The Grey Cloak | Page 5

military
household approached her that she became fully aroused. She pressed
her hand against her madly beating heart.
[Illustration: She pressed her hands against her madly beating heart.]
"Who did this?" she asked.
"A man in a mask, Madame," replied the captain, kneeling. He gently
loosed the sword from the stiffening fingers. The master of twenty-five
years was gone.
"In a mask?"
"Yes, Madame."
"And the motive ?"
"Not robbery, since nothing is disturbed about the hôtel save in
monsieur's library. The drawers have all been pulled out."
With a sharp cry she crossed the corridor and entered the library. The
open drawers spoke dumbly but surely.
"Gone!" she whispered. "We are all lost! He was fortunate in dying."
Terror and fright vanished from her face and her eyes, leaving the one
impassive and the other cold. She returned to the body and the look she
cast on it was without pity or regret. Alive, she had detested him; dead,
she could gaze on him with indifference. He had died, leaving her the
legacy of the headsman's ax. And his play-woman? would she weep or
laugh? . . . She was free. It came quickly and penetrated like a dry wine:

she was free. Four odious years might easily be forgiven if not
forgotten. "Take him to his room," she said softly. After all, he had died
gallantly.
Soon one of the pursuers returned. He was led into the presence of his
mistress.
"Have they found him?"
"No, Madame. He disappeared as completely as if the ground had
swallowed him. All that can be added is that he wore a grey cloak."
"A grey cloak, did you say?" Her hand flew to her throat and her eyes
grew wild again. "A grey cloak?"
"Yes Madame; a grey cloak with a square velvet collar."
"Ah!" said the captain, with a singular smile. He glanced obliquely at
madame. But madame lurched forward into the arms of one of her
waiting-women. She had fainted.
CHAPTER II
THE TOILET OF THE CHEVALIER DU CEVENNES
The Chevalier du Cévennes occupied the apartment on the first floor of
the Hôtel of the Silver Candlestick, in the Rue Guénégaud. The
apartment consisted of three rooms. In all Paris there was not to be
found the like of them. They were not only elegant, they were simple;
for true elegance is always closely allied to simplicity. Persian rugs
covered the floors, rugs upon which many a true believer had knelt in
evening prayer; Moorish tapestries hung from the walls, making a fine
and mellow background for the various pieces of ancient and modern
armor; here and there were Greek marbles and Italian vases; and
several spirited paintings filled the gaps left between one tapestry and
another. Sometimes the Chevalier entertained his noble friends, young
and old, in these rooms; and the famous kitchens of Madame Boisjoli,
the landlady of the Candlestick, supplied the delicacies of his tables.

Ordinarily the Chevalier dined in the cheery assembly-room below; for,
like all true gourmands of refinement, he believed that there is as much
appetite in a man's ears and eyes as in his stomach, and to feed the
latter properly there must be light, a coming and going of old and new
faces, the rumor of voices, the jest, and the snatch of song.
At this moment the Chevalier was taking a bath, and was splashing
about in the warm water, laughing with the joyous heart of a boy. With
the mild steam rose the vague perfume of violets. Brave as a Crillon
though he was, fearless as a Bussy, the Chevalier was something of a
fop; not the mincing, lisping fop, but one who loved physical
cleanliness, who took pride in the whiteness of his skin, the clarity of
his eyes. There had been summer nights in the brilliant gardens of La
Place Royale when he had been pointed out as one of the handsomest
youths in Paris. Ah, those summer nights, the cymbals and trumpets of
les beaux mousquetaires, the display of feathers and lace, unwrought
pearls and ropes of precious stones, the lisping and murmuring of silks,
the variety of colors, the fair dames with their hoods, their masks, their
elaborate coiffures, the crowds in the balconies! All the celebrities of
court might be seen promenading the Place; and to be identified as one
above many was a plume such as all Mazarin's gold could not buy.
"My faith! but this has been a day," he murmured, gazing wistfully at
his ragged nails. "Till I entered this tub there was nothing but lead in
my veins, nothing but marble on my bones. Look at those boots, Breton,
lad; a spur gone, the soles loose, the heels cracked. And that cloak! The
mud on the skirts is a week old. And