The Grey Cloak - Page 188/256

"I will go to Mademoiselle de Vaudemont, who is within the convent."

Madame rose quietly, her eyes averted. She would gladly have flown,

but that would have been undignified, the acknowledgment of defeat.

And just now she knew that she could not match this mood of his.

Gently he caught her hand and drew her back to the seat.

"Pardon, but I can not lose you so soon. Mademoiselle is doubtless at

prayer and may not be interrupted. I have so many questions to ask."

Madame was pale, but her eyes were glowing. She folded her hands with

a passiveness which boded future ill.

"When you said that you trapped me that night at the Palais Royal,

simply to take a feather from my plume, you did not mean that. You had

some deeper motive."

Madame's fingers locked and unlocked. "Monsieur . . . !" she began, "Why, it seems only yesterday that it was 'Paul'," he interrupted.

"Monsieur, I beg of you to let me go. You are emulating Monsieur

d'Hérouville, and that conduct is beneath you."

"But will you listen to what I have to say?"

"I will listen," with a dangerous quiet. "Go on, Monsieur; tell me how

much you love me this day. Tell me the story of the oriole, whose mate

this year is not the old. Go on; I am listening."

A twinge of his recent cowardice came back to him. He moistened his

lips.

"Why do you doubt my love?'"

"Doubt it! Have I not a peculiar evidence of it this very moment?"

sarcastically. Madame was gathering her forces slowly but surely.

"I have asked you to be my wife, not even knowing who you are."

Madame laughed, and a strain of wild merriment crept into the music of

it. "You have great courage, Monsieur."

"It is laughable, then?"

"If you saw it from my angle of vision, you would also laugh." The

tone was almost insolent.

"You are married?" a certain hardness in his voice.

Madame drew farther back, for he looked like the man who had, a few

nights since, seized her madly in his arms.

"If you are married," he said, his grey eyes metallic, "I will go at

once, for I should know that you are not a woman worthy of a man's

love."

"Go on, Monsieur; you interest me. Having asked me to listen to your

protestations of love, you would now have me listen to your analysis of

my character. Go on."

"That is not a denial."

"Indeed!"

"D'Hérouville called you 'Madame.'"

"Well?"

"What am I to believe?"

"What you will: one way or the other, I am equally indifferent." Ah,

Madame!

The Chevalier saw that if he became serious, violent, or ill-tempered,

he was lost. He pulled himself together. He smiled.