Because of the dimness of the light in the shrouded drawing-rooms, and his own somewhat defective sight, Louis de Richepin was momentarily unaware of the identity of Paul de Vitry, and advanced into the room with his stately tread, looking piercingly at his brother.
“I have heard of your return, Arsène,” he said, in his cold voice, “and I have come to welcome you and Madame to your home.”
But he had now become aware that the figure near his brother was not female in the least, and certainly not Madame de Richepin. Moreover, he now recognized the young Comte, for whom he had the greatest hatred and enmity. They met but rarely in Paris, and on these occasions Louis demonstrated his aversion and his fanatical detestation for his brother’s friend without subtlety or the faintest politeness, much to the amusement of spectators. Paul, on his part, betrayed only a faint distress, uneasiness or embarrassment, and usually withdrew gracefully from the proximity of one who was so inimical to him.
Louis paused abruptly in his advance into the room, and there was something ludicrous in his start of recognition, his paleness, the baleful gleam in his eye as it fixed itself upon Paul. The latter might have been a gargoyle, a malefactor, a traitor, a murderer, and would have elicited from Louis no greater manifestation of loathing, rage and hatred.
Arsène, overwhelmed with his own emotions, could only regard his brother with the wildest impatience because of the interruption of his unwelcome presence. He replied hastily and impatiently to Louis’ remark, and indicated in every way that he wished his brother to withdraw again. But Louis, breathing harshly through distended nostrils, had no such intention. He ignored Arsène, and seemed aware only of the Comte.
“Is it necessary for you to invade this house on the day of my brother’s return to his family, Monsieur?” he asked.
“Go away, and leave us!” exclaimed Arsène, too excited to take offense. “Can you not perceive that we are engaged in matters of importance?”
But Louis ignored him. He said, in a stifled voice: “I must ask you to withdraw at once from my father’s house, Monsieur le Comte.”
Paul, for all his kindness and gentleness of nature, was not entirely saintly. The quick and haughty blood of his forebears suddenly flamed in his face, and it became stern and forbidding at these enormous insults. His hand, slow to the sword, more accustomed to stretching forth in friendship, reached for the hilt at his thigh, and grasped it.
“Monseigneur,” he replied, slowly and quietly, “I have not asked your permission to visit my friend, nor shall I heed your discourtesy nor your vulgar words and manners. Arsène has requested that you withdraw. I pray that you will honor his request, for we have matters of import to discuss.”
For all the quietness of his voice, there was an undertone of cold contempt in it, and a sparkle began to grow in his gray eyes.
Arsène, of the mind which could heed only one thing at a time, suddenly became aware of what was transpiring between Paul and Louis, and he became enraged. While he fumbled for words appropriately devastating, Louis, still ignoring him, regarded the Comte with growing fury.
“The matters of import to which you refer, Monsieur le Comte, are matters of treason, disorder, blasphemy and revolt. You have brought nothing but ill, disunity, quarrelsomeness and danger to this house. You have divided a family, placed one of its members in peril, and created unhappiness and uneasiness between a father and his son. I am a priest, but beware that I do not forget my orders and take summary action against you.”
Arsène listened to this incredulously, with a stupefied expression upon his face. But Paul smiled grimly, and still grasping the hilt of his sword, replied: “I disdain to answer Monseigneur’s foolish accusations, but if Monseigneur prefers to discuss this some morning, at dawn, in a more peremptory fashion, I am at his service.”
Finding his voice at last, Arsène shouted at his brother: “Morbleu, you incredible fool! Why have you come here with your babblings and your folly? How dare you intrude upon us? I ask you again, withdraw, lest I force you to do so with my own hands!”
Louis gazed at him with long and malignant bitterness. “Appeals to you have entered deaf ears. You persist in your criminal stupidity. You are proceeding to the ultimate consequences of your acts, which can bring nothing but death and ruin to yourself, and anguish of mind to our father, and suffering to your wife. You have associated yourself with traitors like this, not from any ardent, conviction of mind, which might be understood, but from pure adventurousness and a love of confusion and violence.” He pointed directly at Paul, and continued to address his brother: “This man has seduced what poor intelligence you possess, and would lead you to only one end: the gallows or the ax. He is imbued with the evil of Satan, and would guide foolish victims like yourself to one foreordained end. I protest his presence in this house, and I have means to make more peremptory my protest. I ask you now to send him from under this roof, and do not mistake my feebleness of intention.”
His voice, as he spoke to his brother, was full of the scorn and hatred he felt for him, the jealousy and burning poison of his own nature. In Louis’ worst moments, Arsène had never seen such a look upon his face, nor had heard such a voice. For an instant he was daunted, as all sane men must be daunted at the aspect of madness. Then his rage gathered itself together again, and he advanced menacingly upon his brother; for he was stung unbearably at the comments upon his intelligence:
“Unless you apologize to my friend, and withdraw immediately, I shall take it upon myself to rectify your insults at whatever cost!” He forgot his former compassion for Louis, and his new understanding, and obscene words burst from his lips:
“You are filled with poison because you do not possess a woman, because you have fixed your perverted love upon one who rightfully despises you, and has despised you from your birth! You do not like these remarks, Monseigneur? I perceive that you pale, that you start. You did not think I knew your secret? You will now reflect that I do, you venomous priest! Return to your cloister, your master, and your itching, and leave honest men to their thoughts and their affairs. Intrude again, and by the wounds of God, I shall do you a mischief!”
Filled with a sudden sickness and aversion for these savage remarks, Paul caught Arsène’s arm, but Arsène, in his transports of rage, shook him off violently. He stretched out his hands toward his brother’s throat, but Louis did not flinch nor recoil. He seemed to grow in stature, in menace and ominousness, for all the blue lines about his lips and his sunken eyes.
“No sword shall soil itself with your polluted blood!” screamed Arsène, beside himself because of the fear for his friend in his heart. “I shall do what is to be done with these hands, as I have longed to do for many years!”
He was truly enraged, but he was also afraid. He well knew that Louis had been one of the most gifted swordsmen at Pluvenal’s Academy, and understood instinctively that it is not the vehement or violent man who is the most deadly, but the man of cold and austere temperament, who can proceed and calculate every thrust without passion. Louis had defeated him on more than one occasion during fencing lessons, and in moments of sport, and Arsène did not deceive himself that Louis, for all his calling, had lost his skill. Paul, for all his cleverness with the rapier, had not the brutal heart and callousness necessary for deadly duelling, and, again, Arsène knew that Louis comprehended this, in his icy and vitriolic mind. To fight successfully, Paul would have to be imbued with burning ardor and indignation. He would not have these in any contest with the brother of his friend. For one distressed instant, Arsène contemplated the impotence of the civilized man. Therefore, he sought to turn Louis’ adamant intention upon himself.
But Louis smiled at him with deadly scorn, and brushed aside those hands so near to his throat. Now he was truly dangerous, because of his brother’s violently indiscreet remarks.
“You fool!” he said, in low and crushing tones. “Do you think for a moment that I would engage you? Do you think for an instant that you would dare lay a finger upon me?”
He seemed to increase even more enormously in stature, to fill the dim and lambent air with lightning and storm. His eyes blazed upon Arsène balefully. Then he turned to Paul de Vitry.
“You perceive what division, what danger, you have brought to this household. I am prepared to engage you whenever you desire, Monsieur le Comte. But I am also prepared to destroy you by more impersonal means. Do not deceive yourself that your activities and treason have been undetected. The trap is drawing closer about you. Your days are numbered.”
Paul was silent. He looked at his friend, and there was a great sadness and weariness in his expression.
Truly beside himself now, Arsène seized the hilt of his sword. The weapon was half withdrawn, when Louis caught his wrist easily. His fingers of cold steel crushed Arsène’s flesh. He smiled down into his brother’s eyes with savage bitterness. Then he flung aside that wrist in a gesture of complete contempt. He lifted his hand and struck Arsène fully in the face, with slow and calculated brutality, as a master strikes an impudent servant or a loutish child.
“You would play Cain with me, you imbecile?” he asked, with that strange and glittering smile.
A darkness, filled with swirling sparks, fell over Arsène’s eyes. He heard an immense thunder in his ears. He felt a supporting hand on his arm, which he tried to throw off. It tightened. When the mist cleared, he discovered that he was alone with Paul, who was speaking to him urgently.
But he could not listen. He was overwhelmed with shame.
An almost voluptuous paralysis held him. He writhed physically and spiritually. He felt that he was dying. He had hated before, lusted before, but never with this complete and flaming madness. He began to sob, with nauseated dryness and agony.
“Some day, I shall kill him!” he cried aloud. He raised his clenched fist, and regarded Paul with madness. “I swear by all that is holy to me, that I shall kill him!”
Paul was too wise a man to find bravado in these cries. He was horrified. He caught that upraised hand, held it tightly in his own, tried to control Arsène by the quiet fire in his own eyes.
“Arsène, I implore you to control yourself. You have been unbearably insulted, as I have. This man seeks a quarrel with us, to destroy us. Would you play into his hands? Control yourself, I beseech you. We have work to do. Am I to be disappointed again, in my last friend? From no other man but this would I endure the infamy which has been put upon me. But there are matters beyond our mere satisfaction. I beg of you to remember them.” His voice broke, sternly, and after a moment he resumed: “Do not betray me. Do not desert me. You have promised me this, and I hold you to your promise.”
The madness retreated like a fiery wave from Arsène, but a cold deadliness replaced it. When Paul released his hand, he let it fall heavily to his side.
“Until I kill him, I shall know no peace,” he said, and his voice was as quiet as Paul’s. “I swear this. I cannot endure with this shame poisoning me. I have endured a lifetime of insults and provocation from that foul and inhuman priest. Now is the time for retribution. But I shall withhold my hand until I have served you, Paul. That is my word to you.”
Paul sighed. He said nothing. He seemed overwhelmed with sudden and tragic thoughts, sick and disintegrating. When Arsène, frightened at the aspect of his friend, put his arm about him, Paul replied to that gesture with a heart-broken smile.