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<h2> CHAPTER XXIII — A MAN OF NOBLE SENTIMENT </h2>
<p>There was a silence between the two for a little after they came out from
Petullo's distracted household. With a chilling sentiment towards his new
acquaintance, whom he judged the cause of the unhappy woman's state, Count
Victor waited for the excuse he knew inevitable. He could not see the
Chamberlain's face, for the night was dark now; the tide, unseen, was
running up on the beach of the bay, lights were burning in the dwellings
of the little town.</p>
<p>"M. Montaiglon," at last said the Chamberlain in a curious voice where
feelings the most deep appeared to strive together, "yon's a tragedy, if
you like."</p>
<p>"<i>Comment?</i>" said the Count. He was not prepared for an opening quite
like this.</p>
<p>"Well," said the Chamberlain, "you saw it for yourself; you are not a mole
like Petullo the husband. By God! I would be that brute's death if he were
thirty years younger, and made of anything else than sawdust. It's a
tragedy in there, and look at this burgh!—like the grave but for the
lights of it; rural, plodding, unambitious, ignorant—and the last
place on earth you might seek in for a story so peetiful as that in there.
My heart's wae, wae for that woman; I saw her face was like a corp when we
went in first, though she put a fair front on to us. A woman in a hundred;
a brave woman, few like her, let me tell you, M. Montaiglon, and
heartbroken by that rat she's married on. I could greet to think on all
her trials. You saw she was raised somewhat; you saw I have some influence
in that quarter?"</p>
<p>For his life Count Victor could make no reply, so troubled was his mind
with warring thoughts of Olivia betrayed, perhaps, to a debauchee <i>sans</i>
heart and common pot-house decency; of whether in truth this was the
debauchee to such depths as he suggested, or a man in a false position
through the stress of things around him.</p>
<p>The Chamberlain went on as in a meditation. "Poor Kate! poor Kate! We were
bairns together, M. Montaiglon, innocent bairns, and happy, twenty years
syne, and I will not say but what in her maidenhood there was some warmth
between us, so that I know her well. She was compelled by her relatives to
marriage with our parchment friend yonder, and there you have the start of
what has been hell on earth for her. The man has not the soul of a louse,
and as for her, she's the finest gold! You would see that I was the cause
of her swoon?"</p>
<p>"Unhappy creature!" said Montaiglon, beginning to fear he had wronged this
good gentleman.</p>
<p>"You may well say it, M. Montaiglon. It is improper, perhaps, that I
should expose to a stranger the skeleton of that house, but I'm feeling
what happened just now too much to heed a convention." He sighed
profoundly. "I have had influence with the good woman, as you would see;
for years I've had it, because I was her only link with the gay world she
was born to be an ornament in, and the only one free to be trusted with
the tale of her misery. Well, you know—you are a man of the world,
M. Montaiglon—you know the dangers of such a correspondence between
a person of my reputation, that is none of the best, because I have been
less a hypocrite than most, and a lady in her position. It's a gossiping
community this, long-lugged and scandal-loving like all communities of its
size; it is not the Faubourg St. Honor�, where intrigues go on behind fans
and never an eye cocked or a word said about it; and I'll not deny but
there have been scandalous and cruel things said about the lady and
myself. Now, as God's my judge—"</p>
<p>"Pardon, monsieur," said the Count, eager to save this protesting
gentleman another <i>b�tise</i>; "I quite understand, I think,—the
lady finds you a discreet friend. Naturally her illness has unmanned you.
The scandal of the world need never trouble a good man."</p>
<p>"But a merely middling-good man, M. Montaiglon," cried the Chamberlain;
"you'll allow that's a difference. Lord knows I lay no claim to a crystal
virtue! In this matter I have no regard for my own reputation, but just
for that very reason I'm anxious about the lady's. What happened in that
room there was that I've had to do an ill thing and make an end of an auld
sang. I'm rarely discreet in my own interest, M. Montaiglon, but it had to
be shown this time, and as sure as death I feel like a murderer at the
havoc I have wrought with that good woman's mind!"</p>
<p>He stopped suddenly; a lump was in his throat. In the beam of light that
came through the hole in a shutter of a house they passed, Montaiglon saw
that his companion's face was all wrought with wretchedness, and a tear
was on his cheek.</p>
<p>The discovery took him aback. He had ungenerously deemed the strained
voice in the darkness beside him a mere piece of play-acting, but here was
proof of genuine feeling, all the more convincing because the Chamberlain
suddenly brisked up and coughed and assumed a new tone, as if ashamed of
his surrender to a sentiment.</p>
<p>"I have been compelled to be cruel to-night to a woman, M. Montaiglon,"
said he, "and that is not my nature. And—to come to another
consideration that weighed as much with me as any—this unpleasant
duty of mine that still sticks in my throat like funeral-cake was partly
forced by consideration for another lady—the sweetest and the best—who
would be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in a
libel."</p>
<p>A protest rose to Montaiglon's throat; a fury stirred him at the gaucherie
that should bring Olivia's name upon the top of such a subject. He could
not trust himself to speak with calmness, and it was to his great relief
the Chamberlain changed the topic—broadened it, at least, and spoke
of women in the general, almost cheerfully, as if he delighted to put an
unpleasant topic behind him. It was done so adroitly, too, that Count
Victor was compelled to believe it prompted by a courteous desire on the
part of the Chamberlain not too vividly to illuminate his happiness in the
affection of Olivia.</p>
<p>"I'm an older man than you, M. Montaiglon," said the Chamberlain, "and I
may be allowed to give some of my own conclusions upon the fair. I have
known good, ill, and merely middling among them, the cunning and the
simple, the learned and the utterly ignorant, and by the Holy Iron!
honesty and faith are the best virtues in the lot of them. They all like
flattery, I know—"</p>
<p>"A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. <i>Jamais
beau parler riecorcha le langue!</i>" said Montaiglon.</p>
<p>"Faith, and that's very true," consented the Chamberlain, laughing softly.
"I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the right way—which
is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for the imaginary
ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty; they're not
very rife in our own sex, and—"</p>
<p>"Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough," said Montaiglon. "I can
always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learned never to
expect too much from it."</p>
<p>"Well said!" cried the Chamberlain. "Do you know that in your manner of
rejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College when I
was in France years ago?"</p>
<p>"Ah, you have passed some time in my country, then?" said the Count with
awakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as sex.</p>
<p>"I have been in every part of Europe," said the Chamberlain; "and it must
have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercy itself,
for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, we were of a
different complexion of politics. I lived for months one time in the H�tel
de Transylvania, Rue Cond�, and kept my <i>carosse de remise</i>, and
gambled like every other ass of my kind in Paris till I had not a louis to
my credit. Lord! the old days, the old days! I should be penitent, I
daresay, M. Montaiglon, but I'm putting that off till I find that a sober
life has compensations for the entertainment of a life of liberty."</p>
<p>"Did you know Balhaldie?"</p>
<p>"Do I know the inside of my own pocket! I've played piquet wi' the old
rogue a score of times in the Sun tavern of Rotterdam. Pardon me speaking
that way of one that may be an intimate of your own, but to be quite
honest, the Scots gentlemen living on the Scots Fund in France in these
days were what I call the scourings of the Hielan's. There were good and
bad among them, of course, but I was there in the <i>entourage</i> of one
who was no politician, which was just my own case, and I saw but the
convivial of my exiled countrymen in their convivial hours. Politics! In
these days I would scunner at the very word, if you know what that means,
M. Montaiglon. I was too throng with gaiety to trouble my head about such
trifles; my time was too much taken up with buckling my hair, in admiring
the cut of my laced <i>jabot</i>, and the Mechlin of my wrist-bands."</p>
<p>They were walking close upon the sea-wall with leisurely steps,
preoccupied, the head of the little town, it seemed, wholly surrendered to
themselves alone. Into the Chamberlain's voice had come an accent of the
utmost friendliness and flattering ir-restraint; he seemed to be leaving
his heart bare to the Frenchman. Count Victor was by these last words
transported to his native city, and his own far-off days of galliard. Why,
in the name of Heaven! was he here listening to hackneyed tales of
domestic tragedy and a stranger's reminiscences? Why did his mind
continually linger round the rock of Doom, so noisy on its promontory, so
sad, so stern, so like an ancient saga in its spirit? Cecile—he was
amazed at it, but Cecile, and the Jacobite cause he had come here to
avenge with a youth's ardour, had both fallen, as it were, into a dusk of
memory!</p>
<p>"By the way, monsieur, you did not happen to have come upon any one
remotely suggesting my Drimdarroch in the course of your travels?"</p>
<p>"Oh, come!" cried Sim MacTaggart; "if I did, was I like to mention it here
and now?" He laughed at the idea. "You have not grasped the clannishness
of us yet if you fancy—"</p>
<p>"But in an affair of strict honour, monsieur," broke in Count Victor
eagerly. "Figure you a woman basely betrayed; your admirable sentiments
regarding the sex must compel you to admit there is here something more
than clannishness can condone. It is true there is the political element—but
not much of it—in my quest, still—"</p>
<p>"Not a word of that, M. Montaiglon!" cried the Chamberlain: "there you
address yourself to his Grace's faithful servant; but I cannot be denying
some sympathy with the other half of your object. If I had known this
by-named Drimdarroch you look for, I might have swithered to confess it,
but as it is, I have never had the honour. I've seen scores of dubious
cattle round the walls of Ludo-vico Rex, but which might be Drimdarroch
and which might be decent honest men, I could not at this time guess. We
have here among us others who had a closer touch with affairs in France
than I."</p>
<p>"So?" said Count Victor. "Our friend the Baron of Doom suggested that for
that very reason my search was for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
I find myself in pressing need of a judicious friend at court, I see. Have
you ever found your resolution quit you—not an oozing courage, I
mean, but an indifference that comes purely by the lapse of time and the
distractions on the way to its execution? It is my case at the moment. My
thirst for the blood of this <i>inconnu</i> has modified considerably in
the past few days. I begin to wish myself home again, and might set out
incontinent if the object of my coming here at all had not been so well
known to those I left behind. You would be doing a brilliant service—and
perhaps but little harm to Drimdarroch after all—if you could
arrange a meeting at the earliest."</p>
<p>He laughed as he said so.</p>
<p>"Man! I'm touched by the issue," said the Chamberlain; "I must cast an eye
about. Drimdarroch, of course, is Doom, or was, if a lawyer's sheep-skins
had not been more powerful nowadays than the sword; but"—he paused a
moment as if reluctant to give words to the innuendo—"though Doom
himself has been in France to some good purpose in nis time, and though,
for God knows what, he is no friend of mine, I would be the first to
proclaim him free of any suspicion."</p>
<p>"That, monsieur, goes without saying! I was stupid enough to misunderstand
some of his eccentricities myself, but have learned in our brief
acquaintanceship to respect in him the man of genuine heart."</p>
<p>"Just so, just so!" cried the Chamberlain, and cleared his throat. "I but
mentioned his name to make it plain that his claim to the old title in no
way implicated him. A man of great heart, as you say, though with a
reputation for oddity. If I were not the well-wisher of his house, I could
make some trouble about his devotion to the dress and arms forbidden here
to all but those in the king's service, as I am myself, being major of the
local Fencibles. And—by the Lord! here's MacCailen!"</p>
<p>They had by this time entered the policies of the Duke. A figure walked
alone in the obscurity, with arms in a characteristic fashion behind its
back, going in the direction they themselves were taking. For a second or
two the Chamberlain hesitated, then formed his resolution.</p>
<p>"I shall introduce you," he said to Count Victor. "It may be of some
service afterwards."</p>
<p>The Duke turned his face in the darkness, and, as they came alongside,
recognised his Chamberlain.</p>
<p>"Good evening, good evening!" he cried cheerfully. "'Art a late bird, as
usual, and I am at that pestilent task the rehearsal of a speech."</p>
<p>"Your Grace's industry is a reproach to your Grace's Chamberlain," said
the latter. "I have been at the speech-making myself, partly to a lady."</p>
<p>"Ah, Mr. MacTaggart!" cried the Duke in a comical expostulation.</p>
<p>"And partly to this unfortunate friend of mine, who must fancy us a
singularly garrulous race this side of the German Ocean. May I introduce
M. Montaiglon, who is at the inn below, and whom it has been my good
fortune to meet for the first time to-night?"</p>
<p>Argyll was most cordial to the stranger, who, however, took the earliest
opportunity to plead fatigue and return to his inn. He had no sooner
retired than the Duke expressed some natural curiosity.</p>
<p>"It cannot be the person you desired for the furnishing of our tolbooth
the other day, Sim?" said he.</p>
<p>"No less," frankly responded the Chamberlain. "Your Grace saved me a <i>faux
pas</i> there, for Montaiglon is not what I fancied at all."</p>
<p>"You were ever the dubious gentleman, Sim," laughed his Grace. "And what—if
I may take the liberty—seeks our excellent and impeccable Gaul so
far west?"</p>
<p>"He's a wine merchant," said the Chamberlain, and at that the Duke
laughed.</p>
<p>"What, man!" he cried at last, shaking with his merriment, "is our ancient
Jules from Oporto to be ousted with the aid of Sim MacTaggart from the
ducal cellars in favour of one Montaiglon?" He stopped, caught his
Chamberlain by the arm, and stood close in an endeavour to perceive his
countenance. "Sim," said he, "I wonder what Modene would say to find his
cousin hawking vile claret round Argyll. Your friend's incognito is
scarcely complete enough even in the dark. Why, the man's Born! I could
tell it in his first sentence, and it's a swordsman's hand, not a
cellarer's fingers, he gave me a moment ago. That itself would betray him
even if I did not happen to know that the Montaiglons have the <i>particule</i>."</p>
<p>"It is quite as you say," confessed the Chamberlain with some chagrin at
his position, "but I'm giving the man's tale as he desires to have it
known here. He's no less than the Count de Montaiglon, and a rather decent
specimen of the kind, so far as I can judge."</p>
<p>"But why the <i>alias</i>, good Sim?" asked the Duke. "I like not your <i>aliases</i>,
though they have been, now and then—ahem!—useful."</p>
<p>"Your Grace has travelled before now as Baron Hay," said the Chamberlain.</p>
<p>"True! true! and saved very little either in inn charges or in the pother
of State by the device. And if I remember correctly, I made no pretence at
wine-selling on these occasions. Honestly now, what the devil does the
Comte de Montaiglon do here—and with Sim MacTaggart?"</p>
<p>"The matter is capable of the easiest explanation. He's here on what he is
pleased to call an affair of honour, in which there is implicated the
usual girl and another gentleman, who, it appears, is some ope, still
unknown, about your Grace's castle." And the story in its entirety was
speedily his Grace's.</p>
<p>"H'm," ejaculated Argyll at last when he had heard all. "And you fancy the
quest as hopeless as it is quixotic? Now mark me! Simon; I read our French
friend, even in the dark, quite differently. He had little to say there,
but little as it was 'twas enough to show by its manner that he's just the
one who will find his man even in my crowded corridors."</p>
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