The Mississippi Bubble Part 30

"'Tis for the king! They weep for the king!" sang out the hard voice of the flower girl, ironically, as she skipped away. "Ohe, for the king, for the king!"

"Nay, for the queen!" said John Law, as he gazed into the eyes of Catharine Knollys.

CHAPTER III

SEARCH THOU MY HEART

"Only believe me, Lady Catharine, and I shall do everything I promised years ago--I shall lay all France at your feet. But if you deny me thus always, I shall make all France a mockery."

"Monsieur is fresh from the South of France," replied the Lady Catharine Knollys. "Has Gascon wine perhaps put Gascon speech into his mouth?"

"Oh, laugh if you like," exclaimed Law, rising and pacing across the great room in which these two had met. "Laugh and mock, but we shall see!"

"Granted that Mr. Law is well within his customary modesty," replied Lady Catharine, "and granted even that Mr. Law has all France in the hollow of his hand to-day, to do with as he likes, I must confess I see not why France should suffer because I myself have found it difficult to endorse Mr. Law's personal code of morals."

It was the third day after Law's entry into Paris, and the first time for more than two long years that he found himself alone with the Lady Catharine Knollys. His eagerness might have excused his impetuous and boastful speech.

As for the Lady Catharine, that one swift, electric moment at the street curb had well-nigh undone more than two years of resolve. She had heard herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come. She had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed, afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," argued she with herself, "if love once dies, then it is dead forever, and can never be revived.

Surely," she insisted to herself, "my love is dead. Then--ah, but then was it dead? Can my heart grow again?" asked the Lady Catharine of herself, tremblingly. This was that which gave her pause. It was this also which gave to her cheek its brighter color, to her eye a softer gleam; and to her speech this covering s.h.i.+eld of badinage.

Yet all her defenses were in a way to be fairly beaten down by the intentness of the other. All things he put aside or overrode, and would speak but of himself and herself, of his plans, his opportunities, and of how these were concerned with himself and with her.

"There are those who judge not so harshly as yourself, Madam," resumed Law. "His Grace the regent is good enough to believe that my studies have gone deeper than the green cloth of the gaming table. Now, I tell you, my time has come--my day at last is here. I tell you that I shall prove to you everything which I said to you long ago, back there in old England. I shall prove to you that I have not been altogether an idler and a trifler. I shall bring to you, as I promised you long ago, all the wealth, all the distinction--"

"But such speech is needless, Mr. Law," came the reply. "I have all the wealth I need, nor do I crave distinction, save of my own selection."

"But you do not dream! This is a day unparalleled. There will be such changes here as never yet were known. Within a week you shall hear of my name in Paris. Within a month you shall hear of it beyond the gates of Paris. Within a year you shall hear nothing else in Europe!"

"As I hear nothing else here now, Monsieur?"

Like a horse restless under the snaffle, the man shook his head, but went on. "If you should be offered wealth more than any woman of Paris, if you had precedence over the proudest peers of France--would these things have no weight with you?"

"You know they would not."

Law cast himself restlessly upon a seat across the room from her. "I think I do," said he, dejectedly. "At times you drive me to my wit's end. What then, Madam, would avail?"

"Why, nothing, so far as the past is to be reviewed for you and me. Yet, I should say that, if there were two here speaking as you and I, and if they two had no such past as we--then I could fancy that woman saying to her friend, 'Have you indeed done all that lay within you to do?'"

"Is it not enough--?"

"There is nothing, sir, that is enough for a woman, but all!"

"I have given you all."

"All that you have left--after yourself."

"Sharp, sharp indeed are your words, my Lady. And they are most sharp because they come with justice."

"Oh," broke out the woman, "one may use sharp words who has been scorned for her own false friend! You would give me all, Mr. Law, but you must remember that it is only what remains after that--that--"

"But would you, could you, have cared had there been no 'that'? Had I done all that lay in me to do, could you then have given me your confidence, and could you have thought me worthy of it?"

"Oh, 'if!'"

"Yes, 'if!' 'If,' and 'as though,' and 'in that case'--these are all we have to console us in this life. But, sweet one--"

"Sir, such words I have forbidden," said Lady Catharine, the blood for one cause or another mounting again into her cheek.

"You torture me!" broke out Law.

"As much as you have me? Is it so much as that, Mr. Law?"

He rose and stood apart, his head falling in despair. "As I have done this thing, so may G.o.d punish me!" said he. "I was not fit, and am not.

Yet I was bold enough to hope that there could be some atonement, some thing--if my suffering--"

"There are things, Mr. Law, for which no suffering atones. But why cause suffering longer for us both? You come again and again. Could you not leave me for a time untroubled?"

"How can I?" blazed the man, his forehead furrowed up into a frown, the moist beads on his brow proving his own intentness. "I can not! I can not! That is all I know. Ask me not why. I can not; that is all."

"Sir," said Lady Catharine, "this seems to me no less than terrible."

"It is indeed no less than terrible. Yet I must come and come again, bound some day to be heard, not for what I am, but for what I might be.

'Tis not justice I would have, dear heart, but mercy, a woman's mercy!"

"And you would bully me to agree with you, as I said, in regard to your own excellent code of morals, Mr. Law?"

"You evade, like any woman, but if you will, even have it so. At least there is to be this battle between us all our lives. I will be loved, Lady Catharine! I must be loved by you! Look in my heart. Search beneath this man that you and others see. Find me my own fellow, that other self better than I, who cries out always thus. Look! 'Tis not for me as I am.

No man deserves aught for himself. But find in my heart, Lady Catharine, that other self, the man I might have been! Dear heart, I beseech you, look!"

Impulsively, he even tore apart the front of his coat, as though indeed to invite such scrutiny. He stood before her, trembling, choking. The pa.s.sion of his speech caused the color again to rush to the Lady Catharine's face. For a moment her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, deep answering as of old unto deep, in the ancient, wondrous way.

"Is it the part of manhood to persecute a woman, Mr. Law?" she asked, her own uncert.i.tude now showing in her tone.

"I do not know," he answered.

Lady Catharine looked at him curiously.

"Do you love me, Mr. Law?" she asked, directly.

"I have no answer."

"Did you love that other woman?"

It took all his courage to reply. "I am not fit to answer," said he.