I took Andrea aside and asked him whither it was his intention to take his wife. He replied that they would go to Chambord, where they would remain for some weeks in the hope that the Chevalier might relent sufficiently to forgive them. Thereafter it was his purpose to take his bride home to his Sicilian demesne.
Our farewells were soon spoken; yet none the less warm, for all its brevity, was my leave-taking of Andrea, and our wishes for each other's happiness were as fervent as the human heart can shape. We little thought that we were not destined to meet again for years.
Yvonne's adieu was cold and formal—so cold and formal that it seemed to rob the sunshine of its glory for me as I stepped out into the open air.
After all, what mattered it? I was a fool to have entertained a single tender thought concerning her.
CHAPTER XIX. OF MY RETURN TO PARIS
Scant cause is there for me to tarry over the details of my return to Paris. A sad enough journey was it; as sad for my poor Michelot as for myself, since he rode with one so dejected as I.
Things had gone ill, and I feared that when the Cardinal heard the story things would go worse, for Mazarin was never a tolerant man, nor one to be led by the gospel of mercy and forgiveness. For myself I foresaw the rope—possibly even the wheel; and a hundred times a day I dubbed myself a fool for obeying the voice of honour with such punctiliousness when so grim a reward awaited me. What mood was on me—me, Gaston de Luynes, whose honour had been long since besmirched and tattered until no outward semblance of honour was left?
But swift in the footsteps of that question would come the answer—Yvonne. Ay, truly enough, it was because in my heart I had dared to hold a sentiment of love for her, the purest—nay, the only pure—thing my heart had held for many a year, that I would set nothing vile to keep company with that sentiment; that until my sun should set—and already it dropped swiftly towards life's horizon—my actions should be the actions of such a man as might win Yvonne's affections.
But let that be. This idle restrospective mood can interest you but little; nor can you profit from it, unless, indeed, it be by noting how holy and cleansing to the heart of man is the love—albeit unrequited—that he bears a good woman.