"Will you please tell me where I am?" The young man spoke in French
with ease, but more than a trace of an English accent.
"This is my uncle's mill."
"Of course. And that road?----"
"But the village road, monsieur--what else?"
"And, Mademoiselle Elusive, what village may it be?"
"'Tis where the church is, monsieur; and every Sunday I go there to
mass."
The pilot produced a pipe and, extracting a pouch, proceeded to fill it
with tobacco.
"I am lost," he said complacently. "My compass was shot away, and the
clouds are hanging too low for me to follow any landmarks."
He looked about at the steadily thickening twilight. "How far is it to
the village?" he asked.
"Five kilometers--and a little better."
"The Devil!" He made a screen from the wind with the flap of his coat,
and lighting his pipe, puffed it with evident satisfaction. "I shall
have to leave the old 'bus' here. As a matter of fact, she's so nearly
'napoo' that I rather expected to come riding home on one plane, like
the old woman with the broom. But, mademoiselle----"
"Monsieur?"
"I am very tired and distinctly hungry, and I know of a mill-house with
a cosy fire in the kitchen, where a pretty little fairy that----"
"There is no fairy--only Louis."
"And who the deuce may he be?"
"The cat--_le voici!_"
He surveyed the feline with an air of tolerant gravity. "Do you think
Louis may object if I remain for supper?"
"Ah--but no!" She laughed gaily, but a look of doubt changed the
expression of her features in a moment. "But my uncle--he never has any
one in the house. For many years I have lived alone with him. Only when
the curé comes, perhaps once a month, does any one visit the mill. My
uncle is very surly, a perfect bear, and often he gets drunk as well."
The young man raised his absurdly light eyebrows. "A pleasant relative,
mademoiselle. And, pray, what is his grievance against his fellowmen?"
"I know not, monsieur. All week he works alone, except when he takes
the flour to sell, but on Sundays he always goes to church and leads
the chanting. He was taught Latin by his father, who was a gravedigger
in Paris and learned it from the tombstones. So on Sundays my uncle,
from his seat in the chancel, performs the chants in such a terrible
voice that almost always some children scream with terror, and once
Madame La Comtesse fainted."
The aviator relit his pipe, which had gone out, but did not remove his
eyes from hers.
"Once," went on the girl, plucking a blade of grass and making a knot
with it about her finger, "two villagers, Simon Barit and Armand
Cartier, were requested by the curé, who is very small and weak, to
tell my uncle to sing no more. Ah monsieur, it was terrible!"
"Yes?"
"My uncle he is a very strong man; he threw Simon Barit into the
stream, and the other he chased almost to the village."
"And so, like the mill-stream, he goes on forever?"
"Ah, yes, monsieur, like the war--forever. Listen!"
A great voice, sonorous as that of the fabled giant calling for his
evening meal of an Englishman, rent the air. The October wind seemed to
quiver to its lowest note, and the water racing over the chute was
quieter than it had been for hours.
"I must go, monsieur. It is his supper he wants."
"And may I not come too?"
"Ah--but no! I am frightened."
"Of me?"
She raised her wide brown eyes to his, and her eyelashes, which so
jealously guarded those guileless depths, parted grudgingly, revealing
to him their full beauty.... Another roar shattered the air, and she
laid her hand upon his wrist. "You must not come," she said earnestly.
"He would throw you into the stream."
His melancholy face gave way to a boyish grin. "If he did,
mademoiselle, my ghost would haunt him forever. All night it would sing
outside his window--and, in truth, my singing is no less terrible than
his."
There was another roar, followed by a reference to the untimely decease
of ten thousand devils.
Without a word, she reached for her book, and, throwing her shawl over
her left shoulder, hurried away. The aviator watched her girlish figure
with its unconscious grace, then, turning about, he strolled to the
machine, and, sitting on the side of the fuselage, surveyed its
bullet-punctured carcass.
"Five kilometers and a little better," he soliloquized in English, "and
a doubtful prospect of a meal.... Contrast that with what the gods
offer here--a cosy fire, coffee, eggs and chips, I warrant, and the
daintiest of little maids--to say nothing of a musical uncle with an
amiable propensity for throwing visitors into the stream. By Jove, it
is chilly.... Over in dear old England they'll be roasting nuts and
telling ghost-stories to-night."
The fast-thickening shadows deepened into the blackness of an October
night; the wind grew quieter, but there was a bite in the air that made
him draw his fur collar about his ears.
"What excellent French the little lady uses," he went on. "I wonder who
her parents were, and why the deuce she has to live with this ogre. And
what eyes! Enough to make one invent new songs of Araby just to see
them sparkle and soften.... One moment sad, another tender--and always
lovely. Steady, the Air Force--you're becoming sentimental."
He looked at the battered machine and shook his head; a solitary
raindrop lit on his face and slid down its surface like a tear.
A belated gust of wind smote his face and left it moist. He rose in a
determined manner and adjusted his helmet.
"_Adieu_, my Camel!" He took a last survey of the machine. "The kitchen
is calling to my appetite; a storm is brewing in the heavens; a pair of
dark eyes is urging all the romance within me; so--mill-stream or no
mill-stream--_mon oncle_, I come."
He squared his shoulders and, with the rather absurd long stride and
the odd raising of the knee, made for the cottage door, from underneath
which a faint glow of light was timidly emerging.