The Whites and the Blues (7 page)

"Why not from (rod?" asked Charles, in such a sweet voice that the three men started at it.

"Because our friend Schneider has quarrelled with God, and he stands very high with the devil. I don't know any other reason."

"And because," said Young, "it is only the devil who gives such prompt answers to prayers."

"Well," said Schneider, "let her come in."

The old woman opened the door at once, and on its threshold there appeared the elegant figure of a young girl dressed in a travelling costume, and wrapped in a black satin mantle lined with rose-colored taffeta. She took one step into the room, then stopped at sight of the candles and the four guests, who were gazing at her with an ad miration to which they gave expression in a low murmur, and said: "Citizens, which one of you is the citizen Com missioner of the Kepublic ?"

"I am, citizeness," replied Schneider, without rising.

"Citizen," she said, "I have a favor to ask of you on which my life depends." And her glance travelled anx iously from one guest to another.

"You need not be alarmed by the presence of my friends," said Schneider; "they are true friends, and lovers of beauty. This is my friend Edelmann, who is a musician. ''

The young girl moved her head slightly as if to say, "I know his music."

"This is my friend Young, who is a poet," continued Schneider.

The same movement of the head again meaning, "I know his verses."

"And, lastly, here is my friend Monnet, who is neither a musician nor a poet, but who has eyes and a heart, and who is disposed, as I can see at a glance, to plead your

cause for you. As for this young friend, as you see, lie is only a student; but he knows enough to conjugate the verb, to love, in three languages. You may therefore explain yourself before them, unless what you have to say is suffi ciently confidential to require a private interview.''

And he rose as he spoke, pointing to a half open door, leading into an empty salon. Bat the young girl replied, quickly: "No, no, monsieur—"

Schneider frowned.

"Your pardon, citizen. No, citizen, what I have to say fears neither light nor publicity."

Schneider sat down, motioning to the young girl to take a chair. But she shook her head.

"It is more fitting that suppliants should stand," she said.

"Then," said Schneider, "let us proceed regularly. I have told you who we are; will you tell us who you are?"

"My name is Clotilde Brumpt."

"De Brumpt, you mean."

"It would be unjust to reproach me with a crime that antedated my birth by some three or four hundred years, and with which I had nothing to do."

"You need tell me nothing more; I know your story, and I also know what you have come for.''

The young girl sank upon her knees, and, as she lifted her head and clasped hands, the hood of her mantle fell upon her shoulders and fully disclosed a face of surpassing loveliness. Her beautiful blond hair was parted in the middle of her head, and fell in long curls on either side, framing a face of perfect oval. Her forehead, of a clear white, was made still more dazzling by eyes, eyebrows and lashes of black; the nose was straight but sensitive, moving with the slight trembling of her cheeks, which showed traces of the many tears she had shed; her lips, half parted, seemed sculptured from rose coral, and behind them her teeth gleamed faintly like pearls. Her neck, as white as snow and as smooth as satin, was lost in the folds of a black

dress that came close up to the throat, but whose folds re vealed the graceful outlines of her body. She was mag nificent.

"Yes, yes," said Schneider, "you are beautiful, and you have the beauty, the grace, and the seduction of the ac cursed races. But we are not Asiatics, to be seduced by the beauty of a Helen or a Eoxelane. Your father conspires, your father is guilty, your father must die."

The young girl uttered a cry as though the words had been a dagger that had pierced her heart.

"Oh! no! my father is not a conspirator," she cried.

"If he is not a conspirator, why did he emigrate?"

"He emigrated because, belonging to the Prince de Conde, he thought he ought to follow him into exile; but, faithful to his country as he was to his prince, he would not fight against France, and during his two years of exile his sword has hung idle in its scabbard.''

'' What was he doing in France, and why did he cross the Ehine?"

4 ' Alas! my mourning will answer you, citizen Commis sioner. My mother was dying on this side of the river, scarcely twelve miles away; the man in whose arms she had passed twenty happy years was anxiously awaiting a word that might bid him hope again. Each message said: 'Worse! worse! Still worse!' Day before yesterday he could bear it no longer, and, disguised as a peasant, he crossed the river with the boatman. Doubtless the re ward tempted him, and he, God forgive him! denounced my father, who was arrested only this evening. Ask your agents when—just as my mother died. Ask them what he was doing—he was weeping as he closed her eyes. Ah! if ever it were pardonable to return from exile, it is when a man does so to bid a last adieu to the mother of his chil dren. You will tell me that the law is inexorable, and that every emigrant who returns to France deserves death. Yes, if he enters with the intention of conspiring; but not when he returns with clasped hands to kneel beside a death-bed."

"Citizeness Brumpt," said Schneider, "the law does not indulge in such subtle sentimentalities. It says, 'In such a case, under such circumstances, the penalty is death.' The man who puts himself in such a situation, knowing the law, is guilty. Now, if he is guilty, he must die."

"No, no, not if he is judged by men, and those men have a heart."

"A heart!" cried Schneider. "Do you think man is al ways his own master, and permitted to have a heart at will ? It is plain that you do not know of what the Propagande ac cused me to-day. They said that my heart was too accessi ble to human supplications. Do you not think that it would be easier and more agreeable, too, for me, when I see a beau tiful young creature like you at my feet, to lift her up and dry her tears, than to say, 'It is .useless; you are only losing your time.' No, unfortunately the law is there, and its or gans must be equally inflexible. The law is not a woman; it is a brazen statue, holding a sword in one hand and a pair of scales in the other; nothing can be weighed in these balances save the accusation on the one side, and the truth on the other. Nothing can turn the blade of that terrible sword from the path that is traced for it. Along this path it has met the heads of a king, a queen, and a prince, and those three heads have fallen as would that of any beggar caught in an act of murder or incendiarism. To-morrow I shall go to Plobsheim; the guillotine and the executioner will fol low me. If your father is not an emigrant, if he did not secretly cross the Khine, if, in short, the accusation is un just, he will be set at liberty; but if the accusation, which your lips have confirmed, is, on the contrary, a true one, then his head will fall in the public square of Plobsheim the day after to-morrow."

The young girl raised her head, and, controlling herself with difficulty, said: "Then you will give me no hope ?"

"None."

"Then a last word," said she, rising suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I will tell it to you alone."

"Then come with me."

The young girl went first, walking, with a firm step, to the salon, which she entered unhesitatingly.

Schneider closed the door after them. Scarcely were they alone than he attempted to put his arm around her; but, simply and with dignity, she repulsed him.

"In order that you may pardon the last attempt that I shall make to influence you, citizen Schneider," she said, "you must remember that I have tried all honorable means and been repulsed. You must remember that I am in de spair, and that, wishing to save my father's life, and hav ing been unable to move you, it is my duty to say to you, 1 Tears and prayers have been unavailing; money—' '

Schneider shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips disdainfully, but the young girl would not be interrupted.

"I am rich/' she continued; "my mother is dead; I have inherited an immense fortune which belongs to me, and to me alone. I can dispose of two millions. If I had four I would offer them to you, but I have only two—will you have them ? Take them and spare my father.''

Schneider laid his hand on her shoulder. He was lost in thought and his tufted eyebrows almost concealed his eyes from the young girl's eager gaze.

"To-morrow," said he, "I shall go to Plobsheim as I told you. You have just made me a proposition; I will make you another when I arrive."

4 ' What do you mean ?'' cried the young girl.

"I mean that, if you are willing, we can arrange the matter."

"If this proposition affects my honor, it is useless to make it."

"It does not."

"Then you will be welcome at Plobsheim."

And, bowing without hope but also without tears, she opened the door, crossed the dining-room, and passed out with a slight inclination of the head to the other guests.

Neither the three men nor the boy could see her face, which, was completely concealed in her hood.

The commissioner of the Eepublic followed her; he watched the dining-room door until she had closed it, and then listened until he heard the wheels of her carriage roll away. Then, approaching the table, he filled his own glass and those of his friends with the entire contents of a bottle of Liebfraumilch, and said: "With this generous wine let us drink to the health of citizeness Clotilde Brumpt, the be trothed of Jean-Georges-Euloge Schneider."

He raised his glass, and, deeming it useless to ask for an explanation which he probably would not give, his four friends followed his example.

CHAPTEE VI

MASTER NICHOLAS

THIS scene made a deep impression upon all present, varying according to their different personalities, but no one was more intensely moved than our young scholar. He had of course seen women before, but this was the first time that a woman had been revealed to him. Mademoiselle de Brumpt, as we have said, was mar vellously beautiful, and this beauty had appeared to the boy under the most favorable circumstances. He experi enced a strange emotion, a painful constriction of the heart, when, after the young girl's departure, Schneider, raising his glass, had announced that Mademoiselle de Brumpt was his betrothed and would soon be his wife.

What had passed in the salon ? By what persuasive words had Schneider induced her to give such sudden consent? For the boy did not doubt from his host's tone of assurance that the girl had consented. Had she asked the private interview for the purpose of offering herself to him ? In that case filial love must have been supreme to

have induced the pure lily, the perfumed rose, to unite her self with this prickly holly, this coarse thistle; and it seemed to Charles that, were he her father, he would rather die a hundred deaths than buy back his life at the price of his daughter's happiness.

Even as this was the first time that he had realized a woman's beauty, so it was the first time that he appreciated the abyss which ugliness can create between two people of opposite sexes. And just how ugly Euloge was, Charles now perceived for the first time. It was, moreover, an ugliness which nothing could efface! an ugliness in which was blended with the moral the fetid hideousness of one of those faces which, while still young, have been sealed with the seal of hypocrisy.

Charles, absorbed in his own reflections, had turned toward the door through which the young girl had dis appeared, like a heliotrope toward the setting sun. He seemed, with open mouth and nostrils dilated, to be ab sorbing the perfumed atoms which had floated round her as she passed. The nervous sensations of youth had been awakened in him, and as, in April, the chest expands to inhale the first breeze of spring, so his heart dilated with the first breath of love. It was not yet day, only the dawn; it was not yet love, but the herald which an nounced it.

He was about to rise and follow the magnetic current he knew not whither, as young and agitated hearts are wont to do, when Schneider rang. The sound made him start and fall from the heights to which he was ascending.

The old woman appeared.

"Are there any of my hussars at hand?" asked Schneider.

"Two," replied the woman.

"Let one of them go on horseback, and fetch Master Nicholas at once," said he.

The old woman closed the door without a question, which showed that she knew who was meant.

Charles did not understand it; but it was evident that, like the toast following Mademoiselle de Brumpt's depar ture, this order was connected with the same event. It was also evident that the three other guests knew who Master Nicholas was, since they, who were so free to talk with Schneider, asked no questions. Charles would have asked his neighbor Monnet, but he dared not, for fear that Schneider would overhear the question and answer himself.

There was a short silence, during which a certain re straint seemed to have fallen upon the party; the expecta tion of coffee—that pleasant beverage of dessert—and even its arrival, had not the power to draw aside so much as a corner of the sombre veil in which this order of Schneider's seemed to have enveloped them.