“Very bad,” replied the poor fellow. “I go for another physician now.”
After an hour a coach rumbled up—it was then the first gray and ghastly moment of the dawn. Out of the coach got a court physician whom I knew by sight. He remained a long while within the house, and when he came out looked solemn. I asked him civilly how his patient did, and he gave me the same answer as the valet—“Very bad.” He added, however, that the youth was young and strong, untainted by dissipation, and if he lived twenty-four hours, would probably survive. I was never one to give way to despair, and so I dwelt on these hopeful words. I am not ashamed to say I stepped into the church of the Temple, and made a prayer or two as well as I knew how for the young 48 man. There are, as I heard Madame Riano say some years afterward, such things as praying rogues and swearing saints—but though I prayed, I was not a rogue.
It may be imagined that I went not far from Gaston Cheverny’s lodgings during that twenty-four hours. I went to the Luxembourg once or twice, where Count Saxe was lodged by the king’s order, and I, of course, next him, and asked if I was needed, but each time, Beauvais, the valet, who was a fair writer, told me nay; and leaving word where I was to be found, I returned to my vigil at Gaston Cheverny’s door.
On the second sunrise after I had run him through, I heard the welcome news from the physician that the wound was healing with the first intention, that there was no fever, and that he had never known so serious a case progress so well. I returned to the Luxembourg, left word I was not to be called except by Count Saxe, and throwing myself on my bed, slept ten hours without waking. I had dreams in those hours—dreams of Mademoiselle Capello. It was on Friday night that I had come so near giving Gaston Cheverny his death wound—and it was on Sunday evening that I rose, after my sleep and my dreams, shaved, bathed, dressed, and went in search of Count Saxe.
CHAPTER V
THE ELDER BROTHER
I found my master in a room which had been a favorite one of that dead and gone and wicked Duchesse de Berry, who died of drink and debauchery at twenty-four years of age. Poor woman! I often used to fancy her gliding about that room, her pallid face rouged, her eyes on fire, and she, laughing and anxious, studying the faces of the men and women before her, and wishing she could see those behind her. She showed good taste by preferring that apartment, for it was spacious and airy, with three great windows looking upon the green Luxembourg gardens beneath, where the nightingales sang every night. The walls and ceiling of this room were frescoed with the story of the love of Ulysses and Calypso.
No one had occupied this particular room since the Duchesse de Berry, and it contained the same magnificent hangings, chairs, tables, sofas, consoles, girandoles, and what not, that unfortunate woman had used. Count Saxe’s belongings always seemed to be swearing at those of the dead and gone duchess. Count Saxe called the room his study; but rather, it should have been called his armory, for, instead of books, he had in it all manner of arms and everything pertaining to a soldier’s 50 life. He needed not books, being already instructed by his own mother-wit in all that was of any real value to know. This matter of reading is vastly overrated. There are persons who think it is the mill that makes the water run. It is men like Count Saxe who give occasion for books to be written.