at the hour when colonel duquesne and the two officers were discussing creci’s insult to sophie—for insult they all well knew it to be—sophie and ravenel were sitting on their balcony after their supper, and lucie had been put to bed. sophie had not spoken to ravenel of what had happened in the park since their agitated walk home, but now she said timidly, placing her hand in his, in the soft purple twilight which enveloped them, and through which the lights of the town twinkled beneath them:
“what do you think that man creci will do?”
“prefer charges against me, i suppose,” returned ravenel, “but if he does, i think he will get the worst of it. no one could believe that you, sophie, could give any encouragement to a man like that. your life here has been too prudent. no other woman, i believe, could have lived with the beauty and natural gaiety that you possess, effacing herself so completely, and all for me. what an evil hour for you, dearest, that ever we met!”
“do not say that,” cried sophie. “if i had it all to live over again, i would do as i have done except—except—”
she buried her face in her hands. ravenel, too, looked ashamed. to both of them the iron entered into their souls at the recollection of the first three weeks after sophie left her husband. then sophie, raising her head, presently said:
“but it was an evil hour for you. i might have endured my fate, while but for me you would have married happily, and be to-day where you ought to be—in a good position, with your talents recognized and—”
the two poor souls often talked together in this way, speaking frankly to each other, and each taking the blame. they spoke a while longer, each fearing and dreading the morrow, and then sophie went to see that lucie was asleep in her little bed, while ravenel went to his work of addressing envelopes.
lucie was not asleep, as she should have been, but wide-awake and very talkative.
“oh, sophie,” she said, when sophie sat down by the bed in lucie’s little room, “how glad i am that you are married to captain ravenel! i like him so much better than count delorme. sophie, i hated count delorme!”
“so did i,” replied sophie, her pale face flushing, and her tongue for once committing an indiscretion. but the child was quite unconscious of it. she hated count delorme herself, and saw every reason why sophie and every one else should hate him.
“and edouard,” continued lucie, “that hateful, hateful boy! oh, i think it is ever so much nicer as it is, and if only i could live with you, and make omelettes every day, and have a little garden and dig in it when captain ravenel is digging in the big garden, how much i should like it, and then i could go and visit grandmama at the château.”
sophie laid her head down on the pillow by lucie, and kissed the child’s soft red lips. after all, how happy she could be but for that terrible moral law which, because they had transgressed it, kept thundering in her ears its maledictions.
but no shame and no sorrow can wholly take away the joy of loving and being loved as sophie loved and was loved.
next morning, about seven o’clock, as ravenel was walking through the park to the post-office with his parcel of circulars, he came face to face with colonel duquesne. the colonel, instead of passing him with a stiff nod, halted before him, and said:
“good morning, captain ravenel.”
ravenel was startled, but he replied, saluting respectfully:
“good morning, sir.”
“there is, i am afraid, some trouble ahead of you with regard to lieutenant creci,” said the colonel, speaking very deliberately. “i wish to say now, from long knowledge of the lady in the case, that i can not believe she committed the smallest impropriety, nor do i think that creci’s word that she did so would carry the slightest conviction to any person in bienville; and whatever comes of it, the lady’s name must be kept out of the affair absolutely.”
ravenel could have fallen upon his knees with gratitude when colonel duquesne said this. the idea that sophie’s name should be dragged into a public scandal was heart-breaking to him. the tears came into his eyes, and he was about to extend his hand impulsively to colonel duquesne, but changed his mind, and crossed his arms.
he bowed, however, profoundly, and said:
“i can not express to you, sir, how much i thank you for what you have said. it is well-deserved by that lady, who is the most modest, the most retiring, the purest-minded—”
ravenel stopped with a lump in his throat. the tears by that time had dropped upon his dark, sunburned face. he brushed them away, but colonel duquesne thought no less of him for those tears.
“i am quite of your mind,” he said quietly, “concerning that lady. the circumstances are most unfortunate. i can express to you, privately, a degree of sympathy which i can not do publicly, but believe me, no man could be more anxious than i am to save that lady’s feelings in this affair. captain merrilat will wait on you this morning. i think if you will agree to make him a very slight apology, everything can be arranged, and, for my part, i pledge you my word, as lieutenant creci’s commanding officer, to use all the power i possess to induce him to accept anything in the shape of an apology which you may offer.”
“but i can not apologize,” blurted out poor ravenel. “the lady in question was sitting quietly on the bench, and did not even see creci, and he came up and spoke to her insultingly, and the lady became embarrassed and alarmed, and then he sat down by her most impudently and improperly, and attempted to throw his arm around her, and then i caught him and thrashed him—and am i to apologize for that?”
the colonel paused. the story which he had overheard that naughty little boy of madame marcel’s telling the night before in the garden corresponded exactly with what ravenel had said,—not that ravenel’s word alone needed any corroboration with colonel duquesne.
“yes,” he said, “you must say something which may be construed into an apology. not a man in the regiment sustains creci’s course, but for reasons which you understand, the chief of which is the lady in the case, it must be hushed up. i have arranged for you to meet creci this morning at my house and the affair shall be settled before me.”
ravenel, with his soul in his eyes, looked at the colonel, who was a man with a heart in his breast, even though he was a colonel; and then the colonel held out his hand. ravenel gripped it for a moment and then hurried away through the park that he might not miss the morning mail, for he was as careful and prompt in the performance of his duty with regard to these circulars, which he addressed at next to nothing a thousand, as if it had been the best-paid and most important work in the world.
but his heart was more joyful than it had been for many a day. he had something pleasant to take back to sophie. when he returned, and they had their eleven o’clock breakfast together in the little garden, he looked so cheerful that sophie felt almost gay. they sat with lucie at the little round table with a white cloth on it, under a big acacia tree. close by them were a dozen tall oleanders in tubs, for captain ravenel, turning his unusual skill in flowers to account, supplied most of the cafés in town with their ornamental plants. their breakfast was simple, but very good, and lucie triumphed in the production of the omelette which was the work of her own hands. she was already lamenting that in one week more she would have to go back to the château bernard, and madame bernard’s chef.
“oh, it is so nice to be with you here!” she cried, and then said, as she had done two or three times before: “it is so much nicer than at châlons—and i hated count delorme!”
as she spoke the name, ravenel looked away, while poor sophie blushed and trembled, but lucie, meaning to please her hosts, kept on:
“when i am grown up, and get my money, i intend to come and live with you, sophie and captain ravenel. harper says that when i am eighteen i shall have a whole lot of money in america that grandmama can not keep me out of, and that i can spend it as i like, and i will come and live in bienville and have a carriage and everything i want, but i think i would like to stay in this house—it is small, but so very pleasant.”
“harper should not tell you such things, lucie,” said sophie. she looked at captain ravenel. it is impossible to keep nursery governesses and upper servants from gossiping,—how much had she told lucie in the past, and how much might she tell her in the future?
presently lucie was sent away to practise on the piano, for it was a part of sophie’s plan that, when lucie returned to her grandmother after these brief and forced visits, the child should show some improvement.
then ravenel told sophie that as soon as he finished breakfast, he was to go to colonel duquesne’s house, and have the meeting with creci, and he repeated the colonel’s chivalrous words to her. sophie’s pale face flamed up. it was something in the arid waste of life to have known two such men as the one before her and colonel duquesne, who would not strike a woman when she was helpless before him, and who pitied the weaknesses of the human heart.
“but when it comes to apologizing,” said ravenel, grinding his teeth, “what am i to say?—to say that i am sorry for having kicked him, when i wished to kill him?”
“dearest,” replied sophie, “do what the colonel advises. he would not counsel you to do anything against your honor.”
at twelve o’clock precisely, ravenel presented himself at the colonel’s house. he was in his uniform, for, although retired, he was still an officer. the soldiers saluted him respectfully, and the aides spoke to him politely. everybody felt sorry for ravenel, and most honest and brave men in his place would have done as he had. he was ushered into the colonel’s room, and there sat colonel duquesne and creci, with his two friends, the officers who had dragged ravenel and himself apart in the park. the colonel and others present bowed gravely to ravenel, who returned the bow and seated himself at the colonel’s invitation, and then after a little silence the colonel stated the case briefly, but said at the end, with emphasis:
“i think in every case of this sort, without impugning lieutenant creci’s word, the presumption is that a mistake has been made. whatever lieutenant creci thought about the lady in question, whose name must, by no means, be mentioned, i feel sure that she was unconscious of any attempt to attract his attention. we will proceed upon that supposition, if you please.”
creci’s handsome, stupid face grew scarlet, ravenel’s dark skin turned a shade darker, the other two officers looked impassive. then the colonel went on to say that he would recommend captain ravenel to make an apology to lieutenant creci, and he would strongly urge lieutenant creci to accept it. at that there was a long silence. ravenel really knew not how to apologize for having done what his honor and his conscience and his inclination had told him was right to do. he blamed himself for not having stamped his foot in creci’s face, and so marked him for life. the pause became awkward while ravenel was turning these things over in his mind. at last, with the colonel’s eye fixed upon him commandingly, he mumbled something about regretting that the occasion had arisen—the rest of it was lost in his mustache, for the colonel, as soon as he heard the word regret, turned promptly to creci. there was a menace in colonel duquesne’s eye—a look which commanded obedience. creci, inwardly raging, sullenly bowed, and captain merrilat said quickly:
“i think lieutenant creci accepts the apology, and we may consider the affair as ended.”
everybody present knew what colonel duquesne meant. he had known sophie when she was fresh from her convent school, had known her as the young wife of an unfeeling and vicious man—he had known her at the moment when her courage failed her, and she had left the hard and stony path she had been traveling with delorme to go on a path still hard and stony with ravenel. colonel duquesne was tender-hearted where women were concerned, and felt in his soul that he could not have stood delorme as long as sophie had stood him. all these things were working in his mind when ravenel and creci and the two officers were rising and making their formal adieus.
ravenel went home to sophie and the two were almost gay over the result of the affair which had been so baneful to them in the beginning. it almost seemed to the two poor souls as if they had some friends left. that very afternoon, when taking their one solitary indulgence—their walk in the park—they passed the colonel, who bowed to sophie quite in the old way, although he did not speak. the colonel was a widower with no daughters and, therefore, was quite safe in doing this, not having a domestic court of inquiry ahead of him.
