One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

"With all my heart," replied D'Aubin; and there shot through his own bosom one of those strange dreams of superstition which are felt even in the present time, but which were much more common then. "I have cast my last great stake already," he thought; "but the dice will soon show me whether fortune favours me to-night or not!"

The dice were brought, a small table placed beside them, and Wolfstrom and D'Aubin shook the accursed boxes, and cast throw after throw. Fortune, however, did favour D'Aubin: he won invariably; and though the sums for which they played at that time were too small to make the gain or loss a matter of any consequence, yet the fancy which had taken possession of him made him rejoice more at the winning of a few hundred crowns than if he had acquired a fortune. His lip smiled, his eye sparkled, his cheek glowed; and though the time of Madame de Montpensier's absence was nearly double that which she had anticipated, D'Aubin found it not tedious, even under expectation.

At length she returned; and, without a word, laid down a paper on the table before the Count. D'Aubin ran his eye over the promise he had himself drawn up; and there assuredly, at the bottom of the page, stood Mayenne's name in his own handwriting, together with the broad seal of his arms.

What arguments she had used, what reasons she had assigned, what motives she had called into action, to obtain that signature, the Duchess did not tell, but gazed for a moment with a look of triumph upon the Count; and then, as her eye caught the dice upon the table, she turned with an air of gay indifference to Wolfstrom, demanding--"Well, sir Albert! have you won the Royalist's gold!"

"Good faith, no!" cried the German, throwing the dice into a water-jar of rock-crystal that stood upon the supper-table; "those little demons have played me false, and he has won six hundred of as good crowns of the League as ever were squeezed from a heretic Huguenot."

"Well, well!" replied Madame de Montpensier, "if the dice forsake you, turn again to the wine, Sir Albert; there is a resource for you in all time of trouble. Fill me yon Venice glass too; and you, D'Aubin, give me that sweet manchet--for, to tell the truth, the thoughts of this encounter I was about to undergo in your behalf, sir Count, kept me from supper."

D'Aubin gracefully spoke his thanks, taking care, however, to veil, in the circumlocutory ornaments employed in that day, all direct allusion to the nature of the service for which he expressed his gratitude. The conversation became gay and animated for half an hour; roamed to a thousand indifferent subjects, touching each with a momentary light--like a sunbeam breaking through the clouds of a windy autumn day, and skipping from point to point in the landscape as the vapours are hurried on before the gale--and then, drooping for a moment, paused as if to breathe the wits of the gay little coterie. Madame de Montpensier took advantage of that minute to rise and depart; and D'Aubin, bidding his male companion "Good night," proceeded to call together his attendants and return to the camp.

A more strict watch was kept in the night than in the day; and, what between one halt and another, the dawn was beginning to purple the eastern verge of the sky, when the Count arrived at the spot where his troops were quartered. As he was dismounting from his horse, however, some one whispered a word in his ear; and, springing again at once into the saddle, he turned his horse's head, and galloped on to his lodgings at St. Cloud.

CHAPTER XVIII.

While such was the conduct of the Count d'Aubin, St. Real, whom he had left hurt, agitated, and gloomy, continued to pace his little chamber, giving way to many a melancholy thought. The more he yielded to reflection, the more he examined the state of his own heart, the more deeply and bitterly he felt that the deceit he had practised upon himself did not date from a late period, but had been of long existence. He remembered the pleasure he had felt in the society of Eugenie de Menancourt from his earliest days, in the sweet reciprocation of simple and innocent feelings, in the mutual communication of thoughts and sensations peculiar to the retired state of life in which they then passed their days. He remembered how much pain he had felt when her father, taking part in the troubles of the time, had removed for a short period from his neighbourhood; and he remembered how gladly he had heard that the hand of Eugenie de Menancourt had been promised to his cousin the young Count d'Aubin, inasmuch as that engagement was destined to bring her back to the vicinity of his father's chateau. He had calculated, simply enough, upon always regarding her as a beloved sister; and as he never for a moment having dreamed of any other feeling towards her during his early days, the idea certainly never presented itself after he was informed of an arrangement which he was taught to look upon as a positive engagement towards his cousin. When she did return to Maine, he greeted her with what he fancied brotherly affection; and though when he beheld his cousin apparently neglecting her, to pay devoted attention to the gay and sparkling beauties of the royal court, he felt a degree of anger and indignation on Eugenie's account, which made him devote himself entirely to her, he would have considered those feelings--had he thought of the matter in such a light at all--as the surest proofs that his inmost sensations towards Eugenie de Menancourt were merely those of a relation, inasmuch as, instead of feeling jealous of the attentions his cousin paid her, he was angry that those attentions were not more. Now, however, he knew the whole--he saw that the love he had felt had been early conceived, and secretly nourished; and the insight that he gained into his own feelings showed him that those feelings could never change, but would last in all their intensity to cause his misery through life.