid his hand on the

Chevalier's arm. "Do you know her, then?" nodding toward the door.

"Know her?" The Chevalier faced his comrade. "Would to God, lad, I

did not, for she has made me the most unhappy of men."

The poet trembled in terror at the light within. "She is . . . ?"

"Yes, Diane; Diane, whose name I murmur in my dreams, waking or

sleeping."

"She?" in half a whisper. "Her name?"

"Her name? No! I know her as a mystery; as Tantalus thirsting for the

fruit which hangs ever beyond the reach, I know her; as a woman who is

not what she seems, always masked, with or without the cambric. Know

her?" with a laugh full of despair.

Victor was a man of courage and resource. "I know where there's a

two-quart bottle of burgundy, Paul. Bah! life will look cheerful

enough through that mellow red. Come with me."

The Chevalier followed him to the lower town, where, in a room in one

of the warehouses, they sat down to the wine.

"Let the women go hang, lad, one and all!" cried the Chevalier, after

his sixth and final glass.

"Let them go hang!" But Victor did not confide; not he, loyal friend!

And when he held his emptied glass on high, sighed, and dropped it on

the earthen floor, the Chevalier did not know that his comrade's heart

lay shattered with the glass. Gallant poet!

As madame threaded her way through the dim corridor, but one thought

occupied her mind. It echoed and re-echoed--"Or, rather, what you

pretend to be." What did D'Hérouville mean by that? To what did the

Chevalier pretend? Her foot struck something. It was a book.

Absently she stooped and picked it up, carrying it to her room. "Or,

rather, what you pretend to be." If only she had heard the first part

of the sentence, or what had led to it! The Chevalier was gradually

becoming as much of a mystery to her as she was to him. There had been

a sea-change; he was no longer a fop; there was grey in his hair; he

was a man. In her room there was light from the sun. Carelessly she

glanced at the book. It was grey with dust, which she blew away.

Evidently it had lain some time in the corridor. She flapped the

covers. The title, dim and worn, smiled drolly up. She blushed, and

abruptly laid the offending volume on the table. The merry Vicar of

Meudon was not wholly acceptable to her woman's mind. To whom did it

belong, this foundling book? With a grimace which would have caused

Rabelais to smile, she turned back the cover.