The Lions Skin | Page 5

wistfulness, as he

pondered a moment the one sweet memory in a wasted life, a life
wrecked over thirty years ago - wrecked wantonly by that same
Ostermore of whom they spoke, who had been his friend.
A groan broke from his lips. He took his head in his hands, and, elbows
on the table, he sat very still a moment, reviewing as in a flash the
events of thirty and more years ago, when he and Viscount Rotherby -
as Ostermore was then - had been young men at the St. Germain's
Court of James II.
It was on an excursion into Normandy that they had met Mademoiselle
de Maligny, the daughter of an impoverished gentleman of the chetive
noblesse of that province. Both had loved her. She had preferred - as
women will - the outward handsomeness of Viscount Rotherby to the
sounder heart and brain that were Dick Everard's. As bold and
dominant as any ruffler of them all where men and perils were
concerned, young Everard was timid, bashful and without assertiveness
with women. He had withdrawn from the contest ere it was well lost,
leaving an easy victory to his friend.
And how had that friend used it? Most foully, as you shall learn.
Leaving Rotherby in Normandy, Everard had returned to Paris. The
affairs of his king gave him cause to cross at once to Ireland. For three
years he abode there, working secretly in his master's interest, to little
purpose be it confessed. At the end of that time he returned to Paris.
Rotherby was gone. It appeared that his father, Lord Ostermore, had
prevailed upon Bentinck to use his influence with William on the errant
youth's behalf. Rotherby had been pardoned his loyalty to the fallen
dynasty. A deserter in every sense, he had abandoned the fortunes of
King James - which in Everard's eyes was bad enough - and he had
abandoned the sweet lady he had fetched out of Normandy six months
before his going, of whom it seemed that in his lordly way he was
grown tired.
From the beginning it would appear they were ill-matched. It was her
beauty had made appeal to him, even as his beauty had enamoured her.
Elementals had brought about their union; and when these elementals

shrank with habit, as elementals will, they found themselves without a
tie of sympathy or common interest to link them each to the other. She
was by nature blythe; a thing of sunshine, flowers and music, who
craved a very poet for her lover; and by "a poet" I mean not your mere
rhymer. He was downright stolid and stupid under his fine exterior; the
worst type of Briton, without the saving grace of a Briton's honor. And
so she had wearied him, who saw in her no more than a sweet
loveliness that had cloyed him presently. And when the chance was
offered him by Bentinck and his father, he took it and went his ways,
and this sweet flower that he had plucked from its Normandy garden to
adorn him for a brief summer's day was left to wilt, discarded.
The tale that greeted Everard on his return from Ireland was that,
broken-hearted, she had died - crushed neath her load of shame. For it
was said that there had been no marriage.
The rumor of her death had gone abroad, and it had been carried to
England and my Lord Rotherby by a cousin of hers - the last living
Maligny - who crossed the channel to demand of that stolid gentleman
satisfaction for the dishonor put upon his house. All the satisfaction the
poor fellow got was a foot or so of steel through the lungs, of which he
died; and there, may it have seemed to Rotherby, the matter ended.
But Everard remained - Everard, who had loved her with a great and
almost sacred love; Everard, who swore black ruin for my Lord
Rotherby - the rumor of which may also have been carried to his
lordship and stimulated his activities in having Everard hunted down
after the Braemar fiasco of 1715.
But before that came to pass Everard had discovered that the rumor of
her death was false - put about, no doubt, out of fear of that same
cousin who had made himself champion and avenger of her honor.
Everard sought her out, and found her perishing of want in an attic in
the Cour des Miracles some four months later - eight months after
Rotherby's desertion.
In that sordid, wind-swept chamber of Paris' most abandoned haunt, a
son had been born to Antoinette de Maligny two days before Everard

had come upon her. Both were dying; both had assuredly died within
the week but that he came so timely to her