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diff --git a/old/60123-0.txt b/old/60123-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 12d9e9a..0000000 --- a/old/60123-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12869 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonderful Year, by William J. Locke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Wonderful Year - -Author: William J. Locke - -Release Date: August 18, 2019 [EBook #60123] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERFUL YEAR *** - - - - -Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Jen Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - - - - [Cover Illustration] - - - - - THE WONDERFUL YEAR - - - - - _=BY THE SAME AUTHOR=_ - -Idols -Jaffery -Septimus -Viviette -Derelicts -The Usurper -Stella Maris -Where Love Is -The White Dove -Simon the Jester -A Study in Shadows -The Fortunate Youth -A Christmas Mystery -The Belovèd Vagabond -At the Gate of Samaria -The Glory of Clementina -The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne -The Demagogue and Lady Phayre -The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol - - - - - THE - WONDERFUL YEAR - - BY - WILLIAM J. LOCKE - AUTHOR OF “JAFFERY,” “THE FORTUNATE YOUTH,” - “THE BELOVÈD VAGABOND,” ETC. - - NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY - LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD - MCMXVI - - - - - Copyright, 1915, 1916, - By International Magazine Company - ———— - Copyright, 1916, - By John Lane Company - - Press of - J. J. Little & Ives Company - New York, U. S. A. - - - - - THE WONDERFUL YEAR - - - - - THE WONDERFUL YEAR - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -“THERE is a letter for you, monsieur,” said the concierge of the Hôtel -du Soleil et de l’Ecosse. - -He was a shabby concierge sharing in the tarnish of the shabby hotel -which (for the information of those fortunate ones who only know of the -Ritz, and the Meurice and other such-like palaces) is situated in the -unaristocratic neighbourhood of the Halles Centrales. - -“As it bears the Paris postmark, it must be the one which monsieur was -expecting,” said he, detaching it from the clip on the keyboard. - -“You are perfectly right,” said Martin Overshaw. “I recognise the -handwriting.” - -The young Englishman sat on the worn cane seat in the little vestibule -and read his letter. It ran: - - Dear Martin, - - I’ve been away. Otherwise I should have answered your note - sooner. I’m delighted you’re in this God-forsaken city, but what - brought you here in August, Heaven only knows. We must meet at - once. I can’t ask you to my abode, because I’ve only one room, - one chair and a bed, and you would be shocked to sit on the - chair while I sat on the bed, or to sit on the bed while I sat - on the chair. And I couldn’t offer you anything but a cigarette - (_caporal, à quatre sous le paquet_) and the fag end of a bottle - of grenadine syrup and water. So let us dine together at the - place where I take such meals as I can afford. _Au Petit - Cornichon_, or as the snob of a proprietor yearns to call it, - The “Restaurant Dufour.” It’s a beast of a hole in the Rue Baret - off the Rue Bonaparte; but I don’t think either of us could run - to the Café de Paris or Paillard’s and we’ll have it all to - ourselves. Meet me there at seven. - - Yours sincerely, - Corinna Hastings. - -Martin Overshaw rose and addressed the concierge. - -“Where is the Rue Bonaparte?” - -The concierge informed him. - -“I am going to dine with a lady at a restaurant called the Petit -Cornichon. Do you think I had better wear evening dress?” - -The concierge was perplexed. The majority of the British frequenters of -the hotel, when they did not dine in gangs at the table d’hôte, went out -to dinner in flannels or knickerbockers, and wore cloth caps, and looked -upon the language of the country as an incomprehensible joke. But here -was a young Englishman of a puzzling type who spoke perfect French with -a strange purity of accent, in spite of his abysmal ignorance of Paris, -and talked about dressing for dinner. - -“I will ask Monsieur Bocardon,” said he. - -Monsieur Bocardon, the manager, a fat, greasy Provençal, who sat over a -ledger in the cramped bureau, leaned back in his chair and threw out his -hands. - -“Evening dress in a little restaurant of the _quartier_. _Mais non!_ -They would look at you through the windows. There would be a crowd. It -would be an affair of the police.” - -Martin Overshaw smiled. “Merci, monsieur,” said he. “But as you may have -already guessed, I am new to Paris and Paris ways.” - -“That doesn’t matter,” replied Monsieur Bocardon graciously. “Paris -isn’t France. We of the south—I am from Nîmes—care that for Paris——” -he snapped his fingers. “Monsieur knows the Midi?” - -“It is my first visit to France,” said Martin. - -“_Mais comment donc?_ You speak French like a Frenchman.” - -“My mother was a Swiss,” replied Martin ingenuously. “And I lived all my -boyhood in Switzerland—in the Canton de Vaud. French is my mother -tongue, and I have been teaching it in England ever since.” - -“Aha! Monsieur is _professeur_?” Monsieur Bocardon asked politely. - -“Yes, _professeur_,” said Martin, conscious for the first time in his -life of the absurd dignity of the French title. It appealed to a latent -sense of humour and he smiled wryly. Yes. He was a Professor—had been -for the last ten years, at Margett’s Universal College, Hickney Heath; a -professor engaged in cramming large classes of tradesmen’s children, -both youths and maidens, with such tricksters’ command of French grammar -and vocabulary as would enable them to obtain high marks in the -stereotyped examinations for humble positions in the Public and -semi-public services. He had reduced the necessary instruction to an -exact science. He had carried hundreds of pupils through their -examinations with flying colours; but he had never taught a single human -being to speak thirty consecutive coherent words of French or to read -and enjoy a French book. When he was very young and foolish he had tried -to teach them the French speech as a living, organic mode of -communication between human beings, with the result that his pupils -soul-strung for examinations had revolted and the great Cyrus Margett, -founder of the colossal and horrible Strasbourg goose factory known as -Margett’s Universal College, threatened to sack him if he persisted in -such damnable and unprofitable imbecility. So, being poor and -unenterprising and having no reason to care whether a Mr. James Bagshawe -or a Miss Susan Tulliver profited for more than the examination moment -by his teaching, he had taught the dry examination-bones of the French -language for ten years. And—“_Monsieur est professeur_,” from Monsieur -Bocardon! - -Then, as he turned away and began to mount the dingy stairs that led to -his bedroom, it struck him that he was now only a professor _in -partibus_. He was no longer a member of the professorial staff of -Margett’s Universal College. The vast, original Margett had retired with -fortune, liver and head deservedly swollen to county magnateship, -leaving, for pecuniary considerations, the tremendous educational -institution to a young successor, who having adopted as his watchword -the comforting shibboleth, “efficiency,” had dismissed all those -professors who did not attain his standard of slickness. Martin Overshaw -was not slick. The young apostle of efficiency had dismissed Martin -Overshaw at a month’s notice, after ten years service. It was as though -a practised _gougeur_ or hand gorger of geese had been judged -obsolescent and made to give place to one who gorged them by Hertzian -rays. The new Olympian had flashed a glance, a couple of lightning -questions at Martin and that was the end. - -In truth, Martin Overshaw did not emanate efficiency like the -eagle-faced men in the illustrated advertisements who undertake to teach -you how to become a millionaire in a fortnight. He was of mild and -modest demeanour; of somewhat shy and self-depreciatory attitude; a -negligible personality in any assemblage of human beings; a man -(according to the blasphemous saying) of no account. Of medium height, -thin, black-haired, of sallow complexion, he regarded the world -unspeculatively out of clear grey eyes, that had grown rather tired. As -he brushed his hair before the long strip of wardrobe mirror, it did not -occur to him to criticise his reflected image. He made no claims to -impeccability of costume. His linen and person were scrupulously clean; -his sober suit comparatively new. But his appearance, though he knew it -not, suffered from a masculine dowdiness, indefinable, yet obvious. His -ill-tied cravat had an inveterate quarrel with his ill-chosen collar and -left the collar stud exposed, and innocent of sumptuary crime he allowed -his socks to ruck over his ankles. . . . Once he had grown a full black -beard, full in the barber’s sense, but dejectedly straggling to the -commonplace eye of a landlady’s daughter who had goaded him into a tepid -flirtation. To please the nymph long since married to a virtuous plumber -whom Martin himself had called in to make his bath a going concern, he -had divested himself of the offending excrement and contented himself -thenceforward with a poor little undistinguished moustache. A very -ordinary, unarresting young man was Martin Overshaw. Yet, in his simple, -apologetic way—_exempli gratia_, when he smiled with deferential -confidence on the shabby concierge and the greasy Monsieur Bocardon—he -carried with him an air of good-breeding, a disarming, sensitiveness of -manner which commanded the respect, contemptuous though it might have -sometimes been, of coarser natures. A long, thin, straight nose with -delicate nostrils, the only noticeable feature of his face, may have had -something to do with this impression of refinement. Much might be -written on noses. The Great Master of Noseology, Lawrence Sterne, did -but broach the subject. On account, perhaps, of a long head terminating -in a long blunt chin, and a mild patience of expression, he bore at -Margett’s Universal College the traditional sobriquet of “Cab-horse.” - -The cab-horse, however, was now turned out to grass—in August Paris. He -had been there three days and his head swam with the wonder of it. As he -walked along the indicated route to the Petit Cornichon in the airless -dark, he felt the thrill of freedom and of romance. Down the Boulevard -Sébastopol he went, past the Tour Saint Jacques, through the Place du -Châtelet over the Pont au Change and across the Île de la Cité to the -Boulevard Saint Michel, and turned to the right along the Boulevard -Saint Germain until he came to the Rue Bonaparte and his destination. It -was the sweltering cool of the evening. Paris sat out of doors, at -cafés, at gateways in shirt sleeves and loosened bodices, at shop -fronts, at dusty tables before humble restaurants. Pedestrians walked -languidly in quest of ultimate seats. In the wide thoroughfares the -omnibuses went their accustomed route; but motor-cabs whizzed unfrequent -for lack of custom—they who could afford to ride in taxi-autos on the -_rive gauche_ were far away in cooler regions—and the old horses of -crawling fiacres hung stagnant heads. Only the stale dregs of Paris -remained in the Boul’ Mich. Yet it was Fairyland to the emancipated -professor _in partibus_ who paused here and there to catch the odd -phrases of his mother tongue which struck his ears with delicious -unfamiliarity. Paris, too, that close, sultry evening, smelled of -unutterable things; but to Martin Overshaw it was the aroma of a Wonder -City. - -He found without difficulty the Café-Restaurant Dufour whose gilded -style and title eclipsed the modest sign of the “Petit Cornichon” -prudently allowed to remain in porcelain letters on the glass of door -and windows. Under the ægis, as it were, of the poor “little gherkin” -and independent of the magnificent Dufour establishment, was the -announcement displayed: “_Déjeuners 1 fr. 50. Dîners 2 fr. Vin -Compris._” The ground floor was a small café, newly decorated with -fresco panels of generously unclad ladies dropping roses on goat-legged -gentlemen: symptoms of the progressive mind of the ambitious Monsieur -Dufour. Only two tables were occupied—by ruddy-faced provincials -engaged over coffee and dominoes. To Martin, standing embarrassed, came -a pallid waiter. - -“_Monsieur désire?_” - -“_Le Restaurant._” - -“_C’est en haut, monsieur, Au premier._” - -He pointed to a meagre staircase on the left-hand side. Martin ascended -and found himself alone in a ghostly-tabled room. From a doorway emerged -another pallid waiter, who also addressed him with the enquiry: -“_Monsieur désire?_”—but the enquiry was modulated with a certain -subtle inflection of surprise and curiosity. - -“I am expecting a lady,” said Martin. - -“_Bien, monsieur._ A table for two? _Voici._” - -He drew back an inviting chair. - -“I should like this one by the window,” said Martin. The room being on -the entresol, the ceiling was low and the place reeked with reproachful -reminders of long-forgotten one-franc-fifty and two-franc meals. - -“I am sorry, Monsieur,” replied the waiter, “but this table is reserved -by a lady who takes here all her repasts. Monsieur can see that it is so -by the half-finished bottle of mineral water.” - -He held up the bottle of Evian in token of his veracity. Scrawled in -pencil across the label ran the inscription, “Mlle. Hastings.” - -“Mademoiselle Hastings!” cried Martin. “Why, that is the lady I am -expecting.” - -The waiter smiled copiously. Monsieur was a friend of Miss Hastings? -Then it was a different matter. Mademoiselle said she would be back -to-night and that was why her bottle of Evian had been preserved for -her. She was the only one left of the enormous clientèle of the -restaurant. It was a restaurant of students. In the students’ season, -not a table for the chance comer. All engaged. The students paid so much -per week or per month for nourishment. It really was a pension, _enfin_, -for board without lodging. When the students were away from Paris the -restaurant was kept open at a loss; not a very great loss, for in Paris -one knew how to accommodate oneself to circumstance. Good provincials -and English tourists sometimes wandered in. One always then indicated -the decorations, real masterpieces some of them. . . . Only a day or two -ago an American traveller had taken photographs. If Monsieur would deign -to look round . . . - -Martin deigned. Drawings in charcoal and crayon on the distempered -walls, caricatures, bold nudes, bars of music, bits of satiric verse, -flowing signatures, bore evidence of the passage of many generations of -students. - -“It amuses them,” said the waiter, “and gives the place a character.” - -He was pointing out the masterpieces when a young voice by the door sang -out: - -“Hallo, Martin!” - -Martin turned and met the welcoming eyes of Corinna Hastings, -fair-haired, slender, neatly dressed in blue serge coat and skirt and a -cheap little hat to which a long pheasant’s feather gave a touch of -bravado. - -“You’re a real Godsend,” she declared. “I was thinking of throwing -myself into the river, only there would have been no one on the deserted -bridge to fish me out again. I am the last creature left in Paris.” - -“I am more than lucky then to find you, Corinna,” said Martin. “For -you’re the only person in Paris that I know.” - -“How did you find my address?” - -“I went down to Wendlebury——” - -“Then you saw them all?” said Corinna, as they took their seats at the -window-table. “Father and mother and Bessie and Joan and Ada, etcetera, -etcetera down to the new baby. The new baby makes ten of us -alive—really he’s the fourteenth. I wonder how many more there are -going to be?” - -“I shouldn’t think there would be any more,” replied Martin gravely. - -Corinna burst out laughing. - -“What on earth can you know about it?” - -The satirical challenge brought a flush to Martin’s sallow cheek. What -did he know in fact of the very intimate concerns of the Reverend Thomas -Hastings and his wife? - -“I’m afraid they find it hard to make both ends meet, as it is,” he -explained. - -“Yet I suppose they all flourish as usual—playing tennis and golf and -selling at bazaars and quarrelling over curates?” - -“They all seem pretty happy,” said Martin, not overpleased at his -companion’s airy treatment of her family. He, himself, the loneliest of -men, had found grateful warmth among the noisy, good-hearted crew of -girls. It hurt him to hear them contemptuously spoken of. - -“It was the first time you went down since——!” she paused. - -“Since my mother died? Yes. She died early in May, you know.” - -“It must be a terrible loss to you,” said Corinna in a softened voice. - -He nodded and looked out of window at the houses opposite. That was why -he was in Paris. For the last ten years, ever since his father’s death -had hurried him away from Cambridge, after a term or two, into the wide -world of struggle for a living, he had spent all his days of freedom in -the little Kentish town. And these days were few. There were no long -luxurious vacations at Margett’s Universal College, such as there are at -ordinary colleges and schools. The grind went on all the year round, and -the staff had but scanty holidays. Such as they were he passed them at -his mother’s tiny villa. His father had given up the chaplaincy in -Switzerland, where he had married and where Martin had been born, to -become Vicar of Wendlebury, and Mr. Hastings was his successor. Mrs. -Overshaw, with her phlegmatic temperament, had taken root in Wendlebury -and there Martin had visited her and there he had been received into the -intimacy of the Hastings family and there she had died; and now that the -little villa was empty and Martin had no place outside London to lay his -leisured head, he had satisfied the dream of his life and come to Paris. -But even in this satisfaction there was pain. What was Paris compared -with the kind touch of that vanished hand? He sighed. He was a simple -soul in spite of his thirty years. - -The waiter roused him from his sad reflections by bringing the soup and -a bottle of thin red wine. Conscious of food and drink and a female -companion of prepossessing exterior, Martin’s face brightened. - -“It’s so jolly of them in Paris to throw in wine like this,” said he. - -“I only hope you can drink the stuff,” remarked Corinna. “We call it -_tord-boyau_.” - -“It’s a rare treat,” said Martin. “I can’t afford wine in England, and -the soup is delicious. Somehow no English landlady ever thinks of making -it.” - -“England is a beast of a place,” said Corinna. - -“Yet in your letter you called Paris a God-forsaken city.” - -“So it is in August. The schools are closed. Not a studio is open. Every -single student has cleared out and there’s nothing in the world to do.” - -“I’ve found heaps to do,” said Martin. - -“The Pantheon and Notre Dame and the Folies Bergère,” said Corinna. -“There’s also the Eiffel Tower. Imagine a three years’ art-student -finding fun on the Eiffel Tower!” - -“Then why haven’t you gone home this August as usual?” asked Martin. - -Corinna knitted her brows. “That’s another story,” she replied shortly. - -“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to be impertinent,” said Martin. - -She laughed. “Don’t be silly—you think wallowing in the family trough -is the height of bliss. It isn’t. I would sooner starve than go back. At -any rate I should be myself, a separate entity, an individual. Oh, that -being merely a bit of clotted family! How I should hate it!” - -“But you would return to Paris in the autumn,” said Martin. - -Again she frowned and broke her bread impatiently. All that was another -story. “But never mind about me. Tell me about yourself, Martin. Perhaps -we may fix up something merry to do together. Père la Chaise or the Tomb -of Napoleon. How long are you staying in Paris?” - -“I can only afford a week—I’ve already had three days. I must look out -for another billet as soon as possible.” - -“Another billet?” - -Her question reminded him that she was ignorant of his novel position as -professor _in partibus_. He explained, over the _bœuf flammande_. -Corinna putting the “other story” of her own trouble aside listened -sympathetically. All Paris art-students must learn to do that; otherwise -who would listen sympathetically to them? And all art-students want a -prodigious amount of sympathy, so uniquely constituted is each in genius -and temperament. - -“You can’t go back to that dog’s life,” she said, after a while. “You -must get a post in a good public-school.” - -Martin sighed. “Why not in the Kingdom of Heaven? It’s just as possible. -Heads of Public Schools don’t engage as masters men who haven’t a degree -and have hacked out their youth in low-class institutions like -Margett’s. I know only too well. To have been at Margett’s damns me -utterly with the public-schools. I must find another Margett’s!” - -“Why don’t you do something else?” asked the girl. - -“What else in the world can I do? You know very well what happened to -me. My poor old father was just able to send me to Cambridge because I -had a good scholarship. When he died there was nothing to supplement the -scholarship which wasn’t enough to keep me at the University. I had to -go down. My mother had nothing but my father’s life insurance money—a -thousand pounds—and twenty pounds a year from the Freemasons. When she -wrote to her relations about her distress, what do you think my damned -set of Swiss uncles and aunts and cousins sent her? Two hundred francs! -Eight pounds! And they’re all rolling in money got out of the English. I -had to find work at once to support us both. My only equipment was a -knowledge of French. I got a post at Margett’s through a scholastic -agency. I thought it a miracle. When the letter came accepting my -application I didn’t sleep all night. I remained there till a week or so -ago, working twelve hours a day all the year round. I don’t say I had -classes for twelve hours,” he admitted, conscientiously, “but when you -see about a couple of hundred pupils a day and they all do written work -which needs correcting, you’ll find you have as much work in class as -out of class. Last night I dreamed I was confronted with a pile of -exercise books eight feet high.” - -“It’s a dog’s life,” Corinna repeated. - -“It is,” said Martin. “_Mais que veux-tu, ma pauvre Corinne._ I detest -it as much as one can detest anything. If even I was a successful -teacher—_passe encore_. But I doubt whether I have taught anybody even -the _régime du participe passé_ save as a mathematical formula. It’s -heart-rending. It has turned me into a brainless, soulless, heartless, -bloodless machine.” - -For a moment or two the glamour of the Parisian meal faded away. He -beheld himself—as he had wofully done in intervals between the raptures -of the past few days—an anxious and despairing young man: terribly -anxious to obtain another abhorred teachership, yet desperate at the -prospect of lifelong, ineffectual drudgery. Corinna, her elbows on the -table, poising in her hand a teaspoonful of tepid strawberry ice, -regarded him earnestly. - -“I wish I were a man,” she declared. - -“What would you do?” - -She swallowed the morsel of ice and dropped her spoon with a clatter. - -“I would take life by the throat and choke something big out of it,” she -cried dramatically. - -“Probably an ocean of tears or a Sahara of despair,” said a voice from -the door. - -Both turned sharply. The speaker was a middle-aged man of a presence at -once commanding and subservient. He had a shock of greyish hair brushed -back from the forehead and terminating above the collar in a fashion -suggestive of the late Abbé Liszt. His clean-shaven face was broad and -massive; the features large: eyes grey and prominent; the mouth loose -and fleshy. Many lines marked it, most noticeable of all a deep, -vertical furrow between the brows. He was dressed, somewhat shabbily, in -a black frock coat suit and wore the white tie of the French attorney. -His voice was curiously musical. - -“Good Lord, Fortinbras, how you startled me!” exclaimed Corinna. - -“I couldn’t help it,” said he, coming forward. “When you turn the Petit -Cornichon into the stage of the Odéon, what can I do but give you the -reply? I came here to find our good friend Widdrington.” - -“Widdrington went back to England this morning,” she announced. - -“That’s a pity. I had good news for him. I have arranged his little -affair. He should be here to profit by it. I love impulsiveness in -youth,” he said addressing himself to Martin, “when it proceeds from -noble ardour; but when it marks the feather-headed irresponsibility of -the idiot, I cannot deprecate it too strongly.” - -Challenged, as it were, for a response, “I cordially agree with you, -sir,” said Martin. - -“You two ought to know one another,” said Corinna. “This is my friend, -Mr. Overshaw—Martin, let me introduce you to Mr. Daniel Fortinbras, -_Marchand de Bonheur_.” - -Fortinbras extended a soft white hand and holding Martin’s benevolently: - -“Which being translated into our rougher speech,” said he, “means Dealer -in Happiness.” - -“I wish you would provide me with some,” said Martin, laughingly. - -“And so do I,” said Corinna. - -Fortinbras drew a chair to the table and sat down. - -“My fee,” said he, “is five francs each, paid in advance.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -AT this unexpected announcement Martin exchanged a swift glance with -Corinna. She smiled, drew a five franc piece from her purse and laid it -on the table. Martin, wondering, did the same. The Marchand de Bonheur -unbuttoned his frock coat and slipped the coins, with a professional -air, into his waistcoat pocket. - -“Mr. Overshaw,” said he, “you must understand, as our charming friend -Corinna Hastings and indeed half the Quartier Latin understand, that for -such happiness as it may be my good fortune to provide I do not charge -one penny. But having to eke out a precarious livelihood, I make a fixed -charge of five francs for every consultation, no matter whether it be -for ten minutes or ten hours. And for the matter of that, ten hours is -not my limit. I am at your service for an indefinite period of time, -provided it be continuous.” - -“That’s very good, indeed, of you,” said Martin. “I hope you’ll join -us,” he added, as the waiter approached with three coffee cups. - -“No, I thank you. I have already had my after dinner coffee. But if I -might take the liberty of ordering something else——?” - -“By all means,” said Martin hospitably. “What will you have? Cognac? -Liqueur? Whisky and soda?” - -Fortinbras held up his hand—it was the hand of a comfortable, drowsy -prelate—and smiled. “I have not touched alcohol for many years. I find -it blunts the delicacy of perception which is essential to a Marchand de -Bonheur in the exercise of his calling. Auguste will give me a _syrop de -framboises à l’eau_.” - -“_Bien, m’sieu_,” said Auguste. - -“On the other hand, I shall smoke with pleasure one of your excellent -English cigarettes. Thanks. Allow me.” - -With something of the grand manner he held a lighted match to Corinna’s -cigarette and to Martin’s. Then he blew it out and lit another for his -own. - -“A superstition,” said he, by way of apology. “It arises out of the -Russian funeral ritual in which the three altar candles are lit by the -same taper. To apply the same method of illumination to three worldly -things like cigars or cigarettes is regarded as an act of impiety and -hence as unlucky. For two people to dip their hands together in the same -basin, without making the sign of the cross in the water, is unlucky on -account of the central incident of the Last Supper, and to spill the -salt as you are absent-mindedly doing, Corinna, is a violation of the -sacred symbol of sworn friendship.” - -“That’s all very interesting,” said Corinna calmly. “But what are Martin -Overshaw and I to do to be happy?” - -Fortinbras looked from one to the other with benevolent shrewdness and -inhaled a long puff of smoke. - -“What about our young medical student friend, Camille Fargot?” - -Corinna flushed red—as only pale blondes can flush. “What do you know -about Camille?” she demanded. - -“Everything—and nothing. Come, come. It’s my business to keep a -paternal eye on you children. Where is he?” - -“Who the deuce is Camille?” thought Martin. - -“He’s at Bordeaux, safe in the arms of his ridiculous mother,” replied -Corinna tartly. - -“Good, good,” said Fortinbras. “And you, Mr. Overshaw, where is the lady -on whom you have set your affections?” - -Martin laughed frankly. “Heaven knows. There isn’t one. The _Princesse -lointaine_, perhaps, whom I’ve never seen.” - -Fortinbras again looked from one to the other. “This complicates -matters,” said he. “On the other hand, perhaps, it simplifies them. -There being nothing common, however, to your respective roads to -happiness, each case must be dealt with separately. _Place aux -dames_—Corinna will first expose to me the sources of her divine -discontent. Proceed, Corinna.” - -She drummed with her fingers on the table, and little wrinkles lined her -young forehead. Martin pushed back his chair. - -“Hadn’t I better go for a walk until it is my turn to be interviewed?” - -Corinna bade him not be silly. Whatever she had to say he was welcome to -hear. It would be better if he did hear it; then he might appreciate the -lesser misery of his own plight. - -“I’m an utter, hopeless failure,” she cried with an air of defiance. - -“Good,” said Fortinbras. - -“I can’t paint worth a cent.” - -“Good,” said Fortinbras. - -“That old beast Delafosse says I’ll never learn to draw and I’m colour -blind. That’s a brutal way of putting it; but it’s more or less true. -Consequently I can’t earn my living by painting pictures. No one would -buy them.” - -“Then they must be very bad indeed,” murmured Fortinbras. - -“Well, that’s it,” said Corinna. “I’m done for. An old aunt died and -left me a legacy of four hundred pounds. I thought I could best use it -by coming to Paris to study art. I’ve been at it three years, and I’m as -clever as when I began. I have about twenty pounds left. When it’s gone -I shall have to go home to my smug and chuckling family. There are ten -of us. I’m the eldest and the youngest is three months old. Pretty fit I -should be after three years of Paris to go back. When I was at home -last, if ever I referred to an essential fact of physiological or social -existence, my good mother called me immodest and my sisters goggle-eyed -and breathless besought me in corners to tell them all about it. When I -tell them I know people who haven’t gone through the ceremony of -marriage they think I’m giving them a peep into some awful hell of -iniquity. It’s a fearful joy to them. Then mother says I’m corrupting -their young and innocent minds and father mentions me at Family prayers. -And the way they run after any young man that happens along is -sickening. I’m a prudish old maid compared with them. Have you ever seen -me running after men?” - -“You are a modern Penthesilea,” said Fortinbras. - -“Anyway, Wendlebury—that’s my home—would drive me mad. I’ll have to go -away and fend for myself. Father can’t give me an allowance. It’s as -much as he can do to pay his butcher’s bills. Besides, I’m not that -sort. What I do, I must do on my own. But I can’t do anything to get a -living. I can’t typewrite, I don’t know shorthand. I can scarcely sew a -button on a camisole, I’m not quite sure of my multiplication table, I -couldn’t add up a column of pounds, shillings and pence correctly to -save my life, I play the devil with an egg if I put it into a saucepan -and if I attempted to bath a baby I should drown it. I’m twenty-four -years of age and a helpless, useless failure.” - -Fortinbras drank some of his raspberry syrup and water and lit another -cigarette. - -“And you have still twenty pounds in your pocket?” - -“Yes,” said Corinna, “and I shan’t go home until I’ve spent the last -penny. That’s why I’m in Paris, drinking its August dregs. I’ve already -bought a third class ticket to London—available for six months—so I -can get back any time without coming down on my people.” - -“That act of pusillanimous prudence,” remarked Fortinbras, “seems to me -to be a flaw in an otherwise admirable scheme of immediate existence. If -the ravens fed an impossibly unhumorous, and probably unprepossessing, -disagreeable person like Elijah, surely there are doves who will -minister to the sustenance of an attractive and keen-witted young woman -like yourself. But that is a mere generalisation. I only wish you,” said -he, bending forward and paternally and delicately touching her hand, “I -only wish you to take heart of grace and not strangle yourself in your -exhaustively drawn up category of incompetence.” - -The man’s manner was so sympathetic, his deep voice so persuasive, the -smile in his eyes so understanding, the massive, lined face so -illuminated by wise tenderness that his words fell like balm on her -rebellious spirit before their significance, or want of significance, -could be analysed by her intellect. The intensity of attitude and -feature with which her confession had been attended relaxed into girlish -ease. - -She laughed somewhat self-consciously and took a cigarette from the -packet offered her by a silent and wondering Martin. She perked up her -shapely head and once more the cock-pheasant’s plume on her cheap straw -hat gave her a pleasant air of braggadocio. Martin noticed for the first -time that she had a little mutinous nose and a defiant lift of the chin -above a broad white throat. He found it difficult to harmonise her -appearance of confident efficiency with her lamentable avowal of -failure. Those blue eyes somewhat hard beneath the square brow ought to -have commanded success. Those strong nervous hands were of just the kind -to choke the great things out of life. He could not suddenly divest -himself of preconceived ideas. To the dull, unaspiring drudge, Corinna -Hastings leading the fabulous existence of the Paris studios had been -invested with such mystery as surrounded the goddesses of the Gaiety -Theatre and the Headmaster of Eton. . . . - -Martin also reflected that in her litany of woe she had omitted all -reference to the medical student now in the arms of his ridiculous -mother. He began to feel mildly jealous of this Camille Fargot, who -assumed the shadow shape of a malignant influence. Yet she did not -appear to be the young woman to tolerate aggressive folly on the part of -a commonplace young man. Fortinbras himself had called her Penthesilea, -Queen of the Amazons. He was puzzled. - -“What you say is very comforting and exhilarating, Fortinbras,” remarked -Corinna, “but can’t you let me have something practical?” - -“All in good time, my dear,” replied Fortinbras serenely. “I have no -quack nostrums to hand over at a minute’s notice. Auguste——” he -summoned the waiter and addressed him in fluent French, marred by a -Britannic accent: “Give me another glass of this obscene though harmless -beverage and satisfy the needs of Monsieur and Mademoiselle, and after -that leave us in peace, and if any one seeks to penetrate into this -_salle à manger_, say that it is engaged by a Lodge of Freemasons. Here -is remuneration for your prospective zeal.” - -With impressive flourish he deposited fifteen centimes in the palm of -Auguste, who bowed politely. - -“_Merci, m’sieu_,” said he. “_Et monsieur_, dame——?” - -He looked enquiringly at Martin and Martin looked enquiringly at -Corinna. - -“I’m going to blow twenty pounds,” she replied. “I’ll have a _kummel -glacé_.” - -“And I’ll have the same,” said Martin, “though I don’t in the least know -what it is.” - -The waiter retired. Corinna leaned across the table. - -“You’re thirty years of age and you’ve lived ten years in London and -have never seen kummel served with crushed ice and straws?” - -“No,” replied Martin simply. “What is kummel?” - -She regarded him in wonderment. “Have you ever heard of champagne?” - -“More often than I’ve tasted it,” said Martin. - -“This young man,” remarked Corinna, “has seen as much of life as a -squirrel in a cage. That may not be very polite, Martin—but you know -it’s true. Can you dance?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -“Have you ever fired off a gun?” - -“I was once in the Cambridge University Rifle Corps,” said Martin. - -“You used a rifle, not a gun,” cried Corinna. “Have you ever shot a -bird?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -“Or caught a fish?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -“Can you play cricket, golf, ride——?” - -“A bicycle,” said Martin. - -“That’s something, anyhow. What do you use it for?” - -“To go backwards and forwards to my work,” said Martin. - -“What do you do in the way of amusement?” - -“Nothing,” said Martin, with a sigh. - -“My good Fortinbras,” said Corinna, “you have your work cut out for -you.” - -The waiter brought the drinks, and after enquiring whether they needed -all the electricity, turned out most of the lights. - -Martin always remembered the scene: the little low-ceilinged room with -its grotesque decorations looming fantastic through the semi-darkness; -the noises and warm smells rising from the narrow street; the eyes of -the girl opposite raised somewhat mockingly to his, as straw in mouth -she bent her head over the iced kummel; the burly figure and benevolent -face of their queer companion who for five francs had offered to be the -arbiter of his destiny, and leaned forward, elbow on table and chin in -hand, serenely expectant to hear the inmost secrets of his life. - -He felt tongue-tied and shy and sucking too nervously at his straw -choked himself with the strong liqueur. It was one thing to unburden -himself to Corinna, another to make coherent statement of his grievance -to a stranger. - -“I am at your disposal, my dear Overshaw,” said the latter, kindly. -“From personal observation and from your answers to Corinna’s enfilade -of questions, I gather that you are not overwhelmed by any cataclysm of -disaster, but rather that yours is the more negative tragedy of a -starved soul—a poor, starved soul hungering for love and joy and the -fruitfulness of the earth and the bounty of spiritual things. Your -difficulty now is: How to say to this man, ‘Give me bread for my soul.’ -Am I not right?” - -A glimmer of irony in his smiling grey eyes or an inflection of it in -his persuasive voice would have destroyed the flattering effect of the -little speech. Martin had never taken his soul into account. The -diagnosis shed a new light on his state of being. The starvation of his -soul was certainly the root of the trouble; an infinitely more dignified -matter than mere discontent with one’s environment. - -“Yes,” said he. “You’re right. I’ve had no chance of development. My own -fault perhaps. I’ve not been strong enough to battle against -circumstances. Circumstances have imprisoned me, as Corinna says, like a -squirrel in a cage, and I’ve spent my time in going round and round in -the profitless wheel.” - -“And the nature of the wheel?” asked Fortinbras. - -“Have you ever heard of Margett’s Universal College?” - -“I have,” said Fortinbras. “It is one of the many mind-wrecking -institutions of which our beloved country is so proud.” - -“I’m glad to hear you say that,” cried Martin. “I’ve been helping to -wreck minds there for the last ten years. I’ve taught French. Not the -French language; but examination French. When the son of a greengrocer -wants to get a boy-clerkship in the Civil Service, it’s essential that -he should know that _bal_, _cal_, _carnaval_, _pal_, _regal_, _chacal_ -take an ‘s’ in the plural, in spite of the fact that millions of -Frenchmen go through their lives without once uttering the plural -words.” - -“How came you to teach French?” - -“My mother tongue—my mother was a Swiss.” - -“And your father?” - -“An English chaplain in Switzerland. You see it was like this——” - -And so, started on his course, and helped here and there by a shrewd and -sympathetic question, Martin, the ingenuous, told his story, while -Corinna, slightly bored, having heard most of it already, occupied -herself by drawing a villainous portrait of him on the tablecloth. When -he mentioned details unknown to her she paused in her task and raised -her eyes. Like her own, his autobiography was a catalogue of -incompetence, but it held no record of frustrated ambitions—no record -of any ambitious desire whatever. It shewed the tame ass’s unreflecting -acquiescence in its lot of drudgery. There had been no passionate -craving for things of delight. Why cry for the moon? With a salary of a -hundred and thirty-five pounds a year out of which he must contribute to -the support of his widowed mother, a man can purchase for himself but -little splendour of existence, and Martin was not one of those to whom -splendour comes unbought. He had lived, semi-content, in a fog -splendour-obscuring, for the last ten years. But this evening the fog -had lifted. The glamour of Paris, even the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower -sarcastically mentioned by Corinna, had helped to dispel it. So had -Corinna’s sisterly interest in his dull affairs. And so, more than all, -had helped the self-analysis formulated under the compelling power of -the philanthropist with shiny coat-sleeves and frayed linen, at once -priest, lawyer and physician who had pocketed his five francs fee. - -He talked long and earnestly; and the more he talked and the more -minutely he revealed the aridity of his young life, the stronger grew -within him a hitherto unknown spirit of revolt. - -“That’s all,” he said at last, wiping a streaming brow. - -“And very interesting indeed,” said Fortinbras. - -“Isn’t it?” said Corinna. “And he never even kissed”—so complete had -been Martin’s apologia—“the landlady’s daughter who married the -plumber.” She challenged him with a glance. “I swear you didn’t.” - -With a shy twist of his lips Martin confessed: - -“Well—I did once.” - -“Why not twice?” asked Corinna. - -“Yes, why not?” asked Fortinbras, seeing Martin hesitate, and his smile -was archiepiscopal indulgence. “Why but one taste of ambrosial lips?” - -Martin reddened beneath his olive skin. “I hardly like to say—it seems -so indelicate——” - -“_Allons donc_” cried Corinna. “We’re in Paris, not Wendlebury.” - -“We must get to the bottom of this, my dear Martin—it’s a privilege I -demand from my clients to address them by their Christian -names—otherwise how can I establish the necessary intimate _rapport_ -between them and myself? So I repeat, my dear Martin, we must have the -reason for the rupture or the dissolution or the termination of what -seems to be the only romantic episode in your career. I’m not joking,” -Fortinbras added gravely, after a pause. “From the psychological point -of view, it is important that I should know.” - -Martin looked appealingly from one to the other—from Fortinbras -massively serious to Corinna serenely mocking. - -“A weeny unencouraged plumber?” she suggested. - -He sat bolt upright and gasped. “Good God, no!” He flushed indignant. -“She was a most highly respectable girl. Nothing of that sort. I wish I -hadn’t mentioned the matter. It’s entirely unimportant.” - -“If that is so,” said Corinna, “why didn’t you kiss the girl again?” - -“Well, if you want to know,” replied Martin desperately, “I have a -constitutional horror of the smell of onions,” and mechanically he -sucked through his straw the tepid residue of melted ice in his glass. - -Corinna threw herself back in her chair and laughed uncontrollably. It -was just the lunatic sort of thing that would happen to poor old Martin. -She knew her sex. Instantaneously she pictured in her mind the fluffy, -lower middle-class young person who set her cap at the gentleman with -the long Grecian nose, and she entered into her devastated frame of mind -when he wriggled awkwardly out of further osculatory invitations. And -the good, solid plumber, onion-loving soul, had carried her off, not -figuratively but literally under the nose of Martin. - -“Oh, Martin, you’re too funny for words!” she cried. - -Fortinbras smiled always benevolently. “If Cleopatra’s nose had been a -centimetre longer—I forget the exact classical epigram—the history of -the world would have been changed. In a minor degree—for the destiny of -an individual must, of course, be of less importance than the destiny of -mankind—had it not been for one spring onion, unconsidered fellow of -the robin and the burnished dove and the wanton lapwing, this young -man’s fancy would have been fettered in the thoughts of love. One spring -onion—and human destinies are juggled. Martin is still a soul-starved -bachelor, and—and—her name?” - -“Gwendoline?” - -“And Gwendoline is the buxom mother of five.” - -“Six,” said Martin. “I can’t help knowing,” he explained, “since I still -lodge with her mother.” - -Corinna turned her head sideways to scrutinise the drawing on the -tablecloth, and still scrutinising it, asked: - -“And that is your one and only _affaire du cœur_?” - -“I’m afraid the only one,” replied Martin shamefacedly. Even so mild a -man as he felt the disadvantage of not being able to hint to a woman -that he could talk, and he would, of chimes heard at midnight and of -broken hearts and other circumstances hedging round a devil of a fellow. -His one kiss seemed a very bread-and-buttery affair—to say nothing of -the mirth-provoking onion. And the emotion attending the approach to it -had been of a nature so tepid that disillusion caused scarcely a pang. -It had been better to pose as an out-and-out Sir Galahad, a type -comprehensible to women. As the hero of one invertebrate embrace he cut -a sorry figure. - -“You are still young. The years and the women’s lips before you are -many,” said Fortinbras, laying a comforting touch on Martin’s shoulder. -“Opportunity makes the lover as it does the thief. And in the -bed-sitting-room in Hickney Heath where you have spent your young life -where has been the opportunity? It pleases our Paris-hardened young -friend to mock; but I see in you the making of a great lover, a Bertrand -d’Allamanon, a Chastelard, one who will count the world well lost for a -princess’s smile——” - -Corinna interrupted. “What pernicious nonsense are you talking, -Fortinbras? You’ve got love on the brain to-night. Neither Martin nor I -are worrying our heads about it. Love be hanged! We’re each of us -worried to death over the problem of how to keep body and soul together -without going back to prison and you talk all this drivel about love—at -least not to me, but to Martin.” - -“That qualification, my dear Corinna, upsets the logic of your admirable -tirade,” Fortinbras replied calmly, after drinking the remainder of his -syrup and soda water. “I speak of love to Martin because his soul is -starved, as I’ve already declared. I don’t speak of it to you, because -your soul is suffering from indigestion.” - -“I’ll have another _kummel glacé_,” said Corinna. “It’s a stomachic.” -She reached for the bell-pull behind her chair—she had the corner seat. -Auguste appeared. Orders were repeated. “How you can drink all that -syrup without being sick I can’t understand,” she remarked. - -“Omnicomprehension is not vouchsafed even to the very young and -innocent, my dear,” said Fortinbras. - -Martin glanced across the table apprehensively. If ever young woman had -been set down that young woman was Corinna Hastings. He feared -explosion, annihilation of the down-setter. Nothing of the sort -happened. Corinna accepted the rebuff with the meekness of a school-girl -and sniffed when Fortinbras was not looking. Again Martin was puzzled, -unable to divest himself of his old conception of Corinna. She was -Corinna, chartered libertine of the land of Rodolfe, Marcel, -Schaunard—he had few impressions of the _Quartier Latin_ later than -Henri Murger—and her utterances no matter how illogical were derived -from godlike inspiration. He hung on her lips for some inspired and -vehement rejoinder to the rebuke of Fortinbras. When none came he -realised that in the seedily dressed and now profusely perspiring -_Marchand de Bonheur_ she had met an acknowledged master. Who Fortinbras -was, whence his origin, what his character and social status, how, save -by the precarious methods to which he had alluded, he earned his -livelihood, Martin had no idea; but he suddenly conceived an immense -respect for Fortinbras. The man hovered over both of them on a higher -plane of wisdom. From his kind eyes (to Martin’s simple fancy) beamed -uncanny power. He assumed the semblance of an odd sort of god indigenous -to this Paris wonderworld. - -Fortinbras lit another of Martin’s Virginian cigarettes—the little tin -box lay open on the table—and leaned back in his chair. - -“My young friends,” said he, “you have each put before me the -circumstances which have made you respectively despair of finding -happiness both in the immediate and the distant future. Now as Montaigne -says—an author whom I would recommend to you for the edification of -your happily remote middle-age, having myself found infinite consolation -in his sagacity—as Montaigne says: ‘Men are tormented by the ideas they -have concerning things, and not by the things themselves.’ The wise man -therefore—the general term, my dear Corinna, includes women—is he who -has learned to face things themselves after having dispelled the bogies -of his ideas concerning them. It is on this basis that I am about to -deliver the judgment for which I have duly received my fee of ten -francs.” - -He moistened his lips with the pink syrup. For the picture you can -imagine a grey old lion eating ice-cream. - -“You, Corinna,” he continued, “belong to the new race of women whose -claims on life far exceed their justification. You have as assets youth, -a modicum of beauty, a bright intelligence and a stiff little character. -But, as you rightly say, you are capable of nothing in the steep range -of human effort from painting a picture to washing a baby. Were you not -temperamentally puritanical and intellectually obsessed by the modern -notion of woman’s right to an independent existence, you would find a -means of realising the above-mentioned assets, as your sex has done -through the centuries. But in spite of amazonian trifling with -romantic-visaged and granite-headed medical students, you cling to the -irresponsibilities of a celibate career.” - -“If he asked me, I’d marry a Turk to-morrow,” said Corinna. - -“Don’t interrupt,” said Fortinbras. “You disturb the flow of my ideas. I -have no doubt that, in your desperate situation, you would promise to -marry a Turk; but your essential pusillanimity would make you wriggle -out of it at the last moment. You’re like ‘the poor cat in the adage.’” - -“What cat?” asked Corinna. - -“The one in Macbeth, Act i, Scene 3, a play by Shakespeare. ‘Letting “I -dare not” wait upon “I would,” like the poor cat i’ the adage.’ You -require development, my dear Corinna, out of the cat stage. You have had -your head choked with ideas about things in this soul-suffocating Paris, -and the ideas are tormenting you; but you’ve never been at grips with -things themselves. As for our excellent Martin, he has not even arrived -at the stage of the desirous cat.” - -The smile that lit up his coarse, lined features, and the musical -suavity of his voice divested the words of offence. Martin, with a -laugh, assented to the proposition. - -“He, too, needs development,” Fortinbras went on. “Or rather, not so -much development as a collection of soul-material from which development -may proceed. Your one accomplishment, I understand, is riding a bicycle. -Let us take that as the germ from which the tree of happiness may -spring. Do you bicycle, Corinna?” - -“I can, of course. But I hate it.” - -“You don’t,” replied Fortinbras quickly. “You hate your own idea of it. -You’ll begin your course of happiness by sweeping away all your ideas -concerning bicycling and coming to bicycling itself.” - -“I never heard anything so idiotic,” declared Corinna. - -“Doubtless,” smiled Fortinbras. “You haven’t heard everything. Go on -your knees and thank God for it. I repeat—or amplify my prescription. -Go forth both of you on bicycles into the wide world. They will not be -Wheels of Chance, but Wheels of Destiny. Go through the broad land of -France filling your souls with sunshine and freedom and your throats -with salutary and thirst-provoking dust. Have no care for the morrow and -look at the future through the golden haze of eventide.” - -“There’s nothing I should like better,” said Martin, with a glance at -Corinna, “but I can’t afford it. I must get back to London to look out -for an engagement.” - -Fortinbras mopped his brow with an over-fatigued pocket-handkerchief. - -“What did you pay me five francs for? For the pleasure of hearing me -talk, or for the value of my counsel?” - -“I must look at things practically,” said Martin. - -“But, good God!” cried Fortinbras, with soft uplifted hands, “what is -there more practical, more commonplace, less romantic in the world than -riding a bicycle? You want to emerge from your Slough of Despond, don’t -you?” - -“Of course,” said Martin. - -“Then I say—get on a bicycle and ride out of it. Practical to the point -of pathos.” - -Martin objected: “No one will pay me for careering through France on a -bicycle. I’ve got to live, and for the matter of fact, so has Corinna.” - -“But, my dear young friend, she has twenty pounds. You, on your own -showing have forty. Sixty pounds between you. A fortune! You both are -tormented by the idea of what will happen when the Pactolus runs dry. -Banish that pestilential miasma from your minds. Go on the adventure.” - -In poetic terms he set forth the delights of that admirable vagabondage. -His eloquence sent a thrill through Martin’s veins, causing his blood to -tingle. Before him new horizons broadened. He felt the necessity of the -immediate securing of an engagement grow less insistent. If he got home -with twenty pounds in his pocket, even fifteen, at a pinch ten, he could -manage to subsist until he found work. And perhaps this blandly -authoritative, though seedy angel really saw into the future. The -temptation fascinated him. He glanced again at Corinna, who sat demure -and silent, her chin propped on her fists, and his heart sank. The -proposition was absurd. How could he ride abroad, for an indefinite -number of days and nights with a young unmarried woman? Of himself he -had no fear. Undesirous cat though he was, sent forth on the journey -into the world to learn desire, he could not but remain a gentleman. In -his charge she would enjoy a sister’s sanctity. But she would never -consent. She could not. No matter how profound her belief in his -chivalry, her maiden modesty would revolt. Her reputation would be gone. -One whisper in Wendlebury of such gipsying and scandal with bared -scissor-points would arrest her on the station platform. And while these -thoughts agitated his mind, and Corinna kept her eyes always demure and -somewhat ironical on Fortinbras, the latter continued to talk. - -“I’m not advising you,” said he, “to pedal away like little Pilgrims -into the Unknown. I propose for you an objective. In the little town of -Brantôme in the Dordogne, made illustrious by one of the quaintest of -French writers——” - -“The Abbé Brantôme of ‘_La Vie des Dames Galantes_’?” asked Corinna. - -Martin gasped. “You don’t know that book?” - -“By heart,” she replied mischievously, in order to shock Martin. As a -matter of fact she had but turned over the pages of the immortal work -and laid it down, disconcerted both by the archaic French and the full -flavour of such an anecdote or two as she could understand. - -“In the little town of Brantôme,” Fortinbras continued after a pause, -“you will find an hotel called the Hôtel des Grottes, kept by an -excellent and massive man by the name of Bigourdin, a poet and a -philosopher and a mighty maker of _pâté de foie gras_. A line from me -would put you on his lowest tariff, for he has a descending scale of -charges, one for motorists, another for commercial travellers and a -third for human beings.” - -“It would be utterly delightful,” Martin interrupted, “if it were -possible.” - -“Why shouldn’t it be possible?” asked Corinna with a calm glance. - -“You and I—alone—the proprieties——” he stammered. - -Again Corinna burst out laughing. “Is that what’s worrying you? My poor -Martin, you’re too comic. What are you afraid of? I promise you I’ll -respect maiden modesty. My word of honour.” - -“It is entirely on your account. But if you don’t mind—” said Martin -politely. - -“I assure you I don’t mind in the least,” replied Corinna with equal -politeness. “But supposing,” she turned to Fortinbras, “we do go on this -journey, what should we do when we got to the great Monsieur Bigourdin?” - -“You would sun yourselves in his wisdom,” replied Fortinbras, “and -convey my love to my little daughter Félise.” - -If Fortinbras had alluded to his possession of a steam-yacht Corinna -could not have been more astonished. To her he was merely the Marchand -de Bonheur, eccentric Bohemian, half charlatan, half good-fellow, -without private life or kindred. She sat bolt upright. - -“You have a daughter?” - -“Why not? Am I not a man? Haven’t I lived my life? Haven’t I had my -share of its joys and sorrows? Why should it surprise you that I have a -daughter?” - -Corinna reddened. “You haven’t told me about her before.” - -“When do I have the occasion, in this world of students, to speak of -things precious to me? I tell you now. I am sending you to her—she is -twenty—and to my excellent brother-in-law Bigourdin, because I think -you are good children, and I should like to give you a bit of my heart -for my ten francs.” - -“Fortinbras,” said Corinna, with a quick outstretch of her arm, “I’m a -beast. Tell me, what is she like?” - -“To me,” smiled Fortinbras, “she is like one of the wild flowers from -which Alpine honey is made. To other people she is doubtless a -well-mannered commonplace young person. You will see her and judge for -yourselves.” - -“How far is it from Paris to Brantôme?” asked Martin. - -“Roughly about five hundred kilometres—under three hundred miles. Take -your time. You have sixty pounds’ worth of sunny hours before you—and -there is much to be learned in three hundred miles of France. In a few -weeks’ time I will join you at Brantôme—journeying by train as befits -my soberer age—I go there a certain number of times a year to see -Félise. Then, if you will continue to favour me with your patronage, we -shall have another consultation.” - -There was a brief silence. Fortinbras looked from one young face to the -other. Then he brought his hands down with a soft thump on the table. - -“You hesitate?” he cried indignantly. “You’re afraid to take your poor, -little lives in your hands even for a few weeks?” He pushed back his -chair and rose and swept a banning gesture, “I have nothing more to do -with you. For profitless advice my conscience allows me to charge -nothing.” He tore open his frock coat and his fingers diving into his -waistcoat pocket brought forth and threw down the two five-franc pieces. -“Go your ways,” said he. - -At this dramatic moment both the young people sprang protesting to their -feet. - -“What are you talking about? We’re going to Brantôme,” cried Corinna, -gripping the lapels of his coat. - -“Of course we are,” exclaimed Martin, scared at the prospect of losing -the inspired counsellor. - -“Then why aren’t you more enthusiastic?” asked Fortinbras. - -“But we are enthusiastic,” Corinna declared. - -“We’ll start to-morrow,” said Martin. - -“At six o’clock in the morning,” said Corinna. - -“At five, if you like,” said Martin. - -Fortinbras embraced them both in a capacious smile, as he deliberately -repocketed the coins. - -“That is well, my children. But don’t do too many unaccustomed things at -once. In the Dordogne you can rise at five—with enjoyment and impunity. -In Paris, your meeting at that hour would be fraught with mutual -antipathy, and you would not find a shop open where you could hire or -buy your bicycles.” - -“I’ve got one,” said Corinna. - -“So have I,” said Martin; “but it’s in London.” - -Fortinbras extracted from his person a dim, chainless watch. - -“It is now a quarter past one. Time for honest folk to be abed. Meet me -here at eleven o’clock to-morrow, booted and spurred, with but a scrip -at the back of your bicycles, and I will hand you letters to Félise and -the poetic and philosophic Bigourdin, and now,” said he, “with your -permission, I will ring for Auguste.” - -Auguste appeared and Martin, waving aside the protests of Corinna, paid -the modest bill. In the airless street Fortinbras bade them an -impressive good night and disappeared in the byways of the sultry city. -Martin accompanied Corinna to the gaunt neighbouring building wherein -her eyrie was situate. Both were tongue-tied, shy, embarrassed by the -prospect of the intimate adventure to which they had pledged themselves. -When the great door, swung open by the hidden concierge, at Corinna’s -ring, invited her entrance, they shook hands perfunctorily. - -“At a quarter to eleven,” said Martin. - -“I shall be ready,” said Corinna. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -THE bicycle journey of two young people through a mere three hundred -miles of France is, on the face of it, an Odyssey of no importance. The -only interest that could attach itself to such a humdrum affair would -centre in the development of tender feelings reciprocated or otherwise -in the breasts of both or one of the young people. But when the two of -them proceed dustily and unemotionally along the endless, straight, -poplar-bordered roads, with the heart of each at the end of the day as -untroubled by the other as at the beginning, a detailed account of their -wanderings would resolve itself into a commonplace itinerary. - -“My children,” said Fortinbras, when, after having lunched with them at -the Petit Cornichon and given them letters of introduction and his -blessing, he had accompanied them to the pavement whence they were -preparing to start, “I advise you, until you reach Brantôme to call -yourself brother and sister, so that your idyllic companionship shall -not be misinterpreted.” - -“Pooh!”—or some such vocable of scorn—Corinna remarked. “We’re not in -narrow-minded England.” - -“In narrow-minded England,” Fortinbras replied, “without a wedding ring, -and without the confessed brother-and-sisterly relation, inns would -close their virtuous doors against you. In France, where a pair of -lovers is universally regarded as an object of romantic interest, -innkeepers would confuse you with zealous attentions. Thus in either -country, though for opposite reasons, you would be bound to encounter -impossible embarrassment.” - -“I don’t think there would be any danger of that,” laughed Corinna -lightly, “unless Martin went mad. But perhaps it would be just as well -to play the comedy. I’ll stick up my cheek to be kissed every night in -the presence of the landlady. ‘_Bon soir, mon frère._’—Do you think you -can go through the performance, Martin?” - -Martin, very uncomfortable, already experiencing at the suggestion of -misconstrued relations, the embarrassment foreshadowed by Fortinbras, -flushed deeply and took refuge in an examination of his bicycle. The -celibate dreamer was shocked by her cool bravado. Since the episode of -Gwendoline he had lived remote from the opposite sex; the only woman he -had known intimately was his mother and from that knowledge he had -formed the profound conviction that women were entirely futile and -utterly holy. Corinna kept on knocking this conviction endwise. She made -hay, not to say chaos, with his theory of woman. He felt himself on the -verge of a fog-filled abysm of knowledge. There she stood, a foot or two -away—he scarce dared glance at her—erect, clear-eyed, the least futile -person in the world, treating a suggestion the most disconcerting and -appalling to maidenhood with the unholiest mockery, and coolly proposing -that, in order to give themselves an air of innocence, they should -contract the habit of a nightly embrace. - -“I’ll do anything,” said he, “to prevent disagreeableness arising.” - -Corinna laughed, and, after final farewells, they rode away down the -baking little street leaving Fortinbras watching them wistfully until -they had disappeared. And he remained a long time following in his -thoughts the pair whom he had despatched upon their unsentimental -journey. How young they were, how malleable, how agape for hope like -young thrushes for worms, how attractive in their respective ways, how -careless of sunstroke! If only he could have escaped with them from this -sweltering Paris to the cool shadow of the Dordogne rocks and the -welcome of a young girl’s eyes. What a hopeless mess and muddle was -life. He sighed and mopped his forehead, and then a hand touched his -arm. He turned and saw the careworn face of Madame Gaussart, the fat -wife of a neighbouring print-seller. - -“Monsieur Fortinbras, it is only you in this city of misfortune that can -give me advice. My husband left me the day before yesterday and has not -returned. I am in despair. I have been weeping ever since. I weep -now——” she did, copiously regardless of the gaze of the street. “Tell -me what to do, my good Monsieur Fortinbras, you whom they call the -_Marchand de Bonheur_. See—I have your little honorarium.” - -She held out the five-franc piece. Fortinbras slipped it into his -waistcoat pocket. - -“At your service, madame,” said he, with a sigh. “Doubtless I shall be -able to restore to you a fallacious semblance of conjugal felicity.” - -“I was sure of it,” said the lady already comforted. “If you would deign -to enter the shop, Monsieur.” - -Fortinbras followed her, and for a while lost his envy of Martin and -Corinna in patient and ironic consideration of the naughtiness of -Monsieur Gaussart. - -This first stage out of Paris was the only time when the wanderers -braved the midday heat of the golden August. They took counsel together -in an earwiggy arbour outside Versailles, where they quenched their -thirst with cider. They were in no hurry to reach their destination. A -few hours in the early morning—they could start at six—and an hour or -two in the cool of the evening would suffice. The remainder of the day -would be devoted to repose. . . . - -“And churches and cathedrals,” added Martin. - -“You have a frolicsome idea of a holiday jaunt,” said Corinna. - -“What else can we do?” - -“Eat lotus,” said Corinna. “Forget that there ever were such places as -Paris or London or Wendlebury.” - -“I don’t think Chartres would remind you of one of them,” said Martin. -“I’ve dreamed of Chartres ever since I read ‘_La Cathédrale_’ by -Huysmans.” - -“You’re what they call an earnest soul,” remarked Corinna. “All the way -here I’ve never stopped wondering why I’ve come with you on this insane -pilgrimage to nowhere.” - -“I’ve been wondering the same myself,” said Martin. - -As he had lain awake most of the night and therefore risen late, the -occupations of the morning involving the selection and hire of a -bicycle, consultation with the concierge of the Hôtel du Soleil et de -l’Ecosse with regard to luggage being forwarded, the changing of his -money into French banknotes and gold, and various small purchases, had -left him little time for reflection. It was only when he found himself -pedalling perspiringly by the side of this comparatively unknown and -startling young woman, who was to be his intimate companion for heaven -knew how long, that he began to think. _Qu’allait il faire dans cette -galère?_ It was comforting to know that Corinna asked herself the same -question. - -“That old humbug Fortinbras must have put a spell upon us,” she -continued, without commenting on Martin’s lack of gallantry. “He sort of -envelops one in such a mist of words uttered in that musical voice of -his and he looks so inspired with benevolent wisdom that one loses one’s -common sense. The old wretch can persuade anybody to do anything. He -once inveigled a girl—an art student—into becoming a nun.” - -Martin’s Protestant antagonism was aroused. He expressed himself -heatedly. He saw nothing but reprehensibility in the action of -Fortinbras. Corinna examined her well-trimmed fingernails. - -“It was a question of Saint Clothilde—that I think was the order—or -Saint Lazare. Some girls are like that.” - -“Saint Lazare?” - -“Don’t you know anything?” she sighed. “What’s the good of being -decently epigrammatic? Saint Lazare is the final destination of a -certain temperament unsupported by good looks or money. It’s the woman’s -prison of Paris.” - -“Oh!” said Martin. - -“How he did it I don’t know, but he saved her body and soul. And now -she’s the happiest creature in the world. I had a letter from her only -the other day urging me to go over to Rome and take the vows——” - -“I hope you’re not thinking of it,” said Martin. - -“I’m in no danger of Saint Lazare,” replied Corinna drily. - -There was a long silence. In the leafy arbour screened from the dust and -glare of the highway there prevailed a drowsy peace. Only one of the -dozen other green blistered wooden tables was occupied—and that by a -blue-bloused workman and his wife and baby, all temperately refreshing -themselves with harmless liquid, the last from nature’s fount itself. -The landlord, obese, unshaven and alpaca-jacketed, read the _Petit -Journal_ at the threshold of the café of which the arboured terrace was -but a summer adjunct. A mangy mongrel lying at his feet snapped -spasmodically at flies. A couple of tow-headed urchins hung by the -arched entrance, low-class Peris at the gates of a dilapidated Paradise. - -“Who is Fortinbras?” Martin asked. - -Corinna shrugged her dainty shoulders. She did not know. Rumour had -it—and for rumour she could not vouchsafe—that he was an English -solicitor struck off the rolls. With French law at any rate he was -familiar. He had the Code Napoléon at his finger-ends. In spite of the -sober black clothes and white tie of the French attorney which he -affected, he certainly possessed no French qualifications which would -have enabled him to set up a regular _cabinet d’avoué_ and earn a -professional livelihood. Nor did he presume to step within the _avoué’s_ -jealously guarded sphere. But his opinion on legal points was so sound, -and his fee so moderate, that many consulted him in preference to an -orthodox practitioner. That was all that Corinna knew of him in his -legal aspect. The rest of his queer practice consisted in advising in -all manner of complications. He arbitrated in disputes between man and -man, woman and woman, lover and mistress, husband and wife, parent and -child. He diverted the debtor from the path to bankruptcy. He rescued -youths and maidens from disastrous nymphs and fauns. He hushed up -scandal. Meanwhile his private life and even his address remained -unknown. Twice a day he went the round of the cafés and restaurants of -the _quartier_, so that those in need of his assistance had but to wait -at their respective taverns in order to see him—for he appeared with -the inevitability of the sun in its course. - -“There are all kinds of parasitical people,” said Corinna, “who try to -sponge on students for drinks and meals and money—but Fortinbras isn’t -that kind. Now and again, but not often, he will accept an invitation to -lunch or dinner—and then it’s always for the purpose of discussing -business. Whether it’s his cunning or his honesty I don’t know—but -nobody’s afraid of him. That’s his great asset. You’re absolutely -certain sure that he won’t stick you for anything. Consequently anybody -in trouble or difficulty goes to him confident that his five francs -consultation fee is the end of the financial side of the matter and that -he will concentrate his whole mind and soul on the case. He’s an odd -devil.” - -“The most remarkable man I’ve ever met,” said Martin. - -“You’ve not met many,” said Corinna. - -“I don’t know——” replied Martin reflectively. “I once came across a -prize-fighter—a remarkable chap—in the bar-parlour of the pub at the -corner of our street who was afterwards hanged for murdering his wife, -and I once met a member of Parliament, another remarkable man—I forget -his name now—and then of course there was Cyrus Margett.” - -“But none of them is in it with Fortinbras,” Corinna smiled with ironic -indulgence. - -“None,” said Martin, “had his peculiar magnetic quality. Not even the -member of Parliament. But,” he continued after a pause, “is that all -that is known of him? He seems to be a very mysterious person.” - -“I shouldn’t mind betting you,” said Corinna, “that you and I are the -only people in Paris who are aware of his daughter in Brantôme.” - -“Why should he single us out for such a confidence?” asked Martin. “He -said last night that he was giving us a bit of his heart because we were -good children—it was quite touching—but why should we be the only ones -to have a bit of his heart?” - -“Would you like to know?” asked Corinna, meeting his eyes full. - -“I should.” - -“He told me before you turned up at the Petit Cornichon, this morning, -that you interested him as a sort of celestial freak.” - -“I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not,” replied -Martin, pausing in the act of rolling a cigarette. “It’s tantamount to -calling me an infernal ass.” - -At this show of spirit the girl swiftly changed her tone. - -“You may take it from me that Fortinbras doesn’t give a bit of his heart -to infernal asses. If I had gone to him, on my own, he would never—you -heard him—he would never have touched on ‘things precious to him.’ It’s -for your sake, not mine.” - -“But why?” - -“Because he’s fed up with the likes of me,” said Corinna, with sudden -bitterness. “There are hundreds and thousands of us.” - -Martin knitted his brow. “I don’t understand.” - -“Better not try,” she said. “Let us pay for the cider and get on.” - -So they paid and went on and halted at the townlet of Rambouillet, where -as Monsieur and Mademoiselle Overshaw, they engaged rooms at the most -modest of terms. And to Martin’s infinite relief Corinna did not summon -him to kiss her cheek in the presence of the landlady, before they -retired for the night. He went to bed comforted by the thought that -Corinna’s bark was worse than her bite. - -I have done my best to tell you that this was an unsentimental journey. - -So day after day they sped their innocent course, resting by night at -tiny places where haughty automobiles halted not. They had but sixty -pounds to their joint fortune, and it behoved them not to dissipate it -in unwonted luxury. Through Chartres they went, and Corinna quite as -eagerly as Martin drank in deep draughts of its Gothic mystery and its -splendour of stained glass; through Châteaudun with its grim old castle; -through Vendôme with the flaming west front of its cathedral; through -Tours in the neighbourhood of which they lingered many days, seeing in -familiar intimacy things of which they had but dreamed before—Chinon, -Loches, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, perhaps the most delicate of all -the châteaux of the Loire. And following the counsel of a sage -Fortinbras they went but a few kilometres out of their way and visited -Richelieu, the fascinating town known only to the wanderer, himself -judicious or judiciously advised, that was built by the great Cardinal -outside his palace gates for the accommodation of his court; and there -it remains now untouched by time, priceless jewel of the art of Louis -Treize, with its walls and gates and church and market square and -stately central thoroughfare of _hôtels_ for the nobles, each having its -mansard roof and _porte-cochère_ giving entrance to court and garden; -and there it remains dozing in prosperity, for around it spread the -vineyards which supply brandy to the wide, wide world. - -It was here that Martin, sitting with Corinna on a blistered bench -beneath a plane tree in the little market-place, said for the first -time: - -“I don’t seem to care whether I ever see England again.” - -“What about getting another billet?” asked Corinna. - -“England and billets are synonymous terms. The further I go the less -important does it appear that I should get one. At any rate the more -loathsome is the prospect of a return to slavery.” - -“Don’t let us talk of it,” she said, fanning herself with her hat. “The -mere thought of going back turns the sun grey. Let us imagine we’re just -going on and on for ever and ever.” - -“I’ve been doing so in a general way,” he replied. “I’ve been living in -a sort of intoxication; but now and then I wake up and have a lucid -interval. And then I feel that by not sitting on the doorstep of -scholastic agents I’m doing something wrong, something almost -immoral—and it gives me an unholy thrill of delight.” - -“When I was a small child,” said Corinna, “I used to take the Ten -Commandments one by one and secretly break them, just to see what would -happen. Some I didn’t know how to break—the seventh for instance, which -worried me—and others referring to stealing and murder were rather too -stiff propositions. But I chipped out with a nail on a tile a little -graven image and I bowed down and worshipped it in great excitement; and -as father used to tell us that the third commandment included all kinds -of swearing, I used to bend over an old well we had in the garden and -whisper ‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn,’ until the awful joy of it made -my flesh creep. I think, Martin, you can’t be more than ten years old.” - -“Why do you spoil a bit of sympathetic comprehension by that last -remark?” he asked. - -“Why do you jib at truth?” she retorted. - -“Truth?” - -“Aren’t you like a child revelling in naughtiness—naughtiness just for -the sake of being naughty?” - -“Perhaps I am,” said he. “But why do you mock at me for it?” - -“I don’t think I’m mocking,” she answered more seriously. “When I said -you were only ten years old I meant to be rather affectionate. I seem to -be ever so old in experience, and you never to have grown up. You’re so -refreshing after all these people I’ve been mixed up with—mostly lots -younger really than you—who have plumbed the depths of human knowledge -and have fished up the dregs and holding them out in their hands say, -‘See what it all comes to!’ I’m dead sick of them. So to consort, as -I’ve been doing, with an ingenuous mind like yours, is a real pleasure.” - -Martin rose from his seat and a tortoiseshell cat, the only other -denizen of the market-place, startled from intimate ablutions, gazed at -him, still poising a forward thrown hind leg. - -“My dear Corinna,” said he, “I would beg you to believe that I’m not so -damned ingenuous as all that!” - -For reply Corinna laughed out loud, whereupon the cat fled. She rose -too. - -“Let us look at the church and cool this heat of controversy.” - -So they visited the Louis XIII church, and continued their journey. And -the idle days passed and nothing happened of any importance. They talked -a vast deal and now and then wrangled. After his sturdy declaration at -Richelieu, Martin resented her gibes at his ingenuousness. He felt that -it was incumbent on him to play the man. At first Corinna had taken -command of their tour, ordaining routes and making contracts with -innkeepers. These functions he now usurped; the former to advantage, for -he discovered that Corinna’s splendid misreading of maps had led them -devious and unprofitable courses; the latter to the disgusted -remonstrance of Corinna, who found the charges preposterously increased. - -“I don’t care,” said Martin. “I don’t mind your treating me as a -brother, but I’m not going to be treated as your little brother.” - -In the freedom and adventure of their unremarkable pilgrimage, he had -begun to develop, to lose the fear of her ironical tongue, to crave some -sort of self-assertion, if not of self-expression. He also discovered in -her certain little feminine frailties which flatteringly aroused his -masculine sense of superiority. Once they were overtaken by a -thunderstorm and in the cowshed to which they had raced for shelter, she -sat fear-stricken, holding hands to ears at every clap, while Martin, -hands in pockets, stood serene at the doorway interested in the play of -the lightning. What was there to be afraid of? Far more dangerous to -cross London or Paris streets or to take a railway journey. Her -unreasoning terror was woman’s weakness, a mere matter of nerves. He -would be indulgent; so turning from the door, he put his water-proof -cape over her shoulders as she was feeling cold, and the humility with -which she accepted his services afforded him considerable gratification. -Of course, when the sun came out, she carried her head high and soon -found occasion for a gibe; but Martin rode on unheeding. These were -situations in which he was master. - -Once, also, in order to avoid a drove of steers emerging from a -farm-yard gate, she had swerved violently into a ditch and twisted her -ankle. As she could neither walk nor ride, he picked her up in his arms. - -“I’ll take you to the farm house.” - -“You can’t possibly carry me,” she protested. - -“I’ll soon show you,” said Martin, and he carried her. And although she -was none too light and his muscles strained beneath her weight, he -rejoiced in her surprised appreciation of his man’s strength. - -But half way she railed, white lipped: “I suppose you’re quite certain -now you’re my big brother.” - -“Perfectly certain,” said Martin. - -And then he felt her grip around his neck relax and her body weigh dead -in his arms and he saw that she had fainted from the pain. - -Leaving her in the care of the kind farm people, he went to retrieve the -abandoned bicycles and reflected on the occurrence. In the first place -he would not have lost his head on encountering a set of harmless -steers; secondly, had he accidentally twisted his ankle, Corinna could -not have carried him; thirdly he would not have fainted; fourthly, -mocking as her last words had been, she had confessed her inferiority; -all of which was most comforting to his self-esteem. - -Then, some time afterwards, when the farmer put her into a broken-down -equipage covered with a vast hood and drawn by a gaunt horse, rustily -caparisoned, in order to drive her to the nearest inn some five -kilometres distant, Martin superintended the arrangements, leaving -Corinna not a word to say. He rode, a mounted constable, by her side, -and on arriving at the inn carried her up to her room and talked with -much authority. - -Then, having passed through Poitiers and Ruffec, they came, three weeks -after their start from Paris, to Angoulême, daintiest of cities, perched -on its bastioned rocks above the Charente. And here, as it was the -penultimate stage of their journey, they sojourned a few days. - -They stood on the shady rampart and gazed over the red-roofed houses -embowered in greenery at the great plain golden in harvest and drenched -in sunshine, and sighed. - -“I dread Brantôme,” said Corinna. “It marks something definite. Hitherto -we have been going along vaguely, in a sort of stupefied dream. At -Brantôme we’ll have to think.” - -“I’ve no doubt it will do us good,” said Martin. - -“I fail to see it,” said Corinna. “We’ll just have the same old worry -over again.” - -“I’m not so sure,” Martin answered. “In the first place we’re not quite -the same people as we were three weeks ago——” - -“Rubbish,” said Corinna. - -“I’m not the same person at any rate.” - -She laughed. “Because you give yourself airs nowadays?” - -“Even my giving myself airs,” he replied soberly, “denotes a change. But -it’s deeper than that—it’s difficult to explain. I feel I have a grip -on myself I hadn’t before,—and also an intensity of delight in things I -never had before. The first half hour or so of our rides in the early -dewy mornings, our rough _déjeuners_ outside the little cafés, the long, -drowsy afternoons under the trees, watching the lazy life of the -road—the wine wagons and the bullock carts and the sunburnt men and -women—and the brown, dusty children with their goats—and the quiet -evenings under the stars when we have either sat alone saying nothing or -else talked to the _patron_ of the _auberge_ and listened to his simple -philosophy of life. And then to sleep drunk with air and sunshine -between the clean coarse sheets—to sleep like a dog until the scurry of -the house wakes you at dawn—I don’t know,” he fetched up lamely. “It -has been a thrill, morning, noon and night—and my life before this was -remarkably devoid of thrills. Of course,” he added after a slight pause, -“you have had a good deal to do with it.” - -“_Je te remercie infiniment, mon frère_,” said Corinna. “That is as much -as to say I’ve not been a too dull companion.” - -“You’ve been a delightful companion,” he cried boyishly. “I had no idea -a girl could be so—so——” He sought for a word with his fingers. - -Her eyes smiled on him and lips shewed ever so delicate a curl of irony. - -“So what?” - -“So companionable,” said he. - -She laughed again. “What exactly do you mean by that?” - -“So sensible,” said Martin. - -“When a man calls a girl sensible, do you know what he means? He means -that she doesn’t expect him to fall in love with her. Now you haven’t -fallen in love with me, have you?” - -Martin from his lolling position on the parapet sprang erect. “I should -never dream of such a thing!” - -She laughed loud and grasped the lapels of his jacket. “Oh, Martin!” she -cried, “you’re a gem, a rare jewel. You haven’t changed one little bit. -And for Heaven’s sake don’t change!” - -“If you mean that I haven’t turned from a gentleman into a cad, then I -haven’t changed,” said Martin freeing himself, “and I’m glad of it.” - -She tossed her head and the laughter died from her face. “I don’t see -how you would be a cad to have fallen in love with a girl who is neither -unattractive nor a fool, and has been your sole companion from morning -to night for three weeks. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have -done it.” - -“I don’t believe it,” said Martin. “I have a higher estimate of the -honour of my fellow-men.” - -“If that’s your opinion of me——” she said, and turning swiftly walked -away. Martin overtook her. - -“Do you want me to fall in love with you?” he asked. - -She halted for a second and stamped her foot. “No. Ten thousand times -no. If you did I’d throw vitriol over you.” - -She marched on. Martin followed in an obfuscated frame of mind. She led -the way round the ramparts and out into the narrow, cobble-paved streets -of the old town, past dilapidated glories of the Renaissance, where once -great nobles had entertained kings and now the proletariat hung laundry -to dry over royal salamanders and proud escutcheons, past the Maison de -Saint Simon, with its calm and time-mellowed ornament and exquisite -oriels, past things over which, but yesterday, but that morning, they -had lingered lovingly, into the Place du Mûrier. There she paused, as if -seeking her bearings. - -“Where are you going?” asked Martin, somewhat breathlessly. - -“To some place where I can be alone,” she flashed. - -“Very well,” said he, and raised his cap and left her. - -In a few seconds he heard her call. - -“Martin!” - -He turned. “Yes?” - -“I’m anything you like to call me,” she said. “It’s not your fault. It’s -my temper. But you’ve got to learn it’s better not to turn women down -flat like that, even when they speak in jest.” - -“I’m very sorry, Corinna,” he said, smiling gravely, “but when one jests -on such subjects I don’t know where I am.” - -They crossed the square slowly, side by side. - -“I suppose neither you nor anybody else could understand,” she said. “I -was angry with you, but if you had played the fool I should have been -angrier still.” - -“Why?” he asked. - -She looked straight ahead with a strained glance and for a minute or two -did not reply. At last: - -“You remember Fortinbras mentioning the name of Camille Fargot?” - -“Oh!” said Martin. - -“That’s why,” said Corinna. - -“Is he at Brantôme?” asked Martin, with brow perplexed by the memory of -the ridiculous mother. - -“No, I wish to God he was.” - -“Are you engaged?” - -“In a sort of a way,” said Corinna, gloomily. - -“I see,” said Martin. - -“You don’t see a little bit in the world, she retorted with a sudden -laugh. “You’re utterly mystified.” - -“I’m not,” he declared stoutly. “Why on earth shouldn’t you have a love -affair?” - -“I thought you insinuated that none of your ‘fellow men’ would look at -me twice.” - -He contracted his brows and regarded her steadily. “I’m beginning to get -tired of this argument,” said he. - -Her eyes drooped first. “Perhaps you really have progressed a bit since -we started.” - -“I was doing my best to tell you, when you switched off onto this idiot -circuit.” - -Suddenly she put out her hand. “Don’t let us quarrel, Martin. What has -been joy and wonder to you has been merely an anodyne to me. I’m about -the most miserable girl in France.” - -“I wish you had told me something of this before,” said Martin, “because -I’ve been feeling myself the happiest man. . . .” - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -“THERE is six o’clock striking and those English have not yet arrived.” - -Thus spake Gaspard-Marie Bigourdin, landlord of the Hôtel des Grottes, a -vast man clad in a brown holland suit and a soft straw hat with a -gigantic brim. So vast was he that his person overlapped in all -directions the Austrian bent-wood rocking-chair in which he was taking -the cool of the evening. - -“They said they would come in time for dinner, _mon oncle_,” said -Félise. - -She was a graceful slip of a girl, dark-eyed, refined of feature. -Fortinbras with paternal fondness, if you remember, had likened her to -the wild flowers from which Alpine honey was made. And indeed, she -suggested wild fragrance. Her brown hair was done up on the top of her -head and fastened by a comb like that of all the peasant girls of the -district; but she wore the blouse and stuff skirt of the well-to-do -bourgeoisie. - -“Six o’clock is already time for dinner in Brantôme,” remarked Monsieur -Bigourdin. - -“They are accustomed to the hours of London and Paris, where I’ve heard -they dine at eight or nine or any time that pleases them.” - -“In London and Paris they get up at midday and go to bed at dawn. They -are coming here purposely to dis-habilitate themselves from the ways of -London and Paris. At least so your father gives me to understand. It is -a bad beginning.” - -“I am longing to see them,” said Félise. - -“Don’t you see enough English? Ten years ago an Englishman at Brantôme -was a curiosity. All the inhabitants, you among them, _ma petite_ -Félise, used to run two kilometres to look at him. But now, with the -automobile, they are as familiar in the eyes of the good Brantômois as -truffles.” - -By this simile Monsieur Bigourdin did not mean to convey the idea that -the twelve hundred inhabitants of Brantôme were all gastronomic -voluptuaries. It is true that Brantôme battens on _pâté de foie gras_; -but it is the essence of its existence, seeing that Brantôme makes it -and sells it and with pigs and dogs hunts the truffles without which -_pâté de foie gras_ would be a comestible of fat absurdity. - -“But no English have been sent before by my father,” said Félise. - -“That’s true,” replied Bigourdin, with a capacious smile, showing white -strong teeth. - -“They are the first people—French or English, I shall have met who know -my father.” - -“That’s true also,” said Bigourdin. “And they must be droll types like -your excellent father himself. _Tiens_, let me see again what he says -about them.” He searched his pockets, a process involving convulsions of -his frame which made the rocking-chair creak. “It must be in my black -jacket,” said he at last. - -“I’ll get it,” said Félise, and went into the house. - -Bigourdin rolled and lit a cigarette and gave himself up to comfortable -reflection. The Hôtel des Grottes was built on the slope of a rock and -the loggia or verandah on which Bigourdin was taking his ease, hung over -a miniature precipice. At the bottom ran the River Dronne encircling -most of the old-world town and crossed here and there by flashing little -bridges. Away to the northeast loomed the mountains of the Limousin -where the river has its source. The tiny place slumbered in the slanting -sunshine. The sight of Brantôme stretched out below him was inseparable -from Bigourdin’s earliest conception of the universe. In the Hôtel des -Grottes he had been born; there, save for a few years at Lyons whither -he had been sent by his mother in order to widen his views on hotel -keeping, he had spent all his life, and there he sincerely hoped to die -full of honour and good nourishment. Brantôme contented him. It belonged -to him. It was so diminutive and compact that he could take the whole of -it in at once. He was familiar with all the little tragedies and -comedies that enacted themselves beneath those red-tiled roofs. Did he -walk down the Rue de Périgueux his hand went to his hat as often as that -of the President of the Republic on his way to a review at Longchamps. -He was a man of substance and consideration, and he was just forty years -of age. And Félise adored him, and anticipated his commands. - -She returned with the letter. He glanced through it, reading portions -aloud: - -“I am sending you a young couple whom I have taken to my heart. They are -not relations, they are not married and they are not lovers. They are -Arcadians of the pavement, more innocent than doves, and of a ferocious -English morality. She is a painter without patrons, he a professor -without classes. They are also candidates for happiness performing their -novitiate. Later they will take the vows.” - -“What does he mean? What vows?” - -“Perhaps they are pious people and are going to enter the convent,” -Félise suggested. - -“I can see your father—anti-clerical that he is—interesting himself in -little nuns and monks.” - -“Yet he and Monsieur le Curé are good friends.” - -“That is because Monsieur le Curé has much wisdom and no fear. He would -have tried to convert Voltaire himself. . . . Let us continue——” - -“As they are poor and doing this out of obedience——” - -“_Saprelotte!_” he laughed, “they seem to have taken the three vows -already!” - -He read on:“—— they do not desire the royal suite in your Excelsior -Palace. Corinna Hastings has lived under the roofs in Paris, Martin -Overshaw over a baker’s shop in a vague quarter of London. All the -luxury they ask is to be allowed to wash themselves all over in cold -water once a day.” - -“I was sure you had not written to my father about the bathroom,” said -Félise. - -She was right. But the omission was odd. For Bigourdin took inordinate -pride in the newly installed bathroom and all the touring clubs of -Europe and Editors of Guide Books had heard of it and he had offered it -to the admiring inspection of half Brantôme. Monsieur le Maire himself -had visited it, and if he had only arrived girt with his tricolour sash, -Bigourdin would have jumped in and demanded an inaugural ceremony. - -“I must have forgotten,” said Bigourdin. “But no matter. They can have -plenty of cold water. But if I am to feed them and lodge them and wash -them for the derisory price your father stipulates, they must learn that -six o’clock is the hour of table d’hôte at the Hôtel des Grottes. It is -only people in automobiles who can turn the place upside down, and then -they have to pay four francs for their dinner.” - -He rose mountainously, and, standing, displayed the figure of a -vigorous, huge proportioned, upright man. On his face, large and ruddy, -a small black moustache struck a startling note. His eyes were brown and -kindly, his mouth too small and his chin had a deep cleft, which on a -creature of lesser scale would have been a pleasing dimple. - -“_Allons dîner_,” said he. - -In the patriarchal fashion, now unfortunately becoming obsolete, -Monsieur Bigourdin dined with his guests. The _salle-à-manger_—off the -loggia—was furnished with the long central table sacred to commercial -travellers, and with a few side tables for other visitors. At one of -these, in the corner between the service door and the dining-room door, -sat Monsieur Bigourdin and his niece. As they entered the room five -bagmen, with anticipatory napkins stuck cornerwise in their collars, -half rose from their chairs and bowed. - -“_Bon soir, messieurs_,” said Bigourdin, and he passed with Félise to -his table. - -Euphémie, the cook, fat and damp, entered with the soup tureen, followed -by a desperate-looking, crop-headed villain bearing plates. The latter, -who viewed half a mile off through a telescope might have passed for an -orthodox waiter, appeared, at close quarters, to be raimented in grease -and grime. He served the soup; first to the five commercial -travellers,—and then to Bigourdin and Félise. On Félise’s plate he left -a great thumb-mark. She looked at it with an expression of disgust. - -“_Regarde, mon oncle._” - -Bigourdin alluding to him as a sacred animal, asked what she could -expect. He was from Bourdeilles, a place of rocks some five miles -distant, condemned by Brantôme, chef-lieu du Canton. He summoned him. - -“Polydore.” - -“_Oui, monsieur._” - -“You have made a mistake. You are no longer in the hands of the police.” - -“_Monsieur veut dire——?_” - -“I am not the Commissaire who desires to photograph your finger-prints.” - -“Ah, pardon,” said Polydore, and with a soiled napkin he erased the -offending stain. - -“_Sacré animal!_” repeated Bigourdin, attacking his soup. “I wonder why -I keep him.” - -“I too,” said Félise. - -“If his grandmother and my grandmother had not been foster-sisters——” -said Bigourdin, waving an indignant spoon. - -“You would have kept him just because he is ugly,” smiled Félise. “You -would have found a reason.” - -“One of these days I’ll throw him into the river,” Bigourdin declared. -“I am patient. I am slow to anger. But when I am roused I am like a -lion. Polydore,” said he serenely, as the dilapidated menial removed the -plates, “if you can’t keep your hands clean I’ll make you wear gloves.” - -“People would laugh at me,” said Polydore. - -“So much the better,” said Bigourdin. - -The meal was nearly over when the expected guests were announced. Uncle -and niece slipped from the dining room into the little vestibule to -welcome them. An elderly man in a blouse, name Baptiste, was already -busying himself with their luggage—the knapsacks fastened to the back -of the bicycles. - -“Mademoiselle, Monsieur,” said Bigourdin, “it is a great pleasure to me -to meet friends of my excellent brother-in-law. Allow me to present -Mademoiselle Félise Fortinbras” (he gave the French pronunciation), “my -niece. As dinner is not yet over and as you must be hungry, will you -give yourselves the trouble to enter the _salle-à-manger_.” - -“I should like to have a wash first,” said Corinna. - -Bigourdin glanced at Félise. They were beginning early. - -“There is a bathroom upstairs fitted with every modern luxury.” - -Corinna laughed. “I only want to tidy up a bit.” - -“I will show you to your room,” said Félise, and conducted her up the -staircase beside the bureau. - -“And monsieur?” - -Martin went over to the little lavabo against the wall beside which hung -the usual damp towel. - -“This will do quite well,” said he. - -Bigourdin breathed again. The new arrivals were quite human; and they -spoke French perfectly. The men conversed a while until the two girls -descended. Bigourdin led his guests into the _salle-à-manger_ and -installed them at a table by one of the windows looking on the loggia. - -“Like this,” said he, “you will be cool and also enjoy the view.” - -“I think,” said Corinna, looking up at him, “you have the most delicious -little town I have seen in France.” - -Bigourdin’s eyes beamed with gratification. He bowed and went back to -his unfinished meal. - -“Behold over there,” said he to Félise, “a young girl of extraordinary -good sense. She is also extremely pretty; a combination which is rare in -women.” - -“Yes, uncle,” said Félise demurely. - -The five commercial travellers rose, and, bowing as they passed their -host, went out in search, after the manner of their kind, of coffee and -backgammon at the Café de l’Univers in the Rue de Périgueux. It is only -foreigners who linger over coffee, liqueurs and tobacco in the little -inns of France. Presently Félise went off to the bureau to make up the -day’s accounts, and Bigourdin, having smoked a thoughtful cigarette, -crossed over to Martin and Corinna. After the good hotel-keeper’s -enquiry as to their gastronomic satisfaction, he swept his hand through -his inch-high standing stubble of black hair, and addressed Martin. - -“Monsieur Over—Oversh—forgive me if I cannot pronounce your name——” - -“Overshaw,” said Martin distinctly. - -“Auvershaud—Auverchat—_non—c’est bigrement difficile_.” - -“Then call me Monsieur Martin, _à la française_.” - -“And me, Mademoiselle Corinne,” laughed Corinna. - -“_Voilà!_” cried Bigourdin, delighted. “Those are names familiar to -every Frenchman.” Then his brow clouded. “Well, Monsieur Martin, there -is something I would say to you. What profession does my good -brother-in-law exercise in Paris?” - -Martin and Corinna exchanged glances. - -“I scarcely know,” said Corinna. - -“Nor I,” said Martin. - -“It is on account of my niece, his daughter, that I ask. You permit me -to sit down for a moment?” He drew a chair. “You must understand at -once,” said he, “that I have nothing against Monsieur Fortinbras. I love -him like myself. But, on the other hand, I also love my little niece. -She is very simple, very innocent, and does not appreciate the -subtleties of the great world. She adores her father.” - -“I can quite understand that,” said Martin, “and I am sure that he -adores her.” - -“Precisely,” said Bigourdin. “That is why I would like you to have no -doubt as to the profession of my brother-in-law. You have never, by any -chance, Mademoiselle Corinne, heard him called ‘_Le Marchand de -Bonheur_’?” - -“Never,” said Corinna, meeting his eyes. - -“Never,” echoed Martin. - -“Not even when he advised you to come here? It is for Félise that I -ask.” - -“No,” said Corinna. - -“Certainly not,” said Martin. - -“But you have heard that he is an _avoué_?” - -“An English solicitor practising in Paris. Of course,” said Martin. - -“A very clever solicitor,” said Corinna. - -Bigourdin smote his chest with his great hand. “I thank you with all my -heart for your understanding. You are the first persons she has met who -know her father—it is somewhat embarrassing, what I say—and she, in -her innocence, will ask you questions, which he did not foresee——” - -“There will be no difficulty in answering them,” replied Martin. - -“_Encore merci_,” said Bigourdin. “You must know that Félise came to us -at five years old, when my poor wife was living—she died ten years -ago—I am a widower. She is to me like my own daughter. Although,” he -added, with a smile and a touch of vanity, “I am not quite so old as -that. My sister, her mother, is older than I.” - -“She is alive then?” asked Corinna. - -“Certainly,” replied Bigourdin. “Did you not know that? But she has been -an invalid for many years. That is why Félise lives here instead of with -her parents. I hope, Mademoiselle, you and she will be good friends.” - -“I am sure we shall,” replied Corinna. - -A little while later the two wanderers sat over their coffee by the -balustrade of the covered loggia and looked out on the velvet night, -filled with contentment. They had reached their goal. Here they were to -stay until it pleased Fortinbras to come and direct them afresh. -Hitherto, their resting-places, mere stages on their journey, had lacked -the atmosphere of permanence. The still nights when they had talked -together, as now, beneath the stars, had throbbed with a certain fever, -the anticipation of the morrow’s dawn, the morrow’s adventures in -strange lands. But now they had come to their destined haven. Here they -would remain to-morrow, and the morrow after that, and for morrows -indefinite. A phase of their life had ended with curious suddenness. - -As the intensity of silence falls on ears accustomed to the whirr of -machinery, so did an intensity of peace encompass their souls. And the -dim-lit valley itself brought solace. Not here stretched infinite -horizons such as those of the plains of La Beauce through which they had -passed, horizons whence sprang a whole hemisphere of stars, horizons -which embracing nothing set the heart aching for infinite things beyond, -horizons in the centre of which they stood specks of despair overwhelmed -by immensities. Here the comfortable land had taken them to its bosom. -Near enough to be felt, the vague bluish mass of the Limousin mountains -sweeping from north to east assured them of the calm protection of -eternal forces. Beyond them who need look or crave to look? To the -fevered spirit they brought in their mothering shelter all that was -needed by man for his happiness: fruitfulness of cornfields, mystery of -beech-woods faintly revealed by the rays of a young moon, a quiet town -for man’s untroubled habitation, guarded by its encircling river, rather -guessed than seen and betrayed only here and there by a streak of -quivering light. And as the distant glare of great cities—the lights of -London reflected in the heavens—in the days of wandering youths seeking -their fortunes, compelled them moth-like to the focus, so in its dreamy -microcosm did the lights of the little town, a thousand flickering -points from the outskirts and a line of long illumination marking the -main street athwart the dark mass of roofs and dissipating itself hazily -in midair, appeal to the imagination—set it wondering as to the myriad -joyous affairs of men. - -In low voices they talked of Fortinbras. His spirit seemed to have -emerged from the welter of Paris into this pool of the world’s -tranquillity. In spite of his magnetic force his words had been but -words. What they were to meet at Brantôme they knew not. They scarce had -thought. What to them had been the landlord of a tiny provincial inn but -a good-natured common fellow unworthy of speculation? And what the -daughter of the seedy Paris Bohemian, snapper up of unconsidered -trifles, but a serving girl of no account, plain and redolent of the -scullery? Bigourdin’s courteous bearing and delicacy of speech had come -upon them as a surprise. So had the refinement of Félise. They had to -readjust their conception of Fortinbras. They were amazed, simple souls, -to find that he had ties in life so indubitably respectable. And he had -a wife, too, a chronic invalid, with whom he lived in the jealous -obscurity of Paris. It was pathetic. . . . They had obeyed him hardly -knowing why. At the back of their minds he had been but a charlatan of -peculiar originality—at the same time a being almost mythical, so -remote from them was his life. And now he became startlingly real. They -heard his voice soft and persuasive whispering by their side with a -touch of gentle mockery. - -Then silence fell upon them; their minds drifted apart and they lost -themselves in their separate dreams. - -At last, Polydore coming to remove the coffee tray and to enquire as to -their further wants, broke the spell. When he had gone, Corinna leaned -her elbow on the little iron table and asked in her direct fashion: - -“What have you been thinking of, Martin?” - -He drew his hand across his eyes, and it was a moment or two before he -answered. - -“When I was in London,” said he, “I seem to have lived in a tiny -provincial town. Now that I come to a tiny provincial town I have an odd -feeling that the deep life of a great city is before me. That’s the best -I can do by way of explanation. Thoughts like that are a bit formless -and elusive, you know.” - -“What do you think you’re going to find here?” - -“I don’t know. Why not happiness in some form or other?” - -“You expect a lot for five francs,” she laughed. - -“And you?” - -“I——?” - -“Yes, what have you been thinking of?” - -She pointed, and in the gloom he followed the direction of white-bloused -arm and white hand. - -“Do you see that little house on the quay? The one with the lights and -the loggia. You can just get a glimpse of the interior. See? There’s a -picture and below a woman sitting at a piano. If you listen you can -catch the sound. It’s Schubert’s ‘Moment Musical.’ Well, I’ve been -wishing I were that woman with her life full of her home and husband and -children. Sheltered—protected—love all around her—nothing more to ask -of God. It was a beautiful dream.” - -“You too,” said Martin, “feel about this place somewhat as I do.” - -“I suppose it’s the night. It turns one into a sentimental lunatic. -Fancy living here for the rest of one’s days and concentrating one’s -soul on human stomachs.” - -“What do you mean, Corinna?” - -“Isn’t that what woman’s domestic life comes to? She must fill her -husband’s stomach properly or he’ll beat her or run off with somebody -else, and she must fill her babies’ stomachs properly or they’ll get -cramps and convulsions and bilious attacks and die. It was a beautiful -dream. But the reality would drive me stick, stark, staring mad.” - -“My ideas of married life,” said Martin sagely, “are quite different.” - -“Of course!” she cried. “You’re one of the creatures with the stomach.” - -“I’ve never been aware of it,” said Martin. - -“It strikes me you’re too good for this world,” said Corinna. - -Martin rolled a cigarette from a brown packet of Maryland tobacco—his -supply of English ‘Woodbines’ had long since given out. - -“I have my ideals as to love—and so forth,” said he. - -“And so have I. ‘All for Love and the World Well Lost.’ That’s the title -of an old play, isn’t it? I can understand it. I would give my soul for -it. But it happens once in a blue moon. Meanwhile one has to live. And -connubiality and maternity in a little lost hole in Nowhere like this -aren’t life.” - -“What the dickens is life?” asked Martin. - -But her definition he did not hear, for the vast figure of Bigourdin -loomed in the doorway of the _salle-à-manger_. - -“I wish you good night,” said he. - -Martin rose and looked at his watch. “I think it’s time to go to bed.” - -“So do I,” yawned Corinna. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -THE first thing a cat does on taking up its quarters in a new home is to -make itself acquainted with its surroundings. It walks methodically with -uplifted tail and quivering nose from vast monument of sideboard to -commonplace of chair, from glittering palisade of fender to long lying -bastion of couch, creeps by defences of walls noting each comfortable -issue, prowls through lanes and squares innumerable formed by -intricacies of furniture; and having once gone through the grave -business, worries its head no more about topography and points of -interests, but settles down to serene enjoyment of such features of the -place as have appealed to its æsthetic or grosser instincts. In this -respect the average human is nearer a cat than he cares to realise. The -first hour on board a strange ship is generally devoted to an exhaustive -exploration never repeated during the rest of the voyage, and doubtless -a prisoner’s first act on being locked into his cell is to creep round -the confined space and familiarise himself with his depressing -installation. - -Obeying this instinct common to cats and men, Martin and Corinna, as -soon as they had finished breakfast the next morning, wandered forth and -explored Brantôme. They visited the grey remains of the old abbey begun -by Charlemagne. But Villon writing in the 15th Century and asking “_Mais -où est le preux Charlemaigne?_” might have asked with equal sense of the -transitory nature of human things: “Where is the Abbey which the -knightly Charlemagne did piously build in Brantôme?” For the Normans -came and destroyed it and one eleventh-century tower protecting a -Romanesque Gothic church alone tells where the abbey stood. Strolling -down to the river level along the dusty, shady road, they came to the -terraced hill-side, past which the river once infinitely furious must -have torn its way. In the sheer rock were doors of human dwellings, -numbered sedately like the houses of a smug row. Above them, at the -height of a cottage roof, stretched a grassy plain, from which, -corresponding with each homestead, emerged the short stump of a chimney -emitting thin smoke from the hearth beneath. Before one of the open -doors they halted. Children were playing in the one room which made up -the entire habitation. They had the impression of a vague bed in the -gloom, a table, a chair or two, cooking utensils by the rude -chimney-piece, bunks fitted into the living rock at the sides. The -children might have been Peter Pan and Wendy and Michael and John and -the rest of the delectable company, and the chimney-stump above them -might have been replaced by Michael’s silk hat, and on the green sward -around it pirates and Red Indians might have fought undetected by the -happy denizens below. - -Thus announced Corinna with lighter fancy. But Martin, serious exponent -of truth, explained that the monks, in the desolate times when their -Abbey was rebuilding had hewn out these abodes for cells and had dwelt -in them many many years; and to prove it, having conferred, before her -descent to breakfast, with the excellent Monsieur Bigourdin, he led her -to a neighbouring cave, called in the district, Les Grottes—Hence the -name of Bigourdin’s hotel—which the good monks, their pious aspiration -far exceeding their powers of artistic execution, had adorned with -grotesque and primitive carvings in bas-relief, representing the Last -Judgment and the Crucifixion. - -They paused to admire the Renaissance Fontaine Médicis, set in startling -contrast against the rugged background of rock, with its graceful -balustrade and its medallion enclosing the bust of the worthy Pierre de -Bourdeille, Abbé de Brantôme, the immortal chronicler of horrific -scandals; and they crossed the Pont des Barris, and wandered by the -quays where men angled patiently for deriding fish, and women below at -the water’s edge beat their laundry with lusty arms; and so past the row -of dwellings old and new huddled together, a decaying thirteenth-century -house with its heavy corbellings and a bit of rounded turret lost in the -masonry jostling a perky modern café decked with iron balconies painted -green, until they came to the end of the bridge that commands the main -entrance to the tiny water-girt town. They plunged into it with -childlike curiosity. In the Rue de Périgueux they stood entranced before -the shop fronts of that wondrous thoroughfare alive with the traffic of -an occasional ox-cart, a rusty one-horse omnibus labelled “_Service de -Ville_” and some prehistoric automobile wheezing by, a clattering -impertinence. For there were shops in Brantôme of fair pretension—is it -not the _chef lieu du Canton_?—and you could buy _articles de Paris_ at -most three years old. And there was a Pharmacie Internationale, so -called because there you could obtain Pear’s soap and Eno’s Fruit salt; -and a draper’s where were exposed for sale frilleries which struck -Martin as marvellous, but at which Corinna curved a supercilious lip; -and a shop ambitiously blazoned behind whose plate-glass windows could -be seen a porcelain bath-tub and other adjuncts of the luxurious -bathroom, on one of which, sole occupant of the establishment, a little -pig-tailed girl was seated eating from a porringer on her knees; and -there were all kinds of other shops including one which sold cabbages -and salsifies and charcoal and petrol and picture postcards and rusty -iron and vintage eggs and guano and all manner of fantastic dirt. And -there was the Librairie de la Dordogne which smiled at you when you -asked for devotional pictures or tin-tacks, but gasped when you demanded -books. Martin and Corinna, however, demanded them with British -insensibility and marched away with an armful of cheap reprints of -French classics disinterred from a tomb beneath the counter. But before -they went, Martin asked: - -“But have you nothing new? Nothing from Paris that has just appeared?” - -“_Voici, monsieur_,” replied the elderly proprietress of the Library of -the Dordogne, plucking a volume from a speckled shelf at the back of the -shop. “_On trouve ça très joli._” And she handed him _Le Maître de -Forges_, by Georges Ohnet. - -“But this, madam,” said Martin, examining the venerable unsold copy, -“was published in 1882.” - -“I regret, monsieur,” said the lady, “we have nothing more recent.” - -“I’ll buy it if it breaks me—as a curiosity,” cried Corinna, and she -counted out two francs, seventy-five centimes. - -“Ninety-five,” said the bookseller—she was speckled and dusty and -colourless like the back of her library——” - -“But in Paris——” - -“In Paris it is different, mademoiselle. We are here _en province_.” - -Corinna added the extra twopence and went out with Martin, grasping her -prize. - -“This is the deliciousest place in the world,” she laughed. “Eighteen -eighty-two! Why, that’s years before I was born!” - -“But what on earth are we going to do for books here?” Martin asked -anxiously. - -“There is always the railway station,” said Corinna. “And if you kiss -the old lady at the bookstall nicely, she will get you anything you -want.” - -“The ways of provincial France,” said Martin, “take a good deal of -finding out!” - - * * * * * - -Thus began their first day in Brantôme. It ended peacefully. Another day -passed and yet another and many more, and they lived in lotus land. Soon -after their arrival came their luggage from Paris, and they were enabled -to change the aspect of the road-worn vagabond for that of neat suburban -English folk and as such gained the approbation of the small community. -They had little else to do but continue to repeat their exploration. In -their unadventurous wanderings Félise sometimes accompanied them and -shyly spoke her halting English. To Corinna alone she could chatter with -quaint ungrammatical fluency; but in Martin’s presence she blushed -confusedly at every broken sentence. All her young life she had lived in -her mother’s land and spoken her mother’s tongue. She had a vague notion -that legally she was English, and she took mighty pride in it, but by -training and mental habit she was the little French bourgeoise, through -and through. With Martin alone, however, she abandoned all attempts at -English, and gradually her shyness disappeared. She gave the first signs -of confidence by speaking of her mother in Paris as of a dream woman of -wonderful excellencies. - -“You see her often, mademoiselle?” Martin asked politely. - -“Alas! no, Monsieur Martin.” She shook her head sadly and gazed into the -distance. They were idling on one of the bridges while Corinna a few -feet away made a rapid sketch. - -“But your father?” - -“Ah, yes. He comes four times a year. It is not that I do not love him. -_J’adore papa._ Every one does. You cannot help it. But it is not the -same thing. A mother——” - -“I know, mademoiselle,” said Martin. “My mother died a few months ago.” - -She looked at him with quick tenderness. “That must have caused you much -pain.” - -“Yes, mademoiselle,” said Martin simply, and he smiled for the first -time into her eyes, realising quite suddenly that beneath them lay deep -wells of sympathy and understanding. “Perhaps one of these days you will -let me talk to you about her,” he added. - -She flushed. “Why, yes. Talking relieves the heart.” She used the French -word “_soulager_”—that word of deep-mouthed comfort. - -“It does. And your mother, Mademoiselle Félise?” - -“She cannot walk,” she sighed. “All these years she has lain on her -bed—ever since I left her when I was quite little. So you see, she -cannot come to see me.” - -“But you might go to Paris.” - -“We do not travel much in Brantôme,” replied Félise. - -“Then you have not seen her——” - -“No. But I remember her. She was so beautiful and so tender—she had -chestnut hair. My father says she has not changed at all. And she writes -to me every week, Monsieur Martin. And there she lies day after day, -always suffering, but always sweet and patient and never complaining. -She is an angel.” After a little pause, she raised her face to him—“But -here am I talking of my mother, when you asked me to let you talk of -yours.” - -So Martin then and on many occasions afterwards spoke to her of one that -was dead more intimately than he could speak to Corinna, who seemed -impatient of the expression of simple emotions. Corinna he would never -have allowed to see tears come into his eyes; but with Félise it did not -matter. Her own eyes filled too in sympathy. And this was the beginning -of a quiet understanding between them. Perhaps it might have been the -beginning of something deeper on Martin’s side had not Bigourdin taken -an early opportunity of expounding certain matrimonial schemes of his -own with regard to Félise. It had all been arranged, said he, many years -ago. His good neighbour, Monsieur Viriot, _marchand de vins en -gros_—oh, a man everything there was of the most solid, had an only -son; and he, Bigourdin, had an only niece for whom he had set apart a -substantial dowry. A hundred thousand francs. There were not many girls -in Brantôme who could hide as much as that in their bridal veils. It was -the most natural thing in the world that Lucien should marry -Félise—nay, more, an ordinance of the _bon Dieu_. Lucien had been -absent some time doing his military service. That would soon be over. He -would enter his father’s business. The formal demand in marriage would -be made and they would celebrate the _fiançailles_ before the end of the -year. - -“Does Mademoiselle Félise care for Lucien?” asked Martin. - -Bigourdin shrugged his mountainous shoulders. - -“He does not displease her. What more do we want? She is a good little -girl, and knows that she can entrust her happiness to my hands. And -Lucien is a capital fellow. They will be very happy.” - -Thus he warned a sensitive Martin off philandering paths, and, with his -French adroitness, separated youth and maiden as much as possible. And -this was not difficult. You see Félise acted as manageress in the Hôtel -des Grottes, and her activities were innumerable. There was the kitchen -to be ruled, an eye to be kept on the handle of the basket—if it danced -too much, according to the French phrase, the cook was exceeding her -commission of a sou in the franc; there were the bedrooms and clean dry -linen to be seen to, and the doings of Polydore, the unclean, and of -Baptiste, the haphazard, to be watched; there were daily bills to be -made out, accounts to be balanced, impatient bagmen to be cajoled or -rebuked; orders for _pâté de foie gras_ and truffles to be -despatched—the Hôtel des Grottes had a famous manufactory of these -delights and during autumn and winter supported a hive of workers and -the shelves in the cool store-house were filled with appetising jars; -and then the laundry and the mending and the polishing of the famous -bathroom—_ma foi_, there was enough to keep one small manageress busy. -Like a _bon hôtelier_, Bigourdin himself supervised all these important -matters, ordering and controlling, as an administrator, but Félise was -the executive. And like an obedient and happy little executive Félise -did not notice a subtle increase in her duties. Nor did Martin, honest -soul, in whose eyes a betrothed maiden was as sacred as a married woman, -remark any change in facilities of intercourse. For him she flashed, a -gracious figure, across the half real tapestry of his present life. A -kindly word, a smiling glance, on passing, sufficed for the maintenance -of his pleasant understanding with Félise. For feminine companionship of -a stimulating kind, there was always Corinna. For masculine society he -had Bigourdin and his cronies of the Café de l’Univers, to whom he was -introduced in his professorial dignity. - -It was there, at the café table, in the midst of the notables of the -little town, that he learned many things either undreamed of or uncared -for during his narrow life at Margett’s Universal College. It startled -him to find himself in the company of men passionately patriotic. -Hitherto, as an Englishman living remote from Continental thought, he -had taken patriotism for granted; his interest in politics had been mild -and parochial; he had adopted a vague conservative outlook due, most -likely, to antipathy to his democratic Swiss relatives, who sent eight -pounds to the relief of his impoverished mother, and to a nervous -shrinking from democracy in general as represented by his pupils. But in -this backwater of the world he encountered a political spirit intensely -alive. Vital principles formed the subject of easy, yet stern -discussion. Beneath the calm of peaceful commerce and agriculture he -felt the pulse of France throbbing in fierce determination to maintain -her national existence. Every man had been a soldier; some of the elders -had fought in 1870, and those who had grown up sons were the fathers of -soldiers. Martin realised that whereas in England, in time of peace, the -private soldier was tolerated as a picturesque, good-natured, -harum-scarum sort of fellow, the _picu-piou_ in France was an object of -universal affection. The army was woven into the whole web of French -life; it permeated the whole of French thought; it coloured the whole of -French sentiment. It was not a machine of blood and iron, as in Germany, -but the soul sacrifice of a nation. “_Vive la France!_” meant “_Vive -l’armée!_” And that mere expression “_Vive la France!_”—how often had -he heard it during his short sojourn in the country. He cudgelled his -brains to remember when he had heard a corresponding cry in England. It -seemed to him that there was none. There was no need for one. England -would live as long as the sea girded her shores and Britannia ruled the -waves. We need not trouble our English heads any further. But in France -conditions are different. From the Vosges to the Bay of Biscay, from -Calais to the Mediterranean, every stroke on a Krupp anvil reverberated -through France. - -“_Ça vient_—when no one knows,” said the comfortable citizens, “but it -is coming sooner or later, and then we shed the last drop of our blood. -We are prepared. We have learned our lesson. There will never be another -Sedan.” - -They said it soberly, like men whose eyes were set on an implacable foe. -And Martin knew that through the length and breadth of the land -comfortable citizens held the same sober and stern discourse. Every inch -of French soil was dear to these men, and to guard it they would shed -the last drop of their blood. - -Corinna informed of these conversations said lightly: - -“You haven’t lived among them as long as I have. It’s just their Gallic -way of talking.” - -But Martin knew better. His horizons were expanding. He began, too, to -conceive a curious love for a country so earnest, whose speech was the -first that he had spoken. He had a vague impression that he was learning -to live a corporate, instead of an individual life. When he tried to -interpret these feelings to Corinna she cried out upon him: - -“To hear you talk one would think you hadn’t any English blood. Isn’t -England good enough for you?” - -“It’s because I’m beginning to understand France that I’m beginning to -understand England,” he replied in his grave way. - -“Like practising on the maid before you dare make love to the mistress.” - -“Very possibly,” said he, digging the blunt end of his fork into the -coarse salt—they were at lunch. “To put it another way—if you learn -Latin you learn the structure of all languages.” - -“What a regular schoolmaster’s simile,” she remarked, scornfully. - -He flushed. “I’m no longer a schoolmaster,” said he. - -“Since when?” - -“Since I came here.” - -“Do you mean to say you’re not going back to it?” - -He paused before replying to the sudden question which accident had -occasioned. To himself he had put it many times of late, but hitherto -had evaded a definite answer. Now, with a thrill, he looked at her. - -“Never,” said he. - -She laid down her knife and fork and stared at him. Was he, after all, -taking this fool journey seriously? To her it had been a reckless -adventure, a stolen trip into lotus-land, with the knowledge of an -inevitable return to common earth eating into her heart. Even now she -dreaded to ask how much of her twenty pounds had been spent. But she -knew that the day of doom was approaching. She could not live without -money. Neither could he. - -“What do you propose to do for a living?” - -“God knows,” said he. “I don’t. Anyhow, the squirrel has escaped from -his cage, and he’s not going back to it.” - -“What’s he going to do? Sit on a tree and eat nuts? Oh, my dear Martin!” - -“There are worse fates,” he replied, answering her laughter with a -smile. “At any rate, he has God’s free universe all around him.” - -“That’s all very well; but analogies are futile. You aren’t a squirrel -and you can’t live on acorns and east wind. You must live on bread and -beef. How are you going to get them?” - -“I’ll get them somehow,” said he. “I’m waiting for Fortinbras.” - -To this determination had he come after three weeks residence in -Brantôme. The poor-spirited drudge had drunk of the waters of life and -was a drudge no more. He had passed into another world. Far remote, as -down the clouded vista of long memory, he saw the bare, hopeless class -room and the pale, pinched faces of the students. All that belonged to a -vague past. It had no concern with the present or the future. How he had -arrived at this state of being he could not tell. The change had been -wrought little by little, day by day. The ten years of his servitude had -been blocked out. He had the thrilling sense of starting life afresh at -thirty, as he had started it, a boy of twenty. There was so much more in -the open world than he had dreamed of. If the worst came to the worst he -could go forth into it, knapsack on shoulders and seek his fortune; and -every step he took would carry him further from Margett’s Universal -College. - -“When is that fraud of a _marchand de bonheur_ coming?” Corinna cried -impatiently. - -She put the question to Bigourdin the next time she met him alone—which -was after the meal, on the _terrasse_. He could not tell. Perhaps -to-night, to-morrow, the week after next. Fortinbras came and went like -the wind, without warning. Did Mademoiselle Corinne desire his arrival -so much? - -“I should like to see him here before I go.” - -“Before you go? You are leaving us, Mademoiselle?” - -She laughed at his look of dismay. “I can’t stay idling here for ever.” - -“But you have been here no time at all,” said he. “Just a little bird -that comes and perches on this balustrade, looks this side and that side -out of its bright eyes and then flies away.” - -“_Oui, c’est comme ça_,” said Corinna. - -“_Voilà!_” He sighed and turned to throw his broad-brimmed hat on a -neighbouring table. “That’s the worst of our infamous trade of hotel -keeping. You meet sincere and candid souls whose friendship you crave, -but before you have time to win it, away they go like the little bird, -for ever and ever out of your life.” - -“But you have won my friendship, Monsieur Bigourdin,” said Corinna, with -rising colour. - -“You are very gracious, Mademoiselle Corinne. But why take it from me as -soon as it is given?” - -“I don’t,” she retorted. “I shall always remember you and your -kindness.” - -“_Aïe, aïe!_ You know our saying: _Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_. -It is the way of the world, the way of humanity. We say that we will -remember—but other things come to dim memory, to blunt -sentiment—_enfin_, we forget, not because we want to, but because we -must.” - -“If we must,” laughed Corinna, “you’ll forget our friendship too. So -we’ll be quits.” - -“Never, mademoiselle,” he cried illogically. “Your friendship will -always be precious to me. You came into this dull house with your youth, -your freshness, your wit and your charm—different from the ordinary -hotel guest you have joined my little intimate family life—Félise, for -example adores you—were it not for her mother, you would be her ideal. -And I——” - -“And you, Monsieur Bigourdin?” - -Her voice had the flat sound of a wooden mallet striking a peg. The huge -man bowed with considerable dignity. - -“I shall miss terribly all that you have brought into this house, -Mademoiselle.” - -Corinna relaxed into a mocking smile. - -“Fortinbras warned us that you were a poet, Monsieur Bigourdin.” - -“Every honest man whose eyes can see the beautiful things of life must -be a poet of a kind. It is not necessary to scribble verses.” - -“But do you? Do you write verse?” - -“_Jamais de la vie_” he declared stoutly. “An _hôtelier_ like me count -syllables on his fingers? _Ah, non!_ I can make excellent pâté de foie -gras—no one better in Périgord—but I should make execrable verses. -_Ah, voyons donc!_” - -He laughed lustily and Corinna laughed too; and Martin, appearing on the -verandah, asked and learned the reason of their mirth. After a word or -two their host left them fanning himself with his great hat. - -“What on earth brought you here?” said Corinna. “I was having the -flirtation of my life.” - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -A WEEK passed and Fortinbras did not come. Corinna wrote to him. He -replied: - -“Have patience, cultivate Martin’s sense of humour and make Félise give -you lessons in domestic economy. The cook might instruct you in the -various processes whereby eggs are rendered edible and you might also -learn how to launder clothes without disaster to flesh or linen. I am -afraid you are wasting your time. Remember you’re not like Martin who -needs this rest to get his soul into proper condition. I will come -whither my heart draws me—for I yearn to see my little Félise—as soon -as I am allowed to do so by my manifold avocations and -responsibilities.” - -Corinna, in a fury, handed the letter to Martin and asked him what he -thought of it. He replied that, in his opinion, Fortinbras gave -excellent advice. Corinna declared Fortinbras to be an overbearing and -sarcastic pig and rated Martin for standing by and seeing her insulted. - -“You gave him five francs for putting you on the road to happiness,” he -replied. “He has done his best, and seems to keep on doing it—without -extra charge. I think you ought to be grateful. His suggestions are full -of sense.” - -“Confound his suggestions,” cried Corinna. - -“I think our friend Bigourdin would be pleased if you followed them.” - -“I don’t see what our friend Bigourdin has to do with it.” - -“He would give you all the help he could. A Frenchman likes a woman to -know how to do things.” - -“I won’t wash clothes,” said Corinna defiantly. - -“You might rise superior to a brand of soap,” retorted Martin. - -She turned her back on him and went her way. His gross sense of humour -required no cultivation. It was a poisonous weed. And what did he mean -by dragging in Bigourdin? She would never speak to Martin again, after -his disgraceful innuendo. It took the flavour from the sympathetic -relations that had been set up between her host and herself during the -past week. A twinge of conscience exacerbated her anger against Martin. -She certainly had encouraged Bigourdin to fuller professions of -friendship than is usual between landlord and guest. The fresh flowers -he had laid by her plate at every meal she wore in her dress. Only the -night before she had ever so delicately hinted that Martin was capable -of visiting the Café de l’Univers without a bear-leader, and the huge -and poetical man had sat with her in the moonlight and in terms of -picturesque philosophy had exposed to her the barren loneliness of his -soul. She had enjoyed the evening prodigiously, and was looking forward -to other evenings equally exhilarating. Now Martin had spoiled it all. -She called Martin names that would have shocked Mrs. Hastings and caused -her father to mention her specially during family prayers. - -Then she defended herself proudly. Who was there to talk to in that -Nowhere of a place? The conversation of Félise stimulated as much as -that of a ten-year-old child. Martin she had sucked dry as a bone during -their seven weeks companionship. He of course could hob-nob with men at -the café. He also had picked up a curious assortment of acquaintance, -male and female in the town, and had acquired a knack of conversing with -them. A day or two ago she had come upon him in one of the rock -dwellings discussing politics with a desperate villain who worked in the -freestone quarries, while the frowsy mistress of the house lavished on -him smiles and the horrible grey wine of the country which he drank out -of a bowl. She, Corinna, had no café; nor could she find anything in -common with desperadoes of quarrymen and their frowsy wives; to enter -their houses savoured of district visiting, a philanthropic practice -which she abhorred with all the abhorrence of a parson’s rebellious -daughter. Where was she to look for satisfying human intercourse? She -knew enough of the French middle-class manners and customs to be aware -that she might live in Brantôme a thousand years before one lady would -call on her—a mere question of social code as to which she had no cause -for resentment. But she craved the stimulus, the give-and-take of talk, -such as had been her daily food in Paris for the last three years. Huge, -not at all commonplace, but somewhat of an enigma, Bigourdin lumbered on -to her horizon. His first-hand knowledge of men and things was confined -to Brantôme and Lyons. But with that knowledge he had pierced deep and -wide. He had read little but astonishingly. He had a grasp of European, -even of English internal affairs that disconcerted Corinna, who airily -set out to expound to him the elements of world politics. Two phases of -French poetry formed an essential factor of his intellectual life—the -Fifteenth Century Amorists, and the later romanticists. He could quote -Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Théodore de Banville by the mile. When -stirred he had in his voice disquieting tones. He recited the “_Chanson -de Fortunio_” and the “_Chanson de Barberine_” in the moonlight, and -Corinna caught her breath and felt a shiver down her spine. It was a new -sensation for Corinna to feel shivers down her spine at the sound of a -man’s voice. - - _Mais j’aime trop pour que je die_ - _Qui j’ose aimer,_ - - _Et je veux mourir pour ma mie_ - _Sans la nommer._ - -She went to bed with the words singing in her ears like music. - -Altogether it was much more comforting to talk to Bigourdin than to take -lessons in household management from Félise. - -At last the day came when she plucked up courage and demanded of Martin -an account of his stewardship. He tried to evade the task by flourishing -in her face a bundle of notes. They had heaps, said he, to go on with. -But Corinna pressed her enquiry with feminine insistence. Had he kept -any memoranda of expenditure? Of course methodical Martin had done so. -Where was it? Reluctantly he drew a soiled note book from his pocket and -side by side at a little table on the verandah, her fair hair brushing -his dark cheek, they added up the figures and apportioned and divided -and eventually struck the balance. Corinna was one franc seventy-five -centimes in Martin’s debt. She had not one penny in the world. She had -one franc seventy-five centimes less than nothing. She rose -white-lipped. - -“You ought to have told me.” - -“Why?” asked Martin. “There’s plenty of money in the common stock.” - -“There never was any such thing as a common stock.” - -“I thought there was,” said Martin. “I thought we had arranged it with -Fortinbras. Anyhow, there’s one now.” - -“There isn’t,” she cried indignantly. “Do you suppose I’m going to live -on your money? What kind of a girl do you take me for?” - -“An unconventional one,” said Martin. - -“But not dishonourable. To assert my freedom and live by myself in Paris -and run about France alone with you may be unconventional. But for a -girl to accept support from a man when—when she gives him nothing in -return—is a different thing altogether.” - -They argued for some time, and at the end of the argument neither was -convinced. She upbraided. Martin ought to have struck a daily balance. -He continued to put forward the plea of the common stock to which she -had apparently given her tacit agreement. - -“Well, well,” said Martin at last, “there’s no dishonour in a loan. You -can give me an I.O.U. That’s a legal document.” - -“But how do you suppose I am ever going to pay you?” - -“That, my dear Corinna,” said he, “is a matter which doesn’t interest me -in the least.” - -She turned on him furiously. “Do you know what you are? Would you like -me to tell you? You’re the most utterly selfish man in the wide, wide -world.” - -She flung away through the empty _salle-à-manger_, and left Martin -questioning the eternal hills of the Limousin. “I offer,” said he, in -effect, “to share my last penny, in all honour and comradeship, with a -young person of the opposite sex whom I have always treated with the -utmost delicacy, who is absolutely nothing to me, who would scoff at the -idea of marrying me and whom I would no more think of marrying than a -Fifth of November box of fireworks, who has heaped on me all sorts of -contumelious epithets—I offer, I repeat, to divide my last crust with -her, and she calls me selfish. Eternal hills, resolve the problem.” But -the hills enfolded themselves majestically in their autumn purple and -deigned no answer to the little questionings of man. - -Unsuccessful he strolled through the dining-room and vestibule and at -the hotel entrance came upon the ramshackle hotel omnibus and the grey, -raw-boned omnibus horse standing unattended and forlorn. To pass the -time the latter shivered occasionally in order to jingle the bells on -his collar and scatter the magenta fly-whisk hung between his eyes. -Martin went up and patted his soft muzzle and put to him the riddle. But -the old horse, who naturally thought that these overtures heralded a -supply of bodily sustenance, and, in good faith, had essayed an -expectant nibble, at last jerked his head indignantly and refused to -concern himself with such insane speculation. Martin was struck by the -indifferent attitude of hills and horses towards the queer vagaries of -the human female. - -Then from the doorway sallied forth a flushed Corinna booted and spurred -for adventure. I need not tell you that a woman’s boots and spurs are on -her head and not on her feet. Corinna wore the little hat with the -defiant pheasant feather which she had not put on since her last night -in Paris. A spot of red burned angrily on each cheek. Martin accustomed -to ask: “Where are you going?” was on the point of putting the -mechanical question when he was checked by one of her hard glances. -Obviously she would have nothing to do with him. She passed him by and -walked down the hill at a brisk pace. Martin watched her retreating -figure until a turn in the road hid it from his view and then retiring -into the house, went up to his room and buried himself in Montaigne, to -which genial author, it may be remembered, he had been recommended by -Fortinbras. - -They did not meet till dinner, when she greeted him, all smiles. She -apologised for wayward temper and graciously offered, should she need -money, to accept a small loan for a short period. What her errand had -been when she set forth in her defiant hat she did not inform him. He -shrewdly surmised she had gone to the _Postes et Télégraphes_ in the -town; but he was within a million miles of guessing that she had -despatched a telegram to Bordeaux. - -The meal begun under these fair auspices was enlivened by a final act of -depravity on the part of the deboshed waiter, Polydore. He had of late -given more than usual dissatisfaction, to the point of being replaced by -the chambermaid and Félise when fashionable motordom halted at the Hôtel -des Grottes. Once Martin himself, beholding through the _terrasse_ -doorway Félise struggling around a large party of belated and hungry -Americans, came to her assistance and lent an amused hand. The guests -taking him for a deputy landlord, explained their needs in bad French. -Félise thanked him in blushing confusion, while Bigourdin, as he had -done a hundred times before, gave a week’s notice to Polydore, who, -acting scullion, was breaking plates and dishes with drunken -persistency. And now the truth is out as regards Polydore. With the sins -of sloth, ignorance, and uncleanliness he combined the sin of -drunkenness. Polydore was nearly always fuddled. Yet because of the ties -of blood, the foster-sisterdom of respective grandmothers, Bigourdin had -submitted to his inefficiency. Once more he revoked the edict of -dismissal. Once more Polydore kept sober for a few days. Then once more -he backslided. And he backslided irretrievably this night at dinner. - -All went fairly well at first. It was a slack night. Only three -_commis-voyageurs_ sat at the long table, and thus there were only seven -persons on whom to attend. It is true that his eye was somewhat glazed -and his hand somewhat unsteady; but under the awful searchlight of -Bigourdin’s glance, he nerved himself to his task. Soup and fish had -been served satisfactorily; then came a long, long wait. Presently -Polydore reeled in. As he passed by Bigourdin’s table he held up the -finger of a dirty hand bound with a dripping bloody rag. - -“_Pardon, je me suis coupé le doigt_,” he announced thickly and made a -bee-line to Corinna, with the ostensible purpose of removing her plate. -But just as he reached her, the extra dram that he must have taken to -fortify himself against the shock of his wound, took full effect. He -staggered, and in order to save himself clutched wildly at Corinna, -leaving on her bare neck his disgusting sanguine imprint. She uttered a -sharp cry and simultaneously Bigourdin uttered a roar and, rushing -across the room, in a second had picked up the unhappy varlet in his -giant arms. - -“_Ah, cochon!_”—he called him the most dreadful names, shaking him as -Alice shook the Red Queen. “_En voilà la fin!_ I will teach you to dare -to spread your infamous blood. I will break your bones. I will crush -your skull, so that you’ll never set foot here again. _Ah! triple -cochon!_” - -A flaming picture of gigantic wrath, he swept with him to the door, -whence he hurled him bodily forth. There was a dull thud. And that, as -far as the three commercial travellers (standing agape with their -napkins at their throats), Corinna, Martin, Félise and Bigourdin were -concerned, was the end of Polydore. Bigourdin, with an agility -surprising in so huge a man, was in an instant by Corinna’s side with -finger bowl full of water and a clean napkin. - -“Mademoiselle, that such a bestial personage should have dared to soil -your purity with his uncleanness makes me mad, makes me capable of -assassinating him. Permit me to remove his abominable contamination.” - -“Let me do it, _mon oncle_,” said Félise, who had run across. - -But Bigourdin waved her aside, and with reverent touch, as though she -were a goddess, he cleansed Corinna. She underwent the operation in her -cool way and when it was over smiled her thanks at Bigourdin. - -“Mademoiselle Corinna,” he cried, “what can I say to you? What can I do -for you? How can I repair such an outrage as you have suffered in my -house? You only have to command and everything I have is yours. -Command—insist—ordain.” He spread his arms wide, an agony of appeal in -his eyes. - -Martin, who had started to his feet, in order to save Corinna from the -grip of the intoxicated Polydore, but had been anticipated by the -impetuous rush of Bigourdin, gazed for a moment or two at his host and -then gasped, as his vision pierced into the huge man’s soul. This -perfervid declaration was not the good innkeeper’s apology for a -waiter’s disgusting behaviour. It was the blazing indignation of a real -man at the desecration inflicted by another on the body of the woman he -loved. A shiver of comprehension of things he had never comprehended -before swept through Martin from head to foot. He knew with absolute -knowledge that should she rise and, with a nod of her head, invite -Bigourdin to follow her to the verandah, she could be mistress absolute -of Bigourdin’s destiny. He held his breath, for the first time in his -dull life conscious of the meaning of love of women, conscious of -eternal drama. He looked at Corinna smiling with ironic curl of lip up -at the impassioned man. And he had an almost physical feeling within him -as though his heart sank like a stone. But a week ago she had declared, -with a vulgarity of which he had not thought her capable, that she had -had the flirtation of her life with Bigourdin. She must have known then, -she must know now that the man was in soul-strung earnest. What was her -attitude to the major things of Life? His brain worked swiftly. If, in -her middle-class English snobbery, she despised the French innkeeper, -why did she admit him to her social plane on which alone flirtation—he -had a sensitive gentleman’s horror of the word—was possible? If she -accepted him as a social equal, recognising in him, as he, Martin, -recognised, all that was vital in modern France—if she accepted him, -woman accepting man, why that infernal smile on her pretty face? I must -give you to understand that Martin knew nothing whatever about women. -His ignorance placed him in this dilemma. He watched Corinna’s lips -eager to hear what words would issue from them. - -She said coolly: “So long as this really is the end of Polydore, honour -is satisfied.” - -Bigourdin stiffened under her gaze, and collecting himself, bowed -formally. - -“As to that, Mademoiselle,” said he, “I give you my absolute assurance.” -He turned to the commercial travellers. “Messieurs, I ask your pardon. -You will not have to wait any longer. _Viens, Félise._” - -And landlord and niece took Polydore’s place for the rest of the meal. - -“Bigourdin’s a splendid fellow,” said Martin. - -Elbow on table she held a morsel of bread to her lips. “He waits so -well, doesn’t he?” she said. - -He shrugged his shoulders. What was the use of arguing with a being with -totally different standards and conception of values? Some little wisdom -he was beginning to acquire. He spent the evening at the Café de -Périgueux with Bigourdin, who, with an unwonted cloud on his brow, -abused the Government in _atrabiliar_ terms. - - * * * * * - -The next morning Corinna, attired in her daintiest, wandered off to -sketch lonely and demure. At _déjeuner_ she made a pretence of eating -and entertained Martin with uninteresting and (to him) unintelligible -criticism of Parisian actors. Bigourdin passed a moment or two of -professional commonplace at the table and retired. An inexperienced -young woman of the town, with the chambermaid’s assistance, replaced the -villain of last night’s tragedy. Corinna continued her hectic -conversation and took little account of Martin’s casual remarks. A mind -even less subtle than her companion’s would have assigned some nervous -disturbance as a reason for such feverish behaviour. But of what nature -the disturbance? Vaguely he associated it with the Sundayfied raiment. -Could it be that she intended, without drum or trumpet, to fly from -Brantôme? - -“By the way, Martin,” she said suddenly, when the last wizened grape had -been eaten, “have you ever taken those snapshots of the Château at -Bourdeilles?” - -“I’m afraid I haven’t,” said he. - -“You promised to get them for me.” - -“I’ll go over with my camera one of these days,” said Martin. - -“That means _aux Kalendes Grecques_. Why not this beautiful afternoon?” - -“If you’ll come with me.” - -“I’ve rather a headache—or I would,” said Corinna. “As it is, I think -I’ll have to lie down. But you go. It would do you good.” - -“Aha!” thought Martin astutely, “she wants to get rid of me, so that she -can escape by the afternoon train to Paris.” Aloud he said, “I’ll go -to-morrow.” - -“Why not to-day?” - -“I don’t feel like it,” said he. - -Not for the first time she struck an obstinate seam in Martin. He turned -a deaf ear both to her cajolings and her reproaches. To some degree he -felt himself responsible for Corinna, as a man must do who acts as -escort or what you will to an attractive and penniless young woman. If -she had decided to rush home to England, it was certainly his duty to -make commodious arrangements for her journey. - -“I’m going to loaf about to-day,” he announced. - -“Like the selfish pig you always are,” said Corinna. - -“_Comme tu veux_,” said Martin cheerfully. - -“Can’t you see I want you to go away for the afternoon?” said Corinna -angrily. - -“Any idiot could see that,” replied Martin. - -“Then why don’t you?” - -“I want to keep an eye on you.” - -She flushed scarlet and rose from the table. “All right. Spy as much as -you like. It doesn’t matter to me.” - -Once more she left him with a dramatic whirl of skirts. The procedure -having become monotonous impressed Martin less than on previous -occasions. He even smiled at the conscious smile of sagacity. There was -something up, he reflected, with Corinna, or he would eat his hat. She -contemplated some idiotic action. Of that there could be no doubt. It -behoved him, as the only protector she had in the world, to mount guard. -He mounted guard, therefore, over cigarette and coffee in the vestibule -of the hotel, and for some time held entertaining converse with -Bigourdin on the decadence of Germanic culture, and while Martin was -expounding the futile vulgarity of the spectacle of Sumurum which, on -one of his rare visits to places of amusement, he had witnessed in -London, the word of Corinna’s enigma was suddenly and dustily flashed -upon him. - -From a dusty two-seater car that drew up noisily at the door, sprang a -dusty youth with a reddish face and a little black moustache. - -“Is Mademoiselle Hastings in the hotel?” he asked. - -“Yes, monsieur,” said Bigourdin. - -“Will you kindly let her know that I am here—Monsieur Camille Fargot?” - -“Monsieur Fargot,” repeated Bigourdin. - -“Mademoiselle Hastings expects me,” said the young man. - -“_Bien, monsieur_,” said Bigourdin. He retired, his duty as a good -innkeeper compelling him. - -Martin, comfortable in his cane chair, lit another cigarette and with -dispassionate criticism inspected Monsieur Camille Fargot, who stood in -the doorway, his back to the vestibule, frowning resentfully on the -little car. - -This then was the word of Corinna’s enigma. To summon him by telegraph -had been the object of her sortie in the hat with the pheasant’s plume. -To welcome him had been the reason of her festive garb. In order to hold -unembarrassed converse she had tried to send Martin away to photograph -Bourdeilles. This then was the famous student in medicine who was -supposed to have won Corinna’s heart. Martin who had of late added -mightily to his collection of remarkable men thought him as commonplace -a young student as he had encountered since the far off days of -Margett’s Universal College. He seemed an indeterminate, fretful person, -the kind of male over whom Corinna in her domineering way would gallop -and re-gallop until she had trampled the breath out of him. Being a -kindly soul, he began to feel sorry for Camille Fargot. He was tempted -to go up to the young fellow, lay a hand on his shoulder and say: “If -you want to lead a happy married life, my dear chap, drive straight back -to Bordeaux and marry somebody else.” By doing so, he would indubitably -contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of human -beings and would rank among the philanthropists of his generation. But -Martin still retained much of his timidity and he also had a comradely -feeling towards Corinna. If she regarded this dusty and undistinguished -young gentleman as the rock of her salvation, who was he, powerless -himself to indicate any other rock of any kind, to offer objection? - -So realising the absurdity of standing on guard against so insignificant -a danger as Monsieur Camille Fargot, student in medicine, and not -desiring to disconcert Corinna by his presence should she descend to the -vestibule to meet her lover, he courteously begged pardon of the -frowning young man who blocked the doorway, and, passing by him, walked -meditatively down the road. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -WHEN Martin returned to the hotel a couple of hours later, he found that -Monsieur Camille Fargot had departed, and that Corinna had entrenched -herself in her room. On the wane of the afternoon she sent word to any -whom it might concern that, not being hungry, she would not come down -for dinner. To Félise, anxious concerning her health, she denied access. -Offers of comforting nourishment on a tray made on the outer side of the -closed door she curtly declined. Mystery enveloped the visit of Camille -Fargot. - -Martin learned from a perturbed Bigourdin that she had descended -immediately after he had left the vestibule and had led Fargot at once -into the _Salon de Lecture_, a moth-eaten and fusty cubby-hole in which -commercial travellers who found morbid pleasure in the early stages of -asphyxiation sometimes wrote their letters. There they had remained for -some time, at the end of which Monsieur Fargot—“_il avait l’air -hébété_,” according to Baptiste, a witness of his exit—had issued forth -alone and jumped into his car and sped away, presumably to Bordeaux. -After a moment or two Mademoiselle Corinne, in her turn, had emerged -from the _Salon de Lecture_ and looking very haughty with her pretty -head in the air—(again Baptiste)—had mounted to her apartment. - -Those were the bare facts. Bigourdin narrated them simply, in order to -account for Corinna’s non-appearance at dinner. With admirable taste he -forbore to question Martin as to the relations between the lady and her -visitor. Nor did Martin enlighten him. An art-student in Paris like -Corinna must necessarily have a host of friends. What more natural than -that one, finding himself in her neighbourhood, should make a passing -call. Such was the tacit convention between Martin and Bigourdin. But -the breast of each harboured the conviction that the visit had not been -a success of cordiality. Bigourdin exhibited brighter spirits that night -at the Café de l’Univers. He played his game of backgammon with Monsieur -le Maire and beat him exultantly. Around him the coterie cursed the -Germans for forcing the three years’ service on France. He paused, arm -uplifted in the act of throwing the dice. - -“Never mind. They seek it—they will get it. _Vous l’avez voulu, Georges -Dandin._ The _bon Dieu_ is on our side, just as He is on mine in this -battle here. _Vlan!_” - -The dice rattled out of the box and they showed the number that declared -him the winner. A great shout arose. The honest burgesses cried miracle. -_Voyons_, it was a sign from heaven to France. “_In hoc signo vinces!_” -cried a professor at the _Ecole Normale_, and the sober company had -another round of bocks to celebrate the augury. - -Martin and Bigourdin walked home through the narrow, silent streets and -over the bridges. There was a high wind sharpened by a breath of autumn -which ruffled the dim surface of the water; and overhead a rack of cloud -scudded athwart the stars. A light or two far up the gloomy scaur shewed -the Hôtel des Grottes. Bigourdin waved his hand in the darkness. - -“It is beautiful, all this.” - -Martin assented and buttoned up his overcoat. - -“It is beautiful to me,” said Bigourdin, “because it is my own country. -I was born and bred here and my forefathers before me. It is part of me -like my legs and my arms. I don’t say that I am beautiful myself,” he -added, with a laugh, his French wit seeing whither logic would lead him. -“But you understand.” - -“Yes,” said Martin. “I can understand in a way. But I have no little -corner of a country that I can call my own. I’m not the son of any -soil.” - -“Périgord is very fruitful and motherly. She will adopt you,” laughed -Bigourdin. - -“But I am English of the English,” replied Martin. “Périgord would only -adopt a Frenchman.” - -“I have heard it said and I believe it to be true,” said Bigourdin, -“that every English artist has two countries, his own and France. And it -is the artist who expresses the national feeling and not the university -professors and philosophers; and all true men have in them something of -the artistic, something which responds to the artistic appeal—I don’t -know if I make myself clear, Monsieur Martin—but you must confess that -all the outside inspiration you get in England in your art and your -literature is Latin. I say ‘outside,’ for naturally you draw from your -own noble wells; but for nearly a generation the _fin esprit anglais_, -in all its delicacy and all its subtlety and all its humanity is in -every way sympathetic with the _fin esprit français_. Is not that true?” - -“Now I come to think of it,” said Martin, “I suppose it is. I represent -the more or less educated middle-class Englishman, and, so far as I am -aware of any influence on my life, everything outside of England that -has moved me has been French. As far as I know, Germany has not produced -one great work of art or literature during the last forty years.” - -“_Voilà!_” cried Bigourdin, “how could a pig of a country like that -produce works of art? I haven’t been to Berlin. But I have seen -photographs of the Allée des Victoires. _Mon cher_, it is terrible. It -is sculpture hewn out by orders of the drill sergeant’s cane. _Ah, -cochon de pays!_ But you others, you English—at last, after our hundred -years of peace, you realise how bound you are to France. You -realise—all the noble souls among you—that your language is half -Latin, that for a thousand years, even before the Norman conquest, all -your culture, all the sympathies of your poetry and your art are -Roman—and Greek—_enfin_ are Latin. Your wonderful -cathedrals—Gothic—do you get them from Teutonic barbarism? No. You get -them from the Comacine masters—the little band of Latin spiritualists -on the shores of Lake Como. I am an ignorant man, Monsieur Martin, but I -have read a little and I have much time to think and—_voilà_—those are -my conclusions. In the great war that will come——” - -“It can’t come in our time,” said Martin. - -“No? It will come in our time. And sooner than you expect. But when it -does come, all that is noble and spiritual in England will be -passionately French in its sympathies. _Tiens, mon ami_—” he planted -himself at the corner of the dark uphill road that led to the hotel, and -brought his great hands down on Martin’s shoulders. “You do not yet -understand. You are a wonderful race, you English. But if you were pure -Frisians, like the German, you would not be where you are. Nor would you -be if you were pure Latins. What has made you invincible is the -interfusion since a thousand years of all that is best in Frisian and -Latin. You emerged English after Chaucer—Saxon bone and Latin spirit. -That is why, my friend, you hate all that is German. That is why you -love now all that is French. And that is why we, _nous autres Français_, -feel at last that England understands us and is with us.” - -Having thus analysed the psychology of the Entente Cordiale in terms -which proceeding from the lips of a small English innkeeper would have -astounded Martin, Bigourdin released him and together they mounted -homewards. - -“I was forgetting,” said he, as he bade Martin good-night. “All of what -I said was to prove that if you were in need of a foster-mother, -Périgord will take you to her bosom.” - -“I’ll think of it,” smiled Martin. - -He thought of it for five minutes after he had gone to bed and then fell -fast asleep. - -Early in the morning he was awakened by a great thundering at his door. -Convinced of catastrophe, he leaped to his feet and opened. On the -threshold the urbane figure of Fortinbras confronted him. - -“You?” cried Martin. - -“Even I. Having embraced Félise, breakfasted, washed and viewed Brantôme -proceeding to its daily labours, I thought it high time to arouse you -from your unlarklike slumbers.” - -Saying this he passed Martin and drew aside the curtains so that the -morning light flooded the room. He was still attired in his sober black -with the _avoué’s_ white tie which bore the traces of an all-night -journey. Then he sat down on the bed, while Martin, in pyjamas and -bare-foot, took up an irresolute position on the cold boards. - -“I generally get up a bit later,” said Martin with an air of apology. - -“So I gather from my excellent brother-in-law. Well,” said Fortinbras, -“how are you faring in Arcadia?” - -“Capitally,” replied Martin. “I’ve never felt so fit in my life. But I’m -jolly glad you’ve come.” - -“You want another consultation? I am ready to give you one. The usual -fee, of course. Oh, not now!” As Martin turned to the dressing table -where lay a small heap of money, he raised a soft, arresting hand. “The -hour is too early for business even in France. I have no doubt Corinna -is equally anxious to consult me. How is she?” - -“Much the same as usual,” said Martin. - -“By which you would imply that she belongs to the present stubborn and -stiff-necked generation of young Englishwomen. I hope you haven’t -suffered unduly.” - -“I? Oh, Lord, no!” Martin replied, with a laugh. “Corinna goes her way -and I go mine. Occasionally when there’s only one way to go—well, it -isn’t hers.” - -“You’ve put your foot down.” - -“At any rate Corinna hasn’t put her foot down on me. I think,” said -Martin, rubbing his thinly clad sides meditatively, “my journey with -Corinna has not been without profit to myself. I’ve made a discovery.” - -He paused. - -“My dear young friend,” said Fortinbras, “let me hear it.” - -“I’ve found out that I needn’t be trampled on unless I like.” - -Fortinbras passed his hand over his broad forehead and his silver mane -and regarded the young man acutely. Whatever possibilities he might have -seen of a romantic attachment between the pair of derelicts no longer -existed. Martin had taken cool measure of Corinna and was not the least -in love with her. The Dealer in Happiness smiled in his benevolent way. - -“Although in your present ruffled and unshorn state you’re not looking -your best, you’re a different man from my client of two months ago.” - -“Thanks to your advice,” said Martin, “my three weeks’ journey put me -into gorgeous health and here I’ve been living in clover.” - -“And the environment does not seem to be unfavourable to moral and -intellectual development.” - -“That’s Bigourdin and his friends,” cried Martin. “He is a splendid -fellow, a liberal education.” - -“He’s an apostle of sanity,” replied Fortinbras with an approving nod. -“Meanwhile sanity would not recommend your standing about in this chilly -air with nothing on. I will converse with you while you dress.” - -“I’ll have my tub at once,” said Martin. - -He disappeared into the famous bathroom and after a few moments returned -and made his toilet while he gossiped with Fortinbras of the things he -had learned at the Café de l’Univers. - -“It’s a funny thing,” said he, “but I can’t make Corinna see it.” - -“She’s Parisianised,” replied Fortinbras. “In Paris we see things in -false perspective. All the little finnicky people of the hour, artists, -writers, politicians are so close to us that they loom up like -mountains. You learn more of France in a week at Brantôme than in a year -at Paris, because here there’s nothing to confuse your sense of values. -Happy young man to live in Brantôme!” - -He sighed and, seeing that Martin was ready, rose and accompanied him -downstairs. Félise, fresh and dainty, with heightened colour and -gladness in her eyes due to the arrival of the adored father, poured out -Martin’s coffee. They were old-fashioned in the Hôtel des Grottes, and -drank coffee out of generous bowls without handles, beside which, on the -plate, rested great spoons for such sops of bread as might be thrown -therein. - -“It is as you like it?” she asked in her pretty, clipped English. - -“It’s always the best coffee I have ever drunk,” smiled Martin. He -looked up at Fortinbras lounging in the wooden chair usually occupied by -Corinna. “Do you know, Mr. Fortinbras, that Mademoiselle Félise has so -spoilt me with food and drink that I shall never be able to face an -English lodging-house meal again?” - -Fortinbras passed his arm round his daughter’s waist and drew her to him -affectionately. - -“She would spoil me too, if she had the chance. It is astonishing what -capability there is in this little body.” - -Félise, yielding to the caress, touched her father’s hair. “It’s like -_mamman_, when she was young, _n’est-ce pas_?” She spoke in French which -came more readily. - -“Yes,” said Fortinbras, in a deep voice. “Just like your mother.” - -“I try to resemble her. _Tu sais_, every time I feel I am lazy or -missing my duties, I think of _mamman_, and I say, ‘No, I will not be -unworthy of her.’ And so that gives me courage.” - -“I’ve heard so much of Mrs. Fortinbras,” said Martin, “that I seem to -know her intimately.” - -A smile of great tenderness and sadness crept into Fortinbras’s eyes as -he turned them on his daughter. - -“It is good that you still think and speak so much of her. Ideals keep -the soul winged for flight. If it flies away into the empyrean and comes -to grief like Icarus and his later fellow pioneers in aviation, at least -it has done something.” - -He released her and she sped away on her duties. Presently she returned -with a scared face. - -“Monsieur Martin, what has happened? Here is Corinna going to leave us -this morning.” - -“Corinna going? Does she know I’m here?” asked Fortinbras in wonderment. - -“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. I did not dream that she was up—she -generally rises so late. But she has told Baptiste to take down her -boxes for the omnibus to catch the early train for Paris. _Mon Dieu_, -what has happened to drive her away?” - -“Perhaps the visit yesterday of Monsieur Camille Fargot,” said Martin. - -“Eh?” said Fortinbras sharply. Then turning to Félise. “Go, my dear, and -lay my humble homage at the feet of Mademoiselle Corinna and say that as -I have travelled for nearly a day and a night in order to see her, I -crave her courtesy so far as to defer her departure until I can have -speech with her. You can also tell Baptiste that I’ll break his neck if -he touches those boxes. The omnibus might also anticipate its usual hour -of starting.” - -Félise departed. Fortinbras lit a cigarette, and holding it between his -fingers, frowned at it. - -“Camille Fargot? What was that spawn of nothingness doing here?” - -“I fancy she sent for him,” said Martin. “I suppose I had better tell -you all about it. I haven’t as yet—because it was none of my business.” - -“Proceed,” said Fortinbras, and Martin told him of the famous -balance-striking and of Corinna’s subsequent behaviour, including last -night’s retirement into solitude after her mysterious interview with the -spawn of nothingness. - -“Good,” said Fortinbras, when Martin had finished. “Very good. And what -had my excellent brother-in-law to say to it?” - -“Your excellent brother-in-law,” replied Martin, with a smile, “seems to -be a very delicate-minded gentleman.” - -Fortinbras did not press the subject. Waiting for Corinna, they talked -of casual things. Martin, now a creature of health and appetite, -devoured innumerable rolls and absorbed many bowls of coffee, to the -outspoken admiration of Fortinbras. But still Corinna did not come. Then -Martin filled a pipe of caporal and, smoking it with gusto, told -Fortinbras more of what he had learned at the Café de l’Univers. He -expressed his wonder at the people’s lack of enthusiasm for their -political leaders. - -“The adventurer politician is the curse of this country,” said -Fortinbras. “He insinuates himself into every government. He is out for -plunder and his hand is at the throat of patriotic ministers, and he -strangles France, while into his pockets through devious channels -filters a fine stream of German gold.” - -“I can’t believe it,” cried Martin. - -“Oh! He isn’t a traitor in the sense of being suborned by a foreign -Power. He is far too subtle. But he knows what policy will affect the -world’s exchanges to his profit; and that policy he advocates.” - -“A gangrene in the body politic,” said Martin. - -Fortinbras nodded assent. “It will only be the sword of war that will -cut it out.” - -On this, in marched Corinna dressed for travel, with a little -embroidered bag slung over her arm. She crossed the room, her head up, -her chin in the air, defiant as usual, and shook hands with Fortinbras. - -“I’ve come as you asked,” she said. “But let us be quick with the -talking, as I’ve got to catch a train.” - -“Sit down,” said Fortinbras, setting a chair for her. - -She obeyed and there the three of them were sitting once more round a -table in an empty dining room. But this time it was a cloudy morning in -early November, in the heart of France, the distant mountains across the -town half-veiled in mist, and a fine rain falling. Gusts of raw air came -in through the open terrace window at the end of the room. - -“So, my dear Corinna,” said Fortinbras, “you have not waited for the -second consultation which was part of our programme.” - -“That’s your fault, not mine,” said Corinna. “I expected you weeks ago.” - -“Doubtless. But your expectation was no reason for my coming weeks ago. -My undertaking, however, was a reason for your continuing to expect me -and being certain that sooner or later I should come.” - -“All right,” said Corinna. “This is mere talk. What do you want with -me?” - -“To ask you, my dear Corinna,” replied Fortinbras, in his persuasive -tones, “why you have disregarded my advice?” - -“And what was your advice?” - -“To do nothing headstrong, violent and lunatic until we met again.” - -“You should have come sooner. I find I am living now on Martin’s charity -and the time has come to put all this rubbish aside and go home to my -people with my tail between my legs. It’s vastly pleasant, I assure -you.” - -“Oh, young woman of little faith!—Why did you not put your trust in me, -instead of in callow medical students with ridiculous mothers?” - -Corinna flushed crimson and her eyes hardened in anger. “I suppose every -gossiping tongue in this horrid little hotel has been wagging. That’s -why I’m going off now, so that they can wag in my absence.” - -“But my dear Penthesilea,” said Fortinbras soothingly, “why get so -angry? Every living soul in this horrid hotel is on your side. They -would give their eyes and ears to help you and sympathise with you and -shew you that they love you.” - -“I don’t want their sympathy,” said Corinna stubbornly. - -“Or any human expression of affection or regret? You want just to pay -your bill like any young woman in an automobile who has put up for the -night and go your way?” - -“No. I don’t. But I’ve been damnably treated and I want to get away back -to England.” - -“Who has treated you damnably here?” asked Fortinbras. - -“Don’t be idiotic,” cried Corinna. “Everybody here has been simply -angelic to me—even Martin.” - -“On the whole I think I’ve behaved fairly decently since we started out -together,” Martin observed. - -“At any rate you act according to the instincts of a gentleman,” she -admitted. - -Fortinbras leaned back in his chair and drew a breath of relief. - -“I’m glad to perceive that this hurried departure is not an elopement.” - -“Elopement!” she echoed. “Do you think I’d——” - -Fortinbras checked her with his uplifted hand. “Sh! Would you like me to -tell you in a few words everything that has happened?” He bent his -intellectual brow upon her and held her with his patient, tired eyes. -“Being at the end of your resources, not desiring to share in the -vagabond’s pool with Martin, and losing faith in my professional pledge, -you bethink you of the young popinjay with whom, in your independent -English innocence, but to the scandal of his French relatives, you have -flaunted it in the restaurants and theatres of Paris. _Il vous a conté -fleurette._ He has made his little love to you. All honour and no blame -to him. At his age”—he bowed—“I would have done the same. You -correspond on the sentimental plane. But in all his correspondence you -will find not one declaration in form.” - -Corinna mechanically peeled off her gloves. Fortinbras drew a whiff of -his cigarette. He continued:— - -“You think of him as a possible husband: I am frank—it is my profession -to be so. But your heart,”—he pointed dramatically to her bosom—“has -never had a flutter. You don’t deny it. Good. In your extremity, as you -think, you send him an urgent telegram, such as no man of human feeling -could disregard. He borrows his cousin’s husband’s motor-car and obeys -your summons. You interview him in yonder little fly-blown, suffocating -salon. You put your case before him—with no matter what feminine -delicacy. He perceives that he is confronted with a claim for a demand -in marriage. He draws back. He cannot by means of any quirk or quibble -of French law marry you without his parent’s consent. This they would -never give, having their own well-matured and irrefragable plans. -Marriage is as impossible as immediate canonization. ‘But,’ says he, ‘we -are both young. We love each other, we shall both be in the _quartier_ -for time indefinite’—time is never definite, thank God, to youth—‘Why -should we not set up housekeeping together? I have enough for both—and -let the future take care of itself.’” - -Corinna rose and looked at him haggardly and clutched him by the -shoulder. - -“How, in the name of God, do you know that? Who told you? Who overheard -that little beast propose that I should go and live with him as his -mistress?” - -Fortinbras patted the white-knuckled hand and smiled, as he looked up -into her tense face. “Do you suppose, my dear child, that I have been -the father confessor of half the _Rive Gauche_ for twenty years without -knowing something of the ways of the _Rive Gauche_? without knowing -something, not exactly of international, but say of multi-national codes -of social observance, morality, honour, and so forth, and how they -clash, correspond and interact? I know the two international -forces—yours and Camille Fargot’s, converging on the matrimonial -point—and with simple certainty I tell you the resultant. It’s like a -schoolboy’s exercise in mathematics.” - -She freed herself and sat down again dejectedly. Everything had happened -as Fortinbras declared. His only omission, to repair which she had not -given him time, was the scene of flaming indignation incident to Camille -Fargot’s dismissal. And his psychology was correct. The young man’s -charming love-making had flattered her, had indeed awakened foolish -hopes; but she had never cared a button for him. Now she loathed him -with a devastating hate. She thrummed with her fingers on the table. - -“What is there left for me to do?” - -“Ah, now,” said Fortinbras genially, “we’re talking sense. Now we come -to our famous second professional consultation.” - -“Go ahead then,” said Corinna. - -“I mentioned the word ‘professional,’” Fortinbras remarked. - -Martin laughed and put a ten-franc piece into the soft open palm. - -“I’ll pay for both,” said he. - -“It’s like having your fortune told at a fair,” said Corinna. “But hurry -up!” she glanced at her watch. “As it is, I shan’t have time to pay my -bill. Will you see after it?” she drew from her bag one of the borrowed -notes and threw it across to Martin. “Well, I am all attention. I can -give you three minutes.” - -But just then a familiar sound of scrunching wheels came through the -open doors of the vestibule and dining-room. She started. - -“That’s the omnibus going.” - -“The omnibus gone,” said Fortinbras. - -“I’ll miss my train.” - -“You will,” said Fortinbras. - -“My luggage has gone with it.” - -“It has not,” said Fortinbras. “I gave instructions that it should not -be brought down.” - -Corinna gasped. “Of all the cool impertinence——!” She looked at her -watch again. “And the beastly thing has started long before its time!” - -“At my request,” said Fortinbras. “And now, as there is no possibility -of your getting away from Brantôme for several hours, perhaps you might, -with profit, abandon your attitude of indignation and listen to the -voice of reason.” - -“By the way,” said Martin, “have you had your _petit déjeuner_?” - -“No,” said Corinna sullenly. - -“Good God!” cried Fortinbras, holding up his hands, “and they let women -run about loose!” - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -CORINNA fortified by urgently summoned nourishment lit a cigarette and -sarcastically announced her readiness to listen to the oracle. The -oracle bowed with his customary benevolence and spoke for a considerable -time in florid though unambiguous terms. To say that Corinna was -surprised by the proposal which he set before her would inadequately -express her indignant stupefaction. She sat angry, with reddened -cheek-bones and tightly screwed lips, perfectly silent, letting the -wretched man complete his amazing pronouncement before she should -annihilate him. He was still pronouncing, however, when Bigourdin -appeared at the door. Fortinbras broke off in the middle of a sentence -and called him into the room. - -“My good Gaspard,” said he, in French, for Bigourdin knew little -English, “I am suggesting to mademoiselle a scheme for her perfect -happiness of which I have reason to know you will approve. Sit down and -join our conclave.” - -“I approve of everything in advance,” said the huge man, with a smile. - -“Then I suppose you’re aware of this delicious scheme?” she asked. - -“Not at all,” said he; “but I have boundless confidence in my -brother-in-law.” - -“His idea is that I should enter your employment as a kind of forewoman -in your _fabrique_.” - -“But that is famous!” exclaimed Bigourdin, with a sparkle in his eyes. -“It could only enter into that wise head yonder. The trade is getting -beyond Félise and myself. Sooner or later I must get some one, a woman, -to take charge of the manufacturing department. I have told Daniel my -difficulties and he comes now with this magnificent solution. _Car c’est -vraiment magnifique._” He beamed all over his honest face. - -“You would have to learn the business from the beginning,” said -Fortinbras quickly. “That would be easy, as you would have willing -instructors, and as you are not deficient in ordinary intelligence. You -would rise every day in self-esteem and dignity and at last find -yourself of use in the social organism.” - -“You propose then,” said Corinna, restraining the annihilatory outburst -owing to Bigourdin’s presence and shaking with suppressed wrath, “you -propose then that I should spend the life that God has given me in -making _pâté de foie gras_.” - -“Better that than spend it in making bad pictures or a fool of -yourself.” - -“I’ve given up painting,” Corinna replied, “and every woman makes a fool -of herself. Hence the perpetuation of the human species.” - -“In your case, my dear Corinna,” said Fortinbras, “that would be -commendable folly.” - -“You are insulting,” she cried, her cheeks aflame. - -“_Tiens, tiens!_” said Bigourdin, laying his great hand on his -brother-in-law’s arm. - -But Fortinbras stroked back his white mane and regarded them both with -leonine serenity. - -“To meet a cynical gibe with a retort implying that marriage and -motherhood are woman’s commendable lot cannot be regarded as an insult.” - -Corinna scoffed: “How do you manage to do it?” - -“Do what?” - -“Talk like that.” - -“By means of an education not entirely rudimentary,” replied Fortinbras -in his blandest tone. “In the meanwhile you haven’t replied to my -suggestion. Once you said you would like to take life by the throat and -choke something big out of it. You still want to do it—but you can’t. -You know you can’t, my dear Corinna. Even the people that can perform -this garrotting feat squeeze precious little happiness out of it. -Happiness comes to mortals through the most subtle channels. I suggest -it might come to you through the liver of an overfed goose.” - -At Corinna’s outburst, Bigourdin’s sunny face had clouded over. -“Mademoiselle Corinna,” said he earnestly, “if you would deign to accept -such a position, which after all has in it nothing dishonourable, I -assure you from my heart that you would be treated with all esteem and -loyalty.” - -The man’s perfect courtesy disarmed her. Of course she was still -indignant with Fortinbras. That she, Corinna Hastings, last type of -emancipated English womanhood, bent on the expression of a highly -important self, should calmly be counselled to bury herself in a stuffy -little French town and become a sort of housekeeper in a shabby little -French hotel. The suggestion was preposterous, an outrage to the -highly-important self, reckoning it a thing of no account. Why not turn -her into a chambermaid or a goose-herd at once? The contemptuous -assumption fired her wrath. She was furious with Fortinbras. But -Bigourdin, who treated the subject from the point of view of one who -asked a favour, deserved a civil answer. - -“Monsieur Bigourdin,” she said with a becoming air of dignity tempered -by a pitying smile, “I know that you are everything that is kind, and I -thank you most sincerely for your offer, but for private reasons it is -one that I cannot accept. You must forgive me if I return to England, -where my duty calls me.” - -“Your duty—to whom?” asked Fortinbras. - -She petrified him with a glance. “To myself,” she replied. - -“In that case there’s nothing more to be said,” remarked Bigourdin -dismally. - -“There’s everything to be said,” declared Fortinbras. “But it’s not -worth while saying it.” - -Corinna rose and gathered up her gloves. “I’m glad you realise the -fact.” - -Bigourdin rose too and detained her for a second. “If you would do me -the honour of accepting our hospitality for just a day or -two”—delicately he included Félise as hostess—“perhaps you might be -induced to reconsider your decision.” - -But she was not be moved—even by Martin who, having smoked the pipe of -discreet silence during the discussion, begged her to postpone her -departure. - -“Anyhow, wait,” said he, “until our good counsellor tells us what he -proposes to do for me. As we started in together, it’s only fair.” - -“Yes,” said Corinna. “Let us hear. What _ordonnance de bonheur_ have you -for Martin?” - -“Are you very anxious to know?” asked Fortinbras. - -“Naturally,” said Martin, and he added hastily in English, being -somewhat shy of revealing himself to Bigourdin: “Corinna can tell you -that I’ve been loyal to you all through. I’ve had a sort of blind -confidence in you. I’ve chucked everything. But I’m nearly at the end of -the financial tether, and something must happen.” - -“_Sans doute_,” said Fortinbras. So as to bring Bigourdin into range -again, he continued in French. “To tell you what is going to happen is -one of the reasons why I am here.” - -“Well, tell us,” said Corinna, “I can’t stand here all day.” - -“Won’t you sit down, mademoiselle?” said Bigourdin. - -Corinna took her vacated chair. - -“Aren’t you ever going to begin?” - -“I had prepared,” replied Fortinbras benevolently, “an exhaustive -analysis of our young friend’s financial, moral and spiritual state of -being. But, as you appear to be impatient, I will forego the pleasure of -imparting to you this salutary instruction. So perhaps it is better that -I should come to the point at once. He is practically penniless. He has -abandoned all ideas of returning to his soul-stifling profession. But he -must, in the commonplace way of mortals, earn his living. His soul has -had a complete rest for three months. It is time now that it should be -stimulated to effort that shall result in consequences more glorious -than the poor human phenomenon that is, I can predict. My prescription -of happiness, as you, Corinna, have so admirably put it, is that Martin -shall take the place of the unclean Polydore, who, I understand, has -recently been ejected with ignominy from this establishment.” - -His small audience gasped in three separate and particular fashions. - -“_Mon vieux, c’est idiot!_” cried Bigourdin. - -“What a career,” cried Corinna, with a laugh. - -“I never thought of that,” said Martin, thumping the table. - -Fortinbras rubbed his soft hands together. “I don’t deal in the -obvious.” - -“_Mon vieux_, you are laughing at us,” said Bigourdin. “Monsieur Martin, -a gentleman, a scholar, a professor——!” - -“A speck of human dust in search of a soul,” said Fortinbras. - -“Which he’s going to find among dirty plates and dishes,” scoffed -Corinna. - -“In the eyes of the Distributing Department of the Soul Office of -Olympus, where every little clerk is a Deuce of a High God, the clatter -of plates and dishes is as important as the clash of armies.” - -Corinna looked at Bigourdin. “He’s raving mad,” she said. - -Fortinbras rose unruffled and laid a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “My -excellent friend and disciple,” said he, “let us leave the company of -these obscurantists, and seek enlightenment in the fresh air of heaven.” - -Whereupon he led the young man to the terrace and walked up and down -discoursing with philosophical plausibility while his white hair caught -by the gusty breeze streamed behind like a shaggy meteor. - -Bigourdin, who had remained standing, sat down again and said -apologetically: - -“My brother-in-law is an oddity.” - -“I believe you,” assented Corinna. - -There was a short silence. Corinna felt that the time had come for a -dignified retirement. But whither repair at this unconscionably early -hour? The hotel resembled now a railway station at which she was doomed -to wait interminably, and one spot seemed as good as another. So she did -not move. - -“You have decided then to leave us, Mademoiselle Corinna?” said -Bigourdin at last. - -“I must.” - -“Is there no means by which I could persuade you to stay? I desire -enormously that you should stay.” - -Her glance met his and lowered. The tone of his voice thrilled her -absurdly. She had at once an impulse to laugh and a queer triumphant -little flutter of the heart. - -“To make _pâté de foie gras_? You must have unwarrantable faith in me.” - -“Perhaps, in the end,” said he soberly, “it might amuse you to make -_pâté de foie gras_. Who knows? All things are possible.” He paused for -a moment, then bent forward, elbow on table and chin in hand. “This is -but a little hotel in a little town, but in it one might find -tranquillity and happiness—_enfin_, the significance of things,—of -human things. For I believe that where human beings live and love and -suffer and strive, there is an eternal significance beneath the -commonplace, and if we grasp it, it leads us to the root of life, which -is happiness. Don’t you think so, mademoiselle?” - -“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted dubiously, never having taken the -trouble to look at existence from the subjective standpoint. Her -attitude was instinctively objective. - -“I thank you, mademoiselle,” said he. “I said that because I want to put -something before you. And it is not very easy. I repeat—this is but a -little hotel in a little town. I too am but a man of the people, -Mademoiselle; but this hotel—my father added to it and transformed it, -but it is the same property—this hotel has been handed down from father -to son for a hundred years. My great-grandfather, a simple peasant, rose -to be _Général de Brigade_ in the _Grand Armée_ of Napoléon. After -Waterloo, he would accept no favour from the Bourbons, and retired to -Brantôme, the home of his race, and with his little economies he bought -the Hôtel des Grottes, at which he had worked years before as a little -_va-nu-pieds_, turnspit, holder of horses—_que sais-je, moi_? Those -were days, mademoiselle, of many revolutions of fortune.” - -“And all that means——?” asked Corinna, impressed, in spite of English -prejudice, by the simple yet not inglorious ancestry of the huge -innkeeper. - -“It means, mademoiselle,” said Bigourdin, “that I wish to present myself -to you as an honest man. But as I am of no credit, myself, I would like -to expose to you the honour of my family. My great-grandfather, as I -have said, was _Général de Brigade_ in the _Grande Armée_. My -grandfather, _simple soldat_, fought side by side with the English in -the Crimea. My father, Sergeant of Artillery, lost a leg and an arm in -the War of 1870. My younger brother was killed in Morocco. For me, I -have done my _service militaire_. _Ou fait ce qu’on peut._ It is chance -that I am forty years of age and live in obscurity. But my name is known -and respected in all Périgord, mademoiselle——” - -“And again—all that means?” - -“That if a _petit hôtelier_ like me ventures to lay a proposition at the -feet of a _jeune fille de famille_ like yourself—the _petit hôtelier_ -wishes to assure her of the perfect _honorabilité_ of his family. In -short, Mademoiselle Corinne, I love you very sincerely. I can make no -phrases, for when I say I love you, it comes from the innermost depths -of my being. I am a simple man,” he continued very earnestly, and with -an air of hope, as Corinna flashed out no repulse, but sat sphinx-like, -looking away from him across the room, “a very simple man; but my heart -is loyal. Such as I am, Mademoiselle Corinne—and you have had an -opportunity of judging—I have the honour to ask you if you will be my -wife.” - -Corinne knew enough of France to realise that all this was amazing. The -average Frenchman, whom Bigourdin represented, is passionate but not -romantic. If he sets his heart on a woman, be she the angel-eyed spouse -of another respectable citizen or the tawdry and naughty little -figurante in a provincial company, he does his honest (or dishonest) -best to get her. _C’est l’amour_, and there’s an end to it. But he -envisages marriage from a totally different angle. Far be it from me to -say that he does not entertain very sincere and tender sentiments -towards the young lady he proposes to marry. But he only proposes to -marry a young lady who can put a certain capital into the business -partnership which is an essential feature of marriage. If he is -attracted towards a damsel of pleasing ways but devoid of capital, he -either behaves like the appalling Monsieur Camille Fargot, or puts his -common sense, like a non-conducting material, between them, and in all -simplicity, doesn’t fall in love with her. But here was a manifestation -of freakishness. Here was Bigourdin, man of substance, who could have -gone to any one of twenty families of substance in Périgord and chosen -from it an impeccable and well-dowered bride—here he was snapping his -fingers at French bourgeois tradition—than which there is nothing more -sacrosanct—putting his common sense into his cap and throwing it over -the windmills, and acting in a manner which King Cophetua himself, had -he been a Frenchman, would have condemned as either unconventional or -insane. - -Corinna’s English upper middle-class pride had revolted at the -suggestion that she should become an employee in a little bourgeois inn; -but her knowledge of French provincial life painfully quickened by her -experience of yesterday assured her that she was the recipient of the -greatest honour that lies in the power of a French citizen to offer. An -English innkeeper daring to propose marriage she would have scorched -with blazing indignation, and the bewildered wretch would have gone away -wondering how he had mistaken for an angel such a Catherine-wheel of a -woman. But against Bigourdin, son of other traditions so secure in his -integrity, so delicate in his approach, so intensely sincere in his -appeal, she could find within her not a spark of anger. All conditions -were different. The plane of their relations was different. She would -never have confessed to a flirtation with an English innkeeper. Besides, -she had a really friendly feeling for Bigourdin, something of -admiration. He was so big, so simple, so genuine, so intelligent. In -spite of Martin’s complaint that she could not realise the spirit of -modern France, her shrewd observation had missed little of the moral and -spiritual phenomena of Brantôme. She was well aware that Bigourdin, -_petit hôtelier_ that he was, stood for many noble ideals outside her -own narrow horizon. She respected him; she also derived feminine -pleasure from his small mouth and the colour of his eyes. But the -possibility of marrying him had never entered her head. She had not the -remotest intention of marrying him now. The proposal was grotesque. As -soon as she got clear of the place she would throw back her head and -roar with laughter at it; a gleeful little devil was already dancing at -the back of her brain. For the moment, however, she did not laugh: on -the contrary a queer thrill again ran through her body, and she felt a -difficulty in looking him in the face. After having thrown herself at a -man’s head yesterday only to be spurned, her outraged spirit found -solace in having to-day another man suppliant at her feet. Of his -sincerity there could be no possible question. This big, good man loved -her. For all her independent ways and rackety student experiences, no -man before had come to her with the loyalty of deep love in his eyes, no -man had asked her to be his wife. Absurd as it all was, she felt its -flattering deliciousness in every fibre of her being. - -“_Eh bien_, Mademoiselle Corinne, what do you answer?” asked Bigourdin, -after a breathless silence during which, with head bent forward over the -table, she had been nervously fiddling with her gloves. - -“You are very kind, Monsieur Bigourdin. I never thought you felt like -that towards me,” she said falteringly, like any well-brought-up -school-girl. “You should have told me.” - -“To have expressed my feelings before, Mademoiselle, would have been to -take advantage of your position under my roof.” - -Suddenly there came an unprecedented welling of tears in her eyes, and a -lump in her throat. She sprang to her feet and with rare impulsiveness -thrust out her hand. - -“Monsieur Bigourdin, you are the best man I have ever met. I am your -friend, your very great friend. But I can’t marry you. It is -impossible.” - -He rose too, holding her and put the eternal question. - -“But why?” - -“You deserve a wife who loves you. I don’t love you. I never could love -you”—and then from the infinite spaces of loneliness there spread about -her soul a frozen desolation, and she stood as one blasted by Polar -wind—“I shall never love a man all my life long. I am not made like -that.” - -And she seemed to shrivel in his grasp and, flitting between the -snow-clad tables like a wraith, was gone. - -“_Bigre!_” said Bigourdin, sitting down again. - - * * * * * - -Soon afterwards, Fortinbras and Martin, coming in from the terrace, -found him sprawling over the table a monumental mass of dejection. But, -full of their own conceits, they did not divine his misery. Fortinbras -smote him friendly wise on his broad back and aroused him from lethargy. - -“It is all arranged, _mon vieux_ Gaspard,” he cried heartily. “I have -been pouring into awakening ears all the divine distillations of my -philosophy. I have initiated him into mysteries. He is a neophyte of -whom I am proud.” - -Bigourdin, in no mood for allusive hyperbole, shook himself like a great -dog. - -“What kind of imbecility are you talking?” - -“The late Polydore——” Fortinbras began. - -“Ah! Finish with it, I beg you,” interrupted Bigourdin, with an unusual -air of impatience. - -“It isn’t a joke, I assure you,” said Martin. “I have come to the end of -my resources. I must work. You will, sooner or later have to fill the -place of Polydore. Give me the wages of Polydore and I am ready to fill -it. I could not be more incapable, and perhaps I am a little more -intelligent.” - -“It is serious?” - -“As serious as can be.” - -Bigourdin passed his hand over his face. “I went to sleep last night in -a commonplace world, I wake up this morning to a fantastic universe in -which I seem to be a leaf, like those outside”—he threw a dramatic -arm—“driven by the wind. I don’t know whether I am on my head or my -heels. Arrange things as seems best to you.” - -“You accept me then as waiter in the Hôtel des Grottes?” - -“_Mon cher_,” said Bigourdin, “in the state of upheaval in which I find -myself I accept everything.” - -The upheaval or rather overthrow—for he used the word -“_bouleversement_”—of the big man was evident. He sat the dejected -picture of defeat. No man in the throes of sea-sickness ever cared less -what happened to him. Fortinbras looked at him shrewdly and his thick -lips formed themselves into a noiseless whistle. Then he exchanged a -glance with Martin, who suddenly conjectured the reason of Bigourdin’s -depression. - -“She ought to be spanked,” said he in English. - -Fortinbras beamed on him. “You do owe something to me, don’t you?” - -“A lot,” said Martin. - -Félise, her face full of affairs of high importance ran into the -_salle-à-manger_. - -“_Mon Oncle_, le Père Didier sends word that he has decided not to kill -his calf till next week. What shall we do?” - -“We’ll eat asparagus,” Bigourdin replied and lumbered out into the -November drizzle. - -Three pairs of wondering eyes sought among themselves a solution of this -enigmatic utterance. - -“_Mais qu’est-ce que cela veut dire?_” cried Félise, with pretty mouth -agape. - -“It means, my child,” said Fortinbras, “that your uncle, with a -philosopher’s survey of the destiny of the brute creation, refuses to be -moved either to ecstatic happiness or to ignoble anger by the -information that the life of the obscure progeny of a bull and a cow has -been spared for seven days. For myself I am glad. So is our -tender-hearted Martin. So are you. The calf has before him a crowded -week of frisky life. Send word to Père Didier that we are delighted to -hear of his decision and ask him to crown the calf with flowers and send -him along to-day for afternoon tea.” - -He smiled and waved a dismissing hand. Félise, laughing, kissed him on -the forehead and tripped away, having little time to spare for -pleasantry. - -The two men smoked in silence for some time. At last Fortinbras, -throwing the butt end of his cigarette into Corinna’s coffee-bowl, rose, -stretched himself and yawned heartily. - -“Having now accomplished my benevolent purpose,” said he, “I shall -retire and take some well-earned repose. In the meanwhile, Monsieur -Polydore Martin, you had better enter upon your new duties.” - -So Martin, after he had procured a tray and an apron from the pantry, -took off his coat, turned up his shirt-sleeves and set to work to clear -away the breakfast things. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -BEHOLD Martin, the professor, transformed into the perfect -waiter—perfect, at least, in zeal, manner and habiliment. His dress -suit, of ardent cut but practically unworn, gave the _salle-à-manger_ an -air of startling refinement and prosperity. At first Bigourdin, -embarrassed by the shifting of the relative position, had deprecated -this outer symbol of servitude. A man could wait in a lounge suit just -as well as in a tail-coat—a proposition which Fortinbras vehemently -controverted. He read his perplexed brother-in-law a lecture on the -psychology of clothes. They had a spiritual significance, bringing -subjective and objective into harmony. A judge could not devote his -whole essence to the administration of justice if he were conscious of -being invested in the glittering guise of a harlequin. If Martin wore -the tweeds of the tourist he would feel inharmonious with his true -waiter-self, and therefore could not wait with the perfect waiter’s -spiritual deftness. Besides, he had not counselled his disciple to wait -as an amateur. The way of the amateur was perdition. No, when Martin -threw his napkin under his left arm, he should flick a bit of his heart -into its folds, like a true professional. - -“Arrange it as you like,” said the weary Bigourdin. - -Fortinbras arranged and Martin became outwardly the perfect waiter. Of -the craft itself he had much to learn, chiefly under the guidance of -Bigourdin and sometimes under the shy instruction of Félise. Its many -calls on intelligence and bodily skill surprised him. To balance a -piled-up tray on one bent-back hand required the art of a juggler. He -practised for days with a trayful of bricks before he trusted himself -with plates and dishes. By means of this exercise his arm became -muscular. He discovered that the long, grave step of the -professor—especially when he bore a load of eatables—did not make for -the perfect waiter’s celerity. He acquired the gentle arts of salad -making and folding napkins into fantastic shapes. Never handy with his -fingers, and, like most temperate young men in London lodgings, -unaccustomed to the corkscrew, he found the clean prestidigitation of -cork-drawing a difficult accomplishment. But he triumphed eventually in -this as in all other branches of his new industry. And he liked it. It -amused and interested him. It was work of which he could see the result. -The tables set before the meal bore testimony to his handicraft. Never -had plate been so polished, cutlery so lustrous, glass so transparent in -the hundred years history of the Hôtel des Grottes. And when the guests -assembled it was a delight to serve them according to organised scheme -and disarm criticism by demonstration of his efficiency. He rose early -and went to bed late, tired as a draught-dog and slept the happy sleep -of the contented human. - -Bigourdin praised him, but shrugged his shoulders. - -“What you are doing it for, _mon ami_, I can’t imagine.” - -“For the good of my soul,” laughed Martin, “and in order to attain -happiness.” - -“Our good friends the English are a wonderful race,” said Bigourdin, -“and I admire them enormously, but there’s not one of them who isn’t a -little bit mad.” - -To the coterie of the Café de l’Univers, however, he gave a different -explanation altogether of Professor Martin’s descent in the social -scale. The Professor, said he, had abandoned the _professoriat_ for the -more lucrative paths of commerce and had decided to open a hotel in -England, where every one knew the hotels were villainous and provided -nothing for their clients but overdone bacon and eggs and raw -beef-steaks. The Professor, more enlightened than his compatriots, was -apprenticing himself to the business in the orthodox Continental -fashion. As the substantial Gaspard Bigourdin himself, son of the late -equally substantially, although one-armed and one-legged Armédée -Bigourdin, had, to the common knowledge of Brantôme, served as scullion, -waiter, _sous-chef de cuisine_, _sous-maître d’hôtel_, and bookkeeper at -various hotels in Lyons, in order to become the _bon hôtelier_ that he -was, his announcement caused no sensation whatever. The professor of the -_Ecole Normale_ bewailed his own chill academic lot and proclaimed -Monsieur Martin an exceedingly lucky fellow. - -“But, _mon cher patron_, it isn’t true what you have said at the Café de -l’Univers,” protested Martin, when Bigourdin told him of the -explanation. - -Bigourdin waved his great arm. “How am I to know it isn’t true? How am I -to get into the English minds of you and my _farceur_ of a -brother-in-law so as to discover why you arrive as an honoured guest at -my hotel and then in the wink of an eye become the waiter of the -establishment? What am I to say to our friends? They wouldn’t care a -hang (_ils se ficheraient pas mal_) for your soul. If you are to -continue to mix with them on terms of equality they must have an -explanation, _nom de Dieu_, which they can understand.” - -“I never dreamed,” said Martin, “of entering the circle at the Café -again.” - -“_Mais, j’y ai pensé, moi, animal!_” cried Bigourdin. “Because you have -the fantasy of becoming my waiter, are you any less the same human being -I had the pleasure of introducing to my friends?” - -And then, perhaps for the first time, Martin appreciated his employer’s -fine kindness and essential loyalty. It would have been quite easy for -the innkeeper to dismiss his waiter from the consideration of the -hierarchy of Brantôme as a mad Englishman, an adventurer, not a -professor at all, but a broken-down teacher of languages giving private -lessons—an odd-job instructor who finds no respect in highly -centralised, bureaucratic France; but the easy way was not the way of -Gaspard Bigourdin. So Martin, driven by _force majeure_, lent himself to -the pious fraud and, when the evening’s work was done, divested himself -of his sable panoply of waiterdom and once more took his place in the -reserved cosy corner of the Café de l’Univers. - -The agreeable acidity in his life which he missed when Corinna, -graciously dignified, had steamed off by the night train, he soon -discovered in the pursuit of his new avocation. Euphémie, the cook, -whose surreptitious habits of uncleanliness carefully hidden from -Félise, but unavoidably patent to an agonised Martin, supplied as much -sourness as his system required. She would not take him seriously and -declared her antipathy to _un monsieur_ in her kitchen. To bring about -an _entente cordiale_ was for Martin an education in diplomacy. The -irritability of a bilious commercial traveller, poisoned by infected -nourishment at his last house of entertainment—the reason invariably -given for digestive misadventure—so that his stomach was dislocated, -often vented itself on the waiter serving an irreproachable repast at -the Hôtel des Grottes. The professional swallowing of outraged feelings -also gave a sub-acid flavour to existence. Motorists on the other hand, -struck by his spruceness and polite demeanour, administered pleasant -tonic in the form of praise. They also bestowed handsome tips. - -These caused him some misgiving. A gentleman could be a waiter or -anything you pleased, so long as it was honest, and remain a gentleman: -but could he take tips? Or rather, having taken tips, was it consonant -with his gentility to retain them? Would it not be nobler to hand them -over to Baptiste or Euphémie? Bigourdin, appealed to, decided that it -would be magnificent but would inevitably disorganise these excellent -domestics. Martin suggested the _Assistance Publique_ or the church -poor-box. - -“I thought,” said Bigourdin, “you became a waiter in order to earn your -living?” - -“That is so,” replied Martin. - -“Then,” said Bigourdin, “earn it like a waiter. Suppose I were the -manager of a Grand Hotel and gave you nothing at all—as it is your -salary is not that of a prince—how would you live? You are a servant of -the public. The public pays you for your services. Why should you be too -proud to accept payment?” - -“But a tip’s a tip,” Martin objected. - -“It is good money,” said Bigourdin. “Keep your fine five-franc pieces in -your pocket and _elles feront des petits_, and in course of time you -will build with them an hotel on the Côte d’Azur.” - -In a letter to Corinna, Martin mentioned the disquieting problem. -Chafing in her crowded vicarage home she offered little comfort. She -made the sweeping statement that whether he kept his tips or not, the -whole business was revolting. He wrote to Fortinbras. The Dealer in -Happiness replied on a postcard: “Will you never learn that a sense of -humour is the beginning and end of philosophy?” - -After which, Martin, having schooled himself to the acceptance of -_pourboires_, learned to pocket them with a professional air and ended -by regarding them as part of the scheme of the universe. As the heavens -rained water on the thirsty fields, so did clients shower silver coins -on hungry waiters. How far, as yet, it was good for his soul he could -not determine. At any rate, in his mild, unambitious way, he attained -the lower rungs of happiness. I do not wish it to be understood that if -he had entered as a stranger, say, the employment of the excellent -proprietor of the excellent Hôtel de Commerce at Périgueux, he would -have found the same contentment of body and spirit. The alleviations of -the Hôtel des Grottes would have been missing. His employer, while -acknowledging his efficiency still regarded him as an eccentric -professor, and apart from business relations treated him as friend and -comrade. The notables of the town accepted him as an equal. To the -cave-dwellers and others of the proletariat with whom he had formed -casual acquaintance, he was still “Monsieur Martin,” greeted with the -same shade of courteous deference as before, although the whole -population of Brantôme knew of his social metamorphosis. Wherever he -went, in his walks abroad, he met the genial smile and raised hat. He -contrasted it all with the dour unwelcome of the North London streets. -There he had always felt lost, a drab human item of no account. Here he -had an identity, pleasantly proclaimed. So would a sensitive -long-sentence Convict, B 2278, coming into the world of remembering men, -rejoice that he was no longer a number, but that intensely individual -entity Bill Smith, recognised as a lover of steak-and-kidney pudding. As -a matter of fact, he seldom heard his surname. The refusal of -Bigourdin’s organs of speech to grapple with the Saxon “Overshaw” has -already been remarked upon. From the very first Bigourdin decreed that -he should be “Monsieur Martin”—Martin pronounced French fashion—and as -“Monsieur Martin” he introduced him to the Café de l’Univers, and -“Monsieur Martin” he was to all Brantôme. But of what importance is a -surname, when you are intimately known by your Christian name to all of -your acquaintance? Who in the world save his mother and the Hastings -family had for dreary ages past called him “Martin”? Now he was -“Martin”—or “Monsieur Martin”—a designation which agreeably combined -familiarity with respect—to all who mattered in Périgord. It must be -remembered that it was an article of faith among the good Brantômois -that, in Périgord, only Brantôme mattered. - -“You people are far too good to me,” he remarked one day to Bigourdin. -“It is a large-hearted country.” - -“Did I not say, my friend,” replied Bigourdin, “that Périgord would take -you to her bosom?” - -And then there was Félise, who in her capacity of task-mistress called -him peremptorily “Martin”; but out of official hours nearly always -prefixed the “Monsieur.” She created an atmosphere of grace around the -plates and dishes, her encouraging word sang for long afterwards in his -ears. With a tact only to be found in democratic France she combined the -authority of the superior with the intellectual inferior’s respect. -Apparently she concerned herself little about his change of profession. -Her father, the all-wise and all-perfect, had ordained it; her uncle, -wise and perfect, had acquiesced; Martin, peculiarly wise and almost -perfect, had accepted it with enthusiasm. Who was she to question the -doings of inscrutable men? - -They met perforce more often than during his guesthood, and, their -common interests being multiplied, their relations became more familiar. -They had reached now the period of the year’s stress, that of the great -_foie gras_ making when fatted geese were slain and the masses of -swollen liver were extracted and the huge baskets of black warty -truffles were brought in from the beech forests where they had been -hunted for by pigs and dogs. Martin, like every one else in the -household, devoted all his spare moments to helping in the steaming -kitchen supervised by a special chef, and in the long, clean-smelling -work-room where rows of white-aproned girls prepared and packed the -delectable compound. Here Bigourdin presided in brow-knit majesty and -Félise bustled a smiling second in command. - -“It is well to learn everything,” she said to Martin. “Who knows when -you may be glad to have been taught how to make _pâté de foie gras_?” - -So Martin, though such a course was not contemplated in his agreement -with the Hôtel des Grottes, received much instruction from her in the -delicate craft, which was very pleasant indeed. And the girls looked on -at the lessons after the way of their kind and exchanged glances one -with another, and every one, save perhaps Bigourdin, who had not yet -recovered his serenity overclouded by Corinna’s rejection of his suit, -was exceedingly contented. - -And then, lo and behold, into this terrestrial paradise strayed the -wandering feet of Lucien Viriot. - -Not that Lucien was unexpected. His father, Monsieur Viriot, _marchand -de vins en gros_, and one of the famous circle at the Café de l’Univers, -had for the past month or two nightly proclaimed the approaching release -of the young man from military service. Martin had heard him. Bigourdin -on their walks home together had dilated on the heaven-decreed union of -the two young people and the loneliness of his lot. Where would he find, -at least, such a _ménagère_ as Félise? - -“It’s a pity Corinna hadn’t any sense,” said Martin on one of these -occasions. - -Bigourdin heaved a mighty sigh. “Ah, _mon vieux_!” said he by way of -answer. The sigh and the “Ah, _mon vieux_!” were eloquent of shattered -ideals. - -“There is always Madame Thuillier who used to help me when Félise was -little,” he continued after a while, meditatively. “She has experience, -but she is as ugly as a monkey, the poor woman!” - -Whereupon he sighed again, leaving Martin in doubt as to the exact -position he intended the ill-favoured lady to occupy in his household. - -Anyhow, Martin was forewarned of the ex-warrior’s advent. So was Félise. -“But I cannot leave you, _mon oncle_,” she cried in dismay. “What would -become of you? Who would mend your linen? What would become of the -hotel? What would become of the fabrique?” - -“Bah!” said he, snapping his fingers at such insignificant -considerations. “There is always the _brave_ Madame Thuillier.” - -“But I thought you detested her—as much as you can detest anybody.” - -“You are mistaken, _mon enfant_,” replied Bigourdin. “I have a great -regard for her. She has striking qualities. She is a woman of ripe age -and much common sense.” - -Which shows how double-tongued men may be. - -“_C’est une vieille pimbèche!_” cried Félise. - -“_Tais-toi_,” said Bigourdin severely. For a “_vieille pimbèche_” means, -at the very least, a horrid old tabby with her claws out. - -“I won’t be silent,” laughed Félise rebelliously. “_C’est une vieille -pimbèche_, and I’m not going to leave you to her. I don’t want to leave -you. I don’t want to marry.” - -“That is what all little girls say,” replied Bigourdin. “But when you -see Lucien return, _joli garçon_, holding his head in the air like a -brave little soldier of France, and looking at you out of his honest -eyes, you will no longer tell me, ‘_Je ne veux pas me marier, mon -oncle_.’” - -She laughed at his outrageous mimicry of a modest little girl’s accent. - -“It’s true all the same,” she retorted. “I don’t want to marry anybody, -and Lucien after having seen all the pretty girls of Paris won’t want to -marry me.” - -“If he doesn’t——!” cried Bigourdin threateningly. “If he dares——!” - -“Well, what then?” asked Félise. - -“I’ll have a serious conversation with his father,” declared Bigourdin. - -Thus both Martin and Félise, as I have said, were forewarned. Yet -neither took much notice of the warning. Martin had been aware, all -along, of the destiny decreed for her by the omnipotent Triumvirate -consisting of her uncle, the bon Dieu and Monsieur Viriot, and, -regarding her as being sealed to another, had walked with Martin-like -circumspection (subject, in days not long since past, for Corinna’s -raillery) along the borderline of the forbidden land of tenderness. But -this judicious and conscientious skirting had its charm. I would have -you again realise that the eternal feminine had entered his life only in -the guise: first, of the kissed damsel who married the onion-loving -plumber; secondly, of Corinna, by whose “Bo!” he had been vastly -terrified until he had taken successfully to saying “Bo!” himself, a -process destructive of romantic regard; and thirdly, of Félise, a -creature—he always remembered Fortinbras’s prejudiced -description—“like one of the wild flowers from which Alpine honey is -made,” and compact of notable, gentle and adorable qualities. Naturally, -of the three, he preferred Félise. Félise, for her part, like the well -brought up damsel of the French bourgeoisie, never allowed her eyelids -to register the flutterings of the heart which the mild young -Englishman’s society set in action. She scarcely admitted the -flutterings to herself. Possibly, if he had been smitten with a fine -frenzy of love-making, she would have been shocked. But as he shewed -respectful gratification at being allowed to consort with her and -gratitude for her little bits of sympathetic understanding, and as she -found she could talk with him more spontaneously than with any other -young man she had ever met, she sought rather than avoided the many -daily opportunities for pleasant intercourse. And there was not the -least harm in it; and the bogey of a Lucien (whom she had liked well -enough, years ago in a childish way) was still hundreds of miles from -Brantôme. In fact they entered upon as pretty a Daphnis and Chloe idyll -as ever was enacted by a pair of innocents. - -Then, one fine day, as I have stated, in swaggered Lucien Viriot, -ex-cuirassier, and spoiled the whole thing. - -His actual hour of swaggering into Martin’s ken was unexpected—by -Martin, at any rate. He was playing backgammon with the Professor of the -_Ecole Normale_ in the midst of elders discussing high matters of local -politics, when all of a sudden an uproar arose among these grave and -reverend seniors, clapping of hands and rattling on tables, and Martin, -looking up from his throw of the dice, perceived the stout, -square-headed, close-cropped Monsieur Viriot, _marchand de vins en -gros_, his eyes sparkling and his cheeks flushed above his white -moustache and imperial, advancing from the café door, accompanied by his -square-headed, close-cropped, sturdy, smiling, swaggeringly-sheepish, -youthful replica. And when they reached the group, the young man bowed -punctiliously before grasping each outstretched hand; and every one -called him “_mon brave_” to which he replied “_bien aimable_”; and -Monsieur Viriot presented him formally—“_mon his qui vient de terminer -son service militaire_”—to Monsieur Beuzot, _Professor à l’Ecole -Normale_, a newcomer to Brantôme, and to Monsieur Martin, _ancien -professeur anglais_. Whereupon Monsieur Lucien Viriot declared himself -enchanted at meeting the two learned gentlemen, and the two learned -gentlemen reciprocated the emotion of enchantment. Then amid scuffling -of chairs and eager help of waiters, room was made for Monsieur Viriot -and Monsieur Lucien; and the proprietor of the café, Monsieur Cazensac, -swarthy, portly and heavy-jowled, a Gascon from Agen, who, if the truth -were known took the good, easy folk of Périgord under his protection, -came up from behind the high bottle-armamented counter, where Madame -Cazensac, fat and fair, prodigally beamed on the chance of a ray -reaching the hero of the moment—which happened indeed before Cazensac -could get in a word, and brought Lucien to his feet in a splendid spread -of homage to the lady—Monsieur Cazensac, I say, came up and grasped -Lucien by the hand and welcomed him back to the home of his fathers. He -turned to Monsieur Viriot. - -“Monsieur orders——?” - -“_Du vin de champagne._” - -Happy land of provincial France where you order champagne as you order -brandy and soda and are contented when you get it. There is no worry -about brand or vintage or whether the wine is _brut_ or _extra-sec_. You -just tell the good landlord to bring you champagne and he produces the -sweet, sticky, frothy, genuine stuff, and if you are a Frenchman, you -are perfectly delighted. It is champagne, the wine of feasts, the wine -of ceremony, the wine of ladies, the wine of toasts—_Je lève mon -verre_. If the uplifted glass is not beaded with bubbles winking at the -brim, what virtue is there in the uplifting? It is all a symbolical -matter of sparkle. . . . So, at the Café de l’Univers, Monsieur Cazensac -disappeared portentously, and a few moments later re-appeared ever so -much more portentously, followed by two waiters, one bringing the -foot-high sacred glasses, the other the uncorked bottles labelled for -all who wished to know what they were drinking: “Grand Champagne d’Ay,” -with the vine-proprietor’s name inconspicuously printed in the -right-hand bottom corner. All, including Monsieur Cazensac, clinked -foaming glasses with Lucien, and, after they had sipped in his honour, -they sipped again to the cries of “_Vive l’Armée_” and “_Vive la -France_,” whereupon they all settled down comfortably again to the -enjoyment of replenished goblets of the effervescing syrup. - -Martin looked with some envy at the young man who sat flushed with his -ovation and twisted his black moustache to the true cuirassier’s angle, -yet bore himself modestly among his elders. Willing and gay of heart he -had given the years of his youth to the service of his country; when the -great struggle should come—and all agreed it was near—he would be one -of the first to be summoned to defend her liberty, and willing and gay -of heart he would ride to his death. And now, in the meanwhile, he had -returned to the little square hole in France that had been ordained for -him (little square peg) before he was born, and was to be reserved for -him as long as his life should last. And Martin looked again at the -chosen child of destiny, and this time with admiration, for he knew him -to be a man; a man of the solid French stock that makes France -unshakable, of the stock that in peace may be miserly of its pence, but -in war is lavish of its blood. “I am not that young fellow’s equal,” -thought Martin humbly; and he felt glad that he had not betrayed -Bigourdin’s trust with regard to Félise. What kind of a wretch would he -have been to set himself up as a rival to Lucien Viriot? Bigourdin had -been right in proclaiming the marriage as arranged by the bon Dieu. He -loved Félise—who knowing her did not? But he loved her in brotherly -fashion and could reconcile it to his heart to bestow her on one so -worthy. And all this without taking into account the sentiments of -Félise. Her heart, in military phrase, was a _ville ouverte_. Lucien had -but to march in and take it. - -After a while Lucien, having looked about the café, rose and went from -table to table where sat those citizens who, by reason of lowlier social -status or personal idiosyncrasies, had not been admitted into the Inner -Coterie of Notables, and greeted old acquaintances. Monsieur Viriot then -caught Martin’s eye and lifted his glass again. - -“_A votre santé_, Monsieur Martin.” - -Martin bowed. “_A la vôtre, monsieur!_” - -“I hope that you and my son will be good friends. It is important that -the youth of our two countries, so friendly, so intimately bound, should -learn to know and appreciate each other; especially when one of them, -like yourself, has the power of translating England into terms of -France.” - -And with the courteous simplicity of a grey, square-headed, -close-cropped _marchand de vins en gros_, he lifted his glass again. - -“_A l’Entente Cordiale._” - -When Lucien returned to the circle, his father re-introduced him to -Martin. - -“In fact,” he concluded, “here is an Englishman who not only speaks -French like you and me, but eats truffles and talks the idiom of the -quarrymen and is qualifying himself to be a good Périgordin.” - -It was charmingly said. The company hummed approval. - -“_C’est bien vrai_,” said Bigourdin. - -Lucien again bowed. He would do himself the honour of presenting himself -at monsieur’s hotel. Monsieur was doubtless staying at the Hôtel des -Grottes. - -“Monsieur Bigourdin has taken me as a waiter into his service,” replied -Martin. - -“_Ah! Tant mieux!_” exclaimed Lucien, as if the announcement were the -most ordinary one in the world, and shook hands with him heartily. - -“Like that, as my father says, one becomes a good Périgordin.” - -So Martin went home and contentedly to bed. Again a little corner of the -earth that he might call his own was offered him in this new land so -courteous to, yet so sensitively aloof from the casual Englishman, but -on the other hand, so generous and hospitable to the Englishman into -whom the spirit of France had entered. Was there here, thought he, the -little round hole which he, little round peg, after thirty years of -square-holed discomfort, had been pre-ordained to fill? The thought -soothed him. - -He woke up in the night, worried by some confused dream. In his head -stuck the Latin tag: _Ubi bene ibi patria_. He kicked indignantly -against the aphorism. It was the infamous philosophy of the Epicurean -opportunist. If he had been comfortable in Germany would he regard -Germany as his fatherland? A million times no. When you wake up at four -o’clock in the morning to a soul-stirring proposition, you think in -terms of millions. He was English of the English. His Swiss motherdom -was but an accident of begetting. He was of his father’s race. -Switzerland did not exist in his being as a national influence. English, -narrowly, stupidly, proudly, he was and English he would remain to the -end of time. To denaturalise himself and become a Frenchman—still less -a mere Périgordin—was abhorrent. But to remain an Englishman, and as an -Englishman—an obscure and menial Englishman—to be given the freedom of -a province of old France was an honour of which any man breathing the -breath of life might be justly proud. I can, thought he, in the intense, -lunatic clarity of four o’clock in the morning, show France what England -stands for. I have a chance of one in a million. I am an Englishman -given a home in the France that I am learning to love and to understand, -I am a hyphen between the two nations. - -Having settled that, he turned over, tucked the bed-clothes well round -his shoulders and went soundly to sleep again. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -A FEW evenings afterwards Bigourdin gave a dinner of ceremony to the -Viriots—and a dinner of ceremony in provincial France is a very -ceremonious and elaborate affair. All day long there had been anxious -preparations. Félise abandoning the _fabrique_, toiled assiduously with -Euphémie, while Bigourdin, expert chef like all good hotel-keepers, -controlled everything with his master touch. The crazily ceremonious -hour of seven-thirty was fixed upon; not only on account of its -ceremoniousness, but because by that time the commercial travellers -would have finished their meal and melted away. The long middle table -was replaced by a round table prodigally adorned with flowers and four -broad tricolour ribbons, each like the sash of Monsieur le Maire, -radiating from under a central silver épergne laden with fruit of which -a pineapple was the crown. A bewildering number of glasses of different -shapes stood at each place, to be filled each kind in its separate order -with the wine ordained for each separate course. Martin rehearsed the -wine service over and over again with a solemn Bigourdin. As a -lieutenant he had the _plongeur_ (or washer-up of glass and crockery) -from the Café de l’Univers, an earnest neophyte tense with the -excitement of practising a higher branch of his profession. - -Hosts and guests were ceremoniously attired; Bigourdin and the elder -Viriot suffocated in tightly buttoned frock-coats of venerable and -painful fit; Lucien, more dashing, wore a morning coat (last cry of Bond -Street) acquired recently from the “High Life” emporium in Paris; all -three men retained yellow dogskin gloves until they sat down to table. -Madame Viriot, stout and placid, appeared in her black silk dress and an -old lace collar and her very best hat with her very best black ostrich -feather secured by the old rose-diamond buckle, famous throughout the -valley of the Dordogne, which had belonged to her -great-great-grandmother; and, lastly, Félise wore a high-necked simple -frock of dazzling whiteness which might have shewn up her delicate dark -colouring had not her cheeks been inordinately pale. - -Bigourdin had Madame Viriot on his right, Monsieur Viriot on his left, -and Félise sat between Monsieur Viriot and Lucien. Every one was most -ceremoniously polite. It was “_mon cher_ Viriot,” and “_mon cher_ -Bigourdin,” and the formal “_vous_” instead of the “_mon vieux_” and the -“_tu_” of the café and of ordinary life; also, “_chère madame_,” and -“Monsieur Lucien” and “_ma nièce_.” And although from childhood Félise -and Lucien had called each other by their Christian names, it was now -“monsieur” and “mademoiselle” between them. You see, marriage is in -France a deuce of a ceremony which begins months before anybody dreams -of setting the wedding bells a-ringing. This dinner of ceremony was the -first scene of the first act of the elaborate drama which would end on -the curtain being run down to the aforesaid wedding-bells. Really, when -one goes into the question, and considers all the barbed wire -entanglements that French law and custom interpose between two young -people who desire to become man and wife, one not only wonders how any -human pair can go through the ordeal and ever marry at all, but is -profoundly convinced that France is the most moral country on the face -of the globe. As a matter of fact, it is. - -It was a long meal of many courses. Martin, aided by the _plongeur_, -acquitted himself heroically. Manners professional and individual, and -also the strain of service prevented him from attending to the -conversation. But what he could not avoid overhearing did not impress -him with its brilliance. It was a self-conscious little company. It -threw about statistics as to the state of the truffle crop; it listened -to Lucien’s modest anecdotes of his military career; it decided that -Parisians were greatly to be pitied in that fate compelled them to live -in Paris instead of Brantôme. Even the flush of good cheer failed to -inspire it with heartiness. For this perhaps the scared unresponsiveness -of one of the chief personages was responsible. - -“Are you fond of dogs, mademoiselle?” asked Lucien, valiant in small -talk. - -“_Oui, monsieur_,” replied Félise. - -“Have you any now, mademoiselle?” - -“_Non, monsieur_,” replied Félise. - -“The beautiful poodle that was so clever is dead, I believe,” remarked -Madame Viriot in support of her son. - -“_Oui, madame_,” replied Félise. - -However alluring to the young Frenchman about to marry may be timid -innocence with downcast eyes, yet, when it is to such a degree -monosyllabic, conversation does not sparkle. Martin, accustomed to her -tongue wagging charmingly, wondered at her silence. What more attractive -companion could she desire than the _beau sabreur_ by her side? And she -ate next to nothing. When she was about to decline a _bécasse au fumet_, -as to the success of which Euphémie’s heart was beating like a -sledge-hammer, he whispered in her ear, - -“Just a little bit. Do.” - -And as she helped herself, he saw the colour mount to her neck. He felt -quite pleased at having prevailed on her to take nourishment. - -What happened after the meal in the private salon, where Félise, -according to sacred rite, served coffee and liqueurs, Martin did not -know. He was too busy with Euphémie and the chambermaid and Baptiste and -the _plongeur_ in cleaning up after the banquet. Besides, as the waiter -of the establishment, what should he have been doing in that ceremonious -gathering? - -When the work was finished and a concluding orgy on broken meats and -half emptied bottles had been temperately concluded, and Euphémie for -the hundredth time had been informed of the exact appreciation which -each particular dish had received from Monsieur and Madame -Viriot—“young people, you see,” she explained, “have their own affairs -and they see everything rose-coloured, and you could give them boiled -horse-liver and they wouldn’t know the difference between that and -_ris-de-veau à l’Impériale_; it doesn’t matter what you put into the -stomachs of children; but with old, serious folks, it is very important. -I made the stomach of Monsieur Viriot the central idea of my dinner—I -have known the stomach of Monsieur Viriot for twenty years—also that of -Madame, for old ladies, _voyez-vous_, know more than you think”—and -when the weary and zealous servants had gone their separate ways, Martin -locked up, and, escaping from the generous atmosphere of the kitchen, -entered the dimly lit vestibule with the idea of smoking a quiet -cigarette before going to bed. There he found Bigourdin, sprawling his -great bulk over the cane-seated couch. - -“Did things go all right?” he asked. - -“Wonderfully. Everybody dined well. They can go to the _ban_ and -_arrière-ban_ of their friends and relations and say that there is not -such a _cuisine_ in Périgord as at the Hôtel des Grottes. And the -service was excellent. Not the smallest hitch. I congratulate you and -thank you, _mon ami_. But _ouf_!”—he took a great breath of relief—“I -am glad it is over. I was not built for the formalities of society. _Ça -vous fatigue!_” - -“It’s also fatiguing from the waiter’s point of view,” laughed Martin. - -“But it is all necessary when one has a young girl to marry. The father -and mother of the young man expect it. It is very complicated. Soon -there will be the formal demand in marriage. They will wear -gloves—_c’est idiot_—but what would you have? It is the custom. And -then there will be a dinner of ceremony at the Viriots’. He has some -Chambertin in his cellar, my old friend Viriot—ah, _mon petit_ -Martin!”—he blew a kiss to the purple goddess beloved of Bacchus and by -him melted into each cobwebbed bottle—“It is the only thing that -reconciles me to it. Truth to say, one dines abominably at the Viriots. -If he does not produce some of that Chambertin, I withdraw the dowry of -Félise.” - -“It’s all arranged then?” Martin asked. - -“All what?” - -“The marriage.” - -“Without doubt.” - -“Then Monsieur Lucien has been accepted by Mademoiselle Félise? I mean, -he has proposed to her, as we English say?” - -“_Mais non!_” cried Bigourdin, with a shocked air. “Lucien is a -correctly brought up young man and would not offend the proprieties in -that matter. It is not the affair of Lucien and Félise, it is the affair -of the two families, the parents; and for Félise I am _in loco -parentis_. Propose to Félise! What are you talking about?” - -“It all interests me so much,” replied Martin. “In England we manage -differently. When a man wants to marry a girl, he asks her, and when -they have fixed up everything between themselves, they go and announce -the fact to their families.” - -To which Bigourdin made the amazing answer: - -“_C’est le phlègme britannique!_” - -British phlegm! When a man takes his own unphlegmatic way with a maid! -Martin could find no adequate retort. He was knocked into a cocked hat. -He threw away his cigarette and, being very tired, half stifled a yawn. -Bigourdin responded mightily and rose to his feet. - -“_Allons dodo_,” said he. “All this has been terribly fatiguing.” - - * * * * * - -So fatiguing had it all been that Félise, for the first time since the -chicken-pox and measles of childhood, remained in her bed the next day. -Euphémie, her personal attendant, found her in the morning a wan ghost -with a splitting headache, and forbade her to rise. She filled her up -with _tilleul_, the decoction of lime-leaves which in French households -is the panacea for all ills, and, good and comfortable gossip, extolled, -in Gallic hyperbole, the dazzling qualities of Monsieur Lucien. At last, -fever-eyed and desperate, Félise sat up in bed and pointed to the door. - -“_Ma bonne Euphémie, laisse-moi tranquille! Va-t’en! Fich’-moi la -paix!_” - -Euphémie gaped in bewilderment. It was as though a dove had screamed: - -“Leave me alone! Go away! Go to Blazes!” - -“_Ah, la! la! ma pauvre petite!_” Euphémie knew not what she was saying, -but she went. She went to Bigourdin and told him that mademoiselle was -in delirium, she had brain-fever, and if he wanted to save her reason, -he must send at once for the doctor. The doctor came, diagnosed a chill -on the vaguest of symptoms, and ordered _soupe à l’huile_. This invalid -fare is a thin vegetable soup with a layer of salad oil floating on the -top with the object of making the liquid slip gratefully down the -gullet: the French gullet, be it understood. Félise, in spite of her -lifelong French training, had so much of England lingering in her -œsophagus, that it abhorred _soupe à l’huile_. The good doctor’s advice -failed. She fasted in bed all day, declaring that, headache apart, she -was perfectly well, and the following morning, a wraith of herself, -arose and went about her ordinary avocations. - -“But what is the matter with her?” asked Bigourdin of Martin. “Nothing -could have disagreed with her at that abominable dinner, because she -didn’t eat anything.” - -As Martin could throw no light on the sudden malady of Félise, Bigourdin -lit a cigarette and inhaled a huge puff. - -“It needs a woman, _voyez-vous_, to look after a young girl. Men are no -good. There are a heap of secrets——” With his arms he indicated Mount -Blanc piled on Mount Everest. “I shall be glad when she is well and duly -married. Perhaps the approaching betrothal affects her. Women have -nerves like that. She is anxious to know the result of the negotiations. -At the present moment the Viriots are free to make or make not their -demand. It would be good to reassure her a little. What do you think?” - -Martin gave utterance to the profound apophthegm: “There is nothing so -upsetting as uncertainty.” - -“That is my idea!” cried Bigourdin. “Pardon me for consulting you on -these details so intimate and a little sacred. But you have a clear -intelligence and a loyal heart.” - -So it came to pass that, after _déjeuner_, Bigourdin took Félise into -their own primly and plushily furnished salon, and, like an amiable bull -in a boudoir, proceeded to smash up the whole of her universe. - -“There is no doubt,” he proclaimed, “Monsieur and Madame Viriot have -dreamed of it for ten years. I give you a dowry—there is no merit in -it, because I love you like my own daughter—but I give you a dowry such -as there are not many in Périgord. Lucien loves you. He is _bon garçon_. -It has never entered his head to think of another woman for his wife. It -is all arranged. In two or three days—you must allow for the -_convenances_—Monsieur Viriot and Lucien will call on me. So, my dear -little angel, do not be afraid.” - -Félise had listened to this, white-faced and hollow-eyed. “But I don’t -want to marry Lucien, _mon oncle_!” - -“_Comment?_ You don’t want to marry Lucien?” - -“No, _mon oncle_.” - -“But——” He swept the air with a protesting gesture. - -“I have already told you so,” said Félise. - -“But, _ma chère petite_, that wasn’t serious. It was because you had -some stupid and beautiful idea of not deserting me. That is all -imbecile. Young people must marry, _sacrebleu_! so that the race is -perpetuated, and fathers and mothers and uncles don’t count.” - -“But what has that to do with it, _mon oncle_?” protested Félise. “I -find Lucien very charming; but I don’t love him. If I loved him, I would -marry him. But as I don’t love him, I can’t marry him.” - -“But marry him and you will love him,” cried Bigourdin, as millions of -French fathers and uncles have cried for the last three or four hundred -years. “It is very simple. What more do you want than a gallant fellow -like Lucien?” - -Then, of course, she broke down, and began to cry. Bigourdin, unused to -feminine tears, tried to clutch his hair. If it had been longer than -half an inch of upstanding bristle, he would have torn it. - -“You don’t understand, _mon oncle_,” she sobbed, with bowed head. “It is -only my mother who can advise me. I must see my mother.” - -Bigourdin put his arm round the girl’s slender shoulders. “Your mother, -my poor Félise, sees nobody.” - -She raised her head and flashed out: “She sees my father. She lives with -him in the same house. Why shouldn’t she see me?” - -“_Tiens, tiens_, my little Félise,” said Bigourdin soothingly. “There is -no need for you to consult your mother. Both your father and your mother -have a long while ago decided that you should marry Lucien. Do you think -I would take a step of which they did not approve?” - -“A long while ago is not to-day,” sobbed Félise. “I want to talk to my -mother.” - -Bigourdin walked across the salon, with his back to her, and snapped his -fingers in peculiar agitation, and muttered below his breath: “_Nom de -Dieu, de nom de Dieu, de nom de Dieu!_” Kindest-hearted of mortals -though he was, he resented the bottom being knocked out of his scheme of -social existence. For years he had looked forward to this alliance with -the Viriots. Personally he had nothing to gain: on the contrary, he -stood to lose the services of Félise and a hundred thousand francs. But -he had set his heart on it, and so had the Viriots. To go to them and -say, “My niece refuses to marry your son,” would be a slash of the whip -across their faces. His failure to bring up a young girl in the proper -sentiments would be a disgrace to him in the eyes of the community. He -felt hurt, too, because he no longer sufficed her; she wanted her -mother; and it was out of the question that she should go to her mother. -No wonder he swore to himself softly. - -“But, _mon Dieu_,” said he, turning round. “What have you against -Lucien?” - -Whereupon they went over all the argument again. She did not love -Lucien. She didn’t want to marry Lucien. She would not marry a man she -did not love. - -“Then you will die an old maid,” said Bigourdin. “An old maid, -_figure-toi_! It would be terrible!” - -Félise sniffed at such terrors. Bigourdin, in desperation, asked what he -was to tell the Viriots. “The truth,” said Félise. But what was the -truth? - -“Tell me, my little Félise,” said he, gently, “there is, by chance, no -one else?” - -Then Félise waxed indignant and routed the unhappy man. She gave him to -understand that she was a _jeune fille bien élevée_ and was not in the -habit of behaving like a kitchenmaid. It was cruel and insulting to -accuse her of clandestine love-affairs. And Bigourdin, bound by his -honourable conventions, knew that she was justified in her resentment. -Again he plucked at his bristles, scared by the spectacle of outraged -maidenhood. The tender-eyed dove had become a flashing little eagle. A -wilier man than he might have suspected the over-protesting damsel. -Woman-like, she pressed her advantage. - -“_Mon oncle_, I love you with all my heart, but you are a man and you -don’t understand.” - -“That is absolutely true,” said he. - -“So you see there is only one person I can explain it to, and that is my -mother.” - -Thus she completed the vicious little circle. And again the helpless -Bigourdin walked across the salon and turned his back on her and -muttered the incantation which brings relief to distracted man. But this -time she went up to him and put an arm round his great body and laid her -face against his sleeve. - -“_Tu sais, je suis bien malheureuse._” - -It was a knife stuck in the honest fellow’s heart. He caught her to him -and in his turn protested vehemently. He would not allow her to be -unhappy. He would cut off his head rather than allow her to be unhappy. -He would do anything—his French caution forbade an offer to send the -Viriots packing—anything in reason to bring the colour back to her -white cheeks. - -Suddenly he had an inspiration which glowed all over his broad face and -caused him to hold her out at arms’ length and laugh joyously. - -“You can’t see your mother—but there is your good Aunt Clothilde. She -will be a second mother to you. A woman so pious and so sympathetic. You -will be able to tell her all your troubles. She has married a regiment -of daughters. What she doesn’t know of young girls isn’t worth knowing. -You are tired, you are ill. You need a change, a little holiday. Go and -spend a month with her, and when you come back we’ll see what can be -done with regard to Lucien. I’ll write to her now.” - -And without waiting to hear her demure “_Bien, mon oncle_,” he escaped -to the _bureau_ where he should find the writing materials which did not -profane the sacred primness of the salon, and plunged into -correspondence. Félise, left alone, pondered for a moment or two, with -faint wrinkling of her smooth forehead, and then, sketching a gesture of -fatalistic resignation, went off to the kitchen, where a great special -boiling of goose livers was in progress. On the way she met Martin -carrying a load of porcelain pots. But she passed him by coldly; and for -the rest of the day she scarcely threw at him a couple of words. - -Meanwhile Bigourdin beamed over the letter to his elder sister -Clothilde, a comfortable and almost opulent widow who lived at Chartres. -They had not met for a dozen years, it is true, and she had only once -seen Félise; but the sense of the family is very strong in France, -especially where marriage alliances are concerned, and he had no doubt -that she would telegraph, as requested, and authorise him to entrust -Félise to her keeping. Verily it had been an inspiration. It was a -solution of difficulties. The Viriots had given signs of an almost -indecent hurry, which naturally had scared Félise. A month was a long -time. Clothilde was a woman of experience, tact and good sense. She -would know how to bring Félise to a reasonable state of mind. If she did -not succeed—well—he was not the man to force his little Félise into a -distasteful marriage. In any case he had a month’s respite. - -Having stated his case at length, he went out into the town to post such -an important letter at the central _Postes et Télégraphes_, and on the -way back, looked in at the shop of the very respectable Madame Chauvet, -who, with her two elderly daughters, sold crucifixes and rosaries and -books of devotion and candles and all that would supply the devout needs -of the religious population. And after a prolonged and courtly -conversation, he induced Madame Chauvet, in consideration of their old -friendship, her expenses and an honorarium of twenty francs, to -undertake the safe convoy of Félise from Brantôme to the house of Madame -Robineau, her Aunt Clothilde, at Chartres. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -MADAME ROBINEAU was tall, angular, thin-lipped and devout, and so far as -she indulged in social intercourse, loved to mingle with other angular, -thin-lipped and devout ladies who belonged to the same lay sisterhood. -She dressed in unrelieved black and always wore on her bosom a bronze -cross of threatening magnitude. She prayed in the Cathedral at -inconvenient hours, and fasted as rigorously as her Confessor, Monsieur -l’Abbé Duloup, himself. Monsieur l’Abbé regarded her as one of the most -pious women in Chartres. No doubt she was. - -But Félise, although a good Catholic in her very simple way, and anxious -to win favour by observance of the rules of the solitary household, was -wicked enough to wish that her aunt were not quite so pious. In -religious matters a wide latitudinarianism prevailed at the Hôtel des -Grottes. There, with a serene conscience, one could eat meat on Fridays -and crack a mild joke at the expense of the good Saint Peter. But -neither forbidden flesh nor jocularity on any subject, let alone on a -saint’s minor foibles, mitigated the austerities of the perky, -wind-swept little house at Chartres. No wonder, thought Félise, Aunt -Clothilde had married off a regiment of daughters—four to be exact; it -had been an easy matter; she herself would have married any caricature -of a man rather than spend her life in an atmosphere so rarefied and so -depressing. She pitied her cousins, although, according to her Aunt -Clothilde’s pragmatical account, they were all doing splendidly and had -innumerable babies. By the end of the first week of her visit, she -consolidated an intense dislike to Chartres and everything in it, -especially the Cathedral. Now, it may be thought that any one who can -shake the fist of disapprobation at the Cathedral of Chartres, is beyond -the pale of human sympathy. But when you are dragged relentlessly -thither in the icy dark of every winter morning, and the bitter gloom of -every winter evening, to say nothing of sporadic attendances during the -daytime, you may be pardoned if your æsthetic perceptions are obscured -by the sense of outrage inflicted on your personal comfort. To many -generations of men the Cathedral has been a symbol of glories, -revelations and eternities. In such slanting shafts of light, mystically -hued, the Grail might have been made manifest, the Sacred Dove might -have glided down to the Head of the Holy One. . . . But what need to -tell of its spiritual wonders and of its mystery, the heart of which it -is given to every suffering man to pluck out according to his own soul’s -needs? It was a little tragedy that to poor Félise the Cathedral -symbolised nothing but an overwhelming tyranny. She hated every stone of -it, as much as she hated every shiny plank and every polished chair in -her aunt’s frigid salon. Even the streets of Chartres repelled her by -their bleakness. They lacked the smiling homeliness of Brantôme; and the -whole place was flatter than the Sahara. She sighed for the rocks and -hills of Périgord. - -She also ate the unaccustomed bread of idleness. Had her aunt permitted, -she would delightedly have helped with the house-work. But Madame -Robineau, widow of a dealer in grain who, before his death, had retired -on a comfortable fortune, lived, according to her lights, at her ease, -her wants being scrupulously administered to by a cook and a maid. There -was no place in the domestic machine for Félise. Her aunt passed long -chilly hours over ecclesiastical embroidery, sitting bolt upright in her -chair with a _chaufferette_ beneath her feet. Félise, unaccustomed -needlewoman, passed longer and chillier hours (having no _chaufferette_) -either playing with a grey ascetic cat or reading aloud _La Croix_, the -only newspaper allowed to cross the threshold of the house. Now and -again, Madame Robineau would drop her thin hands into her lap and regard -her disapprovingly. One day she said, interrupting the reading, - -“My poor child, how your education has been neglected. You scarcely know -how to hold a needle, you can’t read aloud without making faults, and -you are ignorant of the elements of our holy religion.” - -“My Aunt,” Félise replied, “I know how to manage an hotel.” - -“That would be of little use to your husband.” - -Félise winced at the unhappy word. - -“I am never going to marry, _ma tante_,” she said. - -“You surely do not expect to be admitted into a convent?” - -“Heaven forbid!” cried Félise. - -“Heaven would forbid,” said Madame Robineau severely, “seeing that you -have not the vocation. But the _jeune fille bien élevée_”—in the mouth -of her Aunt Clothilde the familiar phrase assumed a detestable -significance, implying, to Félise’s mind, a pallid young creature from -whom all blood and laughter had been driven by undesirable virtues—“the -_jeune fille bien élevée_ has only two careers offered to her—the -convent or marriage. For you, my dear child, it is marriage.” - -“Well,” said Félise, with a smile, preparing, to resume the article in -the newspaper over which she had stumbled, “perhaps the beautiful prince -will come along one of these days.” - -But Madame Robineau rebuked her for vain imaginings. - -“It is true, what I said, that your education has been neglected. A -young girl’s duty is not to look for princes, but to accept the husband -chosen by the wisdom of her family.” - -“_Ma tante_,” said Félise demurely, after a pause during which her aunt -took up her work again. “If you would teach me how to embroider, perhaps -I might learn to be useful in my future home.” - -From this and many other conversations, Félise began to be aware of the -subtle strategy of Bigourdin. On the plea of providing her with -pro-maternal consolation, he had delivered her into the hands of the -enemy. This became abundantly clear as the days went on. Aunt Clothilde, -incited thereto by her uncle, was opening a deadly campaign in favour of -Lucien Viriot. Now, the cathedral, though paralysing, could be borne for -a season, and so could the blight that pervaded the house; but the -campaign was intolerable. If she could have resented the action of one -so beloved as Bigourdin, she would have resented his sending her to her -Aunt Clothilde. Under the chaperonage of the respectable Madame Chauvet -she had fallen into a pretty trap. She had found none of the promised -sympathy. Aunt Clothilde, although receiving her with the affectionate -hospitality due to a sister’s child, had from the first interview frozen -the genial current of her little soul. The great bronze cross in itself -repelled her. If it had been a nice, gentle little cross, rising and -falling on a motherly bosom, it would have worked its all-human, -adorable influence. But this was a harsh, aggressive, -come-and-be-crucified sort of cross, with no suggestion of pity or -understanding. The sallow, austere face above it might have easily been -twisted into such a cross. It conveyed no invitation to the sufferer to -pour out her troubles. Uncle Bigourdin was wrong again. Rather would -Félise have poured out her troubles into the portentous ear of the -Suisse at the Cathedral. - -Her aunt and herself met nowhere on common ground. They were for ever at -variance. Madame Robineau spoke disparagingly of the English, because -they were Protestants and therefore heretics. - -“But I am English, and I am not a heretic,” cried Félise. - -“You are not English,” replied her aunt, “because you have a French -mother and have been brought up in France. And as for not being a -heretic, I am not so sure. Monsieur l’Abbé Duloup thinks you must have -been brought up among Freemasons.” - -“_Ah non, par exemple!_” exclaimed Félise indignantly. For, in the eyes -of the Church, French Freemasons are dreadful folk, capable of anything -sacrilegious, from denying the miracle of Saint Januarius to slitting -the Pope’s weasand. So—“_Ah! non par exemple!_” cried Félise. - -Freemasons, indeed! Her Uncle Gaspard, it is true, did not attend church -regularly—but yes, he did attend regularly—he went once a year, every -Easter Sunday, and he was the best of friends with Monsieur le Curé of -their Paroisse. And as for herself, Monsieur le Curé, who looked like a -venerable saint in the holy pictures, had always a smile and a _ma chère -enfant_ for her whenever they met. She was on excellent terms with -Monsieur le Curé; he would no more have dreamed of associating her with -Freemasons than of accusing her of being in league with devils. - -He was a good, common-sensical old curé, like thousands of the secular -clergy in France, and knew how to leave well alone. Questioned by the -ecclesiastically environed Abbé Duloup as to the spiritual state of -Félise, he would indubitably have answered with serene conviction:— - -“If a soul so pure and so candid, which I have watched from childhood, -is not acceptable to the _bon Dieu_, then I know no more about the _bon -Dieu_ than I know about the Emperor of Patagonia.” - -But Félise, disliking the Abbé Duloup and many of his works, felt a -delicacy in dragging her own curé into the argument and contented -herself with protesting against the charge of heresy. As a matter of -fact, she proclaimed her Uncle Gaspard was not a Freemason. He held in -abhorrence all secret political societies as being subversive of the -State. No one should attack her Uncle Gaspard, although he had betrayed -her so shabbily. - -In vain she sought some link with her aunt. Even Mimi, the lean old cat, -did not form a bond of union. As a vagrant kitten it had been welcomed -years ago by the late good-natured Robineau, and the widow tolerated its -continued presence with Christian resignation. Félise took the unloved -beast to her heart. From Aunt Clothilde’s caustic remarks she gathered -that her four cousins, of whose exemplary acceptance of husbands she had -heard so much, had eyed Mimi with the coldness of their mother. She -began to thank Providence that she did not resemble her cousins, which -was reprehensible; and now and then manifested a lack of interest in -their impeccable doings, which was more reprehensible still, and thus -stirred up against her the maternal instincts of Madame Robineau. - -Relations grew strained. Aunt Clothilde spoke to her with sharp -impatience. From her recalcitrance in the matter of Lucien she deduced -every fault conceivable. For the first time in her life Félise dwelt in -an atmosphere where love was not. She longed for home. She longed -especially for her father and his wise tenderness. Because she longed so -greatly she could not write to him as a father should be written to; and -the many-paged letters into which, at night, she put all her aching -little heart, in the morning she blushed at the thought of sending. In -spite of his lapse from grace she could not be so disloyal to the -beloved Uncle Gaspard. Nor could she distress her suffering angel mother -by her incoherent account of things. If only she could see her! - -At last, one dreary afternoon, Madame Robineau opened an attack in -force. - -“Put down that cat. I have to talk to you.” - -Félise obeyed and Aunt Clothilde talked. The more she talked, the more -stubborn front did Félise oppose. Madame Robineau lost her temper. Her -thin lips twitched. - -“I order you,” she said, “to marry Lucien Viriot.” - -“I am sorry to say anything to vex you, _ma tante_,” replied Félise -valiantly; “but you have not the power.” - -“And I suppose your uncle has not the power to command you?” - -“In matters like that, no, _ma tante_,” said Félise. - -Aunt Clothilde rose from her straight-backed chair and shook a long, -threatening finger. The nail at the end was also long and not very -clean. Félise often wondered whether her aunt abhorred a nail-brush by -way of mortification. - -“When one considers all the benefits my brother has heaped on your -head,” she cried in a rasping voice, “you are nothing else than a little -monster of ingratitude!” - -Félise flared up. She did not lack spirit. - -“It is false,” she cried. “I adore my Uncle Gaspard. I would give him my -life. I am not ungrateful. It is worse than false.” - -“It is true,” retorted Madame Robineau. “Otherwise you would not refuse -him the desire of his heart. Without him you would have not a rag to -your back, or a shoe to your foot, and no more religion than a heathen. -It is to him you owe everything—everything. Without him you would be in -the gutter where he fished you from.” - -She ended on a shrill note. Félise, very pale, faced her passionately, -with a new light in her mild eyes. - -“What do you mean? The gutter? My father——?” - -“Bah! Your father! Your vagabond, ne’er-do-weel scamp of a father! He’s -a scandal to the family, your father. He should never have been born.” - -The girl reeled. It was a foul bludgeon blow. Madame Robineau, with -quick realisation of folly, checked further utterance and allowed -Félise, white, quivering and vanquished, but carrying her little head -fiercely in the air, to retire from the scene with all the honours of -war. - -Madame Robineau was sorry. She had lost both temper and dignity. Her -next confession would be an unpleasant matter. Possibly, however, the -Abbé Duloup would understand and guess the provocation. She shrugged her -lean shoulders. It was good sometimes for hoity-toity damsels to learn -humility. So she sat down again, pursing her lips, and continued her -embroidered stole until it was the hour of vespers. Contrary to custom, -she did not summon Félise to accompany her to the Cathedral. An hour or -two of solitude, she thought, not unkindly, would bring her to a more -reasonable frame of mind. She went out alone. - -When she returned she found that Félise had left the house. - - * * * * * - -It was a very scared young person that presented herself at the -_guichet_ at the railway station and asked for a second class ticket to -Paris. She had never travelled alone in her life before. Even on her -rare visits to the metropolis of Périgueux, in whose vast emporium of -fashion she clothed herself, she was attended by Euphémie or the -chambermaid. She felt lost, a tiny, helpless creature, in the great, -high station in which an engine letting off steam produced a bewildering -uproar. How much she paid for her ticket, thrifty and practised -housekeeper that she was, she did not know. She clutched the change from -a hundred franc note which, a present from her uncle before leaving -Brantôme, she had preserved intact, and scuttled like a little brown -rabbit to the door of the _salle d’attente_. - -“_Le train de Paris? A quatre heures cinquante_,” said the official at -the door, as though this palpitating adventure were the commonplace of -every minute. - -“And that will be?” she gasped. - -He cocked an eye at the clock. “In half an hour.” - -A train was on the point of starting. There was a scuttle for seats. She -felt sure it was the Paris train. From it emanated the magic influence -of the great city whither she was bound. A questioned porter informed -her it was going in the opposite direction. The Paris express left at -four-fifty. The train steamed out. It seemed to Félise as though she had -lost a friend. She looked round helplessly, and seeing a fat peasant -woman sitting on a bench, surrounded by bundles and children, she ran to -her side for protection. It is the unknown that frightens. In the Hôtel -des Grottes she commanded men with the serenity of a Queen Elizabeth, -and as for commercial travellers and other male visitors, she took no -more account of them than of the geese that she plucked. And the -terrifying Aunt Clothilde had terrified in vain. But here, in this cold, -glass-roofed, steel-strutted, screeching, ghostly inferno of a place, -with men prowling about like roaring lions seeking probably whom they -might devour, conditions were terrifyingly unfamiliar. - -Yet she did not care. Under the blasphemous roof of her Aunt Clothilde -she could not have remained. For, in verity, blasphemy had been spoken. -Her father was loved and honoured by all the world; by her mother, by -Uncle Gaspard, by Corinna, by Martin. And she herself—did she not know -her father? Was there ever a man like him? The insulting words rang -through her brain. She would have confronted terrors a million fold more -grisly than these in order to escape from the blasphemer, whom she could -never forgive—no, not for all the curés and abbés in Christendom. An -intense little soul was that of Félise Fortinbras. It swept her -irresistibly out of the unhallowed villa, with a handbag containing a -nightgown, a toothbrush and a faded little photograph of her father and -mother standing side by side in wedding garb, on the way to the dread, -fascinating whirlpool of Paris, where dwelt the worshipped gods of her -idolatry. And, as she sat in the comforting lee of the fat and unafraid -peasant woman and her bundles and her children, she took herself to task -for cowardice. - -The journey, under two hours, was but a trifle. Had it been to Brantôme, -an all-night affair, she might have had reason for quailing. But to -Paris it was practically but a step. . . . The Abbé Duloup spoke of -going to Paris as her uncle spoke of going to Périgueux. Yet her heart -thudded violently during the interminable half hour. And there was the -grim possibility of the appearance of a pursuing Aunt Clothilde. She -kept a fearful eye upon the doorway of the _salle d’attente_. - -At last the train rushed in, and there was clangour of luggage trucks -and clamour of raucous voices announcing the train for Paris; and a flow -of waiting people, among whom was her neighbour with her varied -impedimenta, swept across the lines and scaled the heights of the -carriages. By luck, in front of Félise loomed a compartment showing -second class on the door panel and “_Dames seules_” on the window. She -clambered in and sank into a seat. Who her lonely lady fellow-travellers -were she could not afterwards remember; for she kept her eyes closed, -absorbed in the adventure that still lay before her. Yet it was -comforting to feel that as long as the train went on she was safe in -this feminine sanctuary, free from depredations of marauding males. - -Paris. One of the ladies, seeing that she was about to remain in the -carriage, jerked the information over a descending shoulder. Félise -followed and stood for a moment more confused than ever in the blue -glare and ant-hill hurry of the Gare de Montparnasse. A whole town -seemed to have emerged from the train and to stream like a rout of -refugees flying from disaster, men, women and children, laden with -luggage, towards the barrier. Carried along, she arrived there at -length, gave up her ticket, and, issuing from the station, found herself -in a narrow street, at the end of which, still following the throng, she -came to a thundering thoroughfare. Never, in all her imaginings of -Paris, had she pictured such a soul-stunning phantasmagoria of flashing -light and flashing movement. There were millions of faces passing her by -on the pavement, in the illuminated interiors of omnibuses, in the -dimmed recesses of taxi-autos, on waggons, on carts, on bicycles; -millions in gaily lit cafés; before her dazzled eyes millions seemed to -be reflected even in the quivering, lucent air. She stood at the corner -of the Place de Rennes and the Boulevard de Montparnasse paralysed with -fear, clutching her handbag tight to her side. In that perilous street -thousands of thieves must jostle her. She could not move a step, -overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. A good-natured sergent de ville, -possibly the father of pretty daughters, noticed her agonised distress. -It was not his business to perform unsolicited deeds of knight errantry; -but having nothing else to do for the moment, he caught her eye and -beamed paternal encouragement. Now a sergent de ville is a _sergent de -ville_ (recognisable by his uniform) all France over. Félise held Père -Chavrol, who exercised that function at Brantôme, in high esteem. This -policeman had a fat, dark, grinning, scrubbily-moustached face which -resembled that of Père Chavrol. She took her courage and her handbag in -both hands. - -“Monsieur,” she said, “can you direct me to the Rue Maugrabine?” - -He couldn’t. He did not know that street. In what _quartier_ was it? -Félise was ignorant. - -“_C’est là où demeure mon père_,” she added. “_C’est Monsieur -Fortinbras. Tout le monde le connaît à Paris._” - -But alas! the sergent de ville had never heard of the illustrious -Fortinbras: which was strange, seeing that all Brantôme knew him, -although he did not live there. - -“What then shall I do, Monsieur,” asked Félise, “to get to my father?” - -The sergent de ville pushed his képi to the back of his head and -cogitated. Then, with uplifted hand, he halted a crawling fiacre. Rue de -Maugrabine? Of course the glazed-hatted, muffled-up driver knew it. -Somewhere between the Rue de la Roquette and the Avenue de la -République. The sergent de ville smiled vaingloriously. It was only _ces -vieux collignons_, old drivers of fiacres, that knew their Paris, he -explained. The chauffeur of a taxi-auto would have been ignorant of the -whereabouts of the Arc de Triomphe. He advised her to engage the -omniscient cabman. The Rue Maugrabine was infinitely distant, on the -other side of the river. Félise suggested that a cab would cost -enormously. In Brantôme legends were still current of scandalous -exactions levied by Paris cabmen on provincials. The driver twisted his -head affably and hoarsely murmured that it would not cost a fortune. -Perhaps two francs, two francs fifty, with a little _pourboire_. He did -not know. The amount would be registered. The sergent de ville pointed -out the taximeter. - -“Be not afraid, Mademoiselle. Enter. What number?” - -“Number 29.” - -He opened the door of the stuffy little brougham. Félise held out her -hand as she would have held it out to Père Chavrol, and thanked him as -though he had preserved her from legions of dragons. The last she saw of -him as she drove off was in the act of majestically sweeping back a -group of idlers who had halted to witness the touching farewell. - -The old cab jolted and swerved through blazing vistas of unimagined -thoroughfares; over bridges spanning mysterious stretches of dark waters -and connecting looming masses of gigantic buildings; and through more -streets garish with light and apparent revelry. Realisation of its glory -came with a little sob of joy. She was in Paris, the Wonderland of Paris -transcending all her dreams. Brantôme and Chartres seemed afar off. She -had the sensation of a butterfly escaping from the chrysalis. She had -been a butterfly for ages. What unremembered kind of state had been her -grub condition? Thrills of excitement swept her little body. She was -throbbingly happy. And at the end of the magic journey she would meet -her father, marvel among men, and her mother, the strange, sweet, -mystical being, the enchanted princess of her childish visions, the -warm, spiritual, all understanding, all embracing woman of her maiden -longings. - -The streets grew narrower, less important. They were passing through the -poor neighbourhood east of the Place de la Bastille. Fairyland suffered -a sinister touch. Slight fears again assailed her. Some of the streets -appeared dark and suspect. Evil-looking folk haunted the pavements. She -wondered, with a catch of the breath, whither she was being driven. At -last the cab swung into a street, darker, more suspect, more ill-odoured -than any, and stopped before a large open doorway. She peered through -the window. Above the door she could just discern the white figures “29” -on the blue plaque. Her rosy dreams melted into night, her heart sank. -She alighted. - -“This is really 29 Rue Maugrabine?” - -“_Bien sûr, mademoiselle._” - -She had forgotten to look at the taximeter, but taking three francs from -her purse, she asked the driver if that was enough. He thanked her with -raised hat for munificence, and, whipping up his old horse, drove off. - -Félise entered a smelly little paved courtyard and gazed about her -helplessly. She had imagined such another decent little house as her -aunt’s, at which a ring at the front door would ensure immediate -admittance. In this extraordinary dank well she felt more lost than -ever. Paris was a bewildering mystery. A child emerged from some dark -cavern. - -“Can you tell me where Monsieur Fortinbras lives?” - -The child advised her to ask the concierge, and pointed to the iron -bell-pull. Félise rang. The frowsy concierge gave the directions. - -“_Au quatrième au coin, à gauche._” - -Félise entered the corner cavern and came on an evil-smelling stone -staircase, lit here and there by naked gas-jets which blackened the -walls at intervals. The cold gathered round her heart. On the second -landing some noisy, ill-dressed men clattered past her and caused her to -shrink back with fear. She mounted the interminable stairs. Here and -there an open door revealed a squalid interior. The rosy dream became a -nightmare. She had made some horrible blunder. It was impossible that -her father should live here. But the concierge had confirmed the -address. On the fourth floor she paused; then, as directed, turned down -a small, ill-lit passage to the left. On a door facing her at the end, -she noticed the gleam of a card. She approached. It bore the printed -legend, - - “Daniel Fortinbras, - _Ancien Avoué de Londres,_ - _Agent de Famille, &c, &c._” - -And written in pencil was the direction: “_Sonnez, S. V. P._” - -The sight reassured and comforted her. Behind this thin barrier dwelt -those dearest to her on earth, the dimly remembered saintly mother, the -wise and tender father. She forgot the squalor of the environment. It -was merely a feature of Paris mighty and inscrutable, so different from -Brantôme. She felt a little throb of pride in her daring, in her -achievement. Without guidance—ungenerously she took no account of the -sergent de ville, the cabman and the concierge—she had travelled from -Chartres to this inmost heart of Paris. She had accomplished her -stupendous adventure. . . . The card invited her to ring. Above it hung -a bit of wood attached in the middle to a length of twine. She pulled -and an answering clang was heard from within the apartment. Her whole -being vibrated. - -After a moment’s waiting, the door was flung open by a coarse, -red-faced, slatternly woman standing in a poverty-stricken little -vestibule. She looked at the girl with curiously glazed eyes and -slightly swayed as she put up a hand to dishevelled hair. - -“_Vous désirez?_” - -“Monsieur Fortinbras,” gasped Félise, scared by the abominable -apparition. - -“Monsieur Fortinbras?” She mimicked the girl’s clear accent. - -“_Oui, madame_,” replied Félise. - -Whereupon the woman withered her with a sudden volley of drunken abuse. -She knew how Fortinbras occupied himself all day long. She did not -complain. But when the _gonzesses_ of the _rive gauche_ had the -indecency to come to his house, she would very soon put them across her -knee and teach them manners. This is but a paraphrase of what fell upon -Félise’s terror-stricken ears. It fell like an avalanche; but it did not -last long, for suddenly came a voice well known but pitched in an -unfamiliar key of anger: - -“_Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?_” - -And Fortinbras appeared. - -As he caught sight of his daughter’s white face, he clapped his hands to -his head and reeled back, horror in his eyes. Then: - -“_Tais-toi!_” he thundered, and seizing the woman masterfully by the -arms, he pushed her into some inner room, leaving Félise shaking on the -threshold. In a moment or two he re-appeared, caught overcoat and old -silk hat from a peg, and motioning Félise back, marched out of his home -and slammed the door behind him. Father and daughter were now in the -neutral ground at the end of the dim, malodorous passage. - -“What in the name of God are you doing here, Félise?” - -“I came to see my mother.” - -The fleshy, benign face of the man fell into the sags of old age. His -lower lip hung loose. His mild blue eyes, lamping out from beneath noble -brows, stared agony. - -“Your mother?” - -“Yes. Where is she?” - -He drew a deep breath. “Your mother—well—she is in a nursing home, -dear. No one, not even I, can see her.” He took her by the arm and -hurried her to the staircase. “Come, come, dear, we must get away from -this. You understand. I did not tell you your mother was so ill, for -fear of making you unhappy.” - -“But that dreadful woman, father?” she cried. And the Alpine flower from -which honey is made looked like a poor little frost-bitten lily of the -valley. She faced him on the landing. - -“That woman—that——” he waved an arm. “That,” said he, quoting -bitterly, “is a woman of no importance.” - -“Ah!” cried Félise. - -With some of the elemental grossnesses of life she was acquainted. You -cannot manage a hotel in France which is a free, non-Puritanical -country, and remain in imbecile ignorance. She was shocked to the depths -of her being. - -“Come,” said Fortinbras with outstretched hand. But she shrank from him. -“Come!” he commanded. “There’s no time to lose. We must get out of -this.” - -“Where are we going?” she asked. - -“To the Gare de Montparnasse. You must return at once to Chartres.” - -“I will never enter the house of Aunt Clothilde again,” said Félise. - -“But what has happened? My God! what has happened?” he asked, as they -hurried down the stairs. - -Breathlessly, brokenly, she told him. In the courtyard he paused, put -his hand to his head. - -“But what can I do with you? My God! what can I do with you in this -dreadful city?” - -“Isn’t there a hotel in Paris?” she asked, coldly. - -He laughed in a mirthless way. “There are many. There are the Ritz and -the Meurice and the Elysée Palace. Yes—there are hotels enough!” - -“I have plenty of money,” she said. - -“No, no, my child,” said he. “Not an hotel. I should go mad. I have an -idea. Come.” - -They had just reached the evil pavement of the Rue Maugrabine, when -Cécile Fortinbras, sister of the excellent Gaspard Bigourdin and the -pious Clothilde Robineau, and mother of Félise, recovered from the -stupor to which the unprecedented fury of her husband had reduced her, -and reeled drunkenly to the flat door. - -“_Je vais arracher les yeux à cette putain-là!_” - -She started to tear the hussy’s eyes out; but by the time she had -accomplished the difficult descent and had expounded her grievances to -an unsympathetic concierge, a motor omnibus was conveying father and -daughter silent and anguished to the other side of the River Seine. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -THE huge door on the Boulevard Saint Germain swung open at Fortinbras’s -ring and admitted them to a warm, marble-floored vestibule adorned with -rugs, palms and a cast or two of statuary. Facing them, in its cage of -handsome wrought iron-work, stood the lift. All indicated a life so far -apart from that of the Rue Maugrabine that Félise, in spite of the -despair and disillusion that benumbed her soul, uttered an exclamation -of surprise. - -“Who lives here?” - -“Lucilla Merriton, an American girl. Pray God she is in,” replied -Fortinbras, opening the lift gate. “We can but see.” - -He pressed the second-floor button and the lift shot up. On the landing -were the same tokens of luxury. A neat maid answered the door. -Mademoiselle Merriton was at home, but she had just begun dinner. -Fortinbras drew a card from a shabby pocketbook. - -“Tell Mademoiselle that the matter is urgent.” - -The maid retired, leaving them in a small lobby beyond which was a hall -lit by cunningly subdued lights, and containing (to Félise’s -unsophisticated vision) a museum of costly and beautiful objects. -Strange skins of beasts lay on the polished floor, old Spanish chests in -glowing crimson girt with steel, queer chairs with straight, tall backs, -such as she had seen in the sacristies of old churches in the Dordogne, -and richly carved tables were ranged against the walls, and above them -hung paintings of old masters, such as she was wont to call “holy -pictures,” in gilt frames. From the soft mystery of a corner gleamed a -marble copy of the Venus de’ Medici, which, from Félise’s point of view, -was not holy at all. Yet the sense of beauty and comfort pervading the -place, appealed to her senses. She stood on the threshold looking round -wonderingly, when a door opened, and, in a sudden shaft of light, -appeared a tall, slim figure which advanced with outstretched hand. -Félise shrank behind her father. - -“Why, Fortinbras, what good wind has brought you?” The lady spoke in a -rich and somewhat lazy contralto. “Excuse that celestial idiot of a -Céleste for leaving you standing here in the cold. Come right in.” - -She led the way into the hall, and then became aware of Félise and -flashed a glance of enquiry. - -“This is my little daughter, Lucilla.” - -“Why? Not Félise?” she gave her both hands in a graceful gesture. “I’m -so glad to see you. I’ve heard all about you from Corinna Hastings. I -put her up for the night on her way back to London, you know. Now -why”—still holding Félise’s hands—“have you kept her from us all this -time, Fortinbras? I don’t like you at all.” - -“Paris,” said Fortinbras, “isn’t good for little girls who live in the -heart of France.” - -“But surely the heart of France is Paris!” cried Lucilla Merriton. - -“Paris, my dear Lucilla,” replied Fortinbras gravely, “may be the liver, -the spleen, the pancreas—whatever giblets you please of France; but it -is not its heart.” - -Lucilla laughed; and when she laughed she had a way of throwing up her -head which accentuated the graceful setting of her neck. Her thick brown -hair brushed back, ever so little suggestive of the Pompadour, from her -straight forehead, aided the unconscious charm of the habit. - -“We won’t argue the point. You’ve brought Félise here because you want -me to look after her. How did I guess? My dear man, I’ve lived -twenty-seven years in this ingenuous universe. How babes unborn don’t -spot its transparent simplicity I never could imagine. You haven’t -dined.” - -“I have,” said Fortinbras, “but Félise hasn’t.” - -“You shall dine again. It’s the first time you have condescended to -visit me, and I exact the penalty.” - -She went to the open door whence she had issued. - -“Céleste!”—the maid appeared—“Monsieur and Mademoiselle are dining -with me and Mademoiselle is staying the night. See she has all she -wants. _Allez vite._ Go, my dear, with Céleste, and be quick, for -dinner’s getting cold.” - -And when Félise, subdued by her charming masterfulness, had retired in -the wake of the maid, Miss Merriton turned on Fortinbras. - -“Now, what’s the trouble?” - -In a few words he told her what was meet for a stranger to know. - -“So she ran away and came to you for protection and you can’t put her -up? Is that right?” - -“The perch of an old vulture like myself,” said he, “is no fit place for -my daughter.” - -Lucilla nodded. “That’s all right. But, say—you don’t approve of this -mediæval sort of marriage business, do you?” - -“I retain my English views. I shall explain them to my brother-in-law -and forbid the alliance. Besides, the excellent Bigourdin is the last -man in the world to force her into a distasteful marriage. Reassure her -on that point. She can go back to Brantôme with a quiet mind.” - -“Will you remain in Paris with a mind equally serene?” Lucilla asked, -her deep grey eyes examining his face, which he had vainly endeavoured -to compose into its habitual aspect of detached benevolence. He met her -glance. - -“The derelict,” said he, “is a thing of no account. But it is better -that it should not lie in the course of the young and living ship.” - -Lucilla put her hands behind her back and sat on the corner of an old -Venetian table. And she still looked at him, profoundly interested. Here -was a Fortinbras she had never met before, a broken man, far removed -from the shrewd and unctuous _marchand de bonheur_ of the Latin Quarter -with his rolling periods and opportunist philosophy. - -“There’s something behind all this,” she remarked. “If I’m to be any -good, I ought to know.” - -He recovered a little and smiled. “Your perspicacity does credit to your -country,” said he. “Also to your sex. There is much behind it. An -unbridgeable gulf of human sorrow. Remember that, should my little girl -be led away—which I very much doubt—to talk to you of most unhappy -things. She only came to the edge of the gulf half an hour ago. The -marriage matter is but a thistledown of care.” - -“I more or less see,” said Lucilla. “The vulture’s perch overhangs the -gulf. Right. Now what do you want me to do?” - -“Just keep her until I can find a way to send her back to Brantôme.” - -Lucilla raised a hand, and reflected for a few seconds. Then she said: -“I’ll run her down there myself in the car.” - -“That is most kind of you,” replied Fortinbras, “but Brantôme is not -Versailles. It is nearly three hundred miles away.” - -“Well? What of that? I suppose I can commandeer enough gasoline in -France to take me three hundred miles. Besides, I am due the end of next -week, anyway, to stay with some friends at Cap Martin, before going to -Egypt. I’ll start a day or two earlier and drop Félise on my way. Will -that suit you?” - -“But, again, Brantôme is not on your direct route to Monte Carlo,” he -objected. - -She slid to her feet and laughed. “Do you want me to be a young mother -to your little girl, or don’t you?” - -“I do,” said he. - -“Then don’t conjure up lions in the path. See here,” she touched his -sleeve. “You were a good friend to me once when I had that poor little -fool Effie James on my hands—I shouldn’t have pulled her through -without you—and you wouldn’t accept more than your ridiculous fee—and -now I’ve got a chance of shewing you how much I appreciate what you did. -I don’t know what the trouble is, and now I don’t want to know. But -you’re my friend, and so is your daughter.” - -Fortinbras smiled sadly. “It is you that are the _marchand de bonheur_. -You remove an awful load from my mind.” He took his old silk hat from -the console where he had deposited it, and held out his hand. “The old -vulture won’t stop to dinner. He must be flying. Give my love, my -devoted love to Félise.” - -And with an abruptness which she could not reconcile with his usual -suave formality of manner, he turned swiftly and walked through the -lobby and disappeared. His leave-taking almost resembled the flight he -spoke of. - -The wealthy, comely, even-balanced American girl looked blankly at the -flat door and wondered, conscious of tragedy. What was the gulf of which -he spoke? She knew little about the man. . . . Two years before a girl -from Cheyenne, Wyoming, who had brought her letters of introduction, -came to terrible grief. There was blackmail at her throat. Somebody -suggested Fortinbras as counsellor. She, Lucilla, consulted him. He -succeeded in sending a damsel foolish, reprehensible and frightened, but -intact in reputation and pocket, back to her friends in Cheyenne. His -fees for so doing amounted to twenty francs. For two years therefore, -she had passed the time of day friendliwise with Fortinbras whenever she -met him; but until her fellow-student, Corinna Hastings, sought her -hospitality on the way back to England, and told her of Brantôme and -Félise, she had regarded him merely as one of the strange, sweet -monsters, devoid of domestic attributes, even of a private life, that -Paris, city of portents and prodigies, had a monopoly in producing. -. . . And now she had come upon just a flabby, elderly man, piteously -anxious to avert some sordid misery from his own flesh and blood. She -sighed, turned and saw Félise in charge of Céleste. - -“Come, you must be famished.” She put her arm round the girl’s waist and -led her into the dining-room. “Your father couldn’t stay. But he told me -to give you his love and to regard myself as a sort of young mother to -you.” - -Félise murmured a shy acknowledgement. She was too much dazed for -coherent thoughts or speech. The discovery of the conditions in which -her father lived, and the sudden withering of her faith in him, had -almost immediately been followed by her transference into this warm -wonder-house of luxury owned and ruled by this queenly young woman, so -exquisite in her simple marvel of a dress. The soft lights, the -pictures, the elusive reflections from polished wood, the gleam of heavy -silver and cut glass, the bowl of orchids on the table, the delicate -napery—she had never dreamed of such though she held herself to be a -judge of table-linen—the hundred adjuncts of a wealthy woman’s dining -room, all filled her with a sense of the unreal, and at the same time -raised her poor fallen father in her estimation by investing him with -the character of a magician. Dainty food was placed before her, but she -could scarcely eat. Lucilla, to put her more at her ease, talked of -Corinna and of Brantôme which she was dying to visit and of the quaint -Englishman, she had forgotten his name, who had become a waiter. How was -he getting on? - -“Monsieur Martin? Very well, thank you.” - -She put down the glass of wine which she was about to raise to her lips. -For nearly an hour she had not thought of Martin. She felt sundered from -him by many seas and continents. Since seeing him through what scorching -adventures had she not passed? She had changed. The world had changed. -Nothing would ever be the same again. Tears came into her eyes. Lucilla, -observing them, smiled. - -“You like Monsieur Martin?” - -“Everybody likes him; he is so gentle,” said Félise. - -“But is that what women look for in a man?” asked Lucilla. “Doesn’t she -want some one strong to lean on? Something to appeal to the imagination? -Something more _panache_?” - -Félise thought of Lucien Viriot and his cavalry plume and shivered. No. -She did not want _panache_. Martin’s quiet, simple ways, she knew not -why, were worth all the clanking of all the sabres in the world put -together. - -“That depends on temperament, mademoiselle,” said Félise, in French. - -Lucilla laughingly exclaimed: “You dear little mouse. I suppose a -tom-cat frightens you to death.” - -But Félise was only listening with her outer ears. “I am very fond of -cats,” she replied simply. - -Whereupon Lucilla laughed again with quick understanding. - -“I have a half-grown Persian kitten,” she said, “rather a beauty. -Céleste, _apportez-moi le shah de Perse_. That’s my little joke.” - -“_C’est un calembour_,” said Félise, with a smile. - -“Of course it is. It’s real smart of you to see it. I call him -Padishah.” - -Céleste brought a grey woolly mass of felinity from a basket in a dim -corner and handed it to Félise. The beast purred and stretched -contentedly in her arms. - -“Oh, what a dear!” she cried. “What a fluffy little dear! For the last -week or two,” she found herself saying, “my only friend has been a cat.” - -“What kind of a cat?” asked Lucilla. - -“Oh, not one like this. It was a thin old tabby.” And under the -influence of the soft baby thing on her bosom and the kind eyes of her -young hostess, the shyness melted from her, and she told of Mimi, and -Aunt Clothilde, and the abhorred cathedral and the terrors of her flight -to Paris. - -She had come, more or less, to an end, when Céleste brought in a -Pekinese spaniel, and set him down on the hearthrug to a plate of minced -raw beef, which he proceeded to devour with lightning gluttony. Having -licked the polished plate from hearthrug to clattering parquet and -licked it underneath in the hope of a grain of nourishment having melted -through, he arched his tail above his back and composing his miniature -leonine features, regarded his mistress with his soul in his eyes, as -who should say: “Now, having tasted, when shall I truly dine?” But -Lucilla sent him to his chair, where he assumed an attitude of polite -surprise; and she explained to Félise, captivated by his doggy -winsomeness, that she called him “Gaby,” which was short for -Heliogabalus, the voluptuary; which allusion Félise, not being familiar -with The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, did not understand. But, -when Lucilla, breaking through rules of discipline, caught up the tawny -little aristocrat and apostrophized him as “the noseless blunder,” -Félise laughed heartily, thinking it very funny, and, holding the kitten -in her left arm, took him from Lucilla with her right, and covered the -tiny hedonist with caresses. - -When the meal was over, Lucilla took her, still embracing kitten and -dog, into the studio—the wealthy feminine amateur’s studio—a room with -polished floors and costly rugs and divans and tapestries and an easel -or two and a great wood fire blazing up an imitation Renaissance -chimney-piece. And Lucilla talked not only as though she had known -Félise all her life, but as though Félise was the most fascinating -little girl she had ever met. And it was all more Wonderland for Félise. -And so it continued during the short evening; for Lucilla, seeing that -she was tired, ordered the removal to their respective padded baskets of -dog and cat, both of which Félise had retained in her embrace, and sent -her to bed early; and it continued during the process of undressing amid -the beautiful trifles wherewith she performed her toilette; and after -she had put on the filmy, gossamer garment adorned with embroidered -miracles that Céleste had laid out for her; and after she had sunk -asleep in the fragrant linen of the warm nest. But in the middle of the -night she awoke and saw the face of the dreadful woman in the Rue -Maugrabine and heard the voice of her Aunt Clothilde speaking blasphemy -against her father, and then she upbraided herself for being led away by -the enchantment of the Wonder-house, and breaking down, sobbed for her -lost illusions until the dawn. - -In the meanwhile a heart-broken man sat in a sordid room toiling dully -at the task of translating French commercial papers into English, by -which means he added a little to his precarious income, while on the -other side of the partition his wife slept drunkenly. That had been his -domestic life, good God! he reflected, for more years than he cared to -number. But up to then Félise had been kept in ignorance. Now the veil -had been lifted. She had, indeed, retained the mother of her dreams, but -at what a cost to him! Would it not have been better to tell her the -truth? He stared at the type-written words until they were hidden by a -mist of tears. He had lost all that made life sweet for him—the love of -Félise. - -He bowed his head in his hands. Judgment had at last descended on him -for the sins of his youth; for he had erred grievously. All the misery -he had endured since then had been but a preparation for the blow that -had now fallen. It would be easy to go to her to-morrow and say: “I -deceived you last night. The woman you saw was your mother.” But he knew -he would never be able to say it. He must pay the great penalty. - -He paid it the next day when he called humbly to see her. She received -him dutifully and gave him her cheek to kiss, but he felt her shrink -from him and read the anguished condemnation in her eyes. He saw, too, -for he was quick at such things, how her glance took in, for the first -time in her life, his worn black clothes, his frayed linen, his genteel -shabbiness, a grotesque contrast to the air of wealth in which she found -herself. And he knew that she had no mean thoughts but was pierced to -the heart by the discovery; for she turned her head aside and bit her -lip, so that he should not guess. - -“I should like to tell you what I have done,” said he, after some -desultory and embarrassed talk about Lucilla. “I have telegraphed to -Chartres and Brantôme to say that you are safe and sound, and I have -written to your Uncle Gaspard about Lucien Viriot. You will never hear -of the matter again, unless your Aunt Clothilde goes to Brantôme, which -I very much doubt.” - -“Thank you, father,” said Félise, and the commonplace words sounded cold -in her ears. She was delivered, she knew, from the nightmare of the past -few weeks; but she found little joy in her freedom. Then she asked: - -“Have you told Uncle Gaspard why I ran away from Aunt Clothilde?” - -“Enough, dear, for him to understand. He will ask you no questions, so -you needn’t tell him anything.” - -“Won’t that be ungrateful? I have treated him ungratefully enough -already.” - -Fortinbras stretched out his hand to lay it caressingly on her head, as -he had done all her life, but, remembering, withdrew it, with a sigh. - -“Your uncle is the best and truest man I have ever met,” said he. “And -he loves you dearly and you love him—and with love ingratitude can’t -exist. Tell him whatever you find in your heart. But there is one thing -you need never tell him—what you saw in the Rue Maugrabine last night. -I have done so already. In this way there will be nothing secret between -you.” - -She sat with tense young face, looking at her hands. Again she saw the -squalid virago. She would see her till her dying day. To no one on earth -could she speak of her. - -Fortinbras rose, kissed her on the forehead and went forth to his day’s -work of dealing out happiness to a clamouring world. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -LUCILLA MERRITON had much money, a kind heart and a pretty little talent -in painting. The last secured her admittance to the circle of -art-students round about the Rue Bonaparte, the second made her popular -among them and the money enabled her to obey any reasonable dictate of -the kind heart aforesaid. When those who were her intimates, mainly -hard-working and none too opulent English girls, took her to task for -her luxurious way of living, and pointed out that it was not in keeping -with the Spartan, makeshift traditions of the Latin Quarter, and that it -differentiated her too much from her fellows, she replied, with the -frankness of her country, first, that she saw no sense in pretending to -be other than she was, second, that in the atmosphere of luxury to which -she had been born, she was herself, for whatever that self was worth; -and thirdly, that any masquerading as a liver of the simple life would -choke all the agreeable qualities out of her. When, looking round her -amateur studio, they objected that she did not take her art seriously, -she cordially agreed. - -“I take what you call my art,” she would say, “just as it suits me. I -can command too many things in the world for me to sacrifice them to the -mediocre result I can get out of a paint-brush and a bit of canvas. I -shall never need paint for money, and if I did I’m sure I shouldn’t earn -any. But I love painting for its own sake, and I have enough talent to -make it worth while to have good instruction in technique, so that my -pictures shall more or less satisfy myself and not set my friends’ teeth -on edge. And that’s why I’m here.” - -She was a wealthy vagabond of independent fortune inherited from her -mother long since deceased, with no living ties save her father, a -railway director in America, now married to a young wife, a school-mate -of her own, whom, since her childhood, she had peculiarly abhorred. But -in the world, which lay wide open to her, _videlicet_ the civilised -nations of the two hemispheres, she had innumerable friends. No human -will pretended to control her actions. She was as free to live in -Rosario as in Buda-Pesth; in Nairobi as in Nijni Novgorod. For the last -two or three years she had elected to establish her headquarters in -Paris and study painting. But why the latter process should involve a -hard bed in a shabby room and dreadful meals at the Petit Cornichon, she -could never understand. Occasionally, on days of stress at the -_atélier_, she did lunch at the Petit Cornichon. It was convenient, and, -as she was young and thirsty for real draughts of life, the chatter and -hubbub of insensate ambitions afforded her both interest and amusement; -but she found the food execrable and the universal custom of cleaning -knife, fork, spoon and plate before using them exceedingly disgusting. -Yet, being a lady born and bred, she performed the objectionable rite in -the most gracious way in the world; and when it came to comradeship, -then her democratic traditions asserted themselves. Her student friends -ranged the social gamut. If the wearer were a living spirit, she -regarded broken boots and threadbare garments merely as an immaterial -accident of fortune, like a broken nose or an amputated limb. The flat -on the Boulevard St. Germain was the haven of many a hungry girl and -boy. And they found their way thither (as far as Lucilla was concerned) -not because they were hungry, but because that which lay deep in their -souls had won her accurate recognition. - -By way of digression, an essential difference in point of view between -English and Americans may here be noted. If an Englishman has reason to -admire a tinker and make friends with him, he will leave his own -respectable sphere and enter that of the tinker, and, in some humble -haunt of tinkerdom, where he can remain incognito, will commune with his -crony over pots of abominable and digestion-racking ale. The instinct of -the American, in sworn brotherhood with a tinker, is, on the other hand, -to lift the tinker to his own habitation of delight. He will desire to -take him into a saloon which he himself frequents, fill him up with -champagne and provide him with the best, biggest and strongest cigar -that money can buy. In both cases appear the special defects of national -qualities. The Englishman goes to the tinker’s boozing ken (thereby, -incidentally, putting the tinker at his ease) because he would be -ashamed of being seen by any of his own clan in a tinker’s company. The -American does not care a hang for being seen with the tinker; he wants -to give his friend a good time; but, incidentally, he has no intuitive -regard for the tinker’s feelings, predilections and timidities. - -From which disquisition it may be understood how Lucilla played Lady -Bountiful without the slightest consciousness of doing so. She played it -so well, with regard to Félise, as to make that young woman in the -course of a day or two her slave and worshipper. She shewed her the -sights of Paris, Versailles, the Galeries de Lafayette, the Tomb of -Napoleon, Poiret’s, the Salon d’Hiver, the Panthéon and Cartier’s in the -Rue de la Paix. With the aid of pins and scissors and Céleste, she also -attired her in an evening frock and under the nominal protection of an -agreeable young compatriot from the Embassy took her to dine at the Café -de Paris and then to the Théâtre du Gymnase. A great, soft-cushioned, -smooth, noiseless car carried them luxuriously through the infinite -streets; and when they were at home it seemed to await them night and -day by the kerb of the Boulevard Saint Germain. Lucilla set the head of -the little country mouse awhirl with sensations. Félise revered her as a -goddess, and whispered in awe the Christian name which she was commanded -to use. - - * * * * * - -A breathless damsel, with a jumble of conflicting scraps of terror and -delight instead of a mind, her arms full of an adored Persian kitten and -an adoring Pekinese spaniel, after a couple of days’ flashing course -through France, was brought in the gathering dusk, with a triumphant -sweep up the hill, to the familiar front door of the Hôtel des Grottes. -Baptiste, green-aproned, gaped as he saw her, and, scuttling indoors, -shouted at the top of his voice: - -“_Monsieur, monsieur, c’est mademoiselle!_” - -In an instant, Bigourdin lumbered out at full speed. He almost lifted -her from the car, scattering outraged kitten and offended dog, hid her -in his vast embrace and hugged her and kissed her and held her out at -arm’s length and laughed and hugged her again. There was no doubt of the -prodigal’s welcome. She laughed and sobbed and hugged the great man in -return. And then he recovered himself and became the _bon hôtelier_ and -assisted Lucilla to alight, while Félise greeted a smiling Martin and -suffered the embrace of Euphémie, panting from the kitchen. - -“If mademoiselle will give herself the trouble of following me——” said -Bigourdin, and led the way up the stairs, followed by Lucilla and -Céleste, guardian of the jewel case. He threw open the door of the -_chambre d’honneur_, a double-windowed room, above the terrace, -overlooking the town and the distant mountains of the Limousin, and -shewed her with pride a tiny salon adjoining, the only private -sitting-room in the hotel, crossed the corridor and flung to view the -famous bathroom, disclosed next door a room for the maid, and swept her -back to the bedroom, where a pine-cone fire was blazing fragrantly. - -“_Voilà, mademoiselle_,” said he. “_Tout à votre disposition._” - -“I think it is absolutely charming,” cried Lucilla. She looked round. -“Oh! what lovely things you have!” - -Bigourdin beamed and made a little bow. He took inordinate pride in his -_chambre d’honneur_ in which he had stored the gems of the Empire -furniture acquired by his great-grandfather, the luckless Général de -Brigade. The instantaneous appreciation of a casual glance enchanted -him. - -“I hope, mademoiselle,” said he, in his courteous way, “you will do -Félise and myself the honour of being our guest as long as you deign to -stay at Brantôme.” - -Lucilla met his bright eyes. “That’s delightful of you,” she laughed. -“But I’m not one solitary person, I’m a caravan. There’s me and the maid -and the chauffeur and the car and the dog and the cat.” - -“The hotel is very little, mademoiselle,” replied Bigourdin, “but our -hearts are big enough to entertain them.” - -Nothing more, or, at least, nothing more by way of protest, was to be -said. Lucilla put out her hand in her free, generous gesture. - -“Monsieur Bigourdin, I accept with pleasure your delightful -hospitality.” - -“_Je vous remercie infiniment, mademoiselle_,” said Bigourdin. - -He went downstairs in a flutter of excitement. Not for four generations, -so far as he was aware, had such an event occurred in the Hôtel des -Grottes. Members of the family, of course, had stayed there without -charge. Once, towards the end of the Second Empire, a Minister of the -Interior had occupied the _chambre d’honneur_, and had gone away without -paying his bill; but that remained a bad black debt in the books of the -hotel. Never had a stranger been an honoured guest. He had offered the -position, it is true, to Corinna; but then he was in love with Corinna, -which makes all the difference. The French are not instinctively -hospitable; when they are seized, however, by the impulse of -hospitality, all that they have is yours, down to the last crust in the -larder; but they are fully conscious of their own generosity, they feel -the tremendousness of the spiritual wave. So Bigourdin, kindest-hearted -of men, lumbered downstairs aglow with a sense of altruistic adventure. -In the vestibule he met Félise who had lingered there in order to obtain -from Martin a _compte rendu_ of the household and the neighbourhood. -Things had gone none too well—Monsieur Peyrian, one of their regular -commercial travellers, having discovered a black-beetle in his bread, -had gone to the Hôtel du Cygne. The baker had indignantly repudiated the -black-beetle, his own black-beetles being apparently of an entirely -different species. Another baker had been appointed, whose only defect -was his inability to bake bread. The _brave_ Madame Thuillier, who had -been called in to superintend the factory, had quarrelled, after two -days, with everybody, and had gone off in dudgeon because she did not -eat at the _patron’s_ table. Then they had lost two of their best hands, -one a young married woman who was reluctantly compelled to add to the -population of France, and the other a girl who was discharged for laying -false information against the very respectable and much married -Baptiste, saying that he had pinched her. The old Mère Maquoise, -_marchande de quatre saisons_, who was reputed to have known Général -Bigourdin, was dead, and one of the hotel omnibus horses had come down -on its knees. - -Félise, forgetful of the Maison de Blanc and Nôtre Dame, wrung her -hands. She had descended from fairyland into life’s dear and important -realities. - -“It’s desolating, what you tell me,” she cried. - -“And all because you went away and left us,” said Martin. - -“She is not going to leave us again!” cried Bigourdin, swooping down on -her and carrying her off. - -In the prim little salon he hugged her again and said gripping her -hands: - -“It appears you have greatly suffered, my poor little Félise. But why -didn’t you tell me from the first that you were unhappy with your Aunt -Clothilde? I did not know she had turned into such a _vieille pimbèche_. -She has written. And I have answered. Ah! I tell you, I have answered! -You need never again have any fear of your Aunt Clothilde. I hope I am a -Christian. But I hope too that I shall always differ from her in my -ideas of Christianity. _Mais tout ça est fini—bel et bien fini._ We -have to talk of ourselves. I have been a miserable man since you have -been away, _ma petite_ Félise. I tell you that in all frankness. -Everything has been at sixes and sevens. I can’t do without my little -_ménagère_. And you shall never marry anybody, even the President of the -Republic, unless you want to. _Foi de Bigourdin! Voilà!_” - -Félise cried a little. “_Tu es trop bon pour moi, mon oncle._” - -“_Allons donc!_ I seem to have been an old bear. Yet, in truth, I am -harmless as a sheep. But have confidence in me, and in my very dear -friend, your father—there are many things you cannot understand—and -things will arrange themselves quite happily. You love me just a little -bit, don’t you?” - -She flung her arms round the huge man’s neck. - -“_Je t’adore, mon petit oncle_,” she cried. - -Ten minutes afterwards, with bunch of keys slung at her waist, she was -busy restoring to order the chaos of the interregnum. Terrible things -had happened during the absence of the feminine eye. Even Martin shared -the universal reprimand. For Félise, manageress of hotel, and Félise, -storm-tossed little human soul, were two entirely different entities. - -“My dear Martin, how could you and my uncle pass these napkins from that -infamous old thief of a laundress. They are black!” - -And ruthlessly she flicked a napkin folded mitre-wise from the centre -table before the eyes of the folder and revealed its dingy turpitude. - -“It is well that I am back,” she declared. - -“It is indeed, Mademoiselle Félise,” said Martin. - -She gave him a swift little glance out of the tail of her eye, before -she sped away, and the corners of her lips drooped as though in -disappointment. Then perhaps reflecting that she had been addressing the -waiter and not the man, her face cleared. At all events he had taken her -rating in good part. - - * * * * * - -Dinner had already begun and the hungry commercials, napkins at neck, -were finishing their soup lustily, when Lucilla entered the dining room. -The open Medici collar to a grey velvet dress shewed the graceful -setting of her neck and harmonised with the brown hair brushed up from -the forehead. She advanced smiling and stately, giving the impression of -the perfect product of a new civilisation. Martin, who had but seen her -for a few seconds in the dusk confusedly clad in furs, stood -spell-bound, a pile of used soup-plates in his hands. Never had so -radiant an apparition swum before his gaze. Bigourdin, dining as usual -with Félise, rose immediately and conducted his guest to the little -table by the terrace where once Martin and Corinna had sat. It was -specially adorned with tawny chrysanthemums. - -“I fell dreaming before the fire in the midst of your wonderful, -old-world things, and had to hurry into my clothes, and so I’m late,” -she apologised. - -“If only you found all you needed, mademoiselle——” said Bigourdin -anxiously. “It is the provinces and not Paris.” - -She assured him that Félise had seen to every conceivable want and he -left her to her meal. Martin delivered his soup-plates into the arms of -the chambermaid and hovered over Lucilla with the menu card. - -“Will mademoiselle take the dinner?” he asked in French. - -She regarded him calmly and humorously and nodded. He became aware that -her eyes were of a deep, deep grey, full of light. He found it difficult -not to keep on looking at them. Breaking away, however, he fetched her -soup and went off to attend to the others. At every pause by her table -he noted some new and incomparable attribute. When bending over the -platter from which she helped herself, he saw that her hands were -beautifully shaped, plump, with long thin fingers and with delicate -markings of veins beneath the white skin. An upward glance caught more -blue veins on the temples. Another time he was struck by the supple -grace of her movements. There were infinite gleams in her splendid hair. -The faintest suggestion of perfume arose from her garments. She declined -the vegetable course and, declining, looked up at him and smiled. He -thought he had never seen a brow so noble, a nose so exquisitely cut, -lips so kind and mocking. Her face was that of a Romney duchess into -which the thought and spiritual freedom of the twentieth century had -entered. As he sped about the service, thrusting dishes beneath bearded -or blue, ill-shaven chins, her face floated before his eyes; every now -and then he stole a distant glance at it, and longed for the happy -though transient moment when he should come close to it again. - -While he was clearing her table for dessert she said: - -“Why do you speak French to me, when you know I’m an American?” - -“It is the custom of the house when a guest speaks such excellent French -as mademoiselle.” - -“That’s very kind of you,” she said in English; “but it seems rather -ridiculous for an American and an Englishman to converse in a foreign -language.” - -“How do you know I am English, mademoiselle?” he asked, his heart -a-flutter at the unexpected interchange of words. - -She laughed. “I have eyes. Besides, I know all about you—first from our -friend Corinna Hastings, and lately from my little hostess over the -way.” - -He flushed, charmed by the deep music of her voice and delighted at -being recognised by her not only as an individual (for she radiated an -attraction which had caused him to hate the conventional impersonality -of waiterdom) but as a member more or less of her own social class. He -paused, plate of crumbs in one hand and napkin in the other. - -“Do you know Corinna Hastings?” - -“Evidently. How else could she have told me of your romantic doings?” -she replied laughingly, and Martin flushed deeper, conscious of an idiot -question. - -He set the apples and little white grapes before her. “I ought to have -asked you,” said he, “how Miss Hastings came to talk to you about me?” - -“She came on the train from Brantôme and rang my bell in Paris. She kept -me up talking till four o’clock in the morning—not of you all the time. -Don’t imagine it. You were just interestingly incidental.” - -“_Garçon_,” cried a voice from the centre table. - -“_Bien, m’sieur._” - -Martin tucked his napkin under his arm and turned away, followed by -Lucilla’s humorous glance. - -“_L’addition!_” - -“_Bien, m’sieur._” - -He became the perfect waiter again, and brought the bill to the -commercial traveller who had merely come in for dinner. The latter paid -in even money, rose noisily—he was a stout, important, red-faced -man—and, fumbling in several pockets rendered difficult of access by -adiposity and good cheer, at last produced four coppers which he -deposited with a base, metallic chink in Martin’s palm. - -“_Merci, m’sieur. Bon soir, m’sieur_,” said the perfect waiter. But he -would have given much to be able to dispose of the horrible coins -otherwise than by thrusting them in his trouser pocket, to be able, for -instance, to hurl them at the triple sausage neck of the departing -donor; for he knew the starry, humorous eyes of the divinity were fixed -on him. He felt hot and clammy and did not dare look round. And the -hideous thought flashed through his mind: “Will she offer me a tip when -she leaves?” - -He busied himself furiously with his service, and, in a few moments, was -relieved to see her ceremoniously conducted by Bigourdin and Félise from -the _salle-à-manger_. On the threshold Bigourdin paused and called him. - -“You will serve coffee and liqueurs in the _petit salon_, and if you go -to the Café de l’Univers, you will kindly make my excuses to our -friends.” - -To enter the primly and plushily furnished salon, bearing the tray, and -to set out the cups and glasses and bottles was an ordeal which he went -through with the automatic rigidity of a highly trained London footman, -looking neither to right nor left. He had a vague impression of a -queenly figure reclining comfortably in an arm chair, haloed by a little -cloud of cigarette smoke. He retired, finished his work in the pantry, -swallowed a little food, changed his things and went out. - -Instinct led him along the quays and through the narrow, old-world -streets to the patch of yellow light before the Café de l’Univers. But -there he halted, suddenly disinclined to enter. Something new and -amazing had come into his life—he could not yet tell what—discordant -with the commonplace of the familiar company. He looked through the -space left between the edge of the blind and the jamb of the window and -saw Beuzot, the professor at the Ecole Normale, playing backgammon with -Monsieur Callot, the postmaster; and a couple of places away from them -was visible the square-headed old Monsieur Viriot, smiting his left palm -with his right fist. The excellent old man always did that when he -inveighed against the government. To-night Martin cared little about the -Government of the French Republic; still less for backgammon. He had a -nostalgia for unknown things and an absurd impulse to walk abroad to -find them beneath the moon and stars. Obeying the impulse, he retraced -his steps along the quays and struck the main-road past the habitations -of the rock dwellers. He walked for a couple of miles between rocks -casting jagged shadows and a calm, misty plain without finding anything, -until, following a laborious, zig-zag course, a dissolute quarryman of -his acquaintance in incapable charge of a girl child of five, lurched -into him and laid the clutch of a drowning mariner upon his shoulder. - -“Monsieur Martin,” said he. “It is the good God who has sent you.” - -“Boucabeille,” said Martin—for that was the name of the miscreant—“you -ought to be ashamed of yourself.” - -“You need not tell me, Monsieur Martin,” replied Boucabeille. - -As the child was crying bitterly and the father was self-reproachful—he -had taken the _mioche_ to see her aunt, and coming back had met some -friends who had enticed him into the Café of the Mère Diridieu, where -they had given him some poisoned, leg-dislocating alcohol—Martin took -the child in his arms, and trudged back to the rock-dwellings where the -drunkard lived. On the way Boucabeille, relieved of paternal -responsibility, the tired child now snuggling sleepily and comfortably -against Martin’s neck, grew confidential and confessed, with sly -enjoyment, that he had already well watered his throttle before he -started. The man, he declared, with the luminousness of an apostle, who -did not get drunk occasionally was an imbecile denying himself the -pleasures of the Other Life. Martin recognised in Boucabeille a -transcendentalist, no matter how muddle-headed. The sober clod did not -know adventures. He did not know happiness. The path of the drunkard, -Boucabeille explained, was strewn with joy. - -The anxious wife who met them at the door called Martin a saint from -heaven and her husband a stream of unmentionable things. He staggered -under the outburst and laid his hand again on Martin’s shoulder. - -“Monsieur Martin, I have committed a fault. I take you to witness”—his -wife paused in her invective to hear the penitent—“if I was more drunk -I wouldn’t pay attention to anything she says. I have committed a fault. -I haven’t got drunk enough.” - -“_Sale cochon!_” cried the lady, and Martin left them, meditating on the -philosophy of drunkenness. _Quo me rapis Bacche, plenum tui?_ To what -godlike adventure? But the magic word was _plenum_—right full to the -lips. No half-and-half measures for Bacchus. Apparently Boucabeille had -failed in his adventure and had missed happiness by a gill. Browning’s -lines about the little more and the little less came into his head, and -he laughed. Both the poet and the muddle-headed quarryman were right. -Adventures not brought through to the end must be dismal fiasco. . . . -His mind wandered a little. His shoulder was ever such a trifle stiff -from carrying the child; but he missed the warmth of her grateful little -body, and the trusting clasp of her tiny arms. It had been an -insignificant adventure, an adventure, so to speak, in miniature; but it -had been complete, rounded off, perfect. The proof lay in the glow of -satisfaction at the thing accomplished. Materially, there was nothing to -complain about. But from a philosophic standpoint the satisfaction was -not absolute. For the absolute is finality, and there is no finality in -mundane things. From a thing so finite as human joy eternal law decreed -the evolution of the germs of fresh desires. There had been a strange -sweetness in the clasp of those tiny arms. How much sweeter to a man -would be the clasp, if the arms were his own flesh and blood? Martin was -shocked by the suspicion that things were not going right with him as a -human being. - -The pleasant mass of the Hôtel des Grottes looming dimly white against -its black background came into view. The lights in an uncurtained and -unshuttered window, above the terrace, were visible. A figure passed -rapidly across the room and sent drunkards and adventures and -curly-headed five-year-olds packing from his mind. But he averted his -eyes and walked on and came to the Pont de Dronne, and then halted to -light a cigarette. The frosty silence of sharp moonlight hung over the -town. The silver shimmer reflected from reaches of water and from slated -roofs invested it with unspeakable beauty and peace. A little cold -caressing wind came from the distant mountains, seen in soft outline. -Near black shelves of rock and dark mysteries of forest and masses of -houses beyond the bridge-end closed other horizons. He remembered his -first impression of Brantôme, when he had sat with Corinna on the -terrace, a mothering shelter from all fierce and cruel things. - -“And yet,” thought he, as he puffed his cigarette smoke in the clear -air, “beyond this little spot lies a world of unceasing endeavour and -throbbing pulses and women of disturbing beauty. Such a woman on her -meteoric passage from one sphere of glory to another has flashed before -my eyes to-night. Why am I here pursuing an avocation, which, though -honest, is none the less greasy and obscure?” - -Unable to solve the enigma, he sighed and threw his cigarette, which had -gone out during his meditation, into the river. A patter of quick -footsteps at the approach of the bridge caused him to turn his head, and -he saw emerge from the gloom into the moonlight a tall, fur-clad figure -advancing towards him. She gave him a swift look of recognition. - -“Monsieur Martin——” - -He raised his cap. “Good evening, Miss Merriton.” - -She halted. “My good host and hostess are gone to bed. I couldn’t sit by -my window and sentimentalise through the glass; so I came out.” - -“It’s a fine night,” said Martin. - -“It is. But not one to hang about on a windy bridge. Come for a little -walk, if you have time, and protect me against the dangers of Brantôme.” - -Go for a walk with her? Defend her from dangers? Verily he would go -through the universe with her! His heart thumped. It was in his whirling -brain to cry: “Come and ride with me throughout the world and the more -dragons I can meet and slay in your service, the more worthy shall I be -to kiss the hem of your sacred grey velvet dinner-gown.” But from his -fundamental, sober, commonsense he replied: - -“The only dangers of Brantôme at this time of night are prudish eyes and -scandalous tongues.” - -She drew a little breath. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s frank and -sensible. I’m always forgetting that France isn’t New York, or Paris for -the matter of that, where one can do as one likes. I don’t know -Provincial France a little bit, but I suppose, for red-hot gossip, it -isn’t far behind a pretty little New England village. Still, can’t we -get out of range, somehow, of the eyes? That road over there”—she waved -a hand in the direction of the silent high-road, which Martin had lately -travelled—“doesn’t seem to be encumbered with the scandal-mongers of -Brantôme.” - -He laughed. “Will you try it?” - -She nodded assent. - -They set forth briskly. The glimpse into her nature delighted him. She -appreciated at once the motive of his warning, but was serenely -determined to have her own way. - -“We were just beginning an interesting little talk when you were called -off,” she remarked. - -Martin felt himself grow red, remembering the tightly pocketed bagman -who took the stage while he searched for eleemosynary sous. - -“My profession has its drawbacks,” said he. - -“So has every profession. I’ve got a friend in America—I have met him -two or three times—who is conductor on the Twentieth Century Express -between New York and Chicago. He’s by way of being an astronomer, and -the great drawback of his profession is that he has no time to sit on -top of a mountain and look at stars. The drawback of yours is that you -can’t carry on pleasant conversations whenever you like. But the -profession’s all right, unless you’re ashamed of it.” - -“But why should I be ashamed of it?” asked Martin. - -“I don’t know. Why should you? My father, who was the son of a New -England parson——” - -“My father was a parson,” said Martin. - -“Was he? Well, that’s good. We both come of a God-fearing stock, which -is something in these days. Anyway, my father, in order to get through -college, waited on the men in Hall at Harvard, and was a summer waiter -at a hotel in the Adirondacks. Of course there are some Americans who -would like it to be thought that their ancestors brought over the family -estates with them in the _Mayflower_. But we’re not like that. Say,” she -said, after a few steps through the sweet keenness of the moonlit night. -“Have you heard lately from Corinna?” - -He had not. In her last letter to him she had announced her departure -from the constricting family circle of Wendlebury. She was going to -London. - -“Where she would have a chance of self-development,” said Lucilla, with -a laugh. - -“How did you know that?” Martin asked in simple surprise, for those had -been almost Corinna’s own words. - -“What else would she go to London for?” - -“I don’t know,” said Martin. “She did not tell me.” - -They did not discuss Corinna further. But Martin felt that his companion -had formulated his own diagnosis of Corinna’s abiding defect: her -suspicion that the cosmic scheme centred round the evolution of Corinna -Hastings. In a very subtle way the divinity had established implied -understandings between them. They were of much the same parentage. In -her own family the napkin had played no ignoble part. They were at one -in their little confidential estimate of their common friend. And when -she threw back her adorable head and drew a deep breath and said: “It’s -just lovely here,” he felt deliciously near her. Deliciously and -dangerously. A little later, as they came upon the rock dwellings, she -laid a fleeting, but thrilling touch on his arm. - -“What in the world are those houses?” - -He told her. He described the lives of the inhabitants. He described, on -the way back, for the rocks marked the limit of their stroll, his -adventure with Boucabeille. Ordinarily shy, and if not tongue-tied, at -least unimaginative in speech, he now found vivid words and picturesque -images, his soul set upon repaying her, in some manner for her gracious -comradeship. Her smiles, her interest, her quick sympathy, the -occasional brush of her furs against his body, as she leaned to listen, -intoxicated him. He spoke of France, the land of his adoption, and the -spiritual France that no series of hazardous governments could impair, -with rhapsodical enthusiasm. She declared, in her rich, deep voice, as -though carried away by him: - -“I love to hear you say such things. It is splendid to get to the soul -of a people.” - -Her tone implied admiration of achievement. He laughed rather foolishly, -in besotted happiness. They had reached the steep road leading to the -Hôtel des Grottes. She threw a hand to the moonlit bridge, where they -had met. - -“Were you thinking of all that when I dragged you off?” - -He laughed again. “No,” he confessed. “I was wondering what on earth I -was doing there.” - -“I think,” said she softly, “you have just given me the _mot de -l’enigme_.” - -In the vestibule they came across Bigourdin, cigarette in mouth, -sprawling as might have been expected, on the cane-bottomed couch. He -was always the last to retire, a fact which the blissful Martin had -forgotten. Lucilla sailed up, radiant in her furs, the flush of exercise -on her cheeks visible even under the dim electric light. Bigourdin -raised his ponderous bulk. - -“I found Monsieur Martin outside,” she said, “and I commandeered him as -an escort round the neighbourhood. He couldn’t refuse. I hope I haven’t -done wrong.” - -“Martin knows more about Brantôme,” replied Bigourdin courteously, “than -most of the Brantômois themselves.” - -Céleste appeared from the gloom of the stairs. Lucilla, after an idle -word or two, retired. Bigourdin closed and bolted the front door. To do -that he would trust nobody, not even Martin. Having completed the -operation, he advanced slowly towards his employé. - -“Did you go to the café to-night?” - -“No,” replied Martin. “I was walking with mademoiselle, who, as she may -have told you, is a friend of Mademoiselle Corinna.” - -“Yes, yes, she told me that,” said Bigourdin. “There is no need of -explanations, _mon ami_. But I am glad you did not go to the café. I -ought to have warned you. We must be very discreet towards the Viriots. -There is no longer any marriage. Félise doesn’t want it. Her father has -formally forbidden it. I have no desire to make anybody unhappy. But -there it is. _Foutu, le mariage._ And I haven’t said anything as yet to -the Viriots. And, again, I can’t say anything to Monsieur Viriot, until -he says something to me. _Voilà la situation. Cest d’une délicatesse -extraordinaire._” - -He passed his hand over his head and tried to grip the half-inch -stubble. - -“I tell you this, _mon cher_ Martin, because you know the intimate -affairs of the family. So”—he shook an impressive finger—“act towards -the Viriots, father and son, as if you knew nothing, nothing at all. -_Laissez-moi faire._” - -Martin pledged the discretion of the statues in the old Alhambra tale. -What did the extraordinary delicacy of the situation between Bigourdin -and the Viriots matter to him? When he reached his room, he laughed -aloud, oblivious of Bigourdin, the Viriots and poor little Félise who -(though he knew it not) lay achingly awake. - -At last a woman, a splendid wonder of a woman, a woman with the -resplendent dignity of the King’s daughter of the fairy tales, with the -bewilderment of beauty of face and of form and of voice like the cooing -of a dove, with the delicate warm sympathy of sheer woman, had come into -his life. - -The usually methodical Martin threw his shirt and trousers across the -room and walked about like a lunatic in his under things, until a sneeze -brought him to the consciousness of wintry cold. - -The only satisfying sanction of romance is its charm of intimate -commonplace. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -THEY had further talk together the next afternoon. A lost remnant of -golden autumn freakishly returned to warm the December air. The end of -the terrace caught a flood of sunshine wherein Lucilla, wrapped in furs -and rugs and seated in one of the bent-wood rocking-chairs brought out -from winter quarters for the occasion, had established herself with a -book. The little dog’s head appeared from under the rug, his strange -Mongolian eyes staring unsympathetically at a draughty world. Martin -sauntered out to breathe the beauty of the hour, which was that of his -freedom. He explained the fact when she informed him that Félise and -Bigourdin had both left her a few minutes before in order to return to -their duties. Martin being free, she commanded him to stay and entertain -her. - -“If I were a good American,” she said, “I should be racing about in the -car doing the sights of the neighbourhood; but to sit lazily in the sun -is too great a temptation. Besides,” she added, “I have explored the -town this morning. I went round with Monsieur Bigourdin.” - -“He is very proud of Brantôme,” said Martin. - -She dismissed Brantôme. “I have lost my heart to him. He is so big and -comfortable and honest, and he talks history like a poetical professor -with the manners of an Embassy attaché. He’s unique among landlords.” - -“I love Bigourdin,” said Martin, “but the type is not uncommon in these -old inns of France—especially those which have belonged to the same -family for generations. There is the proprietor of the Hôtel du Commerce -at Périgueux, for instance, who makes _pâté de foie gras_, just like -Bigourdin, and is a well-known authority on the prehistoric antiquities -of the Dordogne. He once went to London, for a day; and what do you -think was his object? To inspect the collection of flint instruments at -the Guildhall Museum. He told me so himself.” - -“That’s all very interesting,” said Lucilla, “but I’m sure he’s nothing -like Bigourdin. He can’t be. And his hotel can’t be like this. It’s the -queerest hotel I’ve ever struck. It’s run by such unimaginable people. I -think I’ve lost my heart to all of you. There’s Bigourdin, there’s -Félise, the dearest and most delicate little soul in the world, the -daughter of a remarkable mystery of a man, there are Baptiste and -Euphémie and Marie, the chambermaid, who seem to exude desire to fold me -to their bosoms whenever I meet them, and there is yourself, an English -University man, an exceedingly competent waiter and a perfectly -agreeable companion.” - -The divinity crowned with a little sealskin motoring toque which left -unhidden the fascination of her up-brushed hair, cooed on deliciously. -The knees of Martin, leaning against the parapet, became as water. He -had a crazy desire to kneel at her feet on the concrete floor of the -terrace. Then he noticed that between her feet and the cold concrete -floor there was no protecting footstool. He fetched one from the dining -room and had the felicity of placing it for her and readjusting the -rugs. - -“I suppose you’re not going to be a waiter here all your life,” she -said. - -He signified that the hypothesis was correct. - -“What are you going to do?” - -It was in his awakened imagination to say: - -“Follow you to the ends of the earth,” but common sense replied that he -did not know. He had made no plans. She suggested that he might travel -about the wide world. He breathed an inward sigh. Why not the starry -firmament? Why not, rainbow-winged and golden spear in hand, swoop, a -bright Archangel, from planet to planet? - -“You ought to see Egypt,” she said, “and feel what a speck of time you -are when the centuries look down on you. It’s wholesome. I’m going early -in the New Year. I go there and try to paint the desert; and then I sit -down and cry—which is wholesome too—for me.” - -Before Martin’s inner vision floated a blurred picture of camels and -pyramids and sand and oleographic sunsets. He said, infatuated: “I would -give my soul to go to Egypt.” - -“Egypt is well worth a soul,” she laughed. - -Words and reply were driven from his head by the sight of a great -splotch of grease on the leg of his trousers. A dress suit worn daily -for two or three months in pursuit of a waiter’s avocation, does not -look its best in stark sunlight. Self-conscious, he crossed his legs, as -he leaned against the parapet, in order to hide the splotch. Then he -noticed that one of the studs of his shirt had escaped from the frayed -and blackened buttonhole. Again he felt her humorous eyes upon him. For -a few moments he dared not meet them. When he did look up he found them -fixed caressingly on the Pekinese spaniel, which had slipped upon its -back in the hope of a rubbed stomach, and was waving feathery paws in -pursuit of her finger. A moment’s reflection brought heart of grace. -Greasy suit and untidy stud-hole must have been obvious to her from his -first appearance on the terrace—indeed they must have been obvious -while he had waited on her at déjeuner. Her invitation to converse was -proof that she disregarded outer trappings, that she recognised the man -beneath the soup-stained raiment. He uncrossed his legs and stood -upright. Then he remembered her remark. - -“The question is,” said he, “whether my soul would fetch enough to -provide me with a ticket to Egypt.” - -She smiled lazily. The sunlight being full on her face, he noticed that -her eyelashes were brown. Wondrous discovery! - -“Anyhow,” she replied, “where there’s a soul, there’s a way.” - -She took a cigarette from a gold case that lay on the little iron table -beside her. Martin sprang forward with a match. She thanked him -graciously. - -“It isn’t money that does the real things,” she said, after a few -meditative puffs. “To hear an American say so must sound strange to your -English ears. You believe, I know, that Americans make money an Almighty -God that can work any miracles over man and natural forces that you -please. But it isn’t so. The miracles, such as they are, that America -has performed, have been due to the naked human soul. Money has come as -an accident or an accretion and has helped things along. We have a -saying which you may have heard: ‘Money talks.’ That’s just it. It -talks. But the soul has had to act first. Money had nothing to do with -American Independence. It was the soul of George Washington. It wasn’t -money that invented the phonograph. It was the soul of the train newsboy -Edison. It wasn’t money that brought into being the original Cornelius -Vanderbilt. It was the soul of the old ferryman that divined the power -of steam both on sea and land a hundred years ago, and accidentally or -incidentally or logically or what you please, founded the Vanderbilt -fortune. I could go on for ever with instances from my own -country—instances that every school-child knows. In the eyes of the -world the Almighty Dollar may seem to rule America —but every thinking -American knows in his heart of hearts that the Almighty Dollar is but an -accidental symbol of the Almighty soul of man. And it’s the soul that -we’re proud of and that keeps the nation together. All this more or less -was at the back of my mind when I said where there’s a soul there’s a -way.” - -As this little speech progressed her face lost its expression of serene -and humorous contentment with the world, and grew eager and her eyes -shone and her voice quickened. He regarded her as some fainéant Homeric -warrior might have regarded the goddess who had descended cloud-haste -from Olympus to exhort him to noble deeds. The exhortation fluttered -both pride and pulses. He saw in her a woman capable of great things and -she had appealed to him as a man also capable. - -“You have pointed me out the way to Egypt,” he said. - -“I’m glad,” said Lucilla. “Look me up when you get there,” she added -with a smile. “It seems a big place, but it isn’t. Cairo, Luxor, -Assouan—and at any rate the Semiramis Hotel at Cairo.” - -And then she began to talk of that wonderful land, of the mystery of the -desert, the inscrutable gods of granite and Karnac brooding over the -ghost of Thebes. She spoke from wide knowledge and sympathy. An allusion -here and there indicated how true a touch she had on far divergent -aspects of life. Apart from her radiant adorableness which held him -captive, she possessed a mind which stimulated his own so long lain -sluggish. He had not met before the highly educated woman of the world. -Instinctively he contrasted her with Corinna, who in the first days of -their pilgrimage had dazzled him with her attainments. She had a quick -intelligence, but in any matter of knowledge was soon out of her depth; -yet she exhibited singular adroitness in regaining the shallows where -she found safety in abiding. Lucilla, on the other hand, swam serenely -out into deep blue water. From every point of view she was a goddess of -bewildering attributes. - -After a while she shivered slightly. The sun had disappeared behind a -corner of the hotel. Greyness overspread the terrace. The glory of the -short winter afternoon had departed. She rose, Heliogabalus, also -shivering, under her arm. Martin held the rugs. - -“I wonder,” said she, “whether you could possibly send up some tea to my -quaint little salon. Perhaps you might induce Félise to join me.” - -That was all the talk he had with her. In the evening the arrival of an -English motor party kept him busy, both during dinner and afterwards; -for not only did they desire coffee and liqueurs served in the -vestibule, but they gave indications to his experienced judgment of -requiring relays of whiskies and sodas until bedtime. Again he did not -visit the Café de l’Univers. - -The next morning she started for the Riviera. She was proceeding thither -via Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne and the coast. To Martin’s -astonishment Félise was accompanying her, on a visit for ten days or a -fortnight to the South. It appeared that the matter had been arranged -late the previous evening. Lucilla had made the proposal, swept away -difficulty after difficulty with her air of a smiling, but irresistible -providence and left Bigourdin and Félise not a leg save sheer -churlishness to stand on. Clothes? She had ten times the amount she -needed. The perils of the lonely and tedious return train journey? Never -could Félise accomplish it. Bigourdin turned up an _Indicateur des -Chemins de Fer_. There were changes, there were waits. Communications -were arranged, with diabolical cunning, not to correspond. Perhaps it -was to confound the Germans in case of invasion. As far as he could make -out it would take seventy-four hours, forty-three minutes to get from -Monte Carlo to Brantôme. It was far simpler to go from Paris to Moscow, -which as every one knew was the end of the world. Félise would starve. -Félise would perish of cold. Félise would get the wrong train and find -herself at Copenhagen or Amsterdam or Naples, where she wouldn’t be able -to speak the language. Lucilla laughed. There was such a thing as -L’Agence Cook which moulded the _Indicateur des Chemins de Fer_ to its -will. She would engage a man from Cook’s before whose brass-buttoned -coat and a gold-lettered cap band the Indicateur would fall to pieces, -to transfer Félise personally, by easy stages, from house to house. -Félise had pleaded her uncle’s need. Lucilla, in the most charming way -imaginable, had deprecated as impossible any such colossal selfishness -on the part of Monsieur Bigourdin. Overawed by the Olympian he had -peremptorily ordered Félise to retire and pack her trunk. Then, obeying -the dictates of his sound sense he had asked Lucilla what object she had -in her magnificent invitation. His little girl, said he, would acquire a -taste for celestial things which never afterwards would she be in a -position to gratify. To which, Lucilla: - -“How do you know she won’t be able to gratify them? A girl of her -beauty, charm and character, together with a little knowledge of the -world of men, women and things, is in a position to command whatever she -chooses. She has the beauty, charm and character and I want to add the -little knowledge. I want to see a lovely human flower expand”—she had a -graceful trick of restrained gesture which impressed Bigourdin. “I want -to give a bruised little girl whom I’ve taken to my heart a good time. -For myself, it’s some sort of way of finding a sanction for my otherwise -useless existence.” - -And Bigourdin clutching at his bristles had plucked forth no adequately -inspired reply. The will of the New World had triumphed over that of the -Old. - -All the staff of the hotel witnessed the departure. - -“Monsieur Martin,” said Félise in French, about to step into the great -car, a medley, to her mind, of fur rugs and dark golden dogs and grey -cats and maids and chauffeurs and innumerable articles of luggage, “I -have scarcely had two words with you. I no longer know where I have my -head. But look after my uncle and see that the laundress does not return -the table-linen black.” - -“_Bien_, Mademoiselle Félise,” said Martin. - -Lucilla, pink and white and leopard-coated, shook hands with Bigourdin, -thanked him for his hospitality and reassured him as to the perfect -safety of Félise. She stepped into the car. Martin arranged the rugs and -closed the door. She held out her hand to him. - -“We meet in Egypt,” she said in a low voice. As the car drove off, she -turned round and blew a gracious kiss to the little group. - -“_Voilà une petite sorcière d’Américaine_,” said Bigourdin. “Pif! Paf! -and away goes Félise on her broomstick.” - -Martin stood shocked at hearing his Divinity maligned as a witch. - -“Here am I,” continued Bigourdin, “between pretty sheets. I have no -longer a housekeeper, seeing that Madame Thuillier rendered herself -unbearable. However”—he shrugged his shoulders resignedly—“we must get -on by ourselves as best we can. The trip will be good for the health of -Félise. It will also improve her mind. She will stay in many hotels and -observe their organisation.” - -From the moment that Martin returned to his duties he felt unusual lack -of zeal in their performance. Deprived of the Celestial Presence the -Hôtel des Grottes seemed to be stricken with a blight The rooms had -grown smaller and barer, the furniture more common, and the terrace -stretched outside a bleak concrete wilderness. Often he stood on the -bridge and repeated the question of the memorable evening. What was he -doing there when the wide world was illuminated by a radiant woman? -Suddenly Bigourdin, Félise, the circle of the Café de l’Univers became -alien in speech and point of view. He upbraided himself for base -ingratitude. He realised, more from casual talk with Bigourdin, than -from sense of something wanting, the truth of Félise’s last remark. In -the usual intimate order of things she would have related her -experiences of Chartres and Paris in which he would have manifested a -more than brotherly interest. During her previous absence he had thought -much of Félise and had anticipated her return with a throb of the heart. -The dismissal of Lucien Viriot, much as he admired the gallant -ex-cuirassier, pleased him mightily. He had shared Bigourdin’s -excitement over the escape from Chartres, over Fortinbras’s prohibition -of the marriage, over her return in motoring state. When she had freed -herself from Bigourdin’s embrace, and turned to greet him, the clasp of -her two little hands and the sight of her eager little face had thrilled -him. He had told her, as though she belonged to him, of the things he -knew she was dying to hear. . . . And then the figure of the American -girl with her stately witchery had walked through the door of the -_salle-à-manger_ into his life. - -The days went on dully, shortening and darkening as they neared -Christmas. Félise wrote letters to her uncle, artlessly filled with the -magic of the South. Two letters from Lucilla Merriton decreed extension -of her guest’s visit. Bigourdin began to lose his genial view of -existence. He talked gloomily of France’s unreadiness for war. There -were thieves and traitors in the Cabinet. Whole Army Corps were -notoriously deficient in equipment and transport. It was enough, he -declared, to make a patriotic Frenchman commit protesting suicide in the -lobby of the Chamber of Deputies. And what news had Martin received of -Mademoiselle Corinna? Martin knew little save that she was engaged in -some mysterious work in London. - -“But what is she doing?” cried Bigourdin, at last. - -“I haven’t the remotest idea,” replied Martin. - -“_Dites donc, mon ami_,” said Bigourdin, the gloom of anxiety deepening -on his brow. “You do not think, by any chance”—he hesitated before -breathing the terrible surmise—“you do not think she has made herself a -suffragette?” - -“How can I tell?” replied Martin. “With Corinna all things are -possible.” - -“Except to take command of the Hôtel des Grottes,” said Bigourdin, and -he sighed vastly. - -One evening he said: “My good friend Martin, I am feeling upset. Instead -of going to the Café de l’Univers, let us have a glass of the _vieille -fine du Brigadier_ in the _petit salon_ where I have ordered Marie to -make a good fire.” - -The old Liqueur Brandy of the Brigadier was literally, from the market -standpoint, worth its weight in gold. In the seventies Bigourdin’s -father, during the course of reparations, had discovered, in a blocked -and forgotten cellar, three almost evaporated casks bearing the -inscription just decipherable beneath the mildew in Brigadier General -Bigourdin’s old war-dog handwriting: “Cognac. 1812.” His grandson, who -had lost a leg and an arm in 1870, knew what was due to the brandy of -the _Grande Armée_. Instead of filling up the casks with newer brandy -and selling the result at extravagant prices, he reverently bottled the -remaining contents of the three casks and on each bottle stuck a printed -label setting forth the great history of the brandy, and stored the lot -in a dry bin which he charged his son to venerate as one of the sacred -depositaries of France in the family of Bigourdin. - -Now in any first-class restaurant in Paris, Monte Carlo, Aix-les-Bains, -you can get Napoleon Brandy. The bottle sealed with the still -mind-stirring initial “N” on the neck, is uncorked solemnly before you -by the silver-chained functionary. It is majestic liquid. But not a drop -of the distillation of the Napoleonic grape is there. The casks once -containing it have been filled and refilled for a hundred years. For -brandy unlike port does not mature in bottle. The best 1812 brandy -bottled that year would be to-day the same as it was then. But if it has -remained for over sixty years in cask, you shall have a precious fluid -such as it is given to few kings or even emperors to taste. I doubt -whether there are a hundred gallons of it in the wide, wide world. - -The proposal to open a bottle of the Old Brandy of the Brigadier -portended a state of affairs so momentous that Martin gaped at the back -of Bigourdin on his way to the cellar. On the occasion of what high -solemnity the last had been uncorked, Martin did not know: certainly not -on the occasion of the dinner of ceremony to the Viriots, in spite of -the fact that the father of the prospective bridegroom was _marchand de -vins en gros_ and was expected by Bigourdin to produce at the return -dinner some of his famous Chambertin. - -“Come,” said Bigourdin, cobwebbed bottle in hand, and Martin followed -him into the prim little salon. From a cupboard whose glass doors were -veiled with green-pleated silk, he produced two mighty quart goblets -which he set down on a small table, and into each poured about a -sherry-glass of the precious brandy. - -“Like this,” he explained, “we do not lose the perfume.” - -Martin sipped; it was soft like wine and the delicate flavour lingered -deliciously on tongue and palate. - -“I like to think,” said Bigourdin, “that it contains the soul of the -_Grande Armée_.” - -They sat in stiff arm chairs covered in stamped velvet, one on each side -of the wood fire. - -“My friend,” said Bigourdin, lighting a cigarette, “I am not as -contented with the world as perhaps I ought to be. I had an interview -with Monsieur Viriot to-day which distressed me a great deal. The two -families have been friends and the Viriots have supplied us with wine on -an honourable understanding for generations. But the understanding was -purely mercantile and did not involve the sacrifice of a virgin. _Le -Père_ Viriot seems to think that it did. I exposed to him the -disinclination of Félise, and the impossibility of obtaining that which -is necessary, according to the law, the consent of her parents. He threw -the parents to the four winds of heaven. He conducted himself like a man -bereft of reason. Always beware of the obstinacy of a flat-headed man.” - -“What was the result of the interview?” asked Martin. - -“We quarrelled for good and all. We quitted each other as enemies. He -sent round his clerk this afternoon with his account, and I paid it in -cash down to the last centime. And now I shall have to go to the Maison -Prunier of Périgueux, who are incapable of any honourable understanding -and will try to supply me with abominable beverages which will poison -and destroy my clientèle.” - -Recklessly he finished his brandy and poured himself out another -portion. Then he passed the bottle to Martin. - -“_Sers-toi_,” said he, using for the first time the familiar second -person singular. Martin was startled, but said nothing. Then he -remembered that Bigourdin, contrary to his usual abstemious habits, had -been supplied at dinner with a cradled quart of old Corton which awakens -generosity of sentiment towards their fellows in the hearts of men. - -“_Mon brave_,” he remarked, after a pause, “my heart is full of problems -which I cannot resolve and I have no one to turn to but yourself.” - -“I appreciate your saying so very much,” replied Martin; “but why not -consult our wise and experienced friend Fortinbras?” - -“_Voilà_,” cried Bigourdin, waving a great hand. “It is he who sets me -the greatest problem of all. Why do you think I have let Félise go away -with that pretty whirlwind of an American?” Martin stiffened, not -knowing whether this was a disparagement of Lucilla; but Bigourdin, -heedless, continued: “It is because she is very unhappy, and it is out -of human power to give her consolation. You are a gentleman and a man of -honour. I will repose in you a sacred confidence. But that which I am -going to tell you, you will swear never to reveal to a living soul.” - -Martin gave his word. Bigourdin, without touching on long-past sorrows, -described the visit of Félise to the Rue Maugrabine. - -“It was my sister,” said he, “for years sunk in the degradation of -drunkenness—so rare among Frenchwomen—it is madness, _que veux-tu_? -Often she has gone away to be cured, with no effect. I have urged my -brother-in-law to put her away permanently in a _maison de santé_; but -he has not been willing. It was he, he maintains, who in far-off, -unhappy days, when, _pauvre garçon_, he lifted his elbow too often -himself, gave her the taste for alcohol. For that reason he treats her -with consideration and even tenderness. _Cest beau._ And he himself, you -must have remarked, has not drunk anything but water for many years.” - -“Of course,” said Martin, and his mind went back to his first meeting -with Fortinbras in the lonely Petit Cornichon, when the latter imbibed -such prodigious quantities of raspberry syrup and water. It seemed very -long ago. Bigourdin went on talking. - -“And so,” said he, at last, “you see the unhappy situation which -Fortinbras, like a true Don Quixote, has arranged between himself and -Félise. She retains the sacred ideal of her mother, but holds in horror, -very naturally, the father whom she has always adored. It is a bleeding -wound in her innocent little soul. What can I do?” - -Martin was deeply moved by the pitifulness of the tale. Poor little -Félise, how much she must have suffered. - -“Would it not be better,” said he, “to sacrifice a phantom mother—for -that’s what it comes to—for the sake of a living father?” - -Bigourdin agreed, but Fortinbras expressly forbade such a disclosure. In -this he sympathised with Fortinbras, although the mother was his own -flesh and blood. Truly he had not been lucky in sisters—one a _bigote_ -and the other an _alcoolique_. He expressed sombre views as to the -family of which he was the sole male survivor. Seeing that his wife had -given him no children, and that he had not the heart to marry one of the -damsels of the neighbourhood, he bewailed the end of the good old name -of Bigourdin. But perhaps it were best. For who could tell, if he begat -a couple of children, whether one would not be afflicted with alcoholic, -and the other with religious mania? To beget brave children for France, -a man, _nom de Dieu_! must put forth all the splendour and audacity of -his soul. How could he do so, when the only woman who could conjure up -within him the said splendour and audacity would have nothing to do with -him? To fall in love with a woman was a droll affair. But if you loved -her, you loved her, however little she responded. It was a species of -malady which must be supported with courageous resignation. He sighed -and poured out a third glass of the brandy of the Brigadier. Martin did -likewise, thinking of the woman whose white fingers held the working of -the splendour and audacity of the soul of Martin Overshaw. He felt drawn -into brotherly sympathy with Bigourdin; but, for the life of him, he -could not see how anybody could be dependent for soul provisions of -splendour and audacity upon Corinna Hastings. The humbly aspiring fellow -moved him to patronising pity. - -Martin strove to comfort him with specious words of hope. But -Bigourdin’s mental condition was that of a man to whom wallowing in -despair alone brings consolation. He had been suffering from a gathering -avalanche of misfortunes. First had come his rejection, followed by the -unsatisfied longing of the devout lover. It cannot be denied, however, -that he had borne himself gallantly. Then the fading of his dream of the -Viriot alliance had filled him with dismay. Félise’s adventure in the -Rue Maugrabine and its resulting situation had caused him sleepless -nights. Lucilla Merriton had taken him up between her fingers and -twiddled him round, thereby depriving him of volition, and having put -him down in a state of bewilderment, had carried off Félise. And to-day, -last accretion that set the avalanche rolling, his old friend Viriot had -called him a breaker of honourable understandings and had sent a clerk -with his bill. The avalanche swept him into the Slough of Despond, -wherein he lay solacing himself with hopeless imaginings and the old -brandy of the Brigadier. But human instinct made him beckon to Martin, -call him “_tu_” and bid him to keep an eye on the quagmire and stretch -out a helping hand. He also had in view a subtle and daring scheme. - -“_Mon brave ami_,” said he, “when I die”—his broad face assumed an -expression of infinite woe and he spoke as though he were seventy—“what -will become of the Hôtel des Grottes? Félise will benefit principally, -_bien entendu_, by my will; but she will marry one of these days and -will follow her husband, who probably will not want to concern himself -with hotel keeping.” He glanced shrewdly at Martin, who regarded him -with unmoved placidity. “To think that the hotel will be sold and all -its honourable traditions changed would break my heart. I should not -like to die without any solution of continuity.” - -“But, my dear Bigourdin,” said Martin, “what are you thinking of? You’re -a young man. You’re not stricken with a fatal malady. You’re not going -to die. You have twenty, thirty, perhaps forty years before you in the -course of which all kinds of things may happen.” - -Bigourdin leant forward and stretched out his great arm across the -fireplace until his fingers touched Martin’s knee. - -“Do you know what is going to happen? War is going to happen. Next -year—the year after—five years hence—_que sais-je, moi?_—but it has -to come. All these pacifists and anti-militarists are either imbeciles -or traitors—those that are not dreaming mad-house dreams of the -millennium are filling their pockets—of the latter there are some in -high places. There is going to be war, I tell you, and many people are -going to die. And when the bugle sounds I put on my old uniform and -march to the cannon’s mouth like my fathers before me. And why shouldn’t -I die, like my brother in Morocco? Tell me that?” - -In spite of his intimacy with the sturdy thought of provincial France, -Martin could not realise how the vague imminence of war could affect so -closely the personal life of an individual Frenchman. - -“No matter,” said Bigourdin, after a short discussion. “I have to die -some day. It was not to argue about the probable date of my decease that -I have asked you to honour me with this special conversation. I have -expressed to you quite frankly the motives which actuate me at the -present moment. I have done so in order that you may understand why I -desire to make you a business proposition.” - -“A business proposition?” echoed Martin. - -“_Oui, mon ami._” - -He replenished Martin’s enormous beaker and his own and gave the toast. - -“_A l’Entente Cordiale_—between our nations and between our two -selves.” - -Lest the uninitiated may regard this sitting as a dram drinking orgy, it -must be borne in mind that in such brandy as that of the Brigadier, -strength has melted into the gracious mellowness of old age. The fiery -spirit that the _cantinière_ or the _vivandière_ of 1812 served out of -her little waist-slung barrel to the warriors of the _Grande Armée_, was -now but a fragrant memory of battles long ago. - -“A business proposition,” repeated Bigourdin, and forthwith began to -develop it. It was the very simplest business proposition in the world. -Why should not Martin invest all or part of his little heritage in the -century-old and indubitably flourishing business of the Hôtel des -Grottes, and become a partner with Bigourdin? Lawyers would arrange the -business details. In this way, whether Bigourdin met with a gory death -within the next two or three years or a peaceful one a quarter of a -century hence, he would be reassured that there would be no solution of -continuity in the honourable tradition of the Hôtel des Grottes. - -It was then that Martin fully understood the solemnity of the -occasion—the _petit salon_ with fire specially lit, the Brigadier -brandy, the preparatory revelation of the soul-state of Bigourdin. The -unexpectedness of the suggestion, however, dazed him. He said politely: - -“My dear friend, your proposal that I should associate myself with you -in this business is a personal compliment, which I shall never cease to -appreciate. But——” - -“But what?” - -“I must think over it.” - -“Naturally,” said Bigourdin. “One would be a linnet or a butterfly -instead of a man if one took a step like that without thinking. But at -least the idea is not disagreeable to you.” - -“Of course not,” replied Martin. “The only question is how should I get -the money?” - -“Your little heritage, _parbleu_.” - -“But that is in Consols—_rentes anglaises_, and I only get my dividends -twice a year.” - -“You could sell out to-morrow or the next day and get the whole in bank -notes or golden sovereigns.” - -“I suppose I could,” said Martin. Not till then had he realised the -simple fact that if he chose he could walk about with a sack of a -thousand sovereigns over his shoulder. He had taken it in an -unspeculative way for granted that the capital remained locked up behind -impassable doors in the Bank of England. Instinct, however, restrained -him from confessing to Bigourdin such innocence in business affairs. - -“If I did not think it would be as safe here as in the hands of the -British Government, I would not make the suggestion.” - -Martin started upright in his chair. - -“My dear friend, I know that,” he cried ingenuously, horrified lest he -should be thought to suspect Bigourdin’s good faith. - -“And you would no longer wear that costume.” Bigourdin smiled and waved -a hand towards the dress-suit. - -“Which is beginning to show signs of wear,” said Martin. - -He glanced down and caught sight of the offending splotch of grease. The -quick association of ideas caused a vision of Lucilla to pass before his -eyes. He heard her rich, deep voice: “We meet in Egypt.” But how the -deuce could they meet in Egypt or in any other Lucilla-lit spot on the -earth if he started inn-keeping with Bigourdin, and tied himself down -for life to Brantôme? A chill ran down his spine. - -“_Eh, bien?_” said Bigourdin, recalling him to the _petit salon_. - -Martin had an inspiration of despair. “I should like,” said he, “to talk -the matter over with Fortinbras.” - -“It is what I should advise,” said Bigourdin heartily. “You can go to -Paris whenever you like. And now _n’en parlons plus_. I feel much -happier than at the beginning of the evening. It is the brandy of the -brave old Brigadier. Let us empty the bottle and drink to the repose of -his soul. He would ask nothing better.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -THE days went on, and nothing more was said of the proposal, it being -understood that, as soon as Félise had wrought order out of chaos for a -second time, Martin should consult with Fortinbras, his bankers, his -solicitors and other eminent advisers. They resumed their evening visits -to the Café de l’Univers, where Bigourdin and Monsieur Viriot sat as far -apart as was consonant with membership of the circle. On meeting they -saluted each other with elaborate politeness and addressed each other as -“Monsieur” when occasion required interchange of speech. Every one knew -what had happened, and, as every one was determined that the strained -relations between them should not interfere with his own personal -comfort, nobody cared. The same games were played, the same arguments -developed. A favourite theme was the probable action of the Socialists -on the outbreak of war. Some held, Monsieur Viriot among them, that they -would refuse to take up arms and would spread counsels of ignominy among -the people. The Professor at the Ecole Normale, allowed to express -latitudinarian views on account of his philosophic position, was of -opinion that the only safeguard against a European war lay in the -solidarity of the International Socialist Brotherhood. - -“The Prussian drill-sergeant,” said the Mayor, “will soon see that there -is no solidarity as far as Germany is concerned.” - -“We have no drill-sergeants. The _sous-officier_ is under the officer -who is under the general who is bought by the men we are so besotted as -to put into power to play into the hands of the enemy. Our Socialists -will cleave to their infamous principles.” Thus declared Monsieur -Viriot, who was a reactionary republican and regarded Socialism and -Radicalism and Anti-clericalism as punishments inflicted by an outraged -Heaven on a stiff-necked generation. “The Socialist will betray us,” he -cried. - -“Monsieur,” replied Bigourdin loftily, “you are wrong to accuse the -loyalty of your compatriots. I am not a socialist. I, as every one -knows, hold their mischievous ideas in detestation. But I have faith in -the human soul. There’s not a Socialist, not an Anarchist, not even an -Apache, who, when the German cannon sounds in his ears, will not rush to -shed his blood in the defence of the sacred soil of France.” - -“Bravo!” cried one. - -“_C’est bien dit!_” cried another. - -“After all, the soil is in the blood,” said a third. - -Monsieur Cazensac, the landlord, who stood listening, said with a -certain Gascon mordancy: - -“Scratch even a Minister and you will find a Frenchman.” - -And so the discussion—and who shall say it was a profitless one?—went -on evening after evening, as it had gone on, in some sort of fashion -conditioned by circumstances for over forty years. - -On Christmas Eve came Félise, convoyed as far as Périgueux, where -Bigourdin met her train, by the promised man from Cook’s. It was a -changed little Félise, flushed with health and armoured in -sophistication that greeted Martin. Her first preoccupation was no -longer the disasters that might have occurred under helpless male rule -during her absence. - -“I’ve had the time of my life,” she asserted with a curious lazy accent. -“It would take weeks to tell you. Monte Carlo is too heavenly for words. -Lucilla committed perjury and swore I was over twenty-one and got me -into the rooms and into the Sports Club, and what do you think? I won a -thousand francs,” she tapped her bosom. “I have it here in good French -money.” - -Martin stared. The face was the face of Félise, but the voice was the -voice of Lucilla. The English too of Félise was no longer her pretty -halting speech, but fluent, as though, by her frequentation of -English-speaking folk, all the old vocabulary of childhood had returned, -together with sundry accretions. She rattled off a succinct account of -the loveliness of the Azure Coast, with its flowers and seas and -sunshine, the motor drives she had taken, the lunches, dinners and -suppers she had eaten, the people she had met. Lucilla seemed to have -friends everywhere, mainly English and American. They had seldom been -alone. Félise had lived all the time in a social whirl. - -“You will find Brantôme very dull now, Félise,” said Martin. - -She laughed. “If you think my head’s turned, you’re mistaken. It’s a -little head more solid than that.” Then, growing serious—“What I have -seen and heard yonder, in a different sort of world, will enable me to -form a truer judgment of things in Brantôme.” - -Bigourdin came near the truth when he remarked later with a smile and a -sigh: - -“Here is our little girl transformed, in a twinkling, into a woman. She -has acquired the art of hiding her troubles and of mocking at her tears. -She will tell me henceforward only what it pleases her that I should -know.” - -Félise took up her duties cheerfully, performing them with the same -thoroughness as before, but with a certain new and sedate authority. Her -pretty assumption of dignified command had given place to calm -assertion. Euphémie and Baptiste accustomed to girlish rebukes and -rejoinders grumbled at the new phase. When Félise cut short the hitherto -wonted argument by a: “_Ma bonne Euphémie_, the way it is to be done is -the way I want it done,” and marched off like a duchess unperturbed, -Euphémie shook her head and wondered whether she were still in the same -situation. In her attitude towards Martin, she became more formal as a -mistress and more superficial as friend. She had caught the trick of -easy talk, which might have disconcerted him had the world been the same -as it was before the advent of Lucilla. But the world had changed. He -lived in Brantôme an automatic existence, his body there, his spirit far -away. His mind dwelt little on any possible deepening or hardening in -the character of Félise. So her altered attitude, though he could not -help noticing it, caused him no disturbance. He thought casually: -“Compared with the men she has met in the great world, I am but a person -of mediocre interest.” - -The New Year came in, heralded by snow and ice all over Europe. Beneath -the steel-blue sky Brantôme looked pinched with cold. The hotel was -almost empty, and Martin found it hard to occupy long hours of chilly -idleness otherwise than by dreaming of Lucilla and palms and sunshine. -Lucilla of course was always under the palms and the palms were in the -sunshine; and he was talking to Lucilla, alone with her in the -immensities of the desert. When he had dreamed long enough he shivered, -for the Hôtel des Grottes still depended for warmth on wood fires and -there was no central heating and the bath in the famous bathroom -received hot water through a gas geyser. And then he wondered whether -the time had not come for him to make his momentous journey to Paris. - -“I’ve had a letter from Miss Merriton,” said Félise one day, “she asks -for news of you and sends you her kind regards.” - -Martin, who, in shirt-sleeves and apron, was laying tables in the -_salle-à-manger_, flushed at his goddess’s message. - -“It’s very good of her to remember me.” - -“Oh, she remembers you right enough,” said Félise. - -That meant that his goddess must have spoken of him, not only once but -on various occasions. She had carried him so far in her thoughts as to -be interested in his doings. Did her words imply a veiled query as to -his journey into Egypt? A lover reads an infinity of significance in his -mistress’s most casual utterance, but blandly fails to interpret the -obvious tone in which the woman with whom he is not in love makes an -acid remark. - -“Where is Miss Merriton now?” he asked. - -She informed him coldly—not at all with the air of the wild flowers -from which Alpine honey is made—that Lucilla was sailing next week for -Alexandria. “And,” said she, “as I am a sort of messenger, what reply -shall I make?” - -Martin, who had developed a lover’s cunning, answered: “Give her my -respectful greetings and say that I am very well.” No form of words -could be less compromising. - -That same evening, on their cold way back from the Café de l’Univers, -Bigourdin said, using as he had done since the night of the intimate -conversation the “_tu_” of familiarity: - -“Now that Félise has returned, and all goes on wheels and business is -slack, don’t you think it is a good opportunity for you to go to Paris -for your holiday and your consultations?” - -“I will go the day after to-morrow,” replied Martin. - -“Have you told Félise of your proposed journey?” - -“Not yet,” said Martin. - -“_C’est bien._ When you tell her, say it is for the sake of a change, -your health, your little affairs, what you will. It is better that she -should not know of our scheme until it is all arranged.” - -“I think that would be wiser,” said Martin. - -“In the event of your accepting my proposition,” said Bigourdin, after a -pause, “have you ever thought of the possibility of becoming a -naturalised Frenchman? Like that, perhaps, business might roll more -smoothly. We have already spoken, you and I, of your becoming a good -Périgordin.” - -Martin, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched so as to obtain -ear-shelter beneath the upturned collar of his great coat, was silent -for a few moments. Then— - -“Nationality is a strange thing,” said he. “The more I live in France, -the more proud I am of being an Englishman.” - -Bigourdin sprang a pace apart, wounded to the quick. “_Mais non par -exemple!_ You of all men,” and it was the “vous” of formality, “ought -not to say that.” - -“_Mais que tu es bête!_ You misunderstand me. You don’t let me proceed,” -cried Martin, halting before him in the semi-darkness of the quay. “In -France I have learned the meaning of the word patriotism. I have been -surrounded here with the love of country, and I have reflected. This -impulse is so strong in all French hearts, ought it not to be as strong -in the heart of an Englishman? France has taught me the finest of -lessons. I am as loyal a Frenchman as any of our friends at the Café de -l’Univers, but—” adapting a vague reminiscence of the lyric to -Lucasta—“I should not love France so much, if I did not love England -more.” - -“_Mon brave ami!_” cried Bigourdin, holding out both hands, in a -Frenchman’s instinctive response to a noble sentiment adequately -expressed, “Pardon me. Let us say no more about it. The true Englishman -who loves France is a better friend to us than the Englishman who has -lost his love for England.” - -Martin went to bed in a somewhat tortured frame of mind. He was very -simple, very honest, very conscientious. It was true that the flame of -French patriotism had kindled the fire of English patriotism within him. -It was true that he had learned to love this sober, intense, kindly land -of France. It was true that here was a generous bosom of France willing -to enfold him, an alien, like one of her own sons. But it was equally -true that in his ears rang a clarion call sounded not by mother England, -not by foster-mother France, but by _une petite sorcière Américaine_, a -fair witch neither of England nor of France, but from beyond the -estranging seas. And the day after to-morrow he was journeying to Paris -to take the advice of Fortinbras, _Marchand de Bonheur_. What would the -dealer in happiness decide? To wait until some turn of Fortune’s wheel -should change his career and set him free to wander forth across the -world, or to invest his all in an inglorious though comfortable future? -Either way there would be heart-racking. - -But Bigourdin, as he secured the Hôtel des Grottes with locks and bolts, -whistled “_Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre_,” a sign of his being pleased -with existence. He had no doubt of Fortinbras’s decision. Fortinbras had -practically given it in a letter he had received that afternoon. For he -had told Fortinbras his proposal, which was based on the certainty of a -marriage between Félise and Martin, as soon as the latter should find -himself in a position that would warrant a declaration up to now -impossible to a man of delicate honour. “They think I am an old mole,” -he had written, “but for certain things I have the eyes of a hawk. Why -did Félise suddenly refuse Lucien Viriot? Why has Martin during her last -absence been in a state of depression lamentable to behold? And now that -Félise has returned, changed from a young girl into that thing of -mystery, a woman, why are their relations once so fraternal marked by an -exquisite politeness? And why must Martin travel painful hours in a -train in order to consult the father of Félise? Tell me all that! When -it comes to real diplomacy, _mon vieux_ Daniel, trust the solid head of -Gaspard Bigourdin.” - -Which excerpt affords a glimpse into the workings of a subtle yet -ingenuous mind. He hummed “_Malbrouck s’en var-t-en guerre_” as he went -upstairs. The little American witch never crossed his thoughts, nor did -a possible application of the line “_Ne sais quand reviendra_.” - - * * * * * - -The High Gods hold this world in an uncertain balance; and, whenever -they decree to turn things topsy-turvy, they have only to flick it the -myriadth part of a millimetre. The very next day they gave it such a -flick, and it was Bigourdin and not Martin who went to Paris. - -“_Ma petite_ Félise,” said Bigourdin the next day, “I have received this -morning from Paris a telegram despatched last night summoning me thither -on urgent business. I may be away three or four days, during which I -have arranged for the excellent Madame Chauvet who devoted such maternal -care to you on the journey to Chartres to stay here _pour les -convenances_.” - -The subtle diplomatist smiled; so that when she questioned him as to the -nature of this urgent business and he replied that it was a worrying -matter of lawyers and stockbrokers, she accepted the explanation. But to -Martin— - -“_Mon pauvre ami_,” said he, with woe-begone face, “it is the mother of -Félise. She is dying. A syncope. We must not let Félise know or she -would insist on accompanying me, which would be impossible.” - -Martin took a detached view of the situation. - -“Why?” he asked. “She is a woman now and able to accept her share in the -tragedy of life with courage and with reason. Why not let her go and -learn the truth?” - -Bigourdin waved a gesture of despair. “I detest like you this deception. -Lying is as foreign to my character as to yours. But _que veux-tu_? In -the tragedy of my brother-in-law there is something at once infinitely -piteous and sublime. In a matter like this the commands of a father are -sacred. Ah, my poor Cécile!” said he, passing a great hand swiftly -across his eyes. “Twenty years ago, what a pretty girl she was! Of a -character somewhat difficult and bizarre. But I loved her more than my -sister Clothilde, who had all the virtues of the _petite rosaire_.” He -fetched a deep sigh. “One is bound to believe in the eternal wisdom of -the All-Powerful. There is nothing between that and the lunatic caprice -of an almighty mad goat. That is why I hold to Christianity and embark -on this terrible journey with fortitude and resignation.” - -He held out his packet of _Bastos_ to Martin. They lit cigarettes. To -give this confidential information he had drawn Martin into the murky -little _bureau_ whose window looked upon the sad grey vestibule. - -“I am sorry,” he said, “that your holiday has to be postponed. But it -will only be for a few days. In the meantime I leave Félise in the loyal -care of yourself and the good Madame Chauvet.” - - * * * * * - -Bigourdin went to Paris and deposited his valise at a little hotel in a -little street off the Boulevard Sébastopol, where generations of -Bigourdins had stayed, perhaps even the famous Brigadier General -himself; where the proposed entertainment of an Englishman would have -caused the host as much consternation as that of a giraffe; where the -beds were spotless, the _cuisine_ irreproachable and other arrangements -of a beloved and venerable antiquity. Here the good Périgordin found a -home from his home in Périgord. The last thing a solid and virtuous -citizen of central France desires to do in Paris is to Parisianise -himself. The solid and virtuous inhabitants of Périgord went to the -Hôtel de la Dordogne which flourishes now and feeds its customers as -succulently as it did a hundred years ago. - -Having deposited his valise at this historic hostelry, Bigourdin -proceeded to the Rue Maugrabine. He had never been there before, and his -heart sank, as the heart of Félise had sunk, when he mounted the grimy, -icy stairs and sought the home of Fortinbras. His sister Clothilde, -severe in awful mourning, admitted him, encaged him in a ghostly embrace -and conducted him into the poverty-stricken living room where -Fortinbras, in rusty black and dingy white tie, stood waiting to receive -him. - -“Unfortunately, my dear Gaspard,” said Fortinbras, “you are not in -time.” - -He opened the flimsy door set in the paper-covered match-board -partition. Bigourdin entered the bedroom and there, with blinds drawn -and candles burning at head and feet lay all that remained of Cécile -Fortinbras. He returned soon afterwards drying his eyes, for memories of -childhood had brought tears. He wrung Fortinbras by the hand. - -“Here, _mon vieux_ Daniel, is the very sad end of a life that was -somewhat tragic; but you can console yourself with the thought of your -long devotion and tenderness.” - -Clothilde Robineau tossed her head and sniffed: - -“I don’t see around me much evidence of those two qualities.” - -“Your reproaches, Clothilde,” said Fortinbras, “are as just as Gaspard’s -consolation is generous.” - -“I am glad you acknowledge, at last, that it was you who dragged my -unfortunate sister down to this misery.” - -Fortinbras made no reply. Lives like his one must understand and pardon -as Bigourdin had done. Nothing that he could say could mitigate the -animosity of Clothilde which he had originally incurred by marrying her -sister. She would be moved by no pleading that it was his wife’s -extravagance and intemperance that had urged him to the mad tampering -with other people’s money (money honestly repaid, but all the same -diverted wrongly for a time) which had caused him to be struck off the -roll of solicitors and to leave England a disgraced man. She would have -retorted that had he not been addicted to _boissons alcooliques_, a term -which in France always means fiery spirits, and had he not led the life -of the theatre and the restaurant, Cécile would have been sober and -thrifty like herself and Gaspard. And Fortinbras would have beat his -breast saying “Mea culpa.” He might have pleaded the after years of -ceaseless struggle. But to what end? As soon as his wife was laid -beneath the ground, Clothilde would gather together her skirts and pass -for ever out of his life. Bigourdin knew of his remorse, his home of -unending horror, his efforts ever frustrated, the weight at his feet -that not only prevented him from rising, but dragged him gradually down, -down, down. - -But even Bigourdin, who had not been to Paris for ten years, had not -appreciated till now the depths of poverty into which Fortinbras and his -sister had sunk. His last visit to them had been painful. A drunken, -dishevelled hostess, especially when she is your own sister, does not -make for charm. But they lived in a reputable apartment at Auteuil, and -there was a good carpet on the floor of the salon and chairs and tables -such as are found in Christian dwellings, and on the mantelpiece stood -the ormolu clock, and on the walls hung the pictures which had once -adorned their home in London. How had they come down to this? He -shivered, cold and ill at ease. - -“As you must be hungry after your long journey, Gaspard,” said Madame -Robineau, “I should advise you to go out to a restaurant. The cuisine of -the _femme de journée_ I do not recommend. For me, I must keep watch, -and it being Friday I fast as usual.” - -Fortinbras made no pretence at hospitality. Had he been able to set -forth a banquet, he felt that every morsel would have been turned into -stone by the basilisk eyes of Clothilde. Both men rose simultaneously, -glad to be free. They went out, took an omnibus haphazard and eventually -entered a restaurant in the neighbourhood of the Tour Saint-Jacques. - -“_Mon vieux_ Daniel,” said Bigourdin, as soon as they were seated. “Tell -me frankly, for I don’t understand. How comes it that you are in these -dreadful straits?” - -Fortinbras smiled sadly. - -“One earns little by translating from French into English and still less -by dispensing happiness to youth.” - -“But——” Bigourdin hesitated. “But you have had other resources—not -much certainly, but still something.” - -“What do you mean?” asked Fortinbras. “You know that in five years -Cécile scattered her own dowry to the winds and left me at the edge of a -whirlpool of debt. All of my own I could scrape together and borrow I -threw in to save myself from prison. She had no heritage from her -father. On what else can we have lived save on my precarious earnings?” - -Bigourdin, both elbows on the table, plucked at his upstanding bristles -and gazed intently at Fortinbras. - -“Ever since the great misfortune, when you returned to France, Cécile -has had her own income.” - -“You are dreaming, Gaspard. From what source could she obtain an -income?” - -“From me, _parbleu_!” cried Bigourdin. “I always thought my father’s -will was unjust. Cécile should have had her share. When I thought she -needed assistance, I arranged with my lawyer, Maître Dupuy, 33 Rue des -Augustins, Paris, to allow her five thousand francs a year in monthly -instalments, and I know—_sacre bleu!_—that it has been paid.” - -Fortinbras also put his elbows on the table, and the two men looked -close into each other’s faces. - -“I know absolutely nothing about it. Cécile has not had one penny that I -have not given to her.” - -“It is horrible to speak like this,” said Bigourdin. “But one cannot -drink to excess without spending much money. Where did she get it?” - -“There are alcohols unknown to the Hôtel des Grottes, which it takes -little money to buy. To get that little she has pawned the sheets off -the bed.” - -“_Nom de Dieu!_” said Bigourdin. - -It was a miserable meal, ending almost in silence. When it was over they -called at the cabinet of Maître Dupuy. They found everything in order. -Every month for years past Madame Fortinbras had received the sum of -four hundred and sixteen francs, sixty-five centimes. She had come -personally for the money. Maître Dupuy remembered his first interview -with Madame. She had expressly forbidden him to send the money to the -house lest it should fall into the hands of her husband. He infinitely -regretted to make such a statement in the presence of Monsieur, but -those were the facts. - -“All this is evidence in favour of what I told you,” said Fortinbras. - -“I never doubted you!” cried Bigourdin, “and this is proof. But what can -she have done with all that money?” - -It was a mystery. They went back to the Rue Maugrabine. On the way -Fortinbras asked: - -“Why have you never told me what you were doing?” - -“I took it for granted that you knew, and that, _par délicatesse_, the -subject was not to be mentioned between us.” - -“And Clothilde?” - -But Bigourdin was one of those who kept the left hand in ignorance of -the generous actions of the right. He threw out his great arms, to the -disturbance of pedestrian traffic. - -“Tell Clothilde? What do you take me for?” - -A day or two of continuous strain and hopelessness, and then under the -auspices of the _Pompes Funèbres_ and the clergy of the parish, the poor -body of Cécile Fortinbras was laid to rest. Not till then did any one -send word to Félise. Even Madame Robineau agreed that it was best she -should not know. As she had left Chartres, self-willed and ungovernable, -so, on the receipt of the news of her mother’s death, might she leave -Brantôme. Her appearance amid these squalid happenings would be -_inconvenable_. - -“I have no reason to love Félise,” she added. “But she is a young girl -of our family, and it is not correct that she should see such things.” - -When the train carrying Madame Robineau back to Chartres steamed out of -the Gare Montparnasse, both men drew a breath of relief. - -“_Mon ami_,” said Bigourdin. “The Bible taught the Church the beautiful -history of Jesus Christ. The Church told a Bishop. The Bishop told a -priest. The priest told the wife of the sub-prefect. The wife of the -sub-prefect told the wife of the mayor. The wife of the mayor told the -elderly, unmarried sister of the corn-chandler, and the unmarried sister -of the corn-chandler told Clothilde. And that’s all she (Clothilde) -knows about Christianity. Still,” he added, in his judicious way, “she -is a woman of remarkable virtue. She has a strong sense of duty. Without -a particle of love animating her heart, she has just spent three days -and nights without sleep, food or fresh air. It’s fine, all the same.” - -“I am not ungrateful,” said Fortinbras. - -They entered a café for the sake of shelter from the bitter January -wind, and they talked, as they had done lately, of many intimate things; -of the past, of Martin, of the immediate future. Fortinbras would not -accompany Bigourdin to Brantôme. His presence would only add poignancy -to the grief of Félise. It was more impossible now than ever to -undeceive her, as one could not speak ill of the dead. No; he would -remain in Paris, where he had much to do. First he must move from the -Rue Maugrabine. The place would be haunted. Besides, what did one old -vagabond want with two rooms and a kitchen? He would sell his few -belongings, and take a furnished room somewhere among the -chimney-pots. . . . Bigourdin lifted his _petit verre_ of Armagnac, and -forgetting all about it, put it down again. - -“What I am going to tell you,” said he, “may seem cynical, but it is -only common sense. Do not leave the Rue Maugrabine without having -searched every corner, every box, every garment, every piece of -furniture.” - -“Search?—what for?” - -“The little economies of Cécile,” said Bigourdin. - -Fortinbras put up a protesting hand. Instinct revolted. “Impossible!” he -declared. - -Bigourdin persisted. “Although you have lived long in the country and -been married to a Frenchwoman, you do not know, like myself who have it -in my veins, of what the peasant blood of France is capable where money -is concerned. It is impossible on your own showing, that Cécile should -have spent five thousand francs a year. You have seen for yourself that -she received the money. What has she done with it?” He leaned across the -table and with great forefinger tapped the shoulder of Fortinbras. “She -has hoarded it. It is there in the Rue Maugrabine.” - -Fortinbras shook his leonine head. “It was absurd. In the olden days, -when she had money, had she not scattered it recklessly?” Bigourdin -agreed. - -“But then,” said he, “you struck misfortune, poverty. Did you not -observe a change in her habits, and in her character? Of course, we have -often spoken of it. It was the outer trappings of the bourgeois that had -disappeared and the _paysanne_ asserted herself. For many years my -father supported my mother’s mother, a peasant from La Beauce who gave -out that she was penniless. When she died they accidentally found the -mattress of her bed stuffed with a little fortune. The blood of -Grandmère Tidier ran in the veins of Cécile. And Cécile like all the -family knew of the fortune of Grandmère Tidier.” - -All that in Fortinbras was half-forgotten, buried beneath the rubbish -heap of years, again protested: his gently nurtured childhood, his -smooth English home, his impeccable Anglo-Indian father, Major-General -Fortinbras, who had all the servants in morning and evening for family -prayers and read the lessons in the little village church on Sundays, -his school-days—Winchester, with its noble traditions—all, as we -English understand it, that goes to the making of an honourable -gentleman. If Pactolus, dammed by his wife, poured through the kitchen -taps, he would not turn them. - -“It is I then that will do it,” said Bigourdin. “I am not Anti-Semite in -any way; but to present a Jew dealer, who is already very well off, with -many thousands of francs is the act of an imbecile.” - -He tossed off his glass of Armagnac, beckoned the waiter, threw down the -coins for payment and rose. - -“_Allons!_” said he. - -Fortinbras, exhausted in mind and soul, followed him. An auto-taxi took -them to the Rue Maugrabine. The desolate and haggard _femme de journée_ -was restoring the house of death to some sort of aimless order. -Bigourdin put a ten-franc piece into her hand. - -“That is for you. Come back in two hours’ time.” - -The woman went. The two men were left alone in the wretched little room, -whose poverty stared from its cracked and faded wall paper, from its -bare floor, from the greasy plush couch with one maimed leg stuck in an -old salmon tin. - -Fortinbras threw himself with familiar recklessness on the latter -article of furniture and covered his eyes with his hand. - -“A quarter of a century is a long time, my dear Gaspard,” said he. “A -quarter of a century’s daily and nightly intimate associations with -another human being leaves a deep imprint in one’s soul. I have been -very unhappy, it is true. But I have never been so unhappy and so -hopeless as I am now. Let me be for a little. My head is stupefied.” - -“_Mon pauvre vieux_,” said Bigourdin, very gently. He glanced around and -seeing a blanket, which Clothilde had used during her vigil, neatly -folded by the _femme de Journée_ and laid upon a wooden chair, he threw -it over the recumbent Fortinbras. “_Mon pauvre vieux_, you are -exhausted. Stay there and go to sleep.” - -The very weary man closed his eyes. Two hours later, the _femme de -journée_ appeared. Bigourdin, with his finger to his lips, pointed to -the sleeper and told her to come in the morning. It was then six o’clock -in the afternoon. Bigourdin wrapped in whatever coverings he could find, -dozed in a ricketty armchair for many hours, until Fortinbras awoke with -a start - -“I must have fallen asleep,” he said. “I’m very sorry. What is the -time?” - -Bigourdin pulled out his watch. - -“Midnight,” said he. - -Fortinbras rose, passed both hands over his white flowing hair. - -“I too, like Clothilde, haven’t slept for two or three nights. Sleep -came upon me all of a sudden, let me see——” he touched his broad -forehead—“you brought me back here for some purpose.” - -“I did,” said Bigourdin. “Come and see.” - -He took the lamp from the table and led his brother-in-law into the -bedroom. - -“I told you so,” said he, pointing to the bed. - -The upper ticking had been ripped clean away. And there, in the -horsehair, on the side where Cécile had slept, were five or six odd -little nests. And each nest was stuffed tight with banknotes and gold. - - * * * * * - -“It’s all yours,” said Fortinbras. - -Bigourdin, swinging arms like a windmill, swept imbeciles like -Fortinbras to the thirty-two points of the compass. - -“It is the property of Cécile. I have nothing to do with it. I am a man -of honour, not a scoundrel. It belonged to Cécile. It now belongs to -you.” - -They argued for a long time until sheer hunger sent them forth. And over -supper in a little restaurant of the quarter, they argued, until at last -Bigourdin, very wearied, retired to the Hôtel de la Dordogne, and -Fortinbras returned to the Rue Maugrabine, to find himself the unwilling -possessor of about two thousand pounds. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -THE interest which Félise manifested in Madame Chauvet’s conversation -surprised that simple-minded lady. Madame Chauvet fully realised her -responsibilities. She performed her dragonly duties with the -conscientiousness of a French mother who had (and was likely to have to -the end of the chapter) marriageable daughters. But commerce is -commerce, and the young girl engaged in commercial management in her own -house has, in France, owing to the scope required by her activities, far -more freedom than her school contemporary who leads a purely domestic -life: a fact recognised by the excellent Madame Chauvet as duly -established in the social scheme. She was ready to allow Félise all the -necessary latitude. Félise claimed scarcely any. She kept the good -Madame Chauvet perpetually pinned to her skirts. She had not a -confidential word to say to Martin. - -Now Madame Chauvet liked Martin, as did every one in Brantôme. He was -courteous, he was modest, he was sympathetic. Whatever he did was marked -by an air of good-breeding which the French are very quick to notice. -Whether he handed her the stewed veal or listened to the latest phase of -her chronic phlebitis, Madame Chauvet always felt herself in the -presence of what she termed, _une âme d’élite_—a picked and chosen -soul; he was also as gentle as a sheep. Why, therefore, Félise, in her -daily intercourse with Martin, should insist on her waving the banner of -the proprieties over their heads, was more than the good lady could -understand. Félise was more royalist than the King, more timid than a -nunnery, more white-wax and rose-leaves than her favourite author, -Monsieur Réné Bazin, had ever dared to portray as human. If Martin had -been six foot of thews and muscles, with conquering moustaches, and bold -and alluring eyes, she would not have hesitated to protect Félise with -her Frenchwoman’s little plump body and unshakable courage. But why all -this precaution against the mild, grey-eyed, sallow-faced Martin, _doux -comme un mouton_? And why this display of daughterly affection suddenly -awakened after fifteen years’ tepid acquaintance? Even Martin, -unconscious of offence, wondered at such prim behaviour. The fact -remained, however, that she scarcely spoke to him during the greater -part of Bigourdin’s absence. - -But when the news came that her mother was dead and laid to rest, and -she had recovered from the first overwhelming shock, she dropped all -outer trappings of manner and became once more the old Félise. Madame -Chauvet, knowing nothing of the dream-mother, offered her unintelligent -consolation. She turned instinctively to Martin, in whom she had -confided. Martin was moved by her grief and did his best to sympathise; -but he wished whole-heartedly that Bigourdin had not told him the -embarrassing truth. Here was the poor girl weeping her eyes out over a -dead angel whom he knew to be nothing of the kind. He upbraided himself -for a sacrilegious hypocrite when he suggested that they would meet in -Heaven. She withdrew, however, apparently consoled. - -A few hours later, she came to him again—in the vestibule. She had -dried her eyes and she wore the air of one who has accepted sorrow and -bravely faced an unalterable situation. She showed also a puzzled little -knitting of the brows. - -“Tell me truly, Martin,” she said. “Did my uncle, before he left, give -you the real reason of his going to Paris?” - -Challenged, Martin could not lie. “Yes. Your mother was very ill. But he -commanded me not to tell you, in order to save you suffering. He didn’t -know. She might recover, in which case all would have been well.” - -“So you, too, were dragged into this strange plot, to keep me away from -my mother.” - -“I’ve never heard of one, Félise,” answered Martin, this time with -conscience-smiting mendacity, “and my part has been quite innocent.” - -“There has been a plot of some kind,” said Félise, breaking into the -more familiar French. “My uncle, my father, my Aunt Clothilde have been -in it. And now you—under my uncle’s orders. There has been a mystery -about my mother which I have never been able to understand—like the -mystery of the Trinity or the Holy Sacraments. And to-day I understand -still less. I have not seen my mother since I was five years old. She -has not written to me for many years, although I have written regularly. -Did she get my letters? These are questions I have been asking myself -the last few hours. Why did my father not allow me to see her in the -hospital in Paris? Why did my Aunt Clothilde always turn the mention of -her name aside and would tell me nothing about her? And now, when she -died, why did they not telegraph for me to go to Paris, so as to look -for one last time on her face? They knew all that was in my heart. What -have they all been hiding from me?” - -“My poor Félise,” said Martin, “how can I tell?” - -And how could he, seeing that he was bound in honour to keep her in -ignorance? - -“Sometimes I think she may have had some dreadful disease that ravaged -her dear features, and they wished to spare me the knowledge. But my -father has always drawn me the picture of her lying beautiful as she -always was upon the bed she could not leave.” - -“Whatever it was,” said Martin, “you may be sure that those who love you -acted for the best.” - -“That is all very well for a child; but not for a grown woman. And it is -not as though I have not shown myself capable of serious -responsibilities. It is heart-rending,” she added after a little pause, -“to look into the eyes of those one loves and see in them something -hidden.” - -Sitting there sideways on the couch by Martin’s side, her girlish figure -bent forward and her hands nervously clasped on her knee, the oval of -her pretty face lengthened despondently, her dark eyes fixed upon him in -reproachful appeal, she looked at once so pathetic and so winning that -for the moment he forgot the glory of Lucilla and longed to comfort her. -He laid his hand on her white knuckles. - -“I would give anything,” said he—— - -She loosened her clasp, thus eluding his touch, and moved a little -aside. Madame Chauvet appeared from the kitchen passage, bearing a -steaming cup. - -“_Ma pauvre petite_,” she said, “I have brought you a cup of camomile -tea. Drink it. It calms the nerves.” - -Martin rose and the good lady took his seat and discoursed picturesquely -upon her mother’s last illness, death and funeral, until Félise, -notwithstanding the calming properties of the camomile tea, burst into -tears and fled to her room. - -“Poor little girl,” said Madame Chauvet, sympathetically. “I cried just -like that. I remember it as if it were yesterday.” - -The next day Bigourdin returned. He walked about expanding his chest -with great draughts of air like the good provincial who had suffocated -in the capital. He railed at the atmosphere, the fever, the -cold-heartedness of Paris. - -“One is much better here,” said he. “And we have made much further -progress in civilisation. Even the Hôtel de la Dordogne has not yet a -bathroom.” - -He was closeted long with Félise, and afterwards came to Martin, great -wrinkles of perturbation marking his forehead. - -“She has been asking me questions which it has taken all my tact and -diplomacy to answer. _Mon Dieu, que j’ai menti!_ But I have convinced -her that all we have done with regard to her mother has been right. I -will tell you what I have said.” - -“You had better not,” replied Martin, anxious to have no more -embarrassing confidences; “the less I know, the simpler it is for me to -plead ignorance when Félise questions me—not to say the more truthful.” - -“You are right,” said Bigourdin. “_Magna est veritas et prœvalebit._” -And as Martin, not catching the phrase as pronounced in continental -fashion, looked puzzled, he repeated it. “It’s Latin,” he added. “Why -should I not quote it? I have received a good education.” - -Now about this time a gracious imp of meddlesomeness alighted on -Lucilla’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. She arose from a sea of -delicate raiment and tissue paper whose transference by Céleste into -ugly trunks she and Heliogabalus were idly superintending, and, sitting -down at the writing-desk of her hotel bedroom, scribbled a short letter. -If she had blown the imp away, as she might easily have done, for such -imps are irresponsible dragon-fly kind of creatures, Martin might -possibly have foregone his consultation with Fortinbras and remained at -Brantôme. Félise having once restored him to the position he occupied in -her confidence, allowed him to remain there. In his thoughts she assumed -a new significance. He realised, in his blundering masculine way, that -she was many-sided, complex, mysterious; at one turn, simple and -caressive as a child, at another passionate in her affections, at yet -another calm and self-reliant; altogether that she had a strangely sweet -and strong personality. For the first time, the alliance so subtly -planned by Bigourdin, entered his head. If Bigourdin thought him worthy -to be his partner and carry on the historic traditions of the Hôtel des -Grottes, surely he would look with approval on his carrying them on in -conjunction with the most beloved member of his family. And Félise? -There his inexperience came to a stone wall. He was modest. He did not -in the least assume as a possibility that she might have already given -him her heart. But he reflected that, after all, in the way of nature, -maidens did marry unattractive and undeserving men; that except for an -unaccountable phase of coldness, she had always bestowed on him a -friendly regard which, if courteously fostered, might develop into an -affection warranting on her part a marriage with so unattractive and -undeserving a man as himself. And Bigourdin, great, splendid-hearted -fellow, claimed him, and this warm Périgord, this land of plenty and fat -things, claimed him. Here lay his destiny. Why not blot out, with the -blackest curtain of will, the refulgent figure that was making his life -a torture and a dream? - -And then came the imp-inspired letter. - - Dear Mr. Overshaw, I am starting for Egypt to-morrow. I hope you - will redeem your promise. - - With kind regards, - - Yours sincerely, - Lucilla Merriton. - -Paralysed then were the promptings towards sluggish plentitude and tepid -matrimonial comfort. Love summoned him to fantastic adventure. For a -while he lost mental balance. He decided to put himself in the hands of -Fortinbras. He would abide loyally by his decision. Under his auspices -he had already made one successful bid for happiness. By dismissing -Margett’s Universal College to the limbo of irretrievable things, -according to the Dealer’s instructions, had he not tasted during the -past five months hundreds of the once forbidden delights of life? Was he -the same man who in apologetic trepidation had written to Corinna in -August? His blind faith in Fortinbras was intensified by knowledge of -the suffering whereby the Dealer in Happiness had acquired wisdom. East -or West, whichever way Fortinbras pointed, he would go. - -Thus in some measure he salved his conscience when he left Brantôme. -Bigourdin expected him back at the end of his fortnight’s holiday. So -did Félise. She packed him a little basket of food and wine, and with a -smile bade him hasten back. She did not question the purport of his -journey. He needed a change, a peep into the great world of Paris and -London. - -“If you have a quarter the good time I had, I envy you,” she said. - -And Bigourdin, with a grip of the hand and a knowing smile, as they -parted, whispered: “I will give that old dress suit to Anatole, the -_plongeur_ at the Café de l’Univers. He will be enchanted.” - -The train steamed out of the station carrying a traitorous, double-dyed -villain. It arrived at Paris carrying a sleepless, anxious-eyed young -man throbbing with suspense. He drove to the Hôtel du Soleil et de -l’Ecosse. - -“Ah! Monsieur has returned,” said the fat and greasy Bocardon as he -entered. - -“Evidently,” replied Martin, who now had no timidities in the presence -of hotel managers and was not impressed by the professional facial -memory. Was he not himself on the verge of becoming a French innkeeper? -He presented a business card of the Hôtel des Grottes mysteriously -inscribed by Bigourdin, and demanded a good room. The beady black eyes -of the Provençal regarded him shrewdly. - -“Some months ago you were a professor.” - -“It is always permissible for an honest man to change his vocation,” -said Martin. - -“That is very true,” said Bocardon. “I myself made my studies as a -veterinary surgeon, but as I am one of those unfortunates whom horses -always kick and dogs always bite, I entered the service of my brother, -Emile Bocardon, who keeps an hotel at Nîmes.” - -“The Hôtel de la Curatterie,” said Martin. - -“You know it?” cried Bocardon, joyously. - -“Not personally. But it is familiar to every _commis-voyageur_ in -France.” - -His professional knowledge at once gained him the esteem and confidence -of Monsieur Bocardon and a magnificent chamber at a minimum tariff. -After he had eaten and sent a message to Fortinbras at the new address -given him by Bigourdin, he went out into the crisp, exhilarating air, -with Paris and all the universe before him. - - * * * * * - -In the queer profession into which he had drifted, Heaven knows how, of -giving intimate counsel not only to the students, but (as his reputation -spread) to the small shopkeepers and work-people of the _rive gauche_, -at his invariable fee of five francs per consultation, Fortinbras had -been able to take a detached view of human problems. In their solution -he could forget the ever frightening problem of his own existence, and -find a subdued delight. Only in the case of Corinna and Martin had he -posed otherwise than as an impersonal intelligence. As an experiment he -had brought them into touch with his own personal concerns. And now -there was the devil to pay. - -For consider. Here he was prepared to deal out advice to Martin -according to the conspiracy into which he had entered with Bigourdin. -Martin was to purchase an interest in the Hôtel des Grottes and -(although he knew it not) marry Félise. There could not have been a -closer family arrangement. - -When Fortinbras rose from the frosty _terrasse_ of the Café Cardinal, at -the corner of the Rue Richelieu and the Boulevard des Italiens, their -appointed rendezvous, and greeted Martin, there was something more than -benevolence in his smile, something paternal in his handshake. They -entered the Café-Restaurant and sat down at one of the tables not yet -laid for _déjeuner_, for it was only eleven o’clock. Fortinbras, attired -in his customary black, looked more trim, more prosperous. Collar, cuffs -and tie were of an impeccable whiteness. The silk hat which he hung with -scrupulous care on the peg against the wall, was startlingly new. He -looked like a disguised cardinal in easy circumstances. He made bland -enquiries as to the health of the good folks at Brantôme, and ordered an -_apéritif_ for Martin and black-currant syrup and water for himself. -Then Martin said: - -“I have come from Brantôme to consult you on a matter of the utmost -importance—to myself, of course. It’s a question of my whole future.” - -He laid a five-franc piece on the table. Fortinbras pushed the coin -back. - -“My dear boy, this is a family affair. I know all about it. For you I’m -no longer the _Marchand de Bonheur_.” - -“If you’re not,” said Martin, “I don’t know what the devil I shall do.” -And, with his finger, he flicked the coin midway between them. - -“My dear fellow,” said Fortinbras, flicking the coin an inch towards -Martin, “if you so desire it, I will deal with you in my professional -capacity. But as in the case of the solicitor or the doctor it would be -unprofessional to accept fees for the settlement of his own family -affairs, so, in this matter, I am unable to accept a fee from you. -Bigourdin, whose character you have had an intimate opportunity of -judging, has offered you a share in his business. As a lawyer and a man -of the world, I say unhesitatingly, ‘Accept it,’ As long as Brantôme -lasts—and there are no signs of it perishing,—commercial travellers -and tourists will visit it and go to the Hôtel des Grottes. And as long -as European civilisation lasts, it will demand the gastronomic -delicacies of truffles, _pâté de foie gras_, Périgord pie, stuffed -quails and compôte of currants which now find their way from the -_fabrique_ of the hotel to Calcutta, Moscow, San Francisco, Bayswater -and Buenos Ayres. As a _marchand de bonheur_, as you are pleased to call -me, I also unhesitatingly affirm that in your acceptance you will find -true happiness.” - -He sipped his cassis and water, and leaned back on the plush-covered -seat. Martin pushed the five-franc piece three or four inches towards -Fortinbras. - -“It isn’t such a simple, straightforward matter as you seem to imagine,” -said Martin. “Otherwise I should have closed with Bigourdin’s generous -offer straight away. I’m not a fool. And I’m devotedly attached to -Bigourdin, who, for no reason that I can see, save his own goodness of -heart, has treated me like a brother. I haven’t come to consult you as a -man of business at all. And as for conscientious scruples about -Bigourdin being a relative of yours, please put them away.” He pushed -the coin another inch. “It is solely as _marchand de bonheur_, in the -greatest crisis of my life, when I’m torn to pieces by all sorts of -conflicting emotions, that I want to consult you. There are -complications you know nothing about.” - -“Complications?” Fortinbras stretched out a benign hand. “Is it possible -that there is some little—what shall we say?—sentiment?” He smiled, -seeing the young man’s love for Félise barring his candid way. “You can -be frank with me.” - -“It’s a damned sight more than sentiment,” cried Martin with -unprecedented explosiveness. “Read this.” - -He dragged from his pocket a dirty, creased and crumpled letter and -threw it across the table. Fortinbras adjusted his glasses and read the -imp-inspired message. He took off his glasses and handed back the -letter. His face became impassive and he regarded Martin with -expressionless, tired, blue eyes. - -“Your promise. What was that?” - -“To go to Egypt.” - -“Why should you go to Egypt to meet Lucille Merriton?” - -Martin threw up both hands in a wide gesture. “Can’t you see? I’m mad to -go to Egypt, or Cape Horn, or Hell, to meet her. But I’ve enough sanity -left to come here and consult you.” - -Fortinbras regarded him fixedly, and nodded his head reflectively many -times; and without taking his eyes off him, reached out his hand for the -five-franc piece which he slipped into his waistcoat pocket. - -“That puts,” said he, “an entirely different complexion on the matter.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -THE astute conspiracy had tumbled to ruins, the keystone, Félise, being -knocked out. It was no longer a family affair. Fortinbras listened to -the young man’s statement of his case with professional detachment. His -practised wit questioned. Martin replied until he had laid bare his -candid and intoxicated soul. At last Fortinbras, with a wave of his -plump hand, and with his benevolent smile, said:— - -“Let us now adjourn from labour to refreshment. I will give myself a -luxury I have not enjoyed for many a year. I will entertain a guest. You -shall lunch with me. When our spirits are fortified and our judgments -mellowed by generous food, we shall adjourn from refreshment to labour. -Sometimes you can put a five-franc piece into the slot and pull out an -opinion. Sometimes you can’t. Let us go to another table.” - -They lunched. Fortinbras talked of men and things and books. He played -the perfect host until the first cigarette had been smoked. Then he lay -back in the upholstered seat against the wall and looked into vacancy, -his face a mask. Martin, sitting by his side, dared not disturb him. He -felt like one in the awe-inspiring presence of an oracle. Presently the -oracle stirred, shifted his position and resumed human semblance, the -smile reappearing in his eyes and at the corners of his pursy mouth. - -“My dear Martin,” said he, one elbow on the table and the hand caressing -his white hair, “I have now fully considered the question, and see -distinctly your path to happiness. As my good old friend Montaigne -says—an author I once advised you to cultivate——” - -“I’ve done so,” said Martin. - -Fortinbras beamed. “There is none richer in humanity. In his words, I -say ‘The wisdom of my instruction consists in liberty and naked truth,’ -I take the human soul as it is and seek to strip it free from shackles -and disguises. I strip yours from the shackles of gross material welfare -and the travesty of content. I see it ardent in the pursuit, perhaps of -the unattainable, but at any rate in the pursuit of splendour, which is -a splendid thing for the soul. Liberty and naked truth are the only -watchwords. Sell out some of your capital, equip yourself in lordly -raiment, go to Egypt and give your soul a chance.” - -“I needn’t tell you,” said Martin, after a pause, “that I was hoping you -would give me this advice. It seems all crazy. But still——” he lit a -cigarette, which during Fortinbras’s discourse he had been holding in -his fingers. “Well—there it is. I don’t seem to care a hang what -happens to me afterwards.” - -“From my professional point of view,” said Fortinbras, “that is an ideal -state of mind.” - -“All the same, I can’t help feeling a brute. What the devil can I say to -Bigourdin?” - -“You can leave that to me,” replied Fortinbras. “He is aware that you -are a client of mine and not only honour me with your confidence, but -are willing to be guided by my counsel. If you will accept my society, I -will accompany you to the Land of the Pharaohs——” - -“What?” cried Martin, taken aback. “You? Good God! Of course,” he added, -after recovery, “I should love you to come.” - -“As I was saying,” Fortinbras continued, “I will accompany you, take -upon my shoulders your responsibilities with regard to Bigourdin, and, -for my own private satisfaction, realise the dream of my life which is -to go up to the Sphinx and say, ‘Now, my dear creature, confidentially -as between Augur and Augur, what the deuce is it all about?’” - -Later, when Martin had accustomed himself to the amazing proposal, they -discussed ways and means. - -“You,” said Fortinbras, “in order to drink the deep draughts essential -to your evolution, must peacock it with the best. You must dwell in -palaces and drive in chariots. I, on the other hand, journeying as a -philosopher, need but a palm-tree’s shade, a handful of dates and a cup -of water. I shall therefore not be of your revellings. But I shall -always be near at hand, a sort of private djinn, always at your -distinguished service.” - -“It’s most delightful and generous of you to put it that way,” laughed -Martin, “but for the life of me I can’t see why you should do it.” - -Fortinbras replied simply: “I’m a very weary man, my dear boy, and my -heart needs a holiday. That is why I grasp this opportunity of going -into the sunshine. As to my offer of counsel, that is a matter which it -would be futile to discuss.” - -His last words were flavoured with mystery. As far as Martin was -concerned, Fortinbras was free to go whithersoever he pleased. But why -this solicitude as to his welfare, this self-made Slave of the Lamp -obligation? Soon he gave up the riddle. Too many exciting thoughts swept -his brain. - -Until it was written, the letter to Bigourdin weighed on his mind. The -problem confronting him was to explain his refusal without reference to -Lucilla. To Fortinbras, keeper of his conscience, he could avow his -splendid lunacy and be understood. To Bigourdin his English reserve -forbade his writing himself down an ass and saying: “The greasy waiter -cannot accept partnership with you, as he must follow to the ends of the -earth the radiant lady to whom he handed the mutton cutlets.” The more -he tried the less could he do it. He sat up all night over the letter. -It contained all the heart of him that was left for the Hôtel des -Grottes and Brantôme and Périgord; but—well—he had arranged to abide -by Fortinbras’s decision. Fortinbras had advised him to see more of the -world before definitely settling his life. With a disingenuousness which -stabbed his conscience, he threw the responsibility on Fortinbras. -Fortinbras was carrying him to Egypt on an attempt to solve the riddle -of the Sphinx. Bigourdin knew the utter faith he had in Fortinbras. He -sent his affectionate regards to everybody—and to Félise. It was the -most dreadful, heart-tearing letter he had ever had to write. - -Meanwhile, Fortinbras, betraying, for the first time in his life, -professional secrecy, revealed the whole matter to Bigourdin in an -illuminating document. And Bigourdin, reading it, and comparing it with -Martin’s letter, said “_Bigre!_” and “_Sacrebleu!_” and “_Nom de Dieu de -nom de Dieu!_” and all sorts of other things. At first he frowned -incredulously. But on every re-perusal of the letter the frown grew -fainter, until, after the fifth, the placid smile of faith overspread -his broad countenance. But Félise, who was only told that Martin was not -returning but had gone to Egypt with her father, grew white and -thin-lipped, and hated the day she had met Lucilla Merriton and all the -days she had spent with Lucilla Merriton, and, in a passion of tears, -heaped together everything that Lucilla Merriton had ever given her, -gowns and furs and underlinen and trinkets, in a big trunk which she -stowed away in an attic. And the _plongeur_ from the Café de l’Univers -was appointed waiter in Martin’s stead and strutted about proudly in -Martin’s cast-off raiment. He was perhaps the most care-free person in -the Hôtel des Grottes. - -Martin went on a flying visit to London, and, on the advice of -Fortinbras, put up at the Savoy. - -“Accustom yourself to lordliness,” the latter had counselled. “You can’t -conquer Egypt with the self-effacing humility of the servitor. By -rubbing shoulders with the wealthy, you will acquire that suspicion of -arrogance—the whiff of garlic in the salad—in which your present -demeanour is so sadly lacking. You will also learn by observation the -correct wear in socks and ties, and otherwise steep yourself in the -study of indispensable vanities.” - -Martin studied conscientiously, and when he had satisfactorily arranged -his financial affairs, including the opening of a banking account with -Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son, visited tailors and haberdashers and hatters -and bootmakers, ordering all the things he had seen worn by the opulent -youth of the Savoy Hotel. If he had stolen the money to pay for them, or -if he had intended to depart with them without paying, he could not have -experienced a more terrifying joy. Like a woman clothes-starved for -years, who has been given the run of London shops, Martin ran -sartorially mad. He saw suitings, hosiery, shoes, with Lucilla’s eye. He -bought himself a tie-pin, a thing which he had never possessed nor -dreamed of possessing in his life before; and, observing that an -exquisite young Lothario upon whom he resolved to model himself did not -appear with the same tie-pin on two consecutive days, he went out and -bought another. Modesty and instinctive breeding saved him from making -himself a harlequin. - -In the midst of these preoccupations, he called, by arrangement, on -Corinna. She was living with another girl on the fifth floor of a -liftless block of flats in Wandsworth. The living room held two fairly -comfortably. Three sat at somewhat close quarters. So when Martin -arrived, the third, Corinna’s mate, after a perfunctory introduction, -disappeared into a sort of cupboard that served her as a bedroom. - -Corinna looked thin and ill and drawn, and her blouse gaped at the back, -and her fair hair exhibited the ropiness of neglect. The furniture of -the room was of elementary flimsiness. Loose newspapers, pamphlets, -handbills, made it as untidy as Corinna’s hair. As soon as they were -alone, Martin glanced from her to her surroundings and then back again -to her. - -“My dear Corinna,” said he, putting hat, stick and gloves on a bamboo -table, “what on earth are you doing with yourself?” - -She looked at him defiantly, with a touch of haggardness. - -“I am devoting myself to the Cause.” - -Martin wrinkled a puzzled brow. “What cause?” - -“For a woman there is only one,” said Corinna. - -“Oh!” said Martin. “May I sit down?” - -“Please do.” - -She poked a tiny fire in a diminutive tiled grate, while he selected the -most solid of the bamboo chairs. She sat on a stool on the hearthrug. - -“I suppose you’re anti-suffrage like any other bigoted reactionary,” she -said. - -Martin replied truly: “I haven’t worried about it one way or the other.” - -She turned on him swiftly. “Then you’re worse than a downright opponent. -It’s just the contemptuous apathy of men like you that drive us mad.” - -She entered upon a long and nervous tirade, trotting out the old -arguments, using the stock phrases, parroting a hundred platform -speeches. And all the time, though appearing to attack, she was on the -defensive, defiant, desperate. Martin regarded her with a shocked -expression. Her thin blonde beauty was being pinched into shrewishness. - -“But, my dear Corinna,” said he. “I’ve come to see you, as an old -friend. I just want to know how you’re getting on. What’s the good of a -political argument between us two? You may be wrong or you may be right. -I haven’t studied the question. Let us drop it from a contentious point -of view. Let us meet humanly. Or if you like, let us tell each other the -outside things that have happened to us. You haven’t even asked me why -I’m here. You haven’t asked after Félise, or Fortinbras, or Bigourdin.” -He waxed warm. “I’ve just come from Brantôme. Surely you must have some -grateful memories of the folks there. They treated you splendidly. -Surely you must still take some interest in them.” - -Corinna supported herself on an outspread hand on the hearthrug. - -“Do you want me to tell you the truth?” She held him with her pained -blue eyes. “I don’t take an interest in any damned thing in God’s -universe.” - -“May I smoke?” said Martin. He lit a cigarette, after having offered her -his case which she waved aside impatiently. - -“If that is so,” said he, “what in the world is the meaning of all the -stuff you have just been talking?” - -“I thought you had the sense to have learned something about me. How -otherwise am I to earn my living? We’ve gone over the ground a hundred -times. This is a way, anyhow, and it’s exciting. It keeps one from -thinking of anything else. I’ve been to prison.” - -Martin gasped, asked her if she had hunger-struck. - -“I tried, but I hadn’t the pluck or the hysteria. Isabel Banditch can do -it.” She lowered her voice and waved towards her concealed companion. “I -can’t. She believes in the whole thing. The vote will bring along the -millennium. Once we have the power, men are going to be as good as -little cherubs terminating in wings round their necks. Drink will -disappear. Wives shall be like the fruitful soda-water siphon on the -sideboard, and there will be no more struggle for existence and no more -wars. Oh! the earth is going to be a devil of a place when we’ve -finished with it.” - -“Do you talk like this to Miss Banditch?” asked Martin. - -She smiled for the first time, and shook her head. - -“On the whole you’re rather a commonplace person, Martin,” she replied, -“but you have one remarkable quality. You always seem to compel me to -tell you the truth. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is just to puzzle you -and annoy you and hurt you.” - -“Why should you want to hurt me?” - -She shrugged her shoulders, and sat with her hands clasping her knees. -“Well—for one thing, you were my intimate companion for three months -and never for a single second did you think of making love to me. For -all the impression I made on you I might have been your austere maiden -aunt. Sometimes I’ve wanted to take you between my teeth and shake you -as a terrier shakes a rat. Instead, like an ass, I’ve told you the -blatant truth.” - -“That’s interesting,” said Martin, calmly. “But you seem to want to hurt -everybody—those who don’t fall in love with you and those who do. You -hurt our poor old Bigourdin and he hasn’t got over it.” - -Corinna looked into the diminutive fire. “I suppose you think I was a -fool.” - -“I can’t believe it matters to you what I think,” said Martin, his -vanity smarting at being lashed for a Joseph Andrews. - -“It doesn’t. But you think me a fool all the same. I’ll go on telling -you the truth”—she flashed a glance at him. “Bigourdin’s a million -times too good for me. I should have led him a beast of a life. He has -had a lucky escape. You can tell him that when you go back.” - -“I’m not going back.” - -“What?” she said with a start. - -He repeated his statement and smiled amiably. - -“Fed up with being a waiter? I’ve wondered how long you could stick it. -What are you going to do now? As a polite hostess, I suppose I should -have asked that when you first came into the room.” - -“I did expect something of the sort,” Martin confessed, “until you -declared you didn’t take an interest in any damned thing.” - -Then they both laughed. Corinna stretched out a hand. “Forgive me,” she -said. “I’ve been standing nearly all day in front of the tube station, -dressed in a green, mauve and white sandwich-board and selling -newspapers, and I’m dog-tired and miserable. I would ask you to have -some tea, but that would only bring out Isabel, who would talk our heads -off. Why have you left Brantôme?” - -He told her of Bigourdin’s proposal and of Fortinbras’s counsel; but he -made no reference to the flashing of the divine Lucilla across his path. -Once he had confessed to her the kiss of the onion-eating damsel who had -married the plumber. She had jested but understood. His romantic -knight-errant passion for Lucilla was stars above her comprehension. -When he mentioned the fact of the death of Mrs. Fortinbras, Corinna -softened. - -“Poor little Félise! It must have been a great sorrow to her. I’ll write -to her. She’s a dear little girl.” She paused for a few moments. “Now, -look here, Martin,” she said, seizing a fragile poker and smiting a -black lump of coal the size of a potato, “it strikes me that as fools -we’re very much in the same box. We’ve both thrown over a feather-bed -existence. I’ve refused to marry Bigourdin and incidentally to run the -Hôtel des Grottes, and you have refused to run the Hôtel des Grottes and -incidentally marry Félise.” - -“There was never any question of my marrying Félise,” cried Martin -hotly. - -She scrambled to her feet and flung an impatient arm. - -“You make me tired. Have you a grain of sense in your head or an ounce -of blood in your body?” - -Martin also rose. “And you?” he countered. “What have you?” - -“Neither,” said Corinna. - -“In that case,” said Martin, gathering up hat, stick and gloves, “I -don’t see why we should continue a futile conversation.” - -He devoid of sense and blood! He who had probed the soul of Félise and -found there virgin indifference! He who had flung aside a gross -temptation. He who was consumed with a burning passion for an -incomparable goddess! A chasm thousands of miles wide yawned between him -and Corinna. In the same box, indeed! He quivered with indignation. She -regarded him curiously, through narrowed eyes. - -“I do believe,” she said slowly, “that I’ve knocked some sparks out of -you at last.” - -“You would knock sparks out of a putty dog,” Martin retorted wrathfully. - -She took hat and stick away from him and laid them on the bamboo table. -“Don’t let us quarrel,” she said more graciously. “Sit down again and -finish your story. You said something about Egypt and Fortinbras going -with you. Why Egypt?” - -“Why not?” asked Martin. - -“I suppose Fortinbras pointed a prophetic finger. ‘There lies the road -to happiness.’ But what is he doing there himself?” - -“He is going to talk to the Sphinx,” said Martin. - -“And when you’ve spent all your capital in riotous living, what are you -going to do?” - -“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said he. - -“Well, it’s your business, not mine,” said Corinna. “You’re lucky to be -able to get out of this beastly climate. I wish I could.” - -They talked for a while the generalities of travel. Then he asked her to -dine with him and go to a theatre. This brought her back to herself. She -couldn’t. She had no time. All her evenings were taken up with meetings -which she had to attend. And she hadn’t an evening gown fit to wear. - -“I would rather die than appear in a blouse and skirt in the stalls of a -theatre.” - -“We can go to the pit or upper circle,” said Martin, who had never sat -in the stalls in his life. - -But she declined. The prodigal in the pit was too ludicrous. No. She was -conscientious. She had adopted martyrdom as a profession; she was paid -for being a martyr; and to martyrdom, so long as it didn’t include -voluntary starvation, she would stick until she could find a pleasanter -and more lucrative means of livelihood. - -“It’s all very well for you to talk like that,” said Martin in his sober -way, “but how can you call yourself conscientious when you take these -people’s money without believing in their cause?” - -“Who told you I didn’t believe in it?” she cried. “Do you know what it -means to be an utterly useless woman? I do. I’m one. It is to prevent -replicas of myself in the next generation that I get up at a public -meeting and bleat out ‘Votes for Women,’ and get ignominiously chucked. -Can’t you see?” - -“No,” said Martin. “Your attitude is too Laodicean.” - -“What?” snapped Corinna. - -“It’s somewhere in the Bible. The Laodiceans were people who blew both -hot and cold.” - -“My father found scriptural terms for me much more picturesque than -that,” said Corinna, with a laugh. - -A door opened and the frozen, blue-nosed head of Miss Banditch appeared. - -“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Corinna, but are we never going to have -tea?” - -Corinna apologised. Tea was prepared. Miss Banditch talked on the One -and Only Topic. Martin listened politely. During a pause, while he stood -offering a cup for Corinna to fill for the second time, she remarked -casually: - -“By the way, you met Miss Merriton, didn’t you?” - -The question was like a knock on the head. He nearly dropped the cup. - -“Miss Merriton?” - -“She’s a friend of mine. I had a note from her at Christmas to say that -she had been to Brantôme and made your acquaintance, and had carried off -Félise to the south of France. Why haven’t you told me about her?” - -Under her calm, smiling gaze he felt himself grow hot and red and angry. -He fenced. - -“You must remember my position in Brantôme.” - -She poured the milk into his cup. “She said she was going to Egypt. -Sugar?” - -Miss Banditch resumed her argument. The remainder of the visit was -intolerable. As soon as he could swallow his tea, he took his leave. -Corinna followed him into the tiny passage by the flat-door. - -“My dear old Martin,” she said, impulsively throwing an arm round him -and gripping his shoulder. “I’m a beast, and a brute, and I hate -everybody and everything in this infernal world. But I do wish you the -very best of good luck.” - -She opened the door and with both hands thrust him gently forth; then -quickly she closed the door all but a few inches behind him, and through -the slit she cried: - -“Give my love to Lucilla!” - -The door banged, and Martin descended the five flights of stairs, lost -in the maze of the Eternal Feminine. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -CAIRO station. An illumination of livid blue. A horde of brown-legged -turbaned figures wearing red jerseys on which flaunted in white the -names of hotels, and reconstructing Babel. An urbane official, lifting a -gold-banded cap in the middle of a small oasis of silence and inviting -Martin in the name of the Semiramis Hotel, to surrender luggage and all -other cares to his keeping, and to follow the stream through the exit to -the hotel motor. A phantasmagoria of East and West rendered more -fantastic by the shadows cast by the high arc-lamps. He had lost sight -of Fortinbras, who bag in hand—his impedimenta being of the -scantiest—had disappeared in quest of the palm-tree against whose trunk -he presumably was to pass the night. Martin emerged from the station, -entered the automobile, one of a long row, and waited with his fellow -passengers until the roof was stacked with luggage. Then the drive -through European streets suggestive of Paris and the sudden halt at the -hotel. A dazzling vision of a lounge, a swift upward journey in a lift -worked by a Nubian gorgeous in scarlet and gold, a walk down a corridor, -a door flung open, and Martin found himself in his bedroom. An Arab -brought hot water and retired. - -Martin opened the shutters of the window and looked out. It was hard -moonlight. Beneath him shimmered a broad ribbon of water, against which -were silhouetted outlandish masts and spars of craft moored against the -embankment. The dark mass on the further shore seemed to be pleasant -woods. The water could be nothing else than the Nile; the sacred river; -the first river in which he had taken a romantic interest, on account of -Moses and the Ark and Pharaoh’s daughter; the mighty river which is the -very life of a vast country; the most famous river in the world. He -regarded it with a curious mixture of awe and disappointment. On his -right it was crossed by a bridge dotted with the slowly moving lamps of -carts and now and then flashing with the headlights of a motor-car. It -was not unlike any ordinary river—the Thames, the Seine, the Rhone at -Geneva. He had imagined it broad as the Amazon. - -Yet it was wonderful; the historic water, the moonlight, the clear -Egyptian air in which floated a vague perfume of spice, the dimly seen -long-robed figures seated on a bench by the parapet on the other side of -the road, whose guttural talk rose like a proclamation of the Orient. He -leaned out over the iron railing. On his left stood out dreamily defined -against the sky two shadowy little triangles. He wondered what they -could be. Suddenly came the shock of certainty. They were the Pyramids. -He rubbed his eyes and looked again. A thrill ran over his skin. He had -not counted on being brought up bang, as it were, against them. He had -imagined that one journeyed for half a day on a camel through a -trackless desert in order to visit these wonders of the world: but here -he was staring at them from the hotel-window of a luxurious capital. He -stared at them for a long time. Yes: there was the Nile; there were the -Pyramids; and, after a knock at the door, there was his luggage. He -became conscious of hunger; also of Lucilla more splendid than moonlit -Nile and Pyramids and all the splendours of Egypt put together. -Hunger—it was half-past nine and he had eaten nothing since lunch on -ship-board—counselled speedy ablutions and a descent in quest of food. -Lucilla ordained correctitude of vesture. His first evening on board -ship had taught him that dinner jacket suit and black tie were the only -wear. He changed and went downstairs. - -A chasseur informed him that Miss Merriton was staying in the hotel, but -that she had gone to the dance at the Savoy. When would she be back? The -chasseur, a child rendered old by accumulated knowledge of trivial fact, -replied that Cairo was very gay this season, that dances went on till -the morning hours, and insinuated that Miss Merriton was as gay as -anybody. Martin walked through the lounge into the restaurant and -supped. He supped exceedingly well. Bearing in mind Fortinbras’s counsel -of lordliness and the ways of lordly motorists passing through Brantôme, -he ordered a pint of champagne. He was served by an impeccable waiter -with lilac revers and brass buttons to his coat. He noted the livery -with a professional eye. The restaurant was comparatively empty. Only at -one table sat a party of correctly dressed men and women. A few others -were occupied by his travelling companions, still in the garb of travel. -Martin mellowed by the champagne, adjusted his black tie and preened his -white shirt front, in the hope that the tweed-clad newcomers would see -him and marvel and learn from him, Martin Overshaw, obscure and ignorant -adventurer, what was required by English decorum. After his meal he sat -in the lounge and ordered Turkish coffee, liqueur brandy and cigarettes. -And so, luxuriously housed, clothed and fed, he entered on the newest -phase of his new life. - -Six months ago he had considered his sportive ride through France with -Corinna a thrilling adventure. He smiled at his simplicity. An -adventure, that tame jog-trot tour! As comparable to this as his then -companion to the radiant lady of his present quest. Now, indeed, he had -burned his boats, thrown his cap over the windmills, cast his frock to -the nettles. The reckless folly of it all had kept his veins a-tingle, -his head awhirl. At every moment during the past fortnight something -amazingly new had flashed into his horizon. The very sleeping-berth in -the train de luxe had been a fresh experience. So too was the awakening -to the warmth and sunshine of Marseilles. Save for a crowded hour of -inglorious life (he was a poor sailor) now and then on cross-channel -boats he had never set foot on a ship. He wandered about the ocean-going -liner with a child’s delight. Fortune favoured him with a spell of blue -weather. He scoffed at sea-sickness. The meals characterised by many -passengers as abominable, he devoured as though they were Lucullian -feasts. He made acquaintance with folks going not only to Egypt, but to -Peshawar and Mandalay and Singapore and other places with haunting -names. Some shocked him by calling them God-forsaken holes and cursing -their luck. Others, mainly women, going thither for the first time -shared his emotions. . . . He was surprised at the ease with which he -fell into casual talk with strangers. Sometimes a child was a means of -introduction to its mother. Sometimes a woman in the next deck-chair -would open a conversation. Sometimes Fortinbras chatting with a knot of -people would catch him as he passed and present him blandly. - -Among the minor things that gave him cause for wonder was the swift -popularity of his companion. No longer did his costume stamp Fortinbras -as a man apart from the laity. He wore the easy tweeds and soft felt hat -of a score of other elderly gentlemen on board: even the gold -watch-chain, which he had redeemed after a long, long sojourn at the -Mount of Piety. But this very commonplace of his attire brought into -relief the nobility of his appearance. His massive face lined with care, -his broad brow, his prominent light blue kindly eyes, his pursy and -benevolent mouth, his magnificent Abbé Liszt shock of white hair, now -carefully tended, his impressive air of dignity—all marked him as a -personage of distinction. He aroused the idle curiosity of the idle -voyagers. Husbands were bidden by wives to talk to him and see what he -was like. Husbands obeyed, as is the human though -marriage-vow-subversive way of husbands, and meekly returned with -information. A capital fellow; most interesting chap; English of course; -very courtly old bird; like so-and-so who was Ambassador; old school; -knows everything; talks like a book. Quoth any one of the wives, her -woman’s mind intent on the particular. “But who _is_ he?” The careless -husband, his masculine mind merely concerned with the general, did not -know. He had not thought of asking. How could he ask? And what did it -matter? The wife sighed. “Bring him along and I will soon find out.” -Fortinbras at fit opportunity was brought along. The lady unconsciously -surrendered to his spell—one has not practised as a _marchand de -bonheur_ for nothing. “Now I know all about him,” said any one of the -wives to any one of the husbands. “Why are men so stupid? He is an old -Winchester boy. He is a retired philosopher and he lives in France.” -That was all she learned about Fortinbras; but Fortinbras in that trial -interview learned everything about the lady serenely unconscious of -intimate avowal. - -“My young friend,” said he to Martin, “the secret of social influence is -to present yourself to each individual rather as a sympathetic -intelligence, than as a forceful personality. The patient takes no -interest in the morbid symptoms of his physician: but every patient is -eager to discuss his symptoms with the kindly physician who will listen -to them free, gratis and for nothing. By adopting this attitude I can -evoke from one the dramatic ambitions of her secret heart, from another -the history of her children’s ailments and the recipe for the family -cough-cure, from a third the moving story of strained relations with his -parents because he desired to marry his uncle’s typist, the elderly -crown and glory of her sex, and from a fourth an intricate account of a -peculiarly shady deal in lard.” - -“That sounds all right,” said Martin; “but in order to get people to -talk to you—say in the four cases you have mentioned, you must know -something about the theatre, bronchitis, love and the lard-trade.” - -Said Fortinbras, touching the young man’s shoulder: - -“The experienced altruist with an eye to his own advantage knows -something about everything.” - -Martin, following the precepts of his Mentor, practised the arts of -fence, parrying the thrusts of personal questions on the part of his -opponent and riposting with such questions on his own. - -“It is necessary,” said the sage. “What are you among these respectable -Britons of substance, but an adventurer? Put yourself at the mercy of -one of these old warriors with grey motor-veils and steel knitting -needles and she will pluck out the heart of your mystery in a jiffy and -throw it on the deck for all to feed on.” - -Thus the voyage—incidentally was it not to Cythæra?—transcended all -his dreams of social amenity. It was a long protracted party in which he -lost his shyness, finding frank welcome on all sides. To the man of -thirty who had been deprived, all his man’s life, of the commonplace -general intercourse with his kind, this daily talk with a girl here, a -young married woman there, an old lady somewhere else, and all sorts and -conditions of men in the smoking room and on deck, was nothing less than -a kind of social debauch, intoxicating him, keeping him blissfully awake -of nights in his upper berth, while Fortinbras snored below. Then soon -after daybreak, to mount to the wet, sunlit deck after his cold, -sea-water bath; perhaps to meet a hardy and healthy English girl, fresh -as the Ægean morning; to tramp up and down with her for development of -appetite, talking of nothing but the glitter of the sea, the stuffiness -of cabins, the dishes they each would choose for breakfast; to descend -into the warm, comforting smell of the dining-saloon; to fall -voraciously on porridge and eggs and kidneys and marmalade; to go on -deck again knowing that in a couple of hours’ time stewards would come -to him fainting from hunger with bowls of chicken broth, that in an hour -or two afterwards there would be lunch to be selected from a menu a foot -long in close print, and so on during the golden and esurient day; to -meet Fortinbras, late and luxurious riser; to bask for an hour, like a -plum, in the sunshine of his wisdom; to continue the debauch of the day -before; to sight great sailing vessels with bellying canvas, resplendent -majesty of past centuries, or, on the other hand, the grey grim blocks -of battleships; to pass the sloping shores of historic islands—Crete, -home of the Minotaur, whose inhabitants—(Cretans are liars. Cretans are -men. Therefore all men are liars)—had furnished the stock example of -fallacy in the Syllogism; to watch the green wake cleaving the dark-blue -sea; to make his way up and down decks, through the steerage, and stand -in the bows, swept by the exhilarating air, with the pulse racking sense -that he was speeding to the lodestar of his one desire—to find wildness -of delight in these commonplaces of travel; to live as he lived, to -vibrate as he vibrated with every nerve from dawn to dawn, to be drunk -with the sheer ecstasy of existence, so that the past becomes a black -abyss, and the future an amethystine haze glorified by the Sons of the -Morning singing for joy, is given but to few, is given to none but poor, -starved souls, is given to none of the poor, starved souls but those -whom the high Gods in obedience to their throw of the dice happen to -select. - -Martin sitting in a deep armchair in the Semiramis Hotel dreamed of all -these things, unconscious of the flight of time. Suddenly he became -aware that he was the only occupant of the lounge, all the other folk -having returned soberly to their rooms. Already a few early arrivals -from the Savoy dance passed across the outer hall on their way to the -lift. Drowsy with happiness he went to bed. To-morrow, Lucilla. - - * * * * * - -He became aware of her standing by the bureau licking a stamp to put on -a letter. She wore a white coat and skirt and a straw hat with cherries -on it. He could not see her face, but he guessed the blue veins on the -uplifted, ungloved hand that held the stamp. On his approach, she turned -and uttered a little laughing gasp of recognition, stuck the stamp on -hastily and stretched out her hand. - -“Why,” she cried, “it’s you! You really have come!” - -“Did you think I would break my promise?” he asked, his eyes drinking in -her beauty. - -“I didn’t know how seriously you regarded it.” - -“I’ve thought of nothing but Egypt, since I said you had pointed out the -way,” he replied. “You commanded. I obeyed.” - -She caught up her long parasol and gloves that lay on the ledge of the -bureau. “If everybody did everything I told them,” she laughed, “I -should have my hands full. They don’t, as a general rule, but when they -do I take it as a compliment. It makes me feel good to see you. When did -you come?” - -She put him through a short catechism. What boat? What kind of voyage? -Where was he staying? . . . Finally: - -“Do you know many people in Cairo?” - -“Not a soul,” said Martin. - -With both arms behind her back, she rested lightly on the parasol, and -beamed graciously. - -“I know millions,” she said, not without a touch of exaggeration which -pleased him. “Would you like to trust yourself to me, put yourself -entirely in my hands?” - -“I could dream of nothing more enchanting,” replied Martin. “But——” - -“But——?” - -“I don’t want to make myself an infliction.” - -“You’re going to be a delight. You know in the cinematograph how an -invisible pencil writes things on the sheet—or how a message is stamped -out on the tape, and you look and wonder what’s coming next. Well, I -want to see how this country is going to be stamped letter by letter on -your virgin mind. It’s a thing I’ve been longing for—to show somebody -with sense like yourself, Egypt of the Pharaohs and Egypt of the -English. How long can you stay?” - -“Indefinitely,” said Martin. “I have no plans.” - -“From here you might go to Honolulu or Rangoon?” - -“Or Greenland or Cape Horn,” said Martin. - -She nodded smiling approval. “That is what I call a free and enlightened -Citizen of the World. Let us sit down. I’m waiting for my friend, Mrs. -Dangerfield of Philadelphia. Her husband’s here too. You will like them. -I generally travel round with somebody, just for the sake of a -table-companion. I’m silly enough to feel a fool eating alone every day -in a restaurant.” - -He drew a wicker chair for her and sat beside her. She deposited parasol -and gloves on the little round table, and swept him with a quizzical -glance from his well-fitting brown shoes to his trim black hair. - -“May I without impertinence compliment you on your colour-scheme?” - -His olive cheek flushed like a girl’s. He had devoted an hour’s -concentrated thought to it before he rose. How should he appear in the -presence of the divinity? He had decided on grey flannels, grey shirt, -purple socks and tie. He wondered whether she guessed the part she had -played in his anxious selection. Remembering the splotch of grease, he -said: - -“I hadn’t much choice of clothes when you last saw me.” - -She laughed. “Tell me all about Brantôme. How is my dear little friend -Félise?” - -He gave her discreet news. “And the incomparable Fortinbras?” - -“You’ll doubtless soon be able to judge for yourself. He’s here.” - -“In Cairo? You don’t say!” - -Mingled with her expression of surprise was a little perplexity of the -brow, as though, seeing the Fortinbras of the Petit Cornichon, she -wondered what on earth she could do with him. - -“He came with me,” said Martin. - -“Is he staying in this hotel?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -Her brow grew smooth again. “How did he manage to get all this way? Has -he retired from business?” - -“I don’t think so. He needed a holiday. You see he came into a little -money on the death of his wife.” - -“His wife dead?” Lucilla queried. “Félise’s mother? I didn’t know. -Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t written to me for such a long time. I -think there must be some queer story connected with that mother,” she -added shrewdly. “Anyway, Fortinbras can’t be broken-hearted, or he -wouldn’t come on a jaunt to Egypt.” - -Too well-bred to examine Martin on his friend’s private affairs, she -changed the talk in her quick, imperious way. Martin sat like a man -bewitched, fascinated by her remembered beauties—the lazy music of her -voice, her mobile lips, her brown eyelashes. . . . His heart beat at the -realisation of so many dreams. He listened, his brain scarcely following -what she said; that she spoke with the tongue of an angel was enough. - -Presently a stout, pleasant-faced woman of thirty came towards them with -many apologies for lateness. This was Mrs. Dangerfield. Lucilla -presented Martin. - -“Behold in me the complete dragoman. Mr. Overshaw has engaged me for the -season. It’s his first visit to Egypt and I’m going to show him round. -I’ll draw up a programme for a personally conducted tour, every hour -accounted for and replete with distraction.” - -“It sounds dreadful,” laughed Mrs. Dangerfield. “Do you think you’ll -survive, Mr. Overshaw?” - -“Not only that,” said Martin, “but I hope for a new lease of life.” - -“We start,” said Lucilla, “with a drive through the town, during which I -shall point out the Kasr-el-Nil Barracks, the Bank of Egypt and the -Opera House. Then we shall enter on the shopping expedition in the -Mousky, where I shall prevent Mrs. Dangerfield from being robbed while -bargaining for Persian lacq. I’m ready, Laura, if you are.” - -She led the way out. Martin exchanging words of commonplace with Mrs. -Dangerfield, followed in an ecstasy. Did ever woman, outside -Botticelli’s _Primavera_, walk with such lissomeness? A chasseur turned -the four-flanged doors and they emerged into the clear morning sunshine. -The old bearded Arab carriage porter called an hotel _arabeah_ from the -stand. But while the driver, correct in metal-buttoned livery coat and -tarbush, was dashing up with his pair, Martin caught sight of Fortinbras -walking towards them. - -“There he is,” said Martin. - -“Who?” - -“Fortinbras.” - -“Nonsense,” said Lucilla. “That’s an English Cabinet Minister, or an -American millionaire, or the keeper of a gambling saloon.” - -But when he came nearer, she admitted it was Fortinbras. She waved her -hand in recognition. Nothing could have been more charming than her -greeting; nothing more urbane than his acknowledgment, or his bow, on -introduction to Mrs. Dangerfield. He had come, said he, to lay his -respectful homage at her feet; also to see how his young friend was -faring in a strange land. Lucilla asked him where he was staying. - -“When last I saw you,” he answered, “I said something about the perch of -the old vulture.” - -She eyed him, smiling: “You look more like the wanton lapwing.” - -“In that case I need even a smaller perch, the merest twig.” - -“But ‘Merest Twig, Cairo,’ isn’t an address,” cried Lucilla. “How am I -to get hold of you when I want you?” - -Fortinbras regarded her with humorous benevolence. The question was -characteristic. He knew her to be generous, warm-hearted and impatient -of trivial convention: therefore he had not hesitated to go to her in -his anxious hour; but he also knew how those long delicate fingers had -an irresistible habit of drawing unwary humans into her harmless web. He -had not come to Cairo just to walk into Lucilla’s parlour. He wanted to -buzz about Egypt in philosophic and economical independence. - -“That, my dear Lucilla,” said he, “is one more enigma to be put to the -credit of the Land of Riddles.” - -Ibrahim stood impassively holding open the door of the _arabeah_. A -couple of dragomen in resplendent robes and turbans, seeing a new and -prosperous English tourist, had risen from their bench on the other side -of the road and lounged gracefully forward. - -“You’re the most exasperating person I ever met,” exclaimed Lucilla. -“But while I have you, I’m going to keep you. Come to lunch at -one-fifteen. If you don’t I’ll never speak to you again.” - -“I’ll come to lunch at one-fifteen, with very great pleasure,” said -Fortinbras. - -The ladies entered the carriage. Martin said hastily: - -“You gave me the slip last night.” - -“I did,” said Fortinbras. He drew the young man a pace aside, and -whispered: “You think those are doves harnessed to the chariot. They’re -not. They’re horses.” - -Martin broke away with a laugh, and sprang to the back seat of the -carriage. It drove off. The dragoman came up to the lonely Fortinbras. -Did he want a guide? The Citadel, the Pyramids, Sakkara? Fortinbras -turned to the impassive Ibrahim and in his grand manner and with -impressive gesture said: - -“Will you tell them they are too beautiful. They would eclipse the -splendour of all the monuments I am here to visit.” - -He walked away and Ibrahim, translating roughly to the dragomen, -conveyed uncomplimentary references to the virtue of their grandmothers. - -Meanwhile Martin, in beatitude, sat on the little seat, facing his -goddess. She was an integral part of the exotic setting of Cairo. It was -less real life than an Arabian Night’s tale. She was interfused with all -the sunshine and colour and wonder. Only the camels padding along in -single file, their bodies half hidden beneath packs of coarse grass, -seemed alien to her. They held up their heads, as the carriage passed -them, with a damnably supercilious air. One of them seemed to catch his -eye and express contempt unfathomable. He shook a fist at him. - -“I hate those brutes,” said he. - -“Good gracious! Why?” asked Lucilla. “They’re so picturesque! A camel is -the one thing I really can draw properly.” - -“Well, I dislike them intensely,” said he. “They’re inhuman.” - -He could not translate his unformulated thought into conventional words. -But he knew that at the summons of the high gods all the world of -animate beings would fall down and worship her: every breathing thing -but the camel. He hated the camel. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -LUCILLA kept her word. She was not a woman of half measures. Just as she -had set out, impelled by altruistic fancy, to carry provincial little -Félise through part of a Riviera season, and had thoroughly accomplished -her object, so now she devoted herself whole-heartedly to the guidance -of Martin through the Land of Egypt. In doing so she was conscious of -helping the world along. Hitherto it was impeded in its progress by a -mild, scholarly gentleman wasting his potentialities in handing soup to -commercial travellers. These potentialities she had decided to develop, -so that in due season a new force might be evolved which could give the -old world a shove. To express her motives in less universal terms, she -set herself the holiday task of making a man of him. To herself she -avowed her entire disinterestedness. She had often thought of adopting -and training a child; but that would take a prodigiously long time, and -the child might complicate her future life. On the other hand, with -grown men and women, things went more quickly. You could see the grass -grow. The swifter process appealed to her temperament. - -First she incorporated him, without chance of escape, in her own little -coterie, the Dangerfields, and the Watney-Holcombes, father, mother and -daughter, Americans who lived in Paris. They received him guaranteed by -Lucilla as an Englishman without guile, with democratic American -frankness. Of Mr. Dangerfield, a grim-featured banker, possessing a dry, -subrident humour, Martin was somewhat afraid. But with the -Watney-Holcombes, cheery, pleasure-loving folk, he was soon at his ease. - -“The only thing you mustn’t do,” said Lucilla, “is to fall in love with -Maisie”—Maisie was a slip of a girl of nineteen, whom he regarded as an -amusing and precocious child—“There is already a young man floating -about in the smoke of St. Louis.” - -It was an opportunity to make romantic repudiation, to proclaim the -faith by which he lived. But he had not yet the courage. He laughed, and -declared that the smoky young man might sleep peacefully of nights. The -damsel herself took him as a new toy and played with him harmlessly and, -subtly inspired by Lucilla, commanded her father, a chubby, innocent -man, with a face like a red, gold-spectacled apple, to bring Martin from -remote meal solitude and establish him permanently at their table. Thus, -Martin being an accepted member of a joyous company, could go here, -there and everywhere with any one of them without furnishing cause for -gossip. Lucilla had a deft way of not putting herself in the wrong with -a censorious though charming world. Under the nominal auspices of the -Dangerfields and the Watney-Holcombes, Martin mingled with the best of -Cairo society. He attended race-meetings, golf-club teas, hotel balls -and merry little suppers. He went to a reception at the Agency and shook -hands with the great English ruler of Egypt. He was swept away in -automobiles to Helouan and Heliopolis, to the Mena House to see the -Pyramids and the Sphinx both by daylight and by moonlight. A young -soldier discovering a bond in knowledge of love of France invited him to -Mess on a guest night. Lucilla, ever watchful and tactful, saw that he -went in full dress, white tie and white waistcoat, and not in dinner -jacket. She pervaded his atmosphere, teaching him, training him, opening -up new vistas for his mind and soul. Every encomium passed on him she -accepted as a tribute to herself. It was infinitely more interesting -than training a dog or a horse. - -Martin, blissfully unaware of experiment, or even of guidance, lived in -a dream of delight. His goddess seemed ever ready to hand. Together they -visited mosques and spent enchanted hours in the Bazaar. She knew her -way about the labyrinth, could even speak a few words of Arabic. Supreme -fair product of the West she stood divinely pure amid the swarthy -vividness of the unalterable East. She was a flawless jewel in the -barbaric setting of those narrow streets, filled with guttural noise, -outlandish bustle of camels and donkeys and white-clad men, smells of -hoary spiciness, colour from the tattered child’s purple and scarlet to -the yellow of the cinnamon pounded at doorways in the three-foot -mortars; those streets winding in short joints, each given up to its -particular industry—copper beaters, brass-workers, leather-sellers, -workers in cedar and mother-of-pearl, sellers of cakes and kabobs, all -plying their trades in the frontless caves that served as shops; streets -so narrow and sunless that one could see but a slit of blue above the -latticed fronts of the crazy houses. He loved to see her deal with the -supple Orientals. In bargaining she did not haggle; with smiling majesty -she paid into the long slender palm a third, or a half or two-thirds of -the price demanded, according to her infallible sense of values, and -walked away serene possessor of the merchandise. Lucilla, having a -facile memory, had not boasted in vain that she could play dragoman. He -found from the books that her archæological information was correct; he -drank in her wisdom. - -For his benefit she ordained a general expedition to Sakkara. One golden -day the party took train to Badrashen, whence, on donkeys, they plunged -into the desert. Riding in front with him, she was his for most of that -golden day; she discoursed on the colossal statue, stretched by the -wayside, of Rameses II, on the step pyramid, on the beauties of the -little tombs of Thi and Ptah-hetep, whose sculptures and paintings of -the Vth Dynasty were alive, proceeding direct from the soul of the -artist and thus crying shame on the conventional imitations of a -thousand or two years later with which most of the great monuments of -Egypt are adorned. And all she said was Holy Writ. And at Mariette’s -House where they lunched—the bungalow pitched in the middle of the -baking desert and overlooking the crumbling brown masses of tombs—he -glanced around at their picnicking companions and marvelled at her grace -in eating a hard-boiled egg. It was a noisy, excited party and it was -“Lucilla this,” and “Lucilla that,” all the time, for there was hot -argument. - -“I don’t take any stock in bulls, so I’m not going to see the Serapeum,” -declared Miss Watney-Holcombe. - -“But Lucilla says you’ve got to,” exclaimed Martin. Then he realised -that unconsciously he had used her Christian name. He flushed and under -cover of the talk turned to her with an apology. He met laughing eyes. - -“Scrubby little artists in Paris call me Lucilla without the quiver of -an eyelash.” - -“What may be permissible to a scrubby little artist in Paris,” said -Martin, “mayn’t be permitted to one who ought to know better.” - -She passed him a plate containing the last banana. He declined with a -courteous gesture. - -“Martin,” she said, deliberately dumping the fruit in front of him, “if -you don’t look out, you will die of conscientiousness.” - -During part of the blazing ride back to Badrashen when the accidents of -route and the vagrom whimsies of donkeys brought him to the side of the -dry Mr. Dangerfield, he reflected on the attitude of men admitted to the -intimacy of goddesses and great queens. What did Leicester call the -august Elizabeth when she deigned to lay aside her majesty? And what -were the sensations of Anchises, father of pious Æneas, when he first -addressed Venus by her _petit nom_? - - * * * * * - -“Well,” said Fortinbras, the next day, “and how is my speculator in -happiness getting on?” - -They were sitting on the terrace of Shepheard’s Hotel, their usual -midday meeting-place. Save on these occasions the philosopher seemed to -live dimly, in a sort of Oriental twilight. Yet all that Martin had seen -(with the exception of the social moving-picture) he had also seen and -therefrom sucked vastly more juice than the younger man. How and in what -company he had visited the various monuments he did not say. It amused -him to maintain his mysterious independence. Very rarely, and only when -compelled by the imperious ruthlessness of Lucilla, did he otherwise -emerge from his obscurity than on these daily visits to the famous -terrace. There surrounded by chatter in all tongues and by -representatives of all cities from Seattle round the earth’s girth to -Tokio, he loved to sit and watch the ever-shifting scene—the traffic of -all the centuries in the narrow street, from the laden ass driven by a -replica of one of Joseph’s brethren to the modern Rolls-Royce sweeping -along with a fat and tarbushed dignitary of the court; the ox-cart -omnibus carrying its dingy load of veiled women; the poor funeral -procession, the coffin borne on shoulders amid the perfunctory -ululations of hired mourners; on the footpaths the contrast of slave -attended, black-robed, trim-shod Egyptian ladies in yashmaks and the -frank summer-clad Western women; Soudanese and Turks and Greeks and Jews -and straight, clear-eyed English officers, and German tourists attired -for the wilds of the Zambesi; and here and there a Gordon Highlander -swinging along in kilts and white tunic; and lounging against the -terrace balustrade, the dragomen, flaunting villains gay in rainbow -robes, and the vendors of beads and fly-whisks and postcards holding up -their wares at arm’s height and regarding prospective purchasers with -the eyes of a crumb-expectant though self-respecting dog who sits on his -tail by his master’s side; and, across the way, the curio shops rich -with the spoils of Samarcand. From all this when alone he garnered the -harvest of a quiet eye. When Martin was with him, he shared with his -pupil the golden grain of the panorama. - -“How,” said he, “is my speculator in happiness getting on?” - -“The stock is booming,” replied Martin with a laugh. - -“What an education,” said Fortinbras, “is the society of American men of -substance!” - -“It pleases you to be ironical,” said Martin, “but you speak literal -truth. An American doesn’t set a man down as a damned fool because he is -ignorant of his own particular line of business. Dangerfield, for -instance, who keeps a working balance of his soul locked up in a safe in -Wall Street, has explained to me the New York Stock Exchange with the -most courteous simplicity.” - -“And in return,” said Fortinbras, waving away a seller of -rhinoceros-horn amber, with the gesture of a monarch dismissing his -chamberlain, “you have given him an exhaustive criticism, not untempered -with jaundice, of lower middle-class education in England.” - -“Now, how the deuce,” said Martin, recklessly throwing his half-finished -cigarette over the balustrade—“How the deuce did you know that?” - -“_C’est mon secret_,” replied Fortinbras. “It is also the secret of a -dry and successful man like Mr. Dangerfield, with whom I am sorry to -have had no more than ten minutes’ conversation. In those ten minutes I -discovered in him a lamentable ignorance of the works of Chaucer, -Cervantes and Tourguenieff, but for my benefit he sized up in a few -clattering epigrams the essence of the Anglo-Saxon, Spanish and -Sclavonic races, and, for his own, was extracting from me all I know -about Tolstoi, when Lucilla called me away to expound to his wife the -French family system. From which you will observe that the American -believes in a free exchange of knowledge as a system of education. To -revert to my original question, however, you imagine that your present -path is strewn with roses?” - -“I do,” said Martin. - -“That’s all I desire to know, my dear fellow,” said Fortinbras -benevolently. - -“And what about yourself?” asked Martin. “What about your pursuit of -happiness?” - -“I am studying Arabic,” replied Fortinbras, “and discussing philosophy -with one Abu Mohammed, a very learned Doctor of Theology, with a very -long white beard, from whose sedative companionship I derive much -spiritual anodyne.” - - * * * * * - -Soon after this the whole Semiramis party packed up their traps and went -by night train to Luxor. There they settled down for a while and did the -things that the floating population of Luxor do. They rode on donkeys -and on camels and they drove in carriages and sand-carts. They visited -the Tombs of the Kings and the Tombs of the Queens, and the Tombs of the -Ministers and Karnak and their own private and particular Temple of -Luxor. And Martin amassed a vast amount of erudition and learned to know -gods and goddesses by their attitudes and talked about them with casual -intimacy. His nature drank in all that there was of wonder and charm in -these relics of a colossal past like an insatiable sponge; and in Upper -Egypt the humble present is but a relic of the past. The -twentieth-century fellaheen guiding the ox-drawn wooden plough might -have served for models of any bas-relief or painting in any tomb of -thousands of years ago. So too might the half-naked men in the series of -terraced trenches draining water from the Nile by means of rude wooden -lever and bucket to irrigate the land. The low mud houses of the -villages were the same as those which covering vast expanses on either -side of the river made up the mighty and populous city of Thebes. And -the peasantry purer in type than the population of Cairo, which till -then was all the Egypt that Martin knew, were of the same race as those -warriors who gained vain victories for unsympathetic Kings. - - * * * * * - -The ridgy, rocky, sandy desert, startlingly yellow against the near-blue -dome of sky. A group of donkeys, donkey-boys, violently clad dragomen, -one or two black-robed, white-turbaned official guides, Europeans as -exotic to the scene as Esquimaux in Hyde Park. An excavated descent to a -hole surmounted by a signboard as though it were the entrance to some -underground boozing-ken, an Egyptian soldier in khaki and red tarbush. -An inclined plane, then flight after flight of wooden steps through -painted chamber after painted chamber, and at last, deep down in the -earth, lit by electric light, the heart of the tomb’s poor mystery: the -mummified body of a great King, Amen-Hetep II, in an uncovered sandstone -sarcophagus. It is the world’s greatest monument to the awful and futile -vanity of man. - -“Thank God,” said Martin, as he came out with Lucilla into the open air. -“Thank God for the great world and sunshine and life. The whole thing is -fascinating, is soul-racking, but I hate these people who lived for -nothing but death. I wanted to bash that King’s face in. There was that -poor devil of an artist who spent his soul over those sculptures, going -at them hammer and chisel in the black bowels of the earth with nothing -but an oil-lamp on the scaffold beside him, for years and years—and -when he had finished, calmly put to death by that brute lying there, so -that he should not glorify any other swollen-headed worm of a tyrant.” - -They sat down on the sand in a triangular patch of shade. Lucilla -regarded him with approbation. - -“I love to hear you talk vehemently,” she remarked. - -“It’s because I have learned to feel vehemently,” said Martin. - -“Since when?” - -“Since I first met you,” said Martin, with sudden daring. - -“It’s not my example you’ve been profiting by,” she laughed. “You’ve -never heard me raving at a poor old mummy.” - -Cool and casual, she warded off the shaft of his implied declaration. He -had not another weapon to hand. He said: - -“You’ve said things equally violent when you have felt deeply. That is -your great power. You live intensely. Everything you do you put your -whole self into. You have the faculty of making everybody around you do -the same.” - -At that moment Mr. Watney-Holcombe appeared at the mouth of the tomb, -mopping his rubicund face. At Lucilla he shook a playful fist. - -“Not another darned monument for me this day.” - -“I don’t seem to have succeeded with him, anyway,” she said in a low and -ironical voice. - -Martin, gentlest of creatures, felt towards Mr. Watney-Holcombe for the -moment as he had felt towards Amen-Hetep. The rosy-faced gentleman sat -beside them and talked flippantly of gods and goddesses; and soon the -rest of the party joined them. The opportunity for which Martin had -waited so long, of which he had dreamed the extravagant dreams of an -imaginative child, was gone. He would have to wait yet further. But he -had spoken as he had never before dared to speak. He had told her -unmistakably that she had taught him to feel and to live. As the other -ladies approached he sprang to his feet and held out a hand to aid the -divinity to rise. She accepted it frankly, nodded him pleasant thanks. -The pressure of her little moist palm kept him a-tingle for long -afterwards. - -They had a gay and intimate ride home. The donkey boys thwacked the -donkeys so that they galloped to the shattering of sustained -conversation between the riders. But in one breathing space, while they -jogged along side by side, she said: - -“If I have done anything to help you on your way, I regard it as a -privilege.” - -“You’ve done everything for me,” said Martin. “To whom else but you do I -owe all this?” His gesture embraced earth and sky. - -“I only made a suggestion,” said Lucilla. - -“You’ve done infinitely more. Anybody giving advice could say: ‘Go to -Egypt.’ You said, ‘Come to Egypt,’ and therein lies all the difference. -You have given me of yourself, so bountifully, so generously——” He -paused. - -“Go on,” she said. “I love to hear you talk.” - -But the donkey-boys perceiving Mr. Dangerfield mounted on a fleet -quadruped about to break through the advance guard, thwacked the donkeys -again, and Martin, unless he shouted breathlessly, could not go on -talking. - -That evening there was a dance at the Winter Palace Hotel, where they -were staying. Martin, on his arrival at Cairo, had been as ignorant of -dancing as a giraffe; but Lucilla, Mrs. Dangerfield and Maisie having -commandeered the Watney-Holcombe’s private sitting room at the Semiramis -whenever it suited them, had put him through a severe and summary -course. He threw himself devotedly into the new delight. A lithe figure -and a quick ear aided him. Before he left Cairo he could dance one-steps -and two-steps with the best; and so a new joy was added to his -existence. And to him it was a joy infinitely more sensuous and magnetic -than to those who from childhood have regarded dancing as a commonplace -social pleasure. To understand, you must put yourself in the place of -this undeveloped, finely tempered man of thirty. - -His arm was around the beloved body, his hand clasped hers, the -fragrance of her hair was in his nostrils, their limbs moved in perfect -unison with the gay tune. His heart sang to the music, his feet were -winged with laughter. In young enjoyment, she said with literal -truthfulness: - -“You are a born dancer.” - -He glowed and murmured glad incoherencies of acknowledgment. - -“You’re a born all sorts of other things, I believe,” she said, “that -only need bringing out. You have a rhythmical soul.” - -What she meant precisely she did not know, but it sounded mighty fine in -Martin’s ears. Ever since his first interview with Fortinbras he had -been curiously interested in that vague organ and its evolution. Now it -was rhythmical. To explain herself she added: “It is in harmony with the -great laws of existence.” - -A new light shone in his eyes and he held himself proudly. He looked -quite a gallant fellow, straight, English, masterful. Her skirts swished -the feet of a couple of elderly English ladies sitting by the wall. Her -quick woman’s ears caught the remark: “What a handsome couple.” She -flushed and her eyes sparkled into his. He replied to her psychological -dictum: - -“At any rate it’s in harmony with the deepest of them all.” - -“What is that?” - -“The fundamental law,” said he. - -They danced the gay dance to the end. They stopped breathless, and -laughed into each other’s eyes. She took his arm and they left the -ball-room. - -“Unless you will dance with me again,” he said, “this is my last dance -to-night.” - -“Why?” - -“I leave you to guess,” said he. - -“It was as near perfection as could be,” she admitted. “I feel rather -like that myself. Perhaps more so; for I don’t want to spoil things even -by dancing with you again.” - -“Do you really mean it?” - -She nodded frankly, intimately, deliciously. - -“Let us go outside, away from everybody,” he suggested. - -They crossed the lounge and reached the Western door. Both were living a -little above themselves. - -“When last we talked sense,” she said, “you spoke about a fundamental -law. Come and expound it to me.” - -They stood on the terrace amid other flushed and happy dancers. - -“Let us get away from these people.” - -“Who know nothing of the fundamental law,” said Lucilla. - -So they went along a spur of the terrace, a sort of rococo bastion -guarding the entrance to the hotel, and there they found solitude. They -sat beneath the velvet, star-hung sky. Fifty yards away flowed the Nile, -with now and then a flashing ripple. From a ghyassa with ghostly white -sail creeping down the river came an Arab chant. The flowers of the -bougainvillea on the hotel porch gleamed dim and pale. A touch of -khamsin gave languor to the air. Lucilla drew off her gloves, bade him -put them down for her. He preferred to keep them warm and fragrant, a -part of herself. - -“Now about this fundamental law,” she said in her lazy contralto. - -Her hand hung carelessly, temptingly over the arm of her chair. -Graciously she allowed him to take and hold it. - -“Surely you know.” - -“I want you to tell me, Mr. Philosopher.” - -He dallied with the adorable situation. - -“Since when have I become Master and you Pupil, Lucilla?” - -“Since you began, presumably to plunge deep into profundities of wisdom -where I can’t follow you. Behold me at your feet.” - -He moved his chair close to hers and she allowed him to play with her -slender fingers. - -“The fundamental law of life,” said he, bending towards her, “is love.” - -“I wonder!” said Lucilla. - -She lay in the long chair, her head against the back. He drew her -fingers to his lips. - -“I’m sure of it. I’m sure of it as I’m sure that there’s a God in -Heaven, as that,” he whispered, in what the sophisticated may term an -anti-climax, “there’s a goddess on earth.” - -“Who is the goddess?” she murmured. - -“You,” said he. - -“I like being called a goddess,” she said, “especially after dancing the -two-step. Hymns Ancient and Modern.” - -“Do you know what is the most ancient hymn in the world?” - -“No.” - -“Shall I tell you?” - -“Am I not here to be instructed?” - -“You are beautiful and I love you. You are wonderful and I love you. You -are adorable and I love you.” - -“How did you learn to become so lyrical?” - -Martin knew not. He was embarked on the highest adventure of his life. A -super-Martin seemed to speak. Her tone was playful, not ironical. It -encouraged him to flights more lyrical still. In the daylight of reason -what he said was amazing nonsense. Beneath the Egyptian stars, in the -atmosphere drowsy with the scents of the East and the touch of khamsin -it sounded to receptive ears beautifully romantic. Through the open door -came the strains of an old-fashioned waltz, perhaps meretricious, but in -the exotic surroundings sensuous and throbbing with passion. He bent -over her and now possessed both hands. - -“All that I feel for you, all that you are to me,” he said, concluding -his rhapsody. Then, as she made no reply, he asked: “You aren’t angry -with me?” - -“I’m not a granite sphinx,” she said, in her low voice. “No one has ever -said things like that to me before. I don’t say men haven’t tried. They -have; but they’ve always made themselves ridiculous. I’ve always wanted -to laugh at them.” - -Said Martin: “You are not laughing at me?” - -“No,” she whispered. And after a long pause: “No, I am not laughing at -you.” - -She turned her face to him. Her lips were very near. Mortal man could -have done neither more nor less than that which Martin did. He kissed -her. Then he drew back shaken to the roots of his being. She with closed -eyes; he saw the rise and fall of her bosom. The universe, earth and -stars and the living bit of the cosmos that was he, hung in breathless -suspense. Time stopped. There was no space. - -He was holding her beloved hands so delicately and adorably veined: -before his eyes, in the dim light, were her lips, slightly parted, which -he had just kissed. - -Presently she stirred, withdrew her hands, passed them across her eyes -and with dainty touches about her hair, as she sat up. Time went on and -there was space again and the stars followed their courses. Martin threw -an arm round her. - -“Lucilla,” he cried quiveringly. - -But with a quick movement she eluded his embrace and rose to her feet. -She kept him off with a little gesture. - -“No, no, Martin. There has been enough foolishness for one night.” - -But Martin, man at last, caught her and crushed her to him with all his -young strength and kissed her, not as worshipper kisses goddess, but as -a man kisses a woman. - -At last she said, like millions of her sisters in similar circumstances: -“You’re hurting me.” - -Like millions of his brethren, he released her. She panted for a moment. -Then she said: “We must go in. Let me go first. Give me a few minutes’ -grace. Good-night.” - -Mortal gentleman and triumphant lover could do no more or no less. She -sped down the terrace and disappeared. He waited, his soul aflame. When -he entered the lounge, she was not there. He saw the Dangerfields and -the Watney-Holcombes and one or two others sitting in a group over -straw-equipped glasses. He knew that Lucilla was not in the -dancing-room. He knew that she had fled to solitude. Cheery -Watney-Holcombe catching sight of him, waved an inviting hand. Martin, -longing for the sweet loneliness of the velvet night, did not dare -refuse. His wits were sharpened. Refusal would give cause for -intolerable gossip. He came forward. - -“What have you done with Lucilla?” cried Mrs. Dangerfield. - -“She has gone to bed. We’ve had a heavy day. She’s dead beat,” said -Martin. - -And thus he entered into the Kingdom of the Men of the World. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -THE next morning, Martin enquiring for Miss Merriton learned that she -had already started on a sketching excursion with Hassan, the old, -one-eyed dragoman. Her destination was unknown; but the fact that Hassan -had taken charge of a basket containing luncheon augured a late return. -Martin spent a sorry forenoon at Karnak which, deprived of the vivifying -influence of the only goddess that had ever graced its precincts, seemed -dead, forlorn and vain. It was a day, too, of khamsin, when hot stones -and sand are an abomination to the gasping and perspiring sense. And yet -Lucilla had gone off into the desert. She would faint at her easel. She -would get sunstroke. She would be brought back dead. And anxious Martin -joined a languid luncheon table. There was talk of the absent one. If -she had not been Lucilla they would have accounted her mad. - -He sat through the sweltering afternoon on the eastern terrace over a -novel which he could not read. Last night he had held her passionately -in his arms. Her surrender had been absolute and eloquent avowal. -Already the masculine instinct of possession spoke. Why did she now -elude him? He had counted on a morning of joy that would have eclipsed -the night. Why had she gone? Deep thought brought comforting solution. -To-morrow they were to migrate to Assouan. This was their last day in -Luxor where, up to now, Lucilla had not made one single sketch. Now, had -she not told him in Brantôme that her object in going to Egypt was to -paint it? Generously she had put aside her art for his sake—until the -last moment. Of this last moment she was taking advantage. Still—why -not a little word to him? He turned to his book. But the thrill of the -great kiss pulsated through his veins. He gave himself up to dreams. - -Later in the afternoon, Watney-Holcombe, fly-whisk in one hand and -handkerchief in the other, took him into the cool, darkened bar, and -supplied him with icy drink and told him tales of his early days in San -Francisco. A few other men lounged in and joined them. Desultory talk -furnished an excuse for systematic imbibing of cold liquid. When Martin -reached the upper air he found that Lucilla had already arrived and had -gone to her room for rest. He only saw her when she came down late for -dinner. She was dressed in a close-fitting charmeuse gown of a strange -blue shade like an Egyptian evening. Her pleasant greeting differed no -whit from that of twenty-four hours ago. Not by the flicker of a brown -eyelash did she betray recollection of last night’s impassioned -happenings. - -She talked of her excursion to the eager and reproachful group. A -sandstorm had ruined a masterpiece, her best brushes, her hair and old -Hassan’s temper. She had swallowed half Sahara with her food. Her very -donkey, cocking round an angry eye, had called her the most opprobrious -term in his vocabulary—an ass. Altogether she had enjoyed herself -immensely. - -“You ought to have come, Martin,” she said coolly. - -He made the obvious retort. “You did not give me the chance.” - -“If only you had been up at dawn,” she laughed. - -“I was,” he replied. “I lay awake most of the night and I saw the -sunrise from my bedroom window.” - -“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “You were looking the wrong way. You were -adoring the East while I was going out to the West.” - -“All that is very pretty, but I’m dying of hunger,” said -Watney-Holcombe, carrying her off to the dining room. - -The rest followed. At table, she sat between her captor and Dangerfield, -so that Martin had no private speech with her. After dinner -Watney-Holcombe and Dangerfield wandered off to the bar to play -billiards. Martin declining an invitation to join them remained with the -four ladies in the lounge. Lucilla had manœuvred herself into an -unassailable position between the two married women. Martin and Maisie -sat sketchily on the outskirts behind the coffee table. The band -discoursed unexhilarating music. Talk languished. At last Maisie sprang -to her feet and took Martin unceremoniously by the arm. - -“If I sit here much longer I shall sob. Come on out and do something.” - -Martin rose. “What can we do?” - -“Anything. We can gaze at the stars and you can swear that you love me. -Or we can go and look at Cook’s steamboat.” - -“Will you come with us, Lucilla?” asked Martin. - -She shook her head and smiled. “I’m far too tired and lazy.” - -The girl, still holding his arm, swung him round. He had no choice but -to obey. They walked along the quay as far as the northern end of the -temple. By the time of their return Lucilla had gone to bed. She had -become as elusive as a dream. - -He did not capture her till the next morning on the railway station -platform, before their train started. By a chance of which he took swift -advantage, she stood some paces apart from the little group of friends. -He carried her further away. Moments were precious; he went at once to -the root of the matter. - -“Lucilla, why are you avoiding me?” - -She opened wide eyes. “Avoiding you, my dear Martin?” - -“Yesterday you gave me no opportunity of speaking to you, and this -morning it has been the same. And I’ve been in a fever of longing for a -word with you.” - -“I’m sorry,” she said. “And now you have me, what is the word?” - -“I love you,” said Martin. - -“Hush,” she whispered, with an involuntary glance round at the -red-jerseyed porters and the stray passengers. “This is scarcely the -place for a declaration.” - -“The declaration was the night before last.” - -“Hush!” she said again, and laid her gloved hand on his arm. But he -insisted. - -“You haven’t forgotten?” - -“Not yet. How could I? You must give me time.” - -“For what?” he asked. - -“To forget.” - -A horrible pain shot through him. “Do you want to forget all that has -passed between us?” - -She raised her eyes, frankly, and laughed. “My dear boy, how can we go -into such intimate matters among this rabble?” - -“Oh, my dear,” said Martin, “I am only asking a very simple question. Do -you want to forget?” - -“Perhaps not quite,” she replied softly, and the pain through his heart -ceased and he held up his head and laughed, and then bent it towards her -and asked forgiveness. - -“If I didn’t forgive you, I suppose you’d be miserable?” - -“Abjectly wretched,” he declared. - -“That wouldn’t be a fit frame of mind for a six-hour stifling and dusty -railway journey. So let us be happy while we can.” - -At Assouan they went to the hotel on the little green island in the -middle of the Nile. In the hope of her redeeming a half promise of early -descent before dinner, he dressed betimes and waited in the long lounge, -his eyes on the lift. She appeared at last, fresh, radiant, as though -she had stepped out of the dawn. She sat beside him with an adorable -suggestion of intimacy. - -“Martin,” she said, “I want you to make me a promise, will you?” - -His eyes on hers, he promised blindly. - -“Promise me to be good while we’re here.” - -“Good?” he queried. - -“Yes. Don’t you know what ‘good’ means? It means not to be tempestuous -or foolish or inquisitive.” - -“I see,” said Martin, with a frown between his brows. “I mustn’t”—he -hesitated—“I mustn’t do what I did the other night, and I mustn’t say -that all my universe, earth and sun and moon and stars are packed in -this”—his fingers met the drapery of her bodice in a fugitive, delicate -touch—“and I mustn’t ask you any questions about what you may be -thinking.” - -There was a new tone in his voice, a new expression in his eyes and -about the corners of his lips, all of which she was quick to note. She -cast him a swift glance of apprehension, and her smile faded. - -“You set out the position with startling concreteness.” - -“I do,” said he. “Up to a couple of days ago I worshipped you as a -divine abstraction. The night before last, things, to use your words, -became startlingly concrete. You are none the less wonderful and -adorable, but you have become the concrete woman of flesh and blood I -want and would sell my soul for.” - -She glanced at him again, anxiously, furtively, half afraid. In such -terms do none but masterful men speak to women; men who from experience -of a deceitful sex know how to tear away ridiculous veils; or else men -who, having no knowledge of woman whatever, suddenly awaken with -primitive brutality to the sex instinct. Her subtle brain worked out the -rapid solution. Her charming idea of making a man of Martin had -succeeded beyond her most romantic expectations. She realised that -facing him dry and cold, as she was doing now, would only develop a -dramatic situation which would be cut uncomfortably short by the first -careless friend who stepped out of the lift. She temporised, summoning -the smile to her eyes. - -“Anyway, you’ve promised.” - -“I have,” said Martin. - -“You see, you can’t stand with a pistol at my head whenever we meet -alone. You must give me time.” - -“To forget?” - -“To make up my mind whether to forget or remember,” she declared -radiantly. “Now what more do you want an embarrassed woman to say?” - -Swiftly she had reassumed command. Martin yielded happily. “If it isn’t -all I want,” said he, “it’s much more than I dared claim.” - -She rose and he rose too. She passed her hand through his arm. “Come and -see whether anybody has had the common sense to reserve a table for -dinner.” - -Thus during her royal pleasure, their semi-loverlike relations were -established; rather perhaps were they nicely balanced on a knife-edge, -the equilibrium dependent on her skill. As at Luxor, so at Assouan did -they the things that those who go to Assouan do. They lounged about the -hotel garden. They took the motor ferry to the little town on the -mainland and wandered about the tiny bazaar. They sailed on the Nile. -They went to the merriest race meetings in heathendom, where you can -back your fancy in camel, donkey or buffalo for a shilling upwards at -the state _pari-mutuel_. They made an expedition to the Dam. The main -occupation, as it is that of most who go to Assouan, was not to pass the -time, but to sit in the sun and let the time pass. A golden fortnight or -so slipped by. Martin lived as freely in his goddess’s company as he had -done at Cairo or Luxor. She had ordained a period of probation. All his -delicacy of sentiment proclaimed her justified. She comported herself as -the most gracious of divinities, and the most warmly sympathetic of -human women, leading him by all the delicate devices known to Olympus -and Clapham Common, to lay bare to her his inmost soul. He told her all -that he had to tell: much that he had told already: his childhood in -Switzerland, his broken Cambridge career, his life at Margett’s -Universal College, his adventures with Corinna, his waiterdom at -Brantôme, his relations with Fortinbras, Bigourdin, Félise. The only -thing in his simple past that he hid was his knowledge of the tragedy in -the life of Fortinbras. “And then you came,” said he, “and touched my -dull earth, and turned it into a New Jerusalem of ‘pure gold like unto -clear glass.’” And he told her of his consultation with the Dealer in -Happiness, and his journey to London and his meeting with Corinna in the -flimsy flat. It seemed to him that she had the divine power of taking -his heart in her blue-veined hands and making it speak like that of a -child. For everything in the world for which that heart had longed she -had the genius to create expression. - -In spite of all the delicious intimacy of such revelation he observed -his compact loyally. For the quivering moment it was enough that she -knew and accepted his love; it was enough to realise that when she -smiled on him, she must remember unresentfully the few holy seconds of -his embrace. And yet, when alone with her, in the moonlit garden, so -near that accidental touch of arm or swinging touch of skirt or other -delicate physical sense of her, was an essential part of their -intercourse, he wondered whether she had a notion of the madness that -surged in his blood, of the tensity of the grip in which he held -himself. - -And so, lotus-eating, reckless of the future, happy only in the -throbbing present, he remained with Lucilla and her friends at Assouan -until the heat of spring drove them back to Cairo. - -There, on the terrace of Shepheard’s, on the noon of his arrival, he -found Fortinbras. The Dealer in Happiness, economically personally -(though philosophically) conducted, had also visited Luxor and had -brought away a rich harvest of observation. He bestowed it liberally on -Martin, who, listening with perplexed brow, wondered whether he himself -had brought away but chaff. After a while Fortinbras enquired: - -“And the stock we wot of—is it still booming?” - -Martin said: “I’ve been inconceivably happy. Don’t let us talk about -it.” - -Presently Lucilla and Mrs. Dangerfield joined them and Fortinbras was -carried off to the Semiramis to lunch. It was a gay meal. The -Watney-Holcombes had gathered in a few young soldiers, and youth -asserted itself joyously. Fortinbras, urbane and debonair, laughed with -the youngest. The subalterns thinking him a personage of high importance -who was unbending for their benefit, paid him touching deference. He -exerted himself to please, dealing out happiness lavishly; yet his bland -eyes kept keen watch on Martin and Lucilla sitting together on the -opposite side of the great round table. Once he caught and held her -glance for a few seconds; then she flushed, as it seemed, angrily, and -flung him an irrelevant question about Félise. When the meal was over -and he had taken leave of his hosts, he said to Martin, who accompanied -him to the West door by which he elected to emerge: - -“Either you will never want me again, or you will want a friendly hand -more than you have wanted a friendly hand in your life before—and I am -leaving this land of enchantment the day after to-morrow. _Dulce est -dissipere etc._ But dissipation is the thief of professional -advancement. If a dealer in cheaper and shoddier happiness arises in the -quartier I am lost. There was already before I left, a conscientious and -conscienceless Teuton who was trying to steal my thunder and retail it -at the ignominous rate of a franc a reverberation. I cannot afford to -let things drift. Neither, my son,” he tapped the young man impressively -on the shoulder. “Neither can you.” - -Martin straightened himself, half resentful, and twirled his trim -moustache. - -“It’s all very well, my son,” said Fortinbras with his benevolent smile, -“but all the let-Hell-come airs in the world can’t do anything else but -intensify the fact that you’re a Soldier of Fortune. Faint heart—you -know the jingle—and faintness of heart is not the attribute of a -soldier. Good-bye, my dear Martin.” He held out his hand. “You will see -me to-morrow at our usual haunt.” - -Fortinbras waved adieu. Martin lit a cigarette and sat in a far corner -of the verandah. The westering sun beat heavily on the striped awning. -Further along, by the door, a small group of visitors were gathered -round an Indian juggler. For the first time, almost, since his landing -in Egypt, he permitted himself to think. A Soldier of Fortune. The words -conveyed sinister significance: a predatory swash-buckler in search of -any fortune to his hand: Lucilla’s fortune. Hitherto he had blinded -himself to sordid considerations. He had dived, figuratively speaking, -into his bag of sovereigns, as into a purse of Fortunatus. The magic of -destiny would provide for his material wants. What to him, soul-centred -on the ineffable woman, were such unimportant and mean preoccupations? -He had lived in his dream. He had lived in his intoxication. He had -lived of late in the splendour of a seismic moment. And now, crash! he -came to earth. A Soldier of Fortune. An adventurer. A swindler. The -brutal commonsense aspect grinned in his face. On ship-board Fortinbras -had warned him that he was an adventurer. He had not heeded. . . . He -was a Soldier of Fortune. He must strike the iron while it was hot. That -was what Fortinbras meant. He must secure the heiress. He hated -Fortinbras. The sudden realisation of his position devastated his soul. -And yet he loved her. He desired her as he had not dreamed it to be in a -man’s power to desire. - -At last his glance rested on the little crowd around the Indian juggler; -and then suddenly he became aware of her flashing like a dove among -crows. Her lips and eyes were filled with a child’s laughter at the -foolish conjuring. When the trick was over she turned and, seeing him, -smiled. He beckoned. She complied, with the afterglow of amusement on -her face; but when she came near him her expression changed. - -“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. - -He pushed a chair for her. They sat. - -“I must speak to you, once and for all,” he said. - -“Don’t you think it’s rather public?” - -“The Indian is going,” he replied, with an indicating gesture, “and the -people too. It’s too hot for them to sit out here.” - -“Then what about me?” she asked. - -He sprang to his feet with an apology. She laughed. - -“Never mind. We are as well here as anywhere. Sit down. Now, why this -sudden tragic resolution?” - -“An accidental word from Fortinbras. He called me a Soldier of Fortune. -The term isn’t pretty. You are a woman of great wealth. I am a man -practically penniless. I have no position, no profession. I am what the -world calls an adventurer.” - -She protested. “That’s nonsense. You have been absolutely honest with me -from first to last.”’ - -“Honest in so far as I’ve not concealed my material situation. But -honourable? . . . If you had known in Brantôme that I had already dared -to love you, would you have suggested my coming to Egypt?” - -“Possibly not,” replied Lucilla, the shadow of an ironical smile playing -about her lips. “But—we can be quite frank—I don’t see how you could -have told me.” - -“Of course I couldn’t,” he admitted. “But loving you as I did, I ought -not to have come. It was not the part of an honourable man.” - -His elbow on the arm of the cane chair and his chin on his hand he -looked with haggard questioning into her eyes. She held his glance for a -brief moment, then looked down at her blue-veined hands. - -“You see,” he said, “you don’t deny it. That’s why I call myself an -adventurer.” - -Her eyes still downcast, she said: “You have no reason in the world to -reproach yourself. As soon as you could, with decency, tell me that you -loved me, you did. And you made it clear to me long before you told me. -And I don’t think,” she added in a low voice, “that I showed much -indignation.” - -“Why didn’t you?” he asked. - -She intertwined her fingers nervously. “Sometimes a woman feels it good -to be loved. And I’ve felt it good—and wonderful—all the time. -Once—there was a man, years ago; but he’s dead. Since then other men -have come along and I’ve turned them down as gently as I could. But no -one has done the mad thing that you have done for my sake. And no one -has been so simple and loyal—and strong. You are different. I have had -the sense of being loved by a man pure and unstained. God knows you are -without blame.” - -“Then, my dear,” said he, bending his head vainly so as to catch her -face otherwise than in profile and to meet the eyes hidden beneath the -adorable brown lashes, “what is to happen between us two?” - -For answer, she made a little despairing gesture. - -“If I had the right of an honest man seeking a woman in marriage,” he -said, “I would take matters into my own hand. I would follow you all -over the world until I won you somehow or the other.” - -She turned on him in a flash of passion. - -“If you say such things, you will make me marry you out of humiliation -and remorse.” - -“God forbid I should do that,” said Martin. - -She averted her head again. There was a span of silence. At the extreme -end of the long deserted verandah, beneath the sun-baked awning, with -only the occasional clatter of a carriage or the whirr of a motor -breaking the stillness of this drowsy embankment of the Nile, they might -have been miles away in the desert solitude under the palm-tree of -Fortinbras’s dream. - -Lucilla was the first to speak. “It is I who am to blame for everything. -No; let me talk. I’ve got the courage to talk straight and you’ve got -the courage to listen. You interested me at Brantôme. Your position -there was so un-English. Of course I liked you. I thought you ought to -be roused from stagnation. It was just idle fancy that made me talk -about Egypt. I thought it would do you good to cut everything and see -the world. When I took Félise away with me and saw how she expanded and -developed, I thought of you. I’ve done the same often before with girls, -like Félise, who have never been given a chance, and it has been a -fascinating amusement. I had never made the experiment with a man. I -wanted to see how you would shape, what kind of impression all the new -kind of life would make on you. I realise it now, but till now I -haven’t, that all my so-called kindnesses to girls have been heartless -experimenting. I could keep twenty girls in luxury for twenty years -without considering the expense. That’s the curse of unlimited money! -one abuses its power. . . . With you, of course, money didn’t come in. I -hadn’t the insanity to ask you to be my guest, as I could ask young -women. But money aside, I knew I could give you what I gave them; and -from what Félise let drop I gathered you had some little private means. -So I wrote to you—on the off-chance. I thought you would come. People, -have a way of doing what I ask them. You were going to be the most -fascinating amusement of all. You see, that’s how it was.” - -She paused. His face hardened. “Well,” said he, “go on.” - -“Can’t you guess the rest?” - -“No,” said he, “I can’t.” - -There was a note in his voice that seemed to tear her heart. She pressed -both hands to her eyes. - -“If you knew how I despise and hate myself!” - -“No, no, my dear,” said Martin. He touched her shoulder, warm and soft. -Only the convention of a diaphanous flimsy sleeve gave sanction. She let -his hand remain there for a moment or two; then gripped it and flung it -away. But the nervous clasp of her fingers denied resentment. She turned -a white face. - -“I knew you loved me. It was good, as I’ve told you, to feel it. I meant -to escape as I’ve escaped before. I don’t excuse myself. Then came the -night at Luxor. I let myself go. It was a thing of the senses. Something -snapped, as it has done in the case of millions of women under similar -conditions. You could have done what you liked with me. I shall never -forget if I live to be ninety. Do you think I’ve been sleeping -peacefully all these nights ever since? I haven’t.” - -She looked at him defiantly. Said Martin: - -“You must care for me—a little. The veriest little is all I dare ask -for.” - -“No, it isn’t,” she answered, meeting his eyes. “Don’t delude yourself. -You are asking for everything. And if I had everything to give I would -give it to you. You may think I have played with you heartlessly for the -last three or four weeks. Any outsider knowing the bare facts would -accuse me. Perhaps I ought to have sent you away; but I hadn’t the -strength. There. That’s a confession. Make what you will of it.” - -“All I can make of it,” said Martin tremulously, “is that you’re the -woman for me, and that you know it.” - -“I do,” she said. “I’m up against facts and I face them squarely. On the -other hand you’re not the man for me. If ever a woman has tried to love -a man, I’ve tried to love you. That’s why I’ve made you stay. I’ve -plucked my heart out—all, all but the roots. There’s a dead man there, -at the roots”—she flung out both hands and her shoulders heaved—“and -he is always up between us, and I can’t, I can’t. It’s no use. I must -give myself altogether, or not at all. I’m not built for the -half-and-half things.” - -He sat grim, feeling more a stone than a man. She clutched his arm. - -“Suppose I did marry you. By all the rules of the game I ought to. But -it would only be misery for both of us. There would be twenty thousand -causes for misery. Don’t you see?” - -“I see everything,” said Martin. He rose and leaned both elbows on the -verandah and faced her with bent brows. “I see everything. You have put -your case very clearly. But suppose I say that you haven’t played the -game. Suppose I say that you should have known that no man who wasn’t in -love with you—except an imbecile—would have followed you to Egypt as -I’ve done. Suppose I say that you’ve played havoc with my life. Suppose -I instance everything that has passed between us, and I assert the rules -of the game, and I ask you as a man, shaken to his centre with love of -you, to marry me, what would you say?” - -She rose and stood beside him, holding her head very proudly. - -“Put upon my honour like that,” she replied, “I should have to say -‘Yes.’” - -He took both her hands in his and raised them to his lips. - -“That’s all I want to know. But as I don’t reproach you, I’m not going -to ask you, my dear. If I were Lord of the Earth or a millionth part of -the earth I would laugh and take the risk. But as things are, I can’t -accept your generosity. You are the woman I love and shall always love. -Good-bye and God bless you.” - -He wrung her hand and marched down the verandah, his head in the air, -looking a very gallant fellow. After a few seconds’ perplexity she ran -swiftly in pursuit. - -“Martin!” she cried. - -He turned and awaited her approach. - -“I feel I’ve behaved to you like the lowest of women. I’ll make my -amends if you like. I’ll marry you. There!” - -Martin stood racked with the great temptation. All his senses absorbed -her beauty and her wonder. At length he asked: - -“Do you love me?” - -“I’ve told you all about that.” - -“Then you don’t. . . . Yes or No? It’s a matter of two lives.” - -“I’ve tried and I will try again.” - -“But Yes or No?” he persisted. - -“No,” she said. - -Again he took her hands and kissed them. - -“That ends it. If I married you, my dear, I should indeed be a Soldier -of Fortune, and you would have every reason to despise me. Now it is -really good-bye.” - -Her gaze followed him until he disappeared into the hotel. Then she -moved slowly to the balustrade baking in the sunshine, and leaning both -elbows on it stared through a blur of tears at the detested beauty of -the world. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -FORTINBRAS paced the deck of the homeward bound steamer deep in thought. -He still wore the costume of the elderly cabinet minister; but his air -was that of the cabinet minister returning to a wrecked ministry. His -broad shoulders were rounded and bent; his face had fallen from its -benevolent folds into fleshy haggardness. He felt old; he felt -inexpressibly lonely. He had not repeated the social experiment of the -voyage out. Save to his Dutch and Russian table neighbours he had not -the heart to speak to any one. A deep melancholy enwrapped him. After -his philosophical communion with the sage Abu Mohammed he shrank from -platitudinous commerce with the profane. It was for the heart and not -for the mind that he craved companionship. He was travelling -(second-class, for economy’s sake) back to the old half-charlatan life. -For all one’s learning and wisdom, one cannot easily embark on a new -career in the middle-fifties. He must be _Marchand de Bonheur_ to the -end. - -He wondered whether he would miss Cécile. Such things had happened. No -matter how degraded, she had been a human thing to greet him on his -return from his preposterous toil. Also, her needs had been an -incentive; they had sharpened the hawk’s vision during the daily round -of cafés and restaurants, and quickened his pounce upon the divined -five-franc piece. Would he have the nerve, the unwearied patience, the -bitter sense of martyrdom, wherewith to carry on his trade? Again, in -days past his heavy heart had been uplifted by the love of a child like -the wild flowers from which Alpine honey is made, away in the depths of -old-world France. But now he had forfeited her love. She had written to -him, all these weeks in Egypt, dutifully, irreproachably; had given him -the news, such as it was, of Brantôme. She had told him of the state of -her uncle’s health—invariably robust; of the arrivals and departures of -elegant motorists; of the march through the town decorated for the -occasion of a host of _petits soldats_, amid the enthusiasm and -Marseillaise singing of the inhabitants; of the sudden death by apoplexy -of the good Madame Chauvet, and the sudden development of business on -the part of her daughters, who almost immediately had taken the next -shop and launched out into iron wreaths and crosses, and artificial -flowers and funeral inscriptions, touching and pious; of the purchases -of geese; of the infatuation of the elderly Euphémie for the youthful -waiter, erstwhile _plongeur_ of the Café de l’Univers; of all sorts and -conditions of unimportant happenings; finally of the betrothal of -Monsieur Lucien Viriot and Estelle Mazabois, the daughter of the famous -Mazabois who kept a great drapery establishment of Périgueux—“she has -the dowry of a princess and the head of a rocking-horse, so they are -sure to be happy,” wrote Félise. The manner of this last announcement -shocked him. Félise had changed. She had given him all the news, but her -letters had grown self-conscious and artificial. To avoid the old, -artless expressions of endearment, she rushed into sprightly narrative, -and signed herself “his affectionate daughter.” He had lost Félise. - -Yes, he felt old and lonely, unnerved for the struggle. Even Martin had -forsaken him. - -He had encountered a stony-faced, wrong-headed young man on the terrace -of Shepheard’s Hotel the noon before he sailed, and found all his -nostrums for happiness high-handedly rejected. Martin had been an idle -woman’s toy, a fiery toy as it turned out; and when she burned her -fingers, she had dropped him. So much was obvious; most of it he had -foreseen. He had counted on eventual declaration and summary dismissal; -but he had not reckoned on a prelude of reciprocated sentiment. Contrary -to habit, Martin gave him but a confused view of his state of mind. The -unhappy lover would hear not a word against his peerless lady. On the -other hand, his love for her had blasted his existence. This appalling -fact, though he did not proclaim it so heroically, he allowed Fortinbras -to apprehend. He neither reproached him for past advice nor asked for -new. To the suggestion that he should return to Brantôme and accept -Bigourdin’s offer, he turned a deaf ear. He had cut himself adrift; he -must go whithersoever winds and tides should carry him, and they were -carrying him far from Périgord. - -“In what direction?” Fortinbras had enquired. - -“Thank Heaven, I don’t know myself,” he had answered. “Anyhow, I am -going to seek my fortune. I must have money and power so that I can snap -my fingers at the world. That’s what I’m going to live for.” - -And soon after that declaration he had wrung Fortinbras by the hand, and -hailing an _arabeah_ had driven off into the unknown. Fortinbras had -felt like the hen who sees her duckling brood sail away down the brook. -He had lost control of his disciple; he mattered nothing to the young -man setting forth on his wild-goose chase after fortune. His charming -little scheme had failed. He anticipated the reproaches of Bigourdin, -the accusation in the eyes of Félise. “Why did you side with the enemy? -Why did you drive Martin away?” . . . - -He felt old and lonely, a pathetic failure; so he walked the -second-class deck with listless shoulders and bowed head, his hands in -his pockets. - -“_Tiens!_ Monsieur Fortinbras! who would have thought it?” cried a fresh -voice. - -He looked up and saw a dark-eyed girl, her head enveloped in a -motor-veil, who extended a friendly hand. - -“_Mademoiselle_ . . .” he began uncertainly. - -“_Mais oui!_ Eugénie Dubois. You must remember me. There was also _le -grand Jules_—Jules Massart.” - -“Yes, I remember,” he said courteously, with a wan smile. - -“You saved us both from a pretty mess.” - -“I remember the saving; but I forget the mess. It is my rule always to -forget such things.” - -She laughed gaily, burst into an account of herself. She was a modiste -in the great Paris firm of Odille et Compagnie, which had a branch at -Cairo. Now she was recalled for the Paris and London season. - -“_Et justement_”—she plucked at his sleeve and led him to a seat—“I am -in a tangle of an affair which keeps me awake of nights. You fall upon -me from the skies like an angel. Be good and give me a consultation.” - -She fished out her purse and extracted a twenty-five piastre piece. He -motioned her hand away. - -“_Mon enfant_” said he. “You are an honourable little soul. But I don’t -do business on a holiday. _Raconte-moi ton affaire._” - -But she protested. She would not abuse his kindness. Either a -consultation at the regulation price or no consultation at all. At last -he said: - -“_Eh bien!_ give me your five francs.” - -She obeyed. He rose. “Come,” said he, and led the way to the stairhead -by the saloon where was fixed the collecting box in aid of the Fund for -Shipwrecked Mariners. He slipped the coin down the slot. - -“Now,” said he, “honour is satisfied.” - -But listening to her artless and complicated tale, he wondered, while a -shiver ran over his frame, whether he would ever be able again to slip a -five-franc piece into his waistcoat pocket. He felt yet older than -before, incapable of piercing to the root of youth’s perplexities. He -counselled with oracular vagueness, conscious of not having earned his -fee. He paced the deck again. - -“Were it not for Abu Mohammed,” he said, “I should call it a disastrous -journey.” - - * * * * * - -Meanwhile Martin, lonelier even than he, sat in the bows of a great -Eastward bound steamer, his eyes opened to the staring facts of life. No -longer must he masquerade as the man of fashion—never again until he -had bought the right. The remains of his small capital he must keep -intact for the day of need. No more the luxury of first-class travel. -This voyage in the steerage was but a means of transit to the new lands -where he would win his way to fortune. He needed no advice. He had -spiritually and morally outgrown his tutelage. No longer, so he told -himself, would he nourish his soul on dreams. It could feed if it liked -on memories. The madness had passed. He drew the breath of an honest -man. If he had taken Lucilla at her word and married her, what would -have been his existence? Trailing about the idle world in the wake of a -rich wife, dependent on her bounty even for a pair of shoe-laces; eating -out his heart for the love she could not give; at last, perhaps, -quarrelling desperately, or else with sapped will-power sunk in sloth, -accepting from her an allowance on condition that they should live -apart. He had heard of such marriages since he had mingled with the -wealthy. Even had she met him with a love as passionate as his own, -would the happiness have lasted? In his grim mood he thought not. He -reasoned himself into the conviction that his loss had been his gain. -Far better that he should be among these few poor folk who sat down to -table in their shirt-sleeves, than that he should be eating the -flesh-pots of dishonour in the land of Egypt. He himself dined in his -shirt-sleeves, as he had done many a time before in the kitchen of the -Hôtel des Grottes. - -Yet he hungered for her. It seemed impossible that he should never see -her again, never again watch the sweep of the adorable brown eyelashes, -the subtle play of laughter around her mobile lips; never again greet -with delicious heart-pang the sight of her slim figure willowy like -those in the _Primavera_. In vain he schooled himself to regard her as -one dead. The witchery of her obsessed him night and day. He learned -what it was to suffer. - -He had taken his deck passage to Hong-Kong—why he could scarcely tell. -It sounded very far away—as far away from her as practicable. As the -sultry days went on, he realised that he had not reckoned on the -tremendous distance of Hong-Kong. It was past Bombay, Colombo, Penang -and Singapore. At such ports as he could, he landed, but the glamour of -the East had gone. He was a man who had expended his power of wonder and -delight. He looked on them coldly as places he might possibly exploit, -should Hong-Kong prove barren. Also the period of great heat had begun, -and he found danger in strolling about the deadly streets. On ship-board -he slept on deck. As they neared Hong-Kong his heart sank. For the first -time he wished that Fortinbras were with him. Perhaps he had repaid -affection with scant courtesy. He occupied himself with a long letter to -his friend, setting out his case. He then imagined the reply. “My son,” -said the mellow, persuasive voice, “have you not been carrying on from -thrill to thrill the Great Adventure begun last August, when you threw -off the chains of Margett’s? Have you not filled your brain and your -soul with new and breathless sensations? Have you not tasted joys -hitherto unimagined? Have you not been admitted to the heart of a great -and loyal nation? Have you not flaunted it in the dazzling splendour of -the great world? Have you not steeped your being in the gorgeous colour -of the East? Have not your pulses throbbed with an immortal passion for -a woman of surpassing beauty? Have you not known, what is only accorded -to the select of the sons of men, a supreme moment of delirious joy when -Time stood still and Space was not? Have you not lived intensely all -this wonderful year? Are you the same blank-minded, starving-souled, -mild negation of a man who sat as a butt for Corinna’s pleasantries at -the Petit Cornichon? Have you not progressed immeasurably? Have you not -gained spiritual stature, wisdom both human and godlike? And are you not -now, having passed through the fiery furnace not only unscathed but -tempered, setting out on the still greater adventure—the conquest of -the Ends of the Earth? Less than a year ago what were you but a slave? -What are you now? A free man.” - -So through the ears of fancy ran the sonorous rhetoric of Fortinbras. -Martin tore up his letter and scattered the fragments on the sea. A day -or two afterwards, with a stout heart, he landed at Victoria, the -capital of Hong-Kong. - - * * * * * - -A half-caste clerk to whom he had entrusted his card returned from the -inner office. - -“Mr. Tudsley will see you, sir.” - -Martin followed him into a darkened office, cooled by an electric fan, -where a white-clad, gaunt, yellow-faced Englishman sat at a desk. The -clerk closed the door and retired. The yellow-faced Englishman rose and -smiled, after glancing at Martin’s card on the desk before him. - -“Mr. Overshaw? What can I do for you?” - -“You can give me some work,” said Martin. - -“I’m afraid I can’t.” - -“I’m sorry,” said Martin. “I must apologise for troubling you.” - -He was about to withdraw. Mr. Tudsley glanced at him shrewdly. - -“Wait a minute. Sit down. I don’t seem to place you. Who are you and -where do you come from?” - -“That’s my name,” said Martin, pointing to his card, “and I have just -arrived from Europe, or to be more exact, from Egypt.” - -“By the _Sesostris?_” - -“Yes.” - -Mr. Tudsley took up and scanned a type-written sheet of paper. - -“I don’t see your name on the passenger list.” - -“Possibly not,” said Martin. “I came steerage.” - -“Indeed?” Martin, spruce in his well-cut grey flannels, looked anything -but a deck passenger. “What made you do that?” - -“Economy,” said Martin. - -“And why have you come to me?” - -“I made a list last night, at the hotel, of the leading firms in -Hong-Kong and yours was among them.” - -“Haven’t you any introductions?” - -“No.” - -“Then what induced you to come to this particular little Hell upon -Earth?” - -“Chance,” said Martin. “One place is pretty much the same to me as -another.” - -“What kind of work are you looking for?” - -“Anything. From sweeping the floor to running a business.” - -“Only coolies sweep floors here,” said Mr. Tudsley, tilting back his -chair and clasping his hands behind his back. “And only experienced men -of business run businesses. What business have you run?” - -“None,” said Martin. - -“Well, what business qualifications have you?” - -“None. But I’m an educated man—Cambridge——” - -“Yes, yes, one sees that,” the other interrupted. “There are millions of -them.” - -“I’m bilingual, English and French, and my German is good enough for -ordinary purposes.” - -“Do you know anything of accounts?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -“Can you add up figures correctly?” - -“I daresay,” said Martin. - -“Have you ever tried?” - -“No,” said Martin. - -Mr. Tudsley handed him a mass of type-written papers pinned together. -“Do you know what that is?” - -Martin glanced through the document. “It seems to be a list of -commodities.” - -“It’s a Bill of Lading. First time you’ve ever seen one?” - -“Yes,” said Martin. - -“Have you any capital?” - -“A little. A few hundred pounds.” - -“Then stick to it like grim death. Don’t part with it here.” - -“I haven’t the slightest intention of doing so,” said Martin. - -The lean, yellow-faced man brought his chair back to normal -perpendicularity and swung it round—it worked on a swivel. - -“Mr. Overshaw,” said he, “pardon a perfect stranger giving you -advice—but you seem to be a frank, straight man. You’ve made a mistake -in coming to Hong-Kong. It’s a beast of a climate. In a few days’ time -the rains will begin. Then it will rain steadily, drearily, hopelessly, -damply, swelteringly, deadlily day after day, hour after hour, for four -months. That’s one way of looking at things. There’s another. I am -perfectly sure there’s not a vacancy for an amateur clerk in the whole -of Hong-Kong. If we want a linguist—your specialty—we can get Germans -by the dozen who not only know six languages but who have been trained -as business experts from childhood—and we can get them for twopence -halfpenny a month.” - -Martin, remembering the discussions at the Café de l’Univers, replied: - -“And when the war comes?” - -“What war?” - -“Between England and Germany.” - -“My dear fellow, what in the world are you talking of? There’s not going -to be any war. Besides,” he smiled indulgently, “suppose there was—what -then?” - -“First,” said Martin, “you would have given the enemy an intimate -knowledge of your trade, which by the way he is even now reporting by -every mail to his government”—he was quoting the dictum of a highly -placed Egyptian official whom he met at a dinner party in Cairo—“and -then you would have to fall back upon Englishmen.” - -Mr. Tudsley laughed and rose, so as to end the interview. - -“I’ll take the risk of that,” he said easily. “But the immediate -question is: ‘What are you to do?’ Have you visited any other firms?” - -“Several,” said Martin. - -“And what have they said?” - -“Much the same as you, Mr. Tudsley, only not so kindly and courteously.” - -“That’s all right,” said Mr. Tudsley, shy at the compliment. “I don’t -see why Englishmen meeting at the other end of nowhere shouldn’t be -civil to each other. But my advice is: Clear out of Hong-Kong. There’s -nothing doing.” - -“What about Shanghai?” - -“That’s further still from Europe.” - -“Singapore?” - -“That’s better—on the way back.” - -“I must thank you,” said Martin, “for giving me so much of your time.” - -“Not a bit I am only sorry I can’t give you a job or put you on to one. -But you see the position, don’t you?” - -Martin smiled wryly. “I’m beginning to see it with painful clearness.” - -“Good-bye and good luck,” said Mr. Tudsley. - -“Good-bye,” said Martin. - -Between then and the date of sailing of the next homeward bound steamer, -Martin knocked at every door in Hong-Kong. Nobody wanted him. There was -nothing he could do. There was no place for him on the very lowest rung -of any ladder to fortune. - -He sailed to Singapore. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -WHEN Martin landed at Marseilles he found the world on the brink of war. - -He had spent the early summer roaming about the East looking, as he had -looked at Hong-Kong, for work that might lead to fortune and finding -none. A touch of fever had caused a friendly doctor at Penang to pack -him off to Europe by the first boat. It had been a Will o’ the Wisp -chase mainly in the rains, when the Straits Settlements are not abodes -of delight. It is bad enough that your boots should be mildewed every -morning; but when the mildew begins to attack your bones it is best to -depart. Martin embarked philosophically. He had tried the East because -it was nearer to his original point of departure. Now he would try the -West—America or Canada. In a temperate climate he could undertake -physical labour. His muscles were solid, and save for the touch of fever -of which the sea-air had soon cured him, his health was robust. He could -hew wood, draw water, dig the earth. In a new country he could not -starve. At the last pinch he could fall back on the profession he had -learned at the Hôtel des Grottes. Furthermore, by eating the bread and -choosing the couch of hardship he had spent comparatively little of his -capital. His vagabondage had hardened him physically and morally. He -knew the world. He had mixed with all kinds and conditions of men. Egypt -seemed a sensuous dream of long ago. He deafened his heart to its -memories. It would take ten years to make anything of a fortune. If he -succeeded, then, in ten years’ time, he would seek Lucilla. In the -meanwhile he would not waste away in despair. He faced the future with -confidence. While standing with his humble fellow passengers in the bows -of the vessel, he felt his pulses thrill at the first sight of the blue -islands of Marseilles. It was France, country almost of his adoption. He -rejoiced that he had decided not to book his ticket to Southampton, but -to pass through the beloved land once again before he sailed to another -Hemisphere. Besides, his money and most of his personal effects -(despatched from Egypt) were lying at Cook’s office in Paris. The -practical therefore turned sentiment into an easy channel. He landed, -carrying his bag in his hand, bought a paper on the quay from a -screaming urchin, and to his stupefaction found the world on the brink -of war. - -At Gibraltar he had not seen a newspaper. None had penetrated to the -steerage and he had not landed. He had taken it for granted that the -good, comfortable old earth was rolling its usual course. Now, at -Marseilles, he became aware of every one in the blazing sunshine of the -quays staring at newspapers held open before them. At the modest hotel -hard by, where he deposited his bag, he questioned the manager. Yes, did -not he know? Austria had declared war on Servia. Germany had rejected -all proposals from England for a conference. The President of the -Republic had hurried from Russia. Russia would not allow Servia to be -attacked by Austria. France must join Russia. It was a _coup_ prepared -by Germany. “_Ca y est, c’est la guerre_,” said he. - -Martin went out into the streets and found a place on the crowded -terrace of one of the cafés on the Cannebière. All around him was the -talk of war. The rich-voiced Provençaux do not speak in whispers. There -was but one hope for peace, the successful intervention of England -between Russia and Austria. But Germany would not have it. War was -inevitable. Martin bribed a chasseur to find him some English papers, no -matter of what date. With fervent anxiety he scanned the history of the -momentous week. What he read confirmed the talk. Whatever action England -might take, France would be at war in a few days. He paid for his drink -and walked up the Cannebière. He saw no smiling faces. The shadow of war -already overspread the joyous town. A battalion of infantry passed by, -and people stood still involuntarily and watched the soldiers with looks -curiously stern. And Martin stood also, and remained standing long after -the clanging tram-cars temporarily held up had blocked them from his -sight. And he knew that he could not go to America. - -In a little spot in the heart of France lived all the friends he had in -the world; all the brave souls he had learned to love. Brantôme appeared -before him as in a revelation, and a consciousness of ingratitude smote -him so that he drew a gasping breath. Not that he had forgotten them. He -had kept up a fitful correspondence with Bigourdin who had never hinted -a reproach. But until an hour or two ago he had been prepared to wipe -Brantôme out of his life, to pass through France without giving it an -hour of greeting—even an _ave atque vale_. - -In the past seven months of mad folly and studied poverty, where had he -met characters so strong, ideals so lofty, hearts so loyal? What had he -learned among the careless superficial Anglo-American society in Egypt -comparable with that which he had learned in this world-forgotten little -bourgeoisie in France? Which of them had touched his nature below the -layer of his vanity? What ideals had he met with in the East? Could he -so term the complacent and pessimistic opportunism of the Tudsleys; the -querulous grumbling of officials; the honest dulness of sea-captains and -seamen? He judged superficially, it is true; for one has to strike deep -before one can get at the shy soul of a Briton. But a man is but the -creature of his impressions. From his own particular journeyings of -seven months he had returned almost bewilderingly alone. East of -Marseilles there dwelt not a human being whose call no matter how faint -sounded in his ears. England, in so far as intimate personal England was -concerned, had no call for him either. Nor had America, unknown, remote, -unfriendly as Greenland. - -Jostled, he walked along the busy thoroughfare, a man far away, treading -the paths of the spirit. In this mighty convulsion that threatened the -earth, there was one spot which summoned him, with a call clear and -insistent. His place was there, in Périgord, to share in its hopes and -its fears, its mourning and its joy. - -He returned to the hotel for his bag and took the first train in the -direction of Brantôme. What he would do when arrived, he had no definite -notion. It was something beyond reason that drove him thither. Something -irresistible; more irresistible than the force which had impelled him to -Egypt. Then he had hesitated, weighed things for and against. Now, one -moment had decided him. It never occurred to him to question. Through -the burning south of France he sped. As yet only the shadow of war hung -over the land; the awful Word had not yet gone forth. Swarthy men and -women worked in the baking vineyards and gathered in the yellow harvest. -But here and there on flashing glimpses of white road troops marched -dustily and military waggons lumbered along. And in the narrow, -wooden-seated third-class carriage on the slow and ever stopping train, -the talk even of the humblest was of war. At every station some of the -passengers left, some entered. There seemed to be a sudden concentration -homewards. At every station were soldiers recalled from leave to their -garrisons. These, during the journey, were questioned as authoritative -functionaries. Yes, for sure, there would be war. Why they did not know, -except that the _sales bêtes_ of Germans were, at last, going to invade -France. - -Said one, “I saw an officer yesterday in our village—the son of -Monsieur le Comte de Boirelles who has the big _château là-bas_—we have -known each other from childhood—and he said, ‘_Hein, mon brave, ca y -est!_’ And I said: ‘What, _mon lieutenant_?’ And he said, ‘_V’là le son, -le son du canon_.’ Fight like a good son of Boirelles, or I’ll cut off -your ears.’ And I replied, _quasiment comme ça_: ‘You will not have the -opportunity, _mon lieutenant_, you being in the artillery and I in the -infantry.’ And he laughed with good heart. ‘Anyhow,’ said he, ‘if you -return to the village, when the war is over, without the military medal, -and I am alive, I’ll make my mother do it, in the courtyard of the -château, with her own scissors.’ I tell you this to prove to you that I -know there is going to be war.” - -And the women, holding their blue bundles on their knees in the crowded -compartment—for in democratic France demos is not allowed the luxury of -luggage-racks—looked at the future with anxious eyes. What would become -of them? The government would take their men. Their men would be killed -or maimed. Even if the men returned safe and sound, in the meantime, how -would they live? _Ah, mon Dieu! Cette rosse de guerre!_ They cursed the -war as though it were a foul and conscious entity. - -The interminable journey, by day, by night, with tedious waits at great -ghostly junctions, at last was over. Martin emerged from the station of -Brantôme and immediately before him stood the familiar ramshackle -omnibus of the Hôtel des Grottes. Old Grégoire, the driver, on beholding -him staggered back and almost fell over the step of the vehicle. - -“_Monsieur Martin! C’est vous?_” - -Recovering, he advanced with great, sun-glazed hand. - -“Yes. It is indeed I,” laughed Martin. - -“It is everybody that will be content,” cried Grégoire. “How one has -talked of you, and wished you were back. And now, that this _sacrée -guerre_ is coming——” - -“That’s why I’ve come,” said Martin. “How are monsieur and -mademoiselle?” - -Both were well. It was they who would be glad to see Monsieur Martin. -The old fellow, red-faced, white-haired, clean shaven, with a -comfortable gash of a mouth, clapped him on the shoulder. - -“_Mais v’là un solide gaillard?_” - -“_Tu trouves?_” - -Why, of course Grégoire found him transformed into a stout fellow. When -he had arrived a year ago he was like a bit of wet string. What a thing -it was to travel. And yet he had been in China where people ate rats and -dogs, which could not be nourishing food. In a fortnight, on the good -meat and _foie gras_ of Périgord, he would develop into a veritable -giant. If Monsieur Martin would enter. . . . He held the door open. No -one else had arrived by the train. - -The omnibus jolted and swayed along the familiar road, through the -familiar cobble-paved streets, along the familiar quays, past many a -familiar face. They all seemed to chant the welcome of which the old -driver had struck the key. Martin felt strangely happy and the tears -were very near his eyes. Monsieur Richard, the butcher, catching sight -of him, darted a pace or two down the pavement so as to make sure, and -threw up both hands in greeting. And as they turned the corner of the -hill surmounted by the dear grey tower of the old Abbey, Monsieur le -Curé saw him and smiled and swept a salute with his old dusty hat, which -Martin acknowledged through the end window of the omnibus. - -They drew up before the familiar door of the old white inn. Baptiste was -there, elderly, battered, in his green baize apron. - -“_Mais, mon Dieu, c’est vous?—mais—— _” He wrung Martin’s hand. And, -as once before, on the return of Félise, not being able to cope with his -emotions, he shouted on the threshold of the vestibule: “_Monsieur, -monsieur, c’est Monsieur Martin qui arrive!_” - -“_Qu’est-ce que tu dis là?_” cried a familiar voice from the bureau. - -“_C’est Monsieur Martin._” - -Martin entered, and in the vestibule encountered Bigourdin. - -“_Mais mon vieux_,” cried the vast man. “_C’est toi? C’est vraiment toi, -enfin?_” - -It was the instinctive, surprised and joyous greeting of the two -servants. Martin stood unstrung. What had he done to deserve it? Before -he could utter a word, he felt two colossal arms swung round him and a -kiss implanted on each cheek. Then Bigourdin held him out and looked at -him, and, like Grégoire, told him how solid he looked. - -“_Enfin!_ You’ve come back. Tell me how and when and why. Tell me all.” - -Martin’s eyes were moist. “My God!” said he, with a catch in his voice, -“you are a good fellow.” - -“Not a bit, _mon cher_. We are friends, and in friendship there is -something just a little bit sacred. But tell me, _nom d’une pipe!_ all -about yourself.” - -“I was on my way,” said Martin, with his conscientious honesty, “from -Penang to New York. At Marseilles I heard for the first time of the war -in which France will be involved and of which we have so often talked. -And something, I don’t know what, called me here—_et me voici!_” - -“_C’est beau. C’est bien beau de ta part_,” said Bigourdin seriously. -“Let us go and find Félise.” - -Now, when a Frenchman characterises a deed as _beau_, it is in his -opinion very fine indeed. - -But before they could move, Euphémie rushed from her kitchen and all but -embraced the wanderer and Joseph, late _plongeur_ at the Café de -l’Univers and now waiter at the hôtel, came shyly from the -_salle-à-manger_, and the brightness of his eyes was only equalled by -the lustre of the habiliments that formerly had belonged to Martin. -Bigourdin despatched him in quest of Félise. Soon she came, from the -_fabrique_, looking rather white. Joseph had shot his news at her. But -she came up looking Martin straight in the eyes, her hand extended. - -“_Bonjour_, Martin. I am glad to see you again.” - -“So am I,” said he. “More than glad. It’s like coming back to one’s own -people.” - -She drew up her little head and asked with a certain bravura: “How is -Lucilla?” - -He winced; but he did not show it. He smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t -heard of her since March.” - -“Neither have I,” she said. “Not since January. She seems to be a bird -of passage through other people’s lives.” - -Bigourdin laughed, shaking a great forefinger. “I bet that is not -original. I bet you are quoting your old philosopher of a father!” - -She coloured and said defiantly: “Yes. I confess it. It is none the less -true.” - -“And how is the good Fortinbras?” asked Martin, to turn a distressful -conversation. - -“_A merveille!_ We are expecting him by any train. It is I who am making -him come. To-morrow I may be called out. France will want more than the -Troupes Métropolitaines and the Réserves to fight the Germans. They will -want the Territorials, _et c’est moi, l’armée territoriale_.” He thumped -his chest. “It was written that I should strike a blow for France like -my fathers. But while I am striking the blow who is to look after my -little Félise and the Hôtel des Grottes? It is well to be prepared. When -the mobilisation is ordered, there will be no more trains for -civilians.” - -“And what do you feel about the war, Félise?” asked Martin. - -She clenched her hands: “I would give my immortal soul to be a man!” she -cried. - -Bigourdin hugged her. “That is a daughter of France! I am proud of our -little girl. _On dirait une Jeanne d’Arc._ But where is the Frenchwoman -now who is not animated by the spirit of La Pucelle d’Orléans?” - -“In the meanwhile, _mon oncle_,” said Félise, disengaging herself -demurely from his embrace, “Martin looks exceedingly dusty and hungry, -and no one has even suggested that he should wash or eat or have his bag -carried up to his room.” - -Bigourdin regarded her with admiration. “She is wonderful. She thinks of -everything. Baptiste. Take up Monsieur Martin’s things to the _chambre -d’honneur_.” - -“But, my dear fellow,” Martin protested, “I only want my old room in -which I have slept so soundly.” - -But Bigourdin would have none of it. He was the Prodigal Son. “_Et -justement!_” he cried, slapping his thigh, “we have a good calf’s head -for _déjeuner_. Yes, it’s true,” he laughed delightedly. “The fatted -calf. It was fatted by our neighbour Richard. _C’est extraordinaire!_” - -So Martin shaved and washed in the famous bath room, and changed, and -descended to the _salle-à-manger_. The only guests were a few -anxious-faced commercial travellers at the centre table. All but one -were old acquaintances. He went the round, shaking hands, amid cordial -greetings. It was the last time, they said. To-morrow they would be -mobilised. The day after they would exchange the sample box for the pack -of the soldier; in a week they would have the skin torn off the soles of -their feet; and in a month they would be blown to bits by shells. They -proclaimed a lack of the warrior spirit. They had a horror of blood, -even a cat’s. It stirred up one’s stomach. _Mais enfin_ one did not -think of such unimportant things when France was in peril. If your house -was in danger of being swept away by flood, there was no sense in being -afraid to catch cold through having your feet wet. Each in his way -expressed the same calm fatalistic patriotism. They had no yearning to -be killed. But if they were killed—they shrugged their shoulders. They -were France and France was they. No force could dismember them from -France without France or themselves bleeding to death. It was very -simple. - -Martin left them and sat down with Bigourdin and Félise, at their table -in the corner by the door. It was the first time he had ever done so. -Félise ate little and spoke less. Now and again, as he told of his mild -adventures in the Far East, he caught her great dark eyes fixed on him, -and he smiled, unaccountably glad. But always she shifted her glance and -made a pretence of eating or drinking. Once, when Bigourdin, called by -innkeeper’s business to one of the commercial travellers, had left the -table, she said: - -“You have changed. One would say it was not the same man.” - -“What makes you think so?” he laughed. - -“You talk differently. There is a different expression on your face.” - -“I’m sorry,” said he. - -“I don’t see why you should be sorry,” said Félise. - -“If you no longer recognise me,” said he—they talked in French—“I must -come to you as a stranger.” - -She bit her lip and flushed. “I did not know what I was saying. Perhaps -it was impertinent.” - -“How could it be, Félise?” he asked, bending across the table. “But if I -have changed, is it for the better or the worse?” - -“Would you be a waiter here again?” - -Martin looked for a second into his soul. - -“No,” said he. - -“_Voilà!_” said Félise. - -“But I couldn’t tell you why.” - -“It’s not necessary,” said Félise. - -Bigourdin joined them. The meal ended. Félise went off to her duties. -Bigourdin said: - -“Let us go and drink our coffee at the Café de l’Univers. Everybody is -there, at this hour, the last day or two. We may learn some news.” - -They descended the hill and walked along the blazing quays. Martin knew -every house, every stone, every old woman who pausing from beating her -linen on the side of the Dronne waved him a welcome. And men stopped him -and slapped his shoulder and shook him by the hand. - -“You recognise the good heart of Périgord,” said Bigourdin. - -Martin replied, with excusable Gallic hyperbole: “_C’est mon pays_. I -find it again, after having wandered over the earth.” - -They turned into the narrow, cool Rue de Périgueux. On the opposite side -of the street, they saw Monsieur Foure, _adjoint du maire_, walking -furiously, mopping a red forehead, soft straw hat in hand. He sped -across to them, too excited to realise that Martin had gone and -returned. - -“Have you heard the news? The Mayor has received a telegram from Paris. -The order of mobilisation goes out to-day.” - -“_Bon_,” said Bigourdin. - -The terrace of the Café de l’Univers was crowded with the notables of -the town, who, in their sober way, only frequented the café after -dinner. The special côterie had their section apart, as at night. They -were all assembled—Fénille of the Compagnie du Gaz; Beuzot, Professor -of the Ecole Normale; the Viriots, father and son; Thiébauld, managing -director of the quarries; Bénoît of the railway; Rutillard, the great -chandler of corn and hay; and they did not need the _adjoint du Maire_ -to tell them the news. The fresh arrivals, provided speedily with chairs -by the waiters, were swallowed up in the group. And Martin was assailed. - -“_Et maintenant, l’Angleterre. Qu’est-ce qu’elle va faire?_” - -It was the question on all French lips that day until England declared -war. - -And Martin proclaimed, as though inspired from Whitehall, that England -would fight. For the moment his declaration satisfied them. The talk -swayed from him excitedly. France at war, at last, after forty years, -held their souls. They talked in the air, as men will, of numbers, of -preparations, of chances, of the solidarity of the nation. When there -was a little pause, the square-headed, white-haired Monsieur Viriot rose -and with a gesture, imposed silence. - -“This is a moment,” said he, “for every misunderstanding between loyal -French hearts to be cleared up. We are now brothers in the defence of -our beloved country. _Mon brave ami Bigourdin, donne-moi ta main._” - -Bigourdin sprang up,—in the public street—but what did that -matter?—and cried: “_Mon vieux Viriot_,” and the two men embraced and -kissed each other, and every one, much affected, cried “Bravo! Bravo!” -And then Bigourdin, reaching over the marble tables, took young Lucien -Viriot’s hands and embraced him and shook him by the shoulders, and -cried: “Here is a cuirassier who is going to cut through the Germans -like bladders of lard!” - -It was a memorable reconciliation. - -Fortinbras arrived late at night, probably by the last regular -train-services; for on the next day and for many days afterwards there -were wild hurry and crowds and confusion on roads and railways all -through France. - -Into the town poured all the men of the surrounding villages, and the -streets were filled with them and their wives and mothers and children, -and strange officers in motor-cars whirled through the Rue de Périgueux. -Bands of young men falling into the well-remembered step marched along -the quays to the station singing the Marseillaise, and women stood at -their doorsteps blowing them kisses as they passed. And at the station -the great military trains adorned with branches of trees and flowers, -steamed away, a massed line of white faces and waving arms; and old men -and women young and old waved handkerchiefs until the train disappeared, -and then turned away weeping bitterly. Martin, Fortinbras and Bigourdin -went to many a train to see off the flower of the youth of the little -town. Lucien Viriot went gallantly. “A good war horse suits me better -than an office-stool,” he laughed. And Joseph, sloughing for ever -Martin’s shiny black raiment, went off too; and the younger waiters of -the Café de l’Univers, and Beuzot, the young professor at the Ecole -Normale, and the son of the _adjoint_, and _le petit Maurin_, who helped -his mother at her _Débit de Tabac_. Many a familiar face was carried -away from Brantôme towards some unknown battle-line and the thunder and -the slaughter—a familiar face which Brantôme was never to see again. -And after a day or two the town seemed futile, like a ball-room from -which the last dancers had gone. - -Grave was the evening côterie at the Café de l’Univers. The rumour had -gone through France that England more than hesitated. Fortinbras -magnificently defended England’s honour. He had been very quiet at home, -tenderly shy and wistful with Félise, unsuggestive of paths to happiness -with Martin; his attitude towards intimate life one of gentle -melancholy. He had told Martin that he had retired from business as -_Marchand de Bonheur_. He had lost the trick of it. At Bigourdin’s -urgency he had purchased an annuity which sufficed his modest and -philosophic needs. No longer having the fierce incentive to gain the -hard-earned five-franc piece, no longer involved in a scheme of things -harmonious with an irregular profession, he was like the singer deprived -of the gift of song, the telepathist stricken with inhibitory impotence. -For all his odd learning, for all his garnered knowledge of the human -heart, and for all his queer heroic struggle, he stood before his own -soul an irremediable failure. So an older and almost a broken Fortinbras -had taken up his quarters at the Hôtel des Grottes. But stimulated by -the talk of war, he became once more the orator and the seer. He held a -brief for England and his passionate sincerity imposed itself on his -hearers. - -“Thank God!” said he afterwards, “I was right.” - -But in the meanwhile, Martin, strung in every fibre to high pitch by -what he had heard, by what he had seen and by what he had felt, knew -that just as it was ordained that he should come to Brantôme, so it was -ordained that he should not stay. - -“You talk eloquently and with conviction, Monsieur,” said the Mayor to -Fortinbras—there were a dozen in the familiar café corner, tense and -eager-eyed, and Monsieur Cazensac, the Gascon proprietor, stood by—“but -what proofs have you given us of England’s co-operation?” - -Martin, with a thrill through his body, said in a loud voice: - -“Monsieur le Maire, there is not a living Englishman with red blood in -his veins who has any doubt. I, the most obscure of Englishmen, speak -for my country. Get me accepted as a volunteer, the humblest -foot-soldier, and I will fight for France. Take up my pledge, Monsieur -le Maire. It is the pledge of the only Englishman in Brantôme on behalf -of the British Empire. There are millions better than I from all ends of -the earth who will be inspired by the same sentiments of loyalty. Get me -accepted!” - -In English Martin could never have said it. Words would have come shyly. -But he was among Frenchmen, attuned to French modes of expression. A -murmur of approbation arose. - -“Yes,” cried Martin. “I offer France my life as a pledge for my country. -Get me accepted, _Monsieur le Maire_.” - -The Mayor, a lean, grey-eyed, bald-headed man, with a straggly, -iron-grey beard, looked at him intently for a few moments. - -“_C’est bien_,” said he. “I take up your pledge. I have to go to-morrow -to Périgueux to see _Monsieur le Préfet_, who has a certain friendliness -for me. He has influence with the _Ministère de la Guerre_. Accompany me -to Périgueux. I undertake to see that it is arranged.” - -“I thank you, Monsieur le Maire,” said Martin. - -Then everybody talked at once, and lifted their glasses to Martin, and -Monsieur Viriot despatched Cazensac for the sweet champagne in which -nearly a year ago they had drunk Lucien’s health; and Bigourdin embraced -him; and when the wine was poured out, there were cries of “_Vive -l’Angleterre!_” “_Vive la France!_” “_Vive Martin!_” And the -square-headed old Monsieur Viriot set the climax of this ovation by -lifting his glass at arm’s length and proclaiming “_Vive notre bon -Périgordin!_” - -Said Fortinbras, who sat next to him, “I would give the rest of my life -to be as young as you, just for the next few months. My God, you must -feel proud!” - -Martin’s steady English blood asserted itself: “I don’t,” said he, “I -feel a damned premature hero.” - - * * * * * - -It is only in the Légion Etrangère, that fantastic, romantic regiment of -dare-devil desperadoes capable of all iniquities and of all heroisms, -that a foreigner can enlist straight away, no questions asked. To be -incorporated in the regular army of France is another matter. Wires have -to be pulled. They were pulled in Martin’s case. It was to his credit -that he had served two years—gaining the stripes of a corporal—in the -Rifle Corps of the University of Cambridge. At the psychological moment -of pulling, England declared war on Germany. The resources of the -British Empire, men and money and ships and blood were on the side of -France. England and France were one. A second’s consideration of the -request of the Préfet de la Dordogne and a hurriedly scrawled signature -constituted Martin a potential member of the French Army. - -It happened that, when the notice of authorisation came, the first -person he ran across was Félise, by the door of the _fabrique_. He waved -the paper. - -“I am accepted.” - -She turned pale and put her hand to her heart, but she met his eyes -bravely. - -“When do you go?” - -“At once—straight to Périgueux to enlist.” - -“And when will you come back?” - -“God knows,” said he. - -Then he became aware of her standing scared, with parted lips and -heaving bosom. - -“Of course I hope to come back; some time or other, when the War’s over. -Naturally—but——” - -She said quaveringly—“You may be killed.” - -“So may millions. I take my chance.” - -She turned aside, clapped both hands to her face and broke into a -passion of weeping. Instinctively he put an arm around her. She sobbed -on his shoulder. He whispered: - -“Do you care so much about what happens to me?” - -She tore herself away and faced him with eyes flashing through her -tears. - -“Do you think I’m a stick or a stone? I am half English, half French. -You are going to fight for England and France. Don’t you think women -feel these things? You are a part of the Englishwoman and the -Frenchwoman that is going out to fight, and I would hate you if you -didn’t fight, but I don’t want you to be killed.” - -She fled. And not till he left the Hôtel des Grottes did he see her -again alone. When with Bigourdin and Fortinbras he was about to enter -the old omnibus to take him to the station, she pinned a tricolour -ribbon on his coat, and then saying “Good-bye and God bless you,” looked -him squarely in the eyes. It was in his heart to say, “You’re worth all -the Lucillas in the universe.” But there were Bigourdin and Fortinbras -and Euphémie and Baptiste and Grégoire and the chambermaid and a few -straggling girls from the _fabrique_ all standing by. He said: - -“God bless you, Félise. I shall never part with your ribbon as long as I -live.” - -Grégoire climbed to his seat. Bigourdin closed the door. The omnibus -jolted and swayed down the road. The elfin figure of Félise was suddenly -cut off at the turn. And that was the last of the Hôtel des Grottes. - -A week or so later, Martin drilling in the hot barrack square realised -that just a year had passed since he first set eyes on Brantôme. A year -ago he had been a spineless, aimless drudge at Margett’s Universal -College. Now, wearing a French uniform, he was about to fight for France -and England in the greatest of all wars that the world had seen. And -during those twelve months through what soul-shaking experiences had he -not passed! Truly a wonderful year. - -“_Mais vous, num’ro sept! Sacré nom de Dieu! Qu’est-ce que vous -faites-là!_” screamed the drill sergeant. - -Whereupon Martin abruptly realised the intense importance of the present -moment. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -THE weary weeks passed by with their alternations of hopes and fears. -Martin, insignificant speck of blue and red, was in the Argonne. -Sergeant Bigourdin of the _Armée Territoriale_ was up in the north. The -history of their days is the history of the war which has yet to be -written; the story of their personal lives is identical with that of the -personal lives of the millions of men who have looked and are looking -Death always in the face, cut off as it were from their own souls by the -curtain of war. - -Things went drearily at the Hôtel des Grottes. But little manhood -remained at Brantôme. Women worked in the fields and drove the carts and -kept the shops where so few things were sold. Félise busied herself in -the _fabrique_, her staff entirely composed of women. Fortinbras made a -pretence of managing the hotel to which for days together no travellers -came. No cars of pleasant motorists were unloaded at its door. Now and -then an elderly bagman in vain quest of orders sat in the solitary -_salle-à-manger_, and Fortinbras waited on him with urbane melancholy. -Thrown intimately together father and daughter grew nearer to each -other. They became companions, walking together on idle afternoons and -sitting on mild nights on the terrace, with the town twinkling -peacefully below them. They talked of many things. Fortinbras drew from -the rich store of his wisdom, Félise from her fund of practical -knowledge. There were times when she forgot the harrowing mystery of her -mother, and, only conscious of a great and yearning sympathy, unlocked -her heart and cried a little in close and comforting propinquity. -Together they read the letters from the trenches, all too short, all too -elusive in their brave cheeriness. The epistles of Martin and Bigourdin -were singularly alike. Each said much the same. They had not the -comforts of the Hôtel des Grottes. But what would you have? War was war. -They were in splendid health. They had enough to eat. They had had a -sharp tussle with the _Boches_ and many of their men were killed. But -victory in the end was certain. In the meanwhile they needed some warm -underclothes as the nights were growing cold; and would Félise enclose -some chocolate and packets of Bastos. Love to everybody and _Vive la -France!_ - -These letters Fortinbras would take to the Café de l’Univers and read to -the grey-headed remnant of the coterie, each of whom had a precisely -similar letter to read. The _Adjoint du Maire_ was the first to come -without a letter. He produced a telegram which was passed from hand to -hand in silence. He had come dry-eyed and brave, but when the telegram -reached him, after completing its round, he broke down. - -“_C’est stupide!_ Forgive me, my friends. I am proud to have given my -son to my country. _Mais enfin_, he was my son—my only son. For the -first time I am glad that his mother is no longer living.” Then he -raised his head valiantly. “_Et toi_, Viriot—Lucien, how is he doing?” - -Then some one heard of the death of Beuzot, the young professor at the -Ecole Normale. - -At last, after a long interval of silence came disastrous news of -Bigourdin, lying seriously, perhaps mortally wounded in a hospital in a -little northern town. There followed days of anguish. Telegrams elicited -the information that he had been shot through the lung. Félise went -about her work with a pinched face. - -In course of time a letter came from Madame Clothilde Robineau at -Chartres: - - My Dear Niece: - - Although your conduct towards me was ungrateful, I am actuated - by the teachings of Christianity in extending to you my - forgiveness, now that you are alone and unprotected. I hear from - a friend of the Abbé Duloup, a venerable priest who is - administering to the wounded the consolations of religion, that - your Uncle Gaspard is condemned to death. Christian duty and - family sentiment therefore make it essential that I should offer - you a home beneath my roof. You left it in a fit of anger - because I spoke of your father in terms of reprobation. But if - you had watched by the death-bed of your mother, my poor sister, - as I did, in the terrible garret in the Rue Maugrabine, you - would not judge me so harshly. Believe me, dear child, I have at - heart your welfare both material and spiritual. If you desire - guidance as to the conduct of the hotel I shall be pleased to - aid you with my experience. - - Your affectionate Aunt, - Clothilde Robineau. - -The frigid offer well meant according to the woman’s pale lights, Félise -scarcely heeded. Father or no father, uncle or no uncle, protector or no -protector, she was capable of conducting a score of hotels. The last -thing in the world she needed was the guidance of her Aunt Clothilde. -Save for one phrase in the letter she would have written an immediate -though respectful refusal and thought nothing further of the matter. But -that one phrase flashed through her brain. Her mother had died in the -Rue Maugrabine. They had told her she had died in hospital. Things -hitherto bafflingly dark to her became clear—on one awful, tragic -hypothesis. She shook with the terror of it. - -It was the only communication the postman had brought that late -afternoon. She stood in the vestibule to read it. Fortinbras engaged in -the bureau over some simple accounts looked up by chance and saw her -staring at the letter with great open eyes, her lips apart, her bosom -heaving. He rose swiftly, and hurrying through the side door came to her -side. - -“My God! Not bad news?” - -She handed him the letter. He read, his mind not grasping at once that -which to her was essential. - -“The priests are exaggerating. And as for the proposal——” - -“The Rue Maugrabine,” said Félise. - -He drew the quick breath of sudden realisation, and for a long time they -stood silent, looking into each other’s eyes. At last she spoke, deadly -white: - -“That woman I saw—who opened the door for me—was my mother.” - -She had pierced to the truth. No subterfuge he could invent had power to -veil it. He made a sad gesture of admission. - -“Why did you hide it from me?” she asked. - -“You had a beautiful ideal, my child, and it would have been a crime to -tear it away.” - -She held herself very erect—there was steel in the small body—and -advanced a step or so towards him, her dark eyes fearless. - -“You know what you gave me to understand when I saw her?” - -“Yes, my child,” said Fortinbras. - -“You also were an ideal.” - -He smiled. “You loved me tenderly, but I was not in your calendar of -saints, my dear.” - -She mastered herself, swallowing a sob, but the tears rolled down her -cheeks. - -“You are now,” she said. - -He laughed uncertainly. “A poor old sinner of a saint,” he said, and -gathered her to him. - -And later, in the salon, before the fire, for the autumn was damp and -cold, he told her the cheerless story of his life, concealing nothing, -putting the facts before her so that she could judge. She sat on the -rug, her arm about his knee. She felt very tired, as though some part of -her had bled to death. But a new wonder filled her heart. In a way she -had been prepared for the discovery. In her talks with her uncle and -with Martin she had been keen to mark a strange disingenuousness. She -had accused them of conspiracy. They were concealing something; what, -she knew not; but a cloud had rested on her mother’s memory. If, on that -disastrous evening, the frowsy woman of the Rue Maugrabine had revealed -herself as her mother, her soul would have received a shock from which -recovery might have been difficult. Now the shock had not only been -mitigated by months of torturing doubt, but was compensated by the -thrill of her father’s sacrifice. - -When he had ended, she turned and wept and knelt before him, crying for -forgiveness, calling him all manner of foolish names. - -He said, stroking her dark hair: “I am only a poor old bankrupt -_Marchand de Bonheur_!” - -“You will be _Marchand de Bonheur_ to the end,” she said, and with total -want of logical relevance she added: “See what happiness you have -brought me to-night.” - -“At any rate, my dear,” said he, “we have found each other at last.” - -She went to bed and lay awake till dawn looking at a new world of wrong -doing, suffering and heroism. Who was she, humble little girl, living -her sequestered life, to judge men by the superficialities of their -known actions? She had judged her father almost to the catastrophe of -love. She had judged Martin bitterly. What did she know of the riot in -his soul? Now he was offering his life for a splendid ideal. She felt -humble beside her conception of him. And her Uncle Gaspard, great, -tender, adored, was lying far, far away in the north, with a bullet -through his body. She prayed her valiant little soul out for the two of -them. And the next morning she arose and went to her work brave and -clear-eyed, with a new hope in God based upon a new faith in man. - -A day or two later she received a wild letter from Corinna Hastings. -Corinna’s letters were as frequent as blackberries in March. Félise -knitted her brows over it for a long time. Then she took it to her -father. - -“The sense,” she said, “must lie in the scrabble I can’t make out.” - -Fortinbras put on his spectacles and when, not without difficulty, he -had deciphered it, he took off the spectacles and smiled the benevolent -smile of the _Marchand de Bonheur_. - -“Leave it to me, my dear,” said he. “I will answer Corinna.” - - * * * * * - -In the tiny town of Wendlebury, in the noisy bosom of her family, -Corinna was eating her heart out. During the latter days of June she had -returned to the fold, an impecunious failure. As a matter of theory she -had upheld the principles of woman suffrage. As a matter of practice, in -the effort to obtain it, she loathed it with bitter hatred. She lacked -the inspiration of its overwhelming importance in sublunary affairs. She -was willing enough to do ordinary work in its interests, at a living -wage, even to the odious extent of wearing an anæmic tricolor and -selling newspapers in the streets. But when her duties involved -incendiarism, imprisonment and hunger, striking, Corinna revolted. She -had neither the conviction nor the courage. Miss Banditch reviled her -for a recreant, a snake in the grass and a spineless doll and left the -flat, forswearing her acquaintance for ever. Headquarters signified -disapproval of her pusillanimity. Driven to desperation she signified -her disapproval of Headquarters in unmeasured terms. The end came and -prospective starvation drove her home to Wendlebury. When the war broke -out, in common with the rest of the young maidenhood of the town, she -yearned to do something to help the British Empire. Her sister Clara, to -satisfy this laudable craving, promptly married a subaltern, and, when -he was ordered to the front, went to live with his people. The next -youngest sister, Evelyn, anxious for Red Cross work, found herself -subsidised by an aunt notoriously inimical to Corinna. Corinna therefore -had to throw in her lot with Margaret and Winnie, chits of fifteen and -thirteen—the intervening boys having flown from the nest. What was a -penniless and, in practical matters, a feckless young woman to do? She -knitted socks and mufflers and went round the town collecting money for -Belgian refugees. So did a score of tabbies, objects of Corinna’s -scornful raillery who district-visited the poor to exasperation. She -demanded work more glorious, more heroic; but lack of funds tied her to -detested knitting-needles. As the Vicar’s daughter she was compelled to -go to church and listen to her father’s sermons on the war; compared -with which infliction, she tartly informed her mother, forcible feeding -was a gay amusement. - -Once or twice she had a postcard from Martin in the Argonne. She cursed -herself, her destiny and her sex. If only she was a man she would at -least have gone forth with a gun on her shoulder. But she was a woman; -the most helpless thing in women God ever made. Even her mother, whom -she had rated low on account of intellectual short-comings, she began to -envy. At any rate she had generously performed her woman’s duty. She had -brought forth ten children, five men children, two of whom had rushed to -take up arms in defence of their country. Martin’s last postcard had -told Corinna of Bigourdin being called away to fight. In her enforced -isolation from the great events of the great world she became acutely -conscious that in all the great world only one individual had ever found -a use for her. A flash of such knowledge either scorches or illuminates -the soul. - -Then early in November she received a misspelt letter laboriously -written in hard pencil on thin, glazed paper. It was addressed from a -hospital in the North of France. - - Mademoiselle Corinna: - - I have done my best to strike a blow for my beloved country. It - was written that I should do so, and it was written perhaps that - I should give my life for her. I am dictating these words to my - bedside neighbour who is wounded in the knee. For my part, a - German bullet has penetrated my lung, and the doctors say I may - not live. But while I still can speak, I am anxious to tell you - that on the battlefield your image has always been before my - eyes and that I always have in my heart a love for you tender - and devoted. Should I live, Mademoiselle, I pray you to forget - this letter, as I do not wish to cause you pain. But should I - die, let me now have the consolation of believing that I shall - have a place in your thoughts as one who has died, not - unworthily or unwillingly, in a noble cause. - - Gaspard-Marie Bigourdin. - -Corinna sat for a long time, frozen to her soul, looking out of her -bedroom window at the hopeless autumn drizzle, and the sodden leaves on -the paths of the vicarage garden. Then, with quivering lips, she sat -down at the rickety little desk that had been hers since childhood and -wrote to Bigourdin. She sealed it and went out in the rain and dropped -it in the nearest pillar box. When she reached her room again, the -realisation of the inadequacy of her words smote her. She threw herself -on her bed and sobbed. After which she wrote her wild letter to Félise. - -For the next few days a chastened Corinna went about the Vicarage. An -unusual gentleness manifested itself in her demeanour, and at last -emboldened Mrs. Hastings, good, kind soul, to take the unprecedented -step of enquiring into her wayward and sharp-tongued daughter’s private -affairs. - -“I’m afraid, dearie, that letter you had from France contained bad -news.” - -“Yes, mother,” said Corinna, with a sigh. - -They were alone in the drawing room. Mrs. Hastings laid aside her -knitting, rose slowly—she was a portly woman—and went across to -Corinna and put her arm about her shoulders. - -“Can’t you tell me what it was, dearie?” she whispered. - -Corinna melted to the voice. It awakened memories of unutterable comfort -of childish years. She surrendered to the embrace. - -“Yes, mother. The truest man I have ever known—a Frenchman—is dying -over there. He asked me to marry him a year ago. And I was a fool, -mother. Oh! an awful fool!” - -And half an hour later, she said tearfully: “I’ve been a fool in so many -ways. I’ve misjudged you so, mother. It never occurred to me that you -would understand.” - -“My dear,” said Mrs. Hastings, stroking her hair, “to bring ten children -into the world and keep them going on small means, to say nothing of -looking after a husband, isn’t a bad education.” - -The next day came a telegram. - -“Re letter Félise. If you want to find yourself at last go straight to -Bigourdin. Fortinbras.” - -The message was a lash. She had not contemplated the possibility of -going to France. In the sleepless nights she had ached to be with him. -But how? In Tierra del Fuego he would be equally inaccessible. - -“Go straight to him.” The words were very simple. Of course she would -go. Why had she waited for Fortinbras to point out her duty? - -Then came the humiliating knowledge of impotence. She looked in her -purse and counted out her fortune of thirteen shillings and sevenpence -halfpenny. A very humble Corinna showed letter and telegram to her -mother. - -“The war seems to have turned everything upside down,” said the latter. -“You ought to go, dear. It’s a sacred duty.” - -“But how can I? I have no money. I can’t ask father.” - -“Come upstairs,” said Mrs. Hastings. - -She led the way to her bedroom and from a locked drawer took an -old-fashioned japanned despatch-box, which she opened. - -“All my married life,” she said, “I have managed to keep something -against a rainy day. Take what you want, dear.” - -Thus came the overthrowal of all Corinna’s scheme of values. She went to -France, a woman with a warm and throbbing heart. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -IT was with difficulty that she reached the little French town, and it -was with infinitely more difficulty that she overcame military obstacles -and penetrated into the poor little whitewashed school that did duty as -a hospital. It was a great bare room with a double row of iron -bedsteads, a gangway between them. Here and there an ominous screen shut -off a bed. A few bandaged men half dressed were sitting up smoking and -playing cards. An odour of disinfectant caught her by the throat. A -human form lying by the door with but little face visible, was moaning -piteously. She shrank on the threshold, aghast at this abode of mangled -men. The young _aide-major_ escorting her, pointed up the ward. - -“You will find him there, Mademoiselle, Number Seventeen.” - -“How is he?” she asked. - -“The day before yesterday he nearly went,” he snapped his finger and -thumb. “A hemorrhage which we stopped. But the old French stock is solid -as oak, Mademoiselle. A hole or two doesn’t matter. He is going along -pretty well.” - -“Thank God!” said Corinna. - -A nurse with red-cross badge met them. “Ah, it is the lady for Sergeant -Bigourdin. He has been expecting you ever since your letter.” - -His eyes were all of him that she recognised at first. His great, hearty -face had grown hollow and the lower part was concealed by a thick, black -beard. She remembered having heard of _les poilus_, the hairy-ones, as -the Territorial Troops were affectionately termed in France. But his -kind, dark eyes were full of gladness. The nurse set a stool for Corinna -by the bedside. On her left lay another black-bearded man who looked at -her wistfully. He had been Bigourdin’s amanuensis. - -“This angel of tyranny forbids me to move my arms,” whispered Bigourdin -apologetically. The little whimsical phrase struck the note of the man’s -unconquerable spirit. Corinna smiled through tears. The nurse said: -“Talk to him and don’t let him talk to you. You can only have ten -minutes.” She retired. - -“_Cela vous fait beaucoup souffrir, mon pauvre ami?_” said Corinna. - -He shook his head. “Not now that you are here. It is wonderful of you to -come. You have a heart of gold. And it is that little talisman, _ce -petit cœur d’or_, that is going to make me well. You cannot imagine—it -is like a fairy tale to see you here.” - -Instinctively Corinna put out her hand and touched his lips. She had -never done so feminine and tender a thing to a man. She let her fingers -remain, while he kissed them. She flushed and smiled. - -“You mustn’t talk. It is for me who have sound lungs. I have come -because I have been a little imbecile, and only at the eleventh hour I -have repented of my folly. If I had been sensible a year ago, this would -not have happened.” - -He turned happy eyes on her; but he said with his Frenchman’s clear -logic: - -“All my love and all the happiness that might have been would not have -altered the destinies of Europe. I should have been brought here, all -the same, with a ridiculous little hole through my great body.” - -Corinna admitted the truth of his statement. “But,” said she, “I might -have been of some comfort to you.” - -His eyebrows expressed the shrug of which his maimed frame was -incapable. “It is all for the best. If I had left you at Brantôme, my -heart would have been torn in two. I might have been cautious to the -detriment of France. As it was, I didn’t care much what happened to me. -And now they have awarded me the _médaille militaire_; and you are here, -to make, as Baudelaire says, ‘_ma joie et ma santé_.’ What more can a -man desire?” - -Now all this bravery was spoken in a voice so weak that the woman in -Corinna was stirred to its depths. She bent over him and whispered—for -she knew that the man with the wistful gaze in the next bed was -listening: - -“_C’est vrai que tu m’aimes toujours?_” - -She saw her question answered by the quick illumination of his eyes, and -she went on quickly: “And I, I love you too, and I will give you all my -poor life for what it is worth. Oh!” she cried, “I can’t imagine what -you can see in me. Beside you I feel so small, of so little account. I -can do nothing—nothing but love you.” - -“That’s everything in the world,” said Bigourdin. - -They were silent for a moment. Then he said: “I should like to meet the -_Boche_ who fired that rifle.” - -“So should I,” she cried fiercely. “I should like to tear him limb from -limb.” - -“I shouldn’t,” said Bigourdin. “I should like to decorate him with a -pair of wings and a little bow and arrow. . . .” - -The nurse came up. “You must go now, mademoiselle. The patient is -becoming too excited. It is not your fault. Nothing but a bolster across -their mouths will prevent these Périgordins from talking.” - -A tiny bedroom in a house over a grocer’s shop was all the accommodation -that she had been able to secure, as the town was full of troops -billeted on the inhabitants. As it was, that bedroom had been given up -to her by a young officer who took pity on her distress. She felt her -presence impertinent in this stern atmosphere of war. After seeing -Bigourdin, she wandered for a while about the rainy streets and then -retired to her chilly and comfortless room, where she ate her meal of -sardines and sausage. The next day she presented herself at the hospital -and saw the _aide-major_. - -“Can you give me some work to do?” she asked. “I don’t pretend to be -able to nurse. But I could fetch and carry and do odd jobs.” - -But it was a French hospital, and the _règlement_ made no provision for -affording prepossessing young Englishwomen romantic employment. - -Of course, said the _aide-major_, if Mademoiselle was bent upon it, she -could write an application which would be forwarded to the proper -quarter. But it would have to pass through the _bureaux_—and she, who -knew France so well, was aware what the passing through the _bureaux_ -meant. Unless she had the ear of high personages, it would take weeks -and perhaps months. - -“And in the meantime,” said Corinna, “my _grand ami_, Number 17 down -there, will have got well and departed from the hospital.” - -“Mademoiselle,” said he, “you have already saved the life of one gallant -Frenchman. Don’t you think that should give you a sentiment of duty -accomplished?” - -She blushed. He was kind. For he was young and she was pretty. - -“I can let you see your _gros heureux_ to-day,” said he. “It is a -favour. It is against the _règlement_. If the _major_ hears of it, there -will be trouble. By the grace of God he has a bilious attack which -confines him to his quarters. But, _bien entendu_, it is for this time -only.” - -She thanked him and again found herself by Bigourdin’s bedside. The -moment of her first sight of him was the happiest in her life. She had -wrought a miracle. He was a different man inspired with the supreme will -to live. The young doctor had spoken truly. A spasm of joy shook her. At -last she had been of some use in the world. . . . She saw too the -Bigourdin whom she had known. His great, black beard had vanished. One -of the _camarades_, with two disposable arms, had hunted through the -kits of the patients for a razor and had shaved him. - -“They tell me I am getting on magnificently,” said he. “This morning -there is no longer any danger. In a few months I shall be as solid as -ever I was. It is happiness that has cured me.” - -They talked. She told him of her conversation with the _aide-major_. He -reflected for a moment. Then he said: - -“Do you wish to please me?” - -“What am I here for?” asked Corinna. - -“You are here to spoil me. Anyhow—if you wish to please me, go to -Brantôme, and await me. To know that you are there, _chez-moi_, will -give me the courage of a thousand lions, and you will be able to console -my poor Félise who every night is praying for Martin by the side of her -little white bed.” - -And so it was arranged. After two days extraordinary travel, advancing -from point to point by any train that happened to run, shunted on -sidings for interminable periods, in order to allow the unimpeded -progress of military trains, waiting weary hours at night in cold, -desolate stations, hungry and broken, but her heart aglow with a new and -wonderful happiness, she reached Brantôme. - -She threw her arms round the neck of an astonished, but ever urbane -elderly gentleman in the vestibule of the Hôtel des Grottes and kissed -him. - -“He’s getting well,” she cried a little hysterically. “He sent me here -to wait for him. I’m so happy and I’m just about dead.” - -“But yet there’s that spark of life in you, my dear Corinna,” said -Fortinbras, “which, according to the saying, distinctly justifies hope. -Félise and I will see to it that you live.” - - * * * * * - -It was winter before Bigourdin was well enough to return. By that time -Corinna had settled down to her new life wherein she found the making of -_foie gras_ an enticing mystery. Also, in a town where every woman had -her man—husband, brother, son or lover—either in hourly peril of -death, or dead or wounded, there was infinite scope for help and -consolation. And when a woman said: “_Hélas! Mon pauvre homme. Il est -blessé là-bas_,” she could reply with a new, thrilling sympathy and a -poignant throb of the heart: “And my man too.” For like all the other -women there, she had “_son homme_.” Her man! Corinna tasted the fierce -joy of being elemental. - -There was much distress in the little town. The municipality did its -best. In many cases the wives valiantly carried on the husband’s -business. But in the row of cave dwellings where the quarrymen lived no -muscular arms hewed the week’s wages from the rocks. Boucabeille, -Martin’s Bacchanalian friend, had purged all his offences in heroic -battle, and was lying in an unknown grave. Corinna, learning how Martin -had carried the child home on his shoulders, brought her to the hotel -and cared for her, and obtained work for the mother in the _fabrique_. - -Never before had Corinna had days so full; never before had she awakened -in the morning with love in her heart. Félise, grown gentler and happier -since the canonisation of her father, gave her unstinted affection. - -And then Bigourdin arrived, nominally on sick-leave, but with private -intimation that his active services would be required no longer. This -gave a touch of sadness to his otherwise joyous home-coming. - -“I have not killed half enough Boches,” said he. - -A few days after his return came a letter from Martin. And it was -written from a hospital. - - My Dearest Félise: - - I am well and sound and in perfect health. But a bullet got me - in the left arm while we were attacking a German trench, and a - spent bit of shrapnel caught me on the head and stunned me. When - I recovered I was midway between the trenches in the zone of - fire and I had to lie still between the dead bodies of two of - our brave soldiers. I thought much, my dear, while I was lying - there expecting every minute a bullet to finish me. And some of - what I thought I will tell you, when I see you, for I shall see - you very soon. After some thirty-six hours I was collected and - brought to the field hospital, where I was patched up, and in - the course of a day or so sent on to the base. I lay on straw - during the journey in a row of other wounded. France has the - defects of her qualities. Her soil is so fertile that her stalks - of straw are like young oak saplings. When I arrived I had such - a temperature and was so silly with pain that I don’t very well - remember what happened. When I got sensible they told me that - gangrene had set in and that they had chopped off my arm above - the elbow. I always thought I was an incomplete human being, - dear, but I have never been so idiotically incomplete as I am - now. Although I am getting along splendidly I want to do all - sorts of things with the fingers that aren’t there. I turn to - pick up something and there’s nothing to pick it up with. A week - before I was wounded, I had a finger nail torn off, and it still - hurts me, somewhere in space, about a foot away from what is - _me_. You would laugh if you knew what a nuisance it is. . . . I - make no excuses for asking you to receive me at Brantôme; all - that is dear to me in the world is there—and what other spot in - the wide universe have I to fly to? - -“But _sacré nom d’une pipe_!” cried Bigourdin—for Félise, after private -and tearful perusal of the letter, was reading such parts of it aloud as -were essential for family information—“What is the imbecile talking of? -Where else, indeed, should he go?” - -Félise continued. Martin as yet unaware of Bigourdin’s return, sent him -messages. - -“When you write, will you tell him I have given to France as much of -myself as I’ve been allowed to? Half an arm isn’t much. _Mais c’est déjà -quelque chose._” - -“_Quelque chose!_” cried Bigourdin. “But it is a sacred sacrifice. If I -could get hold of that little bit of courageous arm I would give it to -Monsieur le Curé and bid him nail it up as an object venerable and -heroic in his parish church. _Ah! le pauvre garçon, le pauvre garçon_,” -said he. “_Mais voyez-vous_, it is the English character that comes out -in his letter. I have seen many English up there in the North. No longer -can we Frenchmen talk of _le phlègme britannique_. The astounding -revelation is the unconquerable English gaiety. _Jamais de longs -visages._ If a decapitated English head could speak, it would launch you -a whimsical smile and say: “What annoys me is that I can’t inhale a -cigarette.” And here our good Martin makes a joke about the straw in the -ambulance-train. _Mon Dieu!_ I know what it is, but it has never -occurred to me to jest about it.” - -In the course of time Martin returned to Brantôme. The railway system of -the country had been fairly adjusted in the parts of France that were -distant from scenes of military operations. Bigourdin borrowed Monsieur -le Maire’s big limousine which had not been commandeered—for the Mayor -was on many committees in the Department and had to fly about from place -to place and with Corinna and Félise and Fortinbras he met Martin’s -train at Périgueux. As it steamed in a hand waved from a window below a -familiar face. They rushed to the carriage steps and in a moment he was -among them—in a woollen Kepi and incredibly torn blue-grey greatcoat -and ragged red trousers, the unfilled arm of the coat dangling down -idly. But it was a bronzed, clear-eyed man who met them, for all his war -battering. - -Bigourdin welcomed him first, in his exuberant way, called him _mon -brave, mon petit héros_, and hugged him. Fortinbras gripped his hand, -after the English manner. Corinna, happy and smiling through glistening -eyes, he kissed without more ado. And then he was free to greet Félise, -who had remained a pace or two in the background. Her great, dark eyes -were fixed upon him questioningly. She put out a hand and touched the -empty sleeve. She read in his face what she had never read before. His -one poor arm, stretched in an instinctive curve—with a little sobbing -cry she threw herself blindly into his embrace. - -The tremendous issues of existence with which for five months he had -been grappling had wiped out from his consciousness, almost from his -memory, the first enthralling kiss of another woman. Caked with mud, -deafened by the roar of shells, sleeping in the earth of his trench, an -intimate of blood and death day after day, he had learned that Lucilla -had been but an _ignis fatuus_ leading him astray from the essential -meaning of his life. He knew, as he lay wounded beneath the hell of -machine-gun fire between the trenches that there was only one sweet, -steadfast soul in the world who called him to the accomplishment of his -being. - -When, in the abandonment of her joy and grief his lips met the soft, -quivering mouth of Félise, care, like a garment, fell from him. He -whispered: “You have a great heart. I’ve not deserved this. But you’re -the only thing that matters to me in the world.” - -Félise was content. She knew that the war had swept his soul clean of -false gods. Out of that furnace nothing but Truth could come. - -And so Martin returned for ever to the land of his adoption, which on -the morrow was to take him after its generous and expansive way as a -hero to its bosom. The Englishman who had given a limb for Périgord was -to be held in high honour for the rest of his days. - -He was a man now who had passed through most human experiences. A man of -fine honour, of courage tested in a thousand ways, of stiffened will, of -high ideals. The life that lay before him was far dearer than any other -he could have chosen. For it matters not so much the life one leads as -the knowledge of the perfect way to live it. And that knowledge, based -on wisdom, had Martin achieved. He knew that if the glittering prizes of -the earth are locked away behind golden bars opening but to golden keys, -there are others far more precious lying to the hand of him who will but -seek them in the folds of the familiar hills. - -The five sat down to dinner that evening in the empty _salle-à-manger_; -for not a guest, even the most decrepit commercial traveller, was -staying at the hotel. Yet never had they met at a happier meal. Félise -cut up Martin’s food as though it had been blessed bread. In the middle -of it Fortinbras poured out half a glass of wine. - -“My children,” said he, “I am going to break through the habit of years. -This old wine of Burgundy is too generous to betray me on an occasion so -beautiful and so solemn. I drink to your happiness.” - -“But to whom do Martin and I owe our happiness?” cried Corinna, with a -flush on her cheek, and a glistening in her blue eyes. “It is to -you—from the first to last to you, _Marchand de Bonheur_!” - -“My God! Yes,” said Martin, extending his one arm to Fortinbras. - -The ex-Dealer in Happiness regarded them both benevolently. “For the -first time in my life,” said he, “I think I have reason to be proud of -my late profession. Like the artist who has toiled and struggled, I can, -without immodesty, recognise my masterpiece. It was my original -conception that Martin and Corinna, crude but honest souls, should find -an incentive to the working out of their destiny by falling in love. -Therefore I sent them out together. That they should have an honourable -asylum, I sent them to my own kin. When I found they wouldn’t fall in -love at all, I imagined the present felicitous combination. I have been -aided by the little accident of a European war. But what matter? The -Gods willed it, the Gods were on my side. Out of evil there inscrutably -and divinely cometh good. My children, my heart is very full of the -consolation that, at the end of many years that the locust hath eaten, I -have perhaps justified my existence.” - -“_Mon père_,” cried Félise, “all my life long your existence has had the -justification of heroic sacrifice.” - -“My dear,” said he, “if I hadn’t met adversity with a brave face, I -should not have been a man—still less a philosopher. And now that my -duty here is over, if I don’t go back to Paris and find some means of -helping in the great conflict, I shall be unworthy of the name of -Englishman. So as soon as I see you safely and exquisitely married, I -shall leave you. I shall, however, come and visit you from time to time. -But when I die”—he paused and fishing out a stump of pencil scribbled -on the back of the menu card—“when I die, bury me in Paris on the south -side of the Seine and put this inscription on my tombstone. One little -vanity is accorded by the gods to every human being.” - -He threw the card on the table. On it was written: - - “_Ci-gît_ - _Fortinbras_ - _Marchand de Bonheur._” - -When the meal was over they went up to the prim and plushily furnished -salon, where a wood fire was burning gaily. Bigourdin brought up a -cobwebbed bottle of the Old Brandy of the Brigadier and uncorked it -reverently. - -“We are going to drink to France,” said he. - -He produced from the cupboard whose doors were veiled with green-pleated -silk, half a dozen of the great glass goblets and into each he poured a -little of the golden liquid, which, as he had once said, contained the -soul of the _Grande Armée_. - -“Stop a bit,” said Martin. “You’re making a mistake. There are only five -of us.” - -“I am making no mistake at all,” said Bigourdin. “The sixth glass is for -the shade of the brave old Brigadier. If he is not here now among us to -honour the toast, I am no Christian man.” - - THE END - - - - - THE - WILLIAM J. 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