I could but suspect that a coldness had arisen between Francezka and Gaston over Jacques Haret. When I saw Francezka driving in the Bois de Boulogne, or sitting, surrounded by admirers, in her box at the opera or the theater, Gaston was no more with her, but whether it was mere accident or not, I did not know. One thing I did know, however—that Jacques Haret had a blossoming of prosperity. This I heard at the Green Basket, the celebrated cafÉ near the Pont Neuf, which was frequented by all the brightest spirits in Paris, and where I had the audacity to appear sometimes, not in the character of actor, but of audience. Here it was told among the news of the day that Jacques Haret actually had a lodging of his own, after having slept for many years anywhere he could get a bed free, or if not a bed, a chair. I heard, moreover, that he dressed well and kept a servant. At the same time it came to my knowledge that Gaston Cheverny was selling two of his five horses, and did not play any more. This put the suspicion in my mind that Gaston Cheverny was supplying Jacques Haret with money. Whether this were true or not, I soon had a confirmation of my surmise, that Jacques Haret possessed some species of power over Gaston Cheverny.

Monsieur Voltaire was in Paris then for a few weeks and in a lodging of his own, instead of being at Madame du ChÂtelet’s house in the Isle of St. Louis. Madame du ChÂtelet was at Cirey. It was understood that one of the periodic storms had taken place at Cirey, which meant that Monsieur Voltaire would sojourn a while en garÇon at Paris, until the divine Emilie grew penitent or bored, and should send an express for her divine FranÇois. The immediate cause of the present quarrel was that Madame Riano had in Monsieur Voltaire’s presence called Madame du ChÂtelet a hussy, and Monsieur Voltaire had not resented it. His excuse was that Madame Riano, having vanquished the Kings of France, Spain and England, and the Holy Father at Rome, he, Voltaire, had very little chance with her, and so declined to take up the gage of battle. Madame du ChÂtelet had flown at him like an angry hen. There had been words between them, and even a few dishes and a plate or two. Hence, madame was at Cirey, monsieur at Paris.

It was much the fashion when Monsieur Voltaire was at Paris in his own lodgings for venturesome ladies of quality, who were acknowledged, or aspired, to be wits, to descend upon him by twos or threes, with masks and dominos, and thereby divert both themselves and him extremely. He was the only man in Paris to whom the ladies accorded this honor openly. They did it not to my master, because everybody knew that Count Saxe was too, too charming. But Monsieur Voltaire was already losing his teeth, and looked sixty, though not yet fifty, and had begun to give himself grandfatherly airs, whether in obedience to Madame du ChÂtelet, or because 435 he was no longer young enough to play the gallant, I know not.

One day, about three weeks after the scene in the garden of the HÔtel Kirkpatrick, I got a note from Francezka saying that she and Madame Villars, the one who had kissed Monsieur Voltaire publicly the year before, wished me to escort them to his lodgings that evening for a visit, and asking me to be at the HÔtel Kirkpatrick at nine o’clock.

It was a bright moonlit May evening when I arrived. Two sedan chairs were in waiting for the ladies and a red domino and mask for me, in which I looked exactly like the devil. Madame Villars came tripping down into the courtyard, wearing a white domino and mask, followed by Francezka in a black and silver domino and mask.

I could not see Francezka’s face, and so did not know whether she looked well or ill, happy or unhappy. And she was naturally so accomplished an actress that she might defy any one to find out her real feelings, if she wished to disguise them. On this evening she chose to appear very gay and merry, laughed with Madame Villars, joked with me, and sprang into the sedan chair with the airiest grace imaginable.

We set off, the ladies in their chairs, I walking by their side, and the object of many jeers and gibes from the irreverent, whom we passed, as I made my way encumbered with the skirt of the infernal red domino, which I held knee-high.

We reached Monsieur Voltaire’s lodging, a fine one in the Rue St. Jacques, with a garden at the back. The porter, who was used to such descents, grinned enormously, 436 and let us pass into Monsieur Voltaire’s apartment. The saloon was on the ground floor at the back and opened into the garden, now all sweetness and freshness. The saloon was a fine, airy room, lighted with wax candles, and in the middle, around a table on which were wine and books and verses scribbled on scraps of paper, sat Monsieur Voltaire, Gaston Cheverny and Jacques Haret!

The sight nearly knocked me down. Monsieur Voltaire had always despised Jacques Haret, and I had never known him to amuse himself with Jacques Haret’s wit, or to countenance the fellow at all. But here the two sat, as jovial as you please, and Gaston Cheverny between them! I glanced toward Francezka. She was standing with her hand on the back of a gilded chair, and she had pulled the sleeve of her domino down so that her hand, a delicate and beautiful one, once seen, not to be forgotten, was hid. But there was not a tremor about her. I judged that she had summoned all her courage and all her matchless powers of acting to carry her through this scene where she had so unexpectedly found herself. I knew it was impossible that she should not be in a tempest of rage with Gaston for his continued association with Jacques Haret, which was so great an affront to her, and Francezka was not the woman to take an affront coolly. She gave no sign, however. Of us, it was easily seen that two of the masks were ladies, and my large shoes, showing under my domino, revealed that I was a man.

Monsieur Voltaire rose, his glorious eyes flashing with mirth and pleasure, for he loved the great, he loved the flattery of women, and he knew that only ladies of the 437 highest quality would dare to visit him in that manner. Gaston Cheverny and Jacques Haret rose, too, and all bowed profoundly to the newcomers.

Madame Villars had not lived in Paris without having seen unexpected and awkward meetings between husband and wife, but Francezka and Gaston passed for such patterns of devotion that she thought it an occasion for harmless merriment. She exchanged a glance and a whisper with Francezka, which meant that both of them should maintain their incognito by keeping silent. To all of Monsieur Voltaire’s fine speeches of welcome, therefore, they returned only demure curtsies and seated themselves quietly on the sofa.

Gaston Cheverny was not a whit behind Monsieur Voltaire in his compliments. Jacques Haret looked keenly at us, and it flashed through me that he alone suspected who the ladies were. But he said no word.

“Well, Mesdames,” cried Monsieur Voltaire, “since you will not favor us with the sound of your voices, we will proceed with our affair, which is not a private one, but concerns that most public of all things—a lawsuit. Behold a poet trying to get a foothold of land for himself on this earth! You remember the German poet, who describes the first of his race, complaining to Jupiter that in the general scramble among the sons of men the poets had got nothing at all. To this Jupiter replied: ‘While thou wert rhyming and star-gazing the strong and the cunning seized upon the inheritance of the world. Not one single acre remains wherewith to endow thee. But, in recompense, come and visit me in my own heaven whenever thou wilt; it is always open to thee.’”

The ladies applauded this sentiment by clapping their hands and blowing airy kisses to Monsieur Voltaire, but still remained perfectly silent.

“Come, gentlemen,” continued Monsieur Voltaire mischievously, “the ladies do not know that we are present. Let us proceed. Here is the map of Brabant; show me, if you please, where the Honsbrouck line runs through this forest.”

I then knew that the lawsuit he alluded to was the celebrated one of Honsbrouck, in which Madame du ChÂtelet had great concern, and which Monsieur Voltaire ultimately won for her. And this, too, accounted for Gaston Cheverny’s and Jacques Haret’s presence, as both of them were born and reared within sight of Honsbrouck.

Gaston Cheverny and Jacques Haret both bent over the map. Jacques Haret, taking a pen, began to draw a line upon the map.

“This,” he said, “is the line of the brook; you see it skirts the estate of Castle Haret, once mine, then the property of Monsieur Gaston Cheverny’s brother, Monsieur Regnard Cheverny, who sold it for a large sum of money. By the way, Gaston, has it ever occurred to you that your brother may be dead, and that his properties may be yours?”

“No,” replied Gaston, “because my brother’s agent in London still administers the property.”

“But the agent may be a rogue, and may administer it for himself,” said Monsieur Voltaire.

“Perhaps,” replied Gaston, nonchalantly, “but as my brother and I took different sides in 1733, we became estranged, and whether one dies or lives matters nothing 439 to the other. But the brook, Jacques, runs this way.”

He took the pen from Jacques Haret’s hand, and as clearly and steadily as ever I wrote for Count Saxe, Gaston Cheverny drew a line across the map with his right hand.

“I should not be surprised, Gaston, if you entirely recovered the use of your right hand and arm,” said Jacques Haret, fixing a penetrating look upon Gaston Cheverny.

Gaston threw down the pen with a look of absolute terror upon his face. His action had evidently been involuntary. I was stunned by it, and I saw a tremor pass through Francezka’s frame. Gaston, however, soon recovered himself.

“Yes,” he said, “perhaps the use of it may come back, but I shall never be able to write with this hand. It is, however, no great matter, because I have learned to write tolerably well with my left hand.”

“That’s not my opinion; worse, or more awkward writing I never saw,” was Jacques Haret’s answer, “and I believe you can write perfectly well with your right hand when you choose.”

From the first hour I had met Gaston Cheverny in the old prison of the Temple I had ever found him hot-headed to a fault. He was one of those men to whom an impertinence is the greatest of injuries. This remark of Jacques Haret, made in a taunting manner, was enough in the old days to have got a blow for him from the fist of Gaston Cheverny. No such thing now, however. Gaston only turned and flashed out for a moment upon Jacques Haret, who looked at him with a 440 singular smile, and then Gaston by an evident effort, controlled himself and made no reply. All this was quite without meaning except to those who knew Gaston Cheverny as Francezka and I did, and as Jacques Haret did. Neither Monsieur Voltaire nor Madame Villars saw anything in it, except the most ordinary conversation. Monsieur Voltaire was smiling and glancing toward the masks.

“Ah, ladies,” he cried, “if you would but disclose your charming selves we should have something more agreeable to talk about than the winding of a muddy brook, or the right of the Honsbrouck to kill game in the forest near-by.”

Madame Villars waved her hand for Monsieur Voltaire to proceed, which he did.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “since these ladies are not yet pleased to tell us who they are, let us, at least, try to entertain them by any means in our power. Shall I read to you my last letter from the King of Prussia, and my reply?”

Gaston and Jacques Haret at once agreed enthusiastically, and we, the masked, rose and bowed our approval. Monsieur Voltaire went to his escritoire, unlocked it, and took out two letters, which he read to us in that noble great voice of his. The one from the King of Prussia was a very good letter for a king to write. That man knew enough of mankind always to advance fine sentiments, and was a man, although a robber. Such was my master’s opinion of Frederick, known as the Great.

In reply to this letter was that celebrated one of Monsieur Voltaire’s, in which he says: “I respect metaphysical 441 ideas; rays of lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not to be hoped from metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the first principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle in some little holes in an immense building know not whether it is eternal, nor who the architect, nor why he built it. Such mice are we, and the Divine Architect who built the universe has never, that I know of, told His secret to one of us.”

Voltaire paused at this and rested his head upon his hand.

“How sad it all is!” he cried, his great gloomy eloquent eyes fixed upon the stars visible through the open doors.

There was a silence. Every person there, not excluding Monsieur Voltaire and Jacques Haret, hoped differently from this melancholy creed, but no one spoke until Jacques Haret said, with the gravity under which he disguised most of his flippancies:

“Monsieur, you can not say that the Architect of the Universe has told His secret to no one. You forget the Kirkpatricks, and especially Scotch Peg. She knows all the designs of the Supreme Being. He never dares to call a Kirkpatrick out of this world without sending a gentleman usher in the shape of a black knight or a white lady, or something of the kind, to find out whether it is agreeable to that particular Kirkpatrick to leave this world just then, I presume. There never was one of that family who did not consider himself entitled to much consideration from the Supreme Being. They are not all, however, so candid about it as Peggy is.”

Considering this direct reflection upon Francezka, I 442 looked to see Gaston Cheverny forget the presence of his host, forget the presence of the ladies, and knock Jacques Haret’s impudent head off. Not at all. His face flushed suddenly, and he turned again in his chair, but said no word, although Jacques Haret’s laughing face was thrust toward him.

Monsieur Voltaire evidently forgot, in the interest of his letters, the close connection between the Kirkpatricks and one of his guests, so he went on reading.

For my part, the impression I had got the afternoon in the gardens of the HÔtel Kirkpatrick, that Gaston Cheverny in some way was afraid of Jacques Haret, became a conviction. Francezka sat motionless. What thoughts must have passed through that quick, clear brain of hers!

Monsieur Voltaire finished his reading, and the ladies, to show their appreciation, rose and bowed again to him. I think he was amused by their silence, and it became a kind of duel between him and them to find out who they were, and it was not without interest to Gaston Cheverny. Jacques Haret, I was convinced, already knew them. By way of making them betray themselves, Monsieur Voltaire asked, with a mischievous gleam in his lustrous eyes:

“What ladies of the great world, think you, gentlemen, are remarkable for esprit?”

At that Madame Villars ran forward and tapped him smartly with her fan by way of rebuke.

Gaston Cheverny mentioned several, as did Monsieur Voltaire. Both of them included both Madame Villars and her mother-in-law, Madame la MarÉchale Villars, and Monsieur Voltaire made the handsomest possible 443 allusion to Madame Gaston Cheverny’s wit and charm, which Gaston suitably acknowledged. Jacques Haret declared that it had been so long since he had talked with a woman of quality he had almost forgotten there were such creatures in the world.

“But,” he added, laughing, “I shall renew my acquaintance with fine ladies and gentlemen when I go to Capello this summer to visit Monsieur and Madame Cheverny.”

I could scarcely believe my ears, and I feared to look toward Francezka.

“You are not the only one who will enjoy that privilege,” cried Monsieur Voltaire, “for Madame Cheverny has invited me, and Monsieur Cheverny has approved of me.”

Francezka rose and made a signal to Madame Villars that it was time to depart. All rose. Francezka, advancing to the table, took up the pen and in her clear, bold handwriting, wrote on a slip of paper:

Jacques Haret: Do not you dare to come to Capello.

Francezka Cheverny de Capello del Medina y Kirkpatrick.

She slipped her hands into the sleeves of her domino and stood erect before Jacques Haret, her eyes blazing at him through the eyeholes in her mask. I was reminded of that Captain Agoust who, by the intensity of his gaze, goaded the Prince de Conti into a duel. Francezka’s look at Jacques Haret was equivalent to running a sword through him. Nothing, however, could change 444 Jacques Haret’s native and incurable levity. He rose, and grinning, made Francezka a low bow.

“I am sorry, Madame, I can not oblige you,” he said, “but my arrangements are all made, even to my wardrobe, and it is now too late to change, disagreeable as it is to me to disoblige a lady.”

The blood of the Kirkpatricks was rising in Francezka’s veins; the air suddenly seemed full of electricity. I saw her involuntarily place her hand upon the inkstand, a heavy, bronze one, lying on the table, and I thought the chance was that she would throw it in Jacques Haret’s face. To save her from so wild an act was my only thought. I reached over, and getting a good grip on Jacques Haret, which I could do easily, as he was entirely off his guard, I flung him headlong through the open door into the garden below. Then, not wishing Francezka’s identity to be revealed, I motioned to her and Madame Villars, and we hurried out of the room.

I forgot until the ladies were in their sedans that the scrap of writing in Francezka’s hand lay on the table and would be seen by Gaston Cheverny and probably by Monsieur Voltaire. My trouble was all in vain, but I was glad I had thrown Jacques Haret through the door.

The chairmen went off at a rapid pace, I following. We turned a corner, which gave me a clear look through the garden of the room we had just left. Gaston was standing stock still, holding the scrap of paper in his hand. He knew then who the masked visitors were. I walked by the side of Francezka’s chair, through the dark streets until we came to the HÔtel Kirkpatrick. 445 Madame Villars lived close by, and we parted with her first. She said good night, but made no comment on the events of the evening. She was no fool, and saw that something had happened, although she knew not what.

We passed through the small gate of the courtyard and around to the private entrance, where Francezka dismissed the chairmen and I took off my mask and domino. We were standing in a quiet little court at one side of the great entrance. It was very still and dark, and the stars, palpitating, and bright, and distant, seemed to be laughing at the miseries of the poor mice, as Voltaire called them, hidden away in the small holes of the immense building called the Universe. Francezka, panting for breath, took off her mask. Her pale face and her eyes, somber, but full of smoldering fire, were half shrouded in the hood of her domino. In her black garb, and with a look of despair upon her face, she was as far removed from that dazzling Francezka of the former time as could well be imagined. I was not disposed to make light of what she had seen and heard that night. Nothing is more uncomfortable than to live with a mystery, and when that mystery is in the person one should love best in the world, when it poisons all the springs of joy and makes the things known best in life strange to one, it is a very dreadful thing. Francezka spoke after a while.

“Do you wonder, Babache, that I am a miserable woman?”

And I said with perfect honesty in my heart:

“No, Madame. I do not wonder in the least.”

She paused, and I supposed she was about to say 446 something to me about Gaston, when she uttered these words which remain forever in my heart, which not one waking hour has failed to recall since she uttered them:

“Babache, remember, when I am gone, that nobody in the world was ever so good a friend to me as you. I speak not of lovers—Gaston was once my lover.”

She paused as if overcome, and then hurriedly vanished within the open door.

Her words thrilled me with joy and pain. What did she mean by saying, “When I am gone?” Who was more likely to live than Francezka? Why should she be contemplating the end of all things? I was roused from my anxious reverie by the sound of locking the great iron gates, the bolts and bars making a huge noise in the stillness of the night. This grating sound, however, did not drown those words of Francezka’s. Something led my footsteps again to the street, where I could get from the back a clear view of Monsieur Voltaire’s room. When I reached the place all was dark, and the doors and windows were closed for the night, but on the corner stood a plain coach, which I recognized in the half darkness of the summer night as belonging to Gaston Cheverny.

If I had been surprised at his patience with Jacques Haret’s impertinence an hour ago, I now saw that it was not so long suffering as I had thought, for Gaston, sitting in the coach and holding the door open, was swearing at Jacques Haret with a concentration of rage I had never seen excelled in any human being before. Every word that he said was true, but there was a defiance 447 in it which further sustained my notion that Jacques Haret held some power over Gaston Cheverny.

Jacques was taking it with the same coolness he had taken the beating I had given him in the Luxembourg gardens. Gaston was shouting out insults to him, and when Gaston stopped at the point where any other man would have drawn his sword, Jacques coolly remarked:

“You have called me a liar, a blackmailer, a leper, a dog and a devil’s imp. I take it that you are of a different opinion from me on certain points. Your withdrawing your invitation to me to the chÂteau of Capello is most unhandsome. However, it is not your chÂteau, anyhow.”

Gaston leaped out of the coach after him, but Jacques Haret disappeared somewhere in the darkness, for he had no scruples about avoiding a fight, yet I believe him to have been singularly insensible to fear.

Within three days I heard that Monsieur and Madame Cheverny had left Paris for their estates in Brabant. As they went together, it was plain there had been no outward break between them.