LII

Meanwhile Juliette, nestled in her corner, stared from the window as

Belgium hurried by. Bouillon, at whose station they left the train,

showed a platform crowded with swaggering Prussian officers of the

Crown Prince's army--some of them wounded, all upon _parole_. French

ladies, entering and leaving the carriages, looked daggers at their

enemies. Poisoned daggers at Adelaide, who, to her secret annoyance,

was recognized and familiarly greeted by two of these Teutonic

warriors, one a tall and red-whiskered Bavarian Light Dragoon, the

other a brown-coated Hussar of von Barnekow's Brigade.

In vain Adelaide ignored the pair and redoubled the directions she

was giving to a porter. The Bavarian coolly thrust the man aside,

opened the carriage-door and jumped upon the steps.

"_Meine gnädigste_ ... loveliest Countess, you won't give the go-by

to your old comrade Otto? Here also is von Wissman, who claims a

greeting from you!"

There was no gainsaying the boisterous good-fellowship of the

officers. They superintended the removal of the luggage from the

van, engaged a pair-horsed _fiacre_, and advised as to its loading.

When Adelaide and her charge entered they followed uninvited, and

deposited themselves on the front seat, incommoding the ladies with

their long spurred boots and filling the vehicle with the odor of

cigars and wine. Both talked much; the Hussar chattered incessantly;

giving details of the various actions he had been engaged in, the

chance by which he had been taken prisoner, the irksomeness of being

interned in Belgium until the ending of hostilities:

"Not that it will be long before the War is over. We now hold Alsace

Lorraine and the country north and east of Metz. The Crown Prince is

making for Châlons; that will give the French Emperor an attack of

hysterics. He has handed over the supreme command to Bazaine, and

yesterday left Gravelotte for Verdun. That means Châlons, and after

Châlons will be Paris. Badinguet has had enough of campaigning to

last him the rest of his reign."

Adelaide asked:

"And the Prince?"

The brown Hussar puffed out his cheeks and squinted like a

pantomime-mask. The Bavarian replied:

"Lulu went with papa, though we heard they had trouble to make him.

He wanted to stop and kill Prussians--they're such horrible beasts,

you know!"

"You droll beggar, Strelitz, shut up with your mummery," said the

Hussar, leaning across him to pitch his cigar-butt away.

"Madame is fire-proof, why waste the stump of a three-mark Havana?"

chuckled Strelitz, keeping his own weed alight. He went on, drolling

for the benefit of his companion:

"This meeting, loveliest Countess, makes me feel a youth

again--garlanding the grim temples of Bellona with the roses of the

goddess of Love. You remember the classical lessons you used to give

me only last winter, in your charming flat near the Linden Strasse?"

He ogled Adelaide with comic sentimentality:

"And the jovial supper-party at which I was present, when von Kessel,

of the Guards Infantry, had the presumption to bring an uninvited

guest!"

"Why apologize!" laughed the Hussar. "The pleasantest

acquaintanceships are made by chance!"

"Ah, but this was not chance!" said the Bavarian, with mock

solemnity. "It was one of those accidents that only happen by

design. Von Schön-Valverden bored von Kessel frightfully to take

him--left the fat fellow no peace until he gave in. The Count is

reported to have paid the penalty."

"Aha! I can imagine what happened to the youngster!" giggled the

Hussar.

Replied the comedian:

"He had three losses that evening. Each one more serious than the

last!"

Adelaide shrugged, but she did not look angry; indeed, through her

veil her disdainful beauty assumed a smiling cast.

"Three losses," the comedian repeated, "exactly as in my own case.

For he first lost his money--so did I!--we were playing baccarat that

evening--then he lost his head, and finally his heart!"

"Otto, thou wert always a tease!" protested Madame, but her ill-humor

had softened into conscious coquetry, and her eyes beamed radiantly

through the flowers of her masking veil.

"Or he would have!" continued Otto: "had not his mother, the

Countess, come flying to the rescue and carried him off, nobody knows

where!..."

Adelaide's eyes blazed. She said in a tone of haughty nonchalance:

"Count Valverden is now with the first Army, advancing toward

Metz.... He says he hopes to win the silver sword-knot before the

close of the campaign."

"You correspond?" the Hussar asked, grinning, as the driver signified

impatience by kicking the back of the box-seat. Both officers got

out of the carriage as Adelaide answered coldly:

"He often writes to me."

The driver, ignored, opened a little padded trap-hole in the front

part of the vehicle. He clapped his mouth to it and shouted in the

Flemish tongue:

"_Geef my U address!_"

Adelaide gave the name of the Hôtel des Postes. The officers kissed

her hand and said they would call there on the morrow. They waved as

the _fiacre_ rumbled out of the station. Adelaide waved back, and

issued quite another direction through the driver's trap-hole. And

the _fiacre_ went jingling through the old-world streets of the

castled town that sits on the broad flowing river whose bridge was

crowded with French and Belgian officers, chatting, smoking and

discussing the news of the War.

Presently they were free of the streets, roaring with the tongues of

many nations, choked with trains of French wounded, Red Cross

columns, Sisters, surgeons, bearers, carriages full of visitors, and

more processions of officers on _parole_. The _fiacre_ lumbered at a

good pace behind its pair of heavy-hocked Flemish horses along a

wide, straight road, with plains on either side. And presently tall

black wooden observation-towers marked the frontier where Belgian

videttes and outposts amicably fraternized with French.

Kilometer posts of wood instead of stone.... The dear French

language in the mouths of people. Breasting hills covered with

woods, instead of fallow plains, intersected with level roads

bordered with eternal poplar-trees.

With the joy and relief of the return, Juliette's heavy heart grew

lighter. Her muscles relaxed. She could unclench her hands again.

For the horror she had felt at the contiguity of the German officers

and the loathing their familiar address had inspired in her had been

well-nigh unbearable, though she understood their language but

imperfectly. And this strange woman, her self-chosen protectress,

who greedily fed on an admiration so coarse, Who was she? What was

she? The poor girl shuddered as she wondered. Of women like

Adelaide she had no experience, and yet she could not silence the

voice of her doubt.

When Madame good-humoredly bade her unlock traveling bags, unstrap

baskets and serve both with the food and drink she had lavishly

provided, Juliette, declining all offers of refreshment, waited upon

her, in silence so frozen that the patience of her protectress was

severely taxed.

Unaided, Madame emptied a pint bottle of champagne, a fluid which

temporarily elevates the spirits, and consumed the greater part of a

cold _pâté_, with pastry and fruit, winding up the repast with a

Turkish cigarette and a thimbleful of cognac from the silver flask in

her traveling-bag.

"How dull you are--how cold, you tiny creature!" she grumbled. "Is

it blood that runs in your veins, or melted snow? From whom do you

inherit this torpid nature--without vivacity, warmth, or gaiety?

Your father was not lacking in fire and passion.... Your mother----"

Her long eyes laughed wickedly. "A feminine volcano, shall we say?"

A shock went through the girl. She visibly quailed and shuddered.

Through the rumbling of the _fiacre_, she heard herself speaking in a

voice she hardly recognized:

"My mother.... Did you know my mother? And--knowing her--dare you

speak of her to me?..."

"Dare!..." Adelaide threw back her handsome head in a gale of

laughter, curling back her crimson lips, lavishly displaying her

splendid teeth. "I dare do many things," she said, still laughing.

"Conventionality ... timidity ... these are not characteristics

distinctive of me! Nor were they ever, to do myself justice.... Why

are we stopping at this miserable place?"

Juliette, rendered dumb by growing fear of her companion, did not

answer. The carriage drew up at a crossroads where a bridge arched

the Givonne. They were upon the fringes of the village, near a

country inn and posting-house. The driver had an ancient

understanding with the proprietor of this hostelry that his beasts

should break down here.

He now got down from his perch. Adelaide lowered the window. The

man explained by the aid of signs that the horses were quite

exhausted and they were yet three miles from Sedan. The proprietor

of the inn assisted at the colloquy, extending the distance by

another mile--hinting at possible dangers after nightfall. He could

supply an excellent supper, a comfortable double bedroom--coffee at

the peep of day, a vehicle and horses to take Madame and Mademoiselle

to Sedan, or wherever they chose....

Finally the driver was paid enough to satisfy even his cupidity.

Madame's luggage was taken upstairs, the ladies mounted to their room.

It was a low-ceiled, dampish apartment containing two bedsteads of

uncomfortable aspect, with flock beds and dusty chintz draperies.

Candles were lighted, put on the chimney-piece.... A fire of damp

billets was set smoking by the efforts of the chambermaid, who was

not disinclined to talk. French troops were encamped near. Let the

ladies look from the window. Those lines of red and yellow lights

glaring through a rising fog marked the sites of the soldiers'

watch-fires. There were officers down below drinking wine and

playing cards in the _salle à manger_. Also soldiers were drinking

cider in the yard. It made one feel more safe, the presence of so

many warriors. Indeed, Sedan was full of them, and all the country

round about.... At Metz also, even more, with guns enough to kill

all the Prussians in existence. The chambermaid felt confident that

they would soon be driven out of France.

Still talking, she supplied hot water, and laid a little

supper-table, the ladies preferring not to descend. A smoked

omelette with herbs, some stewed pears, and a seed-cake furnished the

supper, with a decanter of thin red wine.

Adelaide nibbled and sipped discontentedly. Juliette, being

famished, made a meal. The billets refusing warmth Madame unrobed

her sumptuous person, arrayed herself in lace and lawn, enlisting the

services of her charge as lady's maid, and gracefully betook herself

to bed. There she leaned on her white elbow, chatting while Juliette

made her own preparations for the down-lying.... Her tigerish mood

was past. She was amiable--almost affectionate.... She even praised

the girlish charms reluctantly unveiled in the process of undressing;

remarking:

"After all, you only want style and more _tournure_ to do execution

among the men. Some of them actually prefer coldness. They say it

gives the illusion of innocence. Have you locked the door? Yes!

Then double-lock and drag a trunk before it, and shut the window and

slide the bolt.... Pull down the blind and draw the curtain.... One

cannot be too careful in places like these!..."

"But we shall be suffocated!" Juliette cried in consternation,

forgetting her deadly fear of Adelaide in her craving for fresh air.

And then in the ghastly face the other turned upon her, she saw the

unmistakable stamp of Fear.

"What have I said?... What has frightened you? Are you ill? Pray

tell me!" she begged.

But Adelaide waved her off, biting her pale lips to bring the blood

back to them, saying harshly: "It is nothing! A spasm. I have

suffered from them of late.... Do not stare at me as though I were

hideous. Give me my reticule.... There! on the toilette-table. How

clumsy you tiny things can be!..."

Trembling, Juliette handed her the gold-mounted bauble. She took a

little phial from it and a measuring-glass.

"Now place one of those candles on the night-stand, beside me. One

will not do--give me both!..."

There was laudanum in the little crystal phial. When Adelaide had

measured and swallowed her dose she breathed more easily, stared less

fixedly, and those disfiguring reddish-purple streaks of Straz's

handiwork showed less vividly against the creamy skin. Her suffused

eyes regained clearness. She lay back among her pillows and declared

herself better ... laughed at the terror still visible in Juliette's

face....

"Now give me the little pistol and the pearl-handled dagger out of

the inner compartment in my traveling-bag.... The large, deep pocket

that fastens with a snap. What! you would rather not!... You do not

like to handle them.... _Fi donc_, Mademoiselle! A soldier's

daughter--and guilty of such cowardice!..."

Juliette winced at the thrust. It was her turn to bite her lips.

She steadied them and mastered her voice sufficiently to say:

"I dislike to touch such weapons, because I have never learned to use

them. And I will ask you, Madame, not to speak jestingly of my

father to me!"

"Give me the pistol and stiletto, then!" stipulated her tormentress.

In silence Juliette took one of the candles, and set it near the

traveling-bag upon the table near the supper-tray which the

chambermaid had neglected to remove. She dived into the deep pocket

as directed, and drew out a double-barreled pistol, mounted in ebony

and silver, and the dagger, a costly toy of Indian workmanship.

Something else fell upon the floor with a faint tinkle. It was a

miniature set with pearls, that had rolled under the table. She laid

the pistol and dagger there, took the candlestick and stooped to pick

the miniature up. The portrait within the oval of pearls and gold

was that of a girl-child of some five years. In the pictured face

that smiled up at her with eyes as deeply blue as the spring skies of

Italy, Juliette with a thrill and shock indescribable, recognized

herself....

"_It was the August of 1856. Thou hadst five years, and thy curls

were as soft and yellow as chicken-down.... Thy mother used to say:

'Juliette will never be black like me!_'"

The beloved voice was in her ears, with the very throb of his aching

heart in it. De Bayard's daughter knelt so long upon the floor,

motionless, staring at the horror, that Adelaide accused her

jestingly of having fallen asleep.

"Get up! Wake! Give me my pistol and the dagger. I call them my

babies--they sleep under my pillow ever since--never mind!... Ah!

You have blown out the candle.... Light it at this one!--or perhaps

you will have light enough without it?... Ugh! how cold your hand

is, you chilly little frog!"

Juliette had blown out the candle so that she might unseen return the

portrait to the dressing-bag. Had Straz's Sultana not been heavy

with laudanum, she would have perceived this.

Now she yawned, stretched, smiled, declared herself actually sleepy,

in spite of a mattress apparently stuffed with potatoes and stones....

Juliette was kneeling by the other bedside, a slender, rigid little

figure in a white night-robe, striving to collect her whirling

thoughts sufficiently to say her prayers. When she rose up, Adelaide

asked her drowsily:

"Do you pray always?... And what do you pray for? And for whom,

tell me, you secret little thing!"

The low answer came:

"I pray for the living, Madame, and for the departed.... For my

father and--others who are dear to me; for myself and for my

grandmother's soul!"

"For your mother?" Adelaide queried curiously.

"I pray that my mother may repent and be forgiven!"

"Ah-h!" Adelaide's inflection was sleepily scornful. "So you think

her a terrible sinner, eh, Mademoiselle?"

The white-robed figure palpably shuddered, yet the answer came

unfalteringly:

"It is not for me to judge--you, Madame!"

The clean riposte pierced the consciousness that had been dulled by

the opiate. There was a dreadful silence, during which the girl

could hear her own heart drumming, and through the noise it made, the

hiss of her mother's sharply intaken and expelled breath. Then

Adelaide shrugged, saying in a tone of drowsy irony:

"That is the most sensible utterance I have yet heard from you, ma

mignonne. Well--the discovery was inevitable! Now, with your leave,

I am going to sleep!..."

And she did, while the girl sat huddled among her scanty bedclothes,

clasping her knees and praying for day. Torn between unconquerable

aversion toward this bold, audacious, worldly woman, and the old

yearning toward the beautiful lost mother, enshrined as a

demi-goddess in a young child's recollection, you may imagine

Juliette's mental and physical plight.

That one should shudder at the touch of her who stood in so sacred a

relation was inconceivable.... That one should welcome it was

inconceivable also. Dim conjectures as to her mother's past, as to

her present mode of life, were evolved from the depths of the

daughter's Convent-bred ignorance.... Would those German officers

have looked so boldly, conversed so coarsely and familiarly, if they

had not had reason to believe such approaches welcome, even

agreeable?... The lives of Phryne, Thaïs and Aspasia were missing

from the pages of Juliette's School Dictionary of Classical

Biography. Yet when Cora Pearl had flashed past her in the Bois, or

upon the Champs Élysées, driving four mouse-colored ponies in silver

harness--wielding a jeweled parasol driving-whip--she had

instinctively averted her gaze from the face of the courtesan.

Was Juliette's mother a woman like that woman? And why, within a few

hours from their chance, accidental meeting, had she inveigled her

daughter into a snare?... For that some sinister purpose had

prompted the proceeding began to be clear to the poor young girl.

Love.... Oh, Heaven! was the look in those hard eyes born of the

divine tenderness that a mother feels for her child? Was it not

hatred that glittered from them? Was it not revenge that had

concocted the plot?

The marriage with M. Charles Tessier, so keenly desired by the

Colonel, had been quashed by his wife's kite-like swoop upon the

bride. Was that story of de Bayard's having been made prisoner by

Prussians true or invented? If false, whither were they now

bound?... "Oh, help, Mother of Mercy, Mary most pitiful! Pray for

me that light may be given me!--teach me what I ought to do!..."

Growing calmer the reflection occurred to Juliette that this mother

so strangely encountered could not be all untender toward her

daughter, or the pearl-set miniature would not have been kept....

This brought tears to her aching eyes, and some relief to her

apprehensions. She determined, remembering that token of lingering

kindness, that she would yield duty and obedience to her mother now.

Until she found her all untrustworthy, she would trust her.... She

had invented freely, in setting her springes--and yet not altogether

lied....

Sleep did not come to Mademoiselle de Bayard that night, or for many

nights after. She lay staring at the curtains that met across the

blinded window, until the dawn edged them with a line of glimmering

gray. As the streak encroached, she rose noiselessly, and silently

as the dawn itself approached her mother's bed.

Adelaide lay upon her back with her head thrown back amid its wealth

of rich black tresses, her arms tossed out and upward, the hands

clenched, one knee a little raised. The unfastened robe of lawn

disclosed the creamy beauty of her throat and the swelling contours

of her magnificent bosom. The sight sent an exquisite pang to the

heart of her sorrowful child. Oh, God! if beauty so divine had been

but chaste, what pride, what happiness to call this woman mother! To

lay one's head upon that breast and weep all griefs out there!...

The sleeper stirred beneath the wistful gaze of her daughter. Violet

shadows were round her sealed eyelids and about her nostrils and

mouth. She moaned a little and murmured brokenly:

"Nicolas ... Monseigneur ... insult ... never pardon!... '_Only a

woman of fashion would be capable of such infamy...._' Ah, _mon

Dieu!_..."

She cried out, and her eyes opened, staring about wildly. She asked

suspiciously as they fell on Juliette:

"Have I been talking?... What was I saying?"

Juliette answered simply and literally:

"That only a woman of fashion would be capable of such infamy."