The Bronze Eagle (27 page)

"In theirs or yours, what matters?" retorted St. Genis savagely, "since
His Majesty is deprived of it now."

"That is where you are mistaken, my young friend," said the other
quietly. "His Majesty is more sure of getting the money now than he was
when M. le Comte de Cambray with his family and yourself started on that
quixotic if ill-considered errand this morning."

St. Genis frowned in puzzlement:

"I don't understand you," he said curtly.

"Isn't it simple enough? You and your friends credited me with
friendship for de Marmont: he is hot-headed and impetuous, and words
rush out of his mouth that he
[Pg 211]
should keep to himself. I knew from
himself that Bonaparte had charged him to recover the twenty-five
millions which M. le préfet Fourier had placed in the Comte de Cambray's
charge."

"Why did you not warn the Comte then?" queried St. Genis, who, still
mistrustful, glowered at his antagonist.

"Would he have listened to me, think you?" asked the other with a quiet
smile. "Remember, he had turned me out of his house two nights before,
without a word of courtesy or regret—on the mere suspicion of my
intercourse with de Marmont. Were you too full with your own rage to
notice what happened then? Mlle. Crystal drew away her skirts from me as
if I were a leper. What credence would they have given my words? Would
the Comte even have admitted me into his presence?"

"And so . . . you planned this robbery . . . you . . ." stammered St.
Genis, whose astonishment and puzzlement were rendering him as
speechless as his rage had done. "I'll not believe it," he continued
more firmly; "you are fooling me, now that I have found you out."

"Why should I do that? You are in my hands, and not I in yours.
Bonaparte is victorious at Grenoble. I could take the money to him and
earn his gratitude, or use the money for mine own ends. What have I to
fear from you? What cause to fool you? Your opinion of me? M. le Comte's
contempt or goodwill? Bah! after to-night are we likely to meet again?"

St. Genis said nothing in reply. Of a truth there was nothing that he
could say. The Englishman's whole attitude bore the impress of truth.
Even through that still seething wrath which refused to be appeased, St.
Genis felt that the other was speaking the truth. His mind now was in
turmoil of wonderment. This man who stood here before him had done
something which he—St. Genis—could not comprehend. Vaguely he realised
that beneath
[Pg 212]
the man's actions there still lay a yet deeper foundation
of dignity and of heroism and one which perhaps would never be wholly
fathomed.

It was Clyffurde who at last broke the silence between them:

"You, M. de St. Genis," he said lightly, "would under like circumstances
have acted just as I did, I am sure. The whole idea was so easy of
execution. Half a dozen loafers to aid me, the part of highwayman to
play—an old man and two or three defenceless women—my part was not
heroic, I admit," he added with a smile, "but it has served its purpose.
The money is safe in my keeping now, within a few days His Majesty the
King of France shall have it, and all those who strive to serve him
loyally can rest satisfied."

"I confess I don't understand you," said St. Genis, as he seemed to
shake himself free from some unexplainable spell that held him. "You
have rendered us and the legitimate cause of France a signal service!
Why did you do it?"

"You forget, M. de St. Genis, that the legitimate cause of France is
England's cause as well."

"Are you a servant of your country then? I thought you were a tradesman
engaged in buying gloves."

Clyffurde smiled. "So I am," he said, "but even a tradesman may serve
his country, if he has the opportunity."

"I hope that your country will be duly grateful," said Maurice, with a
sigh. "I know that every royalist in France would thank you if they
knew."

"By your leave, M. de St. Genis, no one in France need know anything but
what you choose to tell them. . . ."

"You mean . . ."

"That except for reassuring M. le Comte de Cambray and . . . and Mlle.
Crystal, there is no reason why they
[Pg 213]
should ever know what passed
between us in this room to-night."

"But if the King is to have the money, he . . ."

"He will never know from me, from whence it comes."

"He will wish to know. . . ."

"Come, M. de St. Genis," broke in Clyffurde, with a slight hint of
impatience, "is it for me to tell you that Great Britain has more than
one agent in France these days—that the money will reach His Majesty
the King ultimately through the hands of his foreign minister M. le
Comte de Jaucourt . . . and that my name will never appear in connection
with the matter? . . . I am a mere servant of Great Britain—doing my
duty where I can . . . nothing more."

"You mean that you are in the British Secret Service? No?—Well! I don't
profess to understand you English people, and you seem to me more
incomprehensible than any I have known. Not that I ever believed that
you were a mere tradesman. But what shall I say to M. le Comte de
Cambray?" he added, after a slight pause, during which a new and strange
train of thought altered the expression of wonderment on his face, to
one that was undefinable, almost furtive, certainly undecided.

"All you need say to M. le Comte," replied Clyffurde, with a slight tone
of impatience, "is that you are personally satisfied that the money will
reach His Majesty's hand safely, and in due course. At least, I presume
that you are satisfied, M. de St. Genis," he continued, vaguely
wondering what was going on in the young Frenchman's brain.

"Yes, yes, of course I am satisfied," murmured the other, "but . . ."

"But what?"

"Mlle. Crystal would want to know something more than that. She will ask
me questions . . . she . . . she will insist . . . I had promised her to
get the money back
[Pg 214]
myself . . . she will expect an explanation . . .
she . . ."

He continued to murmur these short, jerky sentences almost inaudibly,
avoiding the while to meet the enquiring and puzzled gaze of the
Englishman.

When he paused—still murmuring, but quite inaudibly now—Clyffurde made
no comment, and once more there fell a silence over the narrow room. The
candles flickered feebly, and Bobby picked up the metal snuffers from
the table and with a steady and deliberate hand set to work to trim the
wicks.

So absorbed did he seem in this occupation that he took no notice of St.
Genis, who with arms crossed in front of him, was pacing up and down the
narrow room, a heavy frown between his deep-set eyes.

Somewhere in the house down below, an old-fashioned clock had just
struck two. Clyffurde looked up from his absorbing task.

"It is late," he remarked casually; "shall we say good-night, M. de St.
Genis?"

The sound of the Englishman's voice seemed to startle Maurice out of his
reverie. He pulled himself together, walked firmly up to the table and
resting his hand upon it, he faced the other man with a sudden gaze made
up partly of suddenly conceived resolve and partly of lingering
shamefacedness.

"Mr. Clyffurde," he began abruptly.

"Yes?"

"Have you any cause to hate me?"

"Why no," replied Clyffurde with his habitual good-humoured smile. "Why
should I have?"

"Have you any cause to hate Mlle. Crystal de Cambray?"

"Certainly not."

"You have no desire," insisted Maurice, "to be revenged
[Pg 215]
on her for the
slight which she put upon you the other night?"

His voice had grown more steady and his look more determined as he put
these rapid questions to Clyffurde, whose expressive face showed no sign
of any feeling in response save that of complete and indifferent
puzzlement.

"I have no desire with regard to Mlle. de Cambray," replied Bobby
quietly, "save that of serving her, if it be in my power."

"You can serve her, Sir," retorted Maurice firmly, "and that right
nobly. You can render the whole of her future life happy beyond what she
herself has ever dared to hope."

"How?"

Maurice paused: once more, with a gesture habitual to him, he crossed
his arms over his chest and resumed his restless march up and down the
narrow room.

Then again he stood still, and again faced the Englishman, his dark
enquiring eyes seeming to probe the latter's deepest thoughts.

"Did you know, Mr. Clyffurde," he asked slowly, "that Mlle. Crystal de
Cambray honours me with her love?"

"Yes. I knew that," replied the other quietly.

"And I love her with my heart and soul," continued Maurice impetuously.
"Oh! I cannot tell you what we have suffered—she and I—when the
exigencies of her position and the will of her father parted
us—seemingly for ever. Her heart was broken and so was mine: and I
endured the tortures of hell when I realised at last that she was lost
to me for ever and that her exquisite person—her beautiful soul—were
destined for the delight of that low-born traitor Victor de Marmont."

He drew breath, for he had half exhausted himself with the volubility
and vehemence of his diction. Also he seemed to be waiting for some
encouragement from Clyffurde, who, however, gave him none, but sat
unmoved and
[Pg 216]
apparently supremely indifferent, while a suffering heart
was pouring out its wails of agony into his unresponsive ear.

"The reason," resumed St. Genis somewhat more calmly, "why M. le Comte
de Cambray was opposed to our union, was purely a financial one. Our
families are of equal distinction and antiquity, but alas! our fortunes
are also of equal precariousness: we, Sir, of the old noblesse gave up
our all, in order to follow our King into exile. Victor de Marmont was
rich. His fortune could have repurchased the ancient Cambray estates and
restored to that honoured name all the brilliance which it had
sacrificed for its principles."

Still Clyffurde remained irritatingly silent, and St. Genis asked him
somewhat tartly:

"I trust I am making myself clear, Sir?"

"Perfectly, so far," replied the other quietly, "but I am afraid I don't
quite see how you propose that I could serve Mlle. Crystal in all this."

"You can with one word, one generous action, Sir, put me in a position
to claim Crystal as my wife, and give her that happiness which she
craves for, and which is rightly her due."

A slight lifting of the eyebrows was Clyffurde's only comment.

"Mr. Clyffurde," now said Maurice, with the obvious firm resolve to end
his own hesitancy at last, "you say yourself that by taking this money
to His Majesty, or rather to his minister, you, individually, will get
neither glory nor even gratitude—your name will not appear in the
transaction at all. I am quoting your own words, remember. That is so,
is it not?"

"It is so—certainly."

"But, Sir, if a Frenchman—a royalist—were able to render his King so
signal a service, he would not only gain
[Pg 217]
gratitude, but recognition and
glory. . . . A man who was poor and obscure would at once become rich
and distinguished. . . ."

"And in a position to marry the woman he loved," concluded Bobby,
smiling.

Then as Maurice said nothing, but continued to regard him with glowing,
anxious eyes, he added, smiling not altogether kindly this time,

"I think I understand, M. de St. Genis."

"And . . . what do you say?" queried the other excitedly.

"Let me make the situation clear first, as I understand it, Monsieur,"
continued Bobby drily. "You are—and I mistake not—suggesting at the
present moment that I should hand over the twenty-five millions to you,
in order that you should take them yourself to the King in Paris, and by
this act obtain not only favours from him, but probably a goodly share
of the money, which you—presumably—will have forced some unknown
highwayman to give up to you. Is that it?"

"It was not money for myself I thought of, Sir," murmured St. Genis
somewhat shamefacedly.

"No, no, of course not," rejoined Clyffurde with a tone of sarcasm quite
foreign to his usual easy-going good-nature. "You were thinking of the
King's favours, and of a future of distinction and glory."

"I was thinking chiefly of Crystal, Sir," said the other haughtily.

"Quite so. You were thinking of winning Mlle. Crystal by a . . . a
subterfuge."

"An innocent one, Sir, you will admit. I should not be robbing you in
any way. And remember that it is only Crystal's hand that is denied me:
her love I have already won."

A look of pain—quickly suppressed and easily hidden
[Pg 218]
from the other's
self-absorbed gaze—crossed the Englishman's earnest face.

"I do remember that, Monsieur," he said, "else I certainly would never
lend a hand in the . . . subterfuge."

"You will do it then?" queried the other eagerly.

"I have not said so."

"Ah! but you will," pleaded Maurice hotly. "Sir! the eternal gratitude
of two faithful hearts would be yours always—for Crystal will know it
all, once we are married, I promise you that she will. And in the midst
of her happiness she will find time to bless your generosity and your
selflessness . . . whilst I . . ."

"Enough, I beg of you, M. de St. Genis," broke in Clyffurde now, with
angry impatience. "Believe me! I do not hug myself with any thought of
my own virtues, nor do I desire any gratitude from you: if I hand over
the money to you, it is sorely against my better judgment and distinctly
against my duty: but since that duty chiefly lies in being assured that
the King of France will receive the money safely, why then by handing it
over to you I have that assurance, and my conscience will rest at
comparative ease. You shall have the money, Sir, and you shall marry
Mlle. Crystal on the strength of the King's gratitude towards you. And
Mlle. Crystal will be happy—if you keep silence over this transaction.
But for God's sake let's say no more about it: for of a truth you and I
are playing but a sorry rôle this night."