Читать книгу A Fire of Driftwood - D. K. Broster - Страница 17

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Half an hour later they were still sitting before the fire. The Regent’s commission was in Hervé’s breast, and now they had reverted to earlier themes, and talked, with a dreamy and contented abandonment, of days before she had married, and he had changed. The air of long-forgotten gardens in the sunshine, of nights of palace floors and violins closed round the couple who had once known nothing else, and now drew a breath so different. To meet thus, to talk thus, had about it some impalpable suggestion of a reunion in the shades, so dim and faded were all those memories, and yet holding something of an unregretted sweetness. Armande de Bellegarde’s voice—one of those rare voices whose lightest utterances are happiness to hear—fell silent at last on a remembrance. Instead she looked at Hervé’s fine and resolute profile where he sat at her feet, with gaze half-stern, half-smiling, bent on the fire. How he had changed! Had hers been indeed the hand that forged, unknowing, this blade of keenest temper?

“Do you remember,” she asked suddenly, “that afternoon at Versailles, and the old fortune-teller who warned you to beware of—what was it—of lying at the Inn of the Sword?”

L’Invincible brought back to her face a gaze almost dreamy.

“Very well,” he said. “It was you who caused the prophecy. But the sign has never come my way.”

“Nor would you care much, I imagine——” she began, smiling ... and stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” asked Hervé, astonished.

“Look!” she said, and pointed to the hearth, where on the old-fashioned hooded chimney a many-quartered coat-of-arms, half defaced, showed as crest a mailed hand brandishing a sword.

Hervé’s eyes followed her finger. “The device of the Kermelven,” he said coolly. “Armande, you are not superstitious?”

She had turned very pale. “No ... yes ... I am frightened.”

“You!” exclaimed Saint-Armel, and there was real amazement in his tone. She shivered. “You were not going to spend the night here, Hervé?”

“Where am I to go to then?” he asked, laughing.

“Anywhere, so long as you do not sleep under that sign!” she said earnestly. “Sleep under the stars, but not under the sword. I do not care if you think me foolish. Hervé, I implore it of you!”

He got to his feet, quite grave, and stood looking down at her, his eagle glance a little softened. He said nothing, but her eyes answered his, and in another moment she lay on his breast, against the white scarf and the Sacred Heart, forgetful of the past and future, and even of the trick of fate which had shown her soul to him.