Somebody brought tea--I don't know who; all I could see clearly was
her gray eyes meeting mine--the light from the leaded window touching
her glorious, ruddy hair.
As for the tea, I took whatever she offered; doubtless I drank it, but
I don't remember. Nor do I remember what she said at first, for
somehow I began thinking about my lions, and the thought obsessed me
even while striving to listen to her, even in the tingling maze of
other thoughts which kept me dumb under the exquisite spell of this
intimacy with her.
The delicate odor of ripened herbs stole into the room from the
garden; far away, through the whispering whir of the spinning-wheel, I
heard the sea.
"Do you like Sylvia's song?" she asked, turning her head to listen.
"It is a very old song--a very, very old one--centuries old. It's all
about the English, how they came to harry our coasts in those
days--and it has almost a hundred verses!" Something of the Bretonne
came into her eyes for a moment, that shadow of sadness, that patient
fatalism in which, too, there is something of distrust. The next
instant her eyes cleared and she smiled.
"The Trécourts suffered much from the English raiders. I am a
Trécourt, you know. That song was made about us--about a young girl,
Yvonne de Trécourt, who was carried away by the English. She was
foolish; she had a lover among the Saxons,... and she set a signal for
him, and they came and sacked the town, and carried her away, and that
was what she got for her folly."
She bent her head thoughtfully; the sound of the sea grew louder in
the room; a yellow light stole out of the west and touched the
window-panes, slowly deepening to orange; against it the fruit trees
stood, a leafless tracery of fragile branches.
"It is the winter awaking, very far away," she said, under her
breath.
Something in the hollow monotone of the sea made me think again of the
low grumble of restless lions. The sound was hateful. Why should it
steal in here--why haunt me even in this one spot in all the world
where a world-tired man had found a moment's peace in a woman's eyes.
"Are you troubled?" she asked, then colored at her own question, as
though deeming the impulse to speak unwarranted.
"No, not troubled. Happiness is often edged with a shadow. I am
content to be here."
She bent her head and looked at the heavy rose lying in solitary
splendor on the table. The polished wood reflected it in subdued tints
of saffron.
"It is a strange friendship," I said.
"Ours?... yes."
I said, musing: "To me it is like magic. I scarce dare speak, scarce
breathe, lest the spell break."
She was silent.
"--Lest the spell break--and this house, this room, fade away,
leaving me alone, staring at the world once more."
"If there is a spell, you have cast it," she said, laughing at my
sober face. "A wizard ought to be able to make his spells endure."
Then her face grew graver. "You must forget the past," she said;
"you must forget all that was cruel and false and unhappy,... will
you not?"
"Yes, madame."
"I, too," she said, "have much to forget and much to hope for; and
you taught me how to forget and how to hope."
"I, madame?"
"Yes,... at La Trappe, at Morsbronn, and here. Look at me. Have I not
changed?"
"Yes," I said, fascinated.
"I know I have," she said, as though speaking to herself. "Life
means more now. Somehow my childhood seems to have returned, with all
its hope of the world and all its confidence in the world, and its
certainty that all will be right. Years have fallen from my shoulders
like a released burden that was crushing me to my knees. I have
awakened from a dream that was not life at all,... a dream in which
I, alone, staggered through darkness, bearing the world on my
shoulders--the world doubly weighted with the sorrows of mankind,... a
dream that lasted years, but..._you_ awoke me."
She leaned forward and lifted the rose, touching her face with it.
"It was so simple, after all--this secret of the world's malady. You
read it for me. I know now what is written on the eternal tablets--to
live one's own life as it is given, in honor, charity, without malice;
to seek happiness where it is offered; to share it when possible; to
uplift. But, most of all, to be happy and accept happiness as a
heavenly gift that is to be shared with as many as possible. And this
I have learned since ... I knew you."
The light in the room had grown dimmer; I leaned forward to see her
face.
"Am I not right?" she asked.
"I think so.... I am learning from you."
"But you taught this creed to me!" she cried.
"No, you are teaching it to me. And the first lesson was a gift,...
your friendship."
"Freely given, gladly given," she said, quickly. "And yours I have
in return,... and will keep always--always--"
She crushed the rose against her mouth, looking at me with inscrutable
gray eyes, as I had seen her look at me once at La Trappe, once in
Morsbronn.
I picked up my gloves and riding-crop; as I rose she stood up in the
dusk, looking straight at me.
I said something about Sylvia Elven and my compliments to her,
something else about the happiness I felt at coming to the château
again, something about her own goodness to me--Heaven knows what!--and
she gave me her hand and I held it a moment.
"Will you come again?" she asked.
I stammered a promise and made my way blindly to the door which a
servant threw open, flung myself astride my horse, and galloped out
into the waste of moorland, seeing nothing, hearing nothing save the
low roar of the sea, like the growl of restless lions.