He was still paying the rent of the flat in Paris, and it wa_The golden windmill, and other stories

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL

AND OTHER STORIES

[Illustration]

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

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MELBOURNE

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TORONTO

THE

GOLDEN WINDMILL

AND OTHER STORIES

STACY AUMONIER

Author of

“One After Another,” etc.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1921

_All rights reserved_

BY THE MCCALL COMPANY.

BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY.

BY THE CENTURY COMPANY.

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1921.

TO J. G.

PREFACE

“_Oh, that mine enemy would write a book—of short stories._”

As you know, it is considered rather provocative to launch a book of

short stories. It is asking for trouble. The least I can do is to offer

a brief apology; and I cannot do this without writing a preface, which

requires an apology in itself. Unless you are a Bernard Shaw you find a

preface a most embarrassing business. Having written the stories I would

rather talk about anything else—old furniture, for instance. Perhaps my

best policy will be to start by attacking you, O Reader, friend or enemy,

as the case may be. You are a most exacting fellow. Far more exacting

than a reader of novels, or works of reference, or even histories; for

the reason that your criticism follows a more circumscribed tradition.

You are a kind of gourmet whose palate is acutely sensitive to accustomed

flavors and satieties. It is always easier to be an epicure of a small

repast than of a banquet. A novel is less easily digested. You may

enjoy it in parts, or derive satisfaction from the matter, or from the

manner of telling, but with a short story you require a _bonne bouche_.

You have a most arbitrary standard. When you raise your eyes from

the last line you pass through a most peculiar mental process. It all

takes place in a few seconds. In a flash you see the shape and form and

color, the application of the title, the _point_ of the whole thing.

You demand this, and you also demand to have your senses tickled by

some cunning solution, and to be soothed by something unexpected at the

close. You observe it as a whole, in the same way that you would observe

a water-color sketch, or a Sheraton chair. You may afterwards further

examine the sketch, and even sit on the chair, but their appeal to you

depends on that first glance. Otherwise you turn away, a dissatisfied and

disgruntled gourmet. To-morrow you will dine elsewhere. The truth is your

sense of tradition had been outraged.

Fortunately for you, and for me, tradition is a fine thing. Nothing

comes out of the blue, except perhaps thunderbolts and they are

not really very useful things, certainly no good to any one trying

to create. Chippendale, Sheraton, or Heppelwhite were all men of

strong individuality. You could never mistake a Sheraton chair for a

Chippendale, or a Chippendale for a Heppelwhite; and yet they were all

craftsmen who worked on strictly traditional lines. The same may be said

of Turgenev, Guy de Maupassant, Joseph Conrad and Tchekoff. Please do not

think that I am mentioning my own short stories in the same breath with

the stories of these giants. I only want to point out to you that those

of us who desire to write them have a noble tradition to follow. You may

argue that the analogy between the making of a chair and the creation

of a short story is rather far-fetched for the reason that the plan of

a chair has long since been fixed and determined by the nature of the

seated attitude; that until we find a new way of sitting down the plan

of the chair must remain the same; whereas the short story may wander at

random over the wide fields of human nature. To this I will reply—Has

human nature altered perceptibly more than the nature of the seated

attitude? You are bound to agree with me that it hasn’t. The Arabs—who

have always been the best story tellers—have stated that there are only

seven stories in the world. The complications of what is called Social

Progress have not increased the number. They have rather restricted it.

The emotions can do no more with dollars and girders than they used to be

able to do with magic carpets and languishing houris. People love, hate,

struggle and fructify, and to set down their story is a nice respectable

craft with a fine old tradition—very like chairmaking.

The two crafts have another point in common. It is the business of them

both to make you comfortable. When I start reading a story by Tchekoff

I feel comfortable at once. On quite a different plane I feel the same

with that remarkable story-teller, O. Henry. They may shock me, or thrill

me, or delight me, but I know it’s going to be all right. My sense of

tradition will not be outraged. Tchekoff may give me that accustomed

sense of satiety by a mere turn of a phrase; O. Henry by some amazing

double surprise. But I know all the time that there will be nothing to

worry about.

In these stories, then, I have merely tried to be a good apprentice to

skilled craftsmen. I claim for them no originality at all. Though their

setting is entirely modern, and they deal with such things as fried-fish

shops, and public-houses, and the like, they are just the same old seven

stories told in the bazaars of Ispahan three thousand years ago.

If through them all you feel something which links them together, which

moreover makes you and me more intimate with each other, then I shall

feel as happy as Sheraton’s apprentice must have felt when some noble

patron of the master’s stopped in the workshops to give him a word of

encouragement.

STACY AUMONIER.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL 3

A SOURCE OF IRRITATION 35

THE BROTHERS 59

“OLD IRON” 79

LITTLE WHITE FROCK 109

A GOOD ACTION 137

THEM OTHERS 169

THE BENT TREE 199

THE GREAT UNIMPRESSIONABLE 213

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL

At the top of the hill the party halted. It had been a long trek up and

the sun was hot. Monsieur Roget fanned himself with his hat, and his eye

alighted on a large pile of cut fern-leaves.

“But this will suit me admirably!” he remarked, and he plumped his squat

little figure down, and taking out his large English pipe he began to

stuff tobacco into it.

“My little one,” said his stout wife, “I should not advise you to go

to sleep. You know that to do so in the afternoon always gives you an

indisposition.”

“Oh, la la! No, no, no. I do not go to sleep, but—this position suits me

admirably!” he replied.

“Oh, papa, papa! ... lazybones!” exclaimed his pretty daughter Louise.

“And if we leave you, you will sleep like a dormouse.”

“It is very hot!” rejoined the father.

“Leave him alone,” said Madame Roget, “and we will go down to that place

that looks like an inn, and see whether they will sell us milk. Where is

Lisette?”

“Lisette! Where should she be?”

And of course it was foolish to ask. Lisette, the younger daughter, had

been lost in the wood on the way up, with her _fiancé_, Paul Fasquelle.

Indeed, the party had all become rather scattered. It is a peculiarity

of picnics. Monsieur Roget’s eldest son, Anton, was playing at see-saw

with his three children on the trunk of a fallen tree. His wife was

talking to Madame Aubert, and occasionally glancing up to exclaim:

“Careful, my darlings!”

Monsieur Roget was left alone.

He lighted his pipe, and blinked at the sun. One has to have reached a

mature age to appreciate to the full the narcotic seductiveness of good

tobacco on the system, when the sun is shining and there is no wind. If

there is wind all the pleasant memories and dreams are blown away, but

if there is no wind the sun becomes a kind, confidential old fellow. He

is very, very mature. And Monsieur Roget was mature. He was fifty-nine

years old, given to corpulence, rather moist and hot, but eminently

comfortable leaning against the pile of ferns. A glorious view across

the woods of Fontainebleau lay stretched before him, the bees droned in

the young gorse, his senses tingled with a pleasurable excitement, and,

as a man will in such moments, he enjoyed a sudden crystallized epitome

of his whole life. His struggles, and failures, and successes. On the

whole he had been a successful man. If he died to-morrow, his beloved

ones would be left in more than comfort. Many thousand francs carefully

invested, some house-property in the Rue Renoir, the three _comestibles_

establishments all doing reasonably well.

Things had not always been like that. There had been long years of

anxiety, worry and even poverty. He had worked hard and it had been

a bitter struggle. When the children _were_ children, that had been

the anxious time. It made Monsieur Roget shudder to look back on it.

But, God be praised! he had been fortunate, very fortunate in his

life-companion. During that anxious time, Madame Roget had been patient,

encouraging, incredibly thrifty, competent, resourceful, a loyal wife,

a very—Frenchwoman. And they had come through. He was now a proud

grandfather. Both his sons were doing well, and were married. Lisette was

engaged to a very desirable young advocate. Of Louise there need be no

apprehension. In fact, everything....

“Name of a dog! that’s very curious,” suddenly thought Monsieur Roget,

interrupting his own pleasant reflections.

And for some minutes he could not determine exactly what it was that was

curious. He had been idly gazing at the clump of buildings lower down the

hill, whither his wife and daughter had gone in search of milk. Perhaps

the perfume of the young gorse had something to do with it, but as he

looked at the buildings, he thought:

“It’s very familiar, and it’s very unfamiliar. In fact, it’s gone wrong.

They’ve been monkeying with that gable on the east side, and they’ve

built a new loft over the stables.”

But how should he know? What was the gable to him? or he to the gable?

He drew in a large mouthful of smoke, held it for some seconds, and then

blew it out in a cloud round his head. Where was this? When had he been

here before? They had driven out to a village called Pavane-en-Bois, and

from there they had walked, and walked, and walked. He may have been here

before, and have come from another direction....

“Oo-eh!”

Monsieur Roget was glad that he was alone when he uttered this

exclamation, which cannot convey what it is meant to in print. Of course,

across there on the other side of the clearing was the low stone wall,

and the reliquary with the figure of the Virgin, and doubtless at the

bottom of the slope the other side would be—the well!

It was exactly on this spot that he had met Diane—God in heaven! how long

ago? Ten, twenty, thirty.... Exactly thirty-seven years ago!

And how vividly it could all come back to one!

He was twenty-two then, a slim young man—considered elegant and rather

distinguished-looking by some people—an orphan, without either brothers

or sisters, the inheritor of a quite substantial competence from his

father, who had been a ship-broker at Marseilles. He had gone to Paris to

educate himself and to prepare for a commercial career. He was a serious

young man, with modest ambitions, rather moody and given to abstract

speculations. Paris bewildered him, and he used to escape when he could,

and seek solitude in the country. At length he decided that he must

settle down to some definite career, and he became articled to a firm of

chartered accountants: Messrs. Manson et Cie. He took rooms at a quiet

_pension_ near the Luxembourg, and there fell in love with his patron’s

daughter, Lucile, a demure and modest brunette. The affair was almost

settled, but not quite. Monsieur Roget, even in those days, was a man who

never put his leg over the wall till he had seen the other side. He was

circumspect, cautious, and there was indeed plenty of time.

And then one day he had found himself on this identical hillock. He could

not quite clearly remember how he came to be there. Probably he had come

for the day, to escape the clamor of Paris. He certainly had no luggage.

He was seated on this spot, dreaming and enjoying the view, when he heard

a cry coming from the other side of the low stone wall. He jumped up

and ran to it, and lo! on the other side he beheld—Diane! The name was

peculiarly appropriate. She was lying there on her side like a wounded

huntress. When she caught sight of him she called out:

“Ah, monsieur, will you be so kind as to help me? I fear I have sprained

my ankle.”

Paul Roget leapt the wall and ran to her assistance. (The thought of

leaping a wall now made him gasp!) He lifted her up, trembling himself,

and making sympathetic little clucks with his tongue.

“Pardon, pardon! very distressing!” he murmured, when she stood erect.

“If monsieur will be good enough to allow me to rest my hand on his

shoulder, I shall be able to hop back to the _auberge_.”

“With the greatest pleasure. Allow me.”

On the ground was an upturned pail. He remarked:

“Would it distress mademoiselle to stand for one minute, whilst I re-fill

the pail?”

“Oh, no, no,” she exclaimed. “Do not inconvenience yourself.”

“Then perhaps mademoiselle will allow me to return for the pail?”

“Oh, no, if you please! My father will do it.”

She leant on his shoulder and hopped a dozen paces.

“How did it happen, mademoiselle?”

“Imbecile that I am! I think I was dreaming. I had filled the pail and

was descending the embankment when I slipped. I tried to step across the

pail, but caught my foot in the rim. And then—I don’t know quite what

happened. I fell. It is the other ankle which I fear I have sprained.”

“I am indeed most desolated. Is it far to the inn?”

“You see it yonder, monsieur. It is perhaps ten minutes’ walk, but twenty

minutes’ hop.”

She laughed gayly, and Monsieur Roget said solemnly:

“If I might suggest it—I think it would be more comfortable for

Mademoiselle if she would condescend to place her arm round my neck.”

“It is too good of you.”

They proceeded another hundred paces in silence, and then rested against

a stile. Suddenly she gave him one of her quick glances, and said:

“You are very silent, monsieur.”

“I was thinking—how very beautiful the day is.”

As a matter of fact, he was not thinking anything of the sort. He was in

a fever. He was thinking how very beautiful, adorable, attractive this

lovely wild creature was hanging round his neck. He had never before

adventured such an experience. He had never kissed Lucile. Women were an

unopened book to him, and lo! suddenly the most captivating of her sex

was clinging to him. He felt the pressure of her soft brown forearm on

the back of his neck. Her little teeth were parted with smiles, and she

panted gently with the exertion of hopping. Her dark eyes searched his,

and appeared to be slightly mocking, amused, interested.

“If only I might pick her up and carry her,” he thought, but he did not

dare to make the suggestion.

Once she remarked:

“Oh, but I am tired,” and he thought she looked at him slyly.

The journey must have occupied half-an-hour, and she told him a little

about herself. She lived with her father. Her mother had died when she

was a baby. It was quite a small inn, frequented by charcoal-burners and

woodmen, and occasionally by visitors from Paris. She liked the country

very much, but sometimes it was dull—oh, dull, dull, dull!

“Ah, it is sometimes dull, even in Paris!” sighed Monsieur Roget.

“You must come and speak to my father, and take a glass of wine,” she

remarked.

In the forecourt of the inn the father appeared.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed. “What is all this?”

He was a rubicund, heavy-jowled gentleman, who by the wheezy exhalations

coming from his chest gave the impression of being a chronic sufferer

from asthma. Diane laughed.

“I have been through fire and water, my dear,” she said, “and this is my

deliverer.”

She explained the whole episode to the landlord, who shook hands with

Paul, and they led the girl into a sitting-room at the back of the café.

Paul was somewhat diffident about entering this private apartment, but

the landlord wheezed:

“Come in, come in, monsieur.”

They sat Diane down on a sofa, and the landlord pulled off her stocking.

In doing so he revealed his daughter’s leg as far as the knee. She had a

very pretty leg, but the ankle was considerably swollen.

“The ankle is sprained,” said the landlord.

“Will you allow me to go and fetch a doctor?” asked Paul.

“It is not necessary,” replied the landlord. “I know all about sprained

ankles. When I was in the army I served in the ambulance brigade. We will

just bind it up very tight with cold linen bandages. Does it hurt, little

one?”

“Not very—yet. It tingles. I feel that it may. Won’t you offer Monsieur—I

do not know his name—some refreshment?”

“Monsieur Paul Roget,” said that gentleman, bowing. “But please do not

consider me. The sufferer must be attended first. Later on, I would like

to be permitted to partake of a little lunch in the inn.”

While the landlord, whose name was Jules Couturier, was binding up his

daughter’s ankle, Paul slipped out and returned to the well, filled the

pail, and brought it back to the yard of the inn.

“But this is extremely agreeable of you, monsieur,” exclaimed the

landlord, as he came bustling through the porch. “She will do well. I

know all about sprained ankles. Oh, yes! I have had great experience. I

beg you to share a little lunch with us. We are quite simple folk, but I

think we may find you an omelette and a ragoût. Quite country people, you

know; nothing elaborate.”

The lunch was excellent, and Diane had the sofa drawn up to the table,

and in spite of the pain she must have been suffering, she laughed and

joked, and they were quite a merry party. After lunch he helped to wheel

her out into the crab-apple orchard at the back, and he told her all

about himself, his life and work, and ambitions. He told her everything,

except perhaps about Lucile. And he felt very strange, elevated, excited.

When the evening came he left it till too late to catch the train back to

Paris, and the landlord lent him some things and he stayed the night.

He stayed three nights, and wrote to Messrs. Manson et Cie, and explained

that he had gone to Pavane-en-Bois, and had been taken ill. He wrote

the same thing to Lucile. And during the day he talked to Diane, and

listened to the landlord. Sometimes he would wander into the woods,

but he could not bring himself to stay away for long. He brought back

armfuls of flowers which he flung across her lap. He touched her hands,

and trembled, and at night in bed he choked with a kind of ecstasy and

regret. It was horribly distracting. He did not know how to act. He

was behaving badly to Lucile, and dishonorably to Manson et Cie. His

conscience smote him, but the other little fiend was dancing at the back

of his mind. Nothing else seemed to matter. He was mad—madly in love with

this little dark-eyed huntress.

At the end of three days he returned to Paris, but not till he had

promised to come back at the earliest opportunity.

“Perhaps I will go again in August,” he sighed in the train. It was then

the seventh of June.

On the fifteenth of June he was back again in the “Moulin d’Or.” Diane

was already much better. She could hobble about alone with the help of

two sticks. She was more bewitching than ever. He stayed three weeks,

till her ankle was quite well, and they could go for walks together in

the woods. And he called her Diane, and she called him Paul. And one day,

as the sun was setting, he flung his arms round her and gasped:

“Diane.... Diane! I love you!”

And he kissed her on the lips, and her roguish eyes searched his.

“Oh, you!” she murmured. “You bad boy ... you!”

“But I love you, Diane. I want you. I can’t live without you. You must

come away with me. We will get married. We will build a world of our own.

Oh, you beautiful! Tell me you love me, or I shall go mad!”

She laughed that low, gurgling, silvery laugh of hers.

“What are you saying?” she said. “How should I know? I think you are—a

nice boy. But I cannot leave my father.”

“My dear, he managed all the time you had to lie with your foot up. Don’t

torture me! Oh, you must love me, Diane. I couldn’t love you so much if

you didn’t love me a little in return.”

“Perhaps I do,” she said, smiling.

“What is it, then, Diane?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I do not want to marry. I want to be free, to see the

world. I am ambitious. I have been to the conservatoire at Souboise. They

say I can sing and dance. My father has spent his savings on me.”

“Darling, if you marry me, you shall be free. You shall do as you like.

You shall dance and sing and see the world. Everything of mine shall be

yours if only you will love me. You must—you must. Diane!”

“Well ... we shall see. Come; father will be anxious.”

In July he left his _pension_ and moved out to Montmartre. He had never

definitely proposed to Lucile, but his expressions of affection had been

so definite that he felt ashamed. He spent his holiday in August at the

“Moulin d’Or.” And Diane promised to marry him “one day.”

“Diane,” he said, “I will work for you. You have inspired me. I shall go

back to Paris and think of you all day, and dream of you all night.”

“That won’t give you much time to make your fortune, my little cabbage.”

“Do not mock me. Where would you like to live?”

“In Paris, in Nice, in Rome, in Vienna. And then, one day, I would like

to creep back here and just live in the ‘Moulin d’Or.’”

“The ‘Moulin d’Or’?”

“Oh, we could improve it. We could build an extra wing, with a

dancing-hall, and more nice bedrooms, and a garage. We could improve the

inn, but we could not improve these beautiful hills. Isn’t that true,

little friend?”

“Nothing could be improved where you are. You are perfection.”

“Yes, but—”

In September Diane came to Paris. She stayed with an aunt in Parnasse,

and attended a conservatoire of dancing. And every evening Paul called

on her, and took her flowers and chocolates and trinkets. And in the

daytime, when the image of Diane’s face did not interpose between his

eyes and his desk, he worked hard. He meant to work hard and become a

rich man, and take Diane to Nice, and Rome, and Vienna, and make the

structural alterations to the “Moulin d’Or.”

In a few months’ time Diane made such progress that she was offered

an engagement in the ballet at Olympia. She accepted it and Paul was

consumed with a fever of apprehension. Every night he went to the

performance, waited for her, and escorted her home. But he disliked the

atmosphere of the music-hall intensely, and the other girls, Diane’s

companions—Heaven defend her!

And then she quarreled with her aunt, and Paul besought her to marry

him so that he might protect her. But she prevaricated, and in the end

he took some rooms for her, and she consented to allow him to pay for

them. She lived there for several weeks alone, only attended by an old

_concierge_, and then she took a friend, Babette Baroche, to share the

rooms with her, and Paul still continued to pay. Paul disliked Babette.

She was a frivolous, vain, empty-headed little _cocotte_, and no fit

companion for Diane. On occasions Paul discovered other men enjoying the

hospitality of the rooms, and they were always of an objectionable sort.

And Diane got into debt, and he lent her four hundred francs.

At Christmas-time she was dismissed from her engagement, and in a

pervicacious mood she promised to marry him in the spring. Paul was

delirious. Nothing was good enough for his Diane, and he engaged a

complete flat for her, with the services of an elderly _bonne_. Diane

was very grateful and loving, and in the transition Babette was dropped.

However, a few weeks after he had signed the lease, she was offered an

engagement for a tour, and after a lengthy dispute and many tears, she

had her way and accepted it. She was away three months, and Paul was

consumed with dread, and doubt, and gloomy forebodings. On occasions he

dashed down to Lyons, or Grenoble, or wherever she happened to be, for

the week-end. And he thought that the company she was with were a very

fast lot.

“But, my angel,” he would exclaim, “only another month or two, and all

this will be over. You will be mine forever and ever.”

He was still paying the rent of the flat in Paris, and it was necessary

to send Diane flowers and presents wherever she was. It was an expensive

time, particularly as, owing to Diane having had her purse stolen just

when she was paying off a debt, he had to send her another four hundred

francs. She returned at the end of March, and so great had been her

success on tour that an egregious, oily manager named Bonnat offered her

a part in a new revue. She received a good salary, but the management

would not supply her frocks. It was necessary to dress well for this

part. It was her first real chance. She ransacked shops in the Rue de

Tivoli, and Paul accompanied her. Eventually she spent twelve hundred

francs on them, and Paul advanced the money. She only allowed him to do

so on the understanding that she paid him back by installments out of

her salary. It is needless to say that she never did so. However, the

frocks were a great success, and Diane made a hit. She was undoubtedly

talented. She danced beautifully, and she had a gift of imitation. She

very quickly became a star, and of course a star could not scintillate

in the poky little flat she had so far occupied. She moved to a more

fashionable quarter, and occupied a flat the rent of which was rather

more than her salary alone. She developed more expensive tastes,

and nearly always kept a taxicab waiting for her at stage-doors and

restaurants.

At this time Paul began to realize that he was living considerably above

his income. It would be necessary to reduce it by breaking into his

capital. He sold some house property and paid Diane’s debts and bought

her a pearl pendant.

“Next month she will be my wife,” he thought, “and then I shall be able

more easily to curb these extravagancies.”

But when the next month came Diane was at the height of her success. She

had been given more to do in the _revue_, and her imitations were drawing

the town. The management raised her salary. Her head was completely

turned.

“Oh, no, no, no! dear heart,” she exclaimed. “Not this month. At the end

of the season. It would be imbecile when I have all Paris at my feet.”

Paul begged and urged her to reconsider, but she was obdurate. She

continued the same life, only that her tastes became more and more

extravagant. And one day Paul took her to task.

“My angel-flower,” he said, “we must not go on like this. All the savings

for our wedding are vanishing. I am eating into my capital. We shall be

ruined.”

“But, my little love,” replied Diane, “I spend so little. Why, you should

see the electric brougham Zénie at the Folies Bergères has. Besides, next

year, or perhaps before, they will have to double my salary.”

“Yes, but in the meantime—?”

“In the meantime your little girl shall kiss away your naughty fears.”

And of course Diane soon had an electric brougham of her own. The more

salary she had, the more it seemed to cost Paul. He was receiving merely

a nominal salary himself from Messrs. Manson et Cie, where he was little

more than a pupil. However, at that time he managed to get a small

increase, and invested a good bulk of his patrimony in a rubber company

that a very astute business friend advised him about. If the shares went

up considerably he might sell out, and reimburse himself for all these

inroads on his capital.

In the meantime a disturbing element crept into his love affair. A

depraved young fop, the Marquis de Lavernal, appeared on the scene.

He was one of those young men who have plenty of money and frequent

stage-doors. He was introduced by Babette, whom he almost immediately

forsook for Diane. He called upon her, left more expensive flowers and

chocolates than Paul could afford, and one day took her to Longchamps in

his car.

Paul was furious.

“This man must not come here,” he exclaimed. “I shall kill him!”

“Oo-oh! but why? He is quite a nice boy. He is nothing to me. He is

Babette’s friend.”

“I don’t trust him. I won’t have him here. Do you understand, Diane? I

love you so, I am distracted when that kind of person speaks to you!”

“Oo-oh!”

Diane promised not to see him again alone, but Paul was dubious. The

trouble was that he did not know what went on in the daytime. In the

evening he could to a certain extent protect her. But in the daytime—that

raven! that ogre! that blood-sucker! He was the kind of man who had the

_entrée_ of all theaters, both the back and the front. He went about with

parties of girls. Diane explained that it was impossible sometimes not to

meet him. He was always with her friends.

At the end of July Paul had a stroke of fortune. The rubber shares he had

bought went up with a great boom, quite suddenly. He sold out and netted

a considerable sum. And then he had a brilliant inspiration. He would

tell Diane nothing of this. He had plans of his own.

One day he took the train and went down to see his prospective

father-in-law at the “Moulin d’Or.” The old man was wheezier than ever,

but very cordial and friendly.

“Well, my boy, how goes it?” he asked.

“Excellently,” said Paul. “Now, father-in-law, I have a proposition to

make. Diane and I are to be married after the summer season. It has

always been her ambition to live at the ‘Moulin d’Or.’ But she has spoken

of improvements. I want to suggest to you with all respect that you allow

me to make those improvements. I would like to do it without her knowing

it, and then to bring her down as a great surprise.”

“Well, well, very agreeable, I’m sure. And why not? It would be very

charming!”

“I suggest building a new wing, with a dancing-hall and several nice

bedrooms, and a garage; and laying out the gardens more suitably.”

“Well, good! It would be very desirable, and conducive to good business.

You may rely upon me to assist you in your project, Monsieur Paul.”

“I am indeed grateful to you, Monsieur Couturier.”

Paul returned to Paris in high spirits. He made plans of the suggested

alterations on the back of an envelope, in the train. The next morning he

went to an eminent firm of contractors. So feverish was he in his demands

that he persuaded them to send a manager down that very day to take

particulars and prepare the estimate. The work was commenced the same

week.

In the meantime, Diane had bought some expensive little dogs, because

Fleurie at the Odéon kept expensive little dogs, and a new silver

tea-service because Lucie Castille at the Moulin Rouge had a silver

tea-service. And Paul was surprised because neither of the accounts for

these luxuries was sent to him. Diane said she had paid for them herself,

but the little demons of jealousy were still gnawing away at his heart.

The _revue_ was to terminate at the end of the third week in August, and

Paul said:

“And then, my love, we will marry quietly in Paris, and then we will do

the grand tour. We will go to Nice, and Rome, and Vienna, and commence

our eternal honeymoon at the ‘Moulin d’Or.’”

Diane clapped her hands.

“Won’t that be beautiful, my beloved!” she exclaimed, and she twined her

sinuous arms around his neck. “Fancy! just you and I alone at the dear

‘Moulin d’Or!’ Ah! and then we will go to Venice, and to Munich. Good

gracious! It will be soon time to think about the frocks and trousseau!”

Paul’s heart swelled. The trousseau! Diane was becoming serious. There

had been moments when he had doubted whether she meant to marry him at

all, but—the trousseau! Why, yes, the matter must be attended to at

once. They spent three weeks buying Diane’s trousseau. Nearly every

day she thought of something fresh, some little trifle that was quite

indispensable. When the bills came in they amounted to twenty-two

thousand francs! Paul was aghast. He had no idea it was possible to spend

so much on those flimsy fabrics. And furniture had yet to be purchased.

He went to his astute business friend again, and begged for some enticing

investment. He was recommended a Nicaraguan Company that was just

starting. They had acquired the rights of a new method of refining oil.

It was going to be a big thing. With the exception of a sum of money to

pay for the improvements at the “Moulin d’Or” Paul put practically the

whole of his capital into the Nicaraguan Company.

Nearly every day he called at the contractor’s, or sent frenzied

telegrams to Monsieur Couturier to inquire how the work was progressing.

At length he received a verbal promise that the whole thing would be

completed by about the twentieth of September.

Excellent! That would fit in admirably. It would give him a month’s

honeymoon with his beautiful Diane, and then, one glorious September

evening, he would drive up the hill, and jumping out of the car in the

new drive he would be able to exclaim:

“Behold! Do not all your dreams come true?”

And Diane would fling her arms round his neck, and the old father would

come toddling out and find them in that position, and he would probably

weep, and it would all be very beautiful.

A few days later there was a rather distressing incident. Quite on her

own responsibility Diane ordered a suite of Louis XVI furniture. They

were fabulously expensive copies. Paul had nothing like enough money to

pay for it. He did not want to sell his Nicaraguan shares. In fact, he

had only just applied for them. He protested vehemently:

“But, my dear, you ought not to have done this! It is ruinous. We cannot

afford it.”

“But, my Carlo, one must sit down!”

“One need not pay fifteen thousand francs to sit down!”

“Oo-oh!”

Paul knew the evidence of approaching tears, and he endeavored to stem

the tide. In the end he went to a money-lender and borrowed the money at

an abnormal rate of interest, and then he went to Diane and said:

“My beloved, you must promise me not to spend any more money without my

consent. The consequences may be serious. My affairs are already getting

very involved. You must promise me.”

Diane promised, and the next day drove to his office in a great state of

excitement. Bonnat had been to see her. They wanted to take the _revue_

for a two months’ tour to Brittany and Normandy, commencing at Dinard on

August 22nd. He had offered her dazzling terms. She simply must go. It

might be her last chance. The wedding must be postponed till the end of

October. Paul protested, and they both became angry and cried before two

other clerks in Messrs. Manson’s office. They parted without anything

being settled. When he saw her at night after the theater, she had signed

the contract. And Paul returned to his rooms, and bit his pillow with

remorse and grief.

On the twenty-first of August Diane locked up her trousseau, and the

furniture, and left with the company for Dinard. And Paul wrote to her

every day, and she replied once a week, and occasionally sent him a

telegram announcing a prodigious success. Only occasionally did he get

an opportunity of going to her over a week-end. The journeys were very

long and he resented spending the money. In only one way did he derive

any satisfaction from that tour. The building work—like all building

work—could not possibly be completed in the time specified. If they had

arrived there on the twenty-first of September, his beautiful Diane would

have found the place all bricks and mortar and muddle. As it was, it

would be comfortably finished by the middle of October.

When not going to Diane he would spend Sunday with Monsieur Couturier,

who was keenly excited about the improvement to his inn. It was going

to be very good for the business. All the countryside spoke of it. The

patron of the “Colonne de Bronze,” further down the hill, was furious,

and this was naturally a matter of satisfaction to Monsieur Couturier. He

was proud of and devoted to his future son-in-law.

At the end of September came the great blow. Paul heard of it first

through the newspapers. The Nicaraguan Company had failed. The refining

process had proved efficient, but far more expensive to work than any

other refining process. The company was wound up, and the shareholders

received about 2½ per cent. on their investments. Paul was practically

ruined. He would have to pay for the building of the “Moulin d’Or.”

Beyond that he had only a few thousand francs, and he had to meet the

promissory note of the money-lenders. He wrote to Diane and confessed

the whole story. She sent him a telegram which simply said: “Courage!

courage!”

He wore the telegram inside his shirt for three days, till it got rather

too dilapidated. Then he concentrated on his work. Yes! he would have

courage. He would build up again. Diane trusted him. In any case, they

could sell the furniture and go and live at the “Moulin d’Or.” He wrote

her long letters full of his schemes. On October the twelfth the work was

completed, and he went down and spent two days and nights with Monsieur

Couturier. Diane was to return to Paris on the fifteenth. Monsieur

Couturier was full of sympathy and courage. They talked far into the

night of how they would manage. With the increase of business assured,

the inn would no doubt support the three of them. There were great

possibilities, and Paul was young and energetic. Nothing mattered so long

as his Diane believed in him.

The night before he returned to Paris he went for a walk in the woods by

himself. He visualized the days to come, the walks with Diane, the tender

moments when they held each other’s hands; he could see their children

toddling hand in hand through the woods, picking flowers. In an ecstasy

he rushed to a thick bush, and picked a bunch of red berries. He would

take them to Diane. They would be the symbols of their new life. Wild

flowers from their home, not exotic town-bred things. It was all going to

be joy ... joy ... joy!

He ran back to the inn, and spent a sleepless night, dreaming of Diane

and the days and nights to come.

In the morning came a letter from Messrs. Manson et Cie. His dealings

with the money-lenders had been disclosed. His services were no longer

desirable.

Well, there it was! It would take more than that to crush him in his

ecstatic mood. He would start again. He would begin by helping Monsieur

Couturier to run the inn.

He returned to Paris late in the evening. He would go to Diane’s flat

after she had returned from the theater. She would be a little sleepy,

and comfortable, and comforting. She would wear one of those loose,

clinging, silky things, and she would take him in her arms, and he would

let down her beautiful dark blue-black hair, and then he would make her a

coronet of the red berries. He would make her his queen....

He was too agitated to dine that evening. He walked the streets of Paris,

clasping the red berries wrapped in tissue paper. He kept thinking:

“Now she is resting between the acts. Now she is dancing a _pas seul_

in the second act. Now she is giving her imitation of Yvette Guilbert.

Now she is taking a call. Now the manager speaks to her, congratulating

her—curse him! Now she awaits her cue to go on again.”

He was infinitely patient. He restrained his wild impetus to rush to the

theater. He hung about the streets. He meant to stage-manage his effect

with discretion. He waited some time after the theater was closed. Then,

very slowly, he walked in the direction of her flat. As he mounted the

stairs, he began to realize that he was very exhausted. He wished that he

had not foregone his dinner. However, after the first rapturous meeting

with Diane, he would take a glass of wine. Very quietly he slipped the

key in the lock, and let himself in. (He had always had a key to Diane’s

flat, which was in effect _his_ flat.) Directly he had passed the door he

heard loud sounds of laughter. He swore inwardly. How aggravating! Diane

had brought home some of her friends! There were evidently a good many of

them, from the noise and ribaldry. In the passage were several bottles

and glasses.

He crept along silently to the _portière_ concealing the _salon_. He

could hear Diane’s voice. She was speaking, and after each sentence the

company screamed with laughter. Ah! she was entertaining them with one of

her famous imitations. He stood there and listened. He made a tiny crack

in the curtain and peeped through. Diane was doing a funny little strut,

and speaking in a peculiar way. He listened and watched for three or

four minutes before he realized the truth of what he saw and heard. And

when he did realize it, he had to exert his utmost will-power to prevent

himself from fainting.

The person that Diane was imitating was—_himself_!

The realization seemed to be bludgeoned into him, assisted by a round of

ironic cheers. People were calling out:

“_Brava! brava!_ Diane!”

He heard Babette say:

“Where is the little end-of-a-man?”

And Diane’s voice reply:

“Oh, he is coming back soon, I believe. I forget when.”

A man’s voice—he believed it was the Marquis de Lavernal’s—exclaimed:

“And when is our Diane going to marry it?”

Diane, very emphatically:

“Do not distress yourself, my dear; he’s lost all his money.”

A roar of laughter drowned conversation, and Paul groped his way along

the passage, still clutching the red berries. He reached the door. Then

he reconsidered the matter. He crept back to her bedroom. He placed the

berries under the coverlet, and taking a sheet of paper, he wrote one

word on it: “Good-by.”

He placed this on the berries, and then stole out into the night.

Paul was then twenty-two, and his life was finished. He was a crushed

and broken man. He wandered the streets of Paris all night. He spent

hours grimly watching the encircling waters of the Seine, the friend

and comforter of so many broken hearts. At dawn he returned to his own

apartment. He slept for several hours, and then woke up in a fever. He

was very ill for some weeks.

But one must not despair forever. At the end of that time, he pulled

himself together, and went out and sought employment. He eventually got

a situation as a junior clerk in a wholesale store, and he went back

to live at the old _pension_ near the Luxembourg, and he resumed his

friendship with Lucile. And in two years’ time he married Lucile. And

then his life began. His life began. His life began. And lo! here was

Lucile walking slowly up the hill, arm-in-arm with her daughter Louise.

Yes, his life began....

* * * * *

“Ah! there you are! What did I say?” exclaimed Louise. “He’s been asleep!”

“And we’ve had such an interesting time,” added Madame Roget, panting

with exertion. “We’ve been to the inn.”

“And there’s such a pretty girl there,” continued the daughter. “You’d

fall in love with her, papa.”

“Is she very dark?” asked Monsieur Roget.

“Yes, she has blue-black hair and beautiful dark eyes.”

“Good God!”

“I knew he would be interested. She gave us some milk, and she has been

telling us her story. She’s quite young, and she owns the inn, although

it’s very hard work to run it, she says. She only has one woman and a

potman. Her mother was a famous actress, who made a lot of money and

bought the inn and improved it. She died when Mademoiselle was fifteen.”

“Who was her father?”

“I don’t know. I rather gather that her father was a bad lot. He died,

too.”

“How old is she?”

“Not much more than twenty.”

“Then her mother must have been thirty-nine when she died.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Of course she must have been. What happened to the old man?”

“What old man?”

“Her grandfather.”

“What are you talking about, papa? I don’t believe you’re quite awake

yet.”

“She must have had a grandfather. Everybody has a grandfather.”

“Well, of course. But—”

“Then he must be either dead or alive.”

“How tiresome you are! We must be going. The others are waiting for us

lower down the hill.”

Monsieur Roget struggled to his feet, and shook the little dead fronds of

fern from his clothes, and his wife dusted him down behind.

“We shall be going back past the inn,” she said.

“The inn! Why can’t we go the other way? The way we came?”

“Don’t be so absurd. What does it matter? The others are awaiting us.”

They went slowly down the hill, and came in sight of the “Moulin d’Or.”

“Isn’t it disgusting,” remarked Louise, “how these speculative builders

are always spoiling the old inns?”

“I don’t see it’s spoilt,” answered her father petulantly.

“You are ridiculous, papa! Any one can see the inn isn’t half as nice as

it was.”

As they approached the forecourt of the inn, a girl came out carrying

a pail. She had dark eyes, blue-black hair, and a swinging carriage.

Yes, yes, there was no doubt about it. She was the spit and image of her

mother.

As she approached she smiled pleasantly, and said:

“Good evening, _mesdames_; a pleasant journey. Good evening, monsieur.”

The ladies returned a friendly greeting, and Monsieur Roget suddenly

turned to the girl and said:

“Is your grandfather alive or dead?”

She continued smiling, and replied:

“I do not remember my grandfather, monsieur.”

No, perhaps not; it was thirty-seven years ago, and old Couturier was an

old man then. Perhaps not.

“Papa, can’t you see she’s going to the well to fetch water? Why don’t

you offer to help her?”

“Eh? No, I’m not going. Let her fetch it herself!”

“Papa!”

They walked on in silence till well out of hearing, when Louise

exclaimed:

“Really, papa, I can’t understand you. So ungallant! It’s not like

you. You ought to have offered to fetch the water for her, even if she

refused.”

“Eh? Oh, no! I wasn’t going. Very dangerous. You might fall down and

sprain your ankle. Oh, no! Or she might fall down, or something. It’s

very slippery up there by the well. You’re not going to get me to do it.

Let her fetch her own water. Oh, no! no, no, no, no!”

“Louise dear,” remarked Madame Roget. “Let us hurry. Your father is

most queer. I always warn him, but it is no good. If he sleeps in the

afternoon he always gets an indisposition.”

A SOURCE OF IRRITATION

To look at old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having nerves.

His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of the soil had

given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him hoeing, or thinning

out a broad field of turnips, hardly attracted one’s attention. He seemed

so much part and parcel of the whole scheme. He blended into the soil

like a glorified swede. Nevertheless, the half-dozen people who claimed

his acquaintance knew him to be a man who suffered from little moods of

irritability.

And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him unreasonably.

It concerned his niece Aggie. She was a plump girl with clear blue eyes

and a face as round and inexpressive as the dumplings for which the

county was famous. She came slowly across the long sweep of the downland

and putting down the bundle wrapped up in a red handkerchief which

contained his breakfast and dinner, she said:

“Well, uncle, is there any noos?”

Now this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely to

cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly and

unnecessary question. It was moreover the constant repetition of it which

was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a day. In the morning

she brought his bundle of food at seven, and when he passed his sister’s

cottage on the way home to tea at five she was invariably hanging about

the gate. And on each occasion she always said, in exactly the same voice:

“Well, uncle, is there any noos?”

“Noos”! What “noos” should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never

lived further than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of those

years he had bent his back above the soil. There were indeed historic

occasions: once, for instance, when he had married Annie Hachet. And

there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a famous occasion

when he had visited London. Once he had been to a flower-show at Market

Roughborough. He either went or didn’t go to church on Sundays. He had

had many interesting chats with Mr. James at “The Cowman,” and three

years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Waig. But he couldn’t always have

interesting “noos” of this sort up his sleeve. Didn’t the silly gaffer

know that for the last three weeks he had been thinning out turnips for

Mr. Dodge on this very same field? What “noos” could there be?

He blinked at his niece, and didn’t answer. She undid the parcel, and

said:

“Mrs. Goping’s fowl got out again last night.”