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Even this comedian of jaws and claws was eclipsed in success. Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowds, the Laughing Man monopolized everything. It happened in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing was thought of but the Green Box. "'Chaos Vanquished' is 'Chaos Victor," said Ursus, appropriating half Gwynplaine's success, and taking the wind out of his sails, as they say at sea.
He might have said to Dea, as in our day Moessard said to Vissot, Tu manques de respect au repertoire. "The Laughing Man." Such was the form of Gwynplaine's fame. His name, Gwynplaine, little known at any time, had disappeared under his nickname, as his face had disappeared under its grin. His popularity was like his visage a mask.
"Not so quick!" stammered Ursus. Dea, trembling, and with the rapture of an angelic touch, passed her hand over Gwynplaine's profile. He overheard her say to herself, "It is thus that gods are made." Then she touched his clothes. "The esclavine," she said, "the cape. Nothing changed; all as it was before."
Then calling all his art to his aid, and copying Gwynplaine's voice, he sang with ineffable love the response of the monster to the call of the spirit. The imitation was so perfect that again the gipsies looked for Gwynplaine, frightened at hearing without seeing him.
Ursus, relieved of some portion of his terror now that the wapentake's back was turned, seized the moment to whisper in Gwynplaine's ear, "On your life, do not speak until you are questioned."
"So be it," said the two sponsors. The King-at-Arms rose, took the sword from the stand, and buckled it round Gwynplaine's waist. "Ce faict," says the old Norman charter, "le pair prend son espée, et monte aux hauts siéges, et assiste a l'audience." Gwynplaine heard a voice behind him which said, "I array your lordship in a peer's robe."
Having signed the two registers, the Lord Chancellor rose. "Fermain Lord Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie, Baron Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, be you welcome among your peers, the lords spiritual and temporal of Great Britain." Gwynplaine's sponsors touched his shoulder. He turned round. The folds of the great gilded door at the end of the gallery opened.
His thoughts ran on the jugglers and preachers, his competitors, on informations laid against the Green Box, on that delinquent the wolf, on his own affair with the three Bishopsgate commissioners, and who knows? perhaps but that would be too fearful Gwynplaine's unbecoming and factious speeches touching the royal authority. He trembled violently. Dea was smiling.
It is when, storm-beaten and struggling in the invisible convulsions of the soul until he knows not whether he is in life or in death, that all the delicacy of a man's affection for his loved ones, being yet unimpaired, proves a heart true. When all else is swallowed up, tenderness still floats unshattered. Not to awaken Dea too suddenly was Gwynplaine's first thought.
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