salon there was a score of women, all of whom were well favoured enough; yet the glances they cast at Laure Vauxcelles showed that they owned their superior here. Moreover, they envied her. Desparre was thought to be enormously rich--had, indeed, always been considered so since he inherited his dukedom; but now that he had thrust his hand into the golden rain that fell in the Rue Quincampoix and, with it, had drawn forth more than a million livres--as many said!--there was not one of them who, being unmarried, would not have sold herself to him. But he had elected to buy Laure Vauxcelles, they understood; and yet Laure hated him. "She was a beautiful fool!" they whispered to each other.
The tables were ready by the time she and her uncle had made their greetings. The "guests" sat down to biribi, pharaon (faro), and lansquenet. It was what they had come for, since the Demoiselles Montjoie kept the most fashionable gambling-house in Paris--a house in which the Regent had condescended to play ere now. A house in which, many years later, a milliner's girl, who was brought there to exhibit her beauty, managed to become transformed into a king's favourite, known afterwards as Madame du Barry.
Soon the gamblers were at it fast and furious. The stockbrokers of the Rues Quincampoix[1] and Vivienne--not having had enough excitement during the day in buying and selling Mississippi shares--were now engaged in retrieving their losses, if possible, or losing their gains. Even the greater part of the women had left the velvet lounges and fauteuils and were tempting fate according to their means, with crowns, louis-d'ors shares of the Royal Bank, or "The Louisiana Company"; gambling in sums from twenty pounds to a thousand.
And Vandecque, Laure's uncle, having now his purse well lined, though once nothing rubbed themselves together within it but a few beggarly coppers, was presiding at the lansquenet table, had flung down an important sum to make a bank, and was--as loudly as the manners of good society under the Regency would permit--inviting all round him to try their chance. While they, on their part, were eager enough to possess themselves of that purse's contents, though he himself had very little fear that such was likely to be the case.
Two there were, however, who sat apart and did not join in the play--one, the ruined young Englishman of whom Morlaix and his companion had spoken, the other, Laure Vauxcelles, the woman who was to be sold in marriage to Desparre. Neither had spoken, however, on Laure's entrance with Vandecque. The man had remained seated on one of the velvet lounges at the far end of the room, his eyes fixed on the richly-painted ceiling, with its cupids and nymphs and goddesses--fitting allegories to the greatest and most aristocratic gambling hell in Paris! The girl, on entering, had cast one swift glance at him from those, hazel eyes, and had then turned them away. Yet he had seen that glance, although he had taken no notice of it.
Presently, the game waxing more and more furious while Vandecque's back was turned to them (he being much occupied with his earnest endeavours to capture all the bank notes and the obligations of the Royal Bank and the Louisiana Company, and the little piles of gold pieces scattered about), the young man rose from his seat, and, walking to where Laure Vauxcelles sat some twenty paces from him, staring straight before her, said:
"This should be almost Mademoiselle's last appearance here. Doubtless Monsieur le Duc is anxious for--for his union with Mademoiselle. When, if one may make so bold to ask, is it likely to take place?"
For answer, the girl seated before him raised her eyes to those of the young Englishman, then--with a glance towards Vandecque's back, rounded as it bent over the table, while he scooped up the stakes which a successful deal of the cards had made his--said slowly:
"Never. Never--if I can prevent it."
She spoke in a low whisper, for fear the gambler should hear her, yet it was clear and distinct enough to reach the ears of the man before her; and, as he heard the words, he started. Yet, because--although he was still very young--the life he had led, the people he had mixed among in Paris, had taught him to steel himself against the exhibition of all emotion, he said very quietly:
"Mademoiselle is, if I may say it, a little difficult. She appears to reject all honest admiration offered to her. To--to desire to remain untouched by the love of any man?"
"The love of any man! Does Monsieur Clarges regard the love of the Duc Desparre as worth having? Does he regard the Duc Desparre as a man? As one whose wife any woman should desire to become?"
Monsieur Clarges shrugged his shoulders, then he said:
"There have been others."
"Yes," she answered. "There have been others."
"And they were equally unfortunate. There was one----"
"There was one," she replied, interrupting, and with her glance firmly fixed him, "who desired my love; who desired me for his wife. A year ago. Is it not so? And, Monsieur Clarges, what was my answer to him? You should know. Recall it."
"Your answer was that you did not love him; that, therefore, you could be no wife of his. Now, Mademoiselle, recall yourself--it is your turn--what he then said. It was this, I think. That he so loved you that, without receiving back any love from you in return, he begged you to grant his prayer; to believe that he would win that love at last if you would but give yourself to him; while, if you desired it, he would so show the reverence he held you in--that, once you were his wife, he would demand nothing more from you. Nothing but that he might be by your side; be but as a brother, a champion, a sentinel to watch and guard over you, although a husband in truth. That was what he said. That was all he desired. Mademoiselle, will the Duc Desparre be as loyal a husband as this, do you think?"
"The Duc Desparre will never be husband of mine."
The Englishman again shrugged his shoulders. He had learnt the trick well during a long exile in Paris--an exile dating from the time when the Pretender's cause was lost by the Earl of Mar, and he, a Jacobite, had followed him to France after the "'15."
"But how to avoid it now?" he asked. "The time draws near--is at hand. How escape?"
"Is there not one way?" she asked, with again an upward glance of those eyes.
"No no no!" he replied, his calmness deserting him now. "No! no! Not that! Not that!"
"How else? There is no other."
As they spoke the play still went on at the tables; women shrieked still, half in earnest half in jest, as a card turned up that told against them. Still Vandecque crouched over the board where he held the bank and where his greedy hands drew in the stakes, for he was winning heavily. Already he had twenty thousand livres before him drawn from the pockets of Mirabel, Sainte Foix, the stockbrokers of the Rues Quincampoix and Vivienne, and from the female gamblers. And, gambler himself, he had forgotten all else; he had forgotten almost that the niece whom he guarded so carefully until the time should come when he would hand her over to her purchaser, was in the room.
"It is an accursed law," the Englishman murmured; "a vile, accursed law which gives a father or a guardian such power. In no other country would it be possible. Yet Lau--Mademoiselle--that which you meditate must never be. Oh! to think of it! To think of it!"
He buried his head in his hands now as he spoke--he had taken a seat beside her--and reflected on the terror of the thing, the horror that she, whom he had loved so madly--whom, alas! he loved still, though she cared nothing for him--should be doomed to one of two extremes--marriage with Desparre, or a convent. Or, worse--a third, a more fearful horror! That which she meditated--death!
For that, if she had taken this resolve, she would carry it out he did not doubt. She would never have proclaimed her intention had she not been determined. She had said it was the only way!
