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.