“That proves you very much,” she said, “for a man never thinks himself nothing till he has a standard of merit with which to compare himself and the possession of such a standard is a proof of worth.”
“I am only Pierre—the servant of Monsieur le Géneral.”
With what pride I should yesterday have avowed myself the servant of so brave a soldier and so grand a gentleman. With what hatred of him and what contempt for myself did I make that statement today. Did not the great gulf between the gold and white Queen of the World deepen and widen infinitely with the significance of my words?
“Monsieur le Géneral is fortunate.”
She wrote a line on a leaf from a gold and white tablet and gave it to me, sealed with a golden seal.
I bowed low and went out from her presence with my face toward her. At the entrance I lifted my eyes and looked dazzled at the spot of light in the centre of the great hall. Thus I passed out into the courtyard flooded with sunlight which seemed dim in comparison with that supernal radiance.
The dark-eyed page had seated himself on the rim of the basin into which the fountain fell with a tinkling music that kept rhythm with the song he was still singing. With the refrain yet ringing in my ears, “Never a rose like my lady’s face,” I went back to Monsieur le Géneral with the missive she had given me.
A little later the blood of the Paris streets spattered to the gold robes of the court. I saw the head of Monsieur le Géneral carried by me on a spike and the dark-faced, ragged man who bore it sang a ribald song as he looked mockingly up into the face, one word of which would have been his death-warrant had it been uttered when that head yet sat upon the stately shoulders. For a moment a sorrowful thought of the days when I loved him lay like a cloud upon my mind, but what time was there then for thinking of love—at least of that love.
I left the crowd of raging demons and ran across the courtyard where the fountain yet tinkled merrily down into the basin. No dark-eyed page loitered there and sang of the red rose and his lady’s face to the music of the falling water. I dashed past the fountain and ran into the great hall. It was empty and there was the print of muddy feet trampled over the marble floor. I went to the Leader of the People.
“Where is Mademoiselle Denise?”