fairfax carter sat up very straight in the great carved walnut bed, and plaintively inspected the breakfast tray which the red-cheeked norman maiden had just deposited beside her. those eternal little hard rolls—the black bowl of coffee beneath whose steaming fragrance lurked the treacherous chicory—the jug of hot thin milk—the small brown jar of pale honey—she bestowed a rebellious scowl on the entire collection. she felt suddenly, frantically homesick for a bubbling percolator, for thick yellow cream and feathery biscuits, for chilled crimson berries with powdered mounds of sugar. marie léontine, briskly oblivious, was coaxing the very small fire in the very large chimney into dancing animation.
“v’la!” she announced triumphantly, with all the hearty deference that is the common gift of the french servant. “beau matin, p’tite dame!”
“oui,” conceded the “small lady” grudgingly. she shivered apprehensively as marie léontine shoved the copper water jug closer to the flames,109 and trotted smiling from the room. ugh! how in the world could any nation hope to keep clean and warm with three sticks of wood and four teaspoonfuls of water? she remembered another country—a bright and blessed country—where water rushed hot and joyous from glittering faucets into great shining tubs—where warmed and fleecy towels hung waiting to fold you hospitably close. she shivered again, forlornly, scanning the stretch of distance across the bare floor to the hook where the meagre towel hung limp and forbidding. “la douce france!” ha! she pulled the tray toward her, still scowling.
even when she scowled, fair carter was more distracting looking than any one young woman has a right to be. she was very small—absurdly small sitting bolt upright in the great dark bed—but she had enough charms to equip any six ladies of ordinary size and aspirations. there was the ruffled glory of her hair, warmer than gold, brighter than bronze, and her rain-coloured eyes—and the small, warm mouth, and the elfin tilt to her brows. there was that look about her, eager and reckless and adventurous, that made your heart contract, when you remembered what life did to the eager and reckless and adventurous. it had made a great many hearts contract. it had made one despairing young adorer from richmond110 say: “fair always looks as though she were carrying a flag—and listening to drums.” and it had wrung tribute from her father, who had been all her family and all her world, and who had adored her even more than the young man from richmond. “she’s the bravest of all the fighting carters, is my fair. and never quite so brave as when she’s frightened. panic arms her with really desperate valour!”
the bravest of the fighting carters swallowed the dregs of the coffee bowl, pushed the tray from her, and bestowed a sudden and enchanting smile on one of the dark carved figures on the bedposts. there were four of them, matthew, mark, luke, and john, but she liked mark the best. he had a very stern face and a little lion.
“morning,” she saluted him affably, and if st. mark’s head had not been made of walnut he would have lost it. she had kept the most potent of her charms in reserve, like a true daughter of eve. fair’s extravagant prettiness might steel the sceptical, leading them to argue that so ornamental a head must necessarily be empty, and that no one could look that way long without becoming unbearably vain, spoiled, and capricious. but if she spoke just once—if she said any three indifferent words at random—the veriest sceptic was undone for ever. because fair had a voice.111 not the coloratura kind—perhaps patti could do more justice to caro nome—but a voice which galli-curci and the nightingale and the running brook and church bells and sarah bernhardt might well envy. she could sing a little—small, candle-lit songs about love, and absurdly stirring things that had marched down through the centuries, and haunting bits of lullabies—she had a trick of chanting them under her breath, as though it were to herself that she was singing. but when she spoke—ah, then any coloratura that ever lived might well shed tears of bitter envy. for the voice that fair carter used for such homely purposes as wishing lucky mortals good day and good night and god-speed was compact of magic. it was wine and velvet and moonlight and laughter and mystery—and for all its enchantment, it was as clear and honest as a nice little boy’s. it did remarkable things to the english language. fair would have widened her eyes in cool disdain at the idea of indulging in such far-advertised southern tricks as “you all” and “ah raickon” and “honey lamb,” but she managed to linger over vowels and elude consonants in a way that did not even remotely suggest the frozen north. it reduced english to such a satisfactory state of submission that she only experimented half heartedly with any other language. a chinaman would112 have understood her when she said “please”—a polynesian would have thrilled responsive to her “thank you.”
therefore she had gone serenely on her way during those two terrible and thrilling years in france, those three terrible and bitter years in germany, ignoring entirely the fact that the teutons had a language of their own, and acquiring just enough of the gallic tongue to enable her to indulge in the gay and hybrid banter of her beloved doughboys—a swift patter consisting largely of “ah oui,” “?a ne fait rien” and “pas compris!” it had served her purpose admirably for a good five years, but it had proved a broken reed during the past five weeks. the de lautrecs were capable of speaking almost any kind of french—monsieur le vicomte leaned toward a nice mixture of bossuet and anatole france, madame his ancient and regal mother to marivaux with sprightly touches of voltaire, laure and diane, to rené bazin when they were being supervised and gyp when they weren’t—philippe le gai to a racy and thrilling idiom, at once virile and graceful, as old as the chanson de roland, as new as sacha guitry’s latest comedy. but after several courteous and tense attempts to exchange amenities with laure’s “little american” they had abandoned the tongue of their fathers and devoted their earnest attention113 to mastering the english language. it was easy enough for philippe and laure, of course; they already knew a great deal more about english literature than fair had dreamed existed, though they tripped over the spoken word, but the other members of the family laboured sternly and industriously, while their small guest surveyed their efforts with indulgent amusement. it seemed quite natural and reasonable to fairfax carter they they should continue to do so indefinitely—they wanted to talk to her, didn’t they? well, then! they were getting on quite well, too, she reflected benevolently, still smiling at st. mark, who stared back at her so unresponsively that she suddenly ceased to smile.
“i suppose you don’t understand english, either?” she demanded severely. “’bout time a little old thing like you started to learn it, i should think!”
her eye wandered to the travelling clock ticking competently away on the desk, and rested there for an electrified second.
“mercy!” she murmured, appalled, and was out of the bed and across the room with all the swift grace of a kitten. half-past nine, and the de chartreuil boys were to ride over for a game of “croquo-golf” at ten! her toes curled rebelliously at the contact of the cold flags, but she114 ignored them stoically, pouncing on the copper jug and whirling across the room like a small, bright tempest. what a divine day, chanted her heart, suddenly exultant, as she splashed the water recklessly and tumbled into her clothes. it was wonderful to feel almost well again—to feel weariness slipping from her like a worn-out garment. the sun came flooding in through the deep windows, gilding the faded hangings—gilding the vivid head—she could hear horses’ hoofs beneath her window, and she flung it wide, leaning far out.
“bonjour, monsieur raoul—bonjour, monsieur andré! oh, laure, are you down already?”
“already? this hour, small lazy one! quick now, or we leave thee!”
“no, no,” wailed fair. “i’ll be there—i’m almost there now, truly. save the red mallet for me, angel darling—it’s the only one i can hit with. don’t let her go, monsieur andré!”
“never and never, mademoiselle. we are your slaves.”
she knotted her shoe-laces with frantic fingers, snatched up the brown tam from the table, and raced down the corridor between the swaying tapestries like a small wild thing. but half way down she halted abruptly. behind one of the great doors someone was singing, gay and ringing115 and reckless, a gallant thing, that set her heart flying.
“monsieur charette à dit a ces messieurs
monsieur charette à dit——”
philippe le gai was singing the old vendée marching song that he had translated for her the day before.
for a moment she wavered and then, thrusting her hands deep in her pockets, she took a long breath. “morning, monsieur philippe!” she challenged clearly.
the song broke off, and fair could see him, for all the closed doors—could see his shining black head and the dark young face with its recklessly friendly smile, and its curiously unfriendly eyes, gray and quiet. she could see—— the blithe voice rang out again.
“and a most good morning to mistress fairy carter! where is she going, with those quick feet?”
“she’s going to play croquo-golf with laure and diane and the de chartreuils. it’s such a heavenly beautiful day. you—you aren’t coming?”
“but never of this life!” laughed the voice. “how old you think we in here are, hein? seven? eight? we have twenty-nine years and thirty-nine gray hairs—we don’t play with foolish children.116 only fairies can do that! you be careful of the ball going by old daudin’s farm, see; there’s a sacred traitor of a ditch just over the hill—hit him hard and good, that ball, and maybe you clear it. maybe you don’t, too! it is one animal of a ditch!” the light, strong laughter swept through the door, and fair swayed to it as though it were a hand that pulled her. then she turned away with a brave lift to her head.
“thanks a lot—i’ll be careful. see you this afternoon, then.”
but the light feet finished their journey down the gray corridor and the worn flight of stone steps in an ominously sedate fashion. no, it was no use; it was no use at all. she felt suddenly discouraged and baffled, she who a few minutes before had been a candle, brave and warm and shining—only to have a careless breath blow out the light, leaving nothing but a cold little white stick with a dead black wick for a heart. it was horribly unfair, and someone should most certainly pay for it; someone who was sitting blithe and callous and safe behind those heavy doors—heavy doors of oak, and heavier ones of cool indifference. she drew a quivering breath, and straightened, as though she had heard far off a bugle sing. oh, how dared he, how dared he be indifferent? he, who idled all his life away, paying no tribute to the117 world save laughter, a useless, black-haired, arrogant young good-for-nothing? how dared he be indifferent to beauty and riches and grace and wit and kindness, when they lingered at his side, tremulous and expectant? it was worse than cruel to be indifferent to the personification of all these attributes—it was crass, intolerable stupidity. she made a sudden violent gesture, pushing something far from her. that dream was ended; she was through. she would tell them to-night that her visit was over—that to-morrow she must be on her way to paris—and america.
but at the thought of america her feet faltered to a halt, as though she were reluctant to go one step nearer to that enchanted country, empty now and strange, since dad had gone. how could she go back to that great house with its white pillars and echoing halls?—how could she face its cold and silent beauty without his arms about her? no, no, she couldn’t—she was afraid—she was afraid of loneliness. while she had had her work, while she had had those thousands of brown young faces lifted to her in comradeship and worship and mirth, she had fought off the nightmare of his going. no one had known but laure—laure who had loved “the little american” from the first day that she had come laughing and tiptoeing down the long room with contraband chocolates for118 laure’s bitter, dying poilus—laure who had held her in her tired young arms all the terrible night after the cable came—laure who had wept when a tearless and frozen fair had set off for germany with her division—laure who had come all the way to coblenz to bring her back to normandy when she had literally dropped in her tracks two years later. dear laure, who had healed and tended this small alien, she would be loath to leave her go.
fair’s lip quivered; she felt suddenly too small and solitary to face a world that could play such hideous tricks. it was bad enough and thrice incredible to have rendered laure’s brother impervious to her every enchantment, but it was sheer wanton cruelty to have made him utterly unworthy of any lady’s straying fancy—and alas, alas, how fancy strayed! the bravest of all the fighting carters was badly frightened; the whole thing savoured of black magic. she, who had flouted and flaunted every masculine heart that had been laid at her feet since she had put on slippers, to have fallen, victim to a laugh and a careless word! why, she barely knew him, he held so lightly aloof, courteous and smiling and indifferent; it was hatefully obvious that he preferred his own society to any that they could offer. he wouldn’t play—he wouldn’t work—he wouldn’t even eat with them. of course he had been in the hospital for119 ages, but he had been out of it for ages, too, and it was criminal folly to continue to pamper any one as he was pampered. a man—a real man—would die of shame before he would permit his sisters to give music lessons while he locked himself in his room and laughed. never was he with them, save for the brief hour after déjeuner when they drank their cups of black coffee under the golden beech trees—and for that heavenly space after dinner in the great salon, full of firelight and candlelight and falling rose-leaves and music, with madame de lautrec stitching bright flowers into her tapestry frame and monsieur le vicomte smiling his courteous and tragic smile into the leaping fire in the carved chimney, and the fresh young voices rising and falling about the piano over which laure bent her golden head—diane’s silver music lifting clearly, laure’s soft contralto murmuring like far waters, and philippe singing as his troubadour ancestor might have sung, fearless and true and shining—fair caught her breath at the memory of that ringing splendour, and then looked stern. it was ridiculous to worship any one as the de lautrecs worshipped their tall philippe and it was obviously highly demoralizing for him—highly. laure was the worst; it was as though she couldn’t bear to have him out of her sight for a minute; if he rose to go—oh, if he even120 stirred, she was at his side in a flash, her hand slipped into his, all her white tranquillity shaken into some mysterious terror at the thought that he might escape her again.
“no, no!” she would cry passionately when fair rallied her with flying laughter. “you do not know what you say, my fair. i have no courage left; none, none, i tell you. he is my life—and for four years every morning, every night i made myself say: ‘you will not see him again, you will not hear him again, you will not touch him again. but you will be brave, you hear? you will be brave because it is for france.’ now france has no more need of my courage—and that is very well, because i have no more to give her. it is all gone. i will never be brave again.”
she was the only one that philippe would suffer to come near him in all the long hours that he spent behind those dark barred doors; often, as fair sped by on light feet, she could hear the murmur of their voices, low and absorbed—shutting her out, thought fair forlornly, more than any lock on any door. what did they find to talk about, hour after hour, blind and deaf to the world that lay about them, golden under the october sun? what spell did laure use to bind him, what magic to dispel all the endless witchery that fair had spread before him, first carelessly,121 then startled into wide-eyed consciousness and finally, during these last flying days, driven to despairing prodigality? she bit her lip, blinking back the treacherous tears fiercely. some day—some day he should pay for this indifference, and pay with interest. the loitering feet paused again while their owner visualized, through the mist of unwelcome tears, a contrite philippe dragging himself to grovel abjectly at her feet, begging for one small word of mercy and of hope. the vivid countenance suddenly assumed an expression of exquisite contentment.
“no, philippe,” she would tell him, lightly but inflexibly, “no, my poor boy, it would be sheer cruelty to mislead you. never, under any circumstances could i——”
“enfin!” rang out a richly indignant voice. “do you walk in your sleep, my good goose? we wait and we wait until we are one half frozen, and you arrive like the snail he was your little brother and——”
“oh, laure, i am sorry! box my ears—no, hard—you tell her to box them hard, monsieur andré!”
“i, mademoiselle? but never—i think we are well repaid for our vigil, hey, raoul? here is that very red mallet with which you will beat us all. we take bravo with us, diane?”
122 diane shook her curly head dubiously at the frantic police dog.
“who holds the leash; you, andré? last time he get loose, he bite three sheep—three, before we catch him. you hear, monster?”
fair and bravo exchanged guilty glances.
“well, but diane, he pulled so; truly he did. he went so fast, right over those hedges, and the leash cut through my mittens, and——”
laure and diane yielded to outrageous laughter.
“raoul, you should see them! right over those sticking hedges they go, bravo ahead, big like three wolves, and fair ’way behind at the other end of the leash, so small like the little red riding hood, and so fast like she was flying! oh, bon dieu! i thought we die laughing!”
“very, very funny,” commented fair bitterly. “specially for me. how are we going to-day?”
“how if we go across the little meadow to the gates and home by the c?ur d’or? too far, raoul?”
“we will be back for lunch? à la bonheur—we go. ah, well hit, mademoiselle. straight like arrows, too!”
fair raced after the red ball, her scarf flying behind her like a banner, wings at her heels, stars in her eyes, tragedy forgotten.
three more strokes like that would get her to123 the meadow—oh, wonderful to be alive, to be swift and light and sure, to feel the wind lifting your hair, and the sun warming your heart in a world that was once more safe and kind. dear world—dear france, dear france, so kind to this small american—she absolved it lavishly from its sins of cold water and bitter coffee; where else in all the world could you find a game of the inspiring simplicity of croquo-golf—a game whose sole equipment was a ball and a mallet—whose sole object was to cover as much space in as few strokes as possible? where else could you find such comrades to play it with, grave and eager as children, ardent-eyed and laughing-lipped? she smote the ball again, her voice flying with it.
“oh, laure, as i live and breathe, it’s cleared the ditch!
‘monsieur charette hath said to all his peers,
monsieur charette hath said to all his peers,
come, good sirs!
now let us sally forth and whip these curs!’”
the exultant chant wavered for a moment as the proud possessor of the ball cleared the ditch, too, and took up her triumphant lilt, crescendo:
124
“‘take up thy gun, my good gregory!
take up thy virgin of ivory—
fill up thy drinking gourd right cheerily—
our comrades have gone down
to fight for paris town!’”
andré de chartreuil swung up beside her, breathless and laughing. luck was with him; all the english that he had mastered as liaison officer raced to the tip of his tongue.
“but what a child! how old are you, mlle. fairfax carter?”
“too old,” mourned fairfax, shaking her bright head till the curls danced in the sun. “much, much too old—old enough to know better.” she pounced on the half-buried ball with a small shriek of excitement. “ah ha, my little treasure, a mere turn of the wrist and—bet i make the gate in four strokes.”
“bet you do not,” replied andré obligingly.
“done; all the mushrooms that you find in daudin’s meadow to—to what?”
“to the very great privilege of kissing the tips of your fingers.” young de chartreuil’s voice was carefully light.
“monsieur andré!” fair, her mallet poised for the blow, paused long enough to bestow a distracting glance through her lashes, oddly at variance with her maternal tone. “you aren’t going to begin that kind of thing, are you?” her laughter rang out, gay and lovely and mocking.
young de chartreuil smiled back at her—a not very convincing smile. she was the most enchanting creature that he had ever met, but125 her lack of discretion froze the marrow in his bones.
“mademoiselle, one so charming is privileged to forget that one may also be kind,” he remarked formally.
fair stopped laughing. “oh, nonsense!” she returned abruptly, forgetting that one may also be polite. she hit viciously at the ball, scowling after it more like a cross little boy than a lady of romance. “there—see what you made me do!” the astonished andré met her accusing gaze blankly.
“i, mademoiselle?”
“yes, sir, you.” the tone was unrelenting. “i’m a great deal kinder than i have any business being,” she added darkly. “i certainly am. sooner or later every single one of you turn on me like—like—vipers, and tell me that it’s not possible that i could have been so everlastingly kind and patient and wonderful if i hadn’t meant something by it. goodness knows what you’d all like me to do,” she murmured gloomily. “make faces and bark like a dog every time one of you comes near me, i s’pose. where’s that ball? i wish i were dead.”
this time andré’s smile was clearly unforced.
“oh, no one in the world is droll like you!” he stated with conviction. “but no one. no, do126 not bark like a little dog—i will be good, i swear.” he shrugged his shoulders philosophically. “after all, if god had made you tender hearted you would spend your days weeping for the ones you broke. so this way it is best, is it not so?”
fair beamed on him graciously. “well, of course!” she assented with conviction. “and i’m certainly thankful that you see it. if you’d had about seventy-eight thousand soldiers spending their every waking minute telling you that they’d fade away and die if you weren’t kind to them, you’d see that the novelty of it would wear off a little. wear off a good deal.” she gave the ball a rather perfunctory hit. after all, fairfax carter on the subject of fairfax carter was more absorbing than any game ever invented. she drew a deep breath and started off headlong on her favourite topic. “it’s perfectly horrible being a girl—and it’s a million times worse if you’re a—well, if you aren’t exactly revolting looking and are what the dime novels call an heiress.”
“it must, indeed, be hard,” agreed young de chartreuil consolingly.
fair glanced at him suspiciously from the corner of her eye.
“you needn’t laugh, my dear boy—it most certainly is. i don’t believe men care one little snip for your soul or—or your intellect.”
127 “oh, but surely!” protested de chartreuil politely.
“no, sir,” maintained the complete cynic, giving another abstracted hit at the ball. “not a single, solitary one. oh, bother—look where it went then! how many strokes have you had? four? four? i’ve had five, and look at the horrible thing now. what was i talking about? oh, proposals! i don’t believe in international marriages, do you, monsieur andré?”
monsieur andré made a light and deprecating gesture. “i, mademoiselle? but i have had so few!”
“i do think foreigners are horribly frivolous!” murmured fair to the universe at large. “i’ve not had so many myself, but i can still think they’re a bad idea. you couldn’t possibly help thinking that they were pretty cold and calculating.”
“could you not?” inquired one who had come very near being a cold calculator in a freezing voice. “i, for one, try to look more charitably on the pretty ladies who covet our poor coronets.”
fair brushed this thrust aside with the obliviousness that made her strength and her weakness once the engine of her attention was racing along her one-track mind to the goal of her selection. humour, satire, impertinence, or indignation were128 signals powerless to impede her progress when she was on her way; she rushed by them heedlessly, recklessly indifferent to anything short of a head-on collision.
“oh, i wasn’t thinking of the girls—who in the world wants a little old coronet! of course they’re nice if you’re used to them,” she added hastily. “but it was the men that i was thinking of; you simply couldn’t be sure, not ever. you work, don’t you?”
“alas, yes, mademoiselle!” de chartreuil abandoned resentment and stood leaning on his mallet, laughing down at this incorrigible and enchanting small barbarian.
“monsieur andré, why do you suppose that monsieur de lautrec doesn’t work?”
“philippe?” his voice was strange.
“yes, philippe—you didn’t suppose that i meant the vicomte, did you? this place keeps him busy from morning to night. philippe, of course.” her voice was impatient, but there was a desperate eagerness behind it that checked the quick words on de chartreuil’s tongue.
“mademoiselle, for four years he worked day and night; he gave the blood of his heart, the blood of his soul in work—would you grudge him a little rest?”
“but, good heavens, he’s had years to rest,”129 cried fair despairingly. “he’s not going to rest until he dies, is he? you’re not resting—monsieur raoul’s not resting—no one in the world has a right to rest when there’s so much to do—no one!”
“for long, long after the war he did not leave the hospital, mademoiselle.”
“well, wasn’t he resting there?” demanded his inquisitor fiercely.
“no,” replied the boy gravely. “no, he was not resting there, i think.”
“what—what was the matter with him in the hospital?” asked fair, making her lips into a very straight line so that they wouldn’t quiver.
“it was—what you call shell-shock.”
“shell-shock? that’s horrible—oh, don’t i know! those hospitals—like a nightmare—worse than a nightmare——” she swept it far from her with a resolute gesture. “it’s no good thinking about it; you have to forget! and heaven knows that he’s over it now; heaven knows that now he isn’t suffering from any breakdown. i’ve never seen him look even serious for two minutes at a time—i don’t believe that he has the faintest idea of what seriousness means. it’s all very well to have a sense of humour; i have a perfectly wonderful sense of humour myself when i’m not thinking of something more important—but it’s ridiculous to think that that’s all there is to it!” she130 hit the ball a reckless blow that sent it flying far across the tawny meadow, and turned to young de chartreuil a lovely little countenance on fire with righteous indignation and angry distress. “a real man would know that life ought to be more than just laughing half the day—and singing half the night—and looking the way the heroes in the moving pictures ought to look—and chatter-boxing away in his room for hours and hours and hours!” bitter resentment at this unpalatable memory sent the colour flying higher in her cheeks, and she swung off after the red ball at a furious scamper. “and by glory, i’m going to tell him so!” she announced tempestuously over her shoulder to the astounded andré. he sprang forward, galvanized into instant action.
“mademoiselle—mademoiselle, wait, i beg you. you jest, of course, but——”
“indeed i do not jest, of course,” retorted fair hotly. “i don’t jest one little bit. why in the world shouldn’t i tell him?”
“there are, i should think, one thousand reasons why,” he replied sharply. “must i give you the thousand and first, and assure you that always, always, all the days that you live, it would be to you a very deep regret?”
“it certainly would not,” replied his unimpressed audience flatly. any one who attempted131 to frighten fair out of any undertaking whatever was making a vital strategic error, but andré de chartreuil was too young and too thoroughly outraged to indulge in strategy.
“mademoiselle, but this is madness——”
“monsieur, but this is impertinence.” fair’s chin was tilted at an angle that implied that battle, murder, and sudden death would be child’s play to her from then on. this—this little whipper-snapper of a french infant who had basely pretended to be at her feet, suddenly rising up and dictating a course of conduct to her—to her! well, it simply proved what she had always maintained. you couldn’t trust a foreigner—you couldn’t, not ever.
“for what you call impertinence, forgive me.” the tone was far from repentant, and fair waited stiffly for further developments. “my poor english renders me clumsy—grant me, i pray, patience.”
very poor english, thought fair sternly; it might mean anything. grant him patience indeed! she had precious little patience to spare for any one this morning, as he would discover to his cost.
“philippe, he is like no one else!” young de chartreuil made a gesture of impotent despair, his careful english suddenly turned traitor. “you do not see it, but he is like no one else, i tell you.132 i who was his sous-officier—his how you call it, his under-officer—ah, no matter—he was my captain for three years, and i know, you hear me, i know.”
“heaven knows i hear you,” fair assured him with ominous calm. “i should think that they could hear you in paris!”
“well, then, i tell you that we, his men, we who followed him, we would have given the blood out of our hearts for him to shine his boots with—we knew him, we. you know why they call him philippe le gai?”
“i know that there’s some story about an old troubadour called philippe le gai——”
“about a very great soldier who was also a very great singer, mademoiselle, long years ago in provence. philippe is of his race; one of those who meet death itself with a song. that other philippe died eight hundred years ago, and they say that he died singing. and we—we who followed this philippe and gave to him our souls—we know that he could face worse than death—and still sing.”
“there isn’t the slightest necessity of making a curtain speech to me about courage,” replied the last of the fighting carters, and the velvet voice rang as cold and hard as drawn steel. “i know quite a good deal about it, thank you. i may not133 have had any old ancestor that went rampaging around singing songs about how gay and brave and wonderful he was, but i had three great-uncles and a grandfather who were killed in the civil war and a brother who was killed in the spanish war, and—and a father——” her voice failed her, but she swallowed hard and pushed on relentlessly: “and a father who died for his country just as much as any of them, because he went right on working for it when he knew that it would kill him—and who didn’t even let me know that he was dying, because i couldn’t help him, and he thought that i might help america, and i was the only one of the carters left to fight for america. and i kept on fighting, even though it just about killed me, too; i went into germany with my men, because i knew that he wouldn’t think the war was over until we got what we fought for—until we really got it—and i’d be there yet if it hadn’t been for those idiotic doctors. nervous breakdown! for gracious sakes, i’d like to hear what they’d say if one of their old colonels started to have a nervous breakdown. this isn’t any kind of a world to sit and twirl your thumbs and pet your nerves in—and i can’t see that singing about it makes it much nobler—or laughing, either.”
“there are many things, perhaps, that you cannot see,” commented young de chartreuil, and134 at the tone in his voice there was one thing that fair did see, and that was red.
“well, i can see this,” she cried in a voice shaken with sheer fury, “i can see that it’s possible to be just as much of a slacker after the war as during it.”
“mademoiselle!”
“in america men work,” stormed fair. “they——”
“in america you save your generosity for your own faults, it seems.” he raised a commanding hand, and fair stood voiceless, literally transfixed with rage. “no, wait, i beg you; i have not yet finished. perhaps in your great country you forget that work is the means—that it is not the end; no, no, believe me, it is not the end. it is also not very wise to condemn utterly that which may differ only in kind, not in degree. to you courage may be a dark and stern thing—a duty—but to some—to one at least, mademoiselle—it is a shining and gay and splendid gift; it is a joy.”
“are you through with your lessons for the day?” asked fair icily. “because if you are, i’m going!” she whirled the red mallet about her head like a battle-axe, and sent it spinning far from her after the neglected ball. “good-bye—i’m off. tell the others i twisted my ankle—got a headache—tell them any old lie you think of——”
135 “but, mademoiselle, you cannot——”
fairfax carter halted for a moment in her tumultuous progress, the wind whipping her leaf-brown skirts about her and sending the bright curls flying about the reckless, stubborn little face.
“can’t i?” she called back defiantly. “can’t i? well, wait and see! i’m going to tell your precious philippe de lautrec just exactly what i think of a hero who spends his life resting on his laurels while his sisters work their fingers to the bone—and you and foch and the archangel gabriel can’t stop me, so i’d advise you to stick to croquo-golf. good-bye!”
she was gone in a brilliant whirl of flying skirts and scarf and hair. young de chartreuil watched her disappearing down the long hill that led past daudin’s farm to the far gate of the chateau with an expression in which dismay was tempered by a grim satisfaction. after a moment he shrugged his shoulders briefly, retrieved the scarlet ball and mallet, and set off slowly toward the sounds of distant laughter that marked the other players. well, let her go; she was richly in need of a lesson, that lovely little demon! and to think that for a moment he had dreamed—ah, name of heaven, what an escape!——
fair, in the meantime, raced lightly on her chosen way. she was in a towering rage at de136 chartreuil for his presumptuous insolence, and in an even more towering rage at herself for the effect that it had had on her. even immature reflection revealed the unmistakable fact that she had behaved a good deal more like a fish-wife than the traditional great lady. about the only things that she had failed to do were boxing his ears and screaming at the top of her lungs. and she had felt terribly—oh, but terribly—like doing both of them. no, it was all very well to have a temper, but it was a bad strategic error to lose it. possession is nine points of the law, especially with tempers. fortunately, the hateful de chartreuil child had been even worse than she. he had looked at one time as though it would have been pure ecstasy to throttle the life out of her—the time that she had got in that neat thrust about peace-time slackers. well, she was on her way to tell one of them exactly what she thought of him as fast as her stubby brown boots would carry her. she wrenched impatiently at the iron latch on the great north gate—it yielded with an unexpectedness that nearly threw her off her feet, and she heard it clang to behind her as she raced up the long alley of lime trees that led to the stone terrace. if she were lucky, she might find the object of her righteous wrath basking there in the sunlight, without so much as a book in his graceless hands,137 dreaming away the hours, his dark face turned to the golden fields of his inheritance. she had found him there before—and, yes, fate was with her—there he was now in his great chair with his back to the lime trees, lounging deep. for a moment she hesitated, her heart thundering in her ears, and then she swung recklessly across the sun-warmed flags, hands deep in her pockets, her chin tilted at an outrageous angle.
“oh, there you are!” she hailed in her magic voice, but there was something behind the words that turned them from a salutation to a challenge.
philippe le gai sat quite still for a moment, and then, without rising, he flung her a radiant smile over his shoulder.
“and there are you!” he said. “all finished, the croquo-golf?”
“no—just finished for me. it’s a stupid game, don’t you think?”
“me? i think no game stupid that once i have started—no, not one. then i must play it through to the end, or count myself defeated!”
fair’s eyes darkened ominously.
“but you don’t start many games, do you?” she asked.
“no,” acquiesced the young man in the chair. “as you say, not many.”
138 fair set her teeth. did he think that if he continued to sprawl all his splendid length there, unmoving, that she would pass on? was this his method of once more conveying to her the information that her presence was an intrusion? oh, for a man—for some slim, freckled, young american—to take this insolent foreigner by his coat collar and jerk him to his unworthy feet! perhaps it might be better to have two of them—he was disgustingly tall. she swung round the corner of the chair, flames dancing in her eyes.
“are you—very busy?” she inquired in a dangerously polite little voice.
philippe le gai showed all of his white teeth in another flashing smile.
“but no!” he replied accurately, and made a swift motion as though to rise, only to check himself more swiftly. “be seated, i pray you!”
the look of consuming rage that fair flashed on him as she seated herself in the small iron chair opposite him would have shrivelled a normally sensitive soul to gray ashes. her impervious host, however, merely leaned deeper into his bright cushions, the smile still edging his lips.
“laure still plays?”
“yes,” replied fair. she spoke with considerable difficulty; the royal condescension of that “be seated” had left her feeling slightly dizzy.
139 “i have here a paper which will need her sharp wits—she will not be long, perhaps?”
“i don’t know,” replied fair sombrely. just how, she wondered, did you lead up to telling a comparative stranger that you despised him? it was harder than she had thought it would be, out there in the meadow—it was the proud turn of the black head, and the sure strength of the long brown hands, and the sheer beauty of the flashing smile that made it hard. no one had a right to look like that—and to be despicable. it wasn’t fair.
“i think that those poor gods in heaven must envy us our earth to-day!” said the object of her scorn, turning his face to the deep blue of the autumn sky. “so warm, so cold, so sweet—like some mad bacchante, bare of throat and arm for all her warm fur skins, with grapes of purple weighing down her curls, and wine of gold tripping up her light heels.... once, you know, when i was the smallest of little boys, monsieur my grandfather call me to come down from my sleep to drink the health of my very new sister—of young laure. there was a great banquet, a table brave with fruit and flowers and lace and candles, and they put me onto that table, and give me a little burning golden brandy to drink in a great cool glass of crystal—and straight to my head it flew—ah, dieu, the lucky, curly head! i remember still, you140 see—i remember how the world must feel to-day. the world and i, we have been fortunate.”
fair’s mouth was a rose-red line of stern distaste. it might be all very french to take a perfectly good autumn day and turn it into an intoxicated heathen, but in her opinion, which was far from humble, it was simply outrageous. and those detestable people, giving brandy to that darling little boy—well, all little boys were more or less darling. it was their truly lamentable degeneration at about the age of twenty-nine that was occupying her at present. she leaned forward swiftly, her hands very cold and her eyes very hot.
“monsieur philippe, don’t you ever, ever get tired of just sitting around doing nothing?”
perhaps the passion in the clear voice touched him—for a moment philippe le gai belied his name. then he made a slight gesture with the hand that held the papers, a gesture of dismissal to such folly as sober thought.
“tired, mistress fairy? how should i be tired, doing nothing? and how are you so sure that i do nothing while i sit around—how are you so sure of that, i wonder?”
“because i can see you,” replied fair with despairing emphasis.
“can you then, wise eyes? can you see so141 well? then you must see that it is not nothing that i do.”
“oh, isn’t it?” she whispered breathlessly, her heart in her voice. “isn’t it?”
“but never! while i sit around, i am being very, very busy, me, being alive—and being amused—and being, believe me, most eternally and most exultantly grateful. you call that doing nothing?”
“of course i call that doing nothing,” replied fair fiercely.
“now that is strange—because, you know, i am so busy doing it that i can find time to do nothing else. to sit with the sun and beauty and silence all about, that is better than heaven, i think. always i have loved beauty better than life and once i thought that i had lost her for ever—and, see, she is mine again! in other fields—fields churned to madness, horrors of white clay and red blood, with the proud trees stripped to dirty black stumps—in other fields i remembered these, and i swore to that god of battles that if he would send me back to this golden grace—to this greenness and kind quiet—i would ask nothing more. and where those stenches made the poor soul sicker than the body, i could sometimes hold my breath, and smell apple-blossoms in the spring moonlight, and yellow roses in the summer sunlight, and142 spiced wood burning in the great chimneys, and cider blowing across the autumn winds. now—now i need not hold the breath to smell the good ripe fruit, now i need not close my eyes to see my fields of gold, with the little warm gray sheep against the hills. now i have come home to my fields, and i keep faith with the god of battles—i ask for nothing more. look before you, wise eyes; what do you see?”
“the alley of lime trees and the north gate and the meadow,” said fair, fighting to harden the voice that wanted only to break.
“look farther——”
“i can see the thatch on daudin’s roof and the road to the village and the little steeple on the church.”
“nothing more?”
“there’s nothing more to see.”
“you do not see a little boy climbing that iron gate and racing home up that long alley, singing—racing quick, quick because it begins to grow dark?”
“of course i don’t see him,” replied fair defiantly, but she leaned forward, straining her eyes.
“look farther—look far away; you cannot see the other little boys, many, many, all hurrying while they sing to get home before it is dark? no? ah, poor wise eyes! perhaps it is because it is years143 that those little boys hurry down, instead of just an alley of lime trees—they are hurrying home clean across the centuries. since that first philippe came singing up from the south, they have loved these gray stones best of all the earth—best, i think, of heaven. and that last little boy, he did not love it least, believe me. perhaps he is singing louder than them all, because though they have made it, those others, he has saved it.”
“he didn’t save it any more than a good many million other people,” commented fair ruthlessly.
philippe le gai threw back his black head with a ringing peal of laughter. “truly as you say, not more. but that is another reason why he sings, believe me.”
“but what did you do before you started in to save it?” pursued the remorseless inquisitor, and suddenly she sickened at her task. the radiance flagged in the dark face before her; for a moment philippe le gai looked mortally tired.
“me? i was an artist—and an engineer.” he sat staring ahead of him, tense and straight; and then he relaxed easily, the smile playing again. “not so good an artist, and not so bad an engineer. i was oh, most young, and oh, most vain, and gray-headed old gentlemen from far away came to beg a little advice as to what to do with their sick mines.”
144 “mines?” fair’s face was alight. “that was what dad used to do before he went in for cotton. it was copper, you know. d’you know about copper?”
“every kind of mine that ever was i knew about,” he assured her lightly. “but now i have forgotten.”
“how could you?” she cried. “how could you, when they need you so? don’t you think that that little boy would be ashamed if he could see you sitting on this terrace—just sitting and sitting like a great enormous lazy black cat? don’t you?”
“why, no,” replied philippe le gai. “no, i do not think that he would be ashamed.”
fair wrung her hands together; she felt defeat closing about her.
“those fields that you talked about—don’t you want to make them green and golden again, too?”
“they are very tired, those fields,” said the man. “shall we not let them rest?”
“oh!” cried fair, and the valiant voice struggled and broke. “oh, how can you—oh, oh, how can you?”
“fair——”
he was on his feet at last—the swift move sent the paper flying, and it came fluttering145 irresponsibly across the sunlit space between them, dancing to a halt almost at her feet. it had blown open, and her incredulous eyes were riveted on the letterhead—the little thick black letters spelling out the name of dad’s attorney, henry c. forrester, wall street—she stared down blankly:
dear sir—
in further reply to your request for full details as to the fortune left miss carter by her father——
a wave of scarlet swept over her from heel to brow; she felt as though she were drowning, she felt as though she were being buried alive, she felt as though a bolt of lightning had passed clean through her body, leaving her quite dead and still.
“so that’s what you are?” she said. “you—you! i might have known.”
“what i am?” his voice was touched with a little wonder. “no, but i do not understand; what is it that i am?”
“there’s no word for you,” she told him between her clicking teeth. she was shaking violently, uncontrollably, like someone in a chill. “crawling to my lawyers—you—you—a common adventurer——”
“you are mad,” he said.
“it’s here,” cried fair. “look. it’s here in black and white—are you going to deny it?”
146 “give me that letter,” said philippe le gai.
“i wouldn’t touch it in a thousand years,” she flung at him. “not in a hundred hundred thousand. it’s filthy—it can lie there till it rots.”
“pick it up,” he told her.
“how dare you?” she whispered. “how dare you?”
“it is not so very greatly daring,” he assured her. “pick it up, i tell you.”
fair stared at him voicelessly where he stood, tall and splendid and terrible in the sunlight. no, no, this was nightmare—this was not real. it was not she who bent to the bidding of this relentless monster—it was some other fairfax caught in a hideous dream. the paper rattled in her fingers like goblin castanets.
“now bring it to me.”
she crossed the little space of sun-warmed bricks, her eyes fixed and brilliant as a sleep-walker.
“closer,” bade the still voice. “closer yet. yes. now put it in my hand. that way—yes. it was not yours, you see; did you forget that?”
fair made no answer. she stood frozen, watching the brown fingers folding the bit of white paper into a neat oblong.
“i would not, i think, say any word to laure of this,” said the voice. “and i would not, i147 think, stay here longer. i would forget all this, and go.”
“i am going this afternoon,” she told him through her stiff lips. “and i am going to tell laure—everything.”
“do not,” he said. “do not, believe me.” he stood staring down at the paper, and then he spoke again.
“i am, as you say, an adventurer,” said philippe le gai, in that terrible and gentle voice. “and adventure is, as you say, common. for which i thank my gods. you have nothing more to say to me?”
“nothing.”
“then that is all, i think, miss carter.”
obviously, the audience was over, the courtier was dismissed. oh, for one word—one little, little word—to blast him where he stood, gentle and insolent and relentless. she could not find that word, and she would die before she would give him any other. the brown boots stumbled in their haste on the terrace steps; at the foot she turned once more to face him, flinging him a last look of terror and defiance and despair—and deeper than all, wonder. but philippe le gai’s face was turned once more to his golden fields.
far away, at the end of the long alley, she could see the players coming back; she could hear them,148 too, laughing and calling to each other—bravo was barking frenziedly, heedless of diane’s small, peremptory shouts—there, he was off, with raoul and diane in pursuit, headed straight for the distant stables. she clung to the stone railing for a moment, limp and sick, and then she flung back her head, spurred her flagging feet, and set off down the arching lime trees, running. running because she was desperately tired and desperately frightened; because it was toward battle that she ran, and she must get there swiftly. laure hailed from the far end.
“ah, small deserter, you come to surrender? come quick, then, and do penance.”
“i’ve not come to do penance,” said the deserter. she stood very straight with her hands clasped tightly behind her. “i’ve come to say good-bye.”
“good-bye?” echoed laure. “here, andré, take this mallet, this ball. what folly is this, fair?”
“it’s not folly; the folly’s been in staying. i’ve learned quite a lot of things in the last few minutes, laure. monsieur de lautrec has some papers that he wants to show you.”
“papers? well, but what is all this mystery? come, now, fair, you are not well, i know. the doctor he said you should not be excited.”
149 “i am not in the least excited,” replied fair, her eyes two glittering danger signals. “are you in this plot, too, monsieur andré?”
“plot? no, decidedly, this is fever! let me feel your hands, mon enfant——”
“don’t touch me, please,” said fair, clearly and distinctly.
“did i say fever? but it is delirium! i am not to touch you?”
“no.” she took a step farther away from laure who stood looking down at her, clear and quiet, with that incredulous lift to her brows. “don’t pretend any more, please; it makes me rather sick. i know about everything, you see.”
“that is very exactly what i do not do, ma petite. no, andré, do not go—you, too, will wait and see. what is this nonsense, fair?”
“you needn’t keep it up any longer, i tell you,” returned fair fiercely. “i’ve found out what you and monsieur de lautrec have been doing. i thought that you loved me, laure—you did it pretty well—and all the time you were nothing but fortune hunters, were you?”
“you told philippe—that?” asked laure. every atom of colour had drained out of her face, but she did not lift her voice. “no, wait, andré. i am not yet through. it would be a good hunter150 who could find your fortune, fairfax. you have none to hunt for.”
“i have two million dollars,” said fair.
“you have not half a million centimes. it was all in cotton, that great fortune; it is gone. your lawyers had cabled to you while you were ill in germany, but the doctors they said you must not hear that bad news then; they asked me to tell you, gently, when you were much better. so i have waited, and philippe, he has cabled three—no, four times, to see whether skill and thought and work might not save that so mighty fortune. to-day he thought perhaps that we might have heard——”
“oh,” said fair in a small, childish voice. “oh.” she put her hand to her head; it hurt dreadfully. “well, then, i can go to work——” she made a vague gesture, as though if she stretched out her hand work would be there for her to cling to—and laure smiled, a fine, cruel little smile. something snapped in fair’s head. “that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, laure? but you see, i’m not over six feet tall, i’m not stronger than steel—i’m not busy twelve hours a day sitting around in the sun being an ex-hero—so i’m going to work.”
“did you, perhaps, tell my brother that you thought that of him, too?” asked laure.
“i told him that, and i told him more,” said fair.
151 laure came toward her, something so terrible in her white face that for a moment fair thought that she was going to kill her.
“little fool!” she said very softly. “little, wicked, wicked fool, philippe cannot work—philippe is blind.”
“no!” cried fair. she clapped her hands over her ears, to shut out those dreadful words, her face a twisted mask of terror. “no, no, no!”
“and i tell you yes, yes, yes,” repeated the tall girl before her, closing her long fingers over the small wrists, wrenching the clinging hands down relentlessly. “blind like a stone, i tell you—blind.”
“he couldn’t be—he couldn’t be—i’d have seen——”
“what have you ever seen that did not touch yourself?” asked philippe’s sister. “he is blind, but not so blind as you. when you came to us, never, never did we think that you would not see, though we could not talk of it—not yet. but philippe—philippe he said: ‘no, no—let her alone. she has need of peace and mirth and sunshine, those doctors said—darkness it must not touch her. we will be careful, and perhaps she will not know.’ you have well repaid that care, have you not, fairfax?”
“but his eyes—his eyes——”
“his eyes—because they are still there, you152 think they see? they saw too much, those eyes; they see no more. what made the light behind them—that nerve behind them—it is paralyzed. you who know so much about the war, you do not know that shock could do that? that there are men blind because their eyes turned rebel, and they would see no more horror—deaf because they would not hear more horror—dumb because they could not tell their horror. philippe—philippe he loved beauty—and after a long while his eyes they went mad—and he is blind. work—work, you little fool! all day, all night, he works, he works. to learn to read—to learn to write—to learn to live, to live, you hear——”
“please let me go, laure,” whispered fair. “please, laure—please, laure.”
“i will tell marie léontine to help you with your packing,” said laure. “and i am glad indeed to let you go. come, andré.”
fair watched them cutting across the garden to the east entrance—not the terrace, not the terrace. she couldn’t run any more—she felt as though she could never run again—but perhaps if she started now and went very carefully, holding to the lime trees, she could get there before he left. she must, she must get there before he left.... not until she was at the steps did she dare to raise her eyes. he was still there.
153 “laure?” he called. “laure?”
“it’s fair,” she said. “i came back.”
she saw him grind the paper between his hands—and then he turned toward her, smiling a little.
“you had forgotten something?”
“yes.” she was quite near now, but her voice was so low that it barely reached him. “i came back to tell you—to tell you——”
the smile deepened on the dark young face. “ah, tiens! there was something, then, that you forgot to tell me? never should i have said it!”
“please,” she entreated, in that shadow of a voice. “please. i know now about—about—laure told me!”
“about why i lie like that cat in the sun? good! now you tell laure——” he broke off sharply. “she was not kind, our laure? you are weeping? do not weep; those little jewels of tears, so small, so shining, so empty, empty—you women love them best of all your jewels, i think. but me, i do not think that they become you best!”
“i don’t cry often,” fair told him. “not often, really. you can ask dad—no, no—not dad. it’s because i’m tired, probably. i came back because i wanted to tell you——” she swallowed despairingly, the tears salt on her lips.
“why, because you were a good child,” he154 helped her gaily. “and wanted to tell me that you were sorry.”
“no—no. because i wanted to tell you that i was glad.”
“glad?” he was on his feet, with that cry.
“how could i be sorry for you, philippe? oh, i can’t be sorry for myself—not even now—not now, when i see myself. i wanted so to be proud of you—you don’t know—you don’t—you don’t——”
“and why did you so want to be proud of me, may i ask?”
“because i love you,” said fair clearly.
philippe le gai caught at the cushioned chair. “you are mad,” he said.
“yes.” the voice tripped in its haste. “yes, but you see i had to tell you. you mustn’t mind; i’m going this afternoon—marie léontine’s waiting now. don’t mind, please, philippe; i didn’t know, myself, truly—not till laure told me about—about you, and i knew that i didn’t care at all how horrible and vile i had been, because i was so glad that you—that you——”
“hush!” he stood quite still, and then he raised his hand to his eyes. “i should send you far from me, fairfax.”
“yes,” said fair, “i’m not any good, you see. all i had to give you was my money and my—my155 prettiness. i can’t give you either of them, philippe.”
“when i heard you laugh, that first night when you came,” he told her, “i remembered—i remembered that laughter was not just a sound to cover up despair—i remembered how to laugh that night.”
she stared at him, voiceless.
“when you spoke to me—when you spoke to me, my music—i was glad then that i could not see, because i wished to listen only, always.”
“philippe,” she prayed. “don’t, don’t send me away, philippe.”
“we are mad,” he said. “come closer.”
and once more she went toward him across that sunlit space, to where he stood, tall and splendid and terrible. “closer still,” he said. “closer still—still closer. why do you weep, my laughter?”
“hold me—hold me—don’t let me go.”
“blindness,” he said. “it is just a little word, a little, dark, ugly word to frighten foolish children. are you beautiful, my loveliness? never, never could you be beautiful as i dream you!” he touched her lips with his brown fingers.
“smile!” he said. and she smiled.
“what is blindness to me who can touch your lips to laughter?” he asked her, bending his black head until his lips swept her lashes. “what is156 blindness to me, who can touch your eyes to tears?”
the sunlight fell across the bright hair of the last of the fighting carters—he could feel it warm against his lips and suddenly he laughed aloud.
“what is blindness to me?” cried philippe le gai to the golden sun. “what is blindness to me, who hold my light against my heart?”
