one would almost have said that the good citizen jacquetot was restless and disturbed. it was not that the little tobacco shop left aught to be desired in the way of order, neither had the tobacconist quitted his seat at the window-end of the counter. but he was not smoking, and at short intervals he drew aside the little red curtain and looked out into the quiet rue st. gingolphe with a certain eagerness.
the tobacconist was not in the habit of going to meet things. he usually waited for them to come to him. but on this particular evening of september in a year which it is not expedient to name, he seemed to be looking out into the street in order that he might not be taken by surprise in the event of an arrival. moreover he mopped his vast forehead at unnecessarily frequent intervals, just as one may note a snuff-taker have recourse to that solace more frequently when he is agitated than when a warm calm reigns within his breast.
“so quiet—so quiet,” he muttered, “in our little street—and in the others—who knows? it would appear that they have their shutters lowered there.”
he listened intently, but there was no sound except the clatter of an occasional cart or the distant whistle of a seine steamer.
then the tobacconist returned to the perusal of the petit journal. before he had skimmed over many lines, he looked up sharply and drew aside the red curtain. yes! it was some one at last. the footsteps were hurried and yet hesitating—the gait of a person not knowing his whereabouts. and yet the man who entered the shop a moment later was evidently the same who had come to the citizen jacquetot when last we met him.
“ah!” exclaimed the tobacconist. “it is you!”
“no,” replied the other. “it is not. i am not the citizen...morot—i think you call it.”
“but, yes!” exclaimed the fat man in amazement. “you are that citizen, and you are also the vicomte d'audierne.”
the new-comer was looking round him curiously; he stepped towards the curtained door, and turned the handle.
“i am,” he said, “his brother. we are twins. there is a resemblance. is this the room? yes!”
“yes, monsieur. it is! but never was there such a resemblance.”
the tobacconist mopped his head breathlessly.
“go,” said the other, “and get a mattress. bring it and lay it on this table. my brother is wounded. he has been hit.”
jacquetot rose laboriously from his seat. he knew now that this was not the vicomte d'audierne. this man's method was quite different. he spoke with a quiet air of command, not doubting that his orders would be obeyed. he was obviously not in the habit of dealing with the people. the vicomte d'audierne had a different manner of speaking to different people—this man, who resembled him so strangely, gave his orders without heeding the reception of them.
the tobacconist was essentially a man of peace. he passed out of a small door in the corner of the shop, obeying without a murmur, and leaving the new-comer alone.
a moment later the sound of wheels awoke the peaceful stillness of the rue st. gingolphe. the vehicle stopped, and at the same instant the man passed through the little curtained doorway into the room at the back of the shop, closing the door after him.
the gas was turned very low, and in the semi-darkness he stood quite still, waiting. he had not long to wait; he had scarcely closed the door when it was opened again, and some one entered rapidly, closing it behind him. then the first comer raised his arm and turned up the gas.
across the little table, in the sudden flood of light, two men stood looking at each other curiously. they were so startlingly alike, in height and carriage and every feature, that there was something weird and unpleasant in their action—in their silence.
“ah!” said the last comer. “it is thou. i almost fired!”
and he threw down on the table a small revolver.
“why have you done this?” continued the vicomte d'audierne. “i thought we agreed sixteen years ago that the world was big enough to contain us both without meeting, if we exercised a little care.”
“she is dead,” replied the brother. “she died two years ago—the wife of prangius—what does it matter now?”
“i know that—but why did you come?”
“i was ordered to paris by the general. i was near you at the barricade, and i heard the bullet hit you. where is it?”
the vicomte looked down at his hand, which was pressed to his breast; the light of the gas flickered, and gleamed on his spectacles as he did so.
“in my chest,” he replied. “i am simply dripping with blood. it has trickled down my legs into my boots. very hot at first—and then very cold.”
the other looked at him curiously, and across his velvety eyes there passed that strange contraction which has been noted in the glance of the vicomte d'audierne.
“i have sent for a mattress,” he said. “that bullet must come out. a doctor is following me; he will be here on the instant.”
“one of your jesuits?”
“yes—one of my jesuits.”
the vicomte d'audierne smiled and winced. he staggered a little, and clutched at the back of a chair. the other watched him without emotion.
“why do you not sit down?” he suggested coldly. “there are none of your—people—here to be impressed.”
again the vicomte smiled.
“yes,” he said smoothly, “we work on different lines, do we not? i wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. which of the two—the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. ha? and she married a third—a dolt. thus are they made—these women!”
“and yet,” said the jesuit, “you have not forgotten.”
the vicomte looked up slowly. it seemed that his eyelids were heavy, requiring an effort to lift them.
“i do not like to hear the rooks call—that is all,” he said.
the other turned away his soft, slow glance, the glance that had failed to overcome christian vellacott's quiet defiance—
“nor i,” he said. “it makes one remember.”
there was a short silence, and then the jesuit spoke—sharply and suddenly.
“sit down, you fool!” he said. “you are fainting.”
the vicomte obeyed, and at the same moment the door opened and the tobacconist appeared, pushing before him a mattress.
the jesuit laid aside his hat, revealing the tonsure gleaming whitely amidst his jetty hair, and helped to lay the mattress upon the table. then the two men, the provincial and the tobacconist of the rue st. gingolphe, lifted the wounded aristocrat gently and placed him upon the improvised bed. true to his blood, the vicomte d'audierne uttered no sound of agony, but as his brother began to unbutton the butcher's blouse in which he was disguised he fainted quietly. presently the doctor arrived. he was quite a young man, with shifting grey eyes, and he saluted the provincial with a nervous obsequity which was unpleasant to look upon. the deftness with which he completed the task of laying bare the wound was notable. his fingers were too clever to be quite honest. when, however, he was face to face with the little blue-rimmed orifice that disfigured the vicomte's muscular chest, the expression of his face—indeed his whole manner—changed. his eyes lost their shiftiness—he seemed to forget the presence of the great man standing at the other side of the table.
while he was selecting a probe from his case of instruments the vicomte d'audierne opened his eyes.
“ah!” said the doctor, noting this at once. “you got this on the boulevard?”
“yes.”
“how did you get here?” he was feeling the wounded man's pulse now.
“cab.”
“all the way?”
“of course.”
“who carried you into this room?” asked the doctor, returning to his case of instruments.
“no one! i walked.” the doctor's manner, quick and nonchalant, evidently aggravated his patient.
“why did you do that?”
he was making his preparations while he spoke, and never looked at the vicomte.
“in order to avoid attracting attention.”
this brought the doctor's glance to his face, and the result was instantaneous. the young man started, and into his eyes there came again the shifty expression, as he looked from the face of the patient to that of the provincial standing motionless at the other side of the table. he said nothing, however, and returned with a peculiar restraint to his preparations. it is probable that his silence was brought about by the persistent gaze of two pairs of deep velvety eyes which never left his face.
“will monsieur take chloroform,” he asked, unfolding a clean pocket-handkerchief, and taking from his waistcoat pocket a small phial.
“no!”
“but—i beg of you———”
“it is not necessary,” persisted the vicomte calmly.
the doctor looked across to the provincial and made a hopeless little movement of the shoulders, accompanied by an almost imperceptible elevation of the eyebrows.
the jesuit replied by looking meaningly at the small glass-stoppered bottle.
then the doctor muttered:
“as you will!”
he had laid his instruments out upon the mattress—the gas was turned up as high as it would go. everything was ready. then he turned his back a moment and took off his coat, which he laid upon a chair, returning towards the bed with one hand behind his back.
quick as thought, he suddenly darted forward and pressed the clean handkerchief over the wounded man's mouth and nose. the vicomte d'audierne gave a little smothered exclamation of rage, and raised his arms; but the jesuit was too quick for him, and pinned him down upon the mattress.
after a moment the doctor removed the handkerchief, and the vicomte lay unconscious and motionless, his delicate lips drawn back in anger, so that the short white teeth gleamed dangerously.
“it is possible,” said the surgeon, feeling his pulse again, “that monsieur has killed himself by walking into this room.”
like a cat over its prey, the young doctor leant across the mattress. without looking round he took up the instruments he wanted, knowing the order in which they lay. he had been excellently taught. the noiseless movements of his white fingers were marvellously dexterous—neat, rapid, and finished. the evil-looking instruments gleamed and flashed beneath the gaslight. he had a peculiar little habit of wiping each one on his shirt-sleeve before and after use, leaving a series of thin red stripes there.
after the lapse of a minute he raised his head, wiped something which he held in his fingers, and passed it across to the provincial.
“that is the bullet, my father,” he said, without ceasing his occupation, and without raising his eyes from the wounded man.
“will he live?” asked the jesuit casually, while he examined the bullet.
“if he tries, my father,” was the meaning reply.
the young doctor was bandaging now, skilfully and rapidly.
“this would be the death of a dog,” said the provincial, as if musing aloud; for the surgeon was busy at his trade, and the tobacconist had withdrawn some time before.
“better than the life of a dog,” replied the vicomte, in his smoothly mocking way, without opening his eyes.
it was very easy to blame one woman, and to cast reflections upon the entire sex. if these brothers had not quarrelled about that woman, they would have fallen out over something else. some men are so: they are like a strong spirit—light and yet potent—that floats upon the top of all other liquids and will mingle with none.
it would seem that these two could not be in the same room without quarrelling. it was only with care that (as the jesuit had coldly observed) they could exist in the same world without clashing. never was the vicomte d'audierne so cynical, so sceptical, as in the presence of his brother. never was raoul d'audierne so cold, so heartless, so jesuitical, as when meeting his brother's scepticism.
sixteen years of their life had made no difference. they were as far apart now as on one grey morning sixteen years ago, when the vicomte d'audierne had hurried away from the deserted shore of the c?te du nord, leaving his brother lying upon the sand with an ugly slit in his neck. that slit had healed now, but the scar was always at his throat, and in both their hearts.
true to his training, the provincial had not spoken the truth when he said that he had been ordered to paris. there was only one man in the world who could order him to do anything, and that man was too wise to test his authority. raoul d'audierne had come to paris for the purpose of seeing his brother—senior by an hour. there were many things of which he wished to speak, some belonging to the distant past, some to a more recent date. he wished to speak of christian vellacott—one of the few men who had succeeded in outwitting him—of signor bruno, or max talma, who had died within pistol range of that same englishman, a sudden, voiceless death, the result of a terrible access of passion at the sight of his face.
but this man was a jesuit and a d'audierne, which latter statement is full of import to those who, having studied heredity, know that wonderful inner history of france which is the most romantic story of human kind. and so raoul d'audierne—the man whose power in the world is like that of the fires burning within the crust of the earth, unseen, immeasurable—and so he took his hat, and left the little room behind the tobacconist's shop in the rue st. gingolphe—beaten, frustrated.
