Driscoll straightened, squared his shoulders to take a blow. To his blindness her manner looked like awakening love for the other man–and for the man himself, not for the prince! His sense of loss, his agony, were extreme. But of the old bitterness he now knew nothing. His rival was putting the question. “And according to that consideration, mademoiselle?”
Driscoll did not see her swift glance toward himself. He was hurrying out lest he might hear her answer. And she let him go–till he reached the door. But there, like one frozen, he halted rigidly.
“Hélas, I do not love you, sire,” Jacqueline had answered, very quietly.
Maximilian, however, did not seem heart broken.
His attention was all for the mere witness. He saw the effect on that witness. In Driscoll’s glad face he read his own triumph, his own purpose achieved. Jacqueline was righted at last.
“No,” he agreed, “I could not hope for so much.–But another might.”
483Then apropos of nothing, he went and flung his arms about Driscoll. The astounded trooper could only grip his hand, just once, without a word. Then he was gone.
Maximilian watched him go. The priest turned to Jacqueline. She, too, stood poised so long as his spurs rang through the corridor. At last silence fell on them. For a moment she hesitated. Then, trembling, her eyes moist, she held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she whispered. But, impulsively, she raised her arm and touched the doomed man’s forehead lightly with her finger tips, making a blurred sign of the cross. And, not daring an instant longer, she too fled.
Maximilian was alone with the priest. The room was growing dark. It was the last night.
“Now, father, light the tapers, there on the altar. Yes, I am ready. Ready? Blessed Mother in Heaven, it is more than I had thought to be!”