“Mademoiselle d’Orantia is a very courageous woman. She has probably made up her mind to endure her lot. She chose it for herself.”
“Oh, Lord, yes! But there are some things flesh and blood cannot endure, as my Lord Clarendon told my blessed prince, King Charles, when he would have the Castlemaine woman about his wife,—the one who so hated your father, my dear.”
The wrongs and sorrows of his father did not greatly trouble Roger Egremont then.
Finding that Madame de Beaumanoir rather sharpened the edge of his pain, Roger left her. He met Berwick, and the two walked about the town and its environs until dark. Berwick had the same tale to tell.
“A thorough-going scoundrel, if ever I saw one, is this precious Prince. I swear, much as I want those two places to fortify on the river bank, I would not, like the French King, have given this fair girl in payment for them. She is but a pawn on the board. Orlamunde—damn him for a rascal!—wanted the money which the King pretends to give as a dowry with Mademoiselle,—it is no dowry, but a good, big, barefaced bribe,—and the King wanted those two places, on which to mount a couple of dozen cannon, which, with five hundred men, could check the advance of five thousand; and this girl was simply the human document which attests their evil bargain. And she—rash girl!—was willing, nay, eager for it in the beginning.”
“And you think she—she—changed?”
Berwick looked down at Roger, who was not so tall as he.
“Yes,—so much, that I was afraid she would turn back on the journey. I had not then seen this Prince, and I tried to warn Mademoiselle d’Orantia that she had gone too far to retreat. God forgive me if I advised her ill. But I shall not leave this white dove quite unprotected amid the vultures. I have full power from His Majesty, and not a stiver does this scoundrel Prince get, unless his wife is willing to live with him. The day Orlamunde becomes intolerable to her, that day does the Prince cease to receive the two hundred thousand livres which we pay, together with this unfortunate girl, for Mondberg and Arnheim. This I shall make plain before I leave this cursed place.”
At night the fireworks were very splendid. Roger, standing on a balcony near Michelle, tried to watch her, but Countess von Roda claimed his attention. She liked the looks of this clean-limbed, bright-eyed young man better than the tall and silent Berwick—she had already found out his name—the Pike. But she thought Monsieur d’Egremont, as she called him, rather a sulky fellow. Not only Roger’s name became French, but everything at Orlamunde was more French than at Paris. The court people uttered not a word of any other language but French, which they spoke with a fearful accent. Following the fireworks was a concert, in which the songs were all French, and the fiddles fiddled only French airs. Michelle went through it all with the same smiling courage she had shown from the beginning. It was midnight before all was over. The marriage was to take place next day at noon.
Roger Egremont went to his room, to rest and to think—but not expecting to sleep. However, throwing himself upon his bed, sleep suddenly overtook him—and he lay in a heavy and dreamless slumber until next morning, when the sun was high in the heavens. He was wakened by the blowing of silver trumpets in the courtyard of the schloss, in honor of Michelle’s wedding day.