"PARISIENNE"
"At least," said the Comtesse, still staring at the brisk fire in the
steel grate--"at least he saw them with his own eyes."
She was thinking aloud, and Elsie Gray, her distant relative and
close companion, only looked up without reply. The Comtesse's face
stood in profile against the bright appointments of the fireplace,
delicate and serene; the tall salon, with its white panels gleaming
discreetly in the light of the candles, made a chaste frame for her
fragile presence. The window-curtains had been drawn to shut out the
evening which shed its damp melancholy over the Faubourg, and to the
girl the great, still room seemed like a stage set for a drama. She
sat on a stool beside the Comtesse's chair, her fingers busy with
many-colored skeins of silk, and the soft stir of the fire and the
tick of a little clock worked themselves into her patient thoughts.
"He was to come at nine, I think," said the Comtesse at last, without
turning her head.
"Yes," said Elsie, leaning forward to look at the little clock. "It
still wants twenty minutes."
The Comtesse nodded slowly; all her gestures had the gentle
deliberation of things done ceremonially.
"It is not much longer to wait, is it?" she said. "After twenty
years, one should be patient. But to think! To-night, for the first
time I hear of Jeanne from one who saw her at the end. Not a lawyer
who has sought out the tale and rearranged it, but one who knew. You
see, Elsie?"
Elsie put a hand on her arm, and her little thrill of excitement died
out at once.
"Yes," said the girl; "I see, but you must be tranquil."
"I will be tranquil," promised the Comtesse. "I will have
consideration for my heart. It is only the waiting which tries me."
"And that is nearly at an end." Elsie released her arm, and the
Comtesse turned again to the fire. The tick of the clock renewed its
tiny insistence; the great room again enveloped them in the austerity
of its silence. The girl returned to the silk strings in her lap. She
knew the occasion of the Comtesse's sudden emotion; it was a familiar
tale, and not the loss familiar for being told in whispers. She had
heard it first when she came from her English home to be the
Comtesse's companion. It had been told to her officially, as it were,
to guide her in her dealings with the Comtesse. A florid French
uncle, with a manner of confidential discretion that made her blush,
had been the mouthpiece of the family, and from him she had learned
how Jeanne, the Comtesse's half-sister, had run away with a rogue, a
man who got his deserts, an officer in a regiment stationed in
Algeria.
"Eventually he committed suicide, but before that there were
passages," the French uncle had said. The dreadful word "passages"
seemed to contain the story, and he gave it an accent of unspeakable
significance. "The Comtesse has suffered," he told her further. "It
was a sad affair, and she had much tenderness for Jeanne." And that,
at first, seemed to be the whole of it, though once or twice the
uncle checked himself on the brink of details. But on this evening
the tale was to be told afresh. There had arrived from Africa one
Colonel Saval, who had served with the sorry hero of poor Jeanne's
romance; he had known him and dealt with him; and he was appointed to
come to the Comtesse in the quality of eye-witness.
He was punctual, at all events; the little clock was yet striking
when the gaunt footman opened the door and spoke his name. The
Comtesse looked up, and Elsie Gray rose to receive him; he advanced
and made his bow.
"Madame la Comtesse?" he said, with a faint note of inquiry. The
Comtesse's inclination answered him. "Madame la Comtesse honors me. I
am happy to be of service."
He bowed to Elsie, who gave him "Good evening;" the footman set
forward a chair for him and withdrew. His white hair stood about his
head like a delicate haze; under it, the narrow wise face was brick-
red, giving news of his long service under the sun of North Africa.
He was short and slight, a tiny vivacious man, full of charming
formalities, and there was about him something gentle and suave, that
did not quite hide a trenchant quality of spirit. He stood before
them, smiling in a moment of hesitation, half paternal, wholly
gallant.
"Madame la Comtesse is suffering," said Elsie, in the spacious French
idiom. "There is little that she can say. But she thanks Monsieur
most sincerely for giving himself this trouble. But please be
seated."
He was active in condolences at once. "I am most sympathetic," he
said seriously. "And for the trouble"--he nicked it from him--"there
is no trouble. I am honored."
The Comtesse bowed to him. "Monsieur is very amiable," she murmured.
He hitched up his chair and sat down, facing the pair of them. His
shrewd eye took the measure of the Comtesse and her infirmity,
without relinquishing a suggestion of admiration. He was a man
panoplied with the civil arts; his long career in camps and garrisons
had subtracted nothing of social dexterity. There was even a kind of
grace in his attitude as he sat, his cane and hat in one hand, with
one knee crossed upon the other. He spent a moment in consideration.
"It is of the Capitaine Bertin that I am to speak? Yes?" he asked
suddenly.
The Comtesse stirred a little in her chair. "Yes," she answered, in a
voice like a sigh--a sigh of relief, perhaps.
"Ah!" He made a little gesture of acknowledgment. "Le Capitaine
Bertin! Then Madame will compose herself to hear little that is
agreeable, for it is a tale of tragedy." His eyes wandered for a
moment; he seemed to be renewing and testing again the flavor of
memories. Under his trim moustache the mouth set and grew harder.
Then, without further preamble, he began to speak.
"Bertin and I were of the same rank," he said, "and of much the same
age. There was never a time when we were friends; there stood between
us too pronounced a difference--a difference, Madame, of spirit, of
aim, and even of physique. Bertin was large, sanguine, with the face
of a bold lover, of a man noticeably gallant. I recall him most
vividly as he sat in a cafe behind a little round table. It was thus
one saw him most frequently, with his hard, swarthy face and
moustaches that curled like a ram's horns. In such places he seemed
most at home, with men about him and cards ready to his hand; and
yet--has Madame seen the kind of man who is never wholly at his ease,
who stands for ever on his guard, as it were! Bertin was such a one;
there were many occasions when I remarked it. He would be in the
centre of a company of his friends, assured, genial, dominant; and
yet, at each fresh arrival in the room, he would look up with
something furtive and defensive in his expression. I have seen
deserters like that, but in Bertin it lacked an explanation."
"And there was a further matter yet. He was my fellow officer; I saw
him on parade and at mess; but his life, the life of his own choice,
was lived among those who were not our equals. How shall I make that
clear to you, Madame? In those days, Europe drained into Algiers; it
had its little world of men who gambled and drank much, and
understood one another with a complete mistrust; it was with such as
these that Bertin occupied his leisure. It was with them that his
harshness and power were most efficacious. Naturally, it was not
pleasant for us, his colleagues, to behold him for ever with such
companions; the most of them seemed to be men connected with one
sport or another, with billiards, or racing, or the like; but there
was nothing to be done."
The Comtesse shifted slightly in her chair. "He had power," she said
thoughtfully.
The little Colonel nodded twice. "He had power, as Madame observes.
He had many good qualities--not quite enough, it is true, but many.
There were even those that loved him, dogs, horses, waiters,
croupiers and the poor women who made up the background of his life.
I have thought, sometimes, that it is easy for a man to be loved,
Madame, if he will take that responsibility. But what befell Bertin
was not commonplace. He returned to France on leave, for six months,
and it was then, I believe, that he first met the lady who became
Madame Bertin?"
He gave the words the tone of a question, and the Comtesse answered
with a slow gesture of assent.
"Yes, I have heard that it was so," said the Colonel. "Of what took
place at that time I can tell nothing, naturally, and Madame is no
doubt sufficiently informed. But I saw him--I saw them both--within a
week of their return. Upon that occasion I dined at a hotel with two
friends, Captain Vaucher and Lieutenant de Sailles. Bertin, with some
friends and his wife, was at a table near-by. She was the only lady
of the party; her place was between an Englishman, a lean, twisted
man with the thin legs of a groom, and a Belgian who passed for an
artist. It was de Sailles who pointed them out; and in effect it was
a group to see with emotion. The lady--she was known to you, Madame?
Then the position will be clear. She was of that complete and perfect
type we honor as the Parisienne, a product of the most complex life
in the world. She was slender and straight--ah! straight as a lance,
with youth and spirit and buoyancy in the carriage of her head, the
poise of her body, the color upon her cheeks. But it was not that--
the beauty and the courage--that caused her to stand out among those
men as a climbing rose stands out from an old wall; it was the
schooled and perfected quality of her, the fineness and delicacy of
her manner and expression, the--in short, the note of breeding,
Madame, the unmistakable ensign of caste. The Englishman fidgeted and
lounged beside her; the fat Belgian drank much and was boisterous;
Bertin was harsh and rudely jovial and loud. It was as though she
were enveloped in a miasma."
"'So that is what Bertin has brought back,' said Vaucher slowly, as
his custom was."
"'It is a crime,' said de Sailles."
"'I wonder,' said Vaucher, and drank his wine. He was much my friend,
a man with the courage and innocence of a good child; but his thought
was not easy to follow. He gave Bertin's group another look under
puckered brows, and then turned his back on it and began to talk of
other matters. I might have known then that--but I must tell my tale
in order."
"Bertin was not wise--if it were nothing more--to bring such a wife
to Algiers. It turned eyes upon him. Those who had been aware of him
merely as a man of low tastes now began to notice his particular
actions. He had a house in a certain impasse, and one night there was
a brawl there--an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn
and some one stabbed. Before, it might have passed; our discipline
was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was
brief and ugly, but it marked a stage passed in Bertin's career. And
it was only two days later that Vaucher came to me in my quarters
with a manner at once deprecating and defiant. He sat in my arm-chair
and laughed quietly before he spoke."
"'I am looking for friends,' he said; 'for a pair of friends.'"
"Then, of course, I understood. I bade him count on me. 'And there is
also de Sailles,' I reminded him. 'He has a very just taste in these
affairs. But who is our opponent?'"
"'It is Bertin,' he answered."
"I was astonished, and he told me all. It was an episode of quixotry,
a thing entirely imprudent and altogether lovable in him. It chanced
that on the evening of Bertin's little--er--fracas, Vaucher had
passed by the impasse in which Bertin lived. He had heard the scream
of the man with the knife in him and paused. It was a dark night, and
in the impasse there was but one lamp which stood near Bertin's door.
There was a babble of many voices after that scream--shouts of fury,
the whining of the would-be assassin, and so on; he was about to pass
on, when Bertin's door opened and a woman slipped out and stood
listening on the pavement. Her attitude was that of one ready to
flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she
relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the
light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he
waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig
you break in your fingers. She was weeping, leaning against the wall,
weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence.
But Vaucher was not moved when he told me of it."
"'That I could have endured,' he said. 'I held my peace and did not
intrude upon her. But presently they brought the wounded man
downstairs, and Bertin came forth to seek a fiacre to take him away.
She heard him ere he came out and gained thus the grace of an
instant. There was never anything in life so pitiful, so moving, as
the woman's strength that strangled down her sobs, dried the tears at
their source, and showed to her husband a face as calm as it was
cold. He spoke to her and she gave him a word in answer. But'--and he
leaned forward in my chair and struck his fist on the arm of it--'but
that poor victory is sore in my memory like a scar."
"All that was comprehensible. Vaucher was a man of heart. 'But what
is the quarrel?' I demanded."
"'The quarrel!' he repeated. 'Let me see; what was it, now?' He had
actually forgotten. 'Oh yes. He spoke to me. That was it. He spoke to
me, and I desired him not to speak to me for the future, of course.'
"Madame, up to the time when I went with Vaucher to the ground I had
not given a thought to the issue of the affair. I had taken it for
granted that Bertin would go down; at such seasons, one is blinded by
one's sense of right. It lasted not two minutes. They fought with the
saber--our custom at that time. Though it was early in the morning,
there was a strong sun; it made a flame on the blades as they saluted
before engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only
to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his
heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose.
Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of
fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his
arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher
advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher
threw up both hands and came to his knees. I remember that I stood,
unable to move, staring aghast at this end to the affair; while
Bertin threw down his sword, turned his back, and went to where his
clothes lay. At that moment he seemed as vast against the morning sky
as a monument, as a sphinx carved out of a mountain. He had spoken no
word."
"We took Vaucher back to the city. It was a cut in the head. Madame
shall be spared the particulars. I think he is living yet, but it was
the end of him, none the less."
The little Colonel's voice dropped on the last words. He did not take
the sympathy and friendship that waited for him in Elsie's grey eyes;
he looked with a somber gaze at the Comtesse. She still held her
favorite attitude, leaning a little to one side in her great chair,
so that she could watch the shifting shapes in the fire. She was
smiling slightly, but her smile vanished as the Colonel paused.
"He was a gallant gentleman," she said softly. Elsie turned her head
to look at her, surprised, for the thing was said perfunctorily, in
the manner of a commonplace of politeness.
Colonel Saval bowed. "Madame la Comtesse is only just," he said. But
he glanced sharply at her serene, preoccupied face with a manner of
some dissatisfaction.
He resumed his tale with a sigh. "After all," he said, "there is not
much to tell. I was not fortunate enough to meet Madame Bertin
frequently during the two years that followed. From time to time I
saw her, always with some wonder, for she preserved to the end that
delicate and superb quality which so distinguished her. The scandal
of the brawl was the small thing that was needed to turn Bertin's
course downhill; almost from that day one could mark his decline. It
was not a matter of incidents; it was simply that within a year most
of us were passing him without recognition, and there was talk of
debts that troubled him. He had deteriorated, too; whereas of old he
was florid, now he was inflamed and gross; where he had been merely
loud, he was now coarse. Within eighteen months the Colonel had made
him a scene, had told him sour truths, and shaken his finger at him.
That power of his, Madame, was not the power that enables a man to
hold his level. Even with the companions of his leisure, his
ascendancy faded. I recollect seeing him once, at the corner of the
Place du Gouvernement, in the centre of a group of them, raging
almost tearfully, while they laughed at him. The horrible laughter of
those outcasts, edged like a saw, cruel and vile! And he was purple
with fury, shaking like a man in an ague, and helpless against them.
I was young in those days and not incapable of generous impulses; I
recollect that as I passed I jostled one of those creatures out of
the path, and then turned and waited for the remonstrance which he
decided not to make."
The Comtesse nodded at the fire, like one well pleased. The little
Colonel gave her another of his shrewd glances and went on.
"As you see, Madame, it is not possible to describe to you the steps
by which Bertin sank. The end came within two years of the duel. One
knew--somehow--that it was at hand. There were things dropped in
talk, things overheard and pieced together--a whole atmosphere of
scandal, in which there came and went little items of plain fact. The
trouble was with regimental funds; again I will spare Madame the
details; but certain of them which should have passed through
Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a
bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who
hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a
floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was a monstrous
matter, an affair to hide sedulously; it touched our intimate honor.
There was a meeting of the rest of us to consider the thing; finally,
it was I that was deputed to go forthwith to Bertin and persuade him
to leave the city, to vanish, to do his part to save our credit. And
that evening, as soon as it was dark enough to be convenient, I
went."
"There was still that light in the impasse by which my poor friend
Vaucher had seen Madame Bertin weeping; but from the windows of the
house there came none. It was shuttered like a fort. It was not till
I had knocked many times upon the door that there came any response.
At last I heard bolts being withdrawn--bolt after bolt, as if the
place had been a prison or a treasury; and Madame Bertin herself
stood in the entry. The one lamp in the impasse showed her my
uniform, and she breathed like one who had been running."
"I saluted her and inquired for Bertin."
"'Captain Bertin?' she repeated after me. 'I do not know--I fear----'"
"'My business with him is urgent,' I told her, and at that she
whitened. 'And unofficial,' I added, therefore."
"At that she stood aside for me to enter. I aided her to fasten the
door again, and she led me up the stairs to a small room, divided by
large doors from an inner chamber."
"'If you will please be seated,' she said, 'I will send Captain
Bertin in to you.'"
"She was thinner, I thought, and perhaps a trifle less assured; but
that was to be understood. For the rest, she had the deliberate tones
of the salon, the little smile of a convention that is not irksome.
Her voice, her posture, had that grace one knows and defers to at
sight. It was all very wonderful to come upon in that house. As she
left the room, her profile shone against the wall like a cameo, so
splendid in its pallor and the fineness of its outline."
"She must have gone from the passage by another entrance to the room
beyond the double doors, for I heard her voice there--and his. They
spoke together for some minutes, she at length, but he shortly; and
then the doors slid apart a foot or so, and he came through sideways.
He gave me a desperate look, and pulled at the doors to close them
behind him. They stuck and resisted him, and he ceased his efforts at
once."
"'You wanted to speak to me?' he asked. He seemed to be frowning as a
child will frown to keep from bursting into tears. 'But not
officially, I believe? It is not official, is it?'"
"'No,' I answered. 'It is a message--quite private.'"
"He ceased to frown at that, staring at me heavily, and chewing his
moustache."
"'Sit down,' he said suddenly, and came nearer, glancing over his
shoulder at the aperture of the doors. Something in that movement
gave me the suggestion that he was accustomed to guard against
eavesdroppers; all those poor forlorn gamesters and wastrels are full
of secrets and privacies. One sees them for ever in corners with
furtive eyes for listeners, guiding their business like
conspirators."
"I gave him my message at once. There was a need upon me for plain
speech with the man, like that need for cold steel which came upon
poor Vaucher."
"'There is time for you to make your packages and be gone,' I said.
'Time for that and no more, and I recommend you to let the packages
be few. If you go, you will not be sought for. That is what I have to
say to you.'"
"He glanced over his shoulder again and came a step nearer. 'You
mean----'he said, and hesitated."
"'The money? Yes,' I answered. 'That is what I mean. You will go?"
"He stared at me a moment in silence. I felt as if I had struck him
and spat in his face. But he had no such thought."
"'How long have I?' he asked suddenly."
"'You have to-night,' I answered."
"It seemed as if he were going to ask further questions, but at that
moment Madame Bertin appeared in the doorway behind him. I knew she
had heard our talk.
"'Your business is finished?' she asked carelessly, coming forward
into the room."
"'It is quite finished,' I replied."
"She nodded, smiling. 'Captain Bertin has to catch a train,' she
said, 'and if I did not watch the time for him, he would surely lose
it. He has no idea of punctuality.'"
"'I hope he has not much packing to do,' I said."
"'I have seen to that,' she replied."
"'Then I will not intrude upon your adieux,' I said, preparing to
depart. Ma foi, I was ready to weep, as Vaucher had wept, at the gay
courage of her. But she stopped me."
"'Oh, the adieux are complete like the packing,' she said. 'And if
you should have anything further to say to Captain Bertin, you can
drive with him to the station.'"
"I could see her meaning in that; my company would guard him till he
left. So I bowed."
"'I shall be very happy,' I said."
"'Then if you will send for a fiacre,' she suggested to her husband.
He was standing between us, wordless and dull. He gave her a look of
inquiry; she returned it with a clear, high gaze, and he went at
once."
"'It is a good season for traveling, I believe!' she said, when the
door had closed behind him."
"'Captain Bertin could not have chosen a better,' I assured her."
"Her composure was more than wonderful; by no sign, no hint of
weakness or ill ease, did she make any appeal to me. To my sympathy,
my admiration, my devotion, she offered only that bright surface of
her schooled manner and disciplined emotions. While her house
crumbled about her ears, while her world failed her, she deviated not
a hairbreadth from the line of social amenity."
"'But he is hardly likely to have company?' she asked again."
"As for me, I had visions of the kind of company that was due to him
--a formal sons-officer with a warrant of arrest, a file of stolid
soldiers, with rigid faces and curious eyes."
"But I answered her in her own manner."
"'There is certainly that drawback,' I said, and I thought--I hoped--
I saw gratitude in her answering look."
"Then Bertin returned, with the hat of a civilian and a cloak that
covered him to the ears. I saw their farewell--his look of appeal at
her, the smile of amusement which answered it. And next I was seated
beside him in the fiacre and she was framed in the door, looking
after us, slender and erect, pale and subtle, smiling still with a
manner as of weariness. It is thus that I remember her best."
"It was not till we were out of her sight that Bertin spoke. He lit a
cigarette and stared up at the great white stars."
"'She spoilt my luck from the first,' he said."
"I don't know why, but I laughed. At the moment it seemed to be a
very droll saying. And at the sound of my laughter he grinned in
sympathy. He was a wonderful man. When he was established in the
train, he held out his hand to me."
"'Adieu,' he said. 'You have been kind in your way. You didn't do it
for me, you know--so adieu!"
"I took his hand. It was a small thing to grant him, and I bad no
other answer. As the train moved away, I saw his face at the window
of the carriage, full of a kind of sly humor--gross, amiable, and
tragic! He waved me a good-bye."
The Colonel paused, staring at his trimly booted toe. Madame la
Comtesse looked at him thoughtfully.
"You saw him again? she asked.
"Yes," he answered. "But possibly the tale becomes too painful."
The Comtesse passed a hand over her eyes. "I must hear the rest," she
said. "You saw her, too, again?"
"Yes," said the Colonel.
"She was very hard," said the Comtesse thoughtfully. "Very hard
always. As a girl I remember----"
The Colonel was looking at her intently, as though some thought had
suddenly brought him enlightenment. Both he and the Comtesse seemed
quite to have forgotten Elsie, listening on her stool in bewilderment
and compassion. She saw them now exchange guarded glances, as though
measuring each other's penetration.
The Comtesse leaned back. "I beg you to proceed," she said, with a
sigh. Elsie reached over the arm of the chair and took her hand and
held it.
The little Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
"Since Madame la Comtesse wishes it," he said. "But some years
elapsed before I saw either of them again. Madame Bertin had said
nothing which could encourage me to call at the house in the impasse,
and there was no message from him to carry thither. I heard--it was
said--that she, too, left the city; Bertin's exit from the service
was arranged, and thus the matter seemed to close. I preserved
certain memories, which I still preserve; I was the richer by them.
Then came active service, expeditions to the interior, some fighting
and much occupation. It chanced that I was fortunate; I gained some
credit and promotion; and by degrees the affair of Bertin sank to
rest in the background of my life. It was a closed incident, and I
was reconciled never to have it reopened. But it seems one can never
be sure that a thing is ended; possibly Bertin in his hiding-place
thought as I did and made the same mistake. I heard the news when I
visited Algiers on my way to a post up-country at the edge of the
desert. New powers had taken charge of our business; there was a new
General, an austere, mirthless man, who knew of Bertin's existence,
and resented it. He had been concerned here and there in more than
one enterprise of an unpleasant flavor, and it was the General's
intention to put a period to him. My friends in barracks told me of
it, perfunctorily; and my chief sense was of disgust that Bertin
should continue to be noticeable. And then I went away up-country, in
a train that carried me beyond the borders of civilization, and set
me down at last one dawn at a point where a military line trickled
out into the vast yellow distance, against an undulated horizon of
sandhills. It was in the chill hour of the morning; a few sentries
walked their beats, and beyond them there was a plot of silent tents.
The station was no more than planks laid on the ground beside some
locked iron sheds, a tank for the engine, and a flagstaff. It was
infinitely forlorn and empty, with an air of staleness and
discomfort. At some distance, a single muffled figure sat apart on a
seat; I thought it was some Arab waiting for the day. Be judge,
then, of my amazement when it rose, as I would have passed it, and
spoke."
"'This, also, is a good season for traveling?' it said, and I spun on
my heel to face it. From the hood of a bernouse there looked out at
me, pale and delicate still, the face of Madame Bertin."
"In my bewilderment and my--my joy, I caught at both her hands and
held them for a moment. She smiled and freed herself gently, and her
eyes mocked me. She was the same as ever, impregnably the same;
stress of mind, sorrow, exile, loneliness--they could not avail to
stir her from her pedestal of composure. That manner--it is the armor
of the woman of the world."
"'I came here on a camel,' she told me, in answer to my inquiries.
'On a camel from my home. I understand now why chameau is a word of
abuse.'"
"'I am not very sure that the season is good for traveling,' I said."
"She shrugged her shoulders. 'When one is acclimatized, seasons are
no longer important.'"
"'And you are acclimatized, Madame?' I asked her."
"She showed me the bernouse. 'Even to this,' she said."
"Across the slopes of sand, one could hear the engine of the little
military train grunting and wheezing as it collected its cars, and
the strident voice of a man cursing Arab laborers."
"'You go by that train?' she asked me."
"'To Torah,' I answered."
"'I also,' she said, looking at me inquiringly.
"I said I was fortunate to have her company, and it was plain that
she was relieved. For I guessed forthwith that it was at Torah that
Bertin was, and she knew that if my going thither were to arrest him,
I would spare her. I am sure she knew that."
"It was a journey of a day and a night, while that little train
rolled at leisure through a world of parched sand, beyond the
sandhills to the eye-wearying monotony of the desert. Sometimes it
would halt beside a tank and a tent, while a sore-eyed man ran along
the train to beg for newspapers. Over us, the sky rose in an arch
from horizon to horizon, blue and blinding; the heat was like a hand
laid on one's mouth. I had with me my soldier-servant and a provision
of food; there was something of both ecstasy and anguish in serving
her needs, in establishing her comfort. She talked little and always
so that I stood at a distance from her, fenced apart by little
graceful formalities, groping hopelessly and vainly towards her
through the clever mesh of her adroit speech and skilful remoteness.
I was already fifteen years in the country, and fifteen years her
inferior in those civilized dexterities. But she thanked me very
sweetly for my aid."
"Another dawn, and we were at Torah. A half-circle of dusty palms
leaned away to one side of the place, the common ensign of a well on
a caravan route. The post was but a few structures of wood and mud,
and, a little way off, the tents of the camp. In the east, the sky
was red with foreknowledge of the sun; its light already lay pale
over the meanness of all the village. I helped her from the train,
and demanded to know whither I should conduct her."
"'I will not give you further trouble,' she said; and though I
protested, she was firm. And at last she walked away, alone, to the
huddle of little buildings, and I saw her pass among them and out of
my sight. Then I turned and went over to the camp, where my duty
lay."
"That was a sorrowful place, that Torah. The troops were chiefly men
of the Foreign Legion, of whom three in every four expressed in their
eyes only patience and the bitterness of men whose lives are hidden
things. With them were some elderly officers, whose only enthusiasms
showed themselves in a crazy bravery in action, the callous courage
of men who have already died once. From some of these I heard of
Bertin. It was a brown, sun-dried man who told me."
"'Yes, we know him,' he said. 'He passes under various names, but we
know him. A man wasted, thrown away, my friend! He should have joined
us.'"
"'You would have accepted him?' I asked."
"'Why not?' was the answer. 'It is not honest men we ask for, nor
true men, nor even brave men--only fighting men. And any man can be
that.'"
"It made me wonder if it were yet too late for Bertin, 'and whether
he might not still find a destiny in the ranks of that regiment where
so many do penance. But when I saw him, a week later, I knew that the
chance had gone by with his other chances, It was in a cafe in the
village, a shed open at one side to the little street of sand, and
furnished only with tables and chairs. A great Spahi, in the splendid
uniform of his corps, lounged in one corner; a shrouded Arab tended
the coffee apparatus in another; in the middle, with a glass before
him, sat Bertin. The sun beat in at the open front of the building
and spread the shadows in a tangle on its floor; he was leaning with
both elbows on the table, gazing before him with the eyes of a dead
man. He had always promised to be stout, but he was already fat--a
flabby, blue-jowled heap of a man, all thick creases and bulges; and
his face had patches of blue and purple in its hollows. He was
ponderous, he was huge; and with it there was an aspect of horror, as
though all that flesh were diseased."
"I paused by his table and slowly he looked up to me. His features
labored with thought, and he recognized me."
"'Saval!' he ejaculated hoarsely. 'You--you want me?'"
"I sat down at his table. 'I haven't come to arrest you,' I told him.
'But you had better know that the authorities have decided to arrest
you.'"
"He gasped. 'For--for----'"
"'I don't know what for,' I told him. 'For whatever you have been
doing.'"
"He had to blink and swallow and wipe his brow before he mastered the
fact. His mind, like his body, was a shameful ruin. But the fact that
he was not to be arrested at the moment seemed to comfort him. He
leaned over the table to me."
"'My wife's here,' he said, in a raucous whisper."
"'Yes; she knows,' I answered."
"He frowned, and seemed perplexed. 'She'll make me shoot myself,' he
went on. 'I know what she means. I warn you, she'll make me do it.
Have a drink?'"
"He was horrible, an offence to the daylight. He bawled an order to
the Arab, and turned to me again."
"'That's what it'll come to,' he said. 'I warn you.'"
"He repeated the last phrase in whispers, staring at me heavily: 'I
warn you; I warn you.'"
"'Have you a pistol?' I asked him. Yes, Madame, I asked him that."
"He smiled at me. 'No, I haven't,' he said, still confidentially.
'You see how it is? I haven't even a pistol. But I know what she
means.'"
"I was in field uniform, and I unbuttoned my holster and laid the
revolver on the table before him. He looked at it with an empty
smile. 'It is loaded,' I said, and left him."
"But I wondered. It seemed to me that there was a tension in the
affairs of Bertin and his wife which could not endure, that the
moment was at hand when the breaking-point would be reached. And it
was this idea that carried me the same evening to visit Madame
Bertin. The night about me was still, yet overhead there was wind,
for great clouds marched in procession across the moon, trailing
their shadows over the sand. Bertin inhabited a little house at the
fringe of the village; it looked out at the emptiness of the desert.
I was yet ten paces from the door when it opened and Madame Bertin
came forth. She was wrapped in her bernouse, and she closed the door
behind her quickly and stepped forward to meet me. She gave me
greeting in her cool even tones, the pallor of her face shining forth
from the hood of her garment."
"'Since you are so good as to come and see me,' she said, 'let us
walk here for a while. Captain Bertin is occupied; and we can watch
the clouds on the sand.'"
"We walked to and fro before the house. 'I saw your husband to-day,'
I told her."
"'He said so,' she answered. 'It was pleasant for him to talk with an
old comrade.'"
"One window in the house was lighted, with a curtain drawn across it.
As we paused, I saw the shadow of a man on the curtain--a man who
lurched and pressed both hands to his head. I could not tell whether
Madame Bertin saw it also; she continued to walk, looking straight
before her; her face was calm."
"'Doubtless he has his occupations here?' I ventured presently.
'There are matters in which he interests himself--non?'"
"'That is so,' she replied. 'And this evening he tells me he has a
letter to write, concerning some matters of importance. I have
promised him that for an hour he shall not be interrupted. What
wonderful color there is yonder?'"
"The shadow of a great cloud, blue-black like a moonlit sea, was
racing past us; it seemed to break like surf on a line of sandhills.
But while I watched it awe was creeping upon me. She was erect and
grave, with lips a little parted, staring before her; the heavy folds
of the bernouse were like the marble robe of a statue. I glanced
behind me at the lighted window, and the shadow of an arm moved upon
it, an arm that gesticulated and conveyed to me a sense of agony, of
appeal. I remembered the revolver; I felt a weakness overcome me."
"'Madame!' I cried. 'I fear--I doubt that it is safe to leave him for
an hour to-night.'"
"She turned to me with a faint movement of surprise. The moon showed
her to me clearly. Before the deliberate strength of her eyes, my
gaze faltered."
"'But I assure you,' she answered; 'nothing can be safer.'"
"I made one more effort. 'But if I might see him for an instant,' I
pleaded."
"She smiled and shook her head. I might have been an importunate
child. 'I promised him an hour,' she said. Her voice was indulgent,
friendly, commonplace; it made me powerless. I had it on my lips to
cry out, 'He is in there alone, working himself up to the point of
suicide!' But I could not utter it. I could no more say it than I
could have smitten her in the face. She was impregnable behind; that
barrier of manners which she upheld so skillfully. She continued to
look at me for some seconds and to smile--so gently, so mildly. I
think I groaned."
"She began to talk again of the clouds, but I could not follow what
she said. That was my hour of impotence. Madame, I have seen battles
and slaughter and found no meaning in them. But that isolated tragedy
boxed up in the little house between the squalid town and the
lugubrious desert--it sucked the strength from my bones. She
continued to speak; the cultivated sweetness of her voice came and
went in my ears like a maddening distraction from some grave matter
in hand. I think I was on the point of breaking in, violently,
hysterically, when I cast a look at the lighted window again. I cried
out to her."
"'Look! Look!' I cried."
"She did not turn. 'I have seen the sea like that at Naples,' she was
saying, gazing out to the desert, with her back to the house. 'With
the moon shining over Capri----'"
"'For the love of God!' I said, and made one step toward the house.
But it was too late. The shadowed hand--and what it held--rose; the
shadowed head bent to meet it."
"Even at the sound of the shot she did not turn. 'What was that?' she
said tranquilly."
"For the moment I could not speak. I had to gulp and breathe to
recover myself."
"'Let us go and see,' I said then. 'The hour is past, and the letter
of importance is finished.'"
"She nodded. 'By all means,' she agreed carelessly, and I followed
her into the house."
"Once again I will spare Madame la Comtesse the details. Bertin had
evaded arrest. At the end of all his laborings and groanings, the
instant of resolution had come to him and he had made use of it. On
the table were paper and writing-things; one note was finished."
"'It is not for me,' said Madame Bertin, as she leaned upon the table
and read it. I was laying a sheet upon the body; when I rose she
handed it to me. It bore neither name nor address; the poor futile
life had blundered out without even this thing completed. It was
short, and to some woman. 'Tres-chere amie,' it said; 'once I made a
mistake. I have paid for it. You laughed at me once; You would not
laugh now. If you could see----'"
The Colonel stopped; the Comtesse was holding out both hands as
though supplicating him. Elsie Gray rose and bent over her. The
Comtesse put her gently aside.
"You have that letter?" she asked.
The little Colonel passed a hand into a breast pocket and extracted a
dainty Russia-leather letter-case. From it he drew a faded writing
and handed it to the Comtesse.
"Madame la Comtesse is welcome to the letter," he said. "Pray keep
it."
The Comtesse did not read it. She folded it in her thin smooth hands
and sighed.
"And then?" she asked.
"This is the end of my tale," said the Colonel. "I took the letter
and placed it in my pocket. Madame Bertin watched me imperturbably."
"'I may leave the formalities to you?' she asked me suddenly; 'the
notification of death and so on?'"
"I bowed; I had still a difficulty in speaking."
"'Then I will thank you for all your friendship,' she said."
"I put up my hand. 'At least do not thank me,' I cried. I could not
face her serene eyes, and that little lifting of the brows with which
she answered my words. Awe, dread, passion--these were at war within
me, and the dead man lay on the floor at my feet, I pushed the door
open and fled."
Colonel Saval sat up in his chair and uncrossed his legs.
"I saw her no more," he said. "Madame la Comtesse knows how she
returned to Algiers and presently died there? Yes."
The Comtesse bowed. "I thank you, Monsieur," she said. "You have done
me a great service."
"I am honored," he replied, as he rose. "I wish you a good-night.
Mademoiselle, good-night."
He was gone. The white doors closed behind him. The Comtesse raised
her face and kissed the tall, gentle girl.
"Leave me now," she said. "I must read my letter alone."
And Elsie went. The story was finished at last.