At the hour when Colonel Duquesne and the two officers were discussing
Creci's insult to Sophie--for insult they all well knew it to
be--Sophie and Ravenel were sitting on their balcony after their
supper, and Lucie had been put to bed. Sophie had not spoken to Ravenel
of what had happened in the park since their agitated walk home, but
now she said timidly, placing her hand in his, in the soft purple
twilight which enveloped them, and through which the lights of the town
twinkled beneath them:
"What do you think that man Creci will do?"
"Prefer charges against me, I suppose," returned Ravenel, "but if he
does, I think he will get the worst of it. No one could believe that
you, Sophie, could give any encouragement to a man like that. Your life
here has been too prudent. No other woman, I believe, could have lived
with the beauty and natural gaiety that you possess, effacing herself
so completely, and all for me. What an evil hour for you, dearest,
that ever we met!"
"Do not say that," cried Sophie. "If I had it all to live over again, I
would do as I have done except--except--"
She buried her face in her hands. Ravenel, too, looked ashamed. To both
of them the iron entered into their souls at the recollection of the
first three weeks after Sophie left her husband. Then Sophie, raising
her head, presently said:
"But it was an evil hour for you. I might have endured my fate, while
but for me you would have married happily, and be to-day where you
ought to be--in a good position, with your talents recognized and--"
The two poor souls often talked together in this way, speaking frankly
to each other, and each taking the blame. They spoke a while longer,
each fearing and dreading the morrow, and then Sophie went to see that
Lucie was asleep in her little bed, while Ravenel went to his work of
addressing envelopes.
Lucie was not asleep, as she should have been, but wide-awake and very
talkative.
"Oh, Sophie," she said, when Sophie sat down by the bed in Lucie's
little room, "how glad I am that you are married to Captain Ravenel!
I like him so much better than Count Delorme. Sophie, I hated Count
Delorme!"
"So did I," replied Sophie, her pale face flushing, and her tongue for
once committing an indiscretion. But the child was quite unconscious of
it. She hated Count Delorme herself, and saw every reason why Sophie
and every one else should hate him.
"And Edouard," continued Lucie, "that hateful, hateful boy! Oh, I think
it is ever so much nicer as it is, and if only I could live with you,
and make omelettes every day, and have a little garden and dig in it
when Captain Ravenel is digging in the big garden, how much I should
like it, and then I could go and visit grandmama at the château."
Sophie laid her head down on the pillow by Lucie, and kissed the
child's soft red lips. After all, how happy she could be but for that
terrible moral law which, because they had transgressed it, kept
thundering in her ears its maledictions.
But no shame and no sorrow can wholly take away the joy of loving and
being loved as Sophie loved and was loved.
Next morning, about seven o'clock, as Ravenel was walking through the
park to the post-office with his parcel of circulars, he came face to
face with Colonel Duquesne. The colonel, instead of passing him with a
stiff nod, halted before him, and said:
"Good morning, Captain Ravenel."
Ravenel was startled, but he replied, saluting respectfully:
"Good morning, sir."
"There is, I am afraid, some trouble ahead of you with regard to
Lieutenant Creci," said the colonel, speaking very deliberately. "I
wish to say now, from long knowledge of the lady in the case, that I
can not believe she committed the smallest impropriety, nor do I think
that Creci's word that she did so would carry the slightest conviction
to any person in Bienville; and whatever comes of it, the lady's name
must be kept out of the affair absolutely."
Ravenel could have fallen upon his knees with gratitude when Colonel
Duquesne said this. The idea that Sophie's name should be dragged
into a public scandal was heart-breaking to him. The tears came into
his eyes, and he was about to extend his hand impulsively to Colonel
Duquesne, but changed his mind, and crossed his arms.
He bowed, however, profoundly, and said:
"I can not express to you, sir, how much I thank you for what you have
said. It is well-deserved by that lady, who is the most modest, the
most retiring, the purest-minded--"
Ravenel stopped with a lump in his throat. The tears by that time
had dropped upon his dark, sunburned face. He brushed them away, but
Colonel Duquesne thought no less of him for those tears.
"I am quite of your mind," he said quietly, "concerning that lady. The
circumstances are most unfortunate. I can express to you, privately,
a degree of sympathy which I can not do publicly, but believe me, no
man could be more anxious than I am to save that lady's feelings in
this affair. Captain Merrilat will wait on you this morning. I think
if you will agree to make him a very slight apology, everything can be
arranged, and, for my part, I pledge you my word, as Lieutenant Creci's
commanding officer, to use all the power I possess to induce him to
accept anything in the shape of an apology which you may offer."
"But I can not apologize," blurted out poor Ravenel. "The lady in
question was sitting quietly on the bench, and did not even see Creci,
and he came up and spoke to her insultingly, and the lady became
embarrassed and alarmed, and then he sat down by her most impudently
and improperly, and attempted to throw his arm around her, and then I
caught him and thrashed him--and am I to apologize for that?"
The colonel paused. The story which he had overheard that naughty
little boy of Madame Marcel's telling the night before in the garden
corresponded exactly with what Ravenel had said,--not that Ravenel's
word alone needed any corroboration with Colonel Duquesne.
"Yes," he said, "you must say something which may be construed into an
apology. Not a man in the regiment sustains Creci's course, but for
reasons which you understand, the chief of which is the lady in the
case, it must be hushed up. I have arranged for you to meet Creci this
morning at my house and the affair shall be settled before me."
Ravenel, with his soul in his eyes, looked at the colonel, who was a
man with a heart in his breast, even though he was a colonel; and then
the colonel held out his hand. Ravenel gripped it for a moment and
then hurried away through the park that he might not miss the morning
mail, for he was as careful and prompt in the performance of his duty
with regard to these circulars, which he addressed at next to nothing
a thousand, as if it had been the best-paid and most important work in
the world.
But his heart was more joyful than it had been for many a day. He had
something pleasant to take back to Sophie. When he returned, and they
had their eleven o'clock breakfast together in the little garden, he
looked so cheerful that Sophie felt almost gay. They sat with Lucie at
the little round table with a white cloth on it, under a big acacia
tree. Close by them were a dozen tall oleanders in tubs, for Captain
Ravenel, turning his unusual skill in flowers to account, supplied most
of the cafés in town with their ornamental plants. Their breakfast was
simple, but very good, and Lucie triumphed in the production of the
omelette which was the work of her own hands. She was already lamenting
that in one week more she would have to go back to the Château Bernard,
and Madame Bernard's chef.
"Oh, it is so nice to be with you here!" she cried, and then said, as
she had done two or three times before: "It is so much nicer than at
Châlons--and I hated Count Delorme!"
As she spoke the name, Ravenel looked away, while poor Sophie blushed
and trembled, but Lucie, meaning to please her hosts, kept on:
"When I am grown up, and get my money, I intend to come and live with
you, Sophie and Captain Ravenel. Harper says that when I am eighteen I
shall have a whole lot of money in America that grandmama can not keep
me out of, and that I can spend it as I like, and I will come and live
in Bienville and have a carriage and everything I want, but I think I
would like to stay in this house--it is small, but so very pleasant."
"Harper should not tell you such things, Lucie," said Sophie. She
looked at Captain Ravenel. It is impossible to keep nursery governesses
and upper servants from gossiping,--how much had she told Lucie in the
past, and how much might she tell her in the future?
Presently Lucie was sent away to practise on the piano, for it was a
part of Sophie's plan that, when Lucie returned to her grandmother
after these brief and forced visits, the child should show some
improvement.
Then Ravenel told Sophie that as soon as he finished breakfast, he was
to go to Colonel Duquesne's house, and have the meeting with Creci, and
he repeated the colonel's chivalrous words to her. Sophie's pale face
flamed up. It was something in the arid waste of life to have known
two such men as the one before her and Colonel Duquesne, who would not
strike a woman when she was helpless before him, and who pitied the
weaknesses of the human heart.
"But when it comes to apologizing," said Ravenel, grinding his teeth,
"what am I to say?--to say that I am sorry for having kicked him, when
I wished to kill him?"
"Dearest," replied Sophie, "do what the colonel advises. He would not
counsel you to do anything against your honor."
At twelve o'clock precisely, Ravenel presented himself at the colonel's
house. He was in his uniform, for, although retired, he was still an
officer. The soldiers saluted him respectfully, and the aides spoke to
him politely. Everybody felt sorry for Ravenel, and most honest and
brave men in his place would have done as he had. He was ushered into
the colonel's room, and there sat Colonel Duquesne and Creci, with his
two friends, the officers who had dragged Ravenel and himself apart in
the park. The colonel and others present bowed gravely to Ravenel, who
returned the bow and seated himself at the colonel's invitation, and
then after a little silence the colonel stated the case briefly, but
said at the end, with emphasis:
"I think in every case of this sort, without impugning Lieutenant
Creci's word, the presumption is that a mistake has been made. Whatever
Lieutenant Creci thought about the lady in question, whose name must,
by no means, be mentioned, I feel sure that she was unconscious of
any attempt to attract his attention. We will proceed upon that
supposition, if you please."
Creci's handsome, stupid face grew scarlet, Ravenel's dark skin turned
a shade darker, the other two officers looked impassive. Then the
colonel went on to say that he would recommend Captain Ravenel to make
an apology to Lieutenant Creci, and he would strongly urge Lieutenant
Creci to accept it. At that there was a long silence. Ravenel really
knew not how to apologize for having done what his honor and his
conscience and his inclination had told him was right to do. He blamed
himself for not having stamped his foot in Creci's face, and so marked
him for life. The pause became awkward while Ravenel was turning
these things over in his mind. At last, with the colonel's eye fixed
upon him commandingly, he mumbled something about regretting that the
occasion had arisen--the rest of it was lost in his mustache, for the
colonel, as soon as he heard the word regret, turned promptly to Creci.
There was a menace in Colonel Duquesne's eye--a look which commanded
obedience. Creci, inwardly raging, sullenly bowed, and Captain Merrilat
said quickly:
"I think Lieutenant Creci accepts the apology, and we may consider the
affair as ended."
Everybody present knew what Colonel Duquesne meant. He had known Sophie
when she was fresh from her convent school, had known her as the young
wife of an unfeeling and vicious man--he had known her at the moment
when her courage failed her, and she had left the hard and stony path
she had been traveling with Delorme to go on a path still hard and
stony with Ravenel. Colonel Duquesne was tender-hearted where women
were concerned, and felt in his soul that he could not have stood
Delorme as long as Sophie had stood him. All these things were working
in his mind when Ravenel and Creci and the two officers were rising and
making their formal adieus.
Ravenel went home to Sophie and the two were almost gay over the result
of the affair which had been so baneful to them in the beginning. It
almost seemed to the two poor souls as if they had some friends left.
That very afternoon, when taking their one solitary indulgence--their
walk in the park--they passed the colonel, who bowed to Sophie quite in
the old way, although he did not speak. The colonel was a widower with
no daughters and, therefore, was quite safe in doing this, not having a
domestic court of inquiry ahead of him.