The Third Estate — Marjorie Bowen

M. de Sarcey was bored; he stretched and yawned and, wandering aimlessly to the balcony, looked out into the courtyard of the mansion and up at the pale summer sky. He was not often bored. At thirty years of age, life had scarcely begun to pall on him, and he contrived to find interest and pleasure in vice, in idleness, and in uselessness. He had no definite aim and no definite occupation; he was a captain in one of the smartest regiments in France, he held several well-paid sinecures about the Court, and, as he was intelligent and full of energy, he had amused himself in turn with all the arts and all the sciences. He believed in nothing but himself and the impregnable position of a peer of France. Young, brilliant, unscrupulous and completely sure of himself, he had already made his name conspicuous 'among his own class by his excesses, his gifts, his extravagance, and by something more unusual than any of these, a certain fierceness and wildness which was rather more than the mere wilfulness of a high-spirited young man brought up without restraint, and involved elements both strange and dangerous. He had the reputation of being utterly heartless; he had his friends and his companions, but he was more feared than liked, for his haughtiness never stooped to conciliate or please. Among the many assets that made him fortune's favourite were his extreme good looks and superb health, neither of which had as yet been affected by his way of life. His face was beautiful, though hard and dark, and with eyes that were expressionless except for an intense vitality; he was robust, but so tall and graceful, so elegant, that this look of strength was disguised. When he was alone, as now, something of his true self flashed to the surface; he stopped yawning, and his dark eyes glanced round the room. He was being kept waiting, and his impatience was ill concealed. He had come to sign his marriage contract and to see, for the first time, his future wife. It was a good match, one that did credit to his prudence; he had made a fair bargain with his advantages of person and rank, for the lady was immensely wealthy, and his own fortune, vast as it was, had begun to suffer considerably from his boundless extravagances and though his future wife was not of his rank, she was of good birth, her father being one of the Judges of His Majesty's courts and Président de la troisième chambre de la cour des aides à Paris, and that the family whom he was honouring with his alliance should be just sufficiently below him in rank to be grateful for his favour was by no mean displeasing to M. de Sarcey. He had avoided marriage as long as he could, but it had become inevitable, and he was not displeased with the match he had arranged for himself. As for the lady, Pélagie de Haultpenne, she had remained with her mother at her father's country house while her marriage was being negotiated, and the Marquis had not yet seen her. He guessed that Mademoiselle de Haultpenne was neither beautiful nor clever, and it did not trouble him in the least; she was sufficiently well born and well educated to be able to take her place as Marquise de Sarcey, and that was all he asked of her.