JULIA REDMOND
He remembered all his life the first dinner at the Château
d'Esclignac, where from the terrace he saw the Rhone lying under the
early moonlight and the shadows falling around the castle of good
King René.
As he passed in, his sword clanking--for he went in full dress
uniform to dine with the Marquise d'Esclignac--he saw the picture the
two ladies made in their drawing-room: the marquise in a very
splendid dress (which he never could remember) and her niece, a young
lady from a country whose name it took him long to learn to
pronounce, in a dress so simple that of course he never could forget
it! He remembered for a great many years the fall of the ribbon at
her pretty waist, the bunch of sweet peas at her girdle, and he
always remembered the face that made the charm of the picture.
Their welcome to him was gracious. The American girl spoke French
with an accent that Sabron thought bewilderingly charming, and he put
aside some of his reserve and laughed and talked at his ease. After
dinner (this he remembered with peculiar distinctness) Miss Redmond
sang for him, and although he understood none of the words of the
English ballad, he learned the melody by heart and it followed with
him when he left. It went with him as he crossed the terrace into
the moonlight to mount his horse; it went home with him; he hummed
it, and when he got up to his room he hummed it again as he bent over
the little roll of flannel in the corner and fed the puppy hot milk
from a quill.
This was a painstaking operation and required patience and delicacy,
both of which the big man had at his finger-tips. The tune of Miss
Redmond's song did for a lullaby and the puppy fell comfortably to
sleep while Sabron kept the picture of his evening's outing
contentedly in his mind. But later he discovered that he was not so
contented, and counted the hours when he might return.
He shortly made a call at the Château d'Esclignac with the result
that he had a new picture to add to his collection. This time it was
the picture of a lady alone; the Marquise d'Esclignac doing tapestry.
While Sabron found that he had grown reticent again, he listened for
another step and another voice and heard nothing; but before he took
leave there was a hint of a second invitation to dinner.
The marquise was very handsome that afternoon and wore yet another
bewildering dress. Sabron's simple taste was dazzled. Nevertheless,
she made a graceful picture, one of beauty and refinement, and the
young soldier took it away with him. As his horse began to trot, at
the end of the alley, near the poplars at the lower end of the rose
terrace he caught a glimpse of a white dress (undoubtedly a simpler
dress than that worn by Madame d'Esclignac).