August had scorched the chestnut leaves and September withered them into golden scrolls, and still Luc de Clapiers remained idle, but with a burning heart, in the quiet home at Aix.

On a certain afternoon, when he was alone in his chamber writing, the need for action, the thirst for fame blazed up through his sweet, vain resignation beyond his power to restrain. The glory that he had set himself to achieve had always been the glory of arms, and the realization that this path was for ever closed to him came upon him again suddenly as if he had but just been told that he no longer belonged to the rÉgiment du roi. He laid down his pen: he had been writing an Elegy on the young de Caumont, for whom he had often, during the war, written discourses on glory, and as he praised the young soldier he had praised also d’Espagnac—the two, so young, so beautiful, so brave, so pure, became one in his mind, and with them there mingled the vision of another. He felt that he was lamenting a third—his own youth, his own hopes that had been buried in the snows of Bohemia. He had written of Hippolyte de Seytres, “He was born ardent,” and it was true of himself. During these months of idleness the fire of this ardour had increased in his heart until it was unbearable. He sat quite still, with his hands clasped before him, gazing at the thinning chestnut leaves and the blue sky behind them that was spreading in all directions through a pile of loose clouds. His serene face flushed with resolution. In that moment he felt a scorn of himself that he had ever permitted poverty and ill-health to hinder him in his designs on fortune. He was of a noble birth that brought obligations, of gifts that brought obligations also; he was young, laborious, serious, passionately desirous of serving his country; and he was French, born at this most glorious period of liberty of thought, splendour of achievement in every sphere. He must, he could do something.

Of Paris and the great world there he knew only what he had heard and read—the outside of it, glittering, young and hopeful, a court led by a king whom France adored and Luc pictured as one like himself—ardent, avid of glory, and with every opportunity to his hand—and another court, no less powerful, of intellect and genius, led by M. de Voltaire, a name that blazed in Europe. Luc had received a scant education, and his long military preoccupation had given him small leisure for study. He could scarcely spell out Latin, and he had not read many books; but those he knew, —Corneille, Racine, MoliÈre, Pascal, La Fontaine, Boileau—he both loved and absorbed. They were as so many torches to light his way.

M. de Voltaire himself he had always regarded with deep respect and admiration. The daring atheist, the brilliant son of the people, the caressed of kings and flattered of women, the greatest man of letters of the age, the most decried and abused of human beings had no more fervent disciple than the quiet young aristocrat who had watched his splendour from afar. Luc thought of him now, and the tumult in his heart rose higher.

“Shall I give up everything my soul urges me to because I had to leave the army?” he murmured. “Must I live and die in Aix?”

But what was open to him? There was only one career worth comparing with the military—that of diplomacy. He had studied law and history; he felt capable of serving France by his pen as well as by his sword. This thought of politics had come to him before; to-day it came and would not be dismissed.

He rose impulsively and went to the shelf where his books stood; he picked them up, one after another, and laid them down without opening any of them.

An unnameable excitement had possession of him; an inner ecstasy made his limbs tremble. He felt that the whole world was too confined for his spirit; he felt that he grasped a sudden certainty that he would and must attain glory.

He returned to his table, composing himself by a strong effort of will, and wrote to M. de Biron, his former Colonel, asking his help in his design of entering the diplomatic service.

When this was written and sealed his old calmness returned. He left his room, gave the letter to a servant, and went into the garden.

The sky was one flushing dome of golden blue, glowing in the west with the first hues of sunset. The leaves of the trees, the grasses, the flowers, and herbs were all quivering in a low, warm breeze. The old Marquis was seated on a stone bench by the carp pond, with his dogs beside him; he was watching the water, stained a turquoise blue from the sky and across which the blunt-faced carp floated, sparkling in their scarlet, orange, and black scales.

Luc came up to the basin. His father smiled at him, but did not speak. The young man was silent also; he was thinking, by some whimsical connexion of ideas, of Carola Koklinska in her gay trappings as he looked at the vivid fish.

He thought of her quiet ways, of her splendid clothes, of her great strength. He, not she, had fallen ill after their ghastly march to Eger. On his recovery he had been told that she had gone on with the army to Paris.

She left a letter for him, in which she begged him to see her if he could in Paris. She gave her sister’s name, which meant nothing to Luc, but was well known in the capital, and said she was always to be found at that lady’s hotel.

Luc had never written to her. She had become a curiously faint memory, blotted with darkness and snow and horror, yet gleaming vividly in her scarlet and gold through the Bohemian night.

The Marquis spoke and broke his thoughts. “You are very silent, Luc.”

The young man looked up instantly from the water.

“Monseigneur,” he said, “I have resolved to enter politics.”

His father flushed with surprise and pride. “I did not think you would be long idle, Luc,” he answered affectionately; “but you have set yourself a difficult career,” he added simply. “I have, as you know, no influence at Court.”

“I have written to M. de Biron; he will give me introductions at least. When I hear from him I will go to Paris.”

He spoke quietly, but in his eyes was a leaping light.

The old Marquis, both touched and pleased, rose and fondly laid his hand on his shoulder.

“You are a true de Clapiers,” he said, then sighed a little, thinking of the blue and silver uniform lying folded away in the chest in his son’s room.

Luc divined the thought, the regret.

“I shall still serve France, Monseigneur,” he said.

“But I have no interest in Paris,” repeated the old noble half sadly, “and I believe no one can succeed at Court without powerful friends. And we—we are rather remote from the great world, here at Aix.”

Luc was not daunted by these words. Paris was to him a dream city ruled by a dream king; there was nothing concrete in all the pictures he formed of it. He knew he had ardour and talent and devotion to offer, and he did not believe that these things were ever refused.

“If M. de Biron can give me no help I shall write to M. Amelot,” he said quietly, naming the Minister for Foreign Affairs—“or to His Majesty himself.”

For a nature that was reserved, almost timid, in all personal matters this was an extraordinary resolution, and one that would not have occurred to many men. The Marquis noted it with some amaze, but made no comment. In these few months since Luc’s return from Bohemia his father had learnt to recognize and respect something remarkable and unfathomable in the character of his son.

The sunlight was fading with a sad rapidity. Luc left the garden to return to the house; he entered the dining-room by the open windows. A soft shadow was over everything, making the objects in the chamber almost indistinguishable, but on the table showed the white square of a letter. He picked it up and took it to the light of the pale length of the window; it was heavily sealed with an elaborate and foreign coat of arms and addressed to—

“Monseigneur

Monseigneur le Capitaine le Marquis de Vauvenargues”

He opened it with inevitable curiosity, for the hand was unknown to him; but as he broke the thick wax a strong Oriental perfume told him the writer. It was from the Countess Koklinska. She wrote briefly and with an air of serene friendliness, as might be used by one writing from the Court to the country. She hoped that the Marquis was recovered from his fatigues, and hoped she might see him in Paris. She had heard that he had left the army, and asked abruptly on the last line of her letter, “What is the next step in your career?”

At first Luc flushed as if she had said something insolent to his face, then his blood stirred in answer to the challenge, and he was, if anything, pleased by this reminder from one who, more than either his father, his mother, or Joseph, understood his temper and his ambitions. She had some right to ask; there was the true spirit of heroism in her. She had been as a flame amid the horrors of the retreat from Prague—a flame to light and warm—and had shown him that a woman could tread the heights, as he conceived them. He recalled, with a great tenderness, her poor, starved face bending over the sad death-bed of Georges d’Espagnac, and he was grateful to her for the last line, which showed that she also remembered.

And she hoped to see him in Paris. Paris! The word flashed with untold possibilities; it dazzled with the name of King Louis and M. de Voltaire. Luc was spurred by the desire to mount this moment and ride to Paris, where the world’s thought, the world’s energy, the world’s intellect were stored.

He crushed the letter into his pocket and began pacing up and down the dark, old-fashioned room, where his father and Joseph would be content to eat every meal until they died, but which to him was fast becoming a prison, compared to which the steppes of Bohemia were preferable and seemed, indeed, enviable liberty.

Here he could not mention the name of the arch heretic and infidel, Voltaire; here he must still go to the church and listen to a service that he felt outworn; here the new philosophy, the great dawn of new ideas, new glories were unknown; and the soul of Luc was turning to these things as the sunflower to the sun. He did not move when the candles were brought in and placed on the mantelpiece and sideboard in exactly the position in which they had stood for the last century, but remained by the window looking out on to the evening.

The golden beech was veiled by the dusk; the gaudy autumn flowers were unseen; the shapes of bushes and trees stood dark against a translucent sky; a strong scent of herbs came and faded on the sweet air.

In that moment Luc felt that life was endless, glorious, and triumphant to those who had in their hearts this gift of energy, this spur to achievement. He bowed his head in a kind of tumult of thanksgiving, and such an agitation of joy filled his bosom that he had to support himself against the tall window frame. The sound of the opening door sounded, to his ecstatic mood, sharp as a pistol crack; yet in reality the door was both opened and closed softly. Beyond the candlelight stood a girl in a much-frilled rose-coloured muslin gown, holding in her hand a bunch of drooping wild pinks.

She wore a chip straw hat tied under the chin with gold ribbons and a white lace shawl over her shoulders.

When she saw Luc she laughed prettily and advanced to the table; her extreme fairness seemed the greater by contrast with the shining dark mahogany.

“Of course you do not recall me,” she said, in a delicate and pleasing voice. “I am ClÉmence de SÉguy, who saw you leave to join your regiment nine years ago—when she was in the convent school.”

Luc made an effort to place and remember her; his instinctive courtesy helped him, though his thoughts had been strangely scattered by her sudden appearance.

“I remember no one like you, Mademoiselle,” he said, “in all Provence; but your name is known to me as that of one of my father’s friends.”

She laughed as if pleased.

“Tell me about the war,” she answered.

As he looked at her he seemed to see the powerful face, slender figure, and gorgeous garments of the Countess Carola standing beside her in absolute contrast. The two could not have been more different; the reality before Luc’s eyes was not so strong as the inner vision. He put his hand to the fragrant letter in his pocket.

The Marquis entered and presented him with pretty ceremony. As Luc kissed the girl’s fingers he thought of another hand that he would soon salute in Paris—Paris.