The Laughing Cavalier by Baroness Orczy (best 7 inch ereader .TXT) 📕

his last words there lurked a determination which it were useless to combat. Her pride too was up in arms. How could she plead further to this rascal who met the most earnest appeal with a pert jest? who mocked at her distress, and was impervious alike to prayers and to insults?

“I see,” she said coldly, “that I do but waste my time in calling on your honour to forego this infamous trickery. Where there is no chivalry, there can be neither honour nor pity. I am in your hands, helpless because I am a woman. If it is the will of God that I should so remain, I cannot combat brute force with my feeble strength. No doubt He knows best! and also I believe doth oft give the devil power to triumph in the sight of men. After this night, sir, I will no longer defame my lips by speaking to you. If you have a spark of compassion left in your heart for one who hath never wronged you, I but ask you to relieve me of your presence as much as you can during the weary hours of this miserable journey.”

“Have I your leave to go at once?” he said with unalterable cheerfulness and made haste to reach the door.

“Only one moment more must I detain you,” she rejoined haughtily. “I wish you to understand that from this hour forth until such time as it pleaseth God to free me from this humiliating position, I will follow your commands to the best of my ability; not because I recognize your right to dictate them but because I am helpless to oppose you. If I and my waiting woman obey your orders meekly, if we rise when so ordered, are ready to start on the way whenever so compelled, get in or out of the vehicle at the first word from you, can we at least rest assured that we shall be spared further outrage?”

“Do you mean, mejuffrouw, that I must no longer attempt to lift you out of a coach or to carry you up to your chamber, even if as tonight you are faint and but half-conscious?” he asked with whimsical earnestness.

“I desire, sir, that you and those who help you in this shameful work, do in future spare me and my woman the insult of laying hands upon our persons.”

He gave a long, low whistle.

“Dondersteen,” he exclaimed flippantly, “I had no thought that so much hatred and malice could lurk in the frail body of a woman⁠ ⁠… ’tis true,” he added with a shrug of the shoulders, “that a rogue such as I must of necessity know very little of the workings of a noble lady’s mind.”

“Had you known aught of mine, sir,” she retorted coldly, “you would have understood that it is neither hatred nor malice which I feel for you and for those who are paying you to do this infamy⁠ ⁠… what I feel is only contempt.”

“Is that all?” he queried blandly. “Ah, well, mejuffrouw, then am I all the more indebted to you for the great honour which you have done me this hour past.”

“Honour? I do not understand. It was not in my mind to do you honour.”

“I am sure not. You did it quite unconsciously and the honour was enhanced thereby. You honoured me, mejuffrouw,” he said while a tone of earnestness crept into his merry voice, “by trusting me⁠—the common thief, the cutthroat, the hired brigand, alone in your presence for a whole hour, while the entire household here was abed and your duenna snoring contentedly in a room with locked door close by. During that hour your tongue did not spare my temper for one moment. For this recognition of manly forbearance and chivalry⁠—even though you choose to deny their existence⁠—do I humbly thank you. Despite⁠—or perhaps because of your harsh estimate of me⁠—you made me feel tonight almost a gentleman.”

With his habitual elegance of gesture he swept her a deep bow, then without another word or look, and with firm, ringing steps he walked quickly out of the room.

XVIII The Start

Once the door safely closed behind him, he heaved a deep sigh as if of intense relief and he passed his hand quickly across his brow.

“By St. Bavon,” he murmured, “my friend Diogenes, thou hast had to face unpleasantness before now⁠—those arquebusiers at Magdeburg were difficult to withstand, those murderous blackguards in the forests of Prague nearly had thy skin, but verdommt be thou, if thou hast had to hold thy temper in bounds like this before. Dondersteen! how I could have crushed that sharp-tongued young vixen till she cried for mercy⁠ ⁠… or silenced those venomous lips with a kiss!⁠ ⁠… I was sore tempted indeed to give her real cause for calling me a knave.⁠ ⁠…”

In the taproom downstairs he found Pythagoras and Socrates curled up on the floor in front of the hearth. They were fast asleep, and Diogenes did not attempt to wake them. He had given them their orders for the next day earlier in the evening and with the promise of 500 golden guilders to be won by implicit obedience the two worthies were not like to disobey.

He himself had his promise to his friend Hals to redeem⁠ ⁠… the flight along the frozen waterways back to Haarlem, a few hours spent in the studio in the Peuselaarsteeg, then the return flight to rejoin his compeers and the jongejuffrouw at the little hamlet of Houdekerk off the main road; thither he had ordered them to proceed in the early morning there to lie perdu until his return. Houdekerk lay to the east of Leyden and so well off the beaten track that the little party would be safely hidden there during the day;⁠—he intended to be with them again well before midnight of the next day. For the nonce he collected a few necessary provisions