Count Hannibal Part 15

"Why?" she asked stubbornly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Why?" he repeated. "Can you ask, Mademoiselle, after the events of last night? Because, if you please, I do not wish to share the fate of M. de Tignonville. Because in these days life is uncertain, and death too certain. Because it was our turn last night, and it may be the turn of your friends--to-morrow night!"

"Then some have escaped?" she cried.

He smiled. "I am glad to find you so shrewd," he replied. "In an honest wife it is an excellent quality. Yes, Mademoiselle; one or two."

"Who? Who? I pray you tell me."

"M. de Montgomery, who slept beyond the river, for one; and the Vidame, and some with him. M. de Biron, whom I count a Huguenot, and who holds the a.r.s.enal in the King's teeth, for another. And a few more. Enough, in a word, Mademoiselle, to keep us wakeful. It is impossible, therefore, for me to postpone the fulfilment of your promise."

"A promise on conditions!" she retorted, in rage that she could win no more. And every line of her splendid figure, every tone of her voice flamed sudden, hot rebellion. "I do not go for nothing! You gave me the lives of all in the house, Monsieur! Of all!" she repeated with pa.s.sion.

"And all are not here! Before I marry you, you must show me M. de Tignonville alive and safe!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "He has taken himself off," he said. "It is naught to me what happens to him now."

"It is all to me!" she retorted.

At that he glared at her, the veins of his forehead swelling suddenly.

But after a seeming struggle with himself he put the insult by, perhaps for future reckoning and account.

"I did what I could," he said sullenly. "Had I willed it he had died there and then in the room below. I gave him his life. If he has risked it anew and lost it, it is naught to me."

"It was his life you gave me," she repeated stubbornly. "His life--and the others. But that is not all," she continued; "you promised me a minister."

He nodded, smiling sourly to himself, as if this confirmed a suspicion he had entertained.

"Or a priest," he said.

"No, a minister."

"If one could be obtained. If not, a priest."

"No, it was to be at my will; and I will a minister! I will a minister!"

she cried pa.s.sionately. "Show me M. de Tignonville alive, and bring me a minister of my faith, and I will keep my promise, M. de Tavannes. Have no fear of that. But otherwise, I will not."

"You will not?" he cried. "You will not?"

"No!"

"You will not marry me?"

"No!"

The moment she had said it fear seized her, and she could have fled from him, screaming. The flash of his eyes, the sudden pa.s.sion of his face, burned themselves into her memory. She thought for a second that he would spring on her and strike her down. Yet though the women behind her held their breath, she faced him, and did not quail; and to that, she fancied, she owed it that he controlled himself.

"You will not?" he repeated, as if he could not understand such resistance to his will--as if he could not credit his ears. "You will not?" But after that, when he had said it three times, he laughed; a laugh, however, with a snarl in it that chilled her blood.

"You bargain, do you?" he said. "You will have the last t.i.ttle of the price, will you? And have thought of this and that to put me off, and to gain time until your lover, who is all to you, comes to save you? Oh, clever girl! clever! But have you thought where you stand--woman? Do you know that if I gave the word to my people they would treat you as the commonest baggage that tramps the Froidmantel? Do you know that it rests with me to save you, or to throw you to the wolves whose ravening you hear?" And he pointed to the window. "Minister? Priest?" he continued grimly. "_Mon Dieu_, Mademoiselle, I stand astonished at my moderation.

You chatter to me of ministers and priests, and the one or the other, when it might be neither! When you are as much and as hopelessly in my power to-day as the wench in my kitchen! You! You flout me, and make terms with me! You!"

And he came so near her with his dark harsh face, his tone rose so menacing on the last word, that her nerves, shattered before, gave way, and, unable to control herself, she flinched with a low cry, thinking he would strike her.

He did not follow, nor move to follow; but he laughed a low laugh of content. And his eyes devoured her.

"Ho! ho!" he said. "We are not so brave as we pretend to be, it seems.

And yet you dared to chaffer with me? You thought to thwart me--Tavannes!

_Mon Dieu_, Mademoiselle, to what did you trust? To what did you trust?

Ay, and to what do you trust?"

She knew that by the movement which fear had forced from her she had jeopardized everything. That she stood to lose all and more than all which she had thought to win by a bold front. A woman less brave, of a spirit less firm, would have given up the contest, and have been glad to escape so. But this woman, though her bloodless face showed that she knew what cause she had for fear, and though her heart was indeed sick with terror, held her ground at the point to which she had retreated. She played her last card.

"To what do I trust?" she muttered with trembling lips.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," he answered between his teeth. "To what do you trust--that you play with Tavannes?"

"To his honour, Monsieur," she answered faintly. "And to your promise."

He looked at her with his mocking smile. "And yet," he sneered, "you thought a moment ago that I should strike you. You thought that I should beat you! And now it is my honour and my promise! Oh, clever, clever, Mademoiselle! 'Tis so that women make fools of men. I knew that something of this kind was on foot when you sent for me, for I know women and their ways. But, let me tell you, it is an ill time to speak of honour when the streets are red! And of promises when the King's word is 'No faith with a heretic!'"

"Yet you will keep yours," she said bravely.

He did not answer at once, and hope which was almost dead in her breast began to recover; nay, presently sprang up erect. For the man hesitated, it was evident; he brooded with a puckered brow and gloomy eyes; an observer might have fancied that he traced pain as well as doubt in his face. At last--

"There is a thing," he said slowly and with a sort of glare at her, "which, it may be, you have not reckoned. You press me now, and will stand on your terms and your conditions, your _ifs_ and your _unlesses_!

You will have the most from me, and the bargain and a little beside the bargain! But I would have you think if you are wise. Bethink you how it will be between us when you are my wife--if you press me so now, Mademoiselle. How will it sweeten things then? How will it soften them?

And to what, I pray you, will you trust for fair treatment then, if you will be so against me now?"

She shuddered. "To the mercy of my husband," she said in a low voice.

And her chin sank on her breast.

"You will be content to trust to that?" he answered grimly. And his tone and the lifting of his brow promised little clemency. "Bethink you! 'Tis your rights now, and your terms, Mademoiselle! And then it will be only my mercy--Madame."

"I am content," she muttered faintly.

"And the Lord have mercy on my soul, is what you would add," he retorted, "so much trust have you in my mercy! And you are right! You are right, since you have played this trick on me. But as you will. If you will have it so, have it so! You shall stand on your conditions now; you shall have your pennyweight and full advantage, and the rigour of the pact. But afterwards--afterwards, Madame de Tavannes--"

He did not finish his sentence, for at the first word which granted her pet.i.tion, Mademoiselle had sunk down on the low wooden window-seat beside which she stood, and, cowering into its farthest corner, her face hidden on her arms, had burst into violent weeping. Her hair, hastily knotted up in the hurry of the previous night, hung in a thick plait to the curve of her waist; the nape of her neck showed beside it milk-white. The man stood awhile contemplating her in silence, his gloomy eyes watching the pitiful movement of her shoulders, the convulsive heaving of her figure.

But he did not offer to touch her, and at length he turned about. First one and then the other of her women quailed and shrank under his gaze; he seemed about to add something. But he did not speak. The sentence he had left unfinished, the long look he bent on the weeping girl as he turned from her, spoke more eloquently of the future than a score of orations.

"_Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes_!"

CHAPTER XII. IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE.