Saint Martins Summer | Page 7

cannot think what it might have
been," he groaned. Then, as if smitten by a sudden notion that flashed a
gleam of hope into this terrifying darkness that was settling down upon
him, he suddenly looked up. "You mean to resist him?" he inquired.
She stared at him a second, then laughed, a thought unpleasantly.
"Pish! But you are mad," she scorned him. "Do you need ask if I intend
to resist - I, with the strongest castle in Dauphiny? By God! sir, if you
need to hear me say it, hear me then say that I shall resist him and as

many as the Queen may send after him, for as long as one stone of
Condillac shall stand upon another."
The Seneschal blew out his lips, and fell once more to the chewing of
his beard.
"What did you mean when you said I could have given you no worse
news than that of his coming alone?" she questioned suddenly.
"Madame," said he, "if this man comes without force, and you resist the
orders of which he is the bearer, what think you will betide?"
"He will appeal to you for the men he needs that he may batter down
my walls," she answered calmly.
He looked at her incredulously. "You realize it?" he ejaculated. "You
realize it?"
"What is there in it that should puzzle a babe?"
Her callousness was like a gust of wind upon the living embers of his
fears. It blew them into a blaze of wrath, sudden and terrific as that of
such a man at bay could be. He advanced upon her with the rolling gait
of the obese, his cheeks purple, his arms waving wildly, his dyed
mustachios bristling.
"And what of me, madame?" he spluttered. "What of me? Am I to be
ruined, gaoled, and hanged, maybe, for refusing him men? - for that is
what is in your mind. Am I to make myself an outlaw? Am I, who have
been Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny these fifteen years, to end my days in
degradation in the cause of a woman's matrimonial projects for a
simpering school-girl? Seigneur du Ciel!" he roared, "I think you are
gone mad - mad, mad! over this affair. You would not think it too much
to set the whole province in flames so that you could have your way
with this wretched child. But, Ventregris! to ruin me - to - to - "
He fell silent for very want of words; just gaped and gasped, and then,
with hands folded upon his paunch, he set himself to pace the chamber.

Madame de Condillac stood watching him, her face composed, her
glance cold. She was like some stalwart oak, weathering with unshaken
front a hurricane. When he had done, she moved away from the
fireplace, and, beating her side gently with her whip, she stepped to the
door.
"Au revoir, Monsieur de Tressan," said she, mighty cool, her back
towards him.
At that he halted in his feverish stride, stood still and threw up his head.
His anger went out, as a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind. And
in its place a new fear crept into his heart.
"Madame, madame!" he cried. "Wait! Hear me."
She paused, half-turned, and looked at him over her shoulder, scorn in
her glance, a sneer on her scarlet mouth, insolence in every line of her.
"I think, monsieur, that I have heard a little more than enough," said
she. "I am assured, at least, that in you I have but a fair-weather friend,
a poor lipserver."
"Ah, not that, madame," he cried, and his voice was stricken. "Say not
that. I would serve you as would none other in all this world - you
know it, Marquise; you know it."
She faced about, and confronted him, her smile a trifle broader, as if
amusement were now blending with her scorn.
"It is easy to protest. Easy to say, 'I will die for you,' so long as the need
for such a sacrifice be remote. But let me do no more than ask a favour,
and it is, 'What of my good name, madame? What of my seneschalship?
Am I to be gaoled or hanged to pleasure you?' Faugh!" she ended, with
a toss of her splendid head. "The world is peopled with your kind, and I
- alas! for a woman's intuitions - had held you different from the rest."
Her words were to his soul as a sword of fire might have been to his
flesh. They scorched and shrivelled it. He saw himself as she would

have him see himself - a mean, contemptible craven; a coward who
made big talk in times of peace, but faced about and vanished into
hiding at the first sign