“Forgive me,” he muttered; “I was not expecting this—no, not expecting this.” He raised his head and said in a firmer voice, “M. de Caumont would be glad to be speaking to his son on any terms. I must not be ungrateful—no, I must not be ungrateful.”
Luc turned towards his father eyes that seemed to have widened and darkened. “I have thought of that,” he replied. “I once indeed wished to die as Hippolyte and M. d’Espagnac, but I felt——” He paused again; a certain diffidence that had always made him reserved and a true modesty prevented him from uttering his deep conviction of gifts—nay, genius—that must yet find expression and recognition.
No such thought consoled the old Marquis. He saw his son’s career broken at the beginning and his son’s fortune lost. He was not himself a wealthy man; he could do little more than give him a home—and it was an inglorious end.
But the noble rallied.
“Your mother will be glad,” he said, with a pathetic smile. “I think she has not had an easy moment since you went to the war.”
Luc could not answer. He saw that his father was looking not at him, but at the famous uniform of the régiment du roi that he wore, and, like a picture suddenly thrust before his eyes, came the long-forgotten recollection of the day his father had bought him his commission and of their mutual pride in the trappings and symbols of war: there had been a de Clapiers in the army for many hundred years. Thinking of this, and seeing the old man’s wistful glance, Luc felt the bitterness that had smitten him on his sick couch at Eger re-arise in his heart.
“My God!” he cried softly, “it is hard to be a useless man.”
He kissed his father’s hand, and then went up softly to that chamber he had left nine years ago in a tumult of glorious anticipation, of surging ambitions, of pure resolutions. The anticipations had been disappointed, the ambitions had ended, but the resolutions had been kept. Luc de Clapiers had done nothing since he had left his boyhood’s home of which any man could be ashamed.
He thought of his mother as he entered the room, for she had promised to leave it untouched for him, and he saw at once how lovingly she had kept her word. Certainly, the red and gold hangings on the bed and the windows had been removed, but carefully preserved, for the servants had already brought them out and laid them across the cabinet by the window—the beautiful curved bow-window with the latticed panes bearing the little coat of arms in each in leaded, coloured glass.
There were his chairs, his books, his candlesticks, his low, wide bed with the four carved posts, his crucifix, his picture of St. Cecilia with her music from the Italian, even his violin and his old torn papers in a green portfolio. He went round the room, vaguely touching these objects that were free even from a speck of dust.