Though you may claim with seeming sense
That Ignorance is not Innocence,
And that it doth her worth enhance
Whose Innocence is not Ignorance;
In either case, recall to mind,
Unstainedness is hard to find,
And when the childish kind is rare
The other lives not anywhere.
The harvest had ripened and been cut in the fields, and rich red
apples were glowing like ambitious rubies in every orchard of the
fair valley of Salvières, where the sun brought forth all the beauty
of variegated foliage--fawn, and scarlet, and amaranth, and pure gold.
It was early morning as yet, and tiny pink fleeces of cloud still
lingered in the east, infinite and subtle against the deepening blue
of the sky. The little river flowed rapidly between its screens of
bushes and tall reeds, and the grass in the shadow of hedge and
tree, not quite dry of night-dews, held a million liquid gems of
iridescent tints that seemed to sparkle the more for the gentle
thunder of the water, scurrying over great mossy rocks on its way to
the sea.
Thatched roofs nestled beneath the heathery heights inclosing the
valley on both sides--heights crowned with serried regiments of
firs--and on the Castle side lawns of emerald green ran headlong
down the steep descent to the limits of the home park and its
splendid gates of forged iron. The park was a spot well suited to
reveries and day-dreams; a concert-place for nightingales where the
grassy alleys were chequered by light and shade in almost equal
measure, as a rule, but now the deep-diapered shadows were still
heavy. It was a faultless morning, indeed, and so thought the
“Gamin” as she stood for a moment leaning against the scaly bark of
a Himalayan cedar, gazing downward to the pearl-and-silver haze that
hung gauzily over the river. A flock of sanctimonious rooks circled
overhead, cawing their raucous warning, while blackbirds flitting to
and fro under the branches sent from their yellow beaks a constant
melodious whistle, whose bourdon was furnished by squadrons of
bees mumbling all together as they worked from clump to clump of
wild autumnal flowers: “_We’re working--working--working--we’re
working--working against--the winter; we’re working--working--well!_”
The “Gamin” did not move, thinking her white thoughts there
undisturbed. She wore a soft dress of dove-gray, one half-blown
snowy rose with a heart of gold in her belt, and beneath her
wide-winged garden hat her crinkled hair was golden, too, but of a
paler shade.
“Oh, what--what--will happen next?” The question repeated and
repeated itself rhythmically in her mind. She had so often of late
proposed it to herself. In her blue eyes prayer, doubt, anxiety, and
hope shone together in puzzled complexity. She looked very lovely,
and if she seemed several tints less merry than she had been, a
thought more pensive than of yore, nobody could like her any the
less for that. A true young girl’s inner mind is so graciously
mysterious, teeming with so many delicate fancies all its own, and
such strange and delicious dreams throng there, that no man worthy
the name would be bold enough to so much as try and probe them.
She took a few steps on the thick moss over-glazed by fragrant cedar
needles and fell again to admiring the play of the sunbeams on the
velvet slope that dropped away from her little feet. Behind her the
duskiness of the park, crossed and recrossed by flights of furtive
wings, slept undisturbed; and, suddenly attracted by a wondrous-fat
beetle of bronzed corselet and lance-like antennæ, she knelt on the
elastic brown of the moss to watch his busy, fussy course the closer.
Soon she discovered that another beetle a trifle more gracile in make,
less adult in appearance, more green of armor, and far more brilliant,
was scurrying up from the opposite side, horns in rest--as it were--a
bellicose glint on the bulging surface of its beady eyes. “They’re
going to fight,” she whispered, and glanced swiftly around to find the
cause of this warlike humor. Ah, yes! there it was, not far away under
the shelter of a foxglove-leaf--a beautiful lady-beetle flying the
dazzling colors of a cantharide rose-bug all ashimmer with metallic
splendor.
So absorbed was she in the impending combat that she failed to hear a
step coming along the sanded path four yards away. It came quickly,
determinately, but a few paces from where she still knelt it halted
abruptly, and for a breathing-space the melodious silence of the wooded
solitude trembled anew in the balance. The beetles were advancing
threateningly toward each other; the fun would soon grow fast and
furious. The “Gamin” bent closer, a smile of amusement parting her lips,
and then the tiny crackle of a branch made her turn and look.
“Basil!” she cried. “Basil!” There was such surprised delight and at the
same time such tender sympathy in the exclamation, that Marguerite’s
instinct alone could have blended it so well.
“Yes, it’s I,” he said, stating a patent fact in the rather dull way
he used at times of embarrassment, without moving an inch toward her;
then he came forward, hand outstretched, with a “How are you,
Marguerite?” that fell cold and over-indifferent on the mellowness of
the air.
Her small fingers resting for a second or so in his, she answered,
“Very well. And you?” in the tone of one meeting a casual acquaintance
after a few hours’ separation; but then she could not repress a
nervous little laugh, for which she could instantly have beaten herself
with rods.
“How do you come to be out so early?” he said, conversationally, his
heart strumming against his side.
“And how did you enter the park?” she countered in unconscious
retaliation.
“By the village gate. I came from the station in a most egregious
_cariole_ drawn by a magnificent Anglo-Norman, of course, and driven by
a blue-bloused, cotton-bonneted native, who charged me one hundred
_sols-Parisis_ for the job, and whom I dismissed with something
additional at the said gate.”
“But,” she argued, white now as the white rose at her waist--“but why
didn’t you telegraph for a carriage--announce your arrival?”
“I thought of it, but decided that it was more in my line to sneak in
like a thief in the morning.... That is misquoted, I believe.”
She was searching his dear face despairingly for information as to his
true state of feeling. He was talking against time, she knew well
enough, but what was there lurking behind that calm, almost apathetic
expression? Had he heard about Laurence--about the wreck? Did he know
already that the beautiful woman who had borne his name none too well
was silently awaiting his return in a triple envelope of palisander and
silver and lead, to be carried far away where all past Princesses
Palitzin had been laid in state for many generations? And Piotr,
wasn’t he going even to mention Piotr--Tatiana, or Jean? Her sweet
countenance, like the valley below, was caught in a maze of swiftly
lightening and darkening impressions, sunshine and shadow, doubt and
fear, and again hope conquering them all; but he remained immovable to
the verge of stupidity, aware, though, and fully, that she was
suffering and--God!--that he too suffered, suffered unbearably--as, had
she been quicker, she would have noticed by the almost imperceptible
quiver of his under lip.
“Shall we move on?” he asked at length, shaking his shoulders ever so
slightly.
She nodded the big, soft wings of her hat, her face hidden now, and
stepped into the path five inches ahead of him. The belligerent beetles,
scared by the voices, had prudently subdued their foaming wrath and
postponed their jealous combat.
As they walked off Marguerite was mechanically counting the great men
whom history has made famous for their inclination toward dullness--the
heroes of romance likewise indicated--Porthos and Athos--and
Charlemagne--and Barbarossa--and Ferdinand II. of Austria--and Bayard
himself, despite all the glamour of his faith, his courage, and his
purity. The monk Abélard (who--but she did not know that--had his
excuses, of course), Wilfred of Ivanhoe, and many, many others, lovable,
admirable, classic--and classified according to their merits. She stole
a glance toward the splendid man striding beside her, and wondered why
marriage, even unhappy marriage, had wrought such a change in him. He
had never been lively even in the past, but since that memorable day
when Laurence had appeared on the scene at Plenhöel he had appeared to
be another being, triumphant and frozen, glorified and stupefied in
turn; at first too visibly happy to be taken seriously, afterward
sliding gradually into a half-tinted mood that lost him all power to
show himself as he really was. And now had he really any heart left? she
asked herself in amaze. His outward appearance was reassuring. He
looked, as a matter of fact, younger than he had when she had last seen
him--his forehead quite smooth, his finely cut features a hint more
masterful than ever, his eyes dear and direct, and there was just a
touch of haughtiness in his bearing she had not yet seen there, as
though he were challenging the universe to come and pity him.
“Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!” rang, she fancied, in the very sound
of his foot on the gravel. A foot of admirable shape and comparative
narrowness, although a bit heroic--_ex-pede-Herculem_!
Everything has an end--_nur die Wurst hat zwei_ (as our graceful friends
the Germans have a knack of putting it)--and that charming long walk
round to the Castle inclosure, machicolated and betowered and bekeeped,
came at last to its conclusion. Not another word had been spoken. At the
base of the turret where Basil had always had his rooms the couple came
to a stand. It was a very proud, historic turret, coiffed with a pointed
octagonal slate _poivrière_ agreeably topped by a gray vane, and
entered by one of those mullioned pointed doorways that are the delight
of artists, with their intricate sculpturings, dainty _rainceaux_ and
wonderful stone tendrils engarlanding the royal _fleur-de-lys_.
“Now, _please_,” said Basil--“please don’t awaken any one for me,
Marguerite. I’d sooner be alone at first, just for a little while at
least.”
“Can’t I call Garrassime?” she pleaded, prettily, her mouth drooping
at the corners in a tiny _moue_ that made him pull himself together with
a mental jerk.
“Ah, yes! to be sure, Garrassime is here,” he remarked; “but I would
rather you didn’t call him. I am used to shifting for myself now
whenever it’s necessary; often I prefer it, even.”
His hand was on the etched and graven latch, the primeval and archaic
_loquet_ of the door, that was still thought sufficient to guard the
treasures within when the family was there. The banner flapping in the
eternal sea-breeze above the keep was guard enough for all purposes
then.
“As you will,” said the “Gamin.” “_Et que dieu vous protége, mon
cousin!_” and she turned and went her way.
From the greater portion of the days that followed, and from all the
conferences _à deux, à trois, et à quatre_ which took up so many
hours, Marguerite naturally was absent. She had known it would be thus,
and was resigned beforehand to her isolation, but what she had not
counted upon was the sudden removal of Piotr and Garrassime to far-off
Plenhöel without the boy having seen his father. Why they hadn’t sent
her off also she could not imagine, for what use was she, excepting at
meal-times, when she was expected to fill her place as usual?
She missed Piotr very much. Basil she hardly saw. Tatiana and Jean and
her own father had evidently never been so busy in their lives. Poor
“Antinoüs” had said to her: “It’s a bad moment to pass, _mon
Chevalier_. Keep a stiff upper lip! Basil is going to convey
his--er--relic to Russia. _Noblesse-oblige_ you know--and then you and
I, my precious, will take flight too and rebegin our good little
comfortable life once more.”
“But what of Piotr?” she had asked. “Can’t we keep him with us, Papa?
I cannot imagine why Basil appears to push him purposely out of his way.
The de Salvières have their own cares, their own duties and interests,
but we, Papa, in our _ménage de vieux garçons_ have nothing but our
two selfish selves to think of. Can’t we keep him, Papa, until Basil
awakes? Can’t we really, _please, please_!”
She had put up her hands like good Sir Hugh Calverley of Froissart fame,
and had looked so much more effective, or rather affecting, than that
dauntless knight could ever have done, that Régis had inwardly
surrendered--he was so sorry for his _Chevalier_--although outwardly he
had pooh-poohed the proposal.
Now, as the period of discussion drew to a close, Marguerite began
to feel the influence of a factor she had hitherto ignored
absolutely--namely, the presence of those torturers called nerves, the
gain and livelihood of sapient specialists the world over, who grope
among them, fumbling with forces of which they are as truly ignorant as
are the greatest physicists of the real potency or impotency of
electricity. Her whole being was stretched on the rack of incertitude,
of ceaseless questionings of the future; and this is a bad state of
affairs. “What is going to happen next?” The wind waltzing along the
cliffs sang it to its own gyrations, the great trees of the park,
courtesying and bowing to a passing squall, echoed it; the very rustle
of her silk and batiste pillow in the depth of the night murmured it
slyly in her ear as she settled herself to try and sleep.
One afternoon she had ridden off immediately after the second breakfast,
followed by Ireland--who invariably accompanied her as the most
important unit of her personal household when she visited anywhere--and
was cantering toward the chestnut-woods belonging to Salvières. She was
on the thoroughbred English horse that was Pavlo’s special property, a
savage-tempered hunter of tender years who had from the first made up
his mind to struggle and resist on any and every pretext, whether
reasonable or not. He answered--or refused to answer oftener than
often--to the mild and misleading cognomen of “Narses”--a name he had no
sort of right to, being a fire-eating stallion beautiful beyond compare.
“Narses” was mincing his steps like a dancing-master, his dainty, almost
transparent ears erect, but quite demurely so--a trick he had when bent
on special mischief--but his rider knew that and was ready for him,
which robbed the equine pleasantry of half of its value. At the turning
of one broad, shady _allée_ into another “Narses” suddenly “swapped
ends” with a violence that would have unseated any less supple
_equestrienne_ than the “Gamin”; then began a series of snorts, not to
say grunts, testifying to the utmost terror. Marguerite laughed,
stretched herself forward, and presented the culprit with a flat-handed
box on the side of the neck, which he scarcely felt, excepting in his
innermost soul, but he stopped his gruntings; and, strangely enough,
suffered himself to be brought face to face with an intimate stable
companion mounted by Basil. She had a way with horses, had Marguerite.
The _rencontre_, unpremeditated by her at least, was not unwelcome, and
she smiled up at her kinsman in her old merry way.
“You should not ride that brute!” was his gracious form of greeting, and
its masterfulness made her laugh again. “I beg your pardon,” apologized
Basil, “but really ‘Narses’ is not a woman’s hack, and I think
Régis must be demented if he allows you to do it.”
“And why, pray?” she asked, curtly. “I ride always whatever I please.
Besides, ‘Narses’ is not wicked; he is merely playful.”
“Playful, eh? Well, since you are here we might try and gallop to take
his playfulness out of him. ‘The Cid’ will steady and chasten him
after a fashion, I hope.”
“All right,” she consented, ranging alongside, and with Ireland fifty
hoof-beats behind, they proceeded toward the head-waters of the river.
Basil looked more at ease, less absorbed, and altogether more human, as
she expressed it to herself. The saddle was his natural place--that was
where he was at his best, at any rate; and when they came to the first
check in their gallop much ice had fallen to pieces between them.
“You ride marvelously,” he conceded, with that air of studiously
avoiding a compliment which had the gift of making her rear mentally up
on end, it was so obviously forced.
“My grateful thanks to you, good sir,” she said. “I salute you,” and
with a quick, roguish gesture she gravely raised her straw hat and
suited the action to the words.
“Good Lord!” came from Basil. “Don’t you wear any pins to hold that
thing on?”
“Not being, so far, entirely deprived of hair,” she replied, “pins would
be a pure nuisance.”
“Deprived of hair!” he could not help exclaiming. “I should think not;
but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Everything! Can’t you see that when it’s all tightly piled atop of
my head, a well-made sailor-hat just fits over it? Its crown, filled to
the edges, can’t stir; it isn’t like a modern crown, you see, which
is a comfort.”
Basil did not laugh outright, but he looked as if he were very near
doing so, and this, too, was by way of being a comfort to the rider of
“Narses.”
They were now following a narrower path on the summit of a low hill,
away inland, and, having slackened speed to let their horses breathe, it
was difficult to avoid a chat.
“I am leaving to-morrow,” began Basil, with that startling lack of the
most ordinary tact which is displayed by men of his stamp under certain
conditions.
“Indeed!”
“Yes. I did not expect to stay so long, but circumstances--”
“Over which you had no control,” finished the “Gamin,” calmly.
“What did you say?” he asked, turning to look at her with a sudden
suspicion that she was laughing at him.
“I said, circumstances over which you had no control--that’s the
accepted formula, isn’t it?” she retorted.
Basil rode in silence for a full two minutes, then began again, stiffly:
“As I am leaving Normandy to-morrow--”
“When you discover a subject of conversation you push it to its furthest
possibilities,” Marguerite interrupted. “Well, it is gradually dawning
on me that you really intend to leave Normandy, Salvières, and the
be-neighboring regions to-morrow, although wiseacres pretend that
to-morrow does not exist.”
This unwonted flippancy caught Basil on the raw, and his teeth closed so
grimly that the muscles became vaguely apparent beneath the tan of his
lean cheeks; a signal his tyro-tormentor perceived clearly, and was
exasperated enough to appreciate profoundly.
“If you will deign to grant me your attention for a few short moments, I
will explain why I make a point of bringing this inconsiderable event to
your notice.”
“Imbecile!” flashed through Marguerite’s mind amid a flood of remorse
for such a desecration. “I grant you my attention,” she, however,
persevered, and Basil viciously bit one end of his mustache, which he
had drawn into his mouth.
“I will be gone for a wholly indeterminate period of time,” he pursued.
“Years, probably.”
With extreme aptness “Narses” shied at a rabbit frolicking in the lush
grass, and indulged in a series of risky gambades that afforded
Marguerite an opportunity of strictly attending to his misdeeds.
“A dangerous horse! Didn’t I say so? Why, you are quite pale!” scolded
Basil, with astounding finesse, as for the second time “Narses” was
forced back to his post. “But you manage him very cleverly,” he added.
“As I was saying, I will be absent long.”
Marguerite probably did not judge it worth her while to comment upon
this reiteration, and Basil, looking straight before him, went on:
“I want to ask you whether you were serious when you spoke to your
father about keeping my--I mean Piotr--with you for a while.”
“I endeavor to be always serious when dealing with family questions,
_mon cousin_,” she replied.
“Of course it is a sacrifice on your part, and it will be a--what shall
I say?--an intolerable nuisance for Régis; but there’s no accounting
for both your generosities.”
Marguerite, flicking a tiny bramble from her habit, shrugged her
shoulders.
“Suppose you abandon these eloquent sentences for the time being?” she
proposed. “There’s nobody under the furniture--the bushes, I mean--and
if it is for me alone that you are going to such oratorical expense, I
will excuse plain and unadorned speech.”
“What ails her?” thought Basil. “I’ve never seen her like this!” for
he genuinely did not understand. “Very well then,” he resumed. “You
wish to keep the boy?”
“Yes,” she said, simply.
“Allowing Garrassime to stay near him and--forgive me--myself to defray
all their joint expenses. It is a matter of pride with me.”
“Of all the ungracious bundles of thorns I have ever encountered--” she
commenced, but he would not let her speak.
“Permit me,” he interrupted. “I do not mean to be ungracious--
ungrateful--you must know that! I am so deeply touched, on
the contrary, by--” His voice altered all of a sudden, and Marguerite
felt a lump rise in her throat.
They had reached what is called there an _étoile des bois_, otherwise a
wide grassy spot where five roads meet in a star-shaped clearing, and
Basil jerked “The Cid” to a stand.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, still a little hoarsely, “we could
dismount and sit down here while Ireland waters the beasts.”
For answer she slipped off “Narses” in her customary unexpected way, and
stood by his head, stroking him; the rascal allowing her to rub his
velvet nose with carefully disguised contentment.
Ireland having trotted up and assumed charge of the horses--it was one
of “Narses’s” peculiarities that he was sometimes approachable by a
dismounted well-wisher, and, moreover, he did not hate Ireland a tenth
part as much as he did his own grooms and stablemen--Basil and
Marguerite were at liberty to seek a comfortable seat on a fallen
tree-trunk.
“I wanted to say this to you, but lacked the courage to do so,” he
shamefacedly admitted, his expression quite changed. “Also, something
else, if you will only have patience.”
As years before on the brink of the Castle cliff at Plenhöel,
Marguerite sat quite motionless, her mere profile visible, listening to
Basil with eyes fixed on the most distant point they could discern.
“You and your father have been kinder to me than any one else in the
world since my mother left me--kind and considerate beyond all
expression. Now you want to go further yet and take off my hands a
responsibility--a cruel responsibility--in short, one that is almost
greater than I can bear!” He paused, and Marguerite, without turning
toward him, said, quickly:
“Why do you say a cruel responsibility? You used to be so passionately
fond of Piotr. Don’t you care for him any more?”
A flush of mortification and misery rose to Basil’s face. He had not
seen the _impasse_ in which he had engaged himself, and for a few
seconds he could not think what to say.
Surprised at his silence, Marguerite made a slight motion and glanced at
him interrogatively, but what she saw made her instantly resume her
former position. “Good Heavens!” thought she, “what is it?”
“Marguerite,” Basil painfully recommenced, “the last few years have not
been happy ones to me. Mind you, I blame no one but myself. I alone
should have been called to account for--the lack of happiness I found in
a union I had sought, and desired at the time above all other things.”
Again he paused, wiped the moisture from his forehead mechanically, and
this time Marguerite did not make use of the pause; but a faint smile of
incredulity, which it would have done him good to see had he been in a
state to notice it, flitted at the corners of her mouth.
“Be this as it may, the fact remains that I have been wretchedly
unhappy, that I am still so now, by _contrecoup_, perhaps. Much has
happened that I must endeavor to forget--not for my own welfare alone,
mind you--and this I cannot attempt if Piotr is with me. I mean that for
that reason and some others I am forced to exile myself anew. It is
useless to enter into particulars. Later you will perhaps understand
why; now I cannot tell you. Will you trust me without explanation?”
“Yes,” she said, unhesitatingly.
He gave a deep sigh of relief and thankfulness. “You are very--very much
the _Chevalier_ your father calls you,” he said, humbly, “and I thank
you with all my heart.”
“But,” she interrupted, with some indignation, “you have not answered my
question. Have you a grudge against poor little Piotr? Yes or no.”
“A grudge?” Basil repeated after her--“a grudge against Piotr?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“No! Emphatically no! How could I? But--but he reminds me of his mother,
and that can’t be endured.”
“Was that the reason of your leaving him with the de Salvières when you
went to China?”
He saw the pit yawning before his feet, and felt too dazed to jump back
from the brink.
“No--that is ... yes! Oh, I don’t know, Marguerite! Don’t ask me!”
“You are terribly changed, Basil,” she said, sadly. “I have long
known--by intuition, for I was never told so--that your marriage had
been an unhappy one; but for you, a man like you” (the tone was
emphatic) “to make your child pay for this, to deprive him of a
father’s love and refuse even to see him for an hour, is iniquitous. I
am sorry to speak so rudely to you, Basil, but I cannot help it.”
“You are not rude,” he contradicted. “What you say is from your point of
view right and fair, but--appearances are against me, whether justly or
unjustly, I can’t say. God! Do you think that I have not fought
against that--feeling which estranges me from Piotr? I have sweated
blood and water; I have....”
With sudden alarm Marguerite swerved toward him and with one small hand
on his sleeve stared blankly at him.
“Are you crazy, Basil, to talk like this?” she asked. “Estranged from
your own flesh and blood, your own little son, the dearest, sweetest
little chap that ever was? Shame on you, I say, for letting yourself go
as you do, for acting in a hysterical way unworthy of even the weakest
woman!”
Her cheeks pink, her eyes sparkling with excitement, she was a
revelation as she drew back from him in downright anger. Never had he
imagined her to be capable of such a transformation.
“You make me boil!” she went on, clenching her little fists. “Don’t
you know that Piotr adores you? That he is _you_, your very image,
although his coloring is more like his mother’s? Oh, Basil, your own
little son! How dare you think of making him responsible! Why, he is
_you! you! you!_”
With a smothered oath Basil leaped to his feet, white as his
sporting-cravat.
“What makes you act so?” she asked, rising quickly and trying to
confront him; but he turned his back upon her and pushed off her
detaining hand.
“Have you gone distracted?” she asked, and then stopped appalled, for
his shoulders were shaking suspiciously. Trembling like a leaf, she
stepped back in positive terror. She had never seen a man cry, and it is
a sorrowful experience indeed when the man _is_ a man.
“Basil,” she whispered. “Basil! Please! Please don’t! I did not mean
to hurt you.... Oh, please forgive me, Basil!”
Struggling furiously with himself, cursing his fool’s behavior with
all the might of his being, he could not at first wrest the mastery, but
in a few short moments he turned toward her, and in an almost inaudible
voice begged her pardon.
“My pardon!” she tremulously murmured. “Mine? It is I who was in the
wrong to torment you as I did. You know best what to do, of course. No
doubt you have your reasons--reasons you will not tell me, although I
think you should. But I am stupid--I know that--so don’t remember what
I said. Leave us Piotr. We will look after him well, and teach him how
to love you more and more every day, so that when you come home at last
this strange feeling of yours will be gone.”
There was something so delicately childlike, so innocent and so
crystal-pure in the words, that Basil felt tempted to kneel down in
worship before her. What call had he to bring so near to her his
thoughts of bitterness and revolt, his conviction that the child he was
ready enough to confide to her bore the stain of antenatal dishonor? It
was nothing short of blasphemy, of desecration, to have done this. And
in his heart he thanked Heaven that, however imprudent his words had
been, she, being what she was, could not guess what they portended.
The scene had been short, but it had left such traces upon both that
when they slowly returned to their horses old Ireland almost cried out
at the sight of them. He was wise in his generation, though, and the
impassiveness with which he regirthed “The Cid,” “Narses,” and his own
mount, would have done credit to an articulated wooden image; but
pounding behind them along the sunken forest road, where the twelve
hoof-strokes fell hushedly upon the damp turf, he sadly reflected upon a
future that seemed somber enough for his beloved young mistress. His
shrewd wits had been alive for many a long month to the trouble that--as
far as he knew--had begun for Mademoiselle “Gamin” at the time of that
other ride in the woods to the “Rock of the Seven Sages” at Plenhöel.
He had wondered vastly at Prince Basil’s obtuseness (saving his
presence), marveled over the aberration of taste that had caused this
great gentleman to prefer Miss Seton to Marguerite; and ever since,
during their now countless excursions over field and moor, forest and
valley, he had watched over _Le Chevalier_ “_Gamin_” as tenderly and
pitifully as a mother might have done. And what was there amiss again?
Surely Prince Basil was free now, and the legal formalities over, with a
decorous interval added thereto, he could lead Mademoiselle de Plenhöel
to the altar? Why those tears, then? Why the agitation and distress he
had not been able to avoid noticing from his post beneath the trees some
yards away? Was there more misery coming to her? No! that he could not
believe. God is just and kind--he was sure of that--and could not but
protect this little angel from Paradise, so true, so loyal, and so
faithful!
On the morrow it was he, Ireland, the old _piqueux_, who sat beside His
Serene-Highness in a dog-cart--by Basil’s own request--to go to the
station. The funereal expressage had been seen to, Laurence was making
her last princely progress to the great White Empire she had so
absolutely abhorred, and Tatiana began to hope that soon, save for the
exquisitely tended spot where Preston Wynne slept, the whole grewsome
tragedy would be forgotten.
As the slate roof of the little railway station became visible through
the trees Basil suddenly turned to Ireland. “I don’t know how long I
will be away,” he said, as if talking to an equal and a friend. “You
know, Ireland, that Piotr is going to stay at Plenhöel with the Marquis
and Mademoiselle during my absence.”
“I do, Highness.”
“Very well. You will probably be called upon to act as riding-master to
him, just as you were years ago to the ‘Gamin.’”
“I hope I will, Highness,” said Ireland, happily.
“This being so, you will need to know the time of day to a minute. With
a wild youngster like Piotr it will be necessary, I am certain.”
Ireland permitted himself a smile; wondering, though, why each time that
the Prince pronounced his son’s name there occurred so startling a
hardening of his voice.
“Now,” continued Basil, “this is a reliable timekeeper.” He passed both
reins into his right hand, and with the left jerked from his waistcoat
pocket his own chronometer by Juergeson--a priceless gem of its
kind--and held it out, chain and all, to the astounded man beside him.
“Oh, but--but Your Highness! This is Your Highness’s own
watch--there’s a crown on it!”
“I know,” Basil smiled. “It is not meant to be a tip, Ireland; merely a
souvenir from one horseman to another.”
The fast trotter in the shafts was just rounding the angle of the
station yard. Basil gave the reins to Ireland and jumped out. Far down
the line the shrill whistle of the express was cutting the breeze like
an arrow.
“Good-bye, Ireland,” Basil said, leaning across to shake hands, and
suddenly Ireland, recovering from his joyful surprise, saw that the
Prince’s eyes were moist.
“Good-bye ... and take care of her!”
He was gone inside the little building, all alone like the most ordinary
of the mortals. A minute later the _piqueux_, through the row of
oak-trees that stood between, glimpsed his tall figure passing down the
platform; then the train breathed itself to a second’s stop at the
waving of the flag, Basil stepped to the _marche-pied_ of a Pullman, and
with a last wave to him disappeared.