Count Hannibal | Page 2

the Louvre as gay, as
full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had found it; and in the
humours of the throng, in the ceaseless passage of masks and maids of
honour, guards and bishops, Swiss in the black, white, and green of
Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more sombre habits, the country-bred
girl had found recreation and to spare. Until gradually the evening had
worn away and she had begun to feel nervous; and M. de Tignonville,
her betrothed, placing her in the embrasure of a window, had gone to
seek Madame.

She had waited for a time without much misgiving; expecting each
moment to see him return. He would be back before she could count a
hundred; he would be back before she could number the leagues that
separated her from her beloved province, and the home by the Biscay
Sea, to which even in that brilliant scene her thoughts turned fondly.
But the minutes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned.
Worse, in his place Tavannes--not the Marshal, but his brother, Count
Hannibal--had found her; he, whose odious court, at once a menace and
an insult, had subtly enveloped her for a week past. He had sat down
beside her, he had taken possession of her, and, profiting by her
inexperience, had played on her fears and smiled at her dislike. Finally,
whether she would or no, he had swept her with him into the Chamber.
The rest had been an obsession, a nightmare, from which only the
King's voice summoning Tavannes to his side had relieved her.
Her aim now was to escape before he returned, and before another,
seeing her alone, adopted his role and was rude to her. Already the
courtiers about her were beginning to stare, the pages to turn and titter
and whisper. Direct her gaze as she might, she met some eye watching
her, some couple enjoying her confusion. To make matters worse, she
presently discovered that she was the only woman in the Chamber; and
she conceived the notion that she had no right to be there at that hour.
At the thought her cheeks burned, her eyes dropped; the room seemed
to buzz with her name, with gross words and jests, and gibes at her
expense.
At last, when the situation had grown nearly unbearable, the group
before the door parted, and Tignonville appeared. The girl rose with a
cry of relief, and he came to her. The courtiers glanced at the two and
smiled.
He did not conceal his astonishment at finding her there. "But,
Mademoiselle, how is this?" he asked, in a low voice. He was as
conscious of the attention they attracted as she was, and as uncertain on
the point of her right to be there. "I left you in the gallery. I came back,
missed you, and--"
She stopped him by a gesture. "Not here!" she muttered, with

suppressed impatience. "I will tell you outside. Take me--take me out,
if you please, Monsieur, at once!"
He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The group by the doorway
parted; she passed through it, he followed. In a moment the two stood
in the great gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd which
had paraded here an hour before was gone, and the vast echoing
apartment, used at that date as a guard-room, was well-nigh empty.
Only at rare intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess of a
door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end, near the head of the
staircase which led to the hall below, and the courtyard, a group of
armed Swiss lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance up
and down, then she turned to her lover, her face hot with indignation.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did you leave me, if you
could not come back at once? Do you understand, sir," she continued,
"that it was at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this Court,
and that I look to you for protection?"
"Surely," he said. "And--"
"And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guardians for me? Should I
have come or thought of coming to this wedding, but for your promise,
and Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself almost your
wife," she continued warmly, "and secure of your protection, should I
have come within a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, had
I my will, none of our people should have come."
"Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he answered, smiling, and
striving to give the dispute a playful turn. "You have seen more in a
week than you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Mademoiselle."
"And I