HE dowager duchess sat, still and grim, amid the dimmed splendors of the great hall of the chateau. She was small, slender, aristocratic to the tips of her lean fingers. The poise of her head was haughty, the glance of her eye, save to her few equals, a scornful rebuff. The dowager duchess not only represented the ancient house of Vantôme, but came herself of a line that traced itself back to dim days of heroic legends—the Gleōcs-Keral of Brittany. Now she awaited the coming of her only son, Germain Marie Claude Raoul, Duke of Villiers-Vantôme, and his bride.
Mellow chimes from the clock-tower of the Henry IV. wing rang out the hour—eleven. The sonorous music, beating softly through the wide halls, gathered mystery and depth as it reverberated from the Gothic arches of the chapel to drift in roaring cadence down the echoing corridors. The dowager duchess shuddered. Only half an hour more, and the stately palace must acknowledge an upstart American as its mistress. As she gazed on the painted ornaments of the huge, hooded fireplace—the rampant stags of Vantôme—tears rose to her eyes, tears of humiliation and disappointment. Was it for this she had servilely labored since the death of her husband? She had administered the estate with a hand of iron, that its dwindling revenues might provide the hereditary luxury, that Raoul might appear in Paris in the state befitting his rank, might live as the Duke de Vantôme should live, and marry a woman whose quarterings should do honor to the princely parchments of his father's pedigree. She had cloistered herself to live to this end, and to command the loyalty of peasants, the grudging homage of neighboring chatelaines. She had lived rigidly by the old régime; but her son had succumbed to the new.
She had refused to attend his wedding, giving ill health as her excuse; had been represented by her gift alone, the famous Valois necklace—noblesse oblige; the gifts of the dowager duchess must be princely.
Slow color mounted to her ashen cheeks, at the recollection of the Marquise de Vaux's scornful congratulations.
"Ah, ma chère, I hear from Paris, Raoul is to make a great marriage, a dot of millions, they say—oh, but millions and millions and millions—made in pork!"
"Raoul does not need to consider money,' ' the dowager duchess had answered, superbly mendacious; "the lands are intact." The marquise had winced, visibly. The estates of Vaux were mortgaged, neglected.
"Nor family, either, it would seem," the viper tongue had retorted.
"Yes, he has sufficient of that, also." The dowager duchess had the better of the encounter, yet the stab went deep.
The flighty, beruffled occupants of Arques Forret had dared to call upon her, excusing the intrusion by their intimacy with the foreign fiancée. Fortunately, she had been able to crush them with the accumulated magnificence of the château and her own queenly demeanor.
The sound of wheels aroused her from painful reverie.
Subdued whisperings in the corridor warned her that the servants were collected to welcome the new chatelaine. The ponderous, bronze-studded doors swung wide. The soft-toned tapestries undulated along the walls. A breath of Autumn air, sad with the memories of fallen leaves, swept into the room.
She remained seated in her ancient, throne-like chair, before the fire, only turning her head slightly as her tall son hurried to her side. Silently, she extended the thin fingers heavy with rings.
"Be welcome, my son," she said, at length.
He kissed the proffered hand.
"Madame, my mother—I present to you my wife, Claire."
With stately grace she turned to the intruder. "My son's wife should be welcome to Vantôme."
The girl bowed gracefully, but the flush that mantled her cheeks revealed her sense of the grudging reception accorded her.
The dowager duchess regarded her daughter-in-law fixedly, noting every line of the frail, fashionably gowned figure, every detail of the small, oval face, with its wide-set, blue eyes, and crown of iridescent black hair. The girl shivered slightly.
"You are cold," the dowager duchess suggested. "Raoul, there is wine and cake upon the table. The Autumn winds are chill."
"Thank you," said the bride, simply. "I am cold. I have only just recovered from a long illness, as perhaps you know."
"My son has told me. You must be weary. Amélie will conduct you to your apartments."
A gaunt woman, wearing the characteristic garb of Aries, appeared at the door as her name was spoken. With a sigh, half of weariness, half of relief, the Duchess Claire rose.