For more than half an hour the marquis barred from his sight the scene
surrounding, and wandered in familiar green fields where a certain
mill-stream ran laughing to the sobbing sea; closed his ears to the
shouts of laughter and snatches of ribald song, to hear again the
nightingale, the stir of grasses under foot, the thrilling sweetness of
the voice he loved. When he recovered from his dream he was surprised to
find that he had caught the angle of his wife's eyes, those expressive
and following eyes which Rubens left to posterity; and he saw in them
something which was new-born: reproach.
"Yes," said the marquis, as if replying to this spirit of reproach; "yes,
if there be souls, yours must hover about me in reproach; reproach not
without its irony and gladness; for you see me all alone, Madame,
unloved, unrespected, declining and forgotten. But I offer no complaint;
only fools and hypocrites make lamentation. And I am less to this son of
yours than the steward who reckons his accounts. Where place the blame?
Upon these shoulders, Madame, stooped as you in life never saw them. I
knew not, conceited gallant that I was, that beauty and strength were
passing gifts. What nature gives she likewise takes away. Who would
have dreamed that I should need an arm to lean on? Not I, Madame! What
vanity we possess when we lack nothing! . . ."
From the dining-hall there came distinctly the Chevalier's voice lifted
in song. He was singing one of Victor's triolets which the poet had
joined to music: "When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe,
I drink the wine from her radiant eyes;
And we sit in a casement made for two
When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe
With a Bacchante's love for a Bacchic brew!
Then kiss the grape, for the midnight flies
When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe,
And I the wine from her radiant eyes!"
"Madame, he sings well," said the marquis, whimsically. "What was it the
Jesuits said? . . . corrupt and degenerate? Yes, those were the words.
'Tis true; and this disease of idleness is as infectious as the plague.
And this son of mine, he is following the game path through which I
passed . . . to this, palsy and senility! Oh, the subtile poisons, the
intoxicating Hippocrenes I taught him how to drink! And now he turns and
casts the dregs into my face. But as I said, I make no plaint; I do not
lack courage. A pleasant pastime it was, this worldly lessoning; but I
forgot that he was partly a reproduction of his Catholic mother; that
where I stood rugged he would fall; that he did not possess ardor that is
without fire, love that is without sentiment. . . ."
A maudlin voice took up the Chevalier's song . . .