Fortunately M. le Comte himself put an end to Hector's dilemma. He had recognised St. Genis' voice. Unlike his majordomo, he knew at once that something terribly grave must have happened, else the young man would never have committed such a serious breach of good manners. And M. le Comte himself was never at a loss how to turn any situation to a dignified and proper issue: he murmured a quick and courteous apology to Mme. la Duchesse d'Embrun and a comprehensive one to all his guests, then he hastened to meet St. Genis at the door.
Already St. Genis had entered. His rough clothes and muddy boots looked strangely in contrast to the immaculate get-up of the Comte's guests, but of this he hardly seemed to be aware. His face was flushed; with his right hand he clutched a small riding cane, and his glowering dark eyes swept a rapid glance over every one in the room.
And to the Comte he said hoarsely: "I must offer you my humblest apologies, my dear Comte, for obtruding my very untidy person upon you at this hour. I have walked all the way from Grenoble, as I could not get a hackney-coach, else I had been here earlier and spared you this unpleasantness."
"You are always welcome in this house, my good Maurice," said the Comte in his loftiest manner, "and at any hour of the day."
And he added with a certain tone of dignified reproach: "I did ask you to be my guest to-night, if you remember."
"And I," said St. Genis, "was churlish enough to refuse. I would not have come now only that I felt I might be in time to avert the most awful catastrophe that has yet fallen upon your house."
Again his restless, dark eyes—sullen and wrathful and charged with a look of rage and of hate—wandered over the assembled company. The look frightened the ladies. They took to clinging to one another, standing in compact little groups together, like frightened birds, watchful and wide-eyed. They feared that the young man was mad. But the men exchanged significant glances and significant smiles. They merely thought that St. Genis had been drinking, or that jealousy had half-turned his brain.
Only Clyffurde, who stood somewhat apart from the others, knew—by some unexplainable intuition—what it was that had brought Maurice de St. Genis to this house in this excited state and at this hour. He felt excited too, and mightily thankful that the catastrophe would be brought about by others—not by himself.
But all his thoughts were for Crystal, and an instinctive desire to stand by her and to shield her if necessary from some unknown or unguessed evil, made him draw nearer to her. She stood on the fringe of the little crowd—as isolated as Bobby was himself.
De Marmont—whose face had become the colour of dead ashes—had left her side: one step at a time and very slowly he was getting nearer and nearer to St. Genis, as if the latter's wrath-filled eyes were drawing him against his will.