"Is it true, monsieur, that you have come to arrest us?" she asked,
in a low voice.
"Yes, madame," I replied, already knowing that she was the Countess.
She hesitated; then:
"Will you tell me your name? I am Madame de Vassart."
Cap in hand I followed her to the table, where the company had already
risen. The young Countess presented me with undisturbed simplicity; I
bowed to my turkey-girl, who proved, after all, to be the actress from
the Odéon, Sylvia Elven; then I solemnly shook hands with Dr. Leo
Delmont, Professor Claude Tavernier, and Monsieur Bazard,
ex-instructor at the Fontainebleau Artillery School, whom I
immediately recognized as the snipe-faced notary I had met on the
road.
"Well, sir," exclaimed Dr. Delmont, in his deep, hearty voice, "if
this peaceful little community is come under your government's
suspicion, I can only say, Heaven help France!"
"Is not that what we all say in these times, doctor?" I asked.
"When I say 'Heaven help France!' I do not mean Vive l'Empereur!'"
retorted the big doctor, dryly.
Professor Tavernier, a little, gray-headed savant with used-up eyes,
asked me mildly if he might know why they all were to be expelled from
France. I did not reply.
"Is thought no longer free in France?" asked Dr. Delmont, in his
heavy voice.
"Thought is free in France," I replied, "but its expression is
sometimes inadvisable, doctor."
"And the Emperor is to be the judge of when it is advisable to
express one's thoughts?" inquired Professor Tavernier.
"The Emperor," I said, "is generous, broad-minded, and wonderfully
tolerant. Only those whose attitude incites to disorder are held in
check."
"According to the holy Code Napoléon," observed Professor Tavernier,
with a shrug.
"The code kills the body, Napoleon the soul," said Dr. Delmont,
gravely.
"It was otherwise with Victor Noir," suggested Mademoiselle Elven.
"Yes," added Delmont, "he asked for justice and they gave him ...
Pierre!"
"I think we are becoming discourteous to our guest, gentlemen," said
the young Countess, gently.
I bowed to her. After a moment I said: "Doctor, if you do truly
believe in that universal brotherhood which apparently even tolerates
within its boundaries a poor devil of the Imperial Police, if your
creed really means peace and not violence, suffering and patience, not
provocation and revolt, demonstrate to the government by the example
of your submission to its decrees that the theories you entertain are
not the chimeras of generous but unbalanced minds."
"We never had the faintest idea of resisting," said Monsieur Bazard,
the notary, otherwise the Chevalier de Grey, a lank, hollow-eyed young
fellow, already marked heavily with the ravages of pulmonary disease.
But the fierce glitter in his eyes gave the lie to his words.
"Yesterday, Madame la Comtesse," I said, turning to the Countess de
Vassart, "the Emperor could easily afford to regard with equanimity
the movement in which you are associated. To-day that is no longer
possible."
The young Countess gave me a bewildered look.
"Is it true," she asked, "that the Emperor does not know we have
severed all connection with the Internationale?"
"If that is so," said I, "why does Monsieur Bazard return across the
fields to warn you of my coming? And why do you harbor John Buckhurst
at La Trappe? Do you not know he is wanted by the police?"
"But we do not know why," said Dr. Delmont, bending forward and
pouring himself a glass of red wine. This he drank slowly, eating a
bit of black bread with it.
"Monsieur Scarlett," said Mademoiselle Elven, suddenly, "why does
the government want John Buckhurst?"
"That, mademoiselle, is the affair of the government and of John
Buckhurst," I said.
"Pardon," interrupted Delmont, heavily, "it is the affair of every
honest man and woman--where a Bonaparte is concerned."
"I do not understand you, doctor," I said.
"Then I will put it brutally," he replied. "We free people fear a
family a prince of which is a common murderer."
I did not answer; the world has long since judged the slayer of Victor
Noir.
After a troubled silence the Countess asked me if I would not share
their repast, and I thanked her and took some bread and grapes and a
glass of red wine.
The sun had stolen into the corner where we had been sitting, and the
Countess suggested that we move down to the lawn under the trees; so
Dr. Delmont and Professor Tavernier lifted the table and bore it down
the terrace steps, while I carried the chairs to the lawn.
It made me uncomfortable to play the rôle I was playing among these
misguided but harmless people; that I showed it in my face is certain,
for the Countess looked up at me and said, smilingly: "You must not
look at us so sorrowfully, Monsieur Scarlett. It is we who pity you."
And I replied, "Madame, you are generous," and took my place among
them and ate and drank with them in silence, listening to the breeze
in the elms.
Mademoiselle Elven, in her peasant's dress, rested her pretty arm
across her chair and sighed.
"It is all very well not to resist violence," she said, "but it
seems to me that the world is going to run over us some day. Is there
any harm in stepping out of the way, Dr. Delmont?"
The Countess laughed outright.
"Not at all," she said. "But we must not attempt to box the world's
ears as we run. Must we, doctor?"
Turning her lovely, sun-burned face to me, she continued: "Is it not
charming here? The quiet is absolute. It is always still. We are
absurdly contented here; we have no servants, you see, and we all
plough and harrow and sow and reap--not many acres, because we need
little. It is one kind of life, quite harmless and passionless,
monsieur. I have been raking hay this morning. It is so strange that
the Emperor should be troubled by the silence of these quiet
fields--"
The distress in her eyes lasted only a moment; she turned and looked
out across the green meadows, smiling to herself.
"At first when I came here from Paris," she said, "I was at a loss
to know what to do with all this land. I owe much happiness to Dr.
Delmont, who suggested that the estate, except what we needed, might
be loaned free to the people around us. It was an admirable thought;
we have no longer any poor among us--"
She stopped short and gave me a quick glance. "Please understand me,
Monsieur Scarlett. I make no merit of giving what I cannot use. That
would be absurd."
"The world knows, madame, that you have given all you have," I said.
"Then why is your miserable government sending her into exile?" broke
in Monsieur Bazard, harshly.
"I will tell you," I said, surprised at his tone and manner. "The
colony at La Trappe is the head and centre of a party which abhors
war, which refuses resistance, which aims, peacefully perhaps, at
political and social annihilation. In time of peace this colony is not
a menace; in time of war it is worse than a menace, monsieur."