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Updated: May 21, 2025
Every man sat motionless and mute, listening; Paul Zouche, with his head thrown back and eyes closed as in a dream, Johan Zegota's hard, plain and careworn face growing softer and quieter in its expression, while Sergius Thord, leaning on one elbow, covered his brow with one hand to shade the lines of sorrow there. When Valdor ceased playing, there was a burst of applause.
That is a disgrace to the century; for an honest man is always poor, and poverty is the worst of crimes." He threw up his arms with a wild gesture, "The worst of crimes! Do I not know it!" Thord took him gently by the shoulder. "You talk, Zouche, as you always talk, at random, scarcely knowing, and certainly not half meaning what you say.
The King laughed as heartily as the rest, and over the brooding features of Thord himself came the shadow of a smile. "We will settle our accounts together later on, Zouche!" said the monarch gaily; "Meanwhile, I beg you to continue your harmless abomination of me at your leisure!"
He had fallen into a heavy, brooding silence, his head sunk on his breast, his wild hair falling forward like a mane, and his right hand clenched and resting on the table. "Sergius!" called Lotys. He did not answer. "He is in one of his far-away moods," said one of the men next to Axel Regor, "It is best not to disturb him." Paul Zouche, however, had no such scruples.
Paul Zouche was not very steady on his feet, and two of his comrades assisted him to walk as he stumbled off, singing somewhat of a ribald rhyme in mezza-voce. Pasquin Leroy and his two friends were the last to go. Lotys looked at them all three meditatively. "You will be faithful?" she said. "Unto death!" answered Leroy.
"It is this;" said Zouche, "Simply this, that, with the King as our comrade and associate, the Revolutionary Committee is no use! It is finished! There can be no longer a Revolutionary Committee!" "That is true!" said the King; "It may henceforth be known as a new Parliament!"
Good-night!" "Good-night!" returned the hunchback "I thank you, Madame! I thank you, gentlemen!" And with a slight salutation, not devoid of grace, he left the room. Zouche was sulky, and pushing aside his glass of beer, poured out for himself some strong spirit from a bottle instead. "You do not favour me to-night, Lotys," he said irritably "You interrupt and cross me in everything I say!"
There is only one Heaven, as we all know, and the space is limited, as it only holds the followers of St. Peter, the good disciple who denied Christ!" "That is an exploded creed, Zouche," said Thord quietly; "No man of any sense or reason believes such childish nonsense nowadays! The most casual student of astronomy knows better." "Astronomy! Fie, for shame!"
"You play before kings, kings should be proud to hear you!" said Leroy. "Ah! So they should," responded Valdor promptly; "Only it happens that they are not! They treat me merely as a laquais de place, just as they would treat Zouche, had he accepted his Sovereign's offer. But this I will admit, that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons!
"From Lotys!" he echoed, while through his mind there flew a sudden sweet hope that after all the star was willing to fall! the flower was ready to be gathered! and that the woman who had sent him away from her the day before, had a heart too full of love to remain obdurate to the pleadings of her kingly lover! "Paul Zouche, with a message from Lotys? Let him come in!"
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