The trail of the serpent

of the fireplace to that on which the Marquis is seated, and says, in a very serious tone of voice-- “Monsieur de Cevennes, I am about to allude to a subject of so truly painful and distressing a nature, both for you to hear and for me to speak of, that I almost fear adverting to it.” The Marquis has been so deeply interested in the ring, emerald outwards, that he has evidently heard the words of Raymond without comprehending their meaning; but he looks up reflectively for a moment, recalls them, glances over them afresh as it were, nods, and says-- “Oh, ah! Distressing nature; you fear adverting to it--eh! Pray don’t agitate yourself, my good de Marolles. I don’t think it likely you’ll agitate me.” He leaves the ring for a minute or two, and looks over the five nails on his left hand, evidently in search of the pinkest; finds it on the third finger, and caresses it tenderly, while awaiting Raymond’s very painful communication. “You said, Monsieur le Marquis, that you were utterly at a loss to comprehend my wife’s motive in sending for you in this abrupt manner?” “Utterly. And I assure you I am a bad sailor--a very bad sailor. When the weather’s rough, I am positively compelled to--it is really so absurd,” he says, with a light clear laugh--“I am obliged to--to go to the side of the vessel. Both undignified and disagreeable, I give you my word of honour. But you were saying----” “I was about to say, monsieur, that it is my deep grief to have to state that the conduct of your niece has been for the last few months in every way inexplicable--so much so, that I have been led to fear----” “What, monsieur?” The Marquis folds his white hands one over the other on his knee, leaves off the inspection of their beauties, and looks full in the face of his niece’s husband. “I have been led, with what grief I need scarcely say----” “Oh, no, indeed; pray reserve the account of your grief--your grief must have been so very intense. You have been led to fear----” “That my unhappy wife is out of her mind.” “Precisely. I thought that was to be the climax. My good Monsieur Raymond, Count de Marolles--my very worthy Monsieur Raymond Marolles--my most excellent whoever and whatever you may be--do you think that René Théodore Auguste Philippe Le Grange Martel, Marquis de Cevennes, is the sort of man to be twisted round your fingers, however clever, unscrupulous, and designing a villain you may be?” “Monsieur le Marquis!” “I have not the least wish to quarrel with you, my good friend. Nay, on the contrary, I will freely confess that I am not without a certain amount of respect for you. You are a thorough villain. Everything thorough is, in my mind, estimable. Virtue is said to lie in the golden mean--virtue is not in my way; I therefore do not dispute the question--but to me all mediums are contemptible. You are, in your way, thorough; and, on the whole, I respect you.” He goes back to the contemplation of his hands and his rings, and concentrates all his attention on a cameo head of Mark Antony, which he wears on his little finger. “A villain, Monsieur le Marquis!” “And a clever villain, Monsieur de Marolles--a clever villain! Witness your success. But you are not quite clever enough to hoodwink me--not quite clever enough to hoodwink any one blest with a moderate amount of brains!” “Monsieur!” “Because you have one fault. Yes, really,”--he flicks a grain of dust out of Mark Antony’s eye with his little finger--“yes, you have one fault. You are too smooth. Nobody ever _was_ so estimable as you _appear_ to be--you over-do it. If you remember,” continues the Marquis, addressing him in an easy, critical, and conversational tone, “the great merit in that Venetian villain in the tragedy of the worthy but very much over-rated person, William Shakspeare, is, that he is _not_ smooth. Othello trusts Iago, not because he _is_ smooth, but because he _isn’t_. ‘I know this fellow’s of exceeding honesty,’ says the Moor; as much as to say, ‘He’s a disagreeable beast, but I think trustworthy.’ You are a very clever fellow, Monsieur Raymond de Marolles, but you would never have got Desdemona smothered. Othello would have seen through you--as I did!” “Monsieur, I will not suffer----” “You will be good enough to allow me to finish what I have to say. I dare say I am prosy, but I shall not detain you long. I repeat, that though you are a very clever fellow, you would never have got the bolster-and-pillow business accomplished, because Othello would have seen through you as I did. My niece insisted on marrying you. Why? It was not such a very difficult riddle to read, this marriage, apparently so mysterious. You, an enterprising person, with a small capital, plenty of brains, and white hands quite unfit for rough work, naturally are on the look-out for some heiress whom you may entrap into marrying you.” “Monsieur de Cevennes!” “My dear fellow, I am not quarrelling with you. In your position I should have done the same. That is the very clue by which I unravel the mystery. I say to myself, what should I have done if fate had been so remarkably shabby as to throw me into the position of that young man? Why, naturally I should have looked out for some woman foolish enough to be deceived by that legitimate and old-established sham--so useful to novelists and the melodramatic theatres--called ‘Love.’ Now, my niece is not a fool; ergo, she was not in love with you. You had then obtained some species of power over her. What that power was I did not ask; I do not ask now. Enough that it was necessary for her, for me, that this marriage should take place. She swore it on the crucifix. I am a Voltairean myself, but, poor girl, she derived those sort of ideas from her mother; so there was nothing for me but to consent to the marriage, and accept a gentleman of doubtful pedigree.” “Perhaps not so doubtful.” “Perhaps not so doubtful! There is a triumphant curl about your upper lip, my dear nephew-in-law. Has papa turned up lately?” “Perhaps. I think I shall soon be able to lay my hand upon him.” He lays a light and delicate hand on the Marquis’s shoulder as he says the words. “No doubt; but if in the meantime you would kindly refrain from laying it on me, you would oblige--you would really oblige me. Though why,” said the Marquis philosophically, addressing himself to Mark Antony, as if he would like to avail himself of that Roman’s sagacity, “why we should object to a villain simply because he is a villain, I can’t imagine. We may object to him if he is coarse, or dirty, or puts his knife in his mouth, or takes soup twice, or wears ill-made coats, because those things annoy _us_; but, object to him because he is a liar, or a hypocrite, or a coward? Perfectly absurd! I say, therefore, I consented to the marriage, asked no unnecessary or ill-bred questions, and resigned myself to the force of circumstances; and for some years affairs appeared to go on very smoothly, when suddenly I am startled by a most alarming letter from my niece. She implores me to come to England. She is alone, without a friend, an adviser, and she is determined to reveal all.” “To reveal all!” Raymond cannot repress a start. The _sang froid_ of the Marquis had entirely deceived him whose chief weapon was that very _sang froid_. “Yes. What then? You, being aware of this letter having been written--or, say, guessing that such a letter would be written--determine; on your course. You will throw over your wife’s evidence by declaring her to be mad. Eh? This is what you determine upon, isn’t it?” It appears so good a joke to the Marquis, that he laughs and nods at Mark Antony, as if he would really like that respectable Roman to participate in the fun. For the first time in his life Raymond Marolles has found his match. In the hands of this man he is utterly powerless. “An excellent idea. Only, as I said before, too obvious--too transparently obvious. It is the only thing you can do. If I were looking for a man, and came to a part of the country where there was but one road, I should of course know that he must--if he went anywhere--go down that road. So with you, my dear Marolles, there was but one resource left you--to disprove the revelations of your wife by declaring them the hallucinations of a maniac. I take no credit to myself for seeing through you, I assure you. There is no talent whatever in finding out that two and two make four; the genius would be the man who made them into five. I do not think I have anything more to say. I have no wish to attack you, my dear nephew-in-law. I merely wanted to prove to you that I was not your dupe. I think you must be by this time sufficiently convinced of that fact. If you have any good Madeira in your cellars, I should like a glass or two, and the wing of a chicken, before I hear what my niece may have to say to me. I made a very poor breakfast some hours ago at the Lord Warden.” Having expressed himself thus, the Marquis throws himself back in his easy-chair, yawns once or twice, and polishes Mark Antony with the corner of his handkerchief; he has evidently entirely dismissed the subject on which he has been speaking, and is ready for pleasant conversation. At this moment the door is thrown open, and Valerie enters the room. It is the first time Raymond has seen Valerie since the night of Mosquetti’s story, and as his eyes meet hers he starts involuntarily. What is it?--this change, this transformation, which has taken eight years off the age of this woman, and restored her as she was on that night when he first saw her at the Opera House in Paris. What is it? So great and marvellous an alteration, he might almost doubt if this indeed were she. And yet he can scarcely define the change. It seems a transformation, not of the face, but of the soul. A new soul looking out of the old beauty. A new soul? No, the old soul, which he thought dead. It is indeed a resurrection of the dead. She advances to her uncle, who embraces her with a graceful and drawing-room species of tenderness, about as like real tenderness as ormolu is like rough Australian gold--as Lawrence Sterne’s sentiment is like Oliver Goldsmith’s pathos. “My dear uncle! You received my letter, then?” “Yes, dear child. And what, in Heaven’s name, can you have to tell me that would not admit of being delayed until the weather changed?--and I am such a bad sailor,” he repeats plaintively. “What can you have to tell me?” “Nothing yet, my dear uncle”--the bright dark eyes look with a steady gaze at Raymond as she speaks--“nothing yet; the hour has not yet come.” “For mercy’s sake, my dear girl,” says the Marquis, in a tone of horror, “don’t be melodramatic. If you’re going to act a Porte-St.-Martin drama, in thirteen acts and twenty-six tableaux, I’ll go back to Paris. If you’ve nothing to say to me, why, in the name of all that’s feminine, did you send for me?” “When I wrote to you, I told you that I appealed to you because I had no other friend upon earth to whom, in the hour of my anguish, I could turn for help and advice.” “You did, you did. If you had not been my only brother’s only child, I should have waited a change in the wind before I crossed the Channel--I am such a wretched sailor! But life, as the religious party asserts, is a long sacrifice--I came!” “Suppose that, since writing that letter, I have found a friend, an adviser, a grading hand and a supporting arm, and no longer need the help of any one on earth besides this new-found friend to revenge me upon my enemies?” Raymond’s bewilderment increases every moment. Has she indeed gone mad, and is this new light in her eyes the fire of insanity? “I am sure, my dear Valerie, if you have met with such a very