THE GOLDEN AUTUMN
Sabron longed for a change with autumn, when the falling leaves made
the roads golden roundabout the Château d'Esclignac. He thought he
would like to go away. He rode his horse one day up to the property
of the hard-hearted unforgiving lady and, finding the gate open, rode
through the grounds up to the terrace. Seeing no one, he sat in his
saddle looking over the golden country to the Rhone and the castle of
the good King René, where the autumn mists were like banners floating
from the towers.
There was a solitary beauty around the lovely place that spoke to the
young officer with a sweet melancholy. He fancied that Miss Redmond
must often have looked out from one of the windows, and he wondered
which one. The terrace was deserted and leaves from the vines
strewed it with red and golden specters. Pitchouné raced after them,
for the wind started them flying, and he rolled his tawny little body
over and over in the rustling leaves. Then a rabbit, which before
the arrival of Sabron had been sitting comfortably on the terrace
stones, scuttled away like mad, and Pitchouné, somewhat hindered by
his limp, tore after it.
The deserted château, the fact that there was nothing in his military
life beyond the routine to interest him now in Tarascon, made Sabron
eagerly look forward to a change, and he waited for letters from the
minister of war which would send him to a new post.
The following day after his visit to the château he took a walk,
Pitchouné at his heels, and stood aside in the highroad to let a
yellow motor pass him, but the yellow motor at that moment drew up to
the side of the road while the chauffeur got out to adjust some
portion of the mechanism. Some one leaned from the yellow motor
window and Sabron came forward to speak to the Marquise d'Esclignac
and another lady by her side.
"How do you do, Monsieur? Do you remember us?"
(Had he ever forgotten them?) He regretted so very much not having
been able to dine with them in the spring.
"And your sick friend?" asked Madame d'Esclignac keenly, "did he
recover?"
"Yes," said Sabron, and Miss Redmond, who leaned forward, smiled at
him and extended her pretty hand. Sabron opened the motor door.
"What a darling dog!" Miss Redmond cried. "What a bewitching face he
has! He's an Irish terrier, isn't he?"
Sabron called Pitchouné, who diverted his attention from the
chauffeur to come and be hauled up by the collar and presented.
Sabron shook off his reticence.
"Let me make a confession," he said with a courteous bow. "This is
my 'very sick friend.' Pitchouné was at the point of death the night
of your dinner and I was just leaving the house when I realized that
the helpless little chap could not weather the breeze without me. He
had been run over by a bicycle and he needed some very special care."
Miss Redmond's hand was on Pitchouné's head, between his pointed
ears. She looked sympathetic. She looked amused. She smiled.
"It was a question of 'life and death,' wasn't it?" she said eagerly
to Sabron.
"Really, it was just that," answered the young officer, not knowing
how significant the words were to the two ladies.
Then Madame d'Esclignac knew that she was beaten and that she owed
something and was ready to pay. The chauffeur got up on his seat and
she asked suavely:
"Won't you let us take you home, Monsieur Sabron?"
He thanked them. He was walking and had not finished his exercise.
"At all events," she pursued, "now that your excuse is no longer a
good one, you will come this week to dinner, will you not?"
He would, of course, and watched the yellow motor drive away in the
autumn sunlight, wishing rather less for the order from the minister
of war to change his quarters than he had before.