A little after sunrise on the day set for our first performance, Speed
sauntered into my dressing-room in excellent humor, saying that not
only had the village of Paradise already filled up with the peasantry
of Finistère and Morbihan, but every outlying hamlet from St. Julien
to Pont Aven was overflowing; that many had even camped last night
along the roadside; in short, that the country was unmistakably
aroused to the importance of the Anti-Prussian Republican circus and
the Flying Mermaid of Ker-Ys.
I listened to him almost indifferently, saying that I was very glad
for the governor's sake, and continued to wash a deep scratch on my
left arm, using salt water to allay the irritation left by Aïcha's
closely pared claws--the vixen.
But the scratch had not poisoned me; I was in fine physical condition;
rehearsals had kept us all in trim; our animals, too, were in good
shape; and the machinery started without a creak when, an hour later,
Byram himself opened the box-office at the tent-door and began to sell
tickets to an immense crowd for the first performance, which was set
for two o'clock that afternoon.
I had had an unpleasant hour's work with the lions, during which
Marghouz, a beast hitherto lazy and docile, had attempted to creep
behind me. Again I had betrayed irritation; again the lions saw it,
understood it, and remembered. Aïcha tore my sleeve; when I dragged
Timour Melek's huge jaws apart he endured the operation patiently, but
as soon as I gave the signal to retire he sprang snarling to the
floor, mane on end, and held his ground, just long enough to defy me.
Poor devils! Who but I knew that they were right and I was wrong! Who
but I understood what lack of freedom meant to the strong--meant to
caged creatures, unrighteously deprived of liberty! Though born in
captivity, wild things change nothing; they sleep by day, walk by
night, follow as well as they can the instincts which a caged life
cannot crush in them, nor a miserable, artificial existence
obliterate.
They are right to resist.
I mentioned something of this to Speed as I was putting on my coat to
go out, but he only scowled at me, saying: "Your usefulness as a
lion-tamer is ended, my friend; you are a fool to enter that cage
again, and I'm going to tell Byram."
"Don't spoil the governor's pleasure now," I said, irritably; "the
old man is out there selling tickets with both hands, while little
Griggs counts receipts in a stage whisper. Let him alone, Speed; I'm
going to give it up soon, anyway--not now--not while the governor has
a chance to make a little money; but soon--very soon. You are right; I
can't control anything now--not even myself. I must give up my lions,
after all."
"When?" said Speed.
"Soon--I don't know. I'm tired--really tired. I want to go home."
"Home! Have you one?" he asked, with a faint sneer of surprise.
"Yes; a rather extensive lodging, bounded east and west by two
oceans, north by the lakes, south by the gulf. Landlord's a
relation--my Uncle Sam."
"Are you really going home, Scarlett?" he asked, curiously.
"I have nothing to keep me here, have I?"
"Not unless you choose to settle down and ... marry."
I looked at him; presently my face began to redden; and, "What do you
mean?" I asked, angrily.
He replied, in a very mild voice, that he did not mean anything that
might irritate me.
I said, "Speed, don't mind my temper; I can't seem to help it any
more; something has changed me, something has gone wrong."
"Perhaps something has gone right," he mused, looking up at the
flying trapeze, where Jacqueline swung dangling above the tank,
watching us with sea-blue eyes.
After a moment's thought I said: "Speed, what the devil do you mean
by that remark?"
"Now you're angry again," he said, wearily.
"No, I'm not. Tell me what you mean."
"Oh, what do you imagine I mean?" he retorted. "Do you think I'm
blind? Do you suppose I've watched you all these years and don't know
you? Am I an ass, Scarlett? Be fair; am I?"
"No; not an ass," I said.
"Then let me alone--unless you want plain speaking instead of a
bray."
"I do want it."
"Which?"
"You know; go on."
"Am I to tell you the truth?"
"As you interpret it--yes."
"Very well, my friend; then, at your respectful request, I beg to
inform you that you are in love with Madame de Vassart--and have been
for months."
I did not pretend surprise; I knew he was going to say it. Yet it
enraged me that he should think it and say it.
"You are wrong," I said, steadily.
"No, Scarlett; I am right."
"You are wrong," I repeated.
"Don't say that again," he retorted. "If you do not know it, you
ought to. Don't be unfair; don't be cowardly. Face it, man! By Heaven,
you've got to face it some time--here, yonder, abroad, on the ocean,
at home--no matter where, you've got to face it some day and tell
yourself the truth!"
His words hurt me for a moment; then, as I listened, that strange
apathy once more began to creep over me. Was it really the truth he
had told me? Was it? Well--and then? What meaning had it to me?... Of
what help was it?... of what portent?... of what use?... What door did
it unlock? Surely not the door I had closed upon myself so many years
ago!
Something of my thoughts he may have divined as I stood brooding in
the sunny tent, staring listlessly at my own shadow on the floor, for
he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "Surely, Scarlett, if
happiness can be reborn in Paradise, it can be reborn here. I know
you; I have known you for many years. And in all that time you have
never fallen below my ideal!"
"What are you saying, Speed?" I asked, rousing from my lethargy to
shake his hand from my shoulder.
"The truth. In all these years of intimacy, familiarity has never
bred contempt in me; I am not your equal in anything; it does not hurt
me to say so. I have watched you as a younger brother watches,
lovingly, jealous yet proud of you, alert for a failing or a weakness
which I never found--or, if I thought I found a flaw in you, knowing
that it was but part of a character too strong, too generous for me to
criticise."
"Speed," I said, astonished, "are you talking about me--about
_me_--a mountebank--and a failure at that? You know I'm a failure--a
nobody--" I hesitated, touched by his kindness. "Your loyalty to me
is all I have. I wish it were true that I am such a man as you believe
me to be."
"It is true," he said, almost sullenly. "If it were not, no man
would say it of you--though a woman might. Listen to me, Scarlett. I
tell you that a man shipwrecked on the world's outer rocks--if he does
not perish--makes the better pilot afterwards."
"But ... I perished, Speed."
"It is not true," he said, violently; "but you will if you don't
steer a truer course than you have. Scarlett, answer me!"
"Answer you? What?"
"Are you in love?"
"Yes," I said.
He waited, looked up at me, then dropped his hands in his pockets and
turned away toward the interior of the tent where Jacqueline, having
descended from the rigging, stood, drawing her slim fingers across the
surface of the water in the tank.
I walked out through the tent door, threading my way among the curious
crowds gathered not only at the box-office, but even around the great
tent as far as I could see. Byram hailed me with jovial abandon,
perspiring in his shirt-sleeves, silk hat on the back of his head;
little Grigg made one of his most admired grimaces and shook the heavy
money-box at me; Horan waved his hat above his head and pointed at the
throng with a huge thumb. I smiled at them all and walked on.
Cloud and sunshine alternated on that capricious November morning; the
sea-wind was warm; the tincture of winter had gone. On that day,
however, I saw wavering strings of wild ducks flying south; and the
little hedge-birds of different kinds were already flocking amiably
together in twittering bands that filled the leafless blackthorns on
the cliffs;--true prophets, all, of that distant cold, gathering
somewhere in the violet north.
I walked fast across the moors, as though I had a destination. And I
had; yet when I understood it I sheered off, only to turn again and
stare fascinated in the direction of the object that frightened me.
There it rose against the seaward cliffs, the little tower of Trécourt
farm, sea-smitten and crusted, wind-worn, stained, gray as the
lichened rocks scattered across the moorland. Over it the white gulls
pitched and tossed in a windy sky; beyond crawled the ancient and
wrinkled sea.
"It is a strange thing," I said aloud, "to find love at the world's
edge." I looked blindly across the gray waste. "But I have found it
too late."
The wind blew furiously; I heard the gulls squealing in the sky, the
far thunder of the surf.
Then, looking seaward again, for the first time I noticed that the
black cruiser was gone, that nothing now lay between the cliffs and
the hazy headland of Groix save a sheet of lonely water spreading
league on league to meet a flat, gray sky.
Why had the cruiser sailed? As I stood there, brooding, to my numbed
ears the moor-winds bore a sound coming from a great distance--the
sound of cannon--little, soft reports, all but inaudible in the wind
and the humming undertone of the breakers. Yet I knew the sound, and
turned my unquiet eyes to the sea, where nothing moved save the far
crests of waves.
For a while I stood listening, searching the sea, until a voice hailed
me, and I turned to find Kelly Eyre almost at my elbow.
"There is a man in the village haranguing the people," he said,
abruptly. "We thought you ought to know."
"A man haranguing the people," I repeated. "What of it?"
"Speed thinks the man is Buckhurst."
"What!" I cried.
"There's something else, too," he said, soberly, and drew a telegram
from his pocket.