And again it struck at her, Camain’s accusation. How dared he, an upstart, a man of the people, how dared he throw mud at the Duc de Trélan, as far above him in character as he was removed in rank! But whose action was it that had given him the opportunity of throwing mud? Ah, if they had not separated . . . if she had done what he wished. . . .
The sun had left the window. A blackbird in the overgrown park outside was proclaiming rapturous things. Inside, among the Sèvres and the portraits, the Duchesse de Trélan, her arms outstretched on the cold malachite of the console beneath her husband’s picture was weeping bitterly. She had not known that it would be like this! The life of long ago, sunk for ever beneath those whirlpools of fury and carnage—regret for that was past. She was strong enough to face its cold relics without faltering. But Mirabel held, after all, not only the phantom of a dead existence, but of a love slowly slain . . . and not dead. Oh, if only Gaston were back in Mirabel again!
But there was no living creature in the great house save herself. The young man on the wall, with his indefinable air of charming assurance and good society, looked out into the room over the faded head of his wife, and the blackbird in the garden continued to assert that spring was come. Yet for his only hearer spring would never come again.
CHAPTER VI
THE ROMAUNT OF ROLAND
It may be doubted whether, after all, Roland de Céligny really regretted exchanging Ares for Aphrodite. He hardly knew himself, as he journeyed with his injured friend by discreet routes back to Finistère and that friend’s home near the sea. His heart was certainly sore at leaving the clash of arms, and he still resented the summary separation from his leader. Yet, to balance the sword half drawn and all too quickly sheathed, were the curls of Mlle de la Vergne, enshrined in the château whose tourelles rose, on the third day, from a screen of chestnuts to greet the travellers.
What, in that blest abode, would Marthe be doing when they came on her? Involuntarily Roland pictured their meeting as a replica, and saw her again at embroidery in the salon with its Indian hangings. But one always paints these things wrong. The reality was even better. For there was no duenna of a mother with her, merely a rustic groom, when, mounted on a beautiful black thoroughbred, she suddenly trotted round a bend of the road. . . .
“If that is not my little sister!” exclaimed Artamène spurring forward; and Roland, uncovering, pulled up his horse.
In the dappled sunlight, under the chestnuts, brother greeted sister, bending from the saddle. Roland thought he had never seen anything more beautiful. He was near enough to hear the joy and the anxiety in Mlle de la Vergne’s voice, her stream of enquiries. Then Artamène looked back and beckoned.