There by the pool on a log with a book in her lap sat Eugenia. She
was not reading, however, although her book lay open. At the sound of
Captain Castaigne’s chair approaching she looked toward him.
The young man’s expression was severe on this occasion, not Eugenia’s.
“I am sorry to intrude upon you,” he began stiffly. “Your friends told
me that you were suffering from a headache; naturally I did not expect
to find you here.”
In response Eugenia smiled good-naturedly, just as one might to a
fretful child. She had gotten up at once and now came forward and took
the young man’s hand.
“I did have a headache, Captain Castaigne. I am too good a Puritan to
have told a complete story. But while I did not feel well enough to
see and talk to a number of persons, I did not desire to go to bed,
where Barbara was pleased to send me by way of punishment. Besides,
I knew your mother would prefer to have the two girls to herself. I
really think she misses them now that they can see so little of each
other. But why talk about me? You are stronger every day, aren’t you?
Can’t you walk with your crutches if François is near? Come, won’t you
try now? I am sure I can catch you if you are too much for François.”
Two spots of angry color appeared in Captain Castaigne’s cheeks.
“I am through with your support, Miss Paybodé,” he returned curtly.
“When I choose to walk I prefer not to be held up by a woman.”
“Oh,” Eugenia answered, and stared at her former patient helplessly.
What had she said or done to make him so angry?
But the next instant the young officer had taken her hand and in French
fashion touched it with his lips.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I am impossible. This, after I depended on you
so long for every care. If you will be so good, I think I should like
to sit there on the log where you were sitting.”
During his illness Eugenia had grown so accustomed to these swift
changes of mood in her patient that she paid no especial attention to
this one. Instead she helped him out of his chair and kept at his side
while he hobbled over to the log she had just deserted.
But when she stood above him looking down upon him with pride and
satisfaction over his achievement he grew angry again.
“If you cannot sit beside me I have no idea of taking your place,” he
protested.
The next instant Eugenia sank meekly down. It rather amused her to have
Captain Castaigne treat her in this fashion.
Just before them was the small lake which Nona and Barbara had
discovered the first morning after their arrival at the farmhouse. It
was shadowy now with the coming of evening, but still the water was
coolly clear. Its beauty soothed one to silence.
It was Eugenia who spoke first.
“I am glad to have this moment here with you, Captain Castaigne,” she
began, with a return to her former manner. “Because I wish to tell you
and have you explain to your mother that Nona and Barbara and I may be
leaving this part of the country in a little while. The truth is, our
services as nurses are not needed here as they were some months ago.
There is little fighting going on and several new French nurses came
down from Paris the other day. Besides this, Mrs. Thornton and Judge
Thornton have grown very nervous and unhappy over Mildred, as well as
the rest of us, in the last few weeks. They have both written to urge
me to persuade the other girls to join me and go into Belgium to help
with the relief work there. You are almost well now, so I shall be able
to say good-by with much greater satisfaction.”
This last speech Eugenia made in a gracious tone and yet her companion
received it ungraciously. And this in spite of the fact that his manner
was usually charming.
“There is no time when you would not say good-by to me with
satisfaction, Miss Paybodé,” he returned. “However, if I am spared
perhaps I may some day show my appreciation of your great kindness.
I have written my colonel to say that I shall be able to rejoin my
command in another week or ten days. I have wasted much valuable
time with two illnesses. Perhaps the third may be my lucky one!” he
finished, casting his dark eyes upward with dramatic intensity.
In reply Eugenia actually patted his knee in a comforting, motherly
fashion.
“Don’t be absurd. You cannot return to your command for two or three
months at least,” she admonished.
“Two or three weeks shall be the limit to my patience,” her companion
repeated, still talking like a sulky boy.
Eugenia frowned. “I shall speak to your mother. She will never allow
it.” Again her manner was that of a New England school teacher.
Nevertheless Captain Castaigne did not smile. Yet he seemed to have
forgotten his age and dignity as well as rank in the army, for you see
he had been a good many weeks under Eugenia’s discipline.
“The day you go to Belgium I shall return to my post,” he muttered.
Eugenia would like to have shaken him. Had he been in the little
“Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door,” she would simply have gotten up
at this instant and left her patient until he had learned to behave
himself. But at present the circumstances were different, and besides
she might not have a chance to talk to him again. So somehow he must be
made to behave sensibly.
“You will do no such thing. You owe more than that to me,” Eugenia
protested unexpectedly. A few moments before she would not have
believed that any earthly thing could have forced her to mention,
either to Captain Castaigne or to any one else, the sacrifices which
she had made for him. But now she had spoken deliberately and meaning
exactly what she said.
Nevertheless the young French officer did not answer immediately.
“Eugenié,” he said finally, and the querulous, boyish note in his voice
had quite gone, “you must listen to me. I have been talking like a
child, but I am scarcely surprised at myself, since you have always
insisted upon treating me as scarcely more than a child. I have borne
with it because I have been ill and you have known me only in that
condition. But, Eugenié, I will endure it no longer.”
The young man’s voice held a quietly determined quality. He was
perfectly courteous and yet his listener understood at this instant why
he was considered one of the most forceful as well as one of the most
popular of the younger officers in the French service.
Nevertheless Eugenia scarcely knew how or what to reply.
“I am so sorry, Captain Castaigne,” she answered. “I have not intended
to fail in respect to you. But perhaps I have unintentionally presumed
on your long weakness and dependence upon me.”
And this from Eugenia! Moreover, her face had flushed and she could not
lift her lids because of the tears in her eyes. Yet she was not really
angry with Captain Castaigne.
The next time he spoke his voice was once more gentle and he even
managed to smile.
“You know that is not what I mean in the least. It is absurd of you
to talk of showing proper respect to me, Eugenié, as if I were your
commanding officer. Surely you understand that when a man cares for a
woman as I do for you, there is but one thing possible between them.
They must love each other fully and equally. I know you have nothing
but a kindly feeling for me, but you shall not go away, when I may
never see you again, without hearing the truth.”
Still Eugenia did not understand! Nevertheless her face grew pale
instead of flushed and her dark eyes gazed into her companion’s almost
curiously.
Yet the next moment, when Captain Castaigne touched her hand with
infinite gentleness and respect, she drew it coldly away from him.
“I quite understand your gratitude, Captain Castaigne. But please
appreciate the fact that it is unnecessary for you to go this far to
express your obligation. I have only done for you what I would have
done for any one in the world under the same circumstances.”
“I am entirely aware of that fact,” the young officer answered curtly.
Then he and Eugenia both maintained a dignified silence for the space
of sixty seconds.
By this time the girl rose up.
“This is our good-by, perhaps. We may not see each other alone again.
You must forgive me if I seem to be cold and unfeeling. Of course, I
should have cared for any one just as I cared for you. But I should not
have been so glad to have been given the opportunity had my patient
been any other person.” Eugenia was trying her best to cast aside the
cold and formal manner which had made her misunderstood all the days
of her life. In her earnestness somehow she looked younger and humbler
than usual. Indeed, she was a very fair and lovely woman standing
there with her hands clasped before her. Her eyes were shining with
the sincerity of her emotion, while her attitude expressed a strange
mixture of dignity and appeal.
“When we first met each other, Captain Castaigne, I confess I had a
wrong idea of you. Now I feel that I could have rendered France no
greater service than to have saved your life. Since I came abroad to
nurse in order to help the little I am able, perhaps my coming has not
been in vain. Good-by.”
She was moving away, when the young officer reached out and took hold
of her skirt.
“Please don’t go for another moment,” he pleaded. “Of course I
understand that so noble a woman cannot love a man who has so little to
offer as I have. Why, in spite of all our lands, my mother and I are
little more than paupers! And if I am spared when this war is over,
perhaps I shall always be lame.”
The girl was standing looking down at the young fellow whose head was
slightly bowed, when instinctively she laid her firm, beautiful hand
on his head with unconscious sympathy and tenderness. She had done the
same thing so many times before during his illness. But Eugenia’s hand
now trembled a little, for she was slowly beginning to appreciate what
Captain Castaigne had been trying to say to her.
Curious, for Eugenia to think first that she had never received a
proposal before in her life, or she might have known better how to
receive it. Then her next sensation was an odd combination of gratitude
and protest.
“I have been very stupid, Captain Castaigne, and you have been very
good,” she answered. “But even if you believe what you have just said
to me, and of course I know that you would not deceive me, you yourself
must realize that nothing but friendship can ever exist between us.
I am several years older than you, and I have no delusions about my
own attractions. You are young and brilliant, but then I need not
enumerate your gifts,” the girl added, smiling with a kind of gentle
humorousness she had never possessed before. “All this is merely
gratitude you feel toward me, and a little affection because of my care
of you. Six months from now I shall be only a memory.”
“Then you _do not_ love me?” Captain Castaigne inquired bluntly. He it
was who had now cast aside all his soft graciousness of manner, the
delicate evasions of the direct truth, that sometimes constitute what
is known as a charming manner. It was Eugenia who, in spite of her
Puritan faith and training, was refusing to meet the issue fairly.
She hesitated because the truth overwhelmed her. The idea of caring for
Captain Castaigne except as a friend had never for a single instant
before occurred to her. Of course, he had filled her life and thoughts
for many weeks, but that was because of the peculiar situation into
which they had been forced by circumstances. Moreover, the thought of
their never meeting again had given her a sense of loss and emptiness.
Yet Eugenia stuck by her colors gallantly.
“That is not the important question, Captain Castaigne, and I cannot
answer you. For always there would remain an impossible gulf between
us. There is your position, your mother’s disappointment, our different
ways of looking at life. Why, you would soon become dreadfully ashamed
of a New England old maid endeavoring to turn herself into a charming
young wife.”
Eugenia glanced into the little pool of water near by, shadowed by the
trees. “Nona has been calling this tiny lake ‘The Pool of Melisande,’
Captain Castaigne, but to me it is a mirror of truth, in which I can
see myself only too plainly. It is growing late and you must not be
out in the cold air. Please let me call François and have him take you
home.”
Receiving no reply but a quiet look of determination, Eugenia summoned
the old man. Then she assisted François to get the young officer back
into his wheeled chair and afterwards stood watching them until they
had both disappeared.
Then, as it was almost twilight, Eugenia turned and began to walk
slowly toward the little French farmhouse. She realized that she had
just deliberately turned her back upon the fairest opportunity life
might ever offer her. Nevertheless, both her conscience and her brain
approved her action.
“There is only one thing which I might have confided and did not,”
Eugenia murmured reflectively. “Perhaps I should have explained that it
would not matter in the least that Henri and his mother have no money.
I have more than enough for us all.” Then as she drew nearer home:
“Never mind, Captain Castaigne will soon have forgotten what he has
just said to me. But perhaps it is just as well that we are soon to go
into Belgium to help with the Red Cross work there, for I may not find
it quite so easy to forget.”
When she reached home it was dark. But as the other girls had not
yet returned from the chateau, Eugenia went upstairs to her own room
without making a light. There she flung herself down upon the bed,
remembering gratefully that because she had a headache, she might
reasonably be allowed to spend the evening alone. Then Barbara would
have no chance to ask questions.
* * * * *
The third volume in the American Girls’ Red Cross series is to be known
as “The Red Cross Girls in Belgium.” In this story the four girls will
be at work in an even more tragically interesting land. Here their
adventures and their romances will continue and one of the girls at
least shall find what is at once the end and the beginning of a girl’s
career.
The book will also deal with conditions in Belgium at the present time
and show how the people of the United States have brought aid and
relief to a suffering nation.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.
The following change was made:
p. 179: ” inserted (the enemy!” They)