Périgny, it is not to be denied, was a sinister sound in the ears of a
virtuous woman. To the ultra-pious and the bigoted, it was a letter in
the alphabet of hell. Yet, there was in this grim chain of evil repute
one link which did not conform with the whole. The marquis never
haggled with his tradesmen, never beat his servants or his animals, and
opened his purse to the poor with more frequency than did his religious
neighbors. Those who believed in his total wickedness found it
impossible to accept this incongruity.
For ten years the hôtel had remained in darkness; then behold! but a
month gone, a light was seen shining from one of the windows. The
watch, upon investigation, were informed that Monsieur le Marquis had
returned to the city and would remain indefinitely. After this, on
several occasions the hôtel was lighted cheerfully enough. Monsieur le
Marquis's son entertained his noble friends and the officers from Fort
Louis. There was wine in plenty and play ran high. The marquis,
however, while he permitted these saturnalia, invariably held aloof.
It was servants' hall gossip that the relations existing between father
and son were based upon the coldest formalities. Conversation never
went farther than "Good morning, Monsieur le Marquis" and "Good
morning, Monsieur le Comte." The marquis pretended not to understand
when any referred to his son as the "Chevalier du Cévennes." It was
also gossiped that this noble house was drawing to its close; for the
Chevalier had declined to marry, and was drinking and gaming heavily;
and to add to the marquis's chagrin, the Chevalier had been dismissed
from court, in disgrace,--a calamity which till now had never fallen
upon the House of Périgny.
The marquis was growing old. As he sat before the fire in the grand
salon, the flickering yellow light playing over his features, which had
a background of moving, deep velvet-brown shadows, he might have been
the theme of some melancholy whim by Rubens, a stanza by Dante. His
face was furrowed like a frosty road. Veins sprawled over his hands
which rested on the arms of his chair, and the knuckles shone like
ivory through the drawn transparent skin. The long fingers drummed
ceaselessly and the head teetered; for thus senility approaches. His
lips, showing under a white mustache, were livid and fallen inward.
The large Alexandrian nose had lost its military angle, and drooped
slightly at the tip: which is to say, the marquis no longer acted, he
thought; he was no longer the soldier, but the philosopher. The
domineering, forceful chin had the essentials of a man of justice, but
it was lacking in that quality of mercy which makes justice grand.
Over the Henri IV ruff fell the loose flesh of his jaws. Altogether,
it was the face of a man who was practically if not actually dead. But
in the eyes, there lay the life of the man. From under jutting brows
they peered as witnesses of a brain which had accumulated a rare
knowledge of mankind, man's shallowness, servility, hypocrisy, his
natural inability to obey the simplest laws of nature; a brain which
was set in motion always by calculation, never by impulse. They were
grey eyes, bold and fierce and liquid as a lion's. None among the
great had ever beaten them down, for they were truthful eyes, almost an
absolute denial of the life he had lived. But truth to the marquis was
not a moral obligation. He was truthful as became a great noble who
was too proud and fearless of consequences to lie. In his youth he had
been called Antinous to Henri's Caesar; but there is a certain type of
beauty which, if preyed upon by vices, becomes sardonic in old age.