CHAPTER I

THE FEAR OF LIVING

THE

FEAR OF LIVING

(La Peur de Vivre)

BY

HENRY BORDEAUX

AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION

BY

RUTH HELEN DAVIS

NEW YORK

E·P·DUTTON & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1913

BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

TO

THE HALLOWED MEMORY OF

ANOTHER MOTHER

WHO KNEW HOW TO SACRIFICE FOR

HER CHILDREN

THIS TRANSLATION IS

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY HER DAUGHTER

RUTH HELEN DAVIS

CONTENTS

PAGE

FOREWORD i

PREFACE v

PART I

CHAPTER

I MARCEL’S HOMECOMING 1

II BROTHER AND SISTER 26

III THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS 47

IV A MORNING AT LA CHÊNAIE 63

V ALICE’S SECRET 85

VI MONSIEUR AND MADAME DULAURENS 106

VII THE PROPOSAL 127

VIII THE CONSPIRATORS 148

IX THE FAREWELL 167

X MARCEL’S DEPARTURE 177

PART II

I THIRTEEN AT TABLE 191

II THE POLICEMAN’S MESSAGE 219

III NIOBE 240

IV THE PAGEANTRY OF DEATH 252

V JEAN 276

VI ISABELLE 296

VII PAULE’S SECRET 315

VIII MADAME GUIBERT 335

IX THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES 348

X NIOBE’S LAST CHILD 360

XI PEACE 376

FOREWORD

M. Henry Bordeaux’s latest novel, “The Fear of Living,” appeared

several months ago, at a season when the “summer novel” was

flourishing. That season belongs to the big purveyors of commercial

literature and is not the time at which to speak of a real writer. I

have, therefore, purposely postponed until to-day my few words about

this book, which both public and press have welcomed warmly, but

without sufficiently marking its true place. It is one of the best

novels that has appeared for a long time. It contrasts, by its vivid

originality, with everything that the storytellers of to-day give us.

It is a new and daring departure.

It is that, primarily, through the philosophy of life which the author

has expressed in it. The “fear of living” is a new and deep-seated

evil among us. We value our peace above everything, we wish to

keep it at all hazards, however dearly we must pay for it. We shun

responsibilities, avoid risks and chances of struggle, flee from

adventure and danger, seek to escape from everything that makes for the

charm and value of life. We no longer have any faith in the future,

because we no longer have faith in ourselves. Writers used for a time

to chronicle this sickly weakness under the name of “dilettantism.”

Then, the fashion having changed, they began to exalt the claims of

energy. But what they understand by that word is nothing but the

keen desire to satisfy our passions and ambitions. In place of lazy

selfishness they have substituted ruthless selfishness. To spare

oneself all kinds of boredom, or to procure oneself the greatest amount

of pleasure, these are the only two conceptions they recommend to us.

But here is a writer who thinks that to live does not mean to bury

oneself in a corner, nor yet to amass money and wear oneself I out with

pleasure. He thinks that a life in which I one has suffered, struggled,

and worked for others, not for oneself, that a life whose years are

counted by emotions, sacrifices, devotions, and renunciations, is a

well-filled life. He says it, he believes it, and, while we read it, he

makes us believe it. It may be absurd, extravagant, and romantic to the

last degree but it is not commonplace.

The characters in the “Fear of Living” are almost all respectable

people. Now it is a dogma in our literature that respectable people are

not interesting. The heroes of a novel may be rogues, even mediocre

and vulgar rogues, turned out “by the dozen”; their adventures may

be reduced to some mean little act, commonplace, ridiculous, and

sensational. It does not matter; they win our sympathy, and we are

ready to find them amusing or touching. But a family that ruins itself

to save the honor of a name, a mother who lets her children go one

by one to do their duty, a young man who prefers the charm of a pure

marriage to the temptations of a sensual love--what interest have such

people for us? And even if we do meet the like in our daily life, in

the name of Heaven let us leave them where they are, and not let them

burden the novel with their sad faces! Such is the prejudice that M.

Henry Bordeaux has not feared to face boldly.

Finally he has tried to write a realistic work, and you cannot find

a scene in it that is one of the commonplace situations in realism.

No infidelity, no child-murder, no atrocious swindling! It has the

air of being written as a wager. We have come, indeed, to the point

of limiting realistic art to the portrayal only of that which is

trivial, low, and worthless. Reality has become with us a synonym for

ugliness. We have calmly laid down these definitions. “Every work is

realistic which paints vile characters and repulsive scenes, even if

these characters be morbid and these scenes be the artificial dreams of

a sickly imagination. Unrealistic is every work in which any account

is taken of the virtues which are the current coin of most lives.” A

writer must be possessed of a rare independence of mind, combined with

no ordinary confidence in himself, to maintain that both nobility of

soul and elevation of character are also realities.

This is the point of view adopted by M. Henry Bordeaux. There is more

true realism in his book than in fifty chosen from among the works of

the most famous “Naturalists.” The figures in it all live. The study

of provincial manners is very finely developed in it. One chapter

might seem a little exaggerated, if one did not feel that its truth

is photographic. It is the one in which the Mayor, officially ordered

to tell Madame Guibert of the death of her son who had been killed by

the enemy, is afraid to compromise himself by crossing the threshold

of people classed as reactionaries and sends a policeman in his place!

Added to it all is a charming sympathy with nature. Both the people and

their surroundings become our familiar friends in this modest home at

Le Maupas, the peaceful setting of so many scenes of sorrow.

M. Henry Bordeaux was already honorably known to us through some

stories written with a delicate touch, and some judicious critical

essays. “The Fear of Living” raises him from his former rank and

classes him as a Novelist.

RENE DOUMIC.

(_Journal des Débats_, 30th Sept. 1902).

PREFACE

In the month of June, 1902, when I published “The Fear of Living,” I

had no idea how favorably it would be received by the public. Family

tragedies were not the fashion, and I had dared to take a sorely-tried

old woman for my heroine.

Since that time new editions have succeeded one another every year.

I have had to answer many hundreds of letters (often very badly and

briefly) which made me see that I had friends among my readers. At

last I was asked, both in France and abroad, to explain the ideas

which are the foundation of my work. So, although my novel only aims

at increasing the will and the courage to live and not at establishing

any doctrine, I was induced to speak about our various modern attitudes

towards life. After my addresses I was honored by a request to put

them into print. I have gathered together here the notes which helped

me to prepare them. If after four years I feel some pride in recording

the prolonged influence of a work whose art is perfectly natural and

sincere, I must thank for it all those unknown friends who contributed

to the result by their infectious sympathy.

I

The fear of living is a disease which extends its ravages principally

to old civilisations like our own. The symptoms of this moral phthisis

may be outwardly contradictory; for there are two ways of being afraid

to live as there are two kinds of selfishness.

The first, the most frequent to-day and the most cowardly, has already

been denounced by Dante, who in the third Canto of the _Inferno_,

brands it with the red-hot iron of his scorn. Guided by Virgil, the

poet arrives at the gate of the City of Tears. He has not yet entered

the door when he hears, rising up to him from the bottom of the abyss,

groans, shrieks and cries of despair, which resound under a starless

sky. From what lips do these sounds proceed, these sounds which come

from near Hell, but not from Hell itself? Dante in his distress asks

his master for an explanation.

“Master,” I said, “what do I hear, and what is this crowd which seems

so crushed by sorrow?”

And he said: “This is the miserable fate of the sad souls of all those

who have lived without blame and without praise. They are mingled

with that dread chorus of angels who were neither faithful to God,

nor rebellious, but who existed for themselves only. They have been

banished from Heaven, because they spoiled its beauty, and the depths

of Hell would not receive them because the damned would gain some glory

by their presence.”

And I said: “Master, what is the torment that is crushing them and

makes them weep so bitterly?”

He answered me: “I will tell you briefly. They have no hope of dying,

and their dark life is so vile that they are envious of every other

fate. The world has no memory of them, and mercy and justice despise

them. Do not speak of them; look and pass on....”

If the “_Inferno_” describes worse torments, it contains no

words more scathing in their disdain than these which describe “those

inert ones who are pleasing neither to God nor to his enemies.” The

misers who carry burdens, the evil-tempered who struggle in a bog, the

voluptuous dragged into an endless whirl-wind, the rogues plunged into

a lake of boiling pitch, have deserved their punishment by their acts,

and have asserted themselves in evil-doing. The others have asserted

themselves neither in evil nor in good. Neither virtuous nor vicious,

we do not know what they were. Dull, flabby, and soft, they have not

left behind the memory of any personality. They scarcely lived; they

were afraid to live.

For the fear of living means precisely that,--to deserve neither blame

nor praise. It is the constant all-prevailing desire for peace. It

is the flight from responsibilities, struggles, risks, and efforts.

It is the careful avoidance of danger, fatigue, exaltation, passion,

enthusiasm, sacrifice, every violent action, everything that disturbs

and upsets. It is the refusal of life’s claims upon our hearts, our

sweat, and our blood. In short, it is the pretence of living, while

limiting life, while setting bounds to our destinies. It is that

passive selfishness which would rather retrench its appetite than seek

the food which it requires; the selfishness which is meanly content

with a colorless, dull life, provided it is sure of meeting with no

shocks, no difficulties, no obstacles, like the traveler who will only

journey along plains and on rubber tires.

Must we quote examples? It is the fear of living which inspires a

young man in the choice of a profession, which shows him the special

advantages of an official career providing him, in return for work that

is moderate in amount and does not take up much time, with a fixed

salary and a pension; that modest dream which inspired Goncourt to make

this epigram--“France is a country where one sows functionaries and

reaps taxes.” Is it not this fear much more often than a keen sense of

justice, that drives the weak and envious to that Socialism which would

result in the establishment of an all-round equality of mediocrity?

It is certainly this fear which, when it does not lead to a

comfortable, selfish, practical, bachelor’s life, prompts those

marriages wherein one consults one’s lawyer rather than one’s heart,

and thinks of income rather than of the advantages of beauty, physical

and moral health, education, courage, ability and taste. Certain

theories of the day, which on their critical side are not without

justification, pretend to purify the sources of marriage by suppressing

the consent of parents which is often too apt to overlook personal

characteristics through consideration of the advantages to be gained,

and by multiplying the facilities for union with the facilities for

divorce; in a word, by associating marriage with those other unions

which have no regard for the social order, into which they introduce

anarchy. But marriage is the gateway of the family, the foundation of

the home; its aim is to complete two lives by joining the one to the

other and to bring other beings into the world. It cannot rely solely

on that love which is commonly represented with bandaged eyes; for it

is not purely an individual act, in that it both continues a tradition

and perpetuates a race. Is it the importance of this race and this

tradition which has to be considered, or is it only a petty ideal of

practical happiness, comfortable and ignoble? Can man not feel himself

fit to guide, guard, and direct the destinies of his own? Can woman

not deprive herself of luxuries that are useless, or at least merely

accessory? Would life, stripped of so many accessories and so many

useless things, simplified but not diminished, become unacceptable?

Must the place of moral force be taken by the heritage handed down by

one’s father?

After marriage, we find again the fear of living in the dread of having

children and the restraint of parenthood. To create life has become too

heavy a responsibility, too irksome a burden, above all a nuisance;

and it is thus that France has been called the land of only sons. By

suppressing the choice of making a will the Civil Code has struck a

heavy blow at the coherent unity of the family, grouped round its

head and supported by its land. But we have lately been told by _La

Réforme Sociale_ of the method employed by the Normandy peasants,

after having already been employed by so many of the bourgeoisie for

the preservation of the inheritance. For the heir nominated by the

father, or according to custom, is substituted the only son. In the

mountains of Savoy the traveller often notices on the slopes bordering

the roads, and sometimes even in the hollows of hidden valleys,

shrines dedicated to Our Lady of Deliverance. Young, wives in the

hope of having children used to make pilgrimages to these shrines.

To-day young wives thank God for a barrenness which in former days

was a reproach. A child is such a rarity that it is watched over and

spoilt. Thus the fear of living has its effect even on those destinies

which depend, so far as their beginnings are concerned, upon us only.

So many fathers and mothers cannot consent to be separated from their

children, and turn them aside from careers that are wider but more

adventurous, from marriages which would take them far away but which

would be morally advantageous to them; they weaken them, enervate or

wear out their courage instead of arousing it, and in their sentimental

selfishness impose on them a servitude which lowers their characters.

Of this fear of living, however, examples are to be found in our public

life, in our social life, in the art which expresses the feeling of our

times, in our institutions, even in matters of our health.

In public life, why is abstention from the franchise attributed to

the moderate party, to those whom one calls or who call themselves

“respectable” people?--as if there were such a thing as negative

respectability! Quite recently men boasted in certain circles that

they never voted; and, if they do not boast of this any more, they

make their voting subordinate to hunting and entertainments, and it is

fashionable to affect the greatest contempt for politics. In the life

of a modern nation, rightly or wrongly, everything reduces itself to

politics or is influenced by politics. This is a fact against which it

is useless to protest. “The really useful work,” said Mr. Roosevelt,

President of the United States, “is not accomplished by the critic who

keeps out of the battle but by the man of action who bravely takes part

in the struggle, without fear at the sight of blood or sweat.” We have

so many of these critics who keep out of the battle and read the papers

every morning in order to be able to discuss the affairs of the nation

in a superior tone, who vainly regret the past, sigh over the future,

and discourage those who undertake to show them the way.

The mere fact of living in society, of enjoying social rank, creates

social duties. No one has the right to arrange his life separately, for

no one person can dispense with the rest. To pay one’s taxes, grumbling

all the time, is not enough. The wealth which represents accumulated

work in the past does not exempt one from work. Since it furnishes the

means of better and greater production, it should result, not in a

class of people who enjoy it, but in a class of leaders; and a leader

is one who understands how to take on himself the greatest share of

the work and responsibility. But, to judge from observation, it would

seem that wealth is only a factor in selfishness, an occasion for petty

and ridiculous pleasures--as though wealth were more difficult to bear

than poverty. The latter constantly furnishes examples of solidarity

and devotion. In these strikes, too often gotten up by the leaders for

their own purpose, do we not see the workmen suffering from hunger and

poverty for the sake of one another, or subscribing a tithe of their

modest wages to help their comrades in other towns and other trades? Do

we not find Victor Hugo’s _Pauvres Gens_ to the very life in those

paragraphs which tell, in two or three lines, how at the death of some

poor wretch with a family the neighbours have fought for possession

of the orphaned children, even before the charitable organisations or

private benevolence have had time to intervene?

There is no doubt that poverty is very painful to look upon. It

disturbs our peace, our comfort, our natural forgetfulness of all

that does not minister to our pleasures. People even consent to

be generous--through the medium of someone else--to escape the

inconvenience of sorrowful spectacles. We have our nerves, our

refinement, our horror of the importunate, and we adroitly evade the

demands of charity, although we can never deny the power of its appeal.

“I do not want to see either illness or death,” says Hedda Gabler,

Ibsen’s most morbid heroine, to her husband. “Spare me the sight of

everything that is ugly.” And this æsthetic person, at the moment when

she kills herself in disgust after having lived for herself alone, sees

that ridicule and low ideals have infected like a curse everything she

touched.

In the realm of art, the fear of living is mingled with the fear of

feeling. It moves those dilettantes who wish neither to make a choice

nor to give themselves up, who only yield themselves temporarily to

all their intellectual or plastic impulses without ever surrendering

to enthusiasm, and who consider themselves superior because they float

on the top of things; for, deep as the subject be, love alone can

penetrate beneath the surface. This fear also actuates those artists

who, in the name of pure art, reject from their work all humanity and

poetry; who substitute for those familiar conflicts of the soul, which

are the life-food of ancient tragedy, the pretty but unsubstantial

painting of pleasure, and are content to elaborate their style like the

sides of a costly but empty vase--without the slightest suspicion that

in art, as in everything else, there is a definite order of merit, and

that they are seated on the lowest step.

It is everywhere, this fear of living; it provides inspiration for

the effeminate novelists and the incapable dramatists, who can create

none but inconsistent characters, incapable of analysis. In the trivial

adventures of their puppets they show us that everything is a matter

of arrangement and nothing is worth being taken seriously, instead of

inviting us to take our lives in our own hands. The great human cries,

in art, are cries of strength and courage, and are often forced into

utterance by unhappiness; suggesting that perhaps the happy spirit

lacks the depth that is to be found in the abysses of life.

Lastly, timidity, reserve, and a prudence that is sometimes legitimate

but often excessive, find their expression even in our public

institutions, which multiply our guardians, put us all into leading

strings, and relegate to the State the duty of looking after and

helping us on all occasions. They have even undertaken to replace

the old-fashioned Providence--and by what? By insurance companies!

We insure ourselves against accidents, against risks, against

death--indeed a far-sighted wisdom! Why should we not be insured also

against fear?

Fear stamps the faces of the young men of the new generation, who

appear to be anxious only about their health, and who, unable to digest

except by the help of mineral waters and camomile, open their mouths

only to criticise and to disparage; who praise nothing, like nothing,

want nothing, as if they had fishes’ blood in their veins. Why all this

trouble to preserve and keep themselves, for all the good that they get

out of or contribute to life?

Could youth set less value than it does upon life? The recent suicide

of a schoolboy at Lyons added a fresh paragraph--the most terrible

of all--to the indictment of the _Déracinés_, the Uprooted

ones, against an education which ignores the facts of family, race,

locality, and country. Before going to his death the poor lad wrote on

the blackboard, “I am young, I am pure, and I am going to die.” The

teaching of his professor of philosophy had disgusted him with life.

What had they taught him? The beauty of pure reason, of science, of

humanitarianism. Instead of being told to take his proper place in the

order of things, he was called upon to destroy all in order to rebuild

all again, to make a clean slate of the past, of tradition, of the

destiny which had caused him to be born in a particular country at a

particular date, in order to create a new personality for himself, a

new universe, a new God. Besides preparing for his material future

they expected of him, as of all Frenchmen, that he should create for

himself a metaphysics, a politics, and a morality. He succumbed to

all these burdens. Life did not appear to him in a shape with exact

outlines, with beautiful lights and dark shadows, with the concomitants

of effort, joy, and sorrow, with a splendour of created things, with

privileges of working, of feeling behind one a past that one may carry

forward, and of being able to count even on the future. It was for him

a dense fog, which his reason vainly tried to pierce, in which he heard

the call neither of God, of race, nor of country. He did not see his

own importance, which was not merely individual but collective, he did

not understand that everyone’s duty is to recognise one’s own place,

that everyone’s strength and profit are to be sought in the realities

of existence on which he depends and which in their turn depend on him.

And so he learned a new fear of living.

These modern young men have sisters. I will not venture to describe

them. A Persian proverb warns us “not to strike a woman, even with a

flower.” But the poets, who have every license, even against love, have

taken on themselves the task of painting the portrait. Who does not

recall the “Lines to a Dead Woman”?

“Yes, good she was--if ’twere enough

That as she passed her hand would give,

Without God seeing, saying aught,

If gold without kind words be alms.

“She thought--if a melodious voice,

A soft and sweet, but empty sound,

Like to the murmur of a stream,

Be token of the thought behind.

“She prayed--if beauty of two eyes,

Which sometimes on the earth were fixed,

Sometimes uplifted to the sky,

Be worthy of the name of prayer.

“She died, and yet she never lived;

She only made pretence at life.

The book fell idly from her hands,

In which not one word had she read.”

“She only made a pretence at life.” How many die to-day who have never

lived at all!

Even our health has suffered from the reaction of our moral weakness.

Nervous illnesses, which for several years have been making such

alarming progress, are nothing else than the result of disabled wills,

of weakened personalities. Doctor Grasset, Professor in the Faculty of

Medicine at Montpellier, who has gained universal renown by his special

study of these diseases, clearly states the necessity of recourse to

a moral treatment which consists in building up the personality and

strengthening the will. “We must,” he says, “give a patient the desire

and the ambition to cure himself, and with that purpose we must show

him the object that life still holds for him, the mission that he still

has to fulfil in this world.”

“A nervous subject, who does not understand life, who will not admit

that life is worth the trouble of living, who goes to sleep at night

without wishing to think of the next day, with no satisfaction beyond

that of having one day less to live ... this nervous subject will never

be cured.

“The doctor must awaken and develop in his patient the ideas of duty,

of sacrifice, of sociability. All these great thoughts must replace the

morbid ones.

“The patient must be prevented from limiting himself to the fruitless

brooding over a past which cannot be altered. Whatever are the

injustices, apparent or real, of different lots, every man has before

him a part to play, be it small or be it distinguished, in the

interests of his fellow men and of humanity in general.

“We must, in other words, take the patient out of himself and turn

him more and more towards altruism, by showing him that the cure lies

there, and only there.

“A healthy man is an altruistic animal. Egotism and self-centredness

are allied to disease; they are the causes and symptoms of disease. As

long as one remains an egoist, one is not and cannot be cured.”

In order to appreciate the importance of such words, let us remember

that they do not emanate from a theorist, but from an observer of

innumerable facts. Such, then, is the physical danger of the fear of

living, such is the psychic treatment of it.

II

There is yet another form of the fear of living. Here, it is true,

there is no shrinking from effort, from trouble, or from battle.

Next to passive selfishness it is necessary to drag into the light,

as Apollo dragged Marsyas, that active egotism which is capable of

displaying the utmost vigor, but only to satisfy an individual aim,

that of one’s own pleasure. This puts to a wrong use our best weapon,

which is energy. It claims to subordinate life to its will, to accept

it only for what it is actually worth, and therefore it fears life.

Doubtless this curious form of cowardice has more to recommend it than

the other, and attracts by a pretence of merit as the Sirens attracted

by a pretence of love. Its motto might be the celebrated definition of

Mérimée: “Life is a green table, which amuses us only when the stakes

are high.” Its defiance of life sometimes becomes a defiance of death,

and we cannot quite restrain ourselves from admiration when we see Don

Juan--the most brilliant incarnation of this bold selfishness--the

breaker of all oaths, the miserable corruptor of all the virtues, alone

in the banqueting hall (where, though lights and flowers still suggest

triumphant joy, the terrified guests have all fled), to see him rise

and go forth, torch in hand and sarcasm on his lips, to meet the statue

of the Commander, whose embrace is to crush him.

This energy which demands violent pleasure is the energy of the bandit.

It is quite possible to find praise for it. I find it, to the life,

in one of those strange, suffocating novels wherein Madame Grazia

Deledda truthfully depicts the manners of Sardinia. An old widow in

the mountains, to dazzle the young Oli, sings the praises of her dead

husband, the best and most devoted of men. “What did he do?” asks Oli.

“Ah, he was a brigand.” And when the young girl is surprised at this

answer, the widow tells that her husband became a brigand to show his

bravery and to occupy the time which is so badly spent when one is

idle. Was it not better than frequenting the inn? And in a lyrical

strain she celebrates this life of enterprise. “They were,” she says,

“brave and skilful, ready for everything, especially for death. You

think, perhaps, that all these robbers are bad men? You are wrong, dear

sister. They are the men who want to prove their bravery--nothing else.

My husband used to say, ‘Once men went to the wars, but to-day there

are no more wars and men still feel the need of fighting.’ That is why

they go in for brigandage, plunder, and violent deeds, not to do harm,

but to show their strength and courage in some way.”[1]

This is the case in business, in politics, in society, to some extent

everywhere, with men, and even women, who in one way or another display

their strength and courage. They are not necessarily bandits, but they

all desire to get only joys, or at least violent sensations, out of

life, and aim at throwing it away afterwards like a squeezed orange.

These are the mad individualists who will not observe any measure in

enjoyment, and see in the world only a personal inheritance to be

wasted by them. I know them well, through having often myself looked in

their direction with the fever of desire. Never has the possibility of

a future life been so insolently rejected, and never have we, as some

of us now do, exposed ourselves with such foolhardiness to all dangers

of destruction, as though it were necessary to make a blaze of this,

our only life, in order to discover in it some divine fire. We plunge

it in the whirl-wind of death to increase its intensity for a few

precarious moments.

Romanticism, by proclaiming the right to passion, the right to

happiness, the right to freedom, encouraged the development of

individual force. A new romanticism extols it to-day, and it is chiefly

women who preach the gospel. Their invasion of contemporary literature

is only one symptom of a more general feminism. Less apt than man to

grasp the complexity of social and moral life, the new woman exhausts

all her demands in one cry and with a single leap lands at the road’s

end to which she is led by confidence in her own powers and by her

narrow view of the universe which centres wholly in self. At last

individualism has found its philosopher in a poet, Nietzsche,--much

misunderstood, by the way,--who grants to the Superman all rights. And

why should one not believe in a Superman, especially if one is a modern

woman?

But is it not rather curious to call that doctrine the fear of living

which glorifies life and doubles its intensity?

I am reminded of a little story which used to be told to me when I was

a child. It is the story of a ball of string that a fairy--good or

bad--gave to a little boy with these mysterious words:

“This ball represents the length of your life. Each moment will shorten

it. I have not the power to increase the time nor even to suspend

it, but I have the power of shortening it, and that I give to you.

Whenever in your life you come upon hours that are useless, sorrowful,

or unpleasant, and wish to shorten them, pull the string and the hours

will pass. Farewell and be wise.”

The little boy paid no heed to this prudent advice. He took the ball

laughingly, and as he was merry he thought he would let the string

shorten itself. Then he began to have wishes. At school he wished

for holidays. He was ambitious; he desired to realise his ambitions.

And to obtain the objects which he coveted, he pulled and pulled at

the string. When he had finished the term of his life he perceived

with consternation that he had scarcely lived a few days. Just so our

desires would consume our days, if our days depended on our desires.

Thus our individualists whose energy seems to i be of a worthy sort

have, on the contrary, a fear of living. They are afraid to live, since

they do not wish to live their lives entirely and since, perverted by

the abuse of violent sensations, they no longer understand, they fear

ordinary life, which seems wearisome and dull to them.

Now this ordinary life plays an important part in the succession of

our days. It is almost all the ball of string. To limit life to youth

is not to understand it, is indeed to despise it. For it is all worth

living, if only we know how to fill it.

Beyond the appetite for those passions which, through their very

violence, their risks, their mischances, have a certain grandeur,

I see among the symptoms of disease the search for, the need of,

distraction. One meets to-day, especially in Paris among the wealthier

classes--for poverty suppresses this ardor--men and women who seem to

flee from themselves, so agitated are they. They confuse the meaning

of agitation and action. It is a terrible confusion, which arose in

society principally since the Eighteenth Century. That century began

to disturb the springs of our inward life. The Duchess of Maine, as

early as that, said that she had contracted “the love of a crowd.” We

pass our time outside our homes, or we come back with a crowd, so as

to avoid solitude for a single instant. We make out a programme every

morning, so harassing that we should refuse to go through it if we

were forced to do so. We must amuse ourselves, distract ourselves,

forget ourselves. To withdraw within ourselves is to be bored when

we have neither love nor faith nor definite aim. And we think we are

living a great deal; which is the reason why so many Parisians, men and

women, to whom a variety of spectacles and a feast of art are supposed

to bring great intellectual development, have seen so much and have

retained so little. Life for them is like a cinematograph picture which

dazzles the eye and goes back into darkness. They have never worked for

their impressions, and these are the only impressions which count.

Now that is not living, to be always “out”--like Madame Benoîton--“out”

even to oneself, especially to oneself; any more than it is

travelling, when one rushes over the high roads at full speed in a

motor without once stopping. Life is not perpetual distraction, and

here we have another form of the fear of living.

III

The first form confused cowardly passivity, reserve, and parsimony with

courageous resignation, while this militant egotism confuses strength

with its display. The only true energy is that which is ordered and

disciplined.

We are born in a state of dependence. We depend on all kinds

of particular conditions; conditions of country, race, family,

environment, education, health, brains, fortune; for there are no men

that are free, and herein lies our great equality. Besides, in the

course of our life, we shall depend on circumstances which we shall be

able neither to foresee nor to avoid. We must resolutely accept this

dependence.

It is the chief of all heroisms. Not the heroism with the plumes and

the flourish of trumpets, which individualism is willing to extol

so as to raise the song of life to the major key; but an obscure

heroism--the most difficult, for publicity is a great comfort--which

must be sustained and manifested in the smallest things. That haughty

individual, capable of heroic acts, shows himself, on coming down from

his pedestal, perfectly unbearable and cowardly in the life which

(let us not forget) is our daily life; while of another, apparently

insignificant, we learn one day, often too late, that he has always

been doing wonders. No life is devoid of opportunities to display

merit; the thing is to seize these opportunities.

But if we are, in one part of our life, dependent, another part of our

life, on the contrary, depends on us. There, our will and our energy

can and must come into play. It is their task to increase in wealth,

importance, and value the inheritance of our life, as cultivation

increases the natural fruitfulness of the land.

Every life demands effort, no one is exempt from sorrow, very few

are unacquainted with failure. Effort, sorrow, failure, are so many

obstacles which bring out the extent of our merit. “In this life”--to

quote President Roosevelt again--“we arrive at nothing without an

effort. A healthy State can exist only if the men and women who compose

it lead healthy, strong, clean lives; if the children be brought up

in the right way, if they try to overcome difficulties, not to avoid

them, if they do not seek comfort but know how to snatch triumph from

pain and risk. Man must be happy to do man’s work, to dare and be

adventurous and work to keep himself and those who depend on him. The

wife must be the housekeeper, a companion to the founder of the home,

a wise mother, who is not afraid of having many healthy children. In

one of his powerful and melancholy books Daudet speaks of the ‘fear of

maternity--the terror which haunts the young wife of the present day.’

When such words can be truly said about a nation, that nation is rotten

to the core. When men fear work, or rightful war, when women fear

maternity, they are trembling on the brink of damnation, and it would

be a good thing if they vanished from the earth, where they are the

just objects of scorn to all men and women who themselves are brave and

high-souled.”[2]

This is the condemnation of idle wealth and inertia. And if the head

of the young American nation thinks it necessary to utter such words

to stir up the wills of so vigorous a people, how much the more bitter

must their application be to our weary France? Over there they scarcely

strike at any but the frantic egoists, whose energies it is more easy

to direct into the right channels than it is to galvanise into action

our fear and cowardice.

President Roosevelt has always made the distinction between material

treasures and those moral treasures which give nations and individuals

their vitality. In a letter to our Mistral, who had sent him a copy

of “Mireille,” he explained this again with his usual clearness.

“Industries and railways,” he wrote, “have their use up to a certain

point, but courage and power of endurance, the love of our wives and

children, the love of home and country, the love of the betrothed for

one another, the love and imitation of heroism and sublime endeavors,

the simple every-day virtues and the heroic ones,--these are the

greatest virtues and if they are lacking, no accumulated wealth, no

amount of ‘industrialism,’ however noisy and impressive, no feverish

activity, under whatever form it may be shown, will be profitable

either to the individual or to the nation. I am not despising the value

of these things of the ‘body of the nation’; I merely desire that they

should not make us forget that as well as a body there is also a soul.”

IV

If endeavor should stimulate us, pain ought not to crush us. But do we

not resist it less well nowadays? Physical pain, more especially, has

become unbearable to us. We need sedatives for the smallest ailments,

and we are sure that our candor will be applauded if we declare that

violent toothache is more painful than any moral pain.

Moral pain is the indispensable complement of human life. Before

suffering comes, life does not appear in its true colors, and the weak

are not always distinguishable from the strong.

“The woods, cut down, more fair and green shall grow,” said old

Ronsard. After all, life has its revenges. Even if it had not, we

still ought not to be discouraged. Many faces turn away from failure

and resent defeat, even in the case of others. That again is fear. One

day a professor of literature, not devoid of irony, having finished

a course of lectures on the “Iliad” to a class of young girls, asked

his pupils which hero they preferred, Achilles or Hector. Achilles

had an overwhelming majority. He was the conqueror. But Homer, more

clear-sighted in his psychology, gave the conquered hero the nobler and

more generous character, for he knew the share that the gods have in

the success or failure of mankind. Our finest French epic, the “Chanson

de Roland,” exalts courage under defeat.

Energy fits us to bear failure, pain, and effort. This fine quality

needs discipline. Its character depends on the use that is made of it.

To cultivate it for itself would be to imitate those people who make

sport the aim of their existence. Sport maintains or increases our

strength and our health, of which we have need in order to realise our

life; but to take them for the actual realisation of life would only

be grotesque. Nature develops itself blindly and lavishly. Everything

pertaining to the human sphere is subject to order. And, just as no

work of art can be produced without submission to the laws of harmony,

so there is no fine life without the acceptance of an order conditioned

by our dependence and our limitations. But to regulate our energy is

not to diminish it. On the contrary, it is to possess and manage it as

a horseman his well-trained horse. “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth

violence,” says the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, “and the violent

take it by force.” Life itself suffers violence. The lukewarm and

moderate natures have never created anything; the creative are the

passionate ones who have tamed their passions.

In order to live all our life, it is important to accept it in the

past, the present, and the future as well. In the past, this means to

recognise a tradition. Neither nations nor individuals appear suddenly

in the light of day. We must therefore recognise the ties which bind

us to the country where we were born, to the race from which we have

sprung. Thus we shall extend ourselves backwards and take to ourselves

whatever there is, in the past, that still has life.

But to get inspiration from the past does not mean to identify oneself

with it. “The life which tries to expand itself,” says Monseigneur

Spalding, “eliminates dead things from it, and if you are a vivifying

force, do not adopt the profession of grave-digger.” Nothing begins

over again and everything evolves. Everything evolves slowly and

under the impulse of what has gone before. Every age has its own

new needs, which must be understood. Ours makes great demands. More

complex and more troublous, it requires clearer sight, plainer sense

of responsibility, and more enlightened intelligence. The segregation

of poverty helps to conceal its miseries; industrial and mechanical

developments make work less personal, and specialisation destroys part

of the joy in work. New conditions of life have sprung up, which need a

new spirit of enterprise.

The future, revealed in the faces of our children, reminds us that our

goal lies beyond us, and that even in the nightfall of our life we must

prepare a shelter for our descendants. We do not build with the same

materials if the house is to last but a few years as we do if it is to

last for centuries.

V

We must not think that, in developing in ourselves the love of life--of

the whole of life--we create a greater fear of death. Our life is not

in proportion to its length. Very short lives often give out more

perfume than long barren existences. The important thing is not to grow

old, but to fill up all one’s days until the last, knowing well that

the last will come and give to our life its finished form. For the

acceptance of the whole of life includes the acceptance of death.

_Figaro_ opened recently a rather curious discussion among the

doctors, which must interest all of us, since it is true that we all

must die. It inquired of a certain number of “princes of science,”

members of the Academy of Medicine, professors of faculties, eminent

surgeons and practitioners, all men with degrees and honors, concerning

the following case. A doctor is attending a patient, and finds that the

illness is incurable, that the end is only a question of months, of

days, or of hours. Must he say so? Must he tell the patient himself, or

only the family, and in the latter case, which member of it?

The answers were almost all the same. They might have borrowed the

epigram from Pascal: “Men, not being able to cure death, poverty, or

ignorance, imagine they can make themselves happy, by not thinking

about them; that is the only consolation they have been able to

discover for so many ills.” Our doctors, unable to do away with death,

think they can do away with the thought of it. They chloroform us

morally, in preparation for the operation of the Fates.

There are some very timorous writers who will not even allow the

subject to be discussed. They think it irritates their readers and

so push it aside with all their strength. Or else they take shelter

behind their conscience, which is presumably the only judge of their

actions. But the greater part of them have an opinion. They invoke

humanity as if it were some new god, who requires lies and demands

cowardice. “Nothing must be told the patient which is not cheering,”

one of them informs us. “It is charitable to leave a light of hope till

the very end,” says a second. A third expounds this maxim: “It is no

one’s duty or right to tell a patient that he is lost.” And M. Vaulair,

a professor of the University of Liège, declares that when the science

of medicine is powerless, its most pressing duty is to give the unhappy

one who believes in it the help of a lie. All except one are agreed in

maintaining that the patient, the principal person interested, has no

right to hear the truth.

Must this truth be told to the family circle? Yes, up to a certain

point. One must try to avoid giving pain to a wife, to children, to

a father or a mother, who might be overwhelmed by the blow. Tact,

prudence, reserve, moderation, hints, counsels, allusions, such are the

varied stock-in-trade of the doctor in a case of this kind. He chooses

a distant relative, strong and courageous, to whom he gently breaks the

news, so as to make sure that he will not succumb to the shock. This

relative can do what he likes about the matter. There is nothing more

to be said; the family has been warned. A brave man knows the secret,

it will be well kept. The doctor is the sole judge in the choice of

this confidant. The important thing is that it must not be a near

relative, who might be frightened. These doctors are tactful people.

We believed them armed against grief, impassive, indifferent, brutal.

How mistaken we were about them! What apologies we owe them! They are

as gentle as little girls, as compassionate as sisters of mercy. They

could not inflict pain without suffering themselves. And when the

patient is dying they look for the most distant relative, the hardest

and toughest, to confide to him stealthily that a mortal man is about

to die.

Thus life will come to a painless end. Is not everything preferable to

the terror inspired by death? Everything? Not quite. Certain doctors

think that we may well allow a poor old man to die who is of no use to

anyone, without telling him; but when they think of the head of a great

business or of one of those capitalists who manage some huge concern,

they are quite out of countenance. You see, the case becomes serious.

What is to happen to all this vast business? What is to be the future

of all this capital? Must we not “assure the interests of the heirs”?

Yes, the importance of such material things justifies torturing the

dying man. In his last moment he must pay for the importance he has

enjoyed on earth. They will make him understand that he alone has no

right to die quietly and is doomed to be worried till he has made his

will, divided his goods, settled the fate of his business. Afterwards

they may give him some hope, on condition that he does not use it to

destroy what he has just done.

But who is really deceived? What is this comedy that they pretend to

play round deathbeds? Do we not know, that some day we must die? Does

not this certainty of death impart to life a peculiar significance? Can

this be destroyed by not thinking about it? “Really,” M. Brunetière

wrote recently, dealing with the subject of the “Falsehood of Universal

Peace,” “life is not the greatest good if the foundation of all

morality is that many things must be preferred to life; and really

death is not the greatest evil, if we are men, so to speak, only in so

fair as we rise above the fear of death.”

Our early youth, for which death scarcely exists, knows nothing of

the value of days. It thinks our strength inexhaustible and squanders

it idly. When we begin to see, around us and in us, the charm and the

sadness of transient things, we feel life in all its fulness because

we are amazed at the incessant flight of time. Our days are numbered.

But the divisions of time are purely conventional. How many days do we

lose when again the fervor of life concentrates itself in a few minutes

of consciousness? The last minutes that we are destined to live may be

the most intense. They may become an important part of our existence

if we know that they are the last. They have this tremendous power of

summing up in themselves all our past days, of completing the design of

our life, of defining its outlines, and sometimes of revealing them for

the first time. They bring us the supreme opportunity to correct our

faults, to perform the most imperative duties which we have forgotten,

to mark the current of our thoughts which has been running to waste in

our ordinary pursuits. What right has anyone to steal these minutes

from us? It is indeed to steal them, if they are left to us, stripped

of their real importance. The man who is about to die should act like

a man who is about to die, not as a man who has plenty of time left.

You think, you doctors, to soothe him by hiding his danger from him;

you take away from him a part of his life whose importance could never

be measured in duration. He will waste his remaining strength, if he

has kept his mind intact, in guessing at the truth, in scrutinising the

blank faces around him, in questioning the throbs of his pulse, the

beating of his heart. He will be a prey to all the terrors of doubt,

when he has the right to finish his life by preparing for death. By

what right do you still decree that the question of his bequest alone

shall occupy him? What do you know of his thoughts, of his soul, of the

future life, of God? Who has solved these questions? And if you have

solved them for yourselves, where do you find the authority to solve

them for others? Do not take useless responsibilities on yourselves.

Everyone has his own, and that is sufficient. It is not for you to set

yourselves up as judges, to ask if the dying man has any affairs to

settle--he may have some of which you know nothing--you have no right

to choose your confidant, and to be inhuman and cruel. For it is not

human to injure life by deforming it, and it does deform it to banish

from it all thought of death, which gives it all its significance. A

beautiful death is the indispensable complement of a beautiful life,

and the ransom of a wicked one. Yes, we must raise ourselves above the

fear of death, and for that we must begin to see life as it is, so

that we may live bravely, fully, nobly. The fear of death is one with

the fear of living, which makes us shrink from the great efforts, the

boldness, and the sacrifices that life demands from us. Only one of all

these doctors understood this, and that was Sir John Fayrer, a member

of the Royal Society of London, and head of the Sanitary Department in

India, who dared to say, in the midst of a flock of his colleagues

bleating with fear: “An experience of more than sixty years makes me

declare very clearly to you: I do not agree that death should surprise

a patient; he should be prepared for it.”

VI

Life is, after all, such a precious thing that one must neither reject

it entirely like those lazy egoists, who soften and contract it to such

a degree that it loses all its value; nor partly reject it like those

vigorous egoists, who claim to subordinate it to their choice.

The very act of opening one’s eyes to the light of day involves a debt

of gratitude to those who have permitted us to see it. Formerly in the

French family there was no doubt as to the goodness of life. The old

French family wrote its own story in its “commonplace books.” These

commonplace books were humble volumes of accounts, but it soon became

the custom to jot down, besides the record of expenditure, the most

important facts of private life, such as marriages, deaths, births.

Then there were added a few reflections, which sufficed to express a

whole range of feeling, a complete conception of life. We have a great

number of these books. They recall the time of our fathers and speak to

us with the majesty of a last will and testament. It is the gospel of

the wise. And it preaches faith in life to those who are inspired by

their fathers and are content to be worthy successors to them.

Though one should run through them all, one would not find a single

denial of the goodness of life. These workmen, farmers, merchants,

always welcome a new-born child with an expression of joy, even if he

comes after many others. The forms of baptism are all acts of faith

like the one that I came across in the book of Pagès, a merchant of

Amiens, who is celebrating the birth of a ninth child: “The divine

goodness, continuing to shed its blessings on our marriage, has favored

us with the birth of a son.” In the same way, the domestic diary of

Joseph de Sudre, of Avignon, is the story--I should say, the epic--of

his efforts, his privations, his savings, in order to be able to bring

up his numerous offspring. In spite of adverse circumstances and bad

harvests, he neglects nothing that contributes to that end. The old

French language used only one word to describe the maternal feeding and

moral education of the child. It was the verb _nourrir_, to “bring

up,” which we have degraded. Our Joseph de Sudre loses his son, a

captain in the King’s service, a man of great promise. After his short

and pathetic funeral speech he adds; “I have suffered poverty for him

with joy.”

Faith in the goodness of life, acceptance of all its burdens,

confidence in the future, were formerly the code of the French family.

Since Jean Jacques Rousseau we have replaced belief in the goodness of

life by faith in the innate goodness of man. It does not produce the

same results.

If now we ask those geniuses who represent the highest achievements

of humanity what we ought to think about life, how would they answer

us? The great minds in art, literature, and history, are only great

when they animate us, when they quicken the movement of our blood and

stir our resolution. They realise for us the changing beauty of the

world and the transient charm of our days. No artist is great without

unlimited love of life. I will quote only one example, the most

touching; that of Beethoven. Financial worries, family troubles, a most

cruel malady--that deafness which shut him up within himself--moral

loneliness, unrealised love, such was the record of his life. A weak

soul would have given way to despair. From the depth of all his

distress he undertook to celebrate joy, and he did so in his Ninth

Symphony.

It is told of him that once, visiting a lady who had just lost her

son and not finding words both strong and gentle enough to express

his sympathy, he sat down at the piano and played. He played a song

of sorrow, but a song of hope also. Thus in our suffering the great

masters of art come to our help.

In the lives of great men we can learn courage and the taste for

life. There is no reading more consoling, and I quite understand the

influence exercised by Plutarch. I wish that biographies of the great

men of France, well written, concise and vigorous, were recommended to

be read, particularly by our young men. They would incite them to live

well. They give us constant occasion to compare our empty days with

those well-filled lives, and then we bewail our inaction, our idleness,

the pettiness of our lot, which we do not know how to enlarge.

In the life of La Play, that admirable defender of the French family,

I lately read this anecdote. He had just recovered from a serious

illness, which had brought him to the brink of the grave and the course

of which he had traced with his usual clearness. After his recovery,

when he was asked what thoughts the feeling of his approaching end had

provoked in him, he replied in these memorable words, which may serve

me as a conclusion:

“From the brink of the grave I measured, not the vanity of life, but

its importance.”

H. B.

April and September, 1905.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Grazia Deledda, “Cenere.”]

[Footnote 2: Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life.”]

THE FEAR OF LIVING

THE FEAR OF LIVING

PART I

CHAPTER I

MARCEL’S HOMECOMING

Madame Guibert was waiting in the drawing-room at “Le Maupas,” ready

to go out. In one hand she held her umbrella, though the weather was

fine and the barometer high, while with the other hand she raised the

long crape veil draped over her widow’s bonnet. She sat down for a

moment, attempting to wait patiently and, after several glances at the

large old-fashioned clock, surmounted by a threatening bronze figure

of Vercingetorix the Gaul, she rose again and crossed the room with

slow, lagging steps. She seemed to be deep in a study of the quaint

old clock-face. She sat down again; this time not on one of the many

well-worn armchairs, whose familiar comfort seemed so inviting, but

instead upon a cane-seated chair, from which she could rise more

promptly and with less effort.

Madame Guibert was advanced in years, short and stout, and scant of

breath. In her face gentleness was combined with strength. The pale

blue eyes, infinitely tender in their expression and full of unshed

tears, revealed a timid and loving nature, easily frightened by the

outside world, while the square chin and the thick-set, compact figure

suggested energy and endurance. The cheeks, still fresh in spite of

the years, showed the noble blood in her veins and a well-preserved,

vigorous constitution.

After hesitating several times she summoned up sufficient courage to

open the door and call: “Paule, are you coming? It is time to start.”

“Oh, Mother, we have plenty of time,” came the reply in fresh, clear

tones.

“The clock says seven,” insisted Madame Guibert, wearily.

“You know that clock is three quarters of an hour fast.”

“But it may have suddenly gone slow. It is very irregular.”

The girl’s answer was merely a burst of laughter, completely devoid of

any hint of sarcasm. Then she added:

“I’m putting on my hat; I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Madame Guibert sat down again, resigned. Her eyes wandered about the

little country drawing-room, through whose windows, with their double

white curtains freshly washed and ironed, the light of a summer evening

broke softly, filtering through the foliage of the tall trees outside.

The modest furniture was all in keeping; no touch of luxury marred the

effect. Its seasoned age bore cheerful testimony to past generations

and vanished tastes. There were two engravings, a hundred years old,

representing charming episodes from _Paul et Virginie_. In “The

Bath” the young girl was modestly holding up the robe that threatened

to slip from her smooth shoulder, as she gently touched the cold water

with a pretty, shivering foot. And in “The Torrent,” opposite, the

youthful Paul might be seen carrying his little friend, a light burden,

as he carefully crossed the turbulent stream. A more recent lithograph

depicted “Napoleon’s Farewell at Fontainebleau,” in which against the

dark background of thronging grenadiers the white knee-breeches of

the Emperor stood out in relief, as the central point of the historic

scene. Lastly, as if to give a more modern touch to the walls, a faded

water-color pretended to have caught the azure of an eastern sky and

also the motley hues of Abd-el-Kader’s smala, captured by a charge of

French cavalry. An upright piano, its top covered with scores, and two

music cabinets crammed to overflowing indicated an artist’s enthusiasm

for music, whereas a former grand, now bereft of its harmonious soul,

did duty as a rosewood table.

Madame Guibert’s eyes no longer took in these familiar objects, but

they caught sight of a flower-vase out of its proper place. She was

accustomed to orderliness so this lapse annoyed her and she hastened

to set it straight. This vase held her customary offering, during the

season of roses, before the cherished portraits that were at once her

joy and her sorrow. This honor was paid daily at the domestic altar,

yet withal she did not reproach herself unduly to-day for her neglect,

because of the natural preoccupation which filled her heart and mind.

From their sombre frames an enlarged photograph of her husband, Dr.

Maurice Guibert, who had died at the beginning of the previous year, a

victim to his tireless devotion to his patients during an epidemic of

typhoid fever; and also another portrait, that of her daughter Thérèse,

called to Himself by God when she was only twelve years of age, seemed

to smile upon her on this day of rejoicing in her house of mourning.

For was not the second son, Marcel, returning to France, after having

taken a prominent part in an expedition against the Fahavalos of

Madagascar?

After three years’ absence Marcel was coming back safe and sound, a

Captain at twenty-eight years of age, and decorated with the Legion of

Honor. The telegram sent off that morning from Marseilles had been read

and re-read, and was still lying open on the drawing-room table. It

announced his arrival at Chambéry on the seven-thirty train. And that

was why Madame Guibert had gotten herself ready two hours too soon. She

was going to town to meet the homecomer. Already her thoughts were with

that train which was s ding along the iron track from Lyons.

Yet she knew that the meeting would be agitating and that she would

need all her courage. When Marcel had learnt of the death of his

father, he was far away, on the pestilential banks of a Madagascar

river. When death calls those whom we love while we are far away, what

infinite cruelty and bitterness are added to the blow!

The young man’s first glance would be at her mourning clothes and the

recent indications of her advancing years. There would be a shadow

between them. She braced herself for the effort, as she reflected:

“When the children came home by train it was always _he_ who

watched for their arrival on the platform. _I_ must be there

to-day in his stead.”

At this moment Paule entered the room. A brilliant frame of black

hair set off the rounded ivory of her face. A black dress accentuated

her slimness, but she did not look fragile. Resolution and courage

were mingled in her proud bearing and firm glance. The glory of youth

illumined her sombreness with a radiance like that thrown on the sea at

night by the brilliant lights of a ship. This girl of twenty had known

suffering at an age when the sensibilities are keenest. She had steeled

herself in order that she might not falter; and the secret of her

struggle was revealed in her carriage. But withal her dark eyes shone

the more brilliantly on this account and her face wore a new gladness,

as a rose-tree its first blossom.

Her mother was surprised to see her without her hat.

“What, not ready yet? That is foolish.”

“But you are not ready either,” replied the girl with a bright smile.

She had in her hand a mourning bonnet edged with a white piping, such

as widows wear, as she crossed the room with a quick, light step.

“Don’t get up, Mother, please. I want you to look nice when you meet

your son, so I have made this bonnet for you. Don’t you like the shape?

The one you have on is all worn out.” And with a grace that completely

conquered her mother’s opposition, she continued: “Let me be your maid.

Your arm pains you.”

“It is my rheumatism,” murmured Madame Guibert.

When she had changed her bonnet, without even a glance in the glass,

she said timidly to her daughter, for she did not wish to displease her:

“And now, darling, don’t you think it is nearly time for us to start?”

“Yes,” said Paule, “I will go and tell Trélaz.”

Trélaz was the farmer who was to drive the carriage for them to

Chambéry station.

When Paule had gone Mme. Guibert gazed at a group-photograph of her

children. There had been six of them then. Now there were only five.

Étienne, the eldest, was an engineer in Tonkin. Marcel an officer

in the Tirailleurs. Marguerite was a Sister of Charity. François,

after failing to pass his examinations, had joined his brother in the

Far East. And Paule was the last jewel in her crown of life. What

separations, she thought--some of them eternal--had she endured in the

course of sixty years!

Paule returned from the farm with the news that Trélaz was ready. She

put on her hat in an instant and could not refrain from protesting

against her mother’s impatience. She glanced at the old clock which

mocked the dock-makers and despite innumerable repairs preserved its

own independence of spirit.

“We shall have to wait nearly an hour at the station,” she said.

“I should not like to be late,” insisted Madame Guibert.

And as she left the house she turned to the old servant, who was

putting on her spectacles in order that no details of the start might

escape her.

“Marie, mind that there are no tramps about!”

She lifted herself with an effort into the rustic carriage which had

drawn up in front of the steps. When she had settled down she smiled

sweetly at her daughter, and the fleeting expression brought back to

her face for just an instant the softness that had been so attractive

in her youth. Paule stepped up lightly beside her.

“Now, Trélaz! You will have to drive rather quickly. But don’t use the

whip, and be careful going down hill.”

“We always get there somehow,” replied the farmer philosophically.

The carriage started. It was an old time vehicle, of a long-forgotten

make. The seats ran lengthwise, and on them the passengers sat back to

back, with their feet in a wooden frame. The oddity of its build was a

never failing source of jest as people took their places in it.

The mare no less venerable, her hoof now and again striking the

rattling wheel as she descended the avenue of chestnuts and heavy

foliaged plane-trees at a walking pace and passed through the ever open

gate--necessarily so indeed, on account of its useless rusty hinges.

She turned into the Vimines road under the shadow of the oak-woods,

and, leaving behind a level-crossing, came out on the high road from

Lyons to Chambéry, which runs through the village of Cognin. There,

the road being easier, the old brown mare stepped less cautiously as

though she no longer cared how she went, and finished by breaking into

a swinging trot which seemed much too fast for the timid Madame Guibert.

The sun had already disappeared behind the Beacon, one of the peaks of

the Lépine range, but the clear light of the summer evening hung over

the countryside for quite a long time after.

“Mother, look at the mountains,” said Paule.

They form a vast circle around Chambéry, and their rocky heights were

tinged with a gorgeous pink, while around their base and sides floated,

like a delicate veil, that bluish haze which is the forerunner of fine

morrows. But Madame Guibert’s anxiety was too keen to allow her to

contemplate the reflection of the setting sun on the summits of the

hills. Suddenly she revealed the cause of her preoccupation:

“Suppose the train is ahead of time!”

And although she had spoken earnestly, she was the first to smile at

her own supposition.

At last her eyes noted a soft transparent shadow climbing the

mountains, and leaving the cross of Le Nivolet bathed in radiant light

for an instant she called her daughter’s attention to this symbol, a

token of shining faith. Then the same serene peace fell on all nature

and, for the first time in long months, on the faces of the two sad

women.

As they neared Chambéry, a break drawn by two fast-trotting horses,

passed Trélaz’s old coach.

“It is the Dulaurens’s carriage,” said Paule. “They are going to Aix.

They did not bow to us.”

“I don’t suppose they recognised us.”

“Oh, yes, they did. But since we gave up our fortune to save uncle

people do not bow to us as they used to.”

She alluded to a family misfortune which had occurred shortly before

her father’s death. Madame Guibert took her daughter’s hand:

“But that is nothing, dear. Just think, in a few minutes we shall see

Marcel.”

After a short silence Paule asked:

“Wasn’t it father who attended and cured Alice Dulaurens, during that

epidemic of typhoid fever at Cognin which finally carried him off?”

“Yes,” murmured the old woman, depressed at this recollection. And it

was she who continued softly and uncomplainingly:

“And they even forgot to settle the bill for attendance. That is often

the way with rich people. They don’t know what it means for others to

live.”

“The reason is because they understand only how to amuse themselves.”

Madame Guibert saw a wave of bitterness cross her daughter’s face,

whose every expression she knew.

“We must not envy them,” she said. “In amusing themselves, they forget

life. They do not know what fills our hearts. I shall soon be sixty

years old. Count my sacrifices and the dear ones I have lost. I am

separated from my daughter Thérèse and from my husband, who was my

strength. Your eldest sister, Marguerite, is a nun, and I have not seen

her for five years. Étienne and François are in Tonkin, and I do not

know my grandson who has just been born out there. Marcel is coming

back after three years of absence and terrible anxiety. Still my lot

has been fortunate. I bless God, who tried me after having crowned me

with blessings. Every day I have experienced His goodness. Even in my

misery He gave me a support in you.”

With her little ungloved hand Paule pressed her mother’s, cracked and

wrinkled.

“Yes, Mother, you are right, I shall complain no more.”

The two miles which separate “Le Maupas” from Chambéry were at

length covered. Trélaz set the ladies down at the station and drove

his conveyance over to a corner of the Square, away from the hotel

omnibuses, the cabs, and the carriages. But the rows of horses envied

his mare her well-filled bag of hay which he put before her.

Paule, looking at the clock, noticed with surprise that it was only ten

minutes past seven. Her mother saw her face.

“I told you that we should be late.”

The girl smiled: “Late because we shall have to wait only twenty

minutes?”

They reached the waiting-room, but as soon as Madame Guibert had opened

the door she drew back. Paule gently urged her forward. The room was

full of people in evening dress. They were the aristocracy of Chambéry

waiting for the theatre-train to Aix-les-Bains. Among them were the

Dulaurens family.

Disconcerted, Madame Guibert turned as if to go out, whispering

to Paule, “Let us go to the third class waiting-room. It will be

pleasanter there.”

“Why?” asked the girl.

At that moment a good-looking young man detached himself from a group

of women and came towards them. They recognised Lieutenant Jean

Berlier, a friend of Marcel. He bowed to them with a courtesy which

expressed his deep sympathy.

“You have come to meet the Captain, haven’t you, Madame? I know you

don’t like travelling.”

“Oh, no, I don’t.”

“How pleased he will be to see you; he will soon be here!”

“In the past,” said the old lady to the young man, whom she had known

as a boy, “his father used to meet him. You will understand.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jean Berlier, and in order not to dwell on so

painful a subject in a public place he added:

“I shall be able to shake Marcel by the hand before I start.”

“You will come and see him at our house, won’t you? Are you going away?”

“For one night. We are going to Aix. It is the first night of ‘La Vie

de Bohème.’ But theatres don’t interest you.”

Sincere as ever, Madame Guibert replied: “I never went to one in my

life. To tell you frankly, I do not regret it.”

Although she spoke in low tones, there were two girls in light dresses

who could hear her, and one of them, a bold-looking brunette, burst out

laughing. But perhaps their fun was at the expense of a lieutenant of

dragoons, who was speaking to them. Paule looked at her contemptuously

from head to foot, her dark eyes flashing like a swift lightning streak.

“Why are you standing?” Jean went on. The old lady chose a seat beside

a vacant armchair in a dark corner, as the humble and timid are wont

to do.

“No, take the armchair, Mother,” said Paule rather brusquely. She had

just exchanged bows--stiff on her part, cordial on the other’s--with

the other of the two young girls, who instead of laughing had blushed.

After a few more words the young man left and rejoined his party. Paule

looked after him and heard him say to Madame Dulaurens:

“Yes, that is Madame Guibert. She is waiting for her son, who is

returning from Madagascar.”

“Which son? She has so many.”

“Why, the officer--Marcel.”

“What is his rank?”

“Captain. He has been decorated and is famous,” said Jean Berlier

hurriedly. He was rather annoyed at being thus questioned, for the dark

eyed girl was calling him.

But Madame Dulaurens would not release him.

“Famous?” she demanded. “What did he do?”

“Didn’t you hear about the fight at Andriba, when his company’s action

decided the day?”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. The name of Marcel Guibert is known throughout the whole

of France.”

This, of course, was a great exaggeration. Modern France does not make

a display of her military glory. But Madame Dulaurens was impressed

and immediately went over to Madame Guibert. The widow was becoming

interesting, in spite of her ruined fortunes, if her son had so great a

reputation.

“The Captain comes home to-night, Madame,” she began. “The thoughts of

us all followed him out there during that terrible campaign, in which

he did so much honor to his country. The papers told us the story of

his bravery at the battle of Andriba.”

Behind his wife, Monsieur Dulaurens, a mild, ceremonious little man,

was nodding his head in sign of approval, while Clément, a fat and

jovial youth of eighteen, who had listened to his mother’s words with

amazement, pulled at the sleeve of Jean Berlier and whispered:

“Mother has no lack of assurance, has she? She reads nothing but

the society paragraphs in the ‘_Gaulois_’ How could she have

remembered a Malagasy name? I know them all--even the most difficult

ones. I got them up for a joke once, because of course I know nothing

about the expedition. I’ll tell you a few. Ankerramadinika ...”

In the midst of the throng Madame Guibert felt painfully uncomfortable.

Just as her poor mourning robes (though carefully mended by her

daughter’s hand) contrasted with the fashionable evening gowns, so

too she felt that not a thought in common united her to these society

people. The whole party had come up and was complimenting her. After

Madame Dulaurens’s congratulations, she received those of Madame

Orlandi, an old Italian Countess who lived in retirement at Chambéry,

and whose many nervous complaints had provided sufficient employment

for her doctor. De Marthenay, the lieutenant of dragoons, fixed her

with his eyeglass in curiosity that was almost insolent. She answered

the questions addressed to her very simply and timidly, her cheeks

suffused with blushes; and Paule, noticing her plight, came to her

assistance. She was more at ease, but could not prevent a certain

stiffness showing itself in her manner, in spite of the friendly

demonstrations of the two girls--the brunette, Isabelle Orlandi, whose

remarks were as affected as her attitudes, and still more the other,

Alice Dulaurens, who was fair and naturally gracious. The latter

overwhelmed Paule with attentions and kindness. She had a pretty voice,

lisping and softening the hard sounds, and blending all her words in an

even sweetness.

“So your brother is coming! Aren’t you happy? It is years since I saw

him. Do you remember the time we used to play games together at Le

Maupas or at La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Paule. “But we do not play any more now. The garden at

Le Maupas is neglected, and that of La Chênaie is too well cared for.”

“Why don’t you come over any more? You must come.”

Paule wondered why this former schoolfellow of hers at the Sacred

Heart, from whom life had separated her so far, should show her so much

friendship. She looked at her own black dress, so plain, and simple,

and admired without a touch of envy the light blue bodice, trimmed with

white lace and cut rather low, from which Alice’s white neck, delicate

and supple, rose like a frail flower. From the clothes her eyes passed

to the wearer’s face. The features were refined and clear-cut, and the

faultless complexion was suffused with a dainty pink. She could not

help saying:

“How beautiful you are, Alice!”

Immediately the fresh cheeks mantled, and while Mademoiselle Dulaurens

stood aside to allow a traveller to pass, Paule saw how the very

indolence and half-weariness of her movements bestowed a certain

languishing grace on this charming and delicate girl, in whose presence

she realised the more her own youthful strength.

“Oh, no, it is you, Paule, ...” protested Alice Dulaurens.

But the noise of the Lyons express suddenly broke in upon the

conversation. The whole party rushed out of the waiting-room. The

Dulaurens family and their friends began to look for first class

carriages in the section of the train intended for the theatre-goers.

From the other portion the passengers were already hastening towards

the exit.

The first of these was a tall, thin young man, very erect, who held

his head thrown back with a haughty air. In his hand he was carrying a

sword wrapped in green serge. As soon as he saw Madame Guibert he ran

towards her and was soon folded in her arms.

“My son!” she cried, and, in spite of her resolution to be brave, she

burst into sobs.

But Marcel straightened himself up after the embrace and gazed with

tender emotion at this old figure on whom trials had left their traces.

A change came over the bronzed, almost hard, features of the young man.

There was no need for them to utter the name that trembled on their

lips, and the same pious memory stirred both their hearts. The joy of

the meeting gave a poignant new life to the old sorrow.

Paule contemplated with a softened expression her tall, handsome

brother and her old mother. By the step of their compartment Alice

Dulaurens and Isabelle Orlandi turned, and they too watched the

greetings. The eyes of the first rested sympathetically on Marcel,

while the eyes of the second looked ironically at Madame Guibert’s

stout and agitated form.

Jean Berlier, standing slightly aside, was waiting respectfully. He now

came up to Paule.

“How happy they are!” he said. And then he added, with a tinge of

melancholy, “When I return from Algeria no one is ever waiting for me.”

As Marcel kissed his young sister, Jean came forward, crying:

“Have you a greeting for me too?”

“What, Jean!” said Marcel, and the two men embraced warmly. Jean was

moved but in an instant he was again smiling gaily.

“I shall see you soon,” he said. “I must run now. My train is going.”

“Where are you off to?” asked Marcel.

Jean, on his way to his carriage, half turned and shouted merrily:

“We’re going to show ourselves off at Aix.”

And his fingers seemed to point at random to the various groups

clambering into the theatre-train.

Marcel Guibert glanced quickly at the rout of gaily dressed figures.

But Paule, looking round, saw Alice leaning out of the window of

her carriage to bid her good-bye. She waved her hand to her quickly

and undemonstratively, as though she had some misgiving or some

superstitious feeling of fear about this seductive vision. Paule was

very highly sensitized and her premature misfortunes had made her

oversensitive. “Why all these advances?” she asked herself. As her dark

eyes rested on her soldier brother, who was leading his mother away on

his arm, she added to herself: “Too much good fortune and not enough

courage.”

Seeing Trélaz’s vehicle, Marcel cried:

“What, our old carriage!”

“It is the only one we have kept,” explained Madame Guibert,

apologetically.

This reply Marcel had not expected when he made the remark. The ancient

conveyance had recalled his childhood to him, and now it seemed to him

that it also signified the decay of the family. His face darkened.

He understood all of a sudden the material difficulties which must

have increased the suffering at Le Maupas. Having no personal needs,

and accustomed as he was to live on very little, he felt now for his

mother and sister and divined the bitterness of their straits. But

Madame Guibert was saying to herself, “We ought to have taken a station

carriage in his honor.”

They drove across Chambéry, the sleepy capital of Savoy, which the

historic castle sets off as if it were a military plume, proud and

delicate against the sky. Marcel breathed his native air rapturously.

When they left the town, Trélaz’s antiquated equipage recalled a host

of recollections. The scene before his eyes suggested his happy,

spirited youth. How often, from the Vimines woods, had he enjoyed the

bold outlines and vivid lighting of the picture! With the naked walls

of Pas-de-la-Fosse in the foreground, and of Granier in the background,

which looks out from above over the nearer mountains, it was like a

wide sweeping curve of verdure outstretched, and harmoniously defined

by three steeples: Belle Combette, softly ensconced among the trees,

like a sheep amid the lush grass; Montagnol, the tallest, sombre and

dominant like some fortress; Saint-Cassin, humbler and slighter,

resting against the thick woods which almost concealed it. A strange

incongruous landscape, tempering the harshness of the rough and

threatening crags with the sweet softness of this peaceful slope.

When the carriage left the high road, it passed the level crossing over

the railway from Saint-André-le-Gaz, and followed the Vimines road, up

the steep gradient which plunges into the forest and leads past the

open gate of Le Maupas. Marcel got out here to lighten the horse’s

burden. He was the first to reach the little rustic house smothered, as

in the old days, under the wistaria, jasmine, and roses. And too, as in

the old days the twilight lent to the trees in the avenue a sombre,

placid, serious look. As he walked, the gravel in the courtyard made

the same crunching sound as of old.

On the threshold he awaited his mother and helped her ascend the steps;

and when they had entered he clasped the poor, weeping woman to his

heart. Paule also at last surrendered herself to the emotion she had

too long restrained. The head of the family was no longer there. On

the threshold of the home his son had brought back to mind the strong

profile, the kindly smile, the self-reliance of the departed.

In this meeting to-day three people tasted the whole flavor of human

life, with its mingling of joy and grief.

Meanwhile the Dulaurens family, Madame Orlandi and her daughter, and

Lieutenant Armand de Marthenay, had taken their places in the same

first class carriage. Isabelle took possession of a corner and with the

utmost difficulty kept another for her admirer, Jean Berlier. But when

he made up his mind to enter the carriage, at the very moment the train

was starting, he was not too well received by the girl.

“Why don’t you stay on the platform and embrace all the men that pass?”

she asked.

Jean smiled: “I do the same to the ladies.”

Isabelle was not disarmed. “You made a show of yourself with that

Guibert lot. It was ridiculous.”

Alice Dulaurens blushed, but did not dare to protest. The young man was

not so easily disconcerted. He did not disdain, in his flirtations, a

tone of irony and mockery, which exasperated, if it also attracted, his

companion, the pretty and spoilt darling of her family.

“It is true,” he admitted, “that the Guiberts, on meeting each other

after three years of separation and mourning, neglected to conform to

custom to please you. And even your dress did not win a single glance

from the handsome captain.”

“The handsome captain, indeed!”

“He is bald,” observed de Marthenay, whose own thick hair stuck up like

a tooth-brush.

“Yes, he became so in the colonies. In a French garrison he would

perhaps have kept an abundant covering on his head.”

Isabelle would not own herself vanquished. A spitefulness to which she

would not have confessed urged her to attack Jean’s friends, and she

went beyond all bounds:

“You heard, I suppose, that your captain’s mother is a perfect

phenomenon? She has never set foot in a theatre! I wonder what sort of

a life she has led.”

Jean Berlier, who had the greatest respect for Madame Guibert, became

bitter.

“She has done what you will never do, Mademoiselle, she has lived for

the sake of others.”

“That is not living at all,” retorted Isabelle.

“Do you think so? For my part, I believe that she has lived more than

you will ever live, if you were to exist for a hundred years.”

“Oh, indeed! I defy anyone to live at a higher pressure than I do.”

“You get excitement, but that’s not the same thing. Of what effort are

you capable?” And then, cutting his lecture short, the young man asked

with a laugh: “Are you even capable of a love match?”

“Certainly not! You mean, I suppose, one without money? Thank you for

nothing. Fancy vegetating mournfully on dry bread and cotton dresses!”

As she spoke, her lovely teeth looked sharp and greedy.

“Come, cheer up,” said Jean, “and show me your hand.”

She held out her fine ungloved hand. He pretended to examine it

carefully.

“I see that you will marry a man forty years of age, ugly, and

a millionaire. But, after the marriage, he will show his real

disposition, sordid avarice. One is always punished in the same way in

which one has sinned.”

The grave sententious tone in which he uttered his nonsense amused the

whole carriage.

When the conversation had again become general, Isabelle, restored once

more to calm, murmured gaily to her _vis-à-vis_:

“So much the worse for the miser! I shall be untrue to him.”

“With me, do you mean?” asked Jean, smiling.

“Perhaps with you. Yes, certainly with you!”

And again bursting into laughter, she showed her white teeth, as sound

as a puppy’s, while she stared boldly at the young man who appealed so

much to her taste.

Alice, abashed by the boldness of the conversation, blushed for her

companion. Then wrapping herself in her own thoughts, she fell half

asleep and dreamed of the love-match which Isabelle despised, but in

connection with which certain lately-seen features dimly presented

themselves to her imagination.

Madame Dulaurens, preoccupied about the success of her At Homes

during the season, remarked to her son, who was repeating to her some

fantastic Madagascar names; “He seems to be quite a hero. We must

certainly invite him.”

And her husband, resuming the thread of a long and peaceful

conversation, agreed with Madame Orlandi.

“Above all things, calm must be preserved. That is the secret of life.”

CHAPTER II

BROTHER AND SISTER

In the friendship between brother and sister there is a frank and

simple sweetness that makes it a sentiment apart from all others. In

its nature it is free from the violent outbursts of love and those

passionate transports which are too intoxicating to be lasting. It

is distinguished, however, from ordinary friendship between persons

of the same sex, by the element of modest discretion and tenderness

introduced into it by the woman. What makes it still more singular is

the marvellous ability of the two parties to such a friendship to think

and to feel alike, this springing from a common origin and a childhood

spent together. The two can then understand a half-uttered word, can

call back memories at the same moment, can live again together the days

of old and inhale again the perfume of the past. Even love itself lacks

this quality and may well envy its possession.

Seated in two basket-chairs in the garden of Le Maupas, Marcel and

Paule Guibert, with no waste of useless confidences, realised the joy

of discovering that during their separation life had ripened and

molded their souls alike even though a great distance had separated

them. They thought otherwise than in former days, but they still

thought together.

“I am so happy here,” said the young man, “that I want to do nothing

all day long.”

Marcel was tired and needed rest. In spite of his robust health,

he showed some traces of his life in the colonies. He still had

attacks of fever, though they grew rarer and rarer. He looked to the

health-bringing air of Savoy to put new life into him.

It was one of those calm summer afternoons in the country, when it

seems that one can almost feel the vibration of the sunshine. Not a

breath of air fanned their faces. Only in the tree-tops a lazy breeze

stirred the delicate leaves of the lime-trees, which trembled and

showed by turn the dark green of their upper and the pale green of

their lower surfaces.

On the rustic table, its round top cut from a single slate, were

scattered papers and letters. Paule set herself to open the mail to

which her brother paid so little heed.

“More articles about you,” she cried, “in the _Clarion des Alpes_

and _La Savoie Républicaine_. Do you want to read them?”

“No, please not,” begged the captain.

“Some invitations,” Paule went on. “The men of your year are giving a

dinner in your honor. A season-ticket for the Aix-les-Bains Casino.

Another for the Villa des Fleurs. The Baroness de Vittoz is at home on

Tuesdays.”

“What is all this to me? I want to see nobody, absolutely nobody.”

“You have become fashionable! You must play your part. They are

disposing of your liberty. That’s one way of sharing in your laurels.”

“Let’s agree not to talk about it, Paule dear.”

“But everyone is talking about it. Glory is the rage to-day. Some day

soon the Dulaurenses will call upon us, and other people too whom we

have not seen since the story of our ruin got about.”

Her smooth forehead, overshadowed by dark hair, still wore the furrow

which testified to the bitterness of that time of trial.

Marcel said nothing. He let himself be carried away by the

multitudinous memories connected with the land which was his

forefathers’. In his mind’s eye he could see the shadows of the past

springing up from the ground about him and hovering round him like a

flock of birds. Only the members of large families can know the happy

exaltation of spirit which has its birth in an environment that is

fresh, gay, and frank. This blessing, which changes childhood with a

stroke of the wand into fairyland and is able to shed its sweetness

throughout middle life right down to old age, is the reward of those

who have had the courage to live and to perpetuate life. So Marcel

now smiled upon another tiny Marcel, whom he could see distinctly

scampering over the neighboring fields with a merry little troop of

brothers and sisters. Then began with Paule the series of “Do you

remembers.” He plunged back into the far away years when the soul is

still wrapped in mystery, and finally he said:

“Do you remember.... But no, you were not born then. We were lying on

the grass. They were our first holidays, I think. Father used to tell

us about the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” and we straightway translated

the stories into action. I was in turn Hector and the cunning Ulysses.

But at that time I preferred Hector, for he is generous and of that

tragic courage which impresses a child’s mind. Since then reading Homer

has been to me like visiting a friend. Who can tell whether or not I

owe to these influences my taste for adventure?”

“But you are not thinking of going back?” enquired Paule anxiously.

“Mother has aged greatly. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, she is a little bent now, and her cheeks are sometimes pale. You

are watching over her for us. You are our security, Paule, the comfort

of all the rest of us, who are scattered over the world.”

The girl did not reply. Marcel regretted his remark, for he felt its

selfishness. Of all Dr. Guibert’s children Paule had suffered most

directly from the blow of the financial disaster which had crushed the

whole family through the misfortunes of an uncle. She had lost her

dowry and thereby many a chance of marriage. Her brothers depended on

her devotion to cherish their mother’s old age, as if she must always

forget her own life and feel in vain the tender beating of her young

heart.

Marcel gazed at her a long time. With affectionate admiration he

regarded her graceful figure, so supple and so full of the promise of

future strength; the pure tint of her complexion, accentuated by the

black of her dress; her deep, sombre eyes, so sweet withal, the eyes of

a woman who has tasted life and knows it, without fearing it; he saw

the whole charming picture of a maiden both proud and virtuous. Why

should she not inspire love?

He noticed the dark hair overhanging her troubled brow, and sought to

make her smile.

“I love that black hair of yours,” he said. “I have never seen any so

black. How proudly you carry the weight of it. Do you remember, when

you were little and wore it down your back, there was so much of it

that the peasant women coming back from market used to stop to look at

you and say, ‘What a shame to put a false plait upon the poor child!’

And your nurse was very angry, ‘A false plait, is it! Come and pull

it and you’ll see if it comes off in your hands.’ So they actually

tested the genuineness of your hair, and you wept because you were too

beautiful!”

Slowly, leaning on the iron balustrade and setting each foot in turn

on every step, Madame Guibert was coming down to her children. As

an autumn flower blooms in a deserted garden, so a feeble smile had

lighted up her face since Marcel’s arrival. He came now to meet her and

set her chair in a sheltered spot.

“Are you comfortable, Mother?” he asked. The smile on the old face

deepened.

“My dear big boy, you are so like _him_.”

Marcel’s face grew grave. “It is eighteen months now since he passed

on,” he said. “I shall never forget that night at Ambato! I wandered

round the camp. I called to him. I called to you all. I felt death

coming to me....”

There was a sorrowful silence for a moment, and then Madame Guibert

spoke again.

“Eighteen months! Is it possible? ... Yet I have lived through them,

thanks to Paule. While the breath of life is in me, I shall thank God

for giving me such a husband, such sons and daughters.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and began the painful recital for

which her son was waiting.

“Your Uncle Marc’s misfortune was the beginning of all our sorrows. We

were too happy, Marcel. Your father was the embodiment of strength,

self-reliance, and hard work. After the most wearying days he always

came home happy. And you all succeeded in your careers.”

“Some were jealous of you,” said Paule.

“It is better to be envied than pitied,” added her brother, who was as

proud as she.

“Your uncle’s bank at Annecy prospered, until a confidential clerk

absconded with title deeds and deposits, and Marc, unable to bear the

temporary storm aroused by this flight, and stunned by the shock,

committed suicide. God grant that he has been permitted to repent! Your

father left directly. He understood the situation. All was paid, both

capital and interest--but we had to sacrifice the greater part of our

fortune. However, we were able to save Le Maupas, which belongs to the

family.”

“Le Maupas is to all of us the living picture of our childhood days,”

said Marcel.

Madame Guibert continued, “Before disposing of his fortune your father

asked the consent of all of you.”

“Yes, I remember. It was at the beginning of the campaign. But father’s

conduct seemed to me an excess of punctiliousness. These money matters

are quite strange and indifferent to me.”

“Paule was consulted, too.”

“There was our name,” said Paule, “and our honor.”

“Your marriage portion was involved, my child.... After his brother’s

tragic end,” the mother went on, “your father was so affected that

he never recovered his gaiety. But his energy and capacity for work

were doubled. When the epidemic broke out at Cognin he did not take

sufficient care of himself. He was the last to be attacked by the

disease, and at a time when he was exhausted and worn out. From the

first he knew that he was lost, but he never admitted it. I understood

at the last. He studied the progress of his illness himself. One day he

said to me, ‘Don’t be unhappy, God will help you.’ ‘He will help us,’ I

said. He made no reply. He thought of his death fearlessly. He died in

our arms, conscious to the last.”

“Only I was not there,” said Marcel.

“There at the bedside were Étienne, just back from Tonkin, François,

Paule, and Étienne’s fiancée, too, Louise Saudet.”

“Where was Marguerite?”

“She could not come,” answered Madame Guibert sadly, but with no

bitterness in her voice. “They would not allow her. She belongs to God.

We have not seen her since she entered the convent.”

All three were silent, lost in memories. The thought of death was in

their hearts, but all about them the world of living things vibrated in

the sunshine. A leaf already shrivelled, forerunner of autumn, dropped

from a branch and floated slowly down through the warm air. Paule

pointed a finger at it, calling her brother’s attention. To Marcel,

plunged in sorrowful reflection, it seemed a symbol.

“It has lived to the summer. Others go in the springtime,” he said.

He was thinking of the premature end of his sister Thérèse, and of

death which had threatened him more than once. But soon he shook oil

this gloomy foreboding. “Short or long,” he exclaimed, “life must be

lived with full courage. That was father’s way. His memory comforts me;

it doesn’t dishearten me.”

“And Étienne left soon after for Tonkin again?” he continued.

“Yes,” said Madame Guibert. “You remember his first trip with the

Lyons Exploration Company’s mission? He was struck by the wealth of

the mines and the soil there, and told us also of the wild beauty of

the country. He has settled with his wife at Along Bay. Isn’t that the

name, Paule?”

The girl assented, and her mother went on:

“He is in charge of the coal-mines there. At the same time he is quite

a farmer, and is growing rice and tomatoes. François has gone out to

him, and also your cousin Charles, Marc’s son. They are doing well,

with the blessing of God. Étienne helps us to live.”

“Was his wife quite willing to go?”

“Louise is as brave as she is quiet. They sailed eight days after their

wedding. They have a boy now. I have never seen him, but yet I love

him.”

“When Louise was married,” Paule added, “there was quite an outcry

at Chambéry. All the women pitied her mother. ‘How can you let your

daughter go?’ they asked, and they accused her of an unpardonable lack

of affection. Madame Saudet saw that Louise was happy, and that was

enough for her. The others only thought about themselves and their own

peace of mind. As M. Dulaurens says, ‘calm is the all-important thing.’”

A name casually introduced into a conversation often seems to attract

the person mentioned. Such chance coincidences have passed into a

proverb. A carriage at this moment was passing through the open gate

into the chestnut avenue, and Paule recognised the Dulaurens livery.

“They had quite given us up,” observed Madame Guibert, turning very

red. Brave as she was in her attitude towards life, she was timid

towards society.

“It is on account of our hero,” said Paule with a mocking glance at her

brother.

But they all rose and went to meet the visitors. The carriage had

already emerged from the avenue and was crushing the gravel of the

courtyard. Madame Dulaurens was the first to get out and began at once

with an allusion to the Captain. She greeted Madame Guibert and said:

“How proud you must be to have such a son!”

Madame Dulaurens was by birth a De Vélincourt and never forgot the

fact. On the strength of this she looked upon all her actions as

great condescensions, and even deigned to bestow a kind of benevolent

patronage on those meritorious exploits which it should be the

privilege of the aristocracy to perform; or, if not, the aristocracy

could at least claim the credit for them, by applauding them

enthusiastically.

Hidden behind his wife, M. Dulaurens was bowing with unnecessary

frequency. He was dressed in grey from head to foot. Instinctively he

had found the right protective coloring for himself. He lived in a

state of timid admiration of the woman who, despite his lowly origin,

on account of his great fortune, had married him, and who gave him to

understand on every possible occasion the extent of her sacrifice. This

marriage, the foundation alike of his self-respect and his political

opinions, had endowed him with a deep respect for the nobility, of whom

the type to him was his wife’s handsome person, stately and massive,

commanding of feature, imperious and with a voice both authoritative

and disagreeable. Alice stepped out last. She was wearing a pale blue

dress, the delicate shade of which suited her very well. She came

forward with a languid grace, which suggested that with her beauty

frail health was combined. Marcel had eyes henceforward for no one

but the girl. There was no pleasure expressed in his replies to the

compliments heaped upon him, against which indeed his modesty and his

soldierly sense of honor revolted.

There was no doubt that this visit was paid to him, and that he was

the aim and object of it. Although she treated Madame Guibert and

Paule with politeness and even with kindness--with a haughty and

condescending kindness which did not deceive the daughter, who was

more acute, or better versed in the ways of the world, than her

mother--still it was to Marcel that Madame Dulaurens, _née_ de

Vélincourt, kept turning, as if she desired to capture for herself his

new-born celebrity and bear him away in the carriage with her.

Finally she spoke out quite frankly: “Well, young man, you have been

home several days and you are never seen anywhere. One would think you

were in hiding. That is not like you, as the enemy well knows.”

“The enemy” was a conveniently vague name for the distant tribes whose

complicated names she could not trouble to keep in her memory.

M. Dulaurens, who had a sincere admiration for action and courage in

other people, hastened to emphasize his wife’s allusion. “Yes, it was

a hard campaign,” he said. “The Government’s lack of foresight.... You

had few calm moments.”

Paule with difficulty suppressed a hearty laugh as she heard the fatal

adjective. So often was the word “calm” on M. Dulaurens’s lips that he

had been nicknamed Sir Calm by those who tried to find a single phrase

to express both his aristocratic pretensions and his love of peace.

“All our friends wish to make your acquaintance,” his wife continued.

“Please make my house your own, if you care to come.” And then, as

though suddenly noticing Paule’s presence, she added, “With your

sister, of course.”

They would put up with the sister for the sake of entertaining the

brother. The slight pause had shown how the case stood. It was Paule

who replied:

“Thank you very much, Madame Dulaurens, but we are still in mourning.”

“Oh, only half-mourning! It is eighteen months now.” She turned again

to the Captain. “We are going on Sunday to the Battle of Flowers at

Aix. Do come with us. It will be an excuse for an excursion. And in the

evening we are to dine at the Club with a few friends, quite a small

party. You will meet some comrades there--Count de Marthenay, who is in

the dragoons, and Lieutenant Berlier, your friend, is he not? You have

heard that they are talking of his marriage with Isabelle Orlandi, the

beauty.”

She gave out the falsehood, which she had invented on the spur of the

moment, for the purpose of wounding the proud Paule who dared to cross

her wishes. Woman can see, it is hard to say how, by some method of

divination of which both the desire to please and the desire to injure

make her mistress, those affinities which cause the hearts, souls, and

bodies of men and women to seek and find one another. How excellent a

plan it is, for instance, to make a dinner-party go off well by placing

the guests according to one’s ideas of their sympathies--the very way,

perhaps to bring those sympathies into being. Again, the evil-speaking

that there is in the world bears witness to remarkable intuition and

marvellous powers of analysis. In the majority of cases the libel rests

on no positive evidence, and yet there is all the appearance of truth.

The persons concerned are sketched with a natural touch, cruelly of

course, but always with due regard to probability.

Madame Dulaurens gained nothing tangible by the exercise of her

inventive faculty, for the young girl gave no sign; whether it was

because she had learnt self-restraint so early or because the news was

really indifferent to her.

“Then we can count on you?” she demanded, pretending to be waiting for

the answer from Marcel’s own lips.

Alice glanced at the young officer with her eyes pale as the Savoy

skies; while Paule also had her eye on him, but her look was serious.

He understood perfectly that Madame Dulaurens was trying to separate

him from his sister; and, listening to the guidance of that family

loyalty which Dr. Guibert had instilled into each of his children, he

refused the invitation.

“Thank you, Madame, but my homecoming has revived so many recent

sorrows that I do not wish to leave Le Maupas.”

There was a flash of joy in the dark eyes, while long quivering lashes

veiled the downcast blue ones.

“He is in need of rest,” put in Madame Guibert.

Alice was looking over the graveled courtyard. She spoke now with a

slight blush.

“It was your father who cured me. Once you used to come to La Chênaie

very often. Paule was my dearest friend. You must not give us up.”

When at last she raised her pale blue eyes she met Marcel’s glance and

smiled. Then she blushed again, for her color was influenced by the

secret workings of her heart.

“They shall certainly call upon you, Mademoiselle Dulaurens,” said

Madame Guibert, rather surprised at Paule’s silence.

“Mademoiselle Dulaurens! You used to call me Alice!”

“A long time ago,” said the old lady. “You were a little girl then.”

“Am I not so now? At least, not very big,” Alice replied.

Madame Dulaurens could ill support the failure of her schemes. She

was thinking about the fame of her At Homes. With the help of this

hero from Madagascar she would have been able to crush her rival, the

Baroness de Vittoz, who had captured a gouty explorer engaged in a

course of the waters at Aix. She had satisfied herself of the truth

of Jean Berber’s words. Young Captain Guibert’s career, she found,

had been most brilliant. His resolution and bravery were greatly

responsible for the success of the expedition. Honorable mention for

gallantry, the Legion of Honour, another stripe, all bore witness

to his deserts. He was a lion to be proud of. And celebrity of this

kind was more alluring to the militant Madame Dulaurens than that of

literary men or scientists. Besides, was not a spur wanted to encourage

the languid pretensions of the Count de Marthenay to Alice’s hand?

“I cannot accept a refusal,” she said, as she gave the signal for

departure. “We shall expect you at Aix on Sunday.” And then, returning

mechanically to her opening remark to Madame Guibert, she said to

her, in honeyed tones which were a very inapt expression of her soul,

“Madame, every mother envies you your son.”

Alice was particularly gracious to Paule as she said good-bye. But

Paule did not unbend. When the carriage had driven away Marcel stood

looking across the deserted courtyard. So lost in thought was he that

he did not notice his sister gazing at him with an expression of

mingled sadness and affection.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked.

He turned round and gave a rather melancholy smile, as though aware of

his own weakness. “We must go and see them, mustn’t we?” he said.

He was surprised at the effect of his question, for Paule’s face

clouded and her eyes were veiled. “So you already find us insufficient

for you?” she murmured.

She mastered herself quickly and added determinedly. “I at least shall

not go. I was not asked.”

“Yes, you were,” said Marcel.

“Yes, as an afterthought, and Madame Dulaurens made me feel that.”

“My darling Paule, you know that I shall not go without you.”

“Well, then, don’t let us go, will you? Let us stay here. Mother and I

love you so much. We are so happy to have you with us and to look after

you. Stay with us! The house has been silent as the grave so long, but

you have brought the sunshine back to it.”

Madame Guibert joined in, “Marcel, stay with us.”

Marcel’s brow darkened. He did not care to feel that he was deprived

of freedom even by his nearest and dearest, and above all he was very

much out of sympathy with himself. He had come home quite determined

to shut himself up at Le Maupas, to plunge himself in the fragrance of

his native air and the memories of those whom he had lost, and also to

restore a little happiness to his mother and sister--and now it had

taken but one visit from a mere girl to upset all his ideas and to

shatter his pride and his strength of will.

The gentle pleading of mother and sister left him silent. But Paule

could not bear to see her brother sad for long. “Marcel,” she said,

“you must go to La Chênaie. But I cannot go with you. I have nothing to

wear.”

Marcel’s reply came too quickly and betrayed the vehemence of his

desire.

“I will buy you some clothes, dear. I have saved some money.”

“But you have helped so often,” asserted Madame Guibert, with a loving

glance at her son, whose close presence she did not even yet seem to

realise.

Late in the evening, while Madame Guibert was slowly making her

invariable round to see that the house was safely locked up, Paule,

sitting in the drawing-room with Marcel saw him lost in thought again.

She went up to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Are you dreaming of the fair Alice?” she asked.

So kind was her tone that he could only smile, as he denied his

weakness. But immediately afterwards he admitted the truth, adding,

“She certainly is fair, isn’t she? Is she a friend of yours?”

“We were at the Sacred Heart Convent together. She is the same age

as I, perhaps a little younger. At the Convent she was like a little

sister in her affection for me. She is sweet, gentle, and timid, and

likes to be led rather than to lead.”

“A very good thing in a woman,” said Marcel approvingly.

He had no hesitancy in admitting the superiority of his own sex.

Paule stroked her brother’s forehead with her soft hand.

“Alice is not the right wife for you,” she said.

“I never thought of marrying her,” was his brusque answer.

But his sister did not abandon her purpose. “She is deficient in

courage,” she said. “And besides we are not in the same set.”

“Not in the same set! Because the Dulaurenses have more money than

we have? In France, thank God, it is not yet the case that wealth

determines social position.”

Paule was sorry she had provoked this outburst. “That is not what I

meant to say,” she explained. “The people we are speaking of have

a totally different outlook on life. They make a show and cannot

distinguish between worthless things and those of importance. I don’t

know how to make it clear to you, but I did not wish to make you

cross.”

“Are you going to preach to me about the ways of the world?” asked her

brother. “Before you have even seen it you pretend to judge it!”

Paule was hurt by the tone of his voice and turned away. Pouring out

all the pent-up bitterness of her heart, she cried: “Do you think I

cannot see behind the outward smile and the lie on the lips? These

people hate us and would like to treat us with contempt. They run after

you--you only--just to flatter their own vanity, and they want to have

nothing to do with mother and me; we are only two poor women. But Alice

is intended for Count de Marthenay, not for you!”

Even without its closing sentence this indignant speech would have

had its effect. What Paule told him now bluntly, Marcel had already

gathered, though not in so clear a fashion. His pride and the affection

which he had for his mother and sister would have been a check upon

him. But the end of Paule’s speech blotted out all that went before.

The very thought of this drawing-room soldier, who had come so

unexpectedly across his path, held up to him as a rival sure of victory

over him, roused all his instincts as a fighter and a conqueror. He was

jealous before he was even in love.

CHAPTER III

THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS

“Here they come, here they come!” shouted Jean Berlier, pointing to the

end of the race-course.

The course at Marlioz is less than two miles from Aix-les-Bains, on the

road to Chambéry. The view from the stands, which occupy one of the

slopes facing Mont Revard is fine and picturesque. Beyond a foreground

of green fields, separated by screens of poplar-trees, the eyes light

suddenly on the craggy escarpments of the mountain-chain, resembling

some old fortress. By day there is little grace or beauty in the scene,

but at eventide the setting sun lends to it a wonderful attractiveness.

“Here they come,” repeated Isabelle Orlandi, clapping her hands.

The flower-decked carriages had indeed reached the edge of the green

sward, ready to file past the stands filled with a brilliant crowd.

The spectators stamped enthusiastically and, swarming about like a

lot of mad people or a hive of bees, tore flowers from the baskets

of the passing vendors, spread their ammunition in front of them,

and preluded the coming battle with the excited and useless shouts of

soldiers on the point of assault. Under the light of a cloudless sky

the fairy-like procession advanced, radiant in the sunshine. From afar

all that was to be seen of it was a succession of bright patches and at

intervals the rapid flashes reflected from the polished harness of the

horses and the dazzling carriage-wheels as they caught the sun’s rays.

It grew bigger and bigger, and outlined against the golden horizon, it

brought to mind in its splendor and richness the procession of the Magi

painted by some Venetian artist who adored color.

The Dulaurens family and their party filled the first row of the grand

stand, Jean Berlier next to Isabelle, Marcel Guibert between Madame

Dulaurens and Alice. Paule had refused to come with her brother, who

sat quite silent, thinking of the sad faces of the women at home and

regretting the peace and sweetness of Le Maupas, while beginning to

experience the first humiliating inner symptoms of love.

The band began to play dance music, and to the strains of its light

rhythm, almost drowned by laughter and shouting, the battle opened.

Late arrivals, hurrying across the race course eager to take part in

the fun, were mingled in a distracted mass of gay parasols and dresses

on the lawn.

It was at the little ones that the first bouquets were thrown, gently

tossed by delicate hands. The children opened the flowery procession

like harbingers of spring, delicious buds of humanity. Rosy babies

with bare arms, riding donkeys which carried them triumphantly in big

red baskets; small sailor boys proudly wielding their pasteboard oars

in long canoes decked with reeds, drawn by Arab horses whose tails

and flowing manes served as angry waves; tiny girls dressed in pink,

peeping out from green nests like wonderful birds; all this little

company, guarded by an escort of careful nurses, was mad with applause

and sunshine, with music and gaiety. It was like the youthful Bacchus

in his triumph.

Slowly the carriages following them came up one after another and took

their part in the gentle strife. They bore the very grace of the earth,

the beauty of women and the scent of flowers. The soul of the plundered

gardens still pervaded these moving flower-beds. English dog-carts,

tilburies, victorias, phaetons, landaus, all were smothered in flowers

of a thousand hues--heavy moon-daisies, purple as an autumn sunset;

while marguerites, the lover’s fortune-teller; gladioles with their

red bells merrily a-ring; cyclamens the color of the lees of wine, the

rare and precious jewels of Mont Revard’s crown; hydrangeas with their

pink and pale blue globes; orchids of varying hue, splendid in their

triumphant leaflessness, or still more glorious in a setting of exotic

palm-branches or of red forest-heather, whose tiny branches are so

slender and sensitive that the heat of the day is sufficient to stir

them.

Half outstretched among these sumptuous spoils of the ransacked

gardens, the young women of the procession smiled in quiet confidence.

They relied on the pleasure stirred by their irreproachable forms

to complete their own success in the contest against the beautiful

blossoms of mother earth. For they knew full well that they themselves

were the sovereign flowers, more seductive and intoxicating than all

others, since they could supplement the still unconscious grace of

nature with the harmony of motion and the wonder of the intelligent

mind. On the splendid, supple stem of a woman’s perfect form, is not

the face set as though it were the divine calyx of beauty?

The enthusiasm of the crowd made no distinction between the charm of

earth and the charm of woman. The incessant stream of flying bouquets

was a link between the occupants of the stands and the beauties of

the procession, who bent before the tributes paid to them and, amid

the perfume that invaded earth and air alike, made their wondrous

progress over a carpet of flowers, under a rain of flowers. The popular

excitement grew still greater as the spectators saw the Allegory of

Summer approaching. On a chariot with golden wheels drawn by white

horses, ears of wheat were bound in sheaves whose gold was enhanced

by the red and blue of the poppies and cornflowers, the rubies and

sapphires of the fields. Young girls, whose flowing robes were the

color of straw, whose unbound hair streamed in fair waves, veritable

types of the supple maidens of Botticelli’s Primavera, symbolised, like

the ripe grain itself, prosperity and happiness.

“Bravo!” cried the crowd, designating this golden car to the jury

for the first prize. Isabelle Orlandi and Jean Berlier emptied their

baskets with joyful gaiety. The girl was wearing a white dress, and

her bodice, half covered by a bolero, was trimmed with pleated satin

of the color of mother-of-pearl. Pleasure intoxicated her, and her

flushed brown cheeks betrayed her quickened pulses. The two young

people reserved their hardest shots for the arrival of a few ancient

crones who were not afraid to dishonor this procession of youth by

their presence. They are to be met with at all fashionable promenades

at Nice, at Monte Carlo, at Aix. In fact, they are apparently the same

at all these functions. They try to forget or to cheat death, and their

very faces adjure us to make the best of life or remind us of the

threats of time. One of them was at last hit, and kept on her hat and

head-dress with difficulty under the shocks of the missiles. Isabelle

and Jean could no longer restrain their laughter.

Beside Alice Dulaurens, whose mauve dress trimmed with white lace

enhanced her ethereal grace, Marcel felt his will weakening and his

melancholy disappearing. A cloud of colors and scents surrounded and

enervated him. He could see nothing but flowers on the path of his

future life. At intervals, however, a strange vision would come back to

his memory, some vivid landscape of his childhood, or some dark valley

in the Colonies, and he regretted these pictures of his old enthusiasms

which he tried in vain to keep fresh. But why seek to bring back the

past when the present had so many charms? He gazed, not without that

sadness which accompanies a growing desire, at the dazzling white neck

of the girl as she bent forward to get a better view of the course of

her awkwardly thrown bouquet and he could not but admire the bloom of

her pale skin.

Alice turned to her companion, whose silence troubled her, and one look

from her blue eyes was purification to the young man’s thoughts. With

her little ungloved hand she pointed to the basket which was rapidly

emptying itself.

“Here are some flowers,” she cried. “Aren’t you going to throw any?”

She blushed as she uttered these simple words, and her extreme shyness

made her look the lovelier.

The allegorical chariot of Summer passed on, and, following a carriage

covered with vervain and roses, came the regimental break of the

dragoons quartered at Chambéry, artistically decorated with brilliant

sunflowers and big bunches of jonquils. Among the officers in uniform

the only one standing was Lieutenant de Marthenay, whose elegance was

of the rather cumbersome kind which evidences the passing of youth.

He carried a bouquet of rare and lovely orchids. It was very evident

that he was looking for someone on the stands. When he saw Mademoiselle

Dulaurens, he smiled, bowed, and made as if he would throw the bouquet

to her. This bold impertinence, drawing the public gaze upon the young

girl, vexed Marcel Guibert, who dived into Alice’s basket and with a

very efficacious zeal was the first to begin the fight with his rival.

His aim was well-calculated, but not so the strength. He struck the

Dragoon full in the face, thereby extinguishing the bright smile. De

Marthenay, taken aback, let the precious orchids fall on the ground

where they were picked up at once by a watchful collector of flowers.

Furious at this, he swept the stand with his glance, only to see

Isabelle Orlandi, who was clapping her hands and crying:

“Well hit! Three cheers for the Tirailleurs!”

Jean Berlier backed her up, amused at her exuberant spirits. De

Marthenay, however, paid no attention to their raillery. At last he

noticed Marcel Guibert’s strong, contemptuous face a little behind

Alice. But while his anger and malice grew stronger and stronger, the

Dragoon’s chariot passed on.

At every turn which brought him in front of the Dulaurens party, he

saw Alice, forgetful of the battle, talking to his rival; she seemed a

changed, absorbed, and less retiring Alice. And, every time, Isabelle

and her admirer took a spiteful joy in interrupting his observations by

incessantly bombarding him. They had the advantage of the position, and

they kept at it all the afternoon.

In the meantime an unexpected carriage had appeared in the procession.

Entirely decorated with scarlet, copper red, and orange cannas,

flame-like in shape and color, Clément Dulaurens’ motor puffed past

snorting and panting. In the brilliant daylight it looked like a raging

fire.

It was the first motor car allowed to take part in the show, and it

was by no means welcome. Its abominable smell overwhelmed the scent of

the flowers, and the horrible noise which accompanied its quivering

progress brought down upon it the wrath of the crowd, in spite of

indignant protests from some lovers of the sport.

Shouts of “Poisonous monster!” “Go to the ‘devil’” were heard.

“Fire! fire!” cried others at this wizard of the flaming flowers.

In the face of all this outcry, the young man did not try to force

public favor. He was clever enough to leave the procession and on

reaching the deserted race-course he let his swift obedient machine

go. Across the lawn he went at full speed in his flaming car like a

dazzling rocket and disappeared in the direction of the sun, but not

too soon to hear the far-off cheers which at last greeted the matchless

power of the machine and its meteor-like beauty.

Either from satiety or fatigue the battle was dying down. In vain the

flower-sellers offered their flowers at a reduction. Cradled on their

donkeys, the happy babies were the only ones who took much interest in

the show. Foreseeing that people would soon be tired of it the jury

began to distribute the prizes.

The sun was already setting on the Marlioz plain. Delicate shades of

pink, violet, gold, and mauve were dusted over the horizon like some

impalpable powder. And as the sun set, keeping to themselves all its

vanishing glory the rocks of Mount Revard spread themselves with a robe

of brilliant red, under which they seemed to quiver with joy as in a

bath of light. As he was leaving the stand after Alice, Marcel stopped

to admire this rapturous display of nature; the girl turned round to

call him and wondered at the joy in his face. He had felt in himself a

similar exaltation of all his vital forces.

The Dulaurens and their guests got into the coach awaiting them on the

road and drove back to Aix-les-Bains.

On the evening of the Battle of Flowers it is the custom to dine in

the open air, either at the Club or at the Villa, weather permitting.

The restaurants encroach upon the gardens and on the well-worn lawns;

Rows of little tables are set out, where lamps with many colored shades

shine among the trees like scintillating glow-worms.

Armand de Marthenay, who had been asked to dine with the Dulaurenses,

joined the party in the big hall of the Club. They had reserved one

of the favorite and most sheltered tables, at the end of the terrace,

for Alice was sensitive to cold and at nights a fresh breeze blew from

the mountains. The cavalry lieutenant was in a bad humor. He could not

swallow his discomfiture of the afternoon. As soon as he saw Marcel

Guibert he came up to him rashly and remarked:

“You fail to distinguish, my dear sir, between war and play.”

Marcel drew himself up to his full height. Much taller than de

Marthenay, he looked down on him contemptuously and said, “You fail to

distinguish between respect and mere gallantry.”

Hearing the sound of this dialogue and fearing a scene, Madame

Dulaurens came up to them. The title of one and the fame of the other

were equally in her mind, and it suited her vanity to have the two

officers in the party.

De Marthenay, unable to complain of the words addressed to him, tried

to find an excuse for a quarrel, when Isabelle Orlandi came up like a

whirl-wind and saved the compromising situation.

“Come here, Jean, quickly. Here is the dragoon.”

And with the unchecked caprice of a spoilt child she added quickly,

“Show me your face!”

“But, Mademoiselle Orlandi--” protested the lieutenant, growing pale.

“Just for a minute, only just for a minute.”

She pretended to examine his face and said, as though she were

presenting him to the public, “It’s simply wonderful! There’s not a

mark.”

“What do you want of me?” stammered de Marthenay.

The young girl burst out laughing and went on making fun of him.

“You can’t deny it! These colonials can shoot splendidly--You beat them

in a cotillion! But in war! Hardly!”

“I don’t understand you--”

“Oh, yes you do! You understand me perfectly. M. Guibert here has

beaten you! We applaud him because, as you know, he is our hero. Now

you are anything but a hero. When your uniform gets wet you talk about

it for a week! Besides, when one really wants to fight, one doesn’t go

into the cavalry!”

Now for a man to extricate himself wittily from the embarrassment

caused by a pretty woman’s jokes is no easy matter, and Lieutenant de

Marthenay was far from being witty. He attacked Marcel Guibert once

more.

“The ladies are your protection, sir!”

But Isabelle Orlandi did not let him go. It was she who answered:

“Oh! he needs no protection to advance him.”

Madame Dulaurens intervened at last:

“Come, Isabelle, you are not considerate.”

The girl lifted her arms heavenwards with a comical gesture:

“One must not strike an officer of the Dragoons,” she said. “Even with

flowers.”

It was a joy to her to humiliate this young man. Before life humbled

her--and she was quite determined to sacrifice everything, including

love itself, to her luxurious ideas--she gave herself up entirely to

the joy of being beautiful, coquettish, and daring.

Clément Dulaurens, arriving at this point, turned the conversation

completely by questioning Marcel about the Malagasy names which

afforded him so much amusement.

“Captain, do tell me, is Antanimbarindra Tsoksoraka a real name? Or is

it just a journalist’s invention?”

“Not at all. It is a village.”

“And Ramazombazaha?”

“He was the chief of the Hovas at the beginning of the war. Our men to

simplify matters called him _Ramasse ton bazar_.”

“There you see,” said Clément, “I’m the only one able to talk about the

Madagascar expedition with you in technical terms. And I know some even

more complicated names than these.”

During the whole scene Alice had kept nervously silent.

They sat down to dinner, and soon the little skirmish was forgotten in

the general merriment which followed a day spent in the open air and in

physical exercise.

Isabelle, less aggressive now, amused everybody including even her

enemy. Alice, seated between Marcel and Armand de Marthenay, tried

to make herself agreeable to both of them, though showing as usual

considerable reserve. When they left the table she forgot the bouquet

of cyclamen, which she had worn in her belt in the afternoon. Marcel

promptly seized it. The girl noticed this.

“Will you give it to me?” he asked, but his voice was scarcely that of

a suppliant. However, he added, “You thought so little of it that you

left it behind and the flowers are quite faded already.”

She did not answer, but she smiled and blushed. In her smile he read

her preference.

Marcel left first, to get back to Le Maupas early and not to cause his

mother needless worry. The night was so lovely that, getting out at the

station at Chambéry about 10 o’clock, he thought he would walk home. It

was but two miles of a flat country along an avenue of plane-trees and

up a little wooded hill.

He walked quickly, inhaling from time to time the still fresh scent of

the cyclamens. As he neared Le Maupas in the twofold darkness of the

night and the trees he could see just a few stars, which shone through

the leaves, their brightness augmented by the dark dome of the heavens.

Greedily he breathed the fresh, balmy air. He inflated his chest and

felt a new thrill through his whole being.

Was he in love? He did not know yet. But the sight of a young girl had

been enough to revive all his youthful fire.

A memory suddenly came to him. He felt that he was transported back

to Algiers some years ago. It was one of those never-to-be-forgotten

nights of the East, with their dark skies, their warm, soft breezes.

Alone on horseback he was riding slowly through the bush, when suddenly

his horse stopped. Round him he could see only the silhouettes of a

few stunted shrubs. Neither pats nor spurs had any effect; the animal

refused to move and his body trembled. Was there some living thing in

the shadow beside them? In the dead silence of the dark and deserted

plain some invisible presence made itself felt. But even in the face

of this mysterious peril, from which there was no escape, he did not

feel afraid. On the contrary, he felt conscious of all his strength and

energy.

With a violent effort he forced his horse forward until it galloped

away into the darkness. And he never knew if the animal had shuddered

at some imaginary fear or if they really had passed within reach of

death....

Why should this memory come back to him at this hour? He lived through

the same strange feelings of that night of long ago. As then, he

guessed at an unknown danger; he could not tell if it were a future of

joy or of sorrow that was awaiting him. But he felt all his power now

as he did then. He put his hand to his breast, inhaled deep breaths of

the soft, fragrant night air, and drew himself up to his full height;

then intoxicated with hope and pride he began to run.

When he stopped, the inexplicable sense of danger which had visited him

had not vanished; it was alive within him.

In the wood the soft night sighed sadly.... And later Marcel had reason

to remember this hour when he had run through the shadows towards

something intoxicating and to be feared--which was love.

CHAPTER IV

A MORNING AT LA CHÊNAIE

“I’ve come to take away your children,” said Jean Berlier to Madame

Guibert after he had shaken hands with her.

“Don’t take them from me, please,” she answered softly. And she smiled

her delicate sweet smile. The young man had surprised her seated under

the chestnut trees at work, near the front of the old house. She had

put on her spectacles to see the stitches of her needlework. Soon she

called to Marcel and Paule, who were walking about in the garden at a

little distance. And when they were coming down the weed-grown path she

inquired almost timidly:

“Are you going to La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Jean, “for a game of croquet or tennis.”

Then, as if he regretted his words, he added:

“If you like, Madame, I will say no more about it.”

“Oh, no. Marcel needs diversion and exercise--he has been used to an

active life. And my little Paule has lived too long with her old

mother.”

She never gives a thought to herself and her loneliness.

Madame Guibert always welcomed Jean almost maternally. When quite a

little child he had played at Le Maupas as one of her own. He was

the only son of a barrister, who was the glory of the Chambéry bar.

An orphan at an early age, Jean had been brought up by rather an

eccentric, original old uncle, brother to the boy’s mother, who forgot

everybody, even his nephew, in his devotion to his garden. This M.

Loigny lived near the town, on the Cognin road, in a little house

smothered in roses. He cultivated his garden and edited a guide to

the names of roses. Thus every minute of his life was taken up, and

he never quite knew how long it was when Jean was away on duty in the

Algerian Tirailleurs. When he came home every eighteen months on leave,

his uncle immediately told him all about his latest discoveries in the

rose family, thereby thinking he was giving him proofs of the greatest

affection!

When Marcel and Paule appeared in the Avenue, Jean told them that they

were expected at La Chênaie.

“And too,” he said to Marcel, “you owe Madame Dulaurens a call after

the Battle of Flowers, don’t you? This is a good opportunity of paying

it and getting a game of croquet at the same time.”

“That is true,” agreed the captain.

“You will come with us, Mademoiselle Paule?” asked Jean Berlier.

But Paule refused, saying she was in bad humor. Marcel looked at

her sadly, and Jean regarded her with sympathetic curiosity. He

remembered having played long ago in this same courtyard with a child

of overflowing spirits, brighter and jollier than any boy. He now found

in her place a young woman, reserved and proud, even in the company

of playfellows. And yet he could not refrain from admiring her tall,

graceful figure, slight but strong, and her dark eyes from which the

light seemed to flash. He would like to have met on the old terms of

friendship with his little Paule. In the presence of this cold and

beautiful Paule he felt an awkwardness and a vague anxiety that he

dared not analyse.

“Jean,” said Madame Guibert suddenly, “I want to scold you.”

“No, please, don’t scold me,” said the young man, putting on the

grimace of a naughty child.

He was proverbially good-tempered, and the sight of him was enough to

brighten the faces of all who knew him.

“We are your oldest friends, and yet Mademoiselle Dulaurens was the

first to tell us about the most important event in your life!”

“What most important event?” said Jean, in pretended astonishment.

Paule got up and walked towards the house as if she had some very

important duty there.

“Your marriage,” said Madame Guibert.

“My marriage! To whom, in heaven’s name?”

“To Mademoiselle Isabelle Orlandi.”

Madame Guibert, who always meant what she said, had believed the tale

of Madame Dulaurens. But Jean Berlier began to laugh.

“Oh, she was talking of my little flirtation! But I’m sure you don’t

know the meaning of the English word flirtation.”

Paule went slowly up the steps. She had laid her hand upon her breast

as if she were breathing with difficulty and then she quickened her

step. Passing before the drawing-room mirror she stopped, surprised at

her own beauty. The friendly daylight showed her a more charming face

than she had expected to see. She smiled sadly at her image and her

smile meant to say, “What is the good of being beautiful if you have

no dowry? What is the good of having all this tenderness and devotion

burning in an empty heart like a lamp in a deserted sanctuary.” At

the same time she felt an involuntary consolation at the sight of her

unavailing charm.

Jean’s face wore the serious air of a scientist explaining a problem.

“Flirtation means the love one makes to girls one doesn’t marry,” said

he.

“In French we call that _conter fleurette_,” said Madame Guibert.

“You are wrong, Jean. I am an old woman, so listen to me. The game is

never an equal one. Girls always expect to find a husband. You deceive

their lawful hopes, and you amuse yourself with them at the cost of

their peace of mind and their better feelings.”

The young man listened to this little sermon with a respectful smile.

“I love to hear you talk like that,” he said. “But I see that the

modern girl is a stranger to you.”

“To me too,” said Marcel. “Do you often go to La Chênaie?”

“Yes, I am too active to spend all my days at Villa Rose. My uncle

is always afraid that I shall walk on his flower beds. He lives in a

constant state of alarm, and sighs with relief when he sees the last of

me. But the household at La Chênaie is so interesting.”

“Really?” said Marcel, trying rather ineffectively not to appear

interested.

“It affords a thousand different ways of killing time--which is the

enemy it is most in dread of--and in spite of it all it does sometimes

experience what it is to have nothing to do. Madame Dulaurens bustles

about, sends out her invitations, writes menus or accounts of her

At Homes for the society papers. M. Dulaurens, the ceremonious and

punctilious, arranges his library, which nobody is ever allowed to

disturb, greets his wife’s guests, agrees with his wife’s slightest

word and by his attitude of adoration constantly begs forgiveness of

this thoroughly aristocratic person for his plebeian origin. Young

Clément runs over dogs in his car. Happily he has done nothing worse

until the present time.”

“And Alice?” Madame Guibert asked innocently.

The young man’s answer was full of tact.

“Mademoiselle Alice is waiting for something to happen. It cannot fail

to be pleasant for her.”

“But do you see only the Dulaurenses at La Chênaie?” said Marcel.

“They have their guests too. There is Madame Orlandi, for instance.

Madame Orlandi has come back to the town of her birth to mourn her

lost beauty rather than her husband. She lived in Florence when she

was young and lovely. When her youth departed she retired from society

and from Italy. The loss of her fortune made that necessary. She has

had all the mirrors taken away from her rooms; they are all in her

daughter’s room, it is said. She has none but young and pretty maids

and is covered with jewels as thick as a reliquary. She spends the day

in taking out and putting back these witnesses of her former triumphs.

However, she manages to find time to look after an awful pug called

Pistache, of which she is much fonder than of her daughter.”

“And now we have come to the point,” said Marcel, “after a long way

round!”

“Mademoiselle Isabelle is charming. She knows that she owes it to her

beauty to marry a millionaire. She will not fail to do that. Her mother

and I are both encouraging her.”

“Oh dear!” cried Madame Guibert, who had stopped her work.

“She needs no encouragement,” continued the young man. “These Italians

are very practical. And then Mademoiselle De Songeon, whose thin,

aristocratic, old-maid’s face is for ever to be seen at La Chênaie, is

not the least curious of the lot.”

“I know her,” interrupted Madame Guibert. “She is a saint. She looks

after all kinds of charitable works and spends a precious life in

religious meetings and going on pilgrimages.”

“Say rather in being president and making trips,” suggested Jean. “She

has a love of wandering about and of ruling over others. She gives her

orders and keeps on the move, and pretends to be religiously employed

when in reality she uses religion as a means of gratifying her twofold

passion. The story goes that she extorts money from her debtors like

a Jew so that she may pay her duties to God in the most fashionable

sanctuaries.”

Madame Guibert tried to stop him.

“My dear Jean,” she cried, “what are you talking about? You will make

us believe that you are very unkind.”

“It is only unkind gossip,” said the young man. “Forgive me, I spoke

too freely, as I should to my family if I had one.”

And hastening to cover the regret he expressed in his last words, he

added:

“Here I feel happy. I came here as a little child. But please don’t

talk to me of Mademoiselle de Songeon. A saint, indeed, is she? Oh, no!

Now you, Madame Guibert, _are_ one.”

Madame Guibert, in spite of her age, could never hear herself praised

without blushing. Her courage was only of the inward kind. She

protested:

“Jean, what are you saying? God has spoilt me. That’s all.”

The young man looked with surprise at this elderly woman in mourning,

her face withered with sorrow, her eyes constantly filled with tears,

who, nevertheless, could thank God for her trials. She noticed his

expression.

“Yes, God overwhelmed me with blessings before taking them from me.

And now, if I tremble for my children scattered all over the world,

for _him_--” she pointed to Marcel--“who has been through so many

dangers, how can I help being proud of their courage and their work? Is

not their life my life?”

Jean was moved; he rose and took Madame Guibert’s hand, and kissed it

respectfully.

“You are a saint, I told you you were. When I see you I grow better

and I no longer want to scatter my life to the four winds, I want to

imitate your sons. But I have no mother.”

He saw Paule coming down the steps. She had her hat on and on her face

was an expression of new life.

“Oh, Mademoiselle Paule, you have made up your mind?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is so fine, and Marcel is cross when I stay at

home.”

She kissed her mother and left for La Chênaie with the two young men,

with whose long steps she could hardly keep pace.

The gate of La Chênaie is reached by the uphill road from Chaloux,

which rises above the town of Cognin. An avenue of plane-trees leads

across the park to the villa, which is spacious and trim and has a

view extending as far as the Lake of Bourget, surrounded by mountains

which throw their heavy shadows upon its waters. On this side, lawns

without a tree, laid out as a tennis court and a croquet green, leave

the view unobstructed, while behind the house a wood of venerable oak

trees offers shelter in the summer.

The Dulaurenses were noted for making their guests comfortable and for

leaving them at liberty to amuse themselves. When Paule arrived with

her brother and Jean, they had just finished a game of croquet and a

circle was grouped around Isabelle Orlandi, who was talking in a low

voice and waving her hands.

“And his name is Landeau,” she was just saying.

“Whose name?” asked Jean, as he joined the group of listeners.

“My fiancé’s.”

And the girl burst into a harsh, discordant laugh--almost a shriek. She

gave her hand to the young man.

“How do you do, Jean?”

She called him by his Christian name, on the pretext of having met him

once when he was quite a small boy.

“Here is a red mallet. Let us stop this game. Nobody is interested in

it now. Let us begin again. I shall take you on my side.”

She rearranged the game as she wished and appeared for a minute to be

very absorbed in it. Jean’s ball came to the rescue of hers, which with

a skilful shot she had sent flying into the grass, far away from the

hoops. They made the best use of this privacy for which they had been

wishing.

“Yes,” she said, and he noticed her pallor as she spoke--“I have to

tell you of my coming marriage to a Lyons manufacturer. A business

marriage!”

“My congratulations.”

“Thank you. He has several millions and some prosperous factories.

He has promised my lawyer to make a good settlement. After that, you

understand, it matters very little that he is ugly, in the forties, and

burdened with a ridiculous name.”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t that so?”

They were recalled and scolded for delaying. In vain their partners

tried to revive their interest. It was entirely their fault that their

side lost the game.

Going back to the drawing-room for refreshments, they managed to

precede the many groups slowly making their way up the lawn and went

round the villa. Thus they arrived last. As they were walking Isabelle

suddenly asked her companion:

“Jean, can you understand that one might marry with love in one’s

heart?”

“Love for one’s husband, do you mean?”

“You are joking.”

He was indeed joking, not wishing to understand. But, as at the very

moment he was looking at an ugly slug dragging itself over a rose in

the courtyard, he felt very tenderly and regretfully for Isabelle’s

sacrificed beauty.

“Better to love before than after,” was all he could say in the end.

“Oh, if you love before you love after, too.”

He turned the conversation, for he was struggling against his feelings.

Never had he experienced such a passion for that masterful profile,

those bold eyes, those red and sensual lips, those brilliant teeth, all

that abounding youthful grace.

“Am I not a wizard? I foretold your marriage that evening in the

railway carriage.”

“Yes, my mother has often told me, ‘My dear, after a week all men are

the same--fortune and youth are both fleeting things, but the first

alone can bestow a prize upon the second.’”

“Your mother is a wise woman,” said Jean.

“Everybody is so in Italy. Poetry is only a matter of language with

them.”

Suddenly, with that naturalness which was her greatest charm and which

led her into the most unexpected outbursts, she began to cry. And, as

he stood bewildered and not knowing how to show his concern, she asked

him:

“Why don’t _you_ marry me?”

Confused as he was, he answered, nevertheless, quickly enough.

“I could not take you with me to Africa.”

“You could go in for business. You would make a lot of money. M.

Landeau would help you.” At the thought of the curious rôle that

she was giving M. Landeau she laughed heartily which completely won

the young man. As they threaded the avenue of plane-trees she took

advantage of the deep shadow of a tree to offer her cheek.

“Kiss me to console me!”

Jean was still thrilling at the contact with the fresh young cheek when

Isabelle renewed her attack.

“What a pity!” she said. “Why aren’t you a millionaire?”

“That is what I should like to know,” sighed Jean.

Madame Dulaurens pointed to the vanishing figure of the girl after Jean

and Isabelle had outdistanced the first group whom she was leading to

the drawing-room.

“Instead of blaming her, I quite approve of what she has done. This

marriage shows her great strength of character. After all, she has no

fortune.”

The chorus of rich friends quite agreed with this remark. Encouraged,

she continued, after throwing a careful glance behind her:

“Look at Paule Guibert, on the other hand. She wouldn’t marry M.

Landeau. Not a penny, and such a deadly creature! How can you expect

her ever to marry?”

“Still,” said one lady, “her father sacrificed all his property to save

his brother. It was splendid.”

“To save the name of Guibert? It would have been better if he had saved

his money. Who remembers anything about it now?”

“Forgetfulness is quicker than death,” remarked a sententious male

guest.

Madame Dulaurens went on: “Poor Paule was much admired by Lieutenant

Sinard at a costume ball I gave a few years ago--before the doctor’s

death. He was very serious about it. But he came in for three hundred

thousand francs. Of course, after that, he had quite different ideas.”

“Oh, well, of course,” chimed in the chorus of the faithful, “he could

never again think of her.”

A few steps behind, Madame Orlandi made her way slowly under her heavy

burden of flesh. The critical eye of Mademoiselle de Songeon was upon

her as she panted out her confused account of the benefits of the new

situation.

“My daughter had great difficulty in making up her mind. But M.

Landeau is a man of principles--and, what is not to be despised, of

large fortune.”

The “principles” were introduced to placate the lady president, who

asked, “Has he given up work?”

“Oh, no, he still works. He is a director. He commands thousands of

workmen--a real general!”

“But,” the old maid muttered dryly, “in my time, no one in our set

would have married a business man.”

Jean Berlier and Isabelle, having completed their tour of the villa,

came out from behind the shrubbery. The young man took great pleasure

in baiting Mademoiselle de Songeon, and the last sentence immediately

provoked his intervention.

“That is all changed now, Mademoiselle. It is the misfortune of the

age. Formerly nobility meant doing nothing, nowadays, it is the result

of labor, which is a moral obligation rather than a physical necessity.

The world is upside down; it is the bad people who don’t work now.”

But the Honorary President of the White Cross of Savoy, of the Bread

Club of St. Anthony, and patroness of several workshops, stared at him

haughtily and answered somewhat acidly:

“Those who have kept pigs on earth will keep them in heaven too.”

“Is that from the Gospel?” asked the mocking Jean.

Alice meanwhile had remained behind with Paule and Marcel Guibert. Her

step was rather weary, and the young man asked her if she were tired.

“Here is a bench,” he said. “Do rest awhile.”

“No, thank you. I am all right. Let us go in.”

There was a touch of the imaginary invalid in her charming smile, as

she added:

“It is the burden of these long summer days. Don’t you think they are

very depressing?”

Marcel was astonished.

“I have never given it a thought,” he said. “I love the sun as the

bringer of life. And I love long days, for they seem to lengthen our

time on earth.”

Paule was silent and absent-minded, her eyes turned toward the house.

She recognised a visitor who was ringing at the big gate.

“It is Monsieur de Marthenay,” she said.

Alice’s clear eyes clouded over and the color vanished from her cheeks.

She sat down on the seat which she had just refused and invited Paule

to do the same.

“Stay here with me, dear, please.”

And turning to Marcel gracefully, she said:

“There is no room for you. But I’m sure that you aren’t tired.”

“No, indeed,” he replied. Then, after a pause, “Do you know that absurd

Arab proverb, ‘It is better to be seated than to stand, better to lie

down than to sit, and better to be dead than to lie down?’”

“I did not know it, but I like it,” said Alice.

A profound depression, as unaccountable as a child’s despair, was

visible in her sweet young face. She bent toward the silent Paule.

“I envy you, Paule. You are so strong and splendid. I am so weak. If

you only knew how weak I am! I have no strength at all.”

And with her lovely sad eyes she fixed Marcel as if speaking to him

and asking for his help. Why did she pity herself so? And why did she

shrink from M. de Marthenay?

“At your age,” Marcel said, “how can one disbelieve in happiness?”

Instead of these commonplace words he thirsted to give her the comfort

of his own strength. And Paule, a prey at this moment to doubt and

bitterness, still kept silence in disdainful astonishment at being

envied by this friend whose life had been spared so much and who could

arrange her fate according to her own will.

The sun had gone down behind Mount Lépine. But before their eyes the

evening sky was glorious in a golden veil whose reflection fell

languidly on the waters of Lake Bourget. Le Revard and the Mont du

Chat, whose summits still shone in the light, tried desperately to

catch the last of the day of which their lofty heights had given them

so large a share. And the plain stretched out in a haze of blue and

pink, which spread over all things like a fall of flower-petals and

effaced all distinctions of shape and space.

“Look,” said Paule at last, pointing to the skyline.

The two girls rose at once to catch the effect of the sunset on the

lake to better advantage. Marcel had eyes for Alice only, in her white

robe, looking like a tall, graceful lily, her pure profile outlined

against the gold of the sky like the haloed angels of the pious

Quatrocentist painters. She turned slowly towards him, her long lashes

quivering over her dazzled eyes, and smiled at him gently as she said:

“I can look no longer. The sun hurts my eyes.”

Paule thought of the time when she and her brothers loved to stare at

the sun itself without lowering their eyelids. But Marcel, stirred in

spite of himself by the sight of so fragile a beauty, felt his heart

beat furiously, and was full of those longings for sacrifice which

accompany the dawn of love.

“Alice,” came the voice of Madame Dulaurens, “you must not stay out in

the cold air.”

A little later Marcel and Paule left. They got back to Le Maupas by a

path half hidden under the grass which borders the Forezan ravine and

crosses a wood of beech and birch before joining the Vimines road.

Through the foliage an occasional glimpse could be caught of a pink and

mauve sky, a sky of happy omen. And yet the brother and sister were

silent, lost in their own thoughts.

“You weren’t bored, Paule, were you?” asked Marcel at last.

“I? No, I went to La Chênaie to please you. Are you pleased?”

He did not answer at once. Without looking at Paule, whose sadness

he had not noticed owing to his own absorption, he began to tell his

secret in the darkness of the woods.

“If I asked her to marry me, what would you say?”

Paule had expected this confidence, and yet she trembled. Her dark eyes

were fixed on the path, strewn now with the dark leaves of other years,

and bathed in the violet evening light. She answered almost harshly:

“Her parents will refuse.”

“Why?” asked he, and love gave place for a moment to pride.

“Because you haven’t a title.”

“But neither have they. And besides, what does that matter nowadays?”

“Oh, their set retains its prejudices.”

“But if she wishes it herself?”

“She has no will of her own.”

“And if she loves me?”

“She will cry,” said Paule.

It was her own despair, which nobody must know, which she must crush in

silence and mystery, that made her give these cruel answers. Marcel,

his sensitive feelings hurt, lengthened his steps as he climbed the

hill and drew himself up as straight as a young oak-tree. But Paule at

last, choking down all thought of self, hastened to catch up with him

and took his hand in hers. She spoke in a voice quivering with emotion.

“Listen, Marcel, I spoke hastily just now. I was in bad humor. Forgive

me, I was wrong. Yes, I know that I was wrong. I saw to-day that she

liked you. And her mother lavishes favors and kindnesses upon you.”

Marcel listened to her, but his face was still melancholy.

Paule went on. “You see, since father died there have been so many

changes that my character has become embittered, no doubt. I cannot

bear people who belittle everything we admire and make fun of all

our enthusiasms. You saw that Isabelle Orlandi? But if Alice became

your wife, how quickly she would change! She is so good, so sweet and

gentle. And then she is so lovely.”

“Yes,” he agreed sadly. “She is lovely.”

It grew darker in the woods. The slim trunks of the birches and beeches

mingled with the blackness of their foliage. But beyond the trees the

brother and sister emerged again into the lingering summer twilight

which refused to give place to night.

As they came in sight of Le Maupas, Marcel stopped short.

“No, you are not wrong. But speak to Alice. Explain to her my past, my

future, all that is my pride--my only fortune. I would carry her off to

Algiers, which is an enchanted town.”

She understood and, looking tenderly at her brother, said:

“Ah, if you love her, that’s different. I will do as you wish.”

“Speak to her to-morrow,” he insisted. “We are going to breakfast at La

Chênaie with Mademoiselle Orlandi’s fiancé.”

“To-morrow? So soon?” was all she said. The invitation had not been

given to her personally. But she gave no thought to this discourtesy,

and added:

“Wouldn’t it be better to speak to her parents?”

“No,” he answered decidedly, “I don’t want our mother to run the risk

of taking a useless step.”

And as they passed through the gate she murmured:

“I want you to be happy!”

He smiled, but not at all confidently.

“Don’t say anything to Mother yet. She doesn’t like that set. Neither

do I.” Still he had to admit his weakness at the end.

“But I do love _her_!” he concluded.

CHAPTER V

ALICE’S SECRET

A plebeian husband and a woman of the aristocracy have not yet come to

be regarded in French provincial life as making a good match. They are

called “half bloods,” and they cannot make any pretensions to race.

They are the object of ridicule when the husband allows the wife to

dwell incessantly on her origin, in order to conceal the humbleness of

his own, and even to have her maiden name added on her visiting cards.

M. Dulaurens had learnt through his home life to appreciate the force

of aristocratic prejudice. His newly acquired royalism was extreme and

uncompromising. All titles dazzled him, even those distributed by the

cynical republic of San Marino in return for cash; but even to these

latter, in his humility, he did not dare to aspire. This deferential

attitude did not entirely console Madame Dulaurens for having married

beneath her; but at least she could thus gratify her taste for ruling.

Even as she ruled her husband and her household, so too she ruled her

children, and more especially Alice. She belonged to that order of

mothers who confuse their own happiness with that of their daughters,

and are quite sincere in thinking that they are working for the

latter when in reality they are working only for the former. Her

maternal affection was of the absorbing character of passion itself

and satisfied the lack in her life which marriage had been unable to

supply. That morning she was carefully mapping out the future of Alice,

to whom she had, just as a matter of form, submitted M. de Marthenay’s

proposal. But above all she was taken up with the luncheon party which

she was giving in honor of Isabelle Orlandi’s engagement. She got up

abruptly from her armchair every now and then to give some order. In

the process she forgot to notice Alice or to obtain her consent. She

was like one of those conquerors who cannot conceive of any obstacle to

their plans. Her treatment, indeed, of the eminently serious subject

was somewhat free and easy--for she had long had it in mind, and looked

upon it already as one of those family compacts which are natural and,

so to speak, inevitable.

Coming back for the third time from the kitchen, which she did deign

to visit, she enumerated all the advantages of this match. “His is a

very old and perfectly genuine title. Good connections. Not much money

certainly, but our aristocrats are not shop-keepers. And Armand is

very good-looking.”

There was a knock at the door, and the frightened butler came in with

uplifted hands.

“Madame, I am sorry to have to tell Madame that the ice cream is not

hardening in the freezer!”

“Put more ice and some more salt into it then,” said Madame Dulaurens

shortly, continuing as soon as the door was shut:

“And then, my dear girl, I shall be able to keep you near me. You know,

I absolutely insisted on that. I made that an essential condition of

your acceptance. Armand has promised me never to leave Chambéry. If

some day he is appointed to another place, he would give up his post

and that would settle it. He has agreed to that, so we shall never be

separated.” She was prepared to give way to tears at this juncture,

when there was another knock.

“Come in,” she said impatiently.

It was the gardener bringing in flowers for the table, to receive her

compliments.

“Alice, do look at these carnations,” said Madame Dulaurens Hurriedly,

“and the jessamine and roses. They are very nice, Pierre, thank you.”

At last she glanced at her daughter. Alice’s silence surprised her.

The girl was deathly pale and kept her eyes cast to the ground. When

she raised them she met her mother’s gaze and, unable to bear it any

longer, burst into tears. Madame Dulaurens took her in her arms.

“Dearest, what is the matter?” she said.

“I don’t know. Why do you want to marry me off so soon? I am quite

happy. Keep me here still, mother darling.”

Madame Dulaurens stroked the girl’s head and her cheeks as she used to

do when Alice was a child.

“But I am not going to lose you, my sweet. Have I not explained that

you are not going to leave me?” she added with a smile, though still

rather anxiously:

“Think what a lovely Countess of Marthenay you will make, dear! And

don’t you like the Count?”

“Oh, I don’t know!”

It was her frightened way of refusing, Madame Dulaurens had a

presentiment of it.

“We will fix the wedding for any day you choose,” said she.

At this sentence, which gave a very present reality to the dreaded

event, Alice shuddered and in a heartrending voice entreated:

“No, no, I can’t do it. Oh, mother, mother!”

Madame Dulaurens was stupefied by this simultaneous blow at her

affection and her will. But woman of the world as she was, she thought

the time for an explanation badly chosen.

“Dear heart, be calm. I quite understand your feelings. It will all be

arranged. It is just lunch-time, and our friends are arriving. Dry your

tears quickly, do, dear. Trust in your mother.”

Alice had succeeded in regaining her calm when a servant announced that

Madame and Mademoiselle Orlandi were in the drawing-room.

As she went down first to receive her visitors, Madame Dulaurens

reflected. She was not unduly disturbed by Alice’s strange refusal,

seeing in it only one of those girlish whims which spring up so easily

and as quickly die again. But she felt she knew the cause and blamed

herself.

“It was I who brought Captain Guibert here,” she thought. “It is all my

fault. And what an absurd idea to ask him here to lunch to-day!”

In her anger against the young man, in whom she already saw the

obstacle to her plans, she was not far from considering herself his

benefactress and accusing him therefore of ingratitude, because she

attached no little importance to her invitations as a passport to

celebrity for her guests.

After lunch, Madame Dulaurens was unable to repress a certain new

disquiet. Looking for Alice, as she kept doing constantly, she saw her

through the drawing-room window, going towards the oakwood on Paule

Guibert’s arm.

All the time she was entertaining Madame Orlandi and Mademoiselle de

Songeon with her smiles and graces she was saying to herself:

“I am quite certain she is being influenced by that wheedling little

creature, who is trying to get her for her own brother.”

And turning to the Captain, who was talking to M. Dulaurens and M.

Landeau, she noticed that his eyes were following the two girls.

“I wasn’t wrong,” she said to herself. “The danger is there.”

Little used to reflection and impatient of every discussion which

could lessen her authority, she never asked herself whether she could

trust Alice’s future to this honourable man; whether, indeed, it was

not her duty to do so, should her child’s love have involuntarily been

given to him. She quite understood, without admitting it to herself,

that a comparison could only be unfavorable to M. de Marthenay, who

had already been mixed up in a disgraceful liaison and whose military

career was without glory or promise. Instinctively she put from her

the thought of any possible rivalry which could at the last moment

disturb an arrangement to which she had irrevocably made up her mind,

an arrangement which flattered at once her insufferable conceit and her

still more overbearing motherly pride. As she chose for her daughter

what she would have chosen for herself, she was in no doubt as to the

wisdom of her choice and her own disinterestedness.

In the meantime Isabelle Orlandi, stopping Jean Berlier as he was going

up to join the group of men, whispered:

“What do you think of him?”

“Of whom?”

“M. Landeau.”

“I don’t think one way or the other,” Jean replied.

“He doesn’t talk much, but he says all he thinks.”

She laughed, showing her white teeth, which reflected the light, and

for the second time Jean found her laugh ring false. He thought of the

songs one hears at night in the country, sung by a belated pedestrian

frightened at the solitude.

Silent and motionless, M. Landeau devoured his fiancée with his eyes.

It was very evident that he felt for her one of those passions that

increases instead of lessening with the decline of youth, when it

suddenly attacks a heart which has until then been a stranger to love.

He was already a middle-aged man, and his clumsy, squarely-built figure

lacked distinction. He was little used to society and was easily

disconcerted by the light and airy graces which are its very life and

soul. The dashing elegance of Jean Berlier, who was only twenty-five,

accentuated still more by contrast his own age and clumsiness. From

afar he gazed at Isabelle, splendid and beautiful in her white dress,

like an idol whom he dared not approach. And she seemed oblivious of

everything, even of the unpleasing presence of her millionaire slave.

Through the oak-branches, the sun’s rays filtered on the soil of the

wood which was covered with a brown carpet of the leaves of past years.

The two girls walked slowly along the path arm in arm. They passed from

sunshine to shade, and from shadow to sunshine again. Amid the shelter

of the old straight-limbed trees they felt the peace all about them.

Alice of the golden locks was dressed in pink. Paule’s dark hair and

mourning dress brought out the paleness of her skin. The fine weather

made them both happy, and almost unconsciously they renewed their

friendship of the convent days and from time to time they stopped to

smile at each other.

Meanwhile neither noticed the other’s excitement. Each had a great

secret. Alice, who thought herself very brave since the scene of the

morning, was burning to be worthy of her friend’s confidence. Paule,

stirred to the depths of her nature, was thinking about the brother

whose affection she was about to reveal.

“Paule,” said Alice, “do you remember our talks at the Sacred Heart?”

“I seldom think about them now,” replied Paule.

“One day we were talking about marriage. Raymonde Ortaire, in the class

above us, was always discussing the subject. She said, ‘I shall never

marry anybody but a rich aristocrat.’ Then we all told in turn what our

ideal was. I could only whisper, ‘I don’t know!’ And you, Paule, I see

you now with your dark eyes--your lovely dark eyes which shine most at

night or in trouble. You said, as if you despised all our ideas, ‘To

marry is to love and nothing else.’ Raymonde laughed, but we felt like

slapping her!”

“You too?” said Paule, with affectionate irony.

“Certainly, I too. Does that surprise you? If you had heard me this

morning you would not be at all astonished.”

A little flush in Alice’s pure cheeks gave her animation which

heightened her charm, and her walk seemed less languid and weary than

usual. Paule, who loved the sweetness of her features though she

thought them weak, was surprised at this new spirit and immediately

felt that it was a good omen for her mission.

“This morning?” she repeated questioningly.

“This very morning,” said Alice solemnly, “I refused to marry.”

She said no more, so that she might enjoy the effect of this. It is

always pleasant for a girl to give someone to understand that she has

refused suitors. A more delicate thought made her add:

“You promise to keep the secret? I shall not even tell you his name.”

Paule, who had guessed it already, smiled rather uneasily. Quivering

with excitement, she waited for explanations. Already she trembled for

him who had sent her on his errand.

“Would it be indiscreet if I asked why you refused?”

Alice stopped. A golden ray, which shot through the leaves, fell

directly on her fair hair. Her supple form bent forward a little and

she cried, radiant as a spring flower.

“To marry means to love and nothing else!”

“You don’t love anyone then?”

“No.”

“Nobody?” persisted Paule.

“Nobody.”

But the girl blushed. Was it at her own words, whose boldness shocked

her natural reserve, or from a sudden fear that she had distorted the

truth?

Paule came to her and put her arm round the slender waist. Then

clasping her quite close in the quiet shelter of the wood she murmured

quickly, almost timidly, astonished at herself for daring to say what

she did:

“Don’t you know that Marcel loves you? He has given you all his heart.

Will you consent to be his wife, Alice? He hopes for no happiness

except from you alone.”

They were both equally affected and both dropped their eyes to the dead

leaves which lay at their feet. At the same moment they both looked up

again, blushed, and with a graceful movement embraced each other, and

burst into tears.

Paule recovered herself first. She looked with new eyes at this

exquisite being leaning on her shoulder, who without uttering a word

had become her sister. Alice, meanwhile, a prey to delicious emotion,

feared its force and thirsted to feel it always at her heart, accused

herself for giving way to it and readily gave way. This first encounter

with love made her see into the secret corners of her soul, still so

unformed and child-like. Her heart unfolded like some rose-bud, which

in the evening seems still closed and next morning one finds with its

opening calyx wet with dew.

“You will say ‘Yes’?” asked Paule softly. And in a voice as thin as a

breath of air Alice at last whispered, “Yes.”

Hand in hand they continued their walk, one listening to the happiness

singing within her and the other forgetful of self, and tasting in all

its fulness this joy which was not for her.

“You are my sister,” said Paule, “and I love you. Marcel deserves to be

happy. He has been so kind to us, I cannot tell you how kind. After my

father’s death we lived through some dreadful times. But my brother,

though so far away, helped us, with all his strength and resources.”

Alice listened to this praise with conflicting emotions. Paule’s words

brought an element of awkwardness into the conversation. Alice thought

nothing of money and did not know its importance. But she could not

imagine a love story without an appropriate setting. Ignorant of life,

she had conceived a wrong idea of the relative importance of vital

matters. And how indeed could she have met it in all its truth?

These were but dim and fleeting impressions. Alice did not regret

that she had said “Yes.” Marcel loved her, and dear Paule at her side

spoke so kindly to her. Feeling the need, however, of reinforcing her

courage, she questioned her friend about the future.

“What must we do now?”

“My mother will come to La Chênaie to ask for your hand. You must

prepare your mother and father. Your mother adores you and surely

wants only to make you happy. And M. Dulaurens will willingly listen to

your mother.”

The oak-trees which sheltered the two girls at this moment were so

thick of foliage that no light could penetrate them. Alice had become

suddenly thoughtful and awoke from her glowing love-dream to that

reality whose approach she instinctively dreaded.

“Should I have to go away with ... Marcel?” she asked.

When she was a child she had always called him by his Christian name.

Now she scarce dared pronounce the two syllables which seemed to burn

her lips.

“Of course, when you are his wife,” said Paule, astonished.

“Yes, yes, of course. But shall we go very far?”

“To Algiers.”

“Oh, that is so far away. My mother will never give her consent.”

Her beautiful eyes were troubled. She already saw her happiness taking

flight.

“Perhaps he would give up Algiers for the time being to please you. But

don’t spoil his career, Alice. I think it is always dangerous to do

that, and Marcel’s is so promising.”

“Oh, you know, Paule dear, I am not a heroine. I shall never be a

Guibert. But he has been brave enough, has he not?”

Paule could hardly keep from laughing.

“You can never be too brave,” she said. “We who have no outside life,

Alice, who have to stay at home, can at least help our brothers, our

husbands, our sons, by our strong and understanding love. We must show

our preference for those men who are brave and of some use in the

world.”

“I have never thought about these things,” said Alice.

“And yet you love Marcel?”

“If he ceased to be useful to his country I should love him just as

well,” Alice replied.

“Ah,” said Paule softly, as if talking to herself. “For my part, I

should never dare to spoil my husband’s career.”

Her companion scarcely heard. She was following her own train of

thought.

“Since he loves me, could he not stay with me, near his mother and my

family? We should be so happy! Our fortune would be quite enough for

both of us.”

“He would not accept that,” answered Paule. And forgetting her mission

of peace in an access of pride, she answered contemptuously:

“So you would not go with him?”

Alice noticed the scorn and answered somewhat angrily:

“Of course, I would go with him everywhere. For I love him, as you

know. I am quite ready. But ...” She hesitated for a moment, and then

she murmured mournfully:

“There is my mother.”

“Your mother loves you and wishes for your happiness above everything.”

“No doubt. But she wishes that I should enjoy it near her, so that she

can enjoy it too. Isn’t that only natural?”

Paule thought of her own mother, who had borne so many separations and

who had never turned her children from their path. She was silent and

her dark eyes sparkled no more. Alice took her hand, and then releasing

it she began to cry.

“Paule, I’m afraid, I’m so afraid. But I love you so.”

It was to Marcel that these passionate words were addressed--through

the medium of Paule. The latter soothed the timid girl as she might a

little sister of her own.

“Someone is coming,” she said suddenly, hearing a noise among the

leaves. “Take care.”

“Will they see that I have been crying?”

“No, hardly. Don’t rub your eyes.” And in a low voice she murmured, “Be

brave. You promise me that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Dear little sister!”

Alice smiled, comforted by this sweet name.

At the bend of the path appeared Isabelle Orlandi, accompanied by Jean

Berlier. She was talking with an almost feverish animation.

“Look,” she said to the two girls as they joined her--and she showed

her left hand, on which a ruby and an emerald glistened.

“Two engagement rings!” she said.

“Two engagement rings?” repeated Alice, amused.

“Yes, M. Landeau is very generous. If you could only see my jewels!

They will fill a big box. I had to choose an ornament, and as I

hesitated between the best of them my very kind fiancé, with a

magnificent gesture, simply said, ‘Keep the lot!’ So I kept them all to

please Mamma. And look at this lorgnette with its handle encrusted with

precious stones.”

“But your eyes are quite good,” said Jean.

Isabelle acknowledged the compliment with a curtsey.

“That doesn’t matter. It’s smart to use one,” she said.

As she was dilating on her good fortune, Madame Dulaurens, escorted by

Captain Guibert and M. Landeau appeared.

Uneasy at her daughter’s long absence she had proposed to her two

guests a stroll in the oakwood. She breathed more freely when she was

with Alice. But she noticed her heightened color, however, and traces

of trouble in her face.

“It is high time,” she thought, “to get rid of our hero.”

Behind her Marcel, too, was studying the girl. He was looking at her

with the eagerness of love which dares not hope too much. But he

quickly lowered his eyes. And when he raised them again they were full

of the peace of love wherein doubt and fear do not linger. Madame

Orlandi and Mademoiselle De Songeon, led by M. Dulaurens, joined the

group. Through the plane-tree avenue they accompanied Paule and Marcel,

who were about to take their leave.

In front of the open gate on the other side of the Chaloux road, before

a humble cottage, a swarm of children were playing in the sun. With

tangled hair, shining healthy faces, and bare feet, they shouted now

with joy and now with anger, when suddenly their mother came out on the

doorstep. She was a peasant woman, of faded appearance, whose figure

indicated approaching motherhood.

“They are very poor,” explained Madame Dulaurens, looking at them, “and

they are always expecting more children. They have seven already, and

just look!”

“Seven children! How awful!” said Mademoiselle de Songeon, turning away

in disgust.

“It is tempting Providence,” added Madame Dulaurens. And Mademoiselle

Orlandi twittered:

“How pretty they would look painted! But in actual life they are dirty

and a nuisance.”

“Those who want them can’t have them,” muttered the peasant woman, who

had overheard this. And she picked up the youngest child and pressed it

to her bosom.

Isabelle laughed a hard laugh and said to her fiancé, looking him

straight in the face:

“Well, you know, I don’t want any children!”

M. Landeau smiled joylessly. An awkward pause followed this sally so

artless and yet so cynical. Only Madame Orlandi was amused.

“Oh, Isabelle, you terrible child!” she said.

Alice kissed Paule as she said good-bye, and Marcel was lost in

admiration of the languid beauty which accompanied her every movement

and gave her an unsubstantial, airy grace. In his love was mingled a

desire to protect her. He would have given all his strength to this

lovely child, whose frailty inspired him with an almost religious

emotion.

Alone with her brother on the road, Paule was kissing the children, who

had stopped their game under the gaze of those whose hostility they

had divined.

“Poor little creatures!” she said with an indignant flash of the eye.

“They don’t love you in these days!”

The peasant woman was flattered and smiled at the girl. “There is a

crowd of them and they grow like weeds!”

“God is good and the earth is big,” said Marcel, who remembered his

father’s joy when he saw beautiful children.

“Yes, Monsieur Guibert. My mother had twelve. I have three brothers

in Paris and four in America. They are far away, but they are still

living.”

Never having left her native place, she easily confused distances.

Paule pointed to the group of chubby mites, who had begun to laugh

again.

“They will be able to keep you later on!”

“In the meantime they eat whole potfuls of soup. My husband toils for

them all day long, and we live from hand to mouth.”

“Have you no land?”

“Not enough to keep a rabbit on!”

Putting a coin into the smallest child’s hand, money she had saved to

buy a pair of gloves, she said:

“Good-bye, be brave.”

When they had reached Montcharvin woods Paule stopped and smiled at her

brother.

“Don’t you want to hear my news? Did you speak to her?”

“No, I understood. She accepts, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she refused Monsieur de Marthenay this morning. It is a secret.

She loves you. She is charming, and you will have strength enough for

both.”

He did not answer. And brother and sister exchanged no more confidences

for they felt the same shyness about their hidden feelings. As they

arrived at the gate Marcel spoke to Paule again.

“We must let mother know,” he said. “You tell her, dear, since you are

playing Providence to me to-day.”

“Very well,” answered Paule. “I will tell her presently.”

Later in the evening, Madame Guibert, having heard her daughter’s news,

was silent for a long time.

“Is this happiness for us?” she murmured at last.

“She is very nice,” said Paule.

And the old lady added, “May she make him happy! I would rather have

had her not so rich and with more strength of character. But since he

loves her, we must love her too. Let us pray for them.”

She never thought for a moment that her son might be refused.

CHAPTER VI

MONSIEUR AND MADAME DULAURENS

Every morning Alice Dulaurens said to herself that she would spend the

day inducing her parents to give their consent to this marriage of

which the thought alone filled her with happiness; and every evening,

having said nothing, she waited for the next day. But she soon had to

make up her mind, for her friend Paule informed her of the date on

which the definite offer was to be made.

On the eve of Madame Guibert’s visit she had still said nothing.

Feeling anxious, she was late in going to sleep and got up very early,

thinking to gain time. The hours sped rapidly, and her love-stricken

heart trembled. She watched first her father and then her mother, in

order to get one aside to listen to her request, and like all timid

people she never found the right moment.

“Mamma is alone in her room,” she thought. She ran there but came out

quickly, for her mother was busy writing.

“It will be better to come back presently,” she said to herself.

With some color in her cheeks she started at once to look for her

father.

“Papa is going round the garden,” she said. But he was talking to the

gardener. Thus she found a hundred weak reasons for keeping back her

confidence. At last she made up her mind to speak after lunch.

“That is the time when one feels best disposed,” she assured herself,

to find an excuse for her cowardice.

Unhappily for her plans, Madame Orlandi came to lunch. On the stroke

of twelve she arrived, carrying her pug Pistache, which she never left

behind her, and she began her mild and friendly Italian prattle.

“I am not putting you out? You are so kind. I hate lunching by myself.

Isabelle and the maid have gone to Lyons to see about her trousseau,

you know. A wedding makes such a fuss. My poor head is splitting.”

“What a good idea to come to us,” said the extremely bored Madame

Dulaurens. And M. Dulaurens gravely agreed:

“The preparations for a wedding are certainly very disturbing to the

peace of the house. But it is in keeping with social usage that this

ceremony should remain in our memories if only on account of all the

trouble it gives us.”

“You don’t mind the darling lunching with us?” said Madame Orlandi,

pointing to the pug as they entered the dining-room.

“Certainly--we should never be cruel enough to separate you!”

Madame Orlandi seated Pistache at her side and at once made him the

object of conversation.

“Yesterday my dear little pet had a sad time. We went to see M.

Loigny, uncle of that dear Jean Berlier who is such a good friend

to my daughter. He lives near Chambéry in a villa, all covered with

roses. His house is a scented bower. He has great taste, this old man,

but very little politeness. He lives in his garden quite forgetful of

mankind and manners. Pistache destroyed a young rose-tree, and the

flower-maniac threw him out of the door. I departed in a most dignified

way leaving my daughter behind, M. Jean being kind enough to escort her

home in the evening, when he made profuse apologies.”

“Is M. Landeau away?” said Madame Dulaurens, rather shocked at the way

in which Madame Orlandi interpreted her maternal duties.

Quite unmoved, the Italian Countess answered:

“M. Landeau is away. He is doing splendid business at present. My girl

will scarcely see him before the day the contract is signed. He is not

exactly beautiful to look upon. Isabelle is very artistic. But she

will get used to him. You can get used to everything, except being no

longer beautiful after you have once been so.”

Regrets for her lost youth made her sigh. She lowered her face,

smothered with violet powder,--that face which for a long time she had

not dared to gaze upon in the mirror. When the butler offered her a

dish of choice fruits, she looked at it with a gasp and, turning to

Madame Dulaurens, asked:

“Are there no sweets?”

“No,” answered Madame Dulaurens, rather surprised.

“How tiresome!”

Madame Dulaurens, now really astonished at her behavior, remarked:

“You didn’t tell us, dear friend, that we were to have the pleasure of

your society to-day.”

“Oh,” said the Italian, not in the least disconcerted, “I am very

easily pleased and I understand your ways. But it is Pistache. He won’t

understand. Every day he has his three courses and a sweet. He will

think that I have punished him, and he hasn’t deserved it.”

Madame Dulaurens was quite out of patience, but she had a white of egg

beaten with some sugar, which was offered to the idol. As they rose

from table the little dog, under the influence of his greed, insisted

on staying behind, in spite of the frantic calls of his mistress. He

paid for it, however. The butler saw him, and having made sure that

the coast was clear and the company all gone, with a well-directed kick

sent him flying to the other end of the dining-room. Pistache gave vent

to a dull growl, but was not at all astonished. All he knew of life

consisted of extremes, and he travelled philosophically from kisses to

kicks, from the drawing-room to the pantry.

Immediately after lunch M. Dulaurens, assuming a busy and important

air, which imparted a comical cast to his placid face, bowed to the

ladies and departed to his workroom, where one of his tenants was

waiting. It was a question of rent in arrears. The tenant naturally

claimed a deduction. Labor was dear, money tight, and the harvests had

been bad.

“Bad!” cried M. Dulaurens with that hardness which he appeared to keep

for his tenants and tradesmen, and which redeemed him in his own eyes

from the weakness which he displayed toward his wife.

“Bad! But what about all last year’s wine? What have you done with it?

There were barrels and barrels of it. You haven’t sold it?”

“Oh, Sir, you can’t think that. It would only have fetched a poor

price. It was a disgrace. We preferred to drink it ourselves.”

M. Dulaurens, forgetting his peaceful instincts when his interests were

concerned, was going to fly into a rage, when his eyes fell on a work

lying on his table between a society novel and a book on heraldry.

It was Nicole’s handbook: “The Methods of Peace among Mankind.” He

had bought it cheap on account of its title and had contented himself

with the reading of that alone, which was sympathetic to the natural

tranquillity of his disposition. Calming himself, he sent the peasant

away with many kind words, but without the slightest concession.

“Landlords are really to be pitied,” he protested. “They do not

know what to do. My friend M. Timoléon Mestrallet himself has great

difficulty in getting out of debt.”

M. Mestrallet was an old miser in the neighborhood, who spent his

holidays in complaining of the bad times and the difficulty he had in

making ends meet. But he never said anything about the enormous sums he

saved every year.

As the tenant was going away, inwardly reproaching himself for having

gained nothing by the interview, Alice came into the room. She carried

a cup of coffee made as her father liked it. She counted on the

favorable effect the fragrant beverage would have on her father, who

was inordinately fond of it and accepted the cup now with an angelic

smile of pleasure. While he was taking little satisfied sips, she

sat down, then got up, and could not remain still. Confused and

frightened, she trembled violently as she forced out these simple words:

“Father, you are going to have a visitor presently.”

“Well, my dear, your mother is in the drawing-room. And who is it?”

“Madame Guibert,” replied a choking voice, which should have revealed

the young girl’s secret to Monsieur Dulaurens, if the latter had not

a long time ago abdicated his privileges as head of the family and

neglected the knowledge of his own children.

“Madame Guibert? She never goes to see anyone since she became a widow.

It is an honor that we shall appreciate.”

And drawing up his little figure to show his appreciation, he said,

with a great air of superiority:

“She is not very used to society, but she is a good woman, and her sons

have succeeded very well.”

Alice thought his praise rather inadequate and murmured, “Her husband

saved my life, Father. You remember when I had typhoid fever?”

“Yes, yes,” he said quickly. He also remembered that the doctor’s bill

might not have been settled, and he did not wish to go into the matter

very deeply. Could Madame Guibert be coming to claim this old debt?

But surely not, she would not be so impertinent--especially now, when

her son and daughter were so kindly received at La Chênaie. She would

be unwilling to spoil such good social relations by the intrusion

of business. Why then this visit, for which Alice had been prepared

beforehand?

“Did she tell you she was coming?” he asked.

“Yes, Papa.” And then in a very low voice she spoke again. “Madame

Guibert is coming on my account.”

M. Dulaurens, who was taking short steps up and down the room for the

sake of his digestion (for this room with its ever closed bookcases was

particularly useful to him for this health-giving exercise), stopped

suddenly and seemed to realise at last that something unusual was going

on in his house.

“On your account?” he repeated uneasily.

With the brusque quickness of the irresolute, Alice at once burnt her

boats:

“Father, don’t you wish me to be happy?” she asked.

“Certainly, certainly! We wish it above all things.” And already he

saw all sorts of difficulties to disturb his peaceful existence in

the future and even his digestion at the present time. However, he

loved his pretty Alice, whose gentleness harmonised with his own

character, and he would even have adored and spoilt her, had he not

been restrained by the fear of his wife and the vain desire to imitate

in her absence her authoritative ways. Distracted between so many

feelings, whose complexity frightened him and hardened his usually

benign face, he demanded an explanation.

“You talk to me about Madame Guibert and then about your happiness. I

don’t understand.”

Alice hesitated no longer, and her nervousness itself prevented her

from guessing her father’s thoughts.

“She is going to ask for my hand on behalf of her son.”

“The captain?”

“Yes.”

She went on more falteringly, the whole force of her love summed up in

the poor little hope which her words expressed:

“Father, I beg you, you must consent and persuade Mamma.”

But for the closing phrase M. Dulaurens would have been touched.

He took in things in detail, and the last words always made most

impression on his mind.

“Persuade Mamma!” he cried. “It is always your mother,” he said

sharply, and began once more his walk up and down.

He made sure that the door was closed, stopped to listen, and then,

encouraged by the silence and sure of their privacy, he let himself go

boldly:

“Your mother! Don’t you know, my dear, that my consent is of far more

importance? The law demands that. And this law is just. There must be

one supreme authority in a household, and this authority is vested in

the head of the family, the _Paterfamilias_!”

He threw a rapid glance at the mirror to study his own omnipotent

appearance. He seemed to have forgotten the serious subject of the

interview, which the trembling Alice feared to recall to him. Must she

again pronounce the burning name of Marcel Guibert?

But coming down to earth again M. Dulaurens spared her at least this

new exhibition of courage, as he repeated word for word a sentence of

his wife’s:

“This young man is a hero. Heroism makes him one of us!”

By which his wife had meant, that one might safely receive Marcel

Guibert in a drawing-room so distinguished as that of La Chênaie!

Not wishing to commit himself, he hastened to raise several objections:

“But you wish for a life of calm, I suppose, my dear Alice. You

don’t want a husband who goes about conquering the world. You have a

tranquil and peaceful nature. Will Marcel remain at Chambéry?”

“Father,” said the girl, remembering Paule’s lesson of heroism, “a wife

must help her husband and not hamper his career.”

“His career? Well, he can follow that near us. Chambéry is a garrison

that is very much sought after. He can exchange--nothing is easier--and

we have influence with the War Office. Or he might resign. But then he

has no money.”

Alice was silent, and her father, coming nearer, saw her tears. His

heart was stirred, and the real foundation of his nature was laid bare,

a nature which snobbishness and the habit of dependence had overlap. He

gently stroked his daughter’s face with his hand.

“Don’t cry, darling. I want you to be happy.”

But all his hankerings after self-assertion fled at once like birds

before the beater; for the door opened and Madame Dulaurens, having

at last gotten rid of Madame Orlandi and growing uneasy about Alice’s

prolonged absence, entered the study in her turn. The little imperious

air which had adorned M. Dulaurens’s face for his daughter’s benefit

was no more, and his final tenderness had gone. Instinctively he

assumed the modest attitude which suits a clerk in the presence of his

chief. Robbed of all conjugal courage and only wishing to avoid a

family scene, he fled with a well-turned phrase:

“I leave our daughter to you, my dear. She wants to get married and

will tell you all about it.”

Turning to Alice, he added:

“Here is your mother. Arrange matters with her. Whatever she does is

well done.” And with these words he effaced himself, above everything

anxious to be at peace with all the world.

Madame Dulaurens had not replied to her husband’s speech. For the first

time in her life she was jealous of him. Was he not mixing himself

up with Alice’s confidences? She loved her daughter with a selfish

and absorbing love, and by the continual encroachments of her power

as a mother had, little by little, extinguished (without noticing it

herself) the personality of this delicate, shrinking girl, already by

nature too indolent and overprone to unquestioning submission. She

enjoyed her daughter’s beauty as if it were her own possession, and

treated this young life precisely as though she had but a helpless

new-born infant to deal with. It was impossible for a guileless,

affectionate disposition not to recognise such unfaltering devotion and

not to be affected by it. Alice strove by her obedience to please her

domineering mother, whose eyes she felt incessantly upon her; but this

watchful regard was paralysing her with fear.

As the door closed on her husband Madame Dulaurens, glorying in the

impression she had made and already on her guard against the danger

which she guessed, came up to the girl and, putting her arms round her,

sat beside her on the chair.

“My little Countess de Marthenay,” she whispered in her ear as she

kissed her.

But the girl was still silent, and her tears began to flow.

“You want to marry, don’t you? And you confided in your father. Nothing

could please me better. We shall never be parted. Armand has promised

me that.” Still unwilling to doubt the realisation of her plans, after

a pause, she continued:

“He will get on. If he cannot get the position he wants he will resign.

Your fortune will be sufficient to live on without his working, and,

besides, in society one always has something to do.”

Alice’s tears and persistent silence at last warned her mother that the

trouble she feared was a reality.

“I was mistaken then, dearest child? You refuse to be his wife? You

don’t care for him?”

Yes, that was it. Alice made an affirmative gesture and Madame

Dulaurens knew with absolute certainty that her daughter’s heart was

given to Marcel Guibert. She was mistress enough of herself to hide

her discomfiture, and she even began at once to think out a way of

avoiding an event which she considered without hesitation or reflection

to be a great catastrophe. So much was she guided by her unrestrained

prejudices and preconceptions, and by a maternal passion whose

selfishness was incapable of sacrifice.

“You don’t want to marry yet, dearest,” she murmured softly. “Is it

because you want to stay with me? But I want you so much to be happy

that I cannot agree to keep you--although I shall feel the separation

bitterly--so long as I know that you are happy, and can see with my own

eyes daily that my darling is contented. But you don’t answer. It isn’t

that, then? Have you given way to your feelings without my permission?

Can you have defied me to that extent?”

The rebuke, which had only the effect of redoubling Alice’s tears,

escaped Madame Dulaurens in an unguarded moment. Now her diplomacy

returned to her. She stopped short, and when she began again it was in

a coaxing voice.

“Am I not your best friend and confidante? Have you any secrets

from me? Dearest, I have not deserved this. If you don’t love M. de

Marthenay, if you love someone else, you must tell me. And we will

arrange your future together.” A new hope filled the girl’s heart and

at last she sighed out:

“Yes, Mamma.”

“And who is it?” asked Madame Dulaurens, kissing her. “Who has stolen

my darling’s heart? Your lips are quite near my ear. Tell me his name.”

She knew the name quite well, yet she wanted to hear it from the

trembling mouth. Alice could not resist this gentleness. She dried her

eyes and managed to say, with one of those quivers of the whole body

which follow a violent fit of sobbing:

“Madame Guibert is coming presently.... She wants to speak about me ...

for her son.”

“For the captain?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my dearest! How you hurt me!”

And she left her daughter and seated herself in a chair close by. She

hid her face in her hands and sat motionless, in a most despairing

attitude. Alice, drying her own tears, tried to console her.

“Why have I hurt you, Mother dear?”

Madame Dulaurens lifted her head slowly and with an expression of the

deepest sorrow replied:

“Because I see quite well that you are going to leave me. M. Guibert

will take you far away from us--into some wretched little town in

France, or even to Algiers. He might even want to take you with him on

some expedition. Love will not keep these conquering heroes back for

very long from glory and danger. How _could_ you love him? You

are so gentle and so home-loving.”

Standing beside her mother, her eyes guiltily lowered to the ground,

Alice murmured:

“Oh, Mamma, I don’t know. Perhaps because I am weak ... and he is

strong.”

With her chin in her hand and without looking at the girl Madame

Dulaurens went on as if she were seeking an explanation for herself.

“I can understand his wanting to marry you. The Guiberts have been all

but ruined since the Doctor made himself the savior of that banker at

Annecy. They say that there was no bankruptcy, that everything was paid

up. But one never knows. That suicide and failure were very curious.

And then that expedition to Madagascar! Oh, I agree that the Captain

distinguished himself, there is no doubt about that, and I made him

feel it clearly enough. And he has every reason to be thankful to me.

Instead of that he proposes to take my daughter away from me. That

expedition into an unhealthy country was terrible. All our soldiers

got the fever there. Yes, all of them, my dear. I would not want you

to marry an invalid. It is my duty to see to that. Oh, I only want you

to be happy. You see, dear, young girls like you know nothing of life.

They have young loving hearts only too ready to admire heroism and

courage, and then they confuse admiration with love. It is not the same

thing, my dear Alice. You will find it out for yourself some day. I

only hope you will not find it out too late!”

With a few short, cutting sentences she destroyed the happiness of

which Alice had seemed so sure. Little by little, the girl had drawn

back into the window. Half hidden in its recess, she began to cry

again, quietly wringing her hands in despair.

Seated upright in her armchair, Madame Dulaurens coldly renewed the

attack:

“Now I really thought that M. de Marthenay pleased you. He is very

attractive, isn’t he? A good name, a fine figure, and fortune. He is

a cavalryman, and rides divinely. He dances perfectly. I chose him in

preference to anybody else. And you were going to stay with us. We were

to have our part in your happiness, and you want to take this away from

us altogether.”

“Mamma!” cried Alice reproachfully.

“Children are horribly ungrateful,” continued her mother. “You, of whom

I took so much care in your delicate childhood and during your typhoid

fever, now you are already thinking of leaving me!”

Attempting to conceal the selfishness of this complaint, she added:

“If only I were sure that your happiness is there! But not to be able

to look after your health; to live in daily fear that you might be ill,

so far away--in some garrison where there was no doctor; to be always

afraid for the peace and comfort of your home, which I should never

see; not to be there to welcome your babies, if God sends you any ...

that will be my sad life hereafter.”

Alice, deeply touched by this show of tenderness and motherly devotion,

held out her arms.

“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “I will never leave you. I will stay with

you.”

This half-victory was so quickly won that Madame Dulaurens, thinking

it sufficient, insisted no further on her plans and did not pronounce

Armand de Marthenay’s name again.

“Little Alice, my darling little Alice, I have won you back to me,”

she said, pressing the girl to her heart. “I love you so. You don’t

know how much I love you. I think I love you too much. I want you to be

happy.”

These words came naturally to her lips at the very moment when she

was breaking her daughter’s heart. But Alice, leaning on the motherly

shoulder, saw through the open window a woman in heavy mourning, coming

down the avenue towards the house. Slow and bent, Madame Guibert was

coming confidently to ask her hand for Marcel. At this sight the girl

shuddered and released herself from her mother’s embrace.

“She has no warning of what is coming,” she thought. “It is too late.

Poor, poor woman!”

Madame Dulaurens, astonished and made uneasy again by her daughter’s

face, was thinking, “Can she be on the point of changing her mind a

second time?”

Alice had left the window to avoid the painful sight.

“How she will suffer! I won’t do it! I won’t!” she said to herself, a

prey to despair and dragging herself from one chair to another.

Pity dominated her, even in the ruin of her shattered dream of love.

To retard the inevitable blow hanging over this poor woman, already so

bowed down under the burden of fate, she did not even remind her mother

from whom the fatal refusal ought to come. She kept her near her with

idle words. No doubt her father would procrastinate, would decline to

give any definite reply. Like all weak people, who were content with

the smallest successes, she wished only to spare Madame Guibert too

sudden a blow, and would not admit to herself that she felt already

incapable of saving her, though she had been the first to weep over it

and must weep over it for the rest of her life.

After several minutes of anxious expectation Madame Guibert was

announced in the drawing-room.

“I will go to her,” said Madame Dulaurens, and, kissing the daughter

whom she was sacrificing, she went out of the room. Scarcely was the

door shut when Alice, her heart beating wildly, sprang forward and with

trembling hands tried in vain to open it.

“Mamma,” she cried through the partition, “I love him, I love him! Say

yes, I beg of you.”

She opened the door at last. But the corridor was empty. Madame

Dulaurens had gone. She had heard that last heartrending cry.

Accustomed to treating the girl as a child who must be governed, she

attached no importance to this. Calmly, without compunction, fully

persuaded that she was acting as a tender and devoted mother, she went

down to receive Madame Guibert and when she entered the drawing-room,

she had already prepared the polite and amiable formula of her refusal.

Seeing herself deserted, Alice was crushed. She stood motionless and

panting, trembling in every limb, ready to sink to the ground. All at

once she pulled herself together, ran hurriedly down the staircase, and

finding a gate to the park open, fled far away from the house. She ran

to hide her pain in the shadow of the oaks--the same oaks under which

she had heard from Paule’s lips the avowal of Marcel’s love. She sat

down on the dead leaves. She would have liked to lie upon the gentle

earth, to lie there forever, lifeless and forgotten.

It was here, in this spot full of mystery, that she had felt the first

consciousness of her youth. Here her eyes had first wakened to the

loveliness of nature. Here she had suddenly understood the joy of life.

To her it seemed the very shrine of that fair existence which came to

its close so soon. She had no courage left, and her only thought was of

death.

She never knew how long she was in the wood. There she wept her heart

out, telling herself she would be faithful to her lover’s memory, and

that if she could not belong to him she would belong to no one. But she

did not tell herself that this promise in itself was a renunciation. So

she stood self-condemned, incapable of that active love which strives

and triumphs.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROPOSAL

With her slow and lingering step Madame Guibert came up the avenue of

plane-trees. For this visit of ceremony she was dressed in her newest

black dress, and Paule with the greatest care had done her hair and

arranged the folds of the widow’s veil.

“You look splendid now,” her son and daughter assured her, as she was

getting into the carriage before the steps at Le Maupas. In spite of

his mother’s protestations, Marcel had ordered a smart Victoria for her

instead of Trélaz’s old carriage.

Nodding and smiling at her children with great tenderness, she drove

away in all confidence, like a messenger of peace and happiness. But

she discovered the way was very short and the strange horse very fast.

It was her wish to get out at the gate of the Avenue at La Chênaie, so

that the unusual luxury of her carriage might not be noticed. It gave

her a kind of awkward feeling, it seemed a lie to her honest soul.

“You can put me down here,” she said to the coachman. “I will walk

the rest of the way.” She went along the avenue leaning on her black

parasol. Her heart was beating furiously. In spite of her bravery in

facing life, she was still very shy, and society terrified her. In her

natural honesty and uprightness, she understood very little about the

polite phrases and forms which so cleverly hide the selfish or wicked

trend of the speaker’s thoughts--or the utter lack of them. Then, too,

she had an exaggerated idea of her own awkwardness and found another

cause of anxiety in that; not at all on her own account, but on her

son’s, for the sake of whose happiness she still, despite her old age,

desired to please.

But then, did she not know full well in advance the result of her

undertaking? Could anyone hesitate joyfully to accept the offer of

her dear Marcel, whose whole life proclaimed his worth? It was not

merely because she was his mother. Love didn’t blind her in the least

when she saw and admired the physical seductiveness of his tall,

graceful figure, upright as a sapling; of his proudly carried head,

his fine, strong features, and above all his eyes, whose glance could

chill or warm according as they gazed sternly or kindly--greenish

eyes, but large in size, full of fire and astonishingly direct in

their expression. What she knew of him she imagined, poor mother,

ever other woman must be able to read in his face; the energy which

met difficulties with dignity, almost with disdain; that generous

and active kindliness of heart; that commanding quality of voice

and gesture which told of an ardent spirit and a vigorous mind, the

character of a born leader. Certainly he was not one of the insipid,

stupid race who conceal their dry, selfish, hard souls under a worldly

polish and a uniform correctness of manner. She who consented to

share his lot, to suffer and to dare with him, would have no dull,

commonplace existence. He would enlarge her mind, expand her feelings,

and bring to maturity the flower of her soul, whose complete unfoldment

is the most beautiful thing in human life.

And then had not Madame Dulaurens been told by her daughter of the

proposed visit and that her request had already been granted? So Madame

Guibert came with mingled confidence and apprehension to the Dulaurens’

villa. The walk tired her, she was growing stout, and the seriousness

of the occasion contributed its share to her fatigue. She respected

Marcel’s choice though it was not hers, and she was ready to forget her

own wishes and bow to his. She was prepared to give her whole-hearted

assistance in the new life which was in store for him, and cherished

the thought that within a few minutes she would be welcoming another

daughter to her home and her affections.

Before ringing she stopped, to quiet the beatings of her heart and

to take breath. She did not raise her eyes to the window where the

desperate and heart-broken Alice was crying her eyes out.

Madame Guibert was received by M. Dulaurens in the drawing-room and she

saw a happy omen in this. The little insignificant man could not be

expected to make much impression on her, and the meeting with him gave

her a little more time to recover herself. After a few polite words

which he tried to amplify as much as possible, Madame Guibert found

herself unable to keep back the object of her visit any longer and said:

“You have guessed why I came to a Chênaie, Monsieur Dulaurens?” And she

smiled sweetly, with that pretty, fresh smile that she had kept to old

age and which was the reflection of a soul that had remained pure and

unsullied.

“No, Madame Guibert, I am quite in the dark concerning it. We are

greatly flattered, I assure you, by your visit. I only regret that

Madame Dulaurens is not here.”

Greatly worried, and afraid to assume any disturbing responsibility,

the unhappy man could not rest. He pulled the bell quickly and when the

maid answered it he asked:

“Have you told Madame?”

“I am looking for her, Sir. Madame is not in her room. Madame is

perhaps with Mademoiselle in Monsieur’s room.”

“Perhaps so. Go and tell her.”

And turning to Madame Guibert, trying to gain time, he said:

“It is tiresome, very tiresome, but, as you see, they are looking for

her, they have gone to tell her. She will not be long. I am very sorry

to keep you waiting.”

“What I have to say, Monsieur, interests you quite as much as Madame

Dulaurens,” said Madame Guibert, who was so full of her mission that

she did not think of noticing her questioner’s little tricks. The

terrified M. Dulaurens had sat down, but he at once got up again. Was

he going to be left alone to answer this most embarrassing question?

Would they make him receive the first shock in this way? No, it was

impossible; his wife would have to be present at the interview.

“I assure you she is coming,” he cried hurriedly. “Please wait a

minute, Madame, I beg you. Madame Dulaurens would be so sorry to miss

your call. And you could certainly explain things better to her. That

is quite clear, quite clear.”

As he multiplied his words he rang the bell again and, quite unable to

stand the strain any longer, went to the door and half opened it.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” he said.

As he put his head into the corridor Madame Guibert raised her eyes

and surprised him in this frightened and pitiful attitude. A crushed

man is still more to be pitied than a fool. Madame Guibert felt ashamed

for him and thought:

“It will certainly be much better to wait for Madame Dulaurens. What I

could say to him would matter very little.”

A slight misgiving began to lessen her confidence. She mentally

compared her poor companion with her own husband whom no circumstance

could have deprived of his composure, his clear-sightedness, his

firmness.

“What a difference!” she reflected sorrowfully, for she was quite

incapable of overbearing pride. She did not think of herself, who had

made such splendid, fearless men and women of her sons and daughters.

While M. Dulaurens was persistently enquiring after her health she was

looking affectionately at a portrait of Alice as a child.

“She has scarcely changed at all,” she said. “Dear little Alice, so

pretty and gentle. How we shall love her! She is so frail and delicate,

but she will grow stronger. We will surround her with love and care. We

will make a hardy flower of this hothouse blossom. And perhaps she will

keep _him_ near us better than I could. I am so old now, and every

year these separations become more and more cruel.”

She did not disguise from herself her womanly weakness.

At last Madame Dulaurens burst in like a whirl-wind. She flew to her

husband’s assistance. Fearing that by now he might have blundered and

said, something stupid, she had come downstairs as quickly as she

could. The severity of her rule did not suffice to reassure her, for

she scarcely suspected the despotism of it.

In many flattering words she excused herself to Madame Guibert for

keeping her waiting. The latter, at the sight of her, had already

lost almost all of her modest confidence. What could she expect of a

favorable nature from this still beautiful and elegant woman, whose

high-pitched voice, so patronising and hard, whose affected politeness

scarcely hid the pride and dryness of her soul. At once she felt the

difference in their points of view concerning the serious things of

life. An abyss separated them, which only youth and love, in their

madness, could think of bridging over. She had a secret conviction

that all which weighed so heavily on her heart was going to be held

as naught, and that all her devotion, her energy, and her toil, the

true mark of aristocracy in the human race, would presently be matched

against those worldly pretensions of which she thought nothing at Le

Maupas and of which she discovered suddenly the disturbing reality.

Feeling the weakness of her age and poverty, she implored God’s help.

In the meantime Madame Dulaurens continued to shower compliments and

attentions on her visitor and got ready to profit by the shyness which

she suspected to find. As she heaped up praise on large families,

Madame Guibert saw her opportunity to introduce her request.

“How good you are, Madame, to say so! Yes, my sons have worked

splendidly. And I have come to see you about one of them--about Marcel.”

She had no doubt that she gave her to understand that she would never

have come to see her without good cause. She praised Alice with tender

affection. Her heart inspired her here. “Marcel could not see her

without loving her. He remembered that as a child she had said to him

in their games, ‘I am so happy with you--I want to stay with you.’ He

has requested me to ask you for your dear child’s hand. He promises to

make her happy and as to his happiness, you will have assured it for

ever.”

Madame Dulaurens, who generally had so much to say, was silent,

thinking she would thus increase Madame Guibert’s embarrassment. And M.

Dulaurens watched her in order to imitate her. Somewhat disturbed by

this silence, Marcel’s mother continued softly:

“You know that we have no money. My son did not think at all about

this, because he loves her. My husband left his children more honor

than money. But, although so young, Marcel has a brilliant record,

which gives assurance of his future.”

And she added in a tone full of dignity, “That is a fortune in itself!”

“We feel exceedingly flattered,” said M. Dulaurens at last. He had been

struggling between the fear of wounding good Madame Guibert and that of

annoying his wife.

With a look, the latter silenced him. What had he to do with it?

“Certainly we are extremely honored,” she replied with calculated

slowness. “The honor takes us by surprise. We were not at all prepared

for it.”

“Alice did not tell you anything about it then? ... or are you trifling

with me?” asked Madame Guibert in great surprise.

“Your family has not very much to boast of,” went on Madame Dulaurens

quietly. “We know, Madame, that Monsieur Guibert ruined himself to save

his brother at Annecy. Unhappily he was unable to save him from suicide

and ... liquidation of his affairs.”

The word “liquidation” thus pronounced meant bankruptcy; and Madame

Guibert could not fail to understand the malice in these words. She

had come with a message of love and peace, and was received like an

enemy. The injustice brought the blood to her face, and her clear,

gentle eyes were troubled. From this point, without being able to

explain the feeling to herself, she felt the game was lost. However,

she continued:

“Oh, there was no liquidation. All the creditors were paid principal

and interest. There can be no possible doubt about that. We have as

good a reputation at Annecy as at Chambéry.”

She thought of her husband’s splendid courage and her little Paule’s

lost dowry. In what had all these sacrifices ended? And was money to be

henceforth the only thing that could command respect and esteem?

But her sufferings were not yet at an end. Madame Dulaurens, with that

ease which society life supplies, went on boldly, with a smile on her

lips:

“Captain Guibert has had a magnificent career. Decorated so young! You

know that nobody appreciates his worth more than I. How you must have

suffered through this long, long Madagascar campaign! We thought of you

so often and pitied and envied you at the same time. And tell me, has

he quite gotten over the effects of those dreadful fevers which take so

long to cure?”

The cup was full. Madame Guibert could not answer. If she had tried

to speak she would have Burst into tears. They had touched the sacred

place in her heart, her children. To sacrifice your fortune to save

the honor of your name, to give your sons for your country, to expose

them to death, only to hear wicked, lying allusions, discrediting

disinterestedness and heroism, and to have to accept them in the face

of that coterie which is called society!

But Madame Dulaurens went on savagely defending her own and giving her

unhappy defenceless victim one wound after another.

“I cannot tell you anything definite, Madame, one way or the other. I

will faithfully submit your offer to my daughter and let you know her

answer soon. It is the fashion nowadays to consult young girls about

their inclinations. But I foresee that the prospect of a separation

cannot fail to frighten the dear child, for she has been accustomed

to be near me, near us. We have never left each other. I admire your

strength of mind. One of your girls is a nun in Paris, is she not? Two

of your sons are in Tonkin. Captain Guibert is going back to Algiers.

How brave you are, and what an example to all those mothers who love

their children too much!”

“And so you think I love them less than those other mothers do,” Madame

Guibert would have liked to answer. “Every time they left me my heart

was torn, yet I bore them as I could, all those heartrending good-byes,

and I said nothing, fearing to weaken them who were leaving me to go

abroad and fill a wider sphere, or to hamper them by keeping them

beside me. I have always encouraged them to use all the talents that

God gave them. And what you do not know, Madame, is that separation,

far from lessening a mother’s and a son’s love, purifies and ennobles

it. It takes away their natural selfishness and invests them with that

immortal beauty of sacrifice, in which joy and devotion are mingled.”

But her lips remained speechless. Later she remembered all the minutest

details of this scene, only to be intensely humiliated by it and even

to see in it, in her religious feeling, the punishment of the too great

pride that she had in the number and qualities of her children.

Madame Dulaurens had not stopped talking long.

“Alice is hesitating by nature,” she continued. “She is still so

young--a mere child! There were other offers before yours. This is

a confidence, of course. They have this advantage that they would

not take our daughter from us. It is a great point in Alice’s eyes.

Nobility, fortune, all are there. If the Captain would only consent not

to leave Chambéry, to resign when necessary, to live near us, near you

too! Is he not surfeited with fame?”

Madame Guibert got up and said simply.

“I do not know, Madame. I thank you.”

She thanked her enemy for having tormented her needlessly! Never had

she felt so weak and so helpless. Madame Dulaurens, as she went to the

door with her, felt sorry for her and, satisfied with her victory,

overwhelmed her with congratulations on her health, on her children who

had formed a little France out in Tonkin, on Paule who was so beautiful

and distinguished, who did not come often enough to see Alice. She was

going to keep her daughter, so she could afford to be generous. On the

doorstep she seemed to be parting with her best friend with the best

grace in the world. Behind her trotted M. Dulaurens, bowing like a

little automaton.

Left alone again, Madame Guibert went down the long plane avenue. She

breathed freely, as if she had just escaped a great danger. That woman

had been unkind and hard to her. How instinctively she had known what

would wound her pride and delicacy of feeling. How she had fastened

upon her brother-in-law’s misfortune, which had made so great a demand

upon Dr. Guibert’s strength of will and presence of mind and which had

brought about the financial ruin of the family; upon the weariness

of that colonial expedition, over which Marcel’s splendid health had

triumphed. What a sinister interpretation she had put on these events

which were her glory! And yet she herself had brought the olive-branch

and had spoken gently. Life, her life of humble, daily devotion, had

not taught her that maternal love contracts the heart more often than

it widens it, otherwise she would have understood that it was this

warped feeling which had made Madame Dulaurens defend in every way her

threatened happiness, the happiness which she mistook in all good faith

for that of her daughter.

But solitude was not long much comfort to her. Must she not go back to

Le Maupas to tell her son the sad news? The thought of the pain which

she could not spare him, of which she brought the tidings, brought

to her eyes the tears which she had so long tried to keep back. The

sun’s rays crossed the tops of the thick trees, as slowly wended his

course towards the mountain. For the first time in her life it hurt

her to return to her old home, where she knew they were awaiting her

confidently and impatiently.

With a tired step, which now dragged more than ever, she made her slow

and hopeless way back. She felt the weight of that one day more than

the weight of her sixty years. As she walked she reproached herself

that she had not been, as she called it, equal to her task. Why had

she not been able to find more persuasive words to plead Marcel’s

cause? She had been with people accustomed to society compliments. Why

had she not taken their ways into account and flattered their vanity?

Such concessions and amiabilities were the means of accomplishing

one’s end. Was not her son the very person of all in the world whose

achievements supplied the excuse for boasting; and could not his

bravery have been changed for the occasion into the current coin of

display and ostentation? Would it have been lessened in any way by

such use of it? Marcel was good-looking, prepossessing, almost famous.

He had a courtesy of manner which lent distinction to his gestures.

What would she not have given for the possession of those advantages?

But no, she was only a poor woman, incapable of flattery in such a

serious matter. And then she experienced, in talking of herself and her

children, that feeling of shyness which affects all refined natures.

Strong, at home, she lost this strength as soon as she crossed the

threshold. Thus in the face of injustice she had no resource but tears.

Yet how many times had she hidden herself, that her tears might not be

seen, on occasions of parting, for a time or forever! Was she now going

to shed tears publicly in face of those who had hurt her? Without doubt

God had tried her to punish her too great pride. This explanation

satisfied her faith. She mourned it, but without complaint, and in her

loneliness felt a sharp joy in dwelling on her humility and weakness.

“My husband!” she thought. “Since he went I have been useless. He was

my joy and my strength--everything would have happened so differently

if he had lived. My God! have You forsaken me? I promised myself to

take his place as well as I could, and I see clearly now that I am

unable.”

She abandoned herself to despair. Her distress and weariness increased.

Reaching the end of the Avenue, she asked herself if she had the

strength to continue on her way. She was out of breath, and had to stop.

“I must not be ill at their house,” she said. This was her only

desire, and to realise it she made a supreme call upon her strength.

She dragged herself to the gate, reached it at last, and outside the

grounds sat down, exhausted, on a heap of stones. There she gave

herself up to her misery and began to cry again, without even noticing

a little group of children, who came up to her, curious. As she raised

her bent head they all flew like a flock of frightened sparrows. One of

them knocking at the door of the neighboring house called:

“Mamma, Mamma! There is an old lady out here, and she is ill.” The

door opened immediately and the peasant woman appeared, carrying her

youngest babe.

“Poor lady! Why, it is Madame Guibert. What is the matter? A pain?

They come on without warning. I won’t have it said that I left you in

trouble. Your husband saved this child from typhoid.” She pointed to a

little chubby maid who was laughing. Coming nearer, she saw the tears

running down the weary face and guessed that it was nothing physical.

Out of respect she asked no questions, but continued:

“He would not take anything, the good man. He loved the poor, and above

all the children of the poor. He was always laughing. My babies were

not afraid of him, they would have eaten off his plate. ‘This is what

brave men and women are made of,’ he would say. ‘I have some of them

at home, you know!’ It is true, Madame Guibert, that we have a lot of

them. But it is just the same, having a lot. You love them all the

same. At least one wouldn’t like to lose any of them.”

By kind words she comforted Madame Guibert, who thought:

“My husband saved Alice Dulaurens too. At La Chênaie they did not honor

him any the more for that, and they don’t even remember it. The poor

forget less quickly.”

“Look at me chattering away without helping you,” continued the woman.

“Come inside; have a little glass of something, it will do you good. It

warms the heart. Come in and rest for a minute.”

Madame Guibert got up, taking the hand which the woman held out to her.

“Thank you, Fanchon, thank you. I don’t want anything. There, I am all

right again, you see. It was only a passing faintness. Your children

are lovely. May God keep you, Fanchon! I don’t want to refuse you, but

they are waiting for me at home. My daughter is very easily worried.”

“I would like to help you, Madame. One of these days I will bring you a

dozen fresh eggs. Don’t say no, it will give me so much pleasure! Come

along, children. If it had not been for the Doctor there would have

been one less. My lot wouldn’t have been complete.”

“You are kind, Fanchon. Good-bye.”

At last she was able to continue on her way to Le Maupas. She walked

slowly, stopping now and then to wipe her damp forehead, sickened at

the thought of the news she had to bring. She did not know how long it

took to go from Cognin up the hill which crosses the oakwood, but it

must have been very long, for she arrived there as the sun was touching

Mount Lépine and darting its shafts against the shield of leaves.

A hundred times she felt she would never get back. Under the trees,

however, she was grateful for the coolness of the shade and home seemed

nearer. Like a wounded animal that measures its safety by the distance

from its burrow, she made a last effort.

Marcel, leaning against the gate, was looking down the road. He saw

his poor mother coming painfully up the road, her face crimson, her

back bent, a picture of old age. He ran to her and when he came up, she

burst into sobs. “My boy, my dear boy!” she gasped.

He had to support her, and he asked simply:

“Why did you not keep the carriage? You are tired. You are hot, Mother

dear, it is not wise of you. Lean on my arm. We will go slowly.”

He helped her till she was seated in the drawing-room, wrapped in a

shawl that Paule brought. Not another word had been spoken, and already

everything had been told. With lowering brows and hard eyes Marcel was

silent. He had understood at the first look, and although the blow was

unexpected he was too proud to complain. He asked for no explanation.

His mother wiped her face, on which tears and perspiration were

mingled. Trembling she murmured:--

“Don’t regret anything. It is not worth while.”

“Why?” asked Paule surprised.

“They don’t want to separate themselves from their daughter. They think

they love her all the more because of that.”

“And Alice?” asked Marcel’s sister.

“I did not see her. She is hiding. Or they are hiding her. Her parents

had not been told about my visit. They were astonished. You would have

had to promise them to stay at Chambéry, to resign, if necessary. I

understood that a Marthenay would suit them better.”

Marcel’s eyes flashed, but all he said was “Oh!”

Madame Guibert began to tell about the humiliating way she had been

questioned. But, made ungrateful by the pain which he felt and refused

to admit, Marcel did not leave her time to do so.

“You did not understand how to talk to them! I’m sure of that. You

don’t like them and you let them see it. You hate society and you

ignore it.”

He had assumed his disdainful, haughty manner. Pride had opened the

wound. The mother answered softly, but with deep sadness in her voice:

“Your father never reproached me for that. However, I deserve it,

I daresay. But I am too old to change, and these people treated me

without consideration.”

Marcel, sullen and ashamed of himself, went out without saying anything

to lessen the harshness of his words.

Paule during this scene had stood motionless and very pale. Now she

threw herself into her mother’s arms and kissed her passionately:

“Mother, don’t cry. Oh, how I despise them! And Marcel is so unjust. It

was hateful what he said just now!”

Her eyes shone with sombre fire. Madame Guibert kept back her tears and

said:

“No, Paule, you must not despise anyone. And be patient with your

brother. Don’t you see that he is suffering? Go look for him.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE CONSPIRATORS

In the garden at Le Maupas, where the roses were fading in the shadow

of the yellowing chestnut boughs, Marcel and Jean Berlier were poring

over a map of Africa spread out on the slate table.

“Here is the road we must take,” said the Captain, and he showed a

series of little red crosses marked out on the Sahara desert.

With boyish enthusiasm Jean asked: “Then the expedition is really

decided on this time?”

“Yes, it will take two years, as far as we can judge in advance about

so long and dangerous a journey. I saw Commandant Jamy in Paris, and

he introduced me to M. Moureau. It is arranged that we shall both take

part in the mission with a couple of hundred Tirailleurs. It is being

carefully organised. The Minister of War is interested in it. But I am

afraid that we shall not go before next year.”

Marcel talked long, in a grave, distinct voice, about the reason, the

aim, and the preparation for the little expedition which was being

prepared to take the place of that which had ended so tragically

under Colonel Flathers. He explained clearly, almost eloquently, so

completely had he mastered his subject. He waxed enthusiastic over it.

Nothing seemed to interest him now except this bold journey into the

heart of Africa. He supplemented his words with expressive gestures

as he dwelt on the theme of these vast unknown lands, mysterious and

unfathomable as the ocean.

In listening to him Jean’s face took on an attentive and manly

expression. This young man of supple movements, of delicate and

handsome features, who smiled and joked unceasingly, who pleased women,

and whom one would have pictured at first sight as completely in his

element in a drawing-room flirting and making himself agreeable,

revealed under the influence of a serious interest his really strong

and virile character. Knowing him better, his friend Marcel Guibert had

never judged him differently, and when he heard him spoken of as the

lady’s man of the garrison, he was astonished and contented himself

with answering, “You don’t know him.”

Madame Guibert now appeared on the steps.

“Not a word,” said the Captain, quickly putting his fingers to his lips.

“She knows nothing?” whispered Jean.

“No, she will know only too soon.”

Madame Guibert looked at the garden, but did not see the two young

men. Thinking herself alone, she removed her spectacles which she had

put on to do some fancy work, took out her handkerchief and passed

it slowly over her eyes. Tired, she leaned on the wooden balustrade,

which was covered with a sad mantle of withered branches of jasmine and

wistaria. She let her eyes rest on the familiar landscape in mournful

reverie.

The fading evening dyed the delicate sky with lilac and rose. The

air was soft, but its freshness announced the advent of autumn. The

countryside was smiling with the melancholy charm of a dying person who

still hopes to live. It showed its bare fields and its stripped vines,

with an air resembling that of a prodigal who has given away everything

and still wishes to give more. All that was of any use was gone, only

beauty was left. The woods but half hid their mysteries now, and their

green and gold foliage seemed scarcely able to bear up against the rays

of the sun. Round the walls of the house a few overblown roses let

their heavy petals fall in the light wind. But at the top of a meadow

on the hill, standing out blackly against the clear sky, two oxen

majestically drew the plough which prepared for the coming harvests. In

the peaceful decay of nature came the promise of new youth.

A chestnut falling at his feet made Marcel shiver. All at once he

understood the sadness of the beauty to whose entrancing grace he had

been yielding himself. He smelt the autumn and the dying day. And as he

looked at her, above all others dear to him, his mother, leaning on the

balcony and gathering together in her mind all her flock of scattered

children, he realised the strength of his filial affection and felt

at the same time that superstitious, piercing dread inspired in us

at times by the insecurity of the lives of those we love. Jean saw

his friend’s face become clouded and he pointed out to him the plough

patiently fertilising the ground, as if thereby bidding him trust in

Providence.

Slowly Madame Guibert went into the house.

“Poor dear mother,” thought Marcel. “How often I have made you anxious

about me. And you will be anxious again. This map lying before me,

silent and indifferent, holds the secret of future terrors for you! For

the mother’s milk you have given me, for the soul that your soul has

transmitted to me, for my childhood and youth, may you be blessed! I

love you. But, if I must go, forgive me....”

A young girl’s fair face rose up in his memory. After the refusal he

had seen nothing of Alice Dulaurens. Several times he had leaped over

the little barrier separating the tall trees of La Chênaie from the

Chaloux road. There, under that ancient shade, he had boldly waited

for her. Knowing that she loved him, he wanted above all things to

speak to her, to exchange a promise with her. The glory he was going

forth to seek and her patient waiting would give her to him. But,

either by chance or because she was watched, she did not come.

Was he to go thus? In a few days his leave, for an extension of which

he had refused to ask, would be up and he must go to Oran, where Jean

Berlier, who had been gazetted to the first regiment of Tirailleurs,

was to precede him. A hundred impossible ideas crowded into his mind,

and he chafed against his slavery as a young horse champs its bit.

While he was thinking how he could manage to see the girl whom he

considered his fiancée with all the obstinate perseverance of a man of

action, his friend, Jean, got up.

“I want to say good-bye to your mother before I go,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” replied Marcel, also rising.

And suddenly making up his mind to speak, he added, almost in a whisper:

“Listen; I _must_ see Mademoiselle Dulaurens. You can help me.

Will you?”

The two men were united by a strong friendship. The one had thrown into

the relationship the tender indulgence of an elder brother, the other

the warm admiration of a younger one. Both gave to it the dignity

which distinguishes brotherly love. By degrees they had drawn from it

an incentive to nobler feelings. It gave them also that peace which

is born of mutual trust and similarity of nature and tastes. But they

did not confide much in each other. Therefore Jean was surprised to

hear his friend tell his secret, though he had long since guessed

it. A discreet observer, he had uneasily followed the domestic drama

which was being played at La Chênaie, and had been a witness to

Madame Dulaurens’s desperate efforts to champion the cause of Armand

de Marthenay as a suitor for her daughter’s hand. Knowing Marcel’s

concentrated strength and pride, he was more interested in this passion

whose violent despair frightened him, than in the slight diversion that

his own love affairs gave him. He knew what this wild desire to take

part in the Sahara expedition meant, this feverish need for activity,

this new ambition which had suddenly stirred his friend. But Marcel

never betrayed himself. There must, therefore, be some weighty reason

to make him decide to speak, and that was why this question alarmed his

friend.

Hiding his thoughts, Jean asked:

“Can’t you go to La Chênaie? There is nothing simpler.”

Marcel turned on him an eager, penetrating look.

“You know very well that I cannot,” he said. After a moment’s silence

he continued:

“Nevertheless,--I must see her.”

“To elope with her?” said Jean with his subtle smile, as if he were

trying for the last time to turn the affair into a joke. But he

received only a disdainful answer.

“Look at her well and you won’t talk that way. I must see her before

leaving for perhaps many years. Her happiness and mine are both at

stake. If it were only a question of time, I could go away without

looking back, taking my sorrow with me. She wants to be sure of the

future, she wants to know that it belongs to her securely. She can be

my wife, if she wishes it. I only ask her to have the courage to wait.”

“That is the hardest thing,” said Jean, who had no illusions about

Alice’s character.

“It is the easiest.”

“Yes, for you, who are used to dangers and obstacles. But for her?”

“But if she loves me?” asked Marcel simply, and in so quiet a tone that

no suspicion of conceit could be read into his words.

“Ah,” murmured Jean, thinking: “She does not understand the meaning of

love. Isabelle Orlandi is marrying her Monsieur Landeau because she

loves luxury. Alice Dulaurens is going to marry Monsieur de Marthenay

because she is weak and because her mother wants a titled son-in-law

under her thumb. Young girls nowadays have no strong affection and

nobody to teach them.”

But he did not dare to think aloud. He read on his friend’s broad and

intelligent forehead, in his ardent eyes, the patent signs of his love.

“Then you must absolutely have this interview?”

“Absolutely.”

Jean made no further objections. As he was thinking of a plan, Marcel

began:

“You are an intimate friend of the Dulaurens family. It would be very

simple for you to say a word for me to Mademoiselle Dulaurens. I would

not ask you to do that for me if there were anything wrong about it.

I would have asked my sister to go, if Paule could go back to La

Chênaie--after the refusal.”

He had to swallow his pride in saying this. Raising his head, he went

on with a disdainful air.

“This refusal is unjust. Her parents have no right to use their

authority just to satisfy their prejudice and selfishness, and to break

their daughter’s heart for their own vanity. Nobody has more reverence

for their authority than I, when it is exercised wisely and justly.

Paule saw her friend at church. She could not speak to her, but she

noticed that she was looking pale, languid, and despairing. I must

speak to her. There is no treachery in it, no loss of respect for her.

You must realise this before answering me.”

“Very well,” said Jean. And after reflecting a second or two he added:

“I repeat your words. Think of her face, her innocent eyes. She would

not meet you.”

Marcel was thoughtful for a few moments.

“You are right,” he agreed. “Let us think no more about it I will go

away without seeing her again.”

He made no other complaint, but the simplicity of his words touched his

friend’s heart and although he thought it would certainly be better for

him to go away without seeing her, he knew Marcel was so unhappy that

he tried to think of some way to help him.

“Look here,” he said. “Leave it to me, I will tell you at the proper

time, and you shall see her again.”

“How will you manage it?” asked Marcel rather uneasily.

“She shall meet you without having been told. It will be your business

to keep her.”

Tired of discussing a serious topic so long, Jean assumed a lighter

tone.

“Heavens, it will serve them right! De Marthenay irritates me, and the

Dulaurenses are such awful snobs! It isn’t perhaps quite the correct

thing, but it is just, and I am delighted to be able to pay them back.”

Already he was thinking of a plan which would be simple and easy to

carry out.

“You wanted to see my mother?” said Marcel. “Let us go back to the

house.”

The two went up the steps and found Madame Guibert and Paule working by

the light of the dying day. The former’s face brightened as the door

opened on her son; but the girl’s gaze was fixed on the little flannel

she was embroidering for her faraway nephew.

“I have come to say good-bye,” said Jean.

“Are you not going to wait for your friend? Must you leave so soon?”

Madame Guibert asked him, with real regret, for she loved his buoyant

youth and his delightful gaiety and did not fail to distinguish

between the real Jean and his reputation. She was grateful to him for

distracting Marcel better than she knew how or dared to do; for she

could only watch like a mourner her son’s heavy grief, half afraid of

his gloomy pride.

“I sail for Marseilles in three days, Madame. My leave is up three days

earlier than Marcel’s.”

At last Paule raised her head. Jean, who was staring at her, could

read a reproach in her dark eyes. But it is always possible to be

dubious about a look. There are quick, fugitive expressions, whose

interpretation is mysterious, and we prefer to refuse to understand

them if they do not fall in with our views or may cause us uneasiness.

This girl with the serious face and well-balanced carriage, whose

somewhat severe grace hinted at a reserve of passion, at once attracted

and disconcerted Jean. He had looked forward to hearing her speak

kindly to him, and her reticence paralysed him. Her approval and

regard would have raised and strengthened him, but he knew that to be

worthy of it he would have to undertake something great, and to feel

great emotions, yet he was afraid of what he inwardly called “living

on the heights.” Above all things he avoided thinking about the

ambiguous impression which she made upon him. How many lives pass away

misunderstood, without a realisation of the secret of those affinities

which might have modified them, and of which even the conjectured

strength arouses alarm in the majority of mankind.

Madame Guibert accompanied the young man as far as the courtyard. At

the foot of the steps she said quickly in a low voice, as he stood near

her:

“Look after _him_ this winter, Jean. I ask you to do this for me.”

He glanced gently at the old lady. Her confidence touched him.

“I promise you I shall. To me he is like an elder brother.”

And turning round he saw and admired on the veranda steps the graceful,

clearly-cut silhouette of Paule in her mourning clothes. But she was

looking straight ahead of her and the roses of the autumn sky were

fading away over the hill....

That evening Jean Berlier dined at La Chênaie. They expected Isabelle

Orlandi who was quite at home there. Never had she flirted more

audaciously or shown more disregard for the proprieties than she did

now on the eve of her wedding. At this time, M. Landeau, profiting by

a rise in the markets and discovering tactfully the modern method of

winning hearts, made love from afar by piling up a great deal of money,

the use of which his fiancée was enjoying in anticipation. His letters

contained short but significant allusions to his financial success,

whose potency as a love-charm he cleverly understood.

That evening Isabelle disappeared with the young soldier to a sofa

hidden by a thick group of palms and ferns. To give her parties an air

of gaiety and brightness, Madame Dulaurens tolerated these intimacies

when they did not go too far.

Jean needed a feminine accomplice to realise his plan, which was

simplicity itself. His idea was to get Alice to go at a certain time to

a little oakwood, where she would suddenly meet Marcel Guibert coming

along the Chaloux road. But he could not himself ask the girl to go for

a walk in the lovely freshness of the woods. He needed an ally whose

discretion could be relied upon.

“Here is one perhaps,” he thought, looking at Isabelle. “But is she to

be trusted?”

As he had very little choice, he decided to risk it.

“What do you think of the dragoon?” he asked his fair companion,

indicating the Viscount de Marthenay, whom they could see through the

greenery, showing off his paces before Madame Dulaurens, while the

unhappy Alice, bending over an illustrated book, leaves of which she

was forgetting to turn, tried not to see him.

Isabelle laughed.

“The dragoon? He is Alice’s de Marthenay. Every girl has her own.”

“Will you help me to score against him?”

“I certainly will. It will remind us of the Battle of Flowers.”

“Well, come here to-morrow--about four o’clock. I shall be here.”

“If you will be here, it goes without saying that I shall come,” said

Isabelle.

“You must tell your fair young friend, whose cheeks have been so pale:

‘You must go out and get some fresh country air. You have been shut up

too long.’”

“I will tell my fair friend that she must go and get the fresh air,

etc.,” repeated Isabelle.

“And we shall take her to the oakwood.”

“To the oakwood we shall take her.”

“At a sign from me you will leave her.”

“Is this a song?”

“We shall leave her alone. And if you should see or understand

anything, you swear you will keep it secret?”

“But I don’t understand!”

“That is just what I want.”

“Do tell me, at least, what shall I see?”

“Daughter of Eve! Can you keep a secret?”

“If you tell it to me, yes.”

“It is a secret which is not mine. If you tell it you will betray me,”

said Jean.

With her lovely dark eyes full of passion, she looked intently at him.

“Jean,” she said, “my dear Jean, I am not worth much and you think even

less of me. To please you I would face any danger ... and even Mrs.

Grundy!”

“Above all Mrs. Grundy, if you will.”

“But I do mean it. Ah, if you wished it, I would go to the end of the

world with you!”

“Without luxuries?” he asked, giving a sceptical smile.

And with a nervous laugh, which showed all her white teeth, she

answered:

“As naked as a babe!”

They both shivered at their own reckless talk.

He was filled with sadness at the sight of this lovely form, whose

beauties he could so well imagine; while she, just about to enter the

married state as one might throw oneself over a precipice, felt a kind

of voluptuous faintness at thus treading on the brink.

He was silent, but in his tense features she read her own power. She

even dared to take his hand and said, in Italian to hide her boldness,

“_Io vi amo_.”

And Jean forgot about Marcel and the rendez-vous. But his nature was

really refined, loyal, and almost reserved, despite her influence upon

it because of her expressed admiration for him and her own fascinating

allurements. And so, in love as he was for the moment, he did not say

the words that Isabelle was hoping to hear.

“So you would give up Monsieur Landeau for me?” were his words.

She thought him rather dense, and concluded hastily that his

impertinences were only external and his boldness mere bravado. But he

pleased her the more for that. She herself retained in that passionate

heart of hers a certain childishness, which was touched to sympathy by

the unexpected virtue which she found in him. But she promised herself

to play a much more important part in the drama. Soon recovering from

her surprise, she answered:

“I should give up nothing at all. Why should that middle-aged man stand

in our way?” And again she laughed, an ambiguous laugh. He understood,

and in spite of himself he blushed--which annoyed her.

Behind the plants they saw Alice get up. The girl crossed the

drawing-room wide-eyed, as though she were walking in her sleep. She

was wearing a white linen dress, which suited her fair beauty. Isabelle

took in the details of the toilette like an inventory. Made cruel by

her inspection, she murmured: “That stuff was expensive and the cut is

perfect. Could you offer me anything like that after the ceremony?”

He came back to realities and blamed himself inwardly at having shown

such stupidity.

“On my pay?” he asked.

“What do you think? I adore glitter.”

“All that glitters is not gold.”

“That’s true. There are such things as diamonds and precious stones!”

Rather scornfully he agreed:

“Yes, everyone turns away from life and tries to forget it. Your

mother has her dog, my uncle his roses and you--your dresses. Love

comes afterwards, as best it can.”

“At last, Jean, you are learning wisdom!”

With a lightened heart he took up the subject of his plan again.

“Then you will keep the secret that you will guess to-morrow?” he asked.

“If I tell it, I consent to love Monsieur Landeau.”

“Will you be serious?”

“I am speaking very seriously. My fiancé is the most serious thing

in the world. Well, listen, if I tell your secret it means that I no

longer like you.”

“Ah, no, because that might happen any minute!”

“You ungrateful wretch!” said Isabelle. She pointed to him, as though

showing him to an imaginary gallery:

“He is as handsome as Apollo and does not know it.”

She raised her hand.

“I swear it. There, are you satisfied? Do speak!”

He still hesitated, then made up his mind.

“My friend, Marcel Guibert, has something to tell Alice Dulaurens. He

is going to wait for her to-morrow in the oakwood.”

“Ah,” said Isabelle, deeply interested. “But they don’t want _us_

for that.”

“Wait a minute. Alice knows nothing about it. If she knew, she wouldn’t

go.”

“Stupid creature! But you are quite right. Nothing about her astonishes

me any more. She is capable of anything foolish.”

“Say rather, of anything timid. She has a beautiful timid soul.”

“I should rather say she is careful. But she is rich. She can choose

her own husband. In these days that is a rare luxury. How could she

help liking Captain Guibert better than that stupid, arrogant de

Marthenay? I like him very much, almost as much as I like you. Only he

makes me afraid. I always think he is going to scold me.”

“Don’t you deserve it?”

“I do deserve it. Scold me if you like, but not too much! The dragoon

is very stupid. And when a man is that, he is unbearable.”

Madame Dulaurens was hovering round now and came up to their little

retreat, thinking that this _tête-à-tête_ had lasted quite long

enough.

“Alice is not with you?” she asked.

“She has just gone out of the drawing-room, Madame Dulaurens. There she

is, coming back.”

When she had left them Jean said quickly, to put an end to the

conversation.

“Madame Dulaurens does not want to be separated from her daughter. You

understand?”

“Ah,” said Isabelle. “So poor Alice is to marry Monsieur de Marthenay.

She has no more will-power than a hen in a shower of rain.” And with a

sudden quaint outburst she added:

“Long live forbidden loves! What will you give me as a reward for my

help?”

“Ask and you shall receive!”

She looked slyly at him as if to provoke him.

“A kiss from your lips, dear Sir.”

His innocence was routed. He retorted at once:

“On yours, fair lady.”

It was her turn to blush. They both laughed, with that slight

embarrassment which accompanies the thought of coming pleasure, and

leaving their hiding-place they mixed with the general company.

CHAPTER IX

THE FAREWELL

The next day everything passed off as arranged. Isabelle Orlandi and

Jean Berlier took Alice Dulaurens to the park, as far as the oakwood

where Marcel had been instructed to wait for her. At the bend of the

path they left them face to face, while they continued their walk under

the trees, glorious in their autumn dress.

The terrified Alice put her hand on her heart. Her first thought was to

fly, but her legs were weak and her breath was gone.

“Stay, do stay,” said Marcel in a grave, pleading voice, which she did

not know. “Forgive my boldness. I am going away to Algiers and I wasn’t

brave enough to leave without seeing you once again.”

“Ah,” she said, pale and trembling. “What will my mother say?”

Her mother was only her second thought, but he imagined it her first

and frowned jealously. However, he went on with the same tender

assurance.

“Alice, I have come to tell you that I love you. Paule told me that

you loved me. Is it true? I want to hear it from your own lips.”

He saw her tremble and put her two hands to her throat as if she were

choking. Her cheeks were colorless and her eyes looked down unseeing on

the dead leaves which strewed the path. The oak-branches swayed in the

wind with a mournful clash. A pink glow in the sky, appearing through

the straight columns of the ancient trees, announced the end of the day.

Her voice was like an infinitely tender plaint as she murmured, “I

cannot tell you.”

It was her avowal, the only one she thought permissible.

Touched to the heart, Marcel looked with new eyes on this frightened

child, who, only a few feet away from him, a white shawl round her

shoulders, stood out like a ghost under the dome of trees. Her long

lashes drooped over her blue eyes. Behind her through the branches

he saw the setting sun like a huge conflagration, the dark trunks of

the oak-trees outlined against it. And the shades of the leaves were

glowing and sinister, like gold and blood.

“Alice,” he said again, “if you love me as I love you, promise you will

be my wife.”

At last she looked up in the young man’s proud face and understood How

much he had gone through for her, and her eyes were wet.

“I cannot ... Marcel ... My parents....” he could say no more--her

tears spoke for her. He came nearer and took her hand. She did not draw

it away.

In a firm, compelling voice he continued:

“Don’t be unhappy, Alice. You will gain their consent. Be brave and

strong enough to wait; time will help us. I only ask you to be patient.

I shall do great things for you. I am setting out on an expedition to

Africa. I shall win you, my beloved.”

In alarm she begged him not to go, her fears betraying her love.

“No, no, I won’t let you, I won’t let you risk your life. Ah, if

you--loved me, you would not go.”

“I am going because I love you, Alice.”

“You don’t know me,” she cried. “I am afraid--I am afraid of

everything. I am a poor little wretch. Oh, my head is so heavy!”

She laid her free hand first on her forehead and then on her bosom.

“My heart is so heavy,” she murmured in a low voice.

“Alice,” he said passionately, “don’t be afraid. I love you, I will

protect you.”

And bending down he touched with his lips the little trembling hand

that he had kept in his own. His kiss thrilled her. She sighed.

“Let us go back. This is not right.”

“Not right when I love you so much? Am I not your betrothed?”

“It is not right,” she repeated.

They looked at each other closely.

The evening sky was fading. A blue mist quivered over the park, under

the trees and across the lawns. It was the hour of mystery, when

everything is saddened by the fear of death. Daylight still lingered,

but a delicate, wasted daylight, languorous in its grace. And the path

which disappeared into the wood became in turn violet and rose-color.

In the young girl’s eyes he saw the reflection of the setting sun. All

the melancholy of dying nature was held in this living mirror.

Never had he felt so clearly the weakness of his loved one. Never had

she felt the chaste desire to cling to his strength as she did now. And

yet, as he drew her to him and bent to kiss her, she gently pushed him

away and whispered for the third time, “Oh, no, it is not right.” This

trembling chastity, which disguised her affection so little, filled him

with a feeling of deep respect.

“Alice,” he said again, “you must swear you will be my wife.”

But she answered as she had answered before:

“I cannot do it. It is my parents’ wish....”

Astonished at being unable to get more out of the interview which he

had so ardently desired, and which meant so much for their future,

Marcel went on firmly, certain of her love and confident that he could

convince her:

“Alice, Alice, I am going away--perhaps for several years. But what

are two or three years when one loves? If you love, it is forever. I

want to take your promise away with me. It will be my safeguard and my

strength. Alice, I love you more than my life. Or rather I should say

that I cannot live without you--obstacles are nothing when you love.

Swear that you will keep your heart for me, when I am gone, and this

little hand that you have given me, which lies so icy-cold in mine.”

She stood speechless and confused before him. Her life had passed

without initiative. She did not know if she had any will. Even her love

had taken possession of her imperceptibly and hurt her by its violence,

for it seemed to her excessive and forbidden.

With infinite compassion he looked at her, so pale and weak, his only

thought to protect her against the attacks of fate. But as she still

kept silence, he became insistent:

“Alice, I love you. The day is ending, you must go home. This autumn

air is cold. Will you let me go without a word, without a grain of

hope?”

It was the thrilling hour when all nature gathers herself together

before mingling with the shadows, before sinking into death. The last

rays of the setting sun still lit up Alice’s pure face and golden hair.

And her white shawl made a light spot among the trees.

She still stood silent and motionless. She foresaw both the

impossibility of the struggle with her mother and the equal

impossibility of marriage with M. de Marthenay. She did not know how

much we can shape our destiny when we dare to grasp it with a firm

hand. Love was opening all the great gateways of life to her, and she

was terrified. What had she done to God that her choice should depend

on herself alone? Why could she not follow a smooth and easy path? Thus

paralysed with fear she could make no choice.

Why did he not talk about his grief? She was so agitated that she would

have been moved to pity and would have given her promise. If he had

tried to draw her to him as he had already done, she would not have

refused him. She would at last have laid her head on his brave heart.

But he wanted her as a free gift. He waited and as this wait was

prolonged he looked more and more pityingly at the poor child whose

love was so wavering. Neither shame, nor shyness, nor natural reserve

could explain her silence. Their case was too grave that she should

hesitate to speak out if she wished to. The obstacles which separated

them were only the barriers of vanity and selfishness, not difficult

to overcome. She loved, but still she said nothing. He recognised that

their paths were not the same. He drew himself up to his full height in

disdainful pity. He was able, however, to master his pride sufficiently

to say gently to her:

“No, Alice, don’t promise me anything. I give you back the word that

you gave Paule for me. You haven’t the strength to love.”

In a firm, even voice he added, as he let her little, cold, unresisting

hand fall:

“Good-bye, Mademoiselle Dulaurens, we shall never meet again.”

She saw him disappear down the path where the shadows of the dying day

were beginning to fade. He did not turn back. He was already out of

sight and yet she still looked after him. The woods were quivering in

the evening breeze.

A leaf fell from a tree and in its flight it touched Alice’s hair. At

this foreboding of winter she felt death round her--within her.

Like two gay dancing phantoms Isabelle and Jean appeared under the

oaks. They found her rooted to the spot where Marcel had left her.

When they were about to speak to her, she fled without a word and

ran towards the house to hide her misery. It did not occur to her to

tell her trouble to Jean Berlier, who could still have saved her from

disaster. She reached her room, hid her face in her hands, and wept.

But even in her grief she did not think of struggling and gave herself

up to the fate that she felt to be inevitable.

After Alice’s flight, Isabelle and Jean looked at each other

astonished. “I don’t understand it,” he cried. “I understand quite

well,” answered she. “Here’s another who is afraid. We are all alike

nowadays. We want money and no risks. I know only one girl who would go

to the ends of the world for love, in a dress that cost twopence.”

“Who is that?”

“Paule Guibert.”

Before the words had passed her lips he had suddenly seen a vision

of Paule in her mourning dress. Isabelle felt instinctively what

was passing in his mind. Jealously she came nearer and in her most

seductive voice said:

“What about my commission? Have you forgotten it?”

She offered her lips. He remembered, and as the colors of the dying day

mingled he gave her the promised commission under the trees.

Marcel never looked back till he arrived at the ascent to Le Maupas.

There he turned round and saw La Chênaie lying in the shadow, while

the mountains were still splendid in the light. A long, fleecy cloud

trailed half way up their sides like a torn scarf. From the dying sun

they caught a tint of rose so fine and delicate that it brought to the

mind’s eye a goddess of the Alps half hidden amid gauze and muslin.

He gave himself the cruel satisfaction of waiting till the shadows,

falling on the mountain tops, had destroyed this airy fantasy and

blotted out these delicate colors. In the sadness of surrounding nature

he seemed to breathe more freely. Quickly he crossed the half-stripped

wood, through whose trunks patches of fiery red sky could be seen.

Round him the owls, those sinister birds of night and autumn, began

to call to each other with their mournful screams, like the agonising

shrieks of victims, which strike terror into the hearts of belated

travellers.

He found his sister at the gate. Feeling anxious about him, she had

come to meet him. Paule knew at a glance the result of the interview.

“Oh,” was all she said.

In a word he told her.

“We are not of the same race,” he said.

She took his arm and was bending forward to kiss him when she stopped.

“Listen,” she said.

“Owls! The wood is full of them, Marcel. Let us go away. They make me

shudder. The peasants say they are a sign of death.”

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

CHAPTER X

MARCEL’S DEPARTURE

A family meal before a departure reminds us in its sadness of the first

meal we have together after the final disappearance of an habitual

guest. If no one is missing as yet, still joy has fled. Everyone tries

vainly to brighten it, and of this touching, fruitless effort is born a

deeper sadness.

Thus the dining-room at Le Maupas, in spite of the October sun which

shone into it, was silent and mournful. Marcel was going away at

nightfall in Trélaz’s carriage to catch the six o’clock train at the

station. When the conversation languished nobody thought of taking it

up again. With a few unimportant words, spoken without enthusiasm, it

would falter back to life, only to die out once more. Marie, the old

servant, had prepared Marcel’s favorite dishes. Carrying them back

to the kitchen almost untouched, she murmured in a cross voice which

expressed her own sorrow:

“It isn’t right--it isn’t right. They want to starve themselves to

death!”

After lunch, Marcel went out with his sister.

“I want to see our old walks again,” he said.

Through the vineyards on the hill they climbed up to the chestnut-trees

at Vimines, under the shade of which grows thick moss where as children

they used to gather mushrooms. From the border of the woods they looked

out on Lake Bourget in its mountain basin. To appreciate its wild

beauty at its best one must see it in the evening.

“Now let’s go and see the waterfall,” said Marcel.

He wanted to assure himself, as it were, before leaving, of the

existence of all those quiet and lonely places which had helped to form

his character. From Vimines, whose pointed steeple commands the hill,

one comes down through the vineyards and orchards to the waterfall at

Coux by a zig-zag path from which are to be seen several very fine

views. Opposite lies a chaos of mountains, boldly scaled by rows of

pines; on the left, the Nivolet with rocky peaks bathed in a bluish

light; on the right, the openings of the valley of the Echelles and La

Chartreuse. Marcel stopped short when he saw, between two golden-leaved

beeches which framed a picture of savage loveliness, the long

waterfall, slender and white, which fell a hundred feet and shone again

in a silvery dust in the sunshine. He smiled happily.

“It is beautiful in its lonely surroundings,” he said. “Don’t let us go

down any further. We have still to go to the Montcharvin woods and the

ravine of Forezan.”

These were some of the old possessions of Le Maupas, which had been

given up when the crash came. Because they were nearer home and, from

time immemorial, familiar sights to him, he loved them best. And now

though they were sold, they had not lost their charm for him. The

beauty of the earth is not to be bought and sold. It belongs to the

discoverer who can understand it and enjoy it.

Le Forezan is a deep valley whose steep sides are covered with a ragged

growth of brushwood. Here and there the sides are less abrupt, and

it is possible to climb down to the stream which runs at the bottom.

There, under a far-stretching arch of greenery, are peace, silence, and

forgetfulness.

Marcel, who was walking ahead, turned back and saw that his sister was

caught in the creepers which crossed the path. Before coming to help

her he cried:

“How pretty you look in those bushes!”

“Come and help me instead of talking nonsense,” said Paule. But he did

not hurry. The girl’s natural grace harmonised wonderfully with this

fresh virgin landscape. He could not help admiring the suppleness of

the movements she made to disentangle herself, and the bright flush of

health that the exercise brought to her cheeks. When he came up to her,

she was quite free from the snare which had held her. “Too late!” she

cried.

“Bravo, Paule! You wouldn’t be afraid in Cochin-China or the Tonkin

forests. You will see them some day. You belong to the same race as

your brothers.”

“What, I?” she said, the fire in her eyes dying out. “I shall live and

die at Le Maupas.”

They came back from the valley through the ash wood. These trees with

their light trunks reared their heads proudly on high, wearing as a

crown the mass of branches from which the autumn wind was tearing the

leaves. Half stripped, they showed their shapeliness in all their

youthful health and strength, and thousands of uplifted arms waved

peacefully. Like naked hamadryads they betrayed the secret of their

forms. The scanty leaves which still adorned them, were ruddy gold,

almost as rich as the fallen ones which thickly carpeted the soil

below. Evening came on and all the wood was bathed in a violet mist,

which gave to it the mysterious aspect of a sacred grove.

Turned to the west on one side, on the other looking over meadows and

vineyards, the farm of Montcharvin reflected in its windows the glow

of the setting sun. This spacious house was built amid the ruins of

an old castle, of which one dismantled tower and a Romanesque portico

were all that remained. This portico, unprovided with a door and now

quite useless, looked on to a roofless shed where old plough-shares

were kept, and beyond, by reason of an abrupt descent, to a distant

landscape which was framed in its arch. This arrangement called to mind

the pictures of the old Italian masters, who, in order, doubtless, to

sum up the multiform beauty of the world, used to supplement their

human figures with a scene from nature, glimpsed between the columns of

a palace or under the arches of a cloister.

Marcel and Paule skirted the old building and, following a screen of

trees at the edge of a field which hid the deep valley of Forezan, they

stopped in front of a fallen trunk, a natural bench which had been left

there for years. Of one accord they sat down.

They saw the shades of evening falling over the land. They saw the path

which they had followed and the dead leaves of the woods turning pink

and violet. Two bullocks drawing a cart full of milk-cans passed in

front of them, and, as they crossed a band of sunshine, a light haze

could be plainly seen rising from their nostrils at every breath and

mounting upwards. Peace filled the countryside, which was preparing

for its winter rest with all the sadness of its shorn meadows and

despoiled woods.

Marcel took his sister’s hand. Suddenly at his touch she burst into

tears. They had too many sensations in their hearts at this moment of

leave-taking. He was thinking of Alice and her weakness, Paule was

thinking of him. For a moment he waited till the tears he had caused

her to shed were dried.

“Listen,” he said at last. “You must watch over mother. I shall be away

for a long time perhaps.”

Uneasily she felt a foreboding of some new misfortune, but immediately

she mastered herself.

“You will come home next year from Algiers, won’t you?”

He looked at her tenderly. “I don’t know, Paule dear, I am taking part

in an expedition which is preparing to cross the Sahara.”

“Oh,” she cried, “I was sure of it. You ask too much of our courage,

Marcel. Mother is old and very worn. She feels our troubles as much as

we do ourselves. We must make it easy for her.”

Looking at the peaceful fields, he thought how sweet it would be to

stay near his mother and sister. But it was only a passing regret, and

he went on:

“Are you not there, you, our sister of charity? I have to go far away.

I must forget. Don’t talk about it now. The Moureau expedition is not

yet ready. It won’t set out for a year, or more perhaps. I am telling

you, because I have no secrets from you. Mother will know about it soon

enough.”

“Will this expedition take long?” she asked simply.

“No one can say exactly. Probably eighteen months.”

She tried to master her sorrow, but overwhelmed she burst into tears.

“You don’t know how much Mother and I love you. Oh, if only we could

have given our hearts to her who didn’t dare to assert her will, she at

least might have been able to do what we cannot, to keep you here.”

He took her in his arms and pressed her to his heart. Sure of this

love, whose strength gave him courage, he waited till her despair had

passed. But he did not mention Alice. That name should never cross his

lips again. He only made a contemptuous allusion to his love.

“Don’t let us speak of that, dear. Such a marriage would only have

hampered me. A woman has no right to cramp her husband’s career. What

is a love worth that is not strong enough to bear separation and sorrow

and to make a sacrifice? You will stay with Mother. My destiny was to

be a globe-trotter--worse luck!”

He felt his sister’s form grow stiff in his arms.

“I was not thinking of myself,” she said, and in this phrase lay a

whole world of inward rebellion, which he divined and understood.

She had known sorrow too young, at an age when life was opening with

all its charm, and since her father’s death she had experienced much

base ingratitude and much insulting patronage to both her mother and

herself. From these experiences, she had gained the strength of a

stoic, but a bitter pride as well. She had already lost all hope for

the future. She tried to forget herself, as she believed herself to be

forgotten. The love for her mother and brother satisfied her passion

for devotion. Uplifted by her dignity and her contempt for society, she

did not seek to analyse the vague feelings which were surging in her

ardent heart.

Marcel knew she had the same nature as he, little inclined to talk

about self or to worry about her own affairs. He only tried to distract

her and spoke with deep affection.

“Paule, don’t despair. One of these days you will be happy. You deserve

it so much!”

But she turned the conversation:

“Your trip to Paris was about the expedition, wasn’t it? You never told

me about it,” said Paule.

“I did not keep you in the dark long, Paule, not long. I had to

fight against all kinds of intrigues and competition. At last I got

permission, both for Jean Berlier and myself, to join the expedition.”

“Oh, so M. Berlier is going too?”

“Yes, and he will come back a captain and with the Legion of Honour. It

will certainly develop him. The desert widens one’s heart and brain, as

the sea does. You don’t think of love-making any more! But why have you

left off calling him Jean?”

She made no reply. He looked at her, and then getting up said:

“Let us go back. It is growing dark. We must not leave Mother alone any

longer.”

Madame Guibert was seated at the door, waiting for them. With her old

hands she was knitting some woollen stockings for a farmer’s little

girl. She had put on her spectacles to see her needles. She often

lifted her eyes towards the avenue. This side of the house was covered

with the five-leaved ivy whose scarlet color was deepened by the rays

of the dying sun.

As soon as she saw Marcel and Paule she smiled at them. But as they

were coming up the staircase she quickly took off her spectacles to

wipe her eyes.

“At last!” she cried.

Her son kissed her.

“We stayed too long in the Montcharvin woods. But here we are, Mother.

Are you not afraid of the cold? It is getting late to be out of doors.”

And as they went into the house, the young man turned to look at the

neighboring meadows, the chestnut avenue, and the open gate. Knowing

how things stood with his family, he was aware that they would have to

think of selling Le Maupas, unless his brother Étienne made a fortune

in Tonkin. Here he had spent his childhood, and formed his soul. From

this country--now all pink and violet--his memories came back to him

at his call. They came to him from all sides, like a flight of birds

clearly defined in the setting sun. Marcel shut the door. In the

drawing-room he went and sat beside his mother on a low seat, leaned on

her shoulder, and took her hand.

“I am so comfortable here,” he said in a caressing voice which was a

contrast to his determined face.

For the first time he noticed the hand that he was holding in his own,

a poor, worn, rough hand with fingers swollen and ringless, which

betrayed a life of toil and old age. Madame Guibert followed her son’s

eyes--and understood.

“I was obliged to leave off wearing my wedding ring, it hurt me. I wore

your father’s for a long time, but the gold grew so thin that one day

it broke in two like glass.” And she added, as if talking to herself:

“It did not matter. Only our feelings matter. And even death cannot

alter them.”

Marcel looked at the portrait of his mother that he knew so well. It

represented a woman, pretty and slender, looking like a shy young girl,

whose tiny, tapering fingers held a flower, in the quaint old-fashioned

way. Then he bent down and put his lips to the withered hand.

In memory he saw again the old lady, worn out and humiliated, coming

home from La Chênaie after the refusal, and he thought of the rough way

he had received her. Then with the rather haughty grace which lent so

much value to his words of love, he said:

“My dear Mother, I have sometimes spoken rudely to you.”

She drew her hand gently away and stroked his cheek, smiling a sad

yet bright smile, which told the whole story of a soul purified by

suffering.

“Be quiet,” she murmured, brokenly. “I forbid you to blame yourself.

Every day I thank God for the children He has given me.”

They were silent. Minutes passed, swiftly, irrevocably.

The approaching separation drew nearer, and they enjoyed to the full

the happiness of their last moments together.

Nothing brings two lives closer than having suffered in common. When

would they ever be together again as they were now in the golden charm

of autumn, facing the fading trees, whose dying beauty could be seen

through the window? Of these three souls, two had the presentiment that

these hours would never come back. Madame Guibert sought in vain her

usual bravery in farewell moments. Marcel was thinking of the solitudes

of Africa which sometimes keep those who visit them; but, ashamed

of his weakness, he banished with cheery words of hope these dark

forebodings which cast shadows over the little country drawing-room.

And now Farmer Trélaz came to tell them that the carriage was at the

door. The luggage was stowed away in it--a lunch basket not being

forgotten for the long journey to Marseilles.

It was quite dark before the ancient vehicle started.

At Chambéry Paule noticed Madame Dulaurens and her daughter under an

arcade. She saw Alice grow deadly pale; but turning to her brother, she

was surprised to see him quite unmoved. He seemed indifferent. She felt

intuitively, however, that he, too, had seen her.

At the station the three had a long wait. They had the little

waiting-room to themselves. Madame Guibert never tired of looking at

the son who was about to leave her. Suddenly she said:

“You are more like your father than any of the others.”

“I have not his faith in life,” said Marcel. “I never saw him

discouraged. Whenever he failed in anything, he used to lift his head

and laugh and say, ‘As long as there’s life there’s hope.’”

“Since his death,” said the old lady, “I have lost all my courage.”

“He lives again in you, Mother. He still lives for us.”

“Through you too. And he is waiting for me.”

Marcel kissed her.

“No, Mother, you know we need you,” he said.

They were no longer alone, and a short time after, at the porter’s call

they went out on the platform. There they saw in the darkness the two

headlights of the express flash as it sped on towards them. The moment

of farewell had come. Never had Madame Guibert shown so much emotion.

Again and again she cried, “My son, my dear son,” while she embraced

him. He smiled to reassure her.

Her last words were a prayer:

“May God bless you and keep you!”

All bent and bowed to the earth which was drawing her towards it, she

went back on Paule’s arm to Trélaz’s carriage.

“Don’t be unhappy, Mother dear,” said Paule, comforting her. “It is

only for a year. You used to be so much braver.”

All the time she herself was in torture because of the secret that had

been entrusted to her.

On the way home they were silent. During the evening at Le Maupas

Madame Guibert suddenly burst into tears.

“I am so afraid I shall never see him again,” she murmured, when she

could give voice to her grief.

“But he is running no risks,” Paule assured her, surprised and alarmed

at this strange presentiment of a danger of which she alone was aware.

“I don’t know. I am as sad as I was the year your father died.”

With a great effort she managed to control herself so as not to

frighten her daughter. Then, taking the hand of her last child with

that gracious gentleness which remained to her from her youth, she said

to Paule, thinking of the many separations in the past, some for a long

time and others for ever:

“Dear little girl, you are the last flower of my deserted garden.”

PART II

CHAPTER I

THIRTEEN AT TABLE

“We might perhaps go in to dinner,” M. Dulaurens timidly ventured to

suggest.

Upon the look which his wife threw at him he left the immediate

neighborhood of the fireplace, where some enormous oak-logs were

burning, and modestly seated himself at the side. Turning to her

guests, Madame Dulaurens smiled and showed them a calendar with the

date February 25th inscribed thereon in huge letters. Mademoiselle de

Songeon, old and dried-up, drew nearer and seemed to take a special

interest in the flight of time. In reality her only thought was to get

possession of the corner near the fire. She had just come back from

Rome. In winter she paid attention only to the southern shrines; and to

accomplish this last pilgrimage she had had to seize hastily the cattle

of a farmer whose rent was in arrears. While warming her large feet she

considered the calendar.

“But it says the twenty-fifth of February, 1898!” she exclaimed after

reading it, “and we are now at the twenty-fifth of February, 1901. You

are exactly three years behind the time!”

All the ladies except Alice got up to confirm this. The calendar was

passed from hand to hand. Madame Orlandi, who was holding Pistache to

her heart--an old, fat, bald Pistache, whose heavy eyelids fell over

bleary eyes--cried out astonished and proud of her own penetration.

“Oh, _I_ know! You have kept it at the date of your daughter’s

wedding. To-day is the third anniversary. How clever and delicate your

motherly love is! You are _so_ sympathetic, dear Madame Dulaurens.

I too love to keep souvenirs.”

“I’ll wager you don’t remember the date of my wedding, Mamma,” said

Isabelle, now Madame Landeau.

“Oh, you dreadful Isabelle! You’re always ready with a jest,” said her

mother.

And, with diplomacy which lacked subtlety, the Italian countess bent

over her pug and covered him with caresses.

Seeing all her guests busy, Madame Dulaurens threw a hasty glance at

the clock and saw that it was a quarter to eight. Dinner was ordered

for seven, and in the provinces punctuality is strictly observed.

“My dear little countess, did you see anything of Clément this

afternoon?” she asked her daughter, who sat silent and absent-minded.

“No, Mamma,” answered Alice, in a low voice.

Four or five months after Marcel Guibert’s departure, the despairing

Alice, crushed and submissive, had married, at her clever mother’s

bidding, Count Armand de Marthenay, then Lieutenant of the 4th Dragoons

at Chambéry. For the third time they were celebrating her “happiness.”

Her maidenly languor and supple slenderness had changed to depression

and leanness. Her limpid eyes and the drooping corners of her mouth

told of profound and habitual sorrow. Without losing their refinement

her features had altered. Through a greater prominence of the

cheek-bones, a more pronounced thinness of the nose, a fading of color

in the cheeks, the old expression of youth and innocence had given

place to a sad little air of fragile resignation. She bore the marks of

a sorrow which filled her life and of which her husband was certainly

quite aware. To be convinced of this, it was sufficient to look at the

heavy, pimply visage behind her--the vacant face of a man prematurely

worn out.

The house at Chambéry where the Dulaurenses lived in the winter

reminded one in its massive structure and the pillars of its staircase

of the showy palaces in Genoa the Magnificent. The drawing-room looked

on to the Place Saint-Léger in the centre of the town. Ten lamps

lighted up the vast room that evening, but were not sufficient to show

off the fine old high-timbered ceiling.

Madame Dulaurens anxiously left her daughter, and drawing back the

window-curtain looked out into the square, which she saw by the

gas-jets flickering in the keen frosty air, was quite empty. She drew

down the blind and looked at the party. They seem so interested in

their talk that she decided to wait a few minutes longer.

“Madame Orlandi, who is always late, came too soon to-day,” she thought

rather spitefully.

Round the fireplace the women were listening to Mademoiselle de

Songeon, who was describing the catacombs at Rome with the devotion

of a catechumen. Madame Orlandi, artlessly devoid of morality and

unskilled at suitable comparisons, said she preferred the ruins at

Pompeii, because the pictures there were so diverting. Mesdames de

Lavernay and d’Amberlard, mature and solemn women, had no opinion

at all. Their aristocracy was very pleasing to Madame Dulaurens,

who gladly advertised their origin. They were well-bred, and valued

existence according to the number and the importance of the invitations

that they managed to procure for themselves. Their husbands, a pair of

practised parasites, had retained a distinguished air from the old

royalist days. They had the right prejudices, were sincerely ignorant

of modern life, and sought pleasure unceasingly. Baron d’Amberlard had

high color and liked good living; the Marquis de Lavernay, still young

in spite of his white hair, reserved his polite speeches concerning

feminine beauty.

The latter had just come from the Court of Sessions and was giving a

group of men his impressions of the jury.

“You condemn a thief and let a child-murderer go scot-free,” said M.

Dulaurens. But the nervous little man hastened to add: “Please note

that I am not criticising you.”

M. de Lavernay laughed unreservedly.

“Ah, my dear fellow, if we sentenced child-murderers we should never

have any servants.”

“What a mania there is for having children!” cried M. d’Amberlard.

“One’s family should be governed by the state of one’s finances. What

do you think about it, M. Landeau?”

M. Landeau admitted that he had thought nothing about it. As a

millionaire, he was always fighting terrible battles with labor so

as to be able to pour a golden rain upon his wife and at last with a

triumphant cheque to touch her proud heart. She played with him much

in the same way a tamer does with the beast that roars, threatens,

and arches its back. Under the pretext of filial duty towards Madame

Orlandi (who did not care at all what she did) she had refused to

follow him to Lyons; so twice a week he came to see her in the splendid

villa he had built for her on the Cognin road. It was an overworked

man with bent shoulders and pale face that she dragged with her into

society. There, tamely growling, he admired Isabelle’s beauty and

listened joylessly to her bell-like laughter, as she showed her white

and shining teeth.

M. d’Amberlard, stifling a yawn, began to fidget.

“I’m afraid the dinner will be spoilt. It has been kept waiting too

long,” he whispered to the Marquis de Lavernay, who made no answer but

hastened to an empty seat beside Madame Landeau, where he was seen

shaking his long horse-like head in his efforts to please.

Armand de Marthenay, motionless and silent up to now, overheard this

and woke from the torpor into which he had sunk.

“It is all Clément’s fault. He must have had a smash up.”

He spoke so loudly that everybody heard and turned towards him. The

long wait had become unbearable to all. The hands of the clock pointed

to eight.

Again Madame Dulaurens tried to hide her anxiety. “Clément,” she said,

“is very careful. But these cars are dangerous at night. One can so

easily run into something in the dark.”

“Where did he go?” asked the women.

“That is just what is worrying me. He left for La Chênaie at five

o’clock. It would hardly take him ten minutes, it is only two miles.

And he hasn’t come back.”

Anxious as ever for peace, M. Dulaurens assured them that nothing had

ever happened to Clément.

“Not to Clément,” Marthenay sarcastically put in. “He is a young devil!

He is always running over something,--hens and dogs, and the other day

it was an old woman.”

“We paid her,” said Madame Dulaurens indignantly. “And paid her very

well indeed.”

“She is limping about on your money.”

M. de Lavernay gallantly, and without any suspicion of irony, explained

to his hostess that there were unfortunate creatures who were in the

habit of throwing themselves in front of motor cars, so as to make

money out of the owners. All except Mademoiselle de Songeon, who

hated progress, were in favor of this fashionable sport and were busy

defending it when Clément entered, looking very jolly and with a red

face, his fur coat covered with frost which shone in the light.

Madame Dulaurens rushed up to him and scolded him well instead of

satisfying her desire to kiss him. Since her daughter’s marriage she

had insisted on playing a much larger part in her son’s life. He made

no attempt to excuse himself, but laughed, melting like an icicle all

the time.

“Oh, well, we got stuck at Cognin. Such a bad business!”

M. d’Amberlard tossed his head furiously.

“A nice business indeed,” he said. “Dinner kept waiting! He is talking

very coolly about it, the young scoundrel.” He was still raging

inwardly when Madame Dulaurens took his arm to go in to dinner. Clément

made as though to offer his to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who stared at

him scornfully and ordered him to go and dry himself.

“You are quite right, Mademoiselle de Songeon,” he replied

philosophically. “But you aren’t _very_ kind! I shall go and dry

myself and change too.”

He disappeared, returning in his dinner-jacket as they were serving

the filet of beef with mushrooms. With all the coolness of the rising

generation, he asked loudly for soup and fish and made no attempt to

make up for his delay.

As the courses succeeded one another harmoniously, the guests’ pleasure

grew and the conversation became general. Clément, having satisfied

his appetite, was burning to take part in it and attract the attention

of the table. He watched his opportunity and called across the room: “I

have some great news for you.”

“What is it?” they cried on all sides.

“I heard it at Cognin. I had it from my chauffeur, who heard it from

the schoolmaster.”

“Cognin news,” said Isabelle ironically. “It will interest the whole of

France!”

“At the news I bring you

Your lovely eyes will weep,”

Clément hummed to the air of “Malbrough.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed everybody.

“You may laugh, Madame, but my news _will_ interest the whole of

France.”

“Then tell us what it is,” cried several voices at once.

Every eye was on the young man. He enjoyed the momentary superiority

which his possession of news gave him. Holding the whole table at his

mercy he had succeeded in gaining his ends. They were now serving

truffled galantine “_des gourmets_” as it was called, the glory of

a Toulouse specialist. In front of each guest costly orchids of various

hues blossomed in a tall Murano vase. It was Alice’s idea to have this

decoration, which she had read of in a society paper.

“Well?” said Madame Dulaurens, speaking in the name of all.

Clément could contain himself no longer. He had had time enough to

appreciate his own tactlessness, but with the utmost coolness he said:

“Well, Commander Guibert is dead!”

This news, dropped like a bombshell in the middle of a gay

dinner-party, all but perfect in its arrangements, amid the warmth, the

lights, the charming flowers, the dazzling jewels, the lovely dresses,

and the general cheerfulness, seemed almost an impropriety. It would be

only the unmannerly Clément, coarsened by sport, who could be guilty

of such a blunder. Why, the very introduction of the subject of death

seemed to imply that the pleasures of the evening were not everlasting;

and does not the whole art of enjoying the present consist in supposing

it will last forever? And then if it had only been the death of some

unknown person, they could have passed it over! But Commander Guibert

could not be so quickly disposed of; the common knowledge of his

origin, his personality, and his brilliant career prevented his name

from dropping out of the conversation. Stupefaction reigned at the

table.

Isabelle was the first to speak, and it was to cast doubts on the truth

of the story.

“But it is not possible! Last year we might have believed you. He was

taking part in the Moureau Expedition to Africa. He was travelling in

unknown and dangerous countries. But he came back safe and sound, and

famous as well. Now he is commander and an officer of the Legion of

Honour at thirty-two. He is our great man. You are all jealous of him,

so you think you will just get rid of him.”

She spoke with animation, turning from right to left in her chair, as

if inviting all the guests to witness her anger. On Clément’s unhappy

remark she had looked at Alice and saw the blood leave her cheeks as

though she were dying. This mortal pallor extended even to her hands,

which shook nervously, hardly distinguishable from the white cloth.

Isabelle had immediately turned the attention on herself with her hasty

words.

Clément made a slight gesture.

“No, he is dead. I admire him as much as you do, but he is dead.” And

he repeated this word, which should never be spoken in a dining-room.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake do be quiet,” murmured Madame Orlandi, who had

just noticed that they were thirteen at table, counting twice over

in the hope that she was mistaken. Solemnly Mademoiselle de Songeon

exclaimed: “May God rest his soul in peace.”

“Did he die in France?” asked M. Dulaurens. “The Expedition came back a

month or two ago.”

M. d’Amberlard, quite unmoved, was enjoying a truffle that he kept on

his plate so as to reserve its taste to the last, and M. de Lavernay

kept his eyes fixed on Isabelle’s corsage as she bent forward.

M. de Marthenay put down his glass, which he kept emptying constantly.

“I met the Commander,” he said, “scarcely three weeks ago. He was

getting out at the station. I went up to him but he seemed not to know

me.”

“Probably because he didn’t want to,” Isabelle could not refrain from

remarking. She hated Alice’s husband, who made persistent love to her

when he had lost at cards and had nothing else to do. And to prevent

any more allusions she added: “No doubt he has a contempt for officers

who have resigned.”

M. de Marthenay had left the army the year before.

“He _had_ a contempt, you mean,” said Clément cruelly. He would

not allow them to rob him of his dead, and when he had reconquered the

general attention he gave a few details.

“My brother-in-law is quite right,” he said. “Commander Guibert did

come back to Savoy last month. He stayed two days with his mother and

sister at Le Maupas and then returned to his barracks at Timmimun, in

Southern Algiers.”

“At the entrance to Touât,” explained the ex-dragoon, who since he left

the army was exceeding keen about all military questions. “But General

Lervières passed Timmimun to-day, so the Berbers and the Doui-Menia

must have attacked him from the rear.”

Young Dulaurens stuck his monocle in his eye and stared impertinently

at Marthenay.

“Armand,” said he, “I don’t recognise you. Have you gone in for

strategy?”

With another look at her friend’s bloodless face, Isabelle made a fresh

interruption.

“I do not understand. He had scarcely returned from crossing the

Sahara, a trip which lasted eighteen months or two years, I don’t

quite remember which. After these expeditions one generally has a long

leave. Then he evidently took no rest? He went back at once to this

expedition? Because, if he is dead, he must have been killed in battle.”

Raising his eyebrows, Clément let his eyeglass fall.

“When a man is a hero he is not one by halves. He asked for this post

on account of the danger.”

M. de Lavernay, bending towards his neighbor, whispered in her ear:

“I like to see you get excited. Your cheeks color and your eyes flash.”

But it was not at either her cheeks or her eyes that he was looking.

The impatient Isabelle cut him short with that sharpness which marriage

had not cured.

“Do be quiet, you old sinner!” she cried.

Alice had taken up her bouquet of orchids and was smelling it, half

hiding her paleness. At last Isabelle, giving full vent to the

uneasiness which had tortured her for the last few minutes, said,

“And Captain Berlier? He was coming back from the Sahara too. He

belonged to the same regiment as Commander Guibert. Had he gone with

him to Timmimun?”

Did Clément Dulaurens guess her anxiety from the tone of her voice? Too

often had he suffered from her sarcastic remarks not to take a cruel

pleasure in tormenting her a little now.

“Yes, that is true,” he said. “Jean Berlier must have been there as

well.”

“Now what do you know exactly?” demanded Isabelle imperiously.

“Tell us what you heard,” put in Madame Dulaurens. Annoyed at the

course of the conversation, she had given up all hope of diverting it

and was resigned to hearing the whole story.

“Well, here you are! While they were mending my car at Cognin I went

into the Café National. There were only the mayor, the schoolmaster,

and three or four municipal councillors there. When they saw me they

looked at me mysteriously. ‘Hallo,’ I said to them, ‘are you holding a

meeting?’ ‘No, we are just chatting,’ the mayor said. And that was as

far as we got.”

“And then?”

“That was all that concerned me. I went out, and sent my chauffeur to

have a drink in his turn. He is very thick with the schoolmaster. They

are both anarchists.”

“Anarchists!” repeated Mademoiselle de Songeon wrathfully.

“Certainly. Everybody is nowadays. It is the fashion. My chauffeur came

back. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘They have had a wire from the

Minister about Commander Guibert’s death in Africa.’ ‘Are you sure?

I said. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘He was killed by savages defending a town

called Timou--Timmimun?--that’s it. Then of course they had to tell his

people the news. They were very puzzled how to do it. At last they sent

a policeman.’”

“A policeman?” said M. Dulaurens, a stickler for legalities. “But the

mayor should have taken the fatal telegram in person.”

“The Guiberts are conservatives,” said M. de Lavernay. “These

republicans will not trouble themselves in such cases.”

“But the Guiberts are not interested in politics.”

“The grandfather was a councillor, of conservative views, and the

father was mayor of Cognin. That is quite enough.”

Madame Dulaurens was trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who

was separated from her by a candelabrum. Alice’s orchids were drooping

under the warm rain of her tears. In the general confusion no one had

seen her cry.

“How did he die?” questioned one of the ladies.

“At the head of his men--after the victory--with a bullet in his

forehead. I quote the telegram that my man read.”

“Did he receive the last sacrament?” asked Mademoiselle de Songeon

shaking her grey head.

The ever-correct M. Dulaurens summed up the affair. “He is a great loss

to his country.”

“Yes,” added his wife, in a noble impulse of eloquence. “We will

honor his glorious memory. We will get up a memorial service whose

magnificence shall astonish all Chambéry. It is the duty of our class

to show France how genuine merit must be recognised and rewarded, at a

time when mediocrity has taken possession of the country, when envious

equality drags it down to the lowest level.” She had read this last

sentence that very morning in a leading article of the _Gaulois_.

Alice, surprised to hear all this, thought in her sorrow, “Why then,

did she refuse to let me give myself to him?” And Isabelle was silent,

thinking of Jean Berlier, whose fate was still unknown.

Madame Orlandi, forgetting Pistache for a minute, noticed how

abstracted her daughter was. She looked at her with loving admiration

and praised herself for the depth of her maternal affection. In an

outburst in which the thought of self did not swallow up all pity she

expressed her concern for Madame Guibert.

“Does his mother know?” she asked. And she stopped confusedly, as

though she felt herself guilty of a scandal. All eyes turned to Clément

Dulaurens. The young man answered in a free and easy way, the bad taste

of which was due rather to his youth than to any lack of feeling.

“She must know all by now. As I was coming home I met her driving back

to Le Maupas in her old cart. She was passing under a gas lamp; I

recognised her quite well, I had to go slowly on account of my damaged

car.”

These words brought a dreadful feeling of actuality into the company.

It seemed as if the cold outside air had suddenly frozen this

comfortable dining-room.

Instinctively M. d’Amberlard, who was completely bored, examined

the windows to see if they were open. A shudder passed through the

assembly, all of whom were haunted by the same vision: the picture

of an old woman, already heavily tried by life’s sorrows, going home

through the snow, contented and unsuspecting, to that home where news

of death awaited her.

This inevitable catastrophe which was about to take place--which was

perhaps taking place at this very moment--came home to them all even

more than the glorious faraway death of Commander Guibert on African

soil.

A sob from Alice broke the oppressive silence. In a frightened voice

Isabelle murmured: “She knows by now.”

The mothers all broke down unreservedly, and Madame Dulaurens promptly

resolved to comfort and console the poor woman in an early visit.

With all these solemn faces round him, Clément, who loved gaiety

at table, at last recognised his thoughtlessness and admitted to

himself, “Now I’ve done it!” His father, a slave to punctilio, without

paying any attention to the rest of the conversation, returned to

the discussion of an accessory point which he had not sufficiently

developed.

“The mayor of Cognin should have gone to them and broken the news

delicately, instead of just rudely sending a policeman,” he stated.

Profiting by the interposition of this enlightening remark, M.

d’Amberlard thought it time to unburden himself of a protest which he

had been keeping back with difficulty for some time.

“All our regrets can make no change,” he said, “and we might as well

talk about something more cheerful. When I was in Paris I always used

to ask if a play ended happily before I took seats for it. A party,

like a comedy, should avoid all gloomy subjects.”

The Marquis de Lavernay quite agreed with this, and so death was

forgotten. Champagne filled the gilded glasses. Flowers spread their

perfume over the table which was laden with baskets of preserved

fruits. The jewels of the women sparkled in the lights. It was a

pleasure to recover the former luxurious and comfortable atmosphere

which the unhappy news had disturbed. Alice and Isabelle were left

alone in their distress.

The guests all drank the health of the young de Marthenay couple,

whose wedding anniversary was being celebrated, and a move was made to

the drawing-room. Alice, unable to bear it any longer, rushed to her

mother’s room. In the darkness she gave way to her grief. She had been

able to smile bravely during the toast they had drunk in her honor,

with its allusion to her “enviable happiness.” Her happiness! She had

looked in vain for it both in the present and in the past, and how

could she expect it in the future? With the clear sight which the great

shocks of destiny give us when we expect the bitterness of life to

crush us, she lived again despairingly through the last years of her

life. In a rapid succession of vivid pictures she saw her sad days pass

before her eyes.

She had not wished to marry Armand de Marthenay: it was so constantly

forced upon her that at last she had yielded. She came down the aisle

of the church in her wedding dress on the arm of the husband she had

not chosen. And since then? Could she look back upon one hour of joy,

that deep, pure joy that her childish soul had imagined? The first days

of her married life had been deadened by a kind of merciful stupor,

like a fog which hides the desolation of a blasted plain. She forgot

to feel she had a heart. Her husband still retained the good humor of

a man with something to do. He rode, he fulfilled his military duties,

he received his friends, he got up parties. She allowed herself to be

occupied by her new household duties and by the many society calls.

Instead of the husband of her dreams, she had a companion proud of her

fortune and her pretty face, a man without much delicacy of feeling and

with no great intelligence, not even clever, but possessed of a good

digestion and an idiotic fatuity which enabled him to admire himself

unceasingly all his life. When her little girl was born she thought she

had at last found the oblivion for which at times she still sought.

From this tolerable time in her existence her thoughts travelled on to

the present, which was always with her. After a series of unforeseen

incidents, the regiment stationed at Chambéry had been designated for a

distant Eastern garrison. M. de Marthenay tried to exchange, but it was

impossible. He had either to go away and leave Savoy, or to spoil his

career. At the prospect of this departure Madame Dulaurens had shown

such violent grief that the young wife was foolish enough to remind her

husband of the solemn promise he had made her when they became engaged.

As a man of honor the dragoon sacrificed himself. In twenty-four hours

he had resigned. He then gave way to his idle instincts, which a

soldier’s life had kept in check. And from that time he went steadily

from bad to worse.

He began by becoming a constant habitué of the cafés. In summer he was

a member of the Club at Aix-le-Bains and of the Villa des Fleurs. He

began to play baccarat and won. While his wife was slowly recovering

after their child’s birth he was engaged in low adventures, and

reports were spread about concerning him by the visitors to these

watering-places. One day Alice learned of his base unfaithfulness. She

had kept her innocence after her marriage and learnt the cruel fact

of unfaithfulness before she well knew what unfaithfulness meant. She

rebelled against it, but instead of finding the repentance which she

expected and could have pardoned, she received only this humiliating

answer:

“You wanted me to resign the service and I resigned. You have only

yourself to blame if I try to make up for the loss of my career in my

own way. A man must have something to do. I sacrificed the object of my

life for your sake. What have you given up in return?”

Overwhelmed at his reproaches she retired into herself from that time

and wrapped herself in a mournful silence. She was not resigned, but

she followed the bent of her passive nature.

Losses at cards soured M. de Marthenay’s character. After the

season, idle and unsettled, he began to drink. His wife saw him try

to captivate her friend Isabelle before her very eyes, and was so

discouraged that she noted his failure with indifference. Thus she was

obliged to follow the only too rapid phases of his fall, of which she

was perhaps indirectly the cause. She could not shut her eyes to it,

yet felt the impossibility of saving him.

Thinking over all the details of her miserable past, Alice felt

astonished that she suffered so much. She had grown accustomed to

living amid such thoughts. Their dull monotony was now familiar to

her. But to-day a new sorrow had come to reinforce their bitterness.

Fresh melancholy pictures rose up in her memory as if to remind her

of the part she had played in her own destiny. She remembered the

day when Paule Guibert in the oakwood had stirred her heart with an

unknown desire. She saw once more the vivid light of the setting sun

through the trees and heaven descending upon her transfigured soul,

saw Marcel’s tall figure bending down to her with his words of love.

And then ... then she saw him lying dead in a distant, sun-scorched

land, a bullet through his head, pale and terrible, his reproachful

eyes fixed upon her. Oh, those eyes of agony! How well she knew their

look! They had gazed on her like that when she had kept that obstinate

silence--that wicked silence which had ruined their happiness. Now in

this dark room she vainly hid her face so as not to see them. “Marcel,

forgive me!” Distracted and trembling, her love made supplication to

him. “Don’t look at me like that! I did not know. I was a child. That

is my excuse. Yes, I was a coward, I was afraid to strive for you, to

fight for my love. I was afraid to wait, to love, to suffer, to live.

But God has punished me--oh, how cruelly! Close your eyes and forgive

me....”

Frightened at the sound of her own voice, she laid her hand on her

bosom. She was choking as on the day her child was born. At last in

her broken heart rose up the knowledge of life in all its strength and

dignity. Her soul had won its freedom, and she loved Marcel as he had

loved her, nobly and proudly. For her sake, to seek forgetfulness, he

had travelled over Africa and met glory and death. Perhaps, as he fell,

he had recalled her face. That she might have been his last thought,

though that thought might be but disdainful, was now her most ardent

prayer. Comparing her existence with the one she had thrust from her

she regretted not being a hero’s widow instead of sharing the dull life

of a man incapable of inspiring or feeling love.

The door opened and Madame Dulaurens, anxious at her daughter’s long

absence, called in the darkness.

“Alice, are you there? Answer me.”

“Yes, what do you want?”

Madame Dulaurens was surprised at the unexpected hardness of tone. She

went back to the lighted corridor and returned with a lamp. She found

her daughter lying motionless and white, and recognised traces of tears

on her hastily dried cheeks. She sat down beside her at once and tried

to take her in her arms. But Alice shrank from her embrace. All the

mother in Madame Dulaurens was aroused, and she winced with pain.

“Dearest,” she said, “you are suffering. Tell me your trouble. I am

your mother. What the matter to-night?”

Although her masterful nature was irritated by this rebellion, she

understood that now she must not put pressure on her child. She covered

her with kisses and overwhelmed her with kind words, but it was all in

vain.

“What is the matter with you to-night?” she repeated.

“Nothing,” said Alice in a firm voice, which her mother did not

recognise.

In the face of such profundity of sorrow Madame Dulaurens hesitated,

not knowing which to ask of the two questions that burned her lips.

“Is it about your husband?” she asked at last.

She had guessed that Commander Guibert’s death had something to do with

these tears. But she did not dare to allude to the secret which she had

once treated so lightly.

“Yes,” whispered Alice, weakening again. And they both accepted this

lie, by which they were spared the reproach which no passing of time

could wipe away. Both were thinking of Marcel Guibert and they talked

about Armand de Marthenay.

Alice began to complain of her joyless life.

“We were wrong to ask him to resign.”

“Oh, my dearest,” said her mother, “how you hurt me! So you would have

agreed to desert me?”

“Was it better that my husband should desert me?”

“I should have died,” exclaimed Madame Dulaurens energetically, “if you

had had to go. You will never know how I love you and how I want to

make you happy!”

She spoke in entirely good faith. Deceived by her daughter’s words,

she had regained the serenity which the memory of death had almost

destroyed. Taught by her own experience, she was not in the least

surprised at the disillusionment of Armand’s neglected wife. Was it not

the lot of most women? And had she not, what so many women lacked, the

consolation of a warm motherly heart to fly to?

But Alice saw another mother, who at this hour was draining her cup

of sorrow, a poor old woman by whose side she longed to be, where she

would have been if she had listened to the dictates of her heart. Like

all weaklings who revolt, she went beyond the bounds and did not stop

short of injustice to her own mother.

They looked at each other. Madame Dulaurens understood at last and felt

a deep anguish. A gulf yawned between her and her daughter. There had

suddenly and relentlessly been revealed to both of them the difference

of their two natures, the one imperious and under the sway of worldly

prejudices, the other shrinking, docile, and under no sway but that of

the heart.

When they went back to the drawing-room a few minutes later, calm, and

leaning on each other’s arms, nobody could have suspected the domestic

drama which had just parted them asunder.

Isabelle was leading the conversation, talking loudly, making jokes,

and showing her white teeth. And from time to time she looked at her

surroundings, at her husband, at her admirers, M. de Marthenay, M. de

Lavernay, and particularly at Clément Dulaurens, with eyes full of

hatred and scorn. She detested them all, because they could not tell

her that Jean Berlier was still alive.

She saw that Alice had been crying and envied her the reality of her

sorrow. When the time for departure came, as her friend went to the

hall to help her on with her furs, she took advantage of their being

alone to throw her arms round her neck, and at last giving way to the

grief which she had choked back all the evening she whispered a few

wild words, which were understood at once.

“My poor Alice! What cowards we have been! Oh, why can we not be

allowed to mourn for our dead this evening? Our lives belonged to them,

and we denied it. Let us weep for them and for our dull existence which

might have been so bright!”

“Yes,” said Alice, “sorrow itself is more to be desired than the fate

that is ours.”