"Try me! Ask of me the hardest thing, nay, the wickedest, that imagination can conceive or hands do--and I would perform it for your sake." Le Gardeur was getting beside himself. The magic power of those dark, flashing eyes of hers was melting all the fine gold of his nature to folly.
"Fie!" replied she, "I do not ask you to drink the sea: a small thing would content me. My love is not so exacting as that, Le Gardeur."
"Does your brother need my aid?" asked he. "If he does, he shall have it to half my fortune for your sake!" Le Gardeur was well aware that the prodigal brother of Angelique was in a strait for money, as was usual with him. He had lately importuned Le Gardeur, and obtained a large sum from him.
She looked up with well-affected indignation. "How can you think such a thing, Le Gardeur? my brother was not in my thought. It was the Intendant I wished to ask you about,--you know him better than I."
This was not true. Angelique had studied the Intendant in mind, person, and estate, weighing him scruple by scruple to the last attainable atom of information. Not that she had sounded the depths of Bigot's soul--there were regions of darkness in his character which no eye but God's ever penetrated. Angelique felt that with all her acuteness she did not comprehend the Intendant.
"You ask what I think of the Intendant?" asked he, surprised somewhat at the question.
"Yes--an odd question, is it not, Le Gardeur?" and she smiled away any surprise he experienced.
"Truly, I think him the most jovial gentleman that ever was in New France," was the reply; "frank and open-handed to his friends, laughing and dangerous to his foes. His wit is like his wine, Angelique: one never tires of either, and no lavishness exhausts it.
In a word, I, like the Intendant, I like his wit ,his wine, his friends,--some of them, that is!--but above all, I like you, Angelique, and will be more his friend than ever for your sake, since I have learned his generosity towards the Chevalier des Meloises."
The Intendant had recently bestowed a number of valuable shares in the Grand Company upon the brother of Angelique, making the fortune of that extravagant young nobleman.
"I am glad you will be his friend, if only for my sake," added she, coquettishly. "But some great friends of yours like him not. Your sweet sister Amelie shrank like a sensitive plant at the mention of his name, and the Lady de Tilly put on her gravest look to-day when I spoke of the Chevalier Bigot."
Le Gardeur gave Angelique an equivocal look at mention of his sister. "My sister Amelie is an angel in the flesh," said he. "A man need be little less than divine to meet her full approval; and my good aunt has heard something of the genial life of the Intendant. One may excuse a reproving shake of her noble head."
"Colonel Philibert too! he shares in the sentiments of your aunt and sister, to say nothing of the standing hostility of his father, the Bourgeois," continued Angelique, provoked at Le Gardeur's want of adhesion.
"Pierre Philibert! He may not like the Intendant: he has reason for not doing so; but I stake my life upon his honor--he will never be unjust towards the Intendant or any man." Le Gardeur could not be drawn into a censure of his friend.
Angelique shielded adroitly the stiletto of innuendo she had drawn.
"You say right," said she, craftily; "Pierre Philibert is a gentleman worthy of your regard. I confess I have seen no handsomer man in New France. I have been dreaming of one like him all my life! What a pity I saw you first, Le Gardeur!" added she, pulling him by the hair.
"I doubt you would throw me to the fishes were Pierre my rival, Angelique," replied he, merrily; "but I am in no danger: Pierre's affections are, I fancy, forestalled in a quarter where I need not be jealous of his success."
"I shall at any rate not be jealous of your sister, Le Gardeur," said Angelique, raising her face to his, suffused with a blush; "if I do not give you the love you ask for it is because you have it already; but ask no more at present from me--this, at least, is yours," said she, kissing him twice, without prudery or hesitation.
That kiss from those adored lips sealed his fate. It was the first-- better it had been the last, better he had never been born than have drank the poison of her lips.
"Now answer me my questions, Le Gardeur," added she, after a pause of soft blandishments.
Le Gardeur felt her fingers playing with his hair, as, like Delilah, she cut off the seven locks of his strength.
"There is a lady at Beaumanoir; tell me who and what she is, Le Gardeur," said she.
He would not have hesitated to betray the gate of Heaven at her prayer; but, as it happened, Le Gardeur could not give her the special information she wanted as to the particular relation in which that lady stood to the Intendant. Angelique with wonderful coolness talked away, and laughed at the idea of the Intendant's gallantry. But she could get no confirmation of her suspicions from Le Gardeur. Her inquiry was for the present a failure, but she made Le Gardeur promise to learn what he could and tell her the result of his inquiries.
