Free The Bronze Eagle by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Page B

us,
these new men—our lives, our lands, our very means of subsistence—now
they have taken to filching our sweethearts—curse them! but at least
let us keep our dignity!"
    But again she was silent. What was there to say that had not been
said?—save that unspoken word "good-bye." And he asked very softly:
    "May I kiss you for the last time, Crystal?"
    "No, Maurice," she replied, "never again."
    "You are still free," he urged. "You are not plighted to de Marmont
yet."
    "No—not actually—not till to-night. . . ."
    "Then . . . mayn't I?"
    "No, Maurice," she said decisively.
    "Your hand then?"
    "If you like." He knelt down close to her; she yielded her hand to him
and he with his usual impulsiveness covered it with kisses into which he
tried to infuse the fervour of a last farewell.
    Then without another word he rose to his feet and walked away with a
long and firm stride down the avenue. Crystal watched his retreating
figure until the overhanging branches of the ilex hid him from her view.
    She made no attempt now to restrain her tears, they flowed
uninterruptedly down her cheeks and dropped hot and searing upon her
hands. With Maurice's figure disappearing down the dark avenue, with the
echo of his footsteps dying away in the distance, the last chapter of
her first book of romance seemed to be closing with relentless finality.
    The afternoon sun was hidden behind a bank of grey clouds, the northeast
wind came whistling insistently through the trees:—even that feeling of
spring in the air had vanished. It was just a bleak grey winter's day
now. Crystal felt herself shivering with cold. She drew [Pg 71] her shawl more
closely round her shoulders, then with eyes still wet with tears, but
small head held well erect, she rose to her feet and walked rapidly back
to the house.
III
    Madame la Duchesse had in the meanwhile followed Hector along the
corridor and down the finely carved marble staircase. At a monumental
door on the ground floor the man paused, his hand upon the massive
ormolu handle, waiting for Madame la Duchesse to come up.
    He felt a little uncomfortable at her approach for here in the big
square hall the light was very clear, and he could see Madame's keen,
searching eyes looking him up and down and through and through. She even
put up her lorgnon and though she was not very tall, she contrived to
look Hector through them straight between the eyes.
    "Is M. le Comte in there?" Madame la Duchesse deigned to ask as she
pointed with her lorgnon to the door.
    "In the small library beyond, Madame la Duchesse," replied Hector
stiffly.
    "And . . ." she queried with sharp sarcasm, "is the antechamber very
full of courtiers and ladies just now?"
    A quick, almost imperceptible blush spread over Hector's impassive
countenance, and as quickly vanished again.
    "M. le Comte," he said imperturbably, "is disengaged at the present
moment. He seldom receives visitors at this hour."
    On Madame's mobile lips the sarcastic curl became more marked. "And I
suppose, my good Hector," she said, "that since M. le Comte has only
granted an audience to his sister to-day, you thought it was a good
opportunity for putting yourself at your ease and wearing your patched
and mended clothes, eh?"
    Once more that sudden wave of colour swept over Hector's solemn old
face. He was evidently at a loss how to [Pg 72] take Mme. la Duchesse's
remark—whether as a rebuke or merely as one of those mild jokes of
which every one knew that Madame was inordinately fond.
    Something of his dignity of attitude seemed to fall away from him as he
vainly tried to solve this portentous problem. His mouth felt dry and
his head hot, and he did not know on which foot he could stand with the
least possible discomfort, and how he could contrive to hide from Madame
la Duchesse's piercing eyes that very obvious patch in the right knee of
his breeches.
    "Madame la Duchesse will forgive me, I hope," he stammered painfully.
    But already Madame's kind old face had shed