The fear of living
Date: 2024-02-26T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: French fiction -- Translations into English

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Title: The fear of living

(La peur de vivre)

Author: Henry Bordeaux

Translator: Ruth Helen Davis

Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73031]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1913

Credits: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FEAR OF LIVING ***

THE FEAR OF LIVING

THE
FEAR OF LIVING

(La Peur de Vivre)

BY

HENRY BORDEAUX

AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION
BY
RUTH HELEN DAVIS

NEW YORK
E·P·DUTTON & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

TO
THE HALLOWED MEMORY OF
ANOTHER MOTHER
WHO KNEW HOW TO SACRIFICE FOR
HER CHILDREN
THIS TRANSLATION IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY HER DAUGHTER
RUTH HELEN DAVIS

CONTENTS

| | PAGE
| FOREWORD | i
| PREFACE | v
| PART I |
CHAPTER | |
I | MARCEL’S HOMECOMING | 1
II | BROTHER AND SISTER | 26
III | THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS | 47
IV | A MORNING AT LA CHÊNAIE | 63
V | ALICE’S SECRET | 85
VI | MONSIEUR AND MADAME DULAURENS | 106
VII | THE PROPOSAL | 127
VIII | THE CONSPIRATORS | 148
IX | THE FAREWELL | 167
X | MARCEL’S DEPARTURE | 177
| PART II |
I | THIRTEEN AT TABLE | 191
II | THE POLICEMAN’S MESSAGE | 219
III | NIOBE | 240
IV | THE PAGEANTRY OF DEATH | 252
V | JEAN | 276
VI | ISABELLE | 296
VII | PAULE’S SECRET | 315
VIII | MADAME GUIBERT | 335
IX | THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES | 348
X | NIOBE’S LAST CHILD | 360
XI | PEACE | 376

FOREWORD

M. Henry Bordeaux’s latest novel, “The Fear of Living,” appeared several months ago, at a season when the “summer novel” was flourishing. That season belongs to the big purveyors of commercial literature and is not the time at which to speak of a real writer. I have, therefore, purposely postponed until to-day my few words about this book, which both public and press have welcomed warmly, but without sufficiently marking its true place. It is one of the best novels that has appeared for a long time. It contrasts, by its vivid originality, with everything that the storytellers of to-day give us. It is a new and daring departure.

It is that, primarily, through the philosophy of life which the author has expressed in it. The “fear of living” is a new and deep-seated evil among us. We value our peace above everything, we wish to keep it at all hazards, however dearly we must pay for it. We shun responsibilities, avoid risks and chances of struggle, flee from adventure and danger, seek to escape from everything that makes for the charm and value of life. We no longer have any faith in the future, because we no longer have faith in ourselves. Writers used for a time to chronicle this sickly weakness under the name of “dilettantism.” Then, the fashion having changed, they began to exalt the claims of energy. But what they understand by that word is nothing but the keen desire to satisfy our passions and ambitions. In place of lazy selfishness they have substituted ruthless selfishness. To spare oneself all kinds of boredom, or to procure oneself the greatest amount of pleasure, these are the only two conceptions they recommend to us. But here is a writer who thinks that to live does not mean to bury oneself in a corner, nor yet to amass money and wear oneself I out with pleasure. He thinks that a life in which I one has suffered, struggled, and worked for others, not for oneself, that a life whose years are counted by emotions, sacrifices, devotions, and renunciations, is a well-filled life. He says it, he believes it, and, while we read it, he makes us believe it. It may be absurd, extravagant, and romantic to the last degree but it is not commonplace.

The characters in the “Fear of Living” are almost all respectable people. Now it is a dogma in our literature that respectable people are not interesting. The heroes of a novel may be rogues, even mediocre and vulgar rogues, turned out “by the dozen”; their adventures may be reduced to some mean little act, commonplace, ridiculous, and sensational. It does not matter; they win our sympathy, and we are ready to find them amusing or touching. But a family that ruins itself to save the honor of a name, a mother who lets her children go one by one to do their duty, a young man who prefers the charm of a pure marriage to the temptations of a sensual love—what interest have such people for us? And even if we do meet the like in our daily life, in the name of Heaven let us leave them where they are, and not let them burden the novel with their sad faces! Such is the prejudice that M. Henry Bordeaux has not feared to face boldly.

Finally he has tried to write a realistic work, and you cannot find a scene in it that is one of the commonplace situations in realism. No infidelity, no child-murder, no atrocious swindling! It has the air of being written as a wager. We have come, indeed, to the point of limiting realistic art to the portrayal only of that which is trivial, low, and worthless. Reality has become with us a synonym for ugliness. We have calmly laid down these definitions. “Every work is realistic which paints vile characters and repulsive scenes, even if these characters be morbid and these scenes be the artificial dreams of a sickly imagination. Unrealistic is every work in which any account is taken of the virtues which are the current coin of most lives.” A writer must be possessed of a rare independence of mind, combined with no ordinary confidence in himself, to maintain that both nobility of soul and elevation of character are also realities.

This is the point of view adopted by M. Henry Bordeaux. There is more true realism in his book than in fifty chosen from among the works of the most famous “Naturalists.” The figures in it all live. The study of provincial manners is very finely developed in it. One chapter might seem a little exaggerated, if one did not feel that its truth is photographic. It is the one in which the Mayor, officially ordered to tell Madame Guibert of the death of her son who had been killed by the enemy, is afraid to compromise himself by crossing the threshold of people classed as reactionaries and sends a policeman in his place! Added to it all is a charming sympathy with nature. Both the people and their surroundings become our familiar friends in this modest home at Le Maupas, the peaceful setting of so many scenes of sorrow.

M. Henry Bordeaux was already honorably known to us through some stories written with a delicate touch, and some judicious critical essays. “The Fear of Living” raises him from his former rank and classes him as a Novelist.

RENE DOUMIC.

(Journal des Débats, 30th Sept. 1902).

PREFACE

In the month of June, 1902, when I published “The Fear of Living,” I had no idea how favorably it would be received by the public. Family tragedies were not the fashion, and I had dared to take a sorely-tried old woman for my heroine.

Since that time new editions have succeeded one another every year. I have had to answer many hundreds of letters (often very badly and briefly) which made me see that I had friends among my readers. At last I was asked, both in France and abroad, to explain the ideas which are the foundation of my work. So, although my novel only aims at increasing the will and the courage to live and not at establishing any doctrine, I was induced to speak about our various modern attitudes towards life. After my addresses I was honored by a request to put them into print. I have gathered together here the notes which helped me to prepare them. If after four years I feel some pride in recording the prolonged influence of a work whose art is perfectly natural and sincere, I must thank for it all those unknown friends who contributed to the result by their infectious sympathy.

I

The fear of living is a disease which extends its ravages principally to old civilisations like our own. The symptoms of this moral phthisis may be outwardly contradictory; for there are two ways of being afraid to live as there are two kinds of selfishness.

The first, the most frequent to-day and the most cowardly, has already been denounced by Dante, who in the third Canto of the Inferno, brands it with the red-hot iron of his scorn. Guided by Virgil, the poet arrives at the gate of the City of Tears. He has not yet entered the door when he hears, rising up to him from the bottom of the abyss, groans, shrieks and cries of despair, which resound under a starless sky. From what lips do these sounds proceed, these sounds which come from near Hell, but not from Hell itself? Dante in his distress asks his master for an explanation.

“Master,” I said, “what do I hear, and what is this crowd which seems so crushed by sorrow?”

And he said: “This is the miserable fate of the sad souls of all those who have lived without blame and without praise. They are mingled with that dread chorus of angels who were neither faithful to God, nor rebellious, but who existed for themselves only. They have been banished from Heaven, because they spoiled its beauty, and the depths of Hell would not receive them because the damned would gain some glory by their presence.”

And I said: “Master, what is the torment that is crushing them and makes them weep so bitterly?”

He answered me: “I will tell you briefly. They have no hope of dying, and their dark life is so vile that they are envious of every other fate. The world has no memory of them, and mercy and justice despise them. Do not speak of them; look and pass on....”

If the “Inferno” describes worse torments, it contains no words more scathing in their disdain than these which describe “those inert ones who are pleasing neither to God nor to his enemies.” The misers who carry burdens, the evil-tempered who struggle in a bog, the voluptuous dragged into an endless whirl-wind, the rogues plunged into a lake of boiling pitch, have deserved their punishment by their acts, and have asserted themselves in evil-doing. The others have asserted themselves neither in evil nor in good. Neither virtuous nor vicious, we do not know what they were. Dull, flabby, and soft, they have not left behind the memory of any personality. They scarcely lived; they were afraid to live.

For the fear of living means precisely that,—to deserve neither blame nor praise. It is the constant all-prevailing desire for peace. It is the flight from responsibilities, struggles, risks, and efforts. It is the careful avoidance of danger, fatigue, exaltation, passion, enthusiasm, sacrifice, every violent action, everything that disturbs and upsets. It is the refusal of life’s claims upon our hearts, our sweat, and our blood. In short, it is the pretence of living, while limiting life, while setting bounds to our destinies. It is that passive selfishness which would rather retrench its appetite than seek the food which it requires; the selfishness which is meanly content with a colorless, dull life, provided it is sure of meeting with no shocks, no difficulties, no obstacles, like the traveler who will only journey along plains and on rubber tires.

Must we quote examples? It is the fear of living which inspires a young man in the choice of a profession, which shows him the special advantages of an official career providing him, in return for work that is moderate in amount and does not take up much time, with a fixed salary and a pension; that modest dream which inspired Goncourt to make this epigram—“France is a country where one sows functionaries and reaps taxes.” Is it not this fear much more often than a keen sense of justice, that drives the weak and envious to that Socialism which would result in the establishment of an all-round equality of mediocrity?

It is certainly this fear which, when it does not lead to a comfortable, selfish, practical, bachelor’s life, prompts those marriages wherein one consults one’s lawyer rather than one’s heart, and thinks of income rather than of the advantages of beauty, physical and moral health, education, courage, ability and taste. Certain theories of the day, which on their critical side are not without justification, pretend to purify the sources of marriage by suppressing the consent of parents which is often too apt to overlook personal characteristics through consideration of the advantages to be gained, and by multiplying the facilities for union with the facilities for divorce; in a word, by associating marriage with those other unions which have no regard for the social order, into which they introduce anarchy. But marriage is the gateway of the family, the foundation of the home; its aim is to complete two lives by joining the one to the other and to bring other beings into the world. It cannot rely solely on that love which is commonly represented with bandaged eyes; for it is not purely an individual act, in that it both continues a tradition and perpetuates a race. Is it the importance of this race and this tradition which has to be considered, or is it only a petty ideal of practical happiness, comfortable and ignoble? Can man not feel himself fit to guide, guard, and direct the destinies of his own? Can woman not deprive herself of luxuries that are useless, or at least merely accessory? Would life, stripped of so many accessories and so many useless things, simplified but not diminished, become unacceptable? Must the place of moral force be taken by the heritage handed down by one’s father?

After marriage, we find again the fear of living in the dread of having children and the restraint of parenthood. To create life has become too heavy a responsibility, too irksome a burden, above all a nuisance; and it is thus that France has been called the land of only sons. By suppressing the choice of making a will the Civil Code has struck a heavy blow at the coherent unity of the family, grouped round its head and supported by its land. But we have lately been told by La Réforme Sociale of the method employed by the Normandy peasants, after having already been employed by so many of the bourgeoisie for the preservation of the inheritance. For the heir nominated by the father, or according to custom, is substituted the only son. In the mountains of Savoy the traveller often notices on the slopes bordering the roads, and sometimes even in the hollows of hidden valleys, shrines dedicated to Our Lady of Deliverance. Young, wives in the hope of having children used to make pilgrimages to these shrines. To-day young wives thank God for a barrenness which in former days was a reproach. A child is such a rarity that it is watched over and spoilt. Thus the fear of living has its effect even on those destinies which depend, so far as their beginnings are concerned, upon us only. So many fathers and mothers cannot consent to be separated from their children, and turn them aside from careers that are wider but more adventurous, from marriages which would take them far away but which would be morally advantageous to them; they weaken them, enervate or wear out their courage instead of arousing it, and in their sentimental selfishness impose on them a servitude which lowers their characters.

Of this fear of living, however, examples are to be found in our public life, in our social life, in the art which expresses the feeling of our times, in our institutions, even in matters of our health.

In public life, why is abstention from the franchise attributed to the moderate party, to those whom one calls or who call themselves “respectable” people?—as if there were such a thing as negative respectability! Quite recently men boasted in certain circles that they never voted; and, if they do not boast of this any more, they make their voting subordinate to hunting and entertainments, and it is fashionable to affect the greatest contempt for politics. In the life of a modern nation, rightly or wrongly, everything reduces itself to politics or is influenced by politics. This is a fact against which it is useless to protest. “The really useful work,” said Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States, “is not accomplished by the critic who keeps out of the battle but by the man of action who bravely takes part in the struggle, without fear at the sight of blood or sweat.” We have so many of these critics who keep out of the battle and read the papers every morning in order to be able to discuss the affairs of the nation in a superior tone, who vainly regret the past, sigh over the future, and discourage those who undertake to show them the way.

The mere fact of living in society, of enjoying social rank, creates social duties. No one has the right to arrange his life separately, for no one person can dispense with the rest. To pay one’s taxes, grumbling all the time, is not enough. The wealth which represents accumulated work in the past does not exempt one from work. Since it furnishes the means of better and greater production, it should result, not in a class of people who enjoy it, but in a class of leaders; and a leader is one who understands how to take on himself the greatest share of the work and responsibility. But, to judge from observation, it would seem that wealth is only a factor in selfishness, an occasion for petty and ridiculous pleasures—as though wealth were more difficult to bear than poverty. The latter constantly furnishes examples of solidarity and devotion. In these strikes, too often gotten up by the leaders for their own purpose, do we not see the workmen suffering from hunger and poverty for the sake of one another, or subscribing a tithe of their modest wages to help their comrades in other towns and other trades? Do we not find Victor Hugo’s Pauvres Gens to the very life in those paragraphs which tell, in two or three lines, how at the death of some poor wretch with a family the neighbours have fought for possession of the orphaned children, even before the charitable organisations or private benevolence have had time to intervene?

There is no doubt that poverty is very painful to look upon. It disturbs our peace, our comfort, our natural forgetfulness of all that does not minister to our pleasures. People even consent to be generous—through the medium of someone else—to escape the inconvenience of sorrowful spectacles. We have our nerves, our refinement, our horror of the importunate, and we adroitly evade the demands of charity, although we can never deny the power of its appeal. “I do not want to see either illness or death,” says Hedda Gabler, Ibsen’s most morbid heroine, to her husband. “Spare me the sight of everything that is ugly.” And this æsthetic person, at the moment when she kills herself in disgust after having lived for herself alone, sees that ridicule and low ideals have infected like a curse everything she touched.

In the realm of art, the fear of living is mingled with the fear of feeling. It moves those dilettantes who wish neither to make a choice nor to give themselves up, who only yield themselves temporarily to all their intellectual or plastic impulses without ever surrendering to enthusiasm, and who consider themselves superior because they float on the top of things; for, deep as the subject be, love alone can penetrate beneath the surface. This fear also actuates those artists who, in the name of pure art, reject from their work all humanity and poetry; who substitute for those familiar conflicts of the soul, which are the life-food of ancient tragedy, the pretty but unsubstantial painting of pleasure, and are content to elaborate their style like the sides of a costly but empty vase—without the slightest suspicion that in art, as in everything else, there is a definite order of merit, and that they are seated on the lowest step.

It is everywhere, this fear of living; it provides inspiration for the effeminate novelists and the incapable dramatists, who can create none but inconsistent characters, incapable of analysis. In the trivial adventures of their puppets they show us that everything is a matter of arrangement and nothing is worth being taken seriously, instead of inviting us to take our lives in our own hands. The great human cries, in art, are cries of strength and courage, and are often forced into utterance by unhappiness; suggesting that perhaps the happy spirit lacks the depth that is to be found in the abysses of life.

Lastly, timidity, reserve, and a prudence that is sometimes legitimate but often excessive, find their expression even in our public institutions, which multiply our guardians, put us all into leading strings, and relegate to the State the duty of looking after and helping us on all occasions. They have even undertaken to replace the old-fashioned Providence—and by what? By insurance companies! We insure ourselves against accidents, against risks, against death—indeed a far-sighted wisdom! Why should we not be insured also against fear?

Fear stamps the faces of the young men of the new generation, who appear to be anxious only about their health, and who, unable to digest except by the help of mineral waters and camomile, open their mouths only to criticise and to disparage; who praise nothing, like nothing, want nothing, as if they had fishes’ blood in their veins. Why all this trouble to preserve and keep themselves, for all the good that they get out of or contribute to life?

Could youth set less value than it does upon life? The recent suicide of a schoolboy at Lyons added a fresh paragraph—the most terrible of all—to the indictment of the Déracinés, the Uprooted ones, against an education which ignores the facts of family, race, locality, and country. Before going to his death the poor lad wrote on the blackboard, “I am young, I am pure, and I am going to die.” The teaching of his professor of philosophy had disgusted him with life.

What had they taught him? The beauty of pure reason, of science, of humanitarianism. Instead of being told to take his proper place in the order of things, he was called upon to destroy all in order to rebuild all again, to make a clean slate of the past, of tradition, of the destiny which had caused him to be born in a particular country at a particular date, in order to create a new personality for himself, a new universe, a new God. Besides preparing for his material future they expected of him, as of all Frenchmen, that he should create for himself a metaphysics, a politics, and a morality. He succumbed to all these burdens. Life did not appear to him in a shape with exact outlines, with beautiful lights and dark shadows, with the concomitants of effort, joy, and sorrow, with a splendour of created things, with privileges of working, of feeling behind one a past that one may carry forward, and of being able to count even on the future. It was for him a dense fog, which his reason vainly tried to pierce, in which he heard the call neither of God, of race, nor of country. He did not see his own importance, which was not merely individual but collective, he did not understand that everyone’s duty is to recognise one’s own place, that everyone’s strength and profit are to be sought in the realities of existence on which he depends and which in their turn depend on him. And so he learned a new fear of living.

These modern young men have sisters. I will not venture to describe them. A Persian proverb warns us “not to strike a woman, even with a flower.” But the poets, who have every license, even against love, have taken on themselves the task of painting the portrait. Who does not recall the “Lines to a Dead Woman”?

“Yes, good she was—if ’twere enough
That as she passed her hand would give,
Without God seeing, saying aught,
If gold without kind words be alms.

“She thought—if a melodious voice,
A soft and sweet, but empty sound,
Like to the murmur of a stream,
Be token of the thought behind.

“She prayed—if beauty of two eyes,
Which sometimes on the earth were fixed,
Sometimes uplifted to the sky,
Be worthy of the name of prayer.

“She died, and yet she never lived;

She only made pretence at life.

The book fell idly from her hands,

In which not one word had she read.”

“She only made a pretence at life.” How many die to-day who have never lived at all!

Even our health has suffered from the reaction of our moral weakness. Nervous illnesses, which for several years have been making such alarming progress, are nothing else than the result of disabled wills, of weakened personalities. Doctor Grasset, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, who has gained universal renown by his special study of these diseases, clearly states the necessity of recourse to a moral treatment which consists in building up the personality and strengthening the will. “We must,” he says, “give a patient the desire and the ambition to cure himself, and with that purpose we must show him the object that life still holds for him, the mission that he still has to fulfil in this world.”

“A nervous subject, who does not understand life, who will not admit that life is worth the trouble of living, who goes to sleep at night without wishing to think of the next day, with no satisfaction beyond that of having one day less to live ... this nervous subject will never be cured.

“The doctor must awaken and develop in his patient the ideas of duty, of sacrifice, of sociability. All these great thoughts must replace the morbid ones.

“The patient must be prevented from limiting himself to the fruitless brooding over a past which cannot be altered. Whatever are the injustices, apparent or real, of different lots, every man has before him a part to play, be it small or be it distinguished, in the interests of his fellow men and of humanity in general.

“We must, in other words, take the patient out of himself and turn him more and more towards altruism, by showing him that the cure lies there, and only there.

“A healthy man is an altruistic animal. Egotism and self-centredness are allied to disease; they are the causes and symptoms of disease. As long as one remains an egoist, one is not and cannot be cured.”

In order to appreciate the importance of such words, let us remember that they do not emanate from a theorist, but from an observer of innumerable facts. Such, then, is the physical danger of the fear of living, such is the psychic treatment of it.

II

There is yet another form of the fear of living. Here, it is true, there is no shrinking from effort, from trouble, or from battle. Next to passive selfishness it is necessary to drag into the light, as Apollo dragged Marsyas, that active egotism which is capable of displaying the utmost vigor, but only to satisfy an individual aim, that of one’s own pleasure. This puts to a wrong use our best weapon, which is energy. It claims to subordinate life to its will, to accept it only for what it is actually worth, and therefore it fears life.

Doubtless this curious form of cowardice has more to recommend it than the other, and attracts by a pretence of merit as the Sirens attracted by a pretence of love. Its motto might be the celebrated definition of Mérimée: “Life is a green table, which amuses us only when the stakes are high.” Its defiance of life sometimes becomes a defiance of death, and we cannot quite restrain ourselves from admiration when we see Don Juan—the most brilliant incarnation of this bold selfishness—the breaker of all oaths, the miserable corruptor of all the virtues, alone in the banqueting hall (where, though lights and flowers still suggest triumphant joy, the terrified guests have all fled), to see him rise and go forth, torch in hand and sarcasm on his lips, to meet the statue of the Commander, whose embrace is to crush him.

This energy which demands violent pleasure is the energy of the bandit. It is quite possible to find praise for it. I find it, to the life, in one of those strange, suffocating novels wherein Madame Grazia Deledda truthfully depicts the manners of Sardinia. An old widow in the mountains, to dazzle the young Oli, sings the praises of her dead husband, the best and most devoted of men. “What did he do?” asks Oli. “Ah, he was a brigand.” And when the young girl is surprised at this answer, the widow tells that her husband became a brigand to show his bravery and to occupy the time which is so badly spent when one is idle. Was it not better than frequenting the inn? And in a lyrical strain she celebrates this life of enterprise. “They were,” she says, “brave and skilful, ready for everything, especially for death. You think, perhaps, that all these robbers are bad men? You are wrong, dear sister. They are the men who want to prove their bravery—nothing else. My husband used to say, ‘Once men went to the wars, but to-day there are no more wars and men still feel the need of fighting.’ That is why they go in for brigandage, plunder, and violent deeds, not to do harm, but to show their strength and courage in some way.”[1]

This is the case in business, in politics, in society, to some extent everywhere, with men, and even women, who in one way or another display their strength and courage. They are not necessarily bandits, but they all desire to get only joys, or at least violent sensations, out of life, and aim at throwing it away afterwards like a squeezed orange. These are the mad individualists who will not observe any measure in enjoyment, and see in the world only a personal inheritance to be wasted by them. I know them well, through having often myself looked in their direction with the fever of desire. Never has the possibility of a future life been so insolently rejected, and never have we, as some of us now do, exposed ourselves with such foolhardiness to all dangers of destruction, as though it were necessary to make a blaze of this, our only life, in order to discover in it some divine fire. We plunge it in the whirl-wind of death to increase its intensity for a few precarious moments.

Romanticism, by proclaiming the right to passion, the right to happiness, the right to freedom, encouraged the development of individual force. A new romanticism extols it to-day, and it is chiefly women who preach the gospel. Their invasion of contemporary literature is only one symptom of a more general feminism. Less apt than man to grasp the complexity of social and moral life, the new woman exhausts all her demands in one cry and with a single leap lands at the road’s end to which she is led by confidence in her own powers and by her narrow view of the universe which centres wholly in self. At last individualism has found its philosopher in a poet, Nietzsche,—much misunderstood, by the way,—who grants to the Superman all rights. And why should one not believe in a Superman, especially if one is a modern woman?

But is it not rather curious to call that doctrine the fear of living which glorifies life and doubles its intensity?

I am reminded of a little story which used to be told to me when I was a child. It is the story of a ball of string that a fairy—good or bad—gave to a little boy with these mysterious words:

“This ball represents the length of your life. Each moment will shorten it. I have not the power to increase the time nor even to suspend it, but I have the power of shortening it, and that I give to you. Whenever in your life you come upon hours that are useless, sorrowful, or unpleasant, and wish to shorten them, pull the string and the hours will pass. Farewell and be wise.”

The little boy paid no heed to this prudent advice. He took the ball laughingly, and as he was merry he thought he would let the string shorten itself. Then he began to have wishes. At school he wished for holidays. He was ambitious; he desired to realise his ambitions. And to obtain the objects which he coveted, he pulled and pulled at the string. When he had finished the term of his life he perceived with consternation that he had scarcely lived a few days. Just so our desires would consume our days, if our days depended on our desires.

Thus our individualists whose energy seems to i be of a worthy sort have, on the contrary, a fear of living. They are afraid to live, since they do not wish to live their lives entirely and since, perverted by the abuse of violent sensations, they no longer understand, they fear ordinary life, which seems wearisome and dull to them.

Now this ordinary life plays an important part in the succession of our days. It is almost all the ball of string. To limit life to youth is not to understand it, is indeed to despise it. For it is all worth living, if only we know how to fill it.

Beyond the appetite for those passions which, through their very violence, their risks, their mischances, have a certain grandeur, I see among the symptoms of disease the search for, the need of, distraction. One meets to-day, especially in Paris among the wealthier classes—for poverty suppresses this ardor—men and women who seem to flee from themselves, so agitated are they. They confuse the meaning of agitation and action. It is a terrible confusion, which arose in society principally since the Eighteenth Century. That century began to disturb the springs of our inward life. The Duchess of Maine, as early as that, said that she had contracted “the love of a crowd.” We pass our time outside our homes, or we come back with a crowd, so as to avoid solitude for a single instant. We make out a programme every morning, so harassing that we should refuse to go through it if we were forced to do so. We must amuse ourselves, distract ourselves, forget ourselves. To withdraw within ourselves is to be bored when we have neither love nor faith nor definite aim. And we think we are living a great deal; which is the reason why so many Parisians, men and women, to whom a variety of spectacles and a feast of art are supposed to bring great intellectual development, have seen so much and have retained so little. Life for them is like a cinematograph picture which dazzles the eye and goes back into darkness. They have never worked for their impressions, and these are the only impressions which count.

Now that is not living, to be always “out”—like Madame Benoîton—“out” even to oneself, especially to oneself; any more than it is travelling, when one rushes over the high roads at full speed in a motor without once stopping. Life is not perpetual distraction, and here we have another form of the fear of living.

III

The first form confused cowardly passivity, reserve, and parsimony with courageous resignation, while this militant egotism confuses strength with its display. The only true energy is that which is ordered and disciplined.

We are born in a state of dependence. We depend on all kinds of particular conditions; conditions of country, race, family, environment, education, health, brains, fortune; for there are no men that are free, and herein lies our great equality. Besides, in the course of our life, we shall depend on circumstances which we shall be able neither to foresee nor to avoid. We must resolutely accept this dependence.

It is the chief of all heroisms. Not the heroism with the plumes and the flourish of trumpets, which individualism is willing to extol so as to raise the song of life to the major key; but an obscure heroism—the most difficult, for publicity is a great comfort—which must be sustained and manifested in the smallest things. That haughty individual, capable of heroic acts, shows himself, on coming down from his pedestal, perfectly unbearable and cowardly in the life which (let us not forget) is our daily life; while of another, apparently insignificant, we learn one day, often too late, that he has always been doing wonders. No life is devoid of opportunities to display merit; the thing is to seize these opportunities.

But if we are, in one part of our life, dependent, another part of our life, on the contrary, depends on us. There, our will and our energy can and must come into play. It is their task to increase in wealth, importance, and value the inheritance of our life, as cultivation increases the natural fruitfulness of the land.

Every life demands effort, no one is exempt from sorrow, very few are unacquainted with failure. Effort, sorrow, failure, are so many obstacles which bring out the extent of our merit. “In this life”—to quote President Roosevelt again—“we arrive at nothing without an effort. A healthy State can exist only if the men and women who compose it lead healthy, strong, clean lives; if the children be brought up in the right way, if they try to overcome difficulties, not to avoid them, if they do not seek comfort but know how to snatch triumph from pain and risk. Man must be happy to do man’s work, to dare and be adventurous and work to keep himself and those who depend on him. The wife must be the housekeeper, a companion to the founder of the home, a wise mother, who is not afraid of having many healthy children. In one of his powerful and melancholy books Daudet speaks of the ‘fear of maternity—the terror which haunts the young wife of the present day.’ When such words can be truly said about a nation, that nation is rotten to the core. When men fear work, or rightful war, when women fear maternity, they are trembling on the brink of damnation, and it would be a good thing if they vanished from the earth, where they are the just objects of scorn to all men and women who themselves are brave and high-souled.”[2]

This is the condemnation of idle wealth and inertia. And if the head of the young American nation thinks it necessary to utter such words to stir up the wills of so vigorous a people, how much the more bitter must their application be to our weary France? Over there they scarcely strike at any but the frantic egoists, whose energies it is more easy to direct into the right channels than it is to galvanise into action our fear and cowardice.

President Roosevelt has always made the distinction between material treasures and those moral treasures which give nations and individuals their vitality. In a letter to our Mistral, who had sent him a copy of “Mireille,” he explained this again with his usual clearness. “Industries and railways,” he wrote, “have their use up to a certain point, but courage and power of endurance, the love of our wives and children, the love of home and country, the love of the betrothed for one another, the love and imitation of heroism and sublime endeavors, the simple every-day virtues and the heroic ones,—these are the greatest virtues and if they are lacking, no accumulated wealth, no amount of ‘industrialism,’ however noisy and impressive, no feverish activity, under whatever form it may be shown, will be profitable either to the individual or to the nation. I am not despising the value of these things of the ‘body of the nation’; I merely desire that they should not make us forget that as well as a body there is also a soul.”

IV

If endeavor should stimulate us, pain ought not to crush us. But do we not resist it less well nowadays? Physical pain, more especially, has become unbearable to us. We need sedatives for the smallest ailments, and we are sure that our candor will be applauded if we declare that violent toothache is more painful than any moral pain.

Moral pain is the indispensable complement of human life. Before suffering comes, life does not appear in its true colors, and the weak are not always distinguishable from the strong.

“The woods, cut down, more fair and green shall grow,” said old Ronsard. After all, life has its revenges. Even if it had not, we still ought not to be discouraged. Many faces turn away from failure and resent defeat, even in the case of others. That again is fear. One day a professor of literature, not devoid of irony, having finished a course of lectures on the “Iliad” to a class of young girls, asked his pupils which hero they preferred, Achilles or Hector. Achilles had an overwhelming majority. He was the conqueror. But Homer, more clear-sighted in his psychology, gave the conquered hero the nobler and more generous character, for he knew the share that the gods have in the success or failure of mankind. Our finest French epic, the “Chanson de Roland,” exalts courage under defeat.

Energy fits us to bear failure, pain, and effort. This fine quality needs discipline. Its character depends on the use that is made of it. To cultivate it for itself would be to imitate those people who make sport the aim of their existence. Sport maintains or increases our strength and our health, of which we have need in order to realise our life; but to take them for the actual realisation of life would only be grotesque. Nature develops itself blindly and lavishly. Everything pertaining to the human sphere is subject to order. And, just as no work of art can be produced without submission to the laws of harmony, so there is no fine life without the acceptance of an order conditioned by our dependence and our limitations. But to regulate our energy is not to diminish it. On the contrary, it is to possess and manage it as a horseman his well-trained horse. “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence,” says the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, “and the violent take it by force.” Life itself suffers violence. The lukewarm and moderate natures have never created anything; the creative are the passionate ones who have tamed their passions.

In order to live all our life, it is important to accept it in the past, the present, and the future as well. In the past, this means to recognise a tradition. Neither nations nor individuals appear suddenly in the light of day. We must therefore recognise the ties which bind us to the country where we were born, to the race from which we have sprung. Thus we shall extend ourselves backwards and take to ourselves whatever there is, in the past, that still has life.

But to get inspiration from the past does not mean to identify oneself with it. “The life which tries to expand itself,” says Monseigneur Spalding, “eliminates dead things from it, and if you are a vivifying force, do not adopt the profession of grave-digger.” Nothing begins over again and everything evolves. Everything evolves slowly and under the impulse of what has gone before. Every age has its own new needs, which must be understood. Ours makes great demands. More complex and more troublous, it requires clearer sight, plainer sense of responsibility, and more enlightened intelligence. The segregation of poverty helps to conceal its miseries; industrial and mechanical developments make work less personal, and specialisation destroys part of the joy in work. New conditions of life have sprung up, which need a new spirit of enterprise.

The future, revealed in the faces of our children, reminds us that our goal lies beyond us, and that even in the nightfall of our life we must prepare a shelter for our descendants. We do not build with the same materials if the house is to last but a few years as we do if it is to last for centuries.

V

We must not think that, in developing in ourselves the love of life—of the whole of life—we create a greater fear of death. Our life is not in proportion to its length. Very short lives often give out more perfume than long barren existences. The important thing is not to grow old, but to fill up all one’s days until the last, knowing well that the last will come and give to our life its finished form. For the acceptance of the whole of life includes the acceptance of death.

Figaro opened recently a rather curious discussion among the doctors, which must interest all of us, since it is true that we all must die. It inquired of a certain number of “princes of science,” members of the Academy of Medicine, professors of faculties, eminent surgeons and practitioners, all men with degrees and honors, concerning the following case. A doctor is attending a patient, and finds that the illness is incurable, that the end is only a question of months, of days, or of hours. Must he say so? Must he tell the patient himself, or only the family, and in the latter case, which member of it?

The answers were almost all the same. They might have borrowed the epigram from Pascal: “Men, not being able to cure death, poverty, or ignorance, imagine they can make themselves happy, by not thinking about them; that is the only consolation they have been able to discover for so many ills.” Our doctors, unable to do away with death, think they can do away with the thought of it. They chloroform us morally, in preparation for the operation of the Fates.

There are some very timorous writers who will not even allow the subject to be discussed. They think it irritates their readers and so push it aside with all their strength. Or else they take shelter behind their conscience, which is presumably the only judge of their actions. But the greater part of them have an opinion. They invoke humanity as if it were some new god, who requires lies and demands cowardice. “Nothing must be told the patient which is not cheering,” one of them informs us. “It is charitable to leave a light of hope till the very end,” says a second. A third expounds this maxim: “It is no one’s duty or right to tell a patient that he is lost.” And M. Vaulair, a professor of the University of Liège, declares that when the science of medicine is powerless, its most pressing duty is to give the unhappy one who believes in it the help of a lie. All except one are agreed in maintaining that the patient, the principal person interested, has no right to hear the truth.

Must this truth be told to the family circle? Yes, up to a certain point. One must try to avoid giving pain to a wife, to children, to a father or a mother, who might be overwhelmed by the blow. Tact, prudence, reserve, moderation, hints, counsels, allusions, such are the varied stock-in-trade of the doctor in a case of this kind. He chooses a distant relative, strong and courageous, to whom he gently breaks the news, so as to make sure that he will not succumb to the shock. This relative can do what he likes about the matter. There is nothing more to be said; the family has been warned. A brave man knows the secret, it will be well kept. The doctor is the sole judge in the choice of this confidant. The important thing is that it must not be a near relative, who might be frightened. These doctors are tactful people. We believed them armed against grief, impassive, indifferent, brutal. How mistaken we were about them! What apologies we owe them! They are as gentle as little girls, as compassionate as sisters of mercy. They could not inflict pain without suffering themselves. And when the patient is dying they look for the most distant relative, the hardest and toughest, to confide to him stealthily that a mortal man is about to die.

Thus life will come to a painless end. Is not everything preferable to the terror inspired by death? Everything? Not quite. Certain doctors think that we may well allow a poor old man to die who is of no use to anyone, without telling him; but when they think of the head of a great business or of one of those capitalists who manage some huge concern, they are quite out of countenance. You see, the case becomes serious. What is to happen to all this vast business? What is to be the future of all this capital? Must we not “assure the interests of the heirs”? Yes, the importance of such material things justifies torturing the dying man. In his last moment he must pay for the importance he has enjoyed on earth. They will make him understand that he alone has no right to die quietly and is doomed to be worried till he has made his will, divided his goods, settled the fate of his business. Afterwards they may give him some hope, on condition that he does not use it to destroy what he has just done.

But who is really deceived? What is this comedy that they pretend to play round deathbeds? Do we not know, that some day we must die? Does not this certainty of death impart to life a peculiar significance? Can this be destroyed by not thinking about it? “Really,” M. Brunetière wrote recently, dealing with the subject of the “Falsehood of Universal Peace,” “life is not the greatest good if the foundation of all morality is that many things must be preferred to life; and really death is not the greatest evil, if we are men, so to speak, only in so fair as we rise above the fear of death.”

Our early youth, for which death scarcely exists, knows nothing of the value of days. It thinks our strength inexhaustible and squanders it idly. When we begin to see, around us and in us, the charm and the sadness of transient things, we feel life in all its fulness because we are amazed at the incessant flight of time. Our days are numbered. But the divisions of time are purely conventional. How many days do we lose when again the fervor of life concentrates itself in a few minutes of consciousness? The last minutes that we are destined to live may be the most intense. They may become an important part of our existence if we know that they are the last. They have this tremendous power of summing up in themselves all our past days, of completing the design of our life, of defining its outlines, and sometimes of revealing them for the first time. They bring us the supreme opportunity to correct our faults, to perform the most imperative duties which we have forgotten, to mark the current of our thoughts which has been running to waste in our ordinary pursuits. What right has anyone to steal these minutes from us? It is indeed to steal them, if they are left to us, stripped of their real importance. The man who is about to die should act like a man who is about to die, not as a man who has plenty of time left. You think, you doctors, to soothe him by hiding his danger from him; you take away from him a part of his life whose importance could never be measured in duration. He will waste his remaining strength, if he has kept his mind intact, in guessing at the truth, in scrutinising the blank faces around him, in questioning the throbs of his pulse, the beating of his heart. He will be a prey to all the terrors of doubt, when he has the right to finish his life by preparing for death. By what right do you still decree that the question of his bequest alone shall occupy him? What do you know of his thoughts, of his soul, of the future life, of God? Who has solved these questions? And if you have solved them for yourselves, where do you find the authority to solve them for others? Do not take useless responsibilities on yourselves. Everyone has his own, and that is sufficient. It is not for you to set yourselves up as judges, to ask if the dying man has any affairs to settle—he may have some of which you know nothing—you have no right to choose your confidant, and to be inhuman and cruel. For it is not human to injure life by deforming it, and it does deform it to banish from it all thought of death, which gives it all its significance. A beautiful death is the indispensable complement of a beautiful life, and the ransom of a wicked one. Yes, we must raise ourselves above the fear of death, and for that we must begin to see life as it is, so that we may live bravely, fully, nobly. The fear of death is one with the fear of living, which makes us shrink from the great efforts, the boldness, and the sacrifices that life demands from us. Only one of all these doctors understood this, and that was Sir John Fayrer, a member of the Royal Society of London, and head of the Sanitary Department in India, who dared to say, in the midst of a flock of his colleagues bleating with fear: “An experience of more than sixty years makes me declare very clearly to you: I do not agree that death should surprise a patient; he should be prepared for it.”

VI

Life is, after all, such a precious thing that one must neither reject it entirely like those lazy egoists, who soften and contract it to such a degree that it loses all its value; nor partly reject it like those vigorous egoists, who claim to subordinate it to their choice.

The very act of opening one’s eyes to the light of day involves a debt of gratitude to those who have permitted us to see it. Formerly in the French family there was no doubt as to the goodness of life. The old French family wrote its own story in its “commonplace books.” These commonplace books were humble volumes of accounts, but it soon became the custom to jot down, besides the record of expenditure, the most important facts of private life, such as marriages, deaths, births. Then there were added a few reflections, which sufficed to express a whole range of feeling, a complete conception of life. We have a great number of these books. They recall the time of our fathers and speak to us with the majesty of a last will and testament. It is the gospel of the wise. And it preaches faith in life to those who are inspired by their fathers and are content to be worthy successors to them.

Though one should run through them all, one would not find a single denial of the goodness of life. These workmen, farmers, merchants, always welcome a new-born child with an expression of joy, even if he comes after many others. The forms of baptism are all acts of faith like the one that I came across in the book of Pagès, a merchant of Amiens, who is celebrating the birth of a ninth child: “The divine goodness, continuing to shed its blessings on our marriage, has favored us with the birth of a son.” In the same way, the domestic diary of Joseph de Sudre, of Avignon, is the story—I should say, the epic—of his efforts, his privations, his savings, in order to be able to bring up his numerous offspring. In spite of adverse circumstances and bad harvests, he neglects nothing that contributes to that end. The old French language used only one word to describe the maternal feeding and moral education of the child. It was the verb nourrir, to “bring up,” which we have degraded. Our Joseph de Sudre loses his son, a captain in the King’s service, a man of great promise. After his short and pathetic funeral speech he adds; “I have suffered poverty for him with joy.”

Faith in the goodness of life, acceptance of all its burdens, confidence in the future, were formerly the code of the French family. Since Jean Jacques Rousseau we have replaced belief in the goodness of life by faith in the innate goodness of man. It does not produce the same results.

If now we ask those geniuses who represent the highest achievements of humanity what we ought to think about life, how would they answer us? The great minds in art, literature, and history, are only great when they animate us, when they quicken the movement of our blood and stir our resolution. They realise for us the changing beauty of the world and the transient charm of our days. No artist is great without unlimited love of life. I will quote only one example, the most touching; that of Beethoven. Financial worries, family troubles, a most cruel malady—that deafness which shut him up within himself—moral loneliness, unrealised love, such was the record of his life. A weak soul would have given way to despair. From the depth of all his distress he undertook to celebrate joy, and he did so in his Ninth Symphony.

It is told of him that once, visiting a lady who had just lost her son and not finding words both strong and gentle enough to express his sympathy, he sat down at the piano and played. He played a song of sorrow, but a song of hope also. Thus in our suffering the great masters of art come to our help.

In the lives of great men we can learn courage and the taste for life. There is no reading more consoling, and I quite understand the influence exercised by Plutarch. I wish that biographies of the great men of France, well written, concise and vigorous, were recommended to be read, particularly by our young men. They would incite them to live well. They give us constant occasion to compare our empty days with those well-filled lives, and then we bewail our inaction, our idleness, the pettiness of our lot, which we do not know how to enlarge.

In the life of La Play, that admirable defender of the French family, I lately read this anecdote. He had just recovered from a serious illness, which had brought him to the brink of the grave and the course of which he had traced with his usual clearness. After his recovery, when he was asked what thoughts the feeling of his approaching end had provoked in him, he replied in these memorable words, which may serve me as a conclusion:

“From the brink of the grave I measured, not the vanity of life, but its importance.”

H. B.

April and September, 1905.

[1] Grazia Deledda, “Cenere.”

[2] Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life.”

THE FEAR OF LIVING

THE FEAR OF LIVING

PART I

CHAPTER I
MARCEL’S HOMECOMING

Madame Guibert was waiting in the drawing-room at “Le Maupas,” ready to go out. In one hand she held her umbrella, though the weather was fine and the barometer high, while with the other hand she raised the long crape veil draped over her widow’s bonnet. She sat down for a moment, attempting to wait patiently and, after several glances at the large old-fashioned clock, surmounted by a threatening bronze figure of Vercingetorix the Gaul, she rose again and crossed the room with slow, lagging steps. She seemed to be deep in a study of the quaint old clock-face. She sat down again; this time not on one of the many well-worn armchairs, whose familiar comfort seemed so inviting, but instead upon a cane-seated chair, from which she could rise more promptly and with less effort.

Madame Guibert was advanced in years, short and stout, and scant of breath. In her face gentleness was combined with strength. The pale blue eyes, infinitely tender in their expression and full of unshed tears, revealed a timid and loving nature, easily frightened by the outside world, while the square chin and the thick-set, compact figure suggested energy and endurance. The cheeks, still fresh in spite of the years, showed the noble blood in her veins and a well-preserved, vigorous constitution.

After hesitating several times she summoned up sufficient courage to open the door and call: “Paule, are you coming? It is time to start.”

“Oh, Mother, we have plenty of time,” came the reply in fresh, clear tones.

“The clock says seven,” insisted Madame Guibert, wearily.

“You know that clock is three quarters of an hour fast.”

“But it may have suddenly gone slow. It is very irregular.”

The girl’s answer was merely a burst of laughter, completely devoid of any hint of sarcasm. Then she added:

“I’m putting on my hat; I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Madame Guibert sat down again, resigned. Her eyes wandered about the little country drawing-room, through whose windows, with their double white curtains freshly washed and ironed, the light of a summer evening broke softly, filtering through the foliage of the tall trees outside. The modest furniture was all in keeping; no touch of luxury marred the effect. Its seasoned age bore cheerful testimony to past generations and vanished tastes. There were two engravings, a hundred years old, representing charming episodes from Paul et Virginie. In “The Bath” the young girl was modestly holding up the robe that threatened to slip from her smooth shoulder, as she gently touched the cold water with a pretty, shivering foot. And in “The Torrent,” opposite, the youthful Paul might be seen carrying his little friend, a light burden, as he carefully crossed the turbulent stream. A more recent lithograph depicted “Napoleon’s Farewell at Fontainebleau,” in which against the dark background of thronging grenadiers the white knee-breeches of the Emperor stood out in relief, as the central point of the historic scene. Lastly, as if to give a more modern touch to the walls, a faded water-color pretended to have caught the azure of an eastern sky and also the motley hues of Abd-el-Kader’s smala, captured by a charge of French cavalry. An upright piano, its top covered with scores, and two music cabinets crammed to overflowing indicated an artist’s enthusiasm for music, whereas a former grand, now bereft of its harmonious soul, did duty as a rosewood table.

Madame Guibert’s eyes no longer took in these familiar objects, but they caught sight of a flower-vase out of its proper place. She was accustomed to orderliness so this lapse annoyed her and she hastened to set it straight. This vase held her customary offering, during the season of roses, before the cherished portraits that were at once her joy and her sorrow. This honor was paid daily at the domestic altar, yet withal she did not reproach herself unduly to-day for her neglect, because of the natural preoccupation which filled her heart and mind. From their sombre frames an enlarged photograph of her husband, Dr. Maurice Guibert, who had died at the beginning of the previous year, a victim to his tireless devotion to his patients during an epidemic of typhoid fever; and also another portrait, that of her daughter Thérèse, called to Himself by God when she was only twelve years of age, seemed to smile upon her on this day of rejoicing in her house of mourning. For was not the second son, Marcel, returning to France, after having taken a prominent part in an expedition against the Fahavalos of Madagascar?

After three years’ absence Marcel was coming back safe and sound, a Captain at twenty-eight years of age, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. The telegram sent off that morning from Marseilles had been read and re-read, and was still lying open on the drawing-room table. It announced his arrival at Chambéry on the seven-thirty train. And that was why Madame Guibert had gotten herself ready two hours too soon. She was going to town to meet the homecomer. Already her thoughts were with that train which was s ding along the iron track from Lyons.

Yet she knew that the meeting would be agitating and that she would need all her courage. When Marcel had learnt of the death of his father, he was far away, on the pestilential banks of a Madagascar river. When death calls those whom we love while we are far away, what infinite cruelty and bitterness are added to the blow!

The young man’s first glance would be at her mourning clothes and the recent indications of her advancing years. There would be a shadow between them. She braced herself for the effort, as she reflected: “When the children came home by train it was always he who watched for their arrival on the platform. I must be there to-day in his stead.”

At this moment Paule entered the room. A brilliant frame of black hair set off the rounded ivory of her face. A black dress accentuated her slimness, but she did not look fragile. Resolution and courage were mingled in her proud bearing and firm glance. The glory of youth illumined her sombreness with a radiance like that thrown on the sea at night by the brilliant lights of a ship. This girl of twenty had known suffering at an age when the sensibilities are keenest. She had steeled herself in order that she might not falter; and the secret of her struggle was revealed in her carriage. But withal her dark eyes shone the more brilliantly on this account and her face wore a new gladness, as a rose-tree its first blossom.

Her mother was surprised to see her without her hat.

“What, not ready yet? That is foolish.”

“But you are not ready either,” replied the girl with a bright smile.

She had in her hand a mourning bonnet edged with a white piping, such as widows wear, as she crossed the room with a quick, light step.

“Don’t get up, Mother, please. I want you to look nice when you meet your son, so I have made this bonnet for you. Don’t you like the shape? The one you have on is all worn out.” And with a grace that completely conquered her mother’s opposition, she continued: “Let me be your maid. Your arm pains you.”

“It is my rheumatism,” murmured Madame Guibert.

When she had changed her bonnet, without even a glance in the glass, she said timidly to her daughter, for she did not wish to displease her:

“And now, darling, don’t you think it is nearly time for us to start?”

“Yes,” said Paule, “I will go and tell Trélaz.”

Trélaz was the farmer who was to drive the carriage for them to Chambéry station.

When Paule had gone Mme. Guibert gazed at a group-photograph of her children. There had been six of them then. Now there were only five. Étienne, the eldest, was an engineer in Tonkin. Marcel an officer in the Tirailleurs. Marguerite was a Sister of Charity. François, after failing to pass his examinations, had joined his brother in the Far East. And Paule was the last jewel in her crown of life. What separations, she thought—some of them eternal—had she endured in the course of sixty years!

Paule returned from the farm with the news that Trélaz was ready. She put on her hat in an instant and could not refrain from protesting against her mother’s impatience. She glanced at the old clock which mocked the dock-makers and despite innumerable repairs preserved its own independence of spirit.

“We shall have to wait nearly an hour at the station,” she said.

“I should not like to be late,” insisted Madame Guibert.

And as she left the house she turned to the old servant, who was putting on her spectacles in order that no details of the start might escape her.

“Marie, mind that there are no tramps about!”

She lifted herself with an effort into the rustic carriage which had drawn up in front of the steps. When she had settled down she smiled sweetly at her daughter, and the fleeting expression brought back to her face for just an instant the softness that had been so attractive in her youth. Paule stepped up lightly beside her.

“Now, Trélaz! You will have to drive rather quickly. But don’t use the whip, and be careful going down hill.”

“We always get there somehow,” replied the farmer philosophically.

The carriage started. It was an old time vehicle, of a long-forgotten make. The seats ran lengthwise, and on them the passengers sat back to back, with their feet in a wooden frame. The oddity of its build was a never failing source of jest as people took their places in it.

The mare no less venerable, her hoof now and again striking the rattling wheel as she descended the avenue of chestnuts and heavy foliaged plane-trees at a walking pace and passed through the ever open gate—necessarily so indeed, on account of its useless rusty hinges. She turned into the Vimines road under the shadow of the oak-woods, and, leaving behind a level-crossing, came out on the high road from Lyons to Chambéry, which runs through the village of Cognin. There, the road being easier, the old brown mare stepped less cautiously as though she no longer cared how she went, and finished by breaking into a swinging trot which seemed much too fast for the timid Madame Guibert.

The sun had already disappeared behind the Beacon, one of the peaks of the Lépine range, but the clear light of the summer evening hung over the countryside for quite a long time after.

“Mother, look at the mountains,” said Paule.

They form a vast circle around Chambéry, and their rocky heights were tinged with a gorgeous pink, while around their base and sides floated, like a delicate veil, that bluish haze which is the forerunner of fine morrows. But Madame Guibert’s anxiety was too keen to allow her to contemplate the reflection of the setting sun on the summits of the hills. Suddenly she revealed the cause of her preoccupation:

“Suppose the train is ahead of time!”

And although she had spoken earnestly, she was the first to smile at her own supposition.

At last her eyes noted a soft transparent shadow climbing the mountains, and leaving the cross of Le Nivolet bathed in radiant light for an instant she called her daughter’s attention to this symbol, a token of shining faith. Then the same serene peace fell on all nature and, for the first time in long months, on the faces of the two sad women.

As they neared Chambéry, a break drawn by two fast-trotting horses, passed Trélaz’s old coach.

“It is the Dulaurens’s carriage,” said Paule. “They are going to Aix. They did not bow to us.”

“I don’t suppose they recognised us.”

“Oh, yes, they did. But since we gave up our fortune to save uncle people do not bow to us as they used to.”

She alluded to a family misfortune which had occurred shortly before her father’s death. Madame Guibert took her daughter’s hand:

“But that is nothing, dear. Just think, in a few minutes we shall see Marcel.”

After a short silence Paule asked:

“Wasn’t it father who attended and cured Alice Dulaurens, during that epidemic of typhoid fever at Cognin which finally carried him off?”

“Yes,” murmured the old woman, depressed at this recollection. And it was she who continued softly and uncomplainingly:

“And they even forgot to settle the bill for attendance. That is often the way with rich people. They don’t know what it means for others to live.”

“The reason is because they understand only how to amuse themselves.”

Madame Guibert saw a wave of bitterness cross her daughter’s face, whose every expression she knew.

“We must not envy them,” she said. “In amusing themselves, they forget life. They do not know what fills our hearts. I shall soon be sixty years old. Count my sacrifices and the dear ones I have lost. I am separated from my daughter Thérèse and from my husband, who was my strength. Your eldest sister, Marguerite, is a nun, and I have not seen her for five years. Étienne and François are in Tonkin, and I do not know my grandson who has just been born out there. Marcel is coming back after three years of absence and terrible anxiety. Still my lot has been fortunate. I bless God, who tried me after having crowned me with blessings. Every day I have experienced His goodness. Even in my misery He gave me a support in you.”

With her little ungloved hand Paule pressed her mother’s, cracked and wrinkled.

“Yes, Mother, you are right, I shall complain no more.”

The two miles which separate “Le Maupas” from Chambéry were at length covered. Trélaz set the ladies down at the station and drove his conveyance over to a corner of the Square, away from the hotel omnibuses, the cabs, and the carriages. But the rows of horses envied his mare her well-filled bag of hay which he put before her.

Paule, looking at the clock, noticed with surprise that it was only ten minutes past seven. Her mother saw her face.

“I told you that we should be late.”

The girl smiled: “Late because we shall have to wait only twenty minutes?”

They reached the waiting-room, but as soon as Madame Guibert had opened the door she drew back. Paule gently urged her forward. The room was full of people in evening dress. They were the aristocracy of Chambéry waiting for the theatre-train to Aix-les-Bains. Among them were the Dulaurens family.

Disconcerted, Madame Guibert turned as if to go out, whispering to Paule, “Let us go to the third class waiting-room. It will be pleasanter there.”

“Why?” asked the girl.

At that moment a good-looking young man detached himself from a group of women and came towards them. They recognised Lieutenant Jean Berlier, a friend of Marcel. He bowed to them with a courtesy which expressed his deep sympathy.

“You have come to meet the Captain, haven’t you, Madame? I know you don’t like travelling.”

“Oh, no, I don’t.”

“How pleased he will be to see you; he will soon be here!”

“In the past,” said the old lady to the young man, whom she had known as a boy, “his father used to meet him. You will understand.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jean Berlier, and in order not to dwell on so painful a subject in a public place he added:

“I shall be able to shake Marcel by the hand before I start.”

“You will come and see him at our house, won’t you? Are you going away?”

“For one night. We are going to Aix. It is the first night of ‘La Vie de Bohème.’ But theatres don’t interest you.”

Sincere as ever, Madame Guibert replied: “I never went to one in my life. To tell you frankly, I do not regret it.”

Although she spoke in low tones, there were two girls in light dresses who could hear her, and one of them, a bold-looking brunette, burst out laughing. But perhaps their fun was at the expense of a lieutenant of dragoons, who was speaking to them. Paule looked at her contemptuously from head to foot, her dark eyes flashing like a swift lightning streak.

“Why are you standing?” Jean went on. The old lady chose a seat beside a vacant armchair in a dark corner, as the humble and timid are wont to do.

“No, take the armchair, Mother,” said Paule rather brusquely. She had just exchanged bows—stiff on her part, cordial on the other’s—with the other of the two young girls, who instead of laughing had blushed.

After a few more words the young man left and rejoined his party. Paule looked after him and heard him say to Madame Dulaurens:

“Yes, that is Madame Guibert. She is waiting for her son, who is returning from Madagascar.”

“Which son? She has so many.”

“Why, the officer—Marcel.”

“What is his rank?”

“Captain. He has been decorated and is famous,” said Jean Berlier hurriedly. He was rather annoyed at being thus questioned, for the dark eyed girl was calling him.

But Madame Dulaurens would not release him.

“Famous?” she demanded. “What did he do?”

“Didn’t you hear about the fight at Andriba, when his company’s action decided the day?”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. The name of Marcel Guibert is known throughout the whole of France.”

This, of course, was a great exaggeration. Modern France does not make a display of her military glory. But Madame Dulaurens was impressed and immediately went over to Madame Guibert. The widow was becoming interesting, in spite of her ruined fortunes, if her son had so great a reputation.

“The Captain comes home to-night, Madame,” she began. “The thoughts of us all followed him out there during that terrible campaign, in which he did so much honor to his country. The papers told us the story of his bravery at the battle of Andriba.”

Behind his wife, Monsieur Dulaurens, a mild, ceremonious little man, was nodding his head in sign of approval, while Clément, a fat and jovial youth of eighteen, who had listened to his mother’s words with amazement, pulled at the sleeve of Jean Berlier and whispered:

“Mother has no lack of assurance, has she? She reads nothing but the society paragraphs in the ‘Gaulois’ How could she have remembered a Malagasy name? I know them all—even the most difficult ones. I got them up for a joke once, because of course I know nothing about the expedition. I’ll tell you a few. Ankerramadinika ...”

In the midst of the throng Madame Guibert felt painfully uncomfortable. Just as her poor mourning robes (though carefully mended by her daughter’s hand) contrasted with the fashionable evening gowns, so too she felt that not a thought in common united her to these society people. The whole party had come up and was complimenting her. After Madame Dulaurens’s congratulations, she received those of Madame Orlandi, an old Italian Countess who lived in retirement at Chambéry, and whose many nervous complaints had provided sufficient employment for her doctor. De Marthenay, the lieutenant of dragoons, fixed her with his eyeglass in curiosity that was almost insolent. She answered the questions addressed to her very simply and timidly, her cheeks suffused with blushes; and Paule, noticing her plight, came to her assistance. She was more at ease, but could not prevent a certain stiffness showing itself in her manner, in spite of the friendly demonstrations of the two girls—the brunette, Isabelle Orlandi, whose remarks were as affected as her attitudes, and still more the other, Alice Dulaurens, who was fair and naturally gracious. The latter overwhelmed Paule with attentions and kindness. She had a pretty voice, lisping and softening the hard sounds, and blending all her words in an even sweetness.

“So your brother is coming! Aren’t you happy? It is years since I saw him. Do you remember the time we used to play games together at Le Maupas or at La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Paule. “But we do not play any more now. The garden at Le Maupas is neglected, and that of La Chênaie is too well cared for.”

“Why don’t you come over any more? You must come.”

Paule wondered why this former schoolfellow of hers at the Sacred Heart, from whom life had separated her so far, should show her so much friendship. She looked at her own black dress, so plain, and simple, and admired without a touch of envy the light blue bodice, trimmed with white lace and cut rather low, from which Alice’s white neck, delicate and supple, rose like a frail flower. From the clothes her eyes passed to the wearer’s face. The features were refined and clear-cut, and the faultless complexion was suffused with a dainty pink. She could not help saying:

“How beautiful you are, Alice!”

Immediately the fresh cheeks mantled, and while Mademoiselle Dulaurens stood aside to allow a traveller to pass, Paule saw how the very indolence and half-weariness of her movements bestowed a certain languishing grace on this charming and delicate girl, in whose presence she realised the more her own youthful strength.

“Oh, no, it is you, Paule, ...” protested Alice Dulaurens.

But the noise of the Lyons express suddenly broke in upon the conversation. The whole party rushed out of the waiting-room. The Dulaurens family and their friends began to look for first class carriages in the section of the train intended for the theatre-goers. From the other portion the passengers were already hastening towards the exit.

The first of these was a tall, thin young man, very erect, who held his head thrown back with a haughty air. In his hand he was carrying a sword wrapped in green serge. As soon as he saw Madame Guibert he ran towards her and was soon folded in her arms.

“My son!” she cried, and, in spite of her resolution to be brave, she burst into sobs.

But Marcel straightened himself up after the embrace and gazed with tender emotion at this old figure on whom trials had left their traces. A change came over the bronzed, almost hard, features of the young man. There was no need for them to utter the name that trembled on their lips, and the same pious memory stirred both their hearts. The joy of the meeting gave a poignant new life to the old sorrow.

Paule contemplated with a softened expression her tall, handsome brother and her old mother. By the step of their compartment Alice Dulaurens and Isabelle Orlandi turned, and they too watched the greetings. The eyes of the first rested sympathetically on Marcel, while the eyes of the second looked ironically at Madame Guibert’s stout and agitated form.

Jean Berlier, standing slightly aside, was waiting respectfully. He now came up to Paule.

“How happy they are!” he said. And then he added, with a tinge of melancholy, “When I return from Algeria no one is ever waiting for me.”

As Marcel kissed his young sister, Jean came forward, crying:

“Have you a greeting for me too?”

“What, Jean!” said Marcel, and the two men embraced warmly. Jean was moved but in an instant he was again smiling gaily.

“I shall see you soon,” he said. “I must run now. My train is going.”

“Where are you off to?” asked Marcel.

Jean, on his way to his carriage, half turned and shouted merrily:

“We’re going to show ourselves off at Aix.”

And his fingers seemed to point at random to the various groups clambering into the theatre-train.

Marcel Guibert glanced quickly at the rout of gaily dressed figures. But Paule, looking round, saw Alice leaning out of the window of her carriage to bid her good-bye. She waved her hand to her quickly and undemonstratively, as though she had some misgiving or some superstitious feeling of fear about this seductive vision. Paule was very highly sensitized and her premature misfortunes had made her oversensitive. “Why all these advances?” she asked herself. As her dark eyes rested on her soldier brother, who was leading his mother away on his arm, she added to herself: “Too much good fortune and not enough courage.”

Seeing Trélaz’s vehicle, Marcel cried:

“What, our old carriage!”

“It is the only one we have kept,” explained Madame Guibert, apologetically.

This reply Marcel had not expected when he made the remark. The ancient conveyance had recalled his childhood to him, and now it seemed to him that it also signified the decay of the family. His face darkened. He understood all of a sudden the material difficulties which must have increased the suffering at Le Maupas. Having no personal needs, and accustomed as he was to live on very little, he felt now for his mother and sister and divined the bitterness of their straits. But Madame Guibert was saying to herself, “We ought to have taken a station carriage in his honor.”

They drove across Chambéry, the sleepy capital of Savoy, which the historic castle sets off as if it were a military plume, proud and delicate against the sky. Marcel breathed his native air rapturously. When they left the town, Trélaz’s antiquated equipage recalled a host of recollections. The scene before his eyes suggested his happy, spirited youth. How often, from the Vimines woods, had he enjoyed the bold outlines and vivid lighting of the picture! With the naked walls of Pas-de-la-Fosse in the foreground, and of Granier in the background, which looks out from above over the nearer mountains, it was like a wide sweeping curve of verdure outstretched, and harmoniously defined by three steeples: Belle Combette, softly ensconced among the trees, like a sheep amid the lush grass; Montagnol, the tallest, sombre and dominant like some fortress; Saint-Cassin, humbler and slighter, resting against the thick woods which almost concealed it. A strange incongruous landscape, tempering the harshness of the rough and threatening crags with the sweet softness of this peaceful slope.

When the carriage left the high road, it passed the level crossing over the railway from Saint-André-le-Gaz, and followed the Vimines road, up the steep gradient which plunges into the forest and leads past the open gate of Le Maupas. Marcel got out here to lighten the horse’s burden. He was the first to reach the little rustic house smothered, as in the old days, under the wistaria, jasmine, and roses. And too, as in the old days the twilight lent to the trees in the avenue a sombre, placid, serious look. As he walked, the gravel in the courtyard made the same crunching sound as of old.

On the threshold he awaited his mother and helped her ascend the steps; and when they had entered he clasped the poor, weeping woman to his heart. Paule also at last surrendered herself to the emotion she had too long restrained. The head of the family was no longer there. On the threshold of the home his son had brought back to mind the strong profile, the kindly smile, the self-reliance of the departed.

In this meeting to-day three people tasted the whole flavor of human life, with its mingling of joy and grief.

Meanwhile the Dulaurens family, Madame Orlandi and her daughter, and Lieutenant Armand de Marthenay, had taken their places in the same first class carriage. Isabelle took possession of a corner and with the utmost difficulty kept another for her admirer, Jean Berlier. But when he made up his mind to enter the carriage, at the very moment the train was starting, he was not too well received by the girl.

“Why don’t you stay on the platform and embrace all the men that pass?” she asked.

Jean smiled: “I do the same to the ladies.”

Isabelle was not disarmed. “You made a show of yourself with that Guibert lot. It was ridiculous.”

Alice Dulaurens blushed, but did not dare to protest. The young man was not so easily disconcerted. He did not disdain, in his flirtations, a tone of irony and mockery, which exasperated, if it also attracted, his companion, the pretty and spoilt darling of her family.

“It is true,” he admitted, “that the Guiberts, on meeting each other after three years of separation and mourning, neglected to conform to custom to please you. And even your dress did not win a single glance from the handsome captain.”

“The handsome captain, indeed!”

“He is bald,” observed de Marthenay, whose own thick hair stuck up like a tooth-brush.

“Yes, he became so in the colonies. In a French garrison he would perhaps have kept an abundant covering on his head.”

Isabelle would not own herself vanquished. A spitefulness to which she would not have confessed urged her to attack Jean’s friends, and she went beyond all bounds:

“You heard, I suppose, that your captain’s mother is a perfect phenomenon? She has never set foot in a theatre! I wonder what sort of a life she has led.”

Jean Berlier, who had the greatest respect for Madame Guibert, became bitter.

“She has done what you will never do, Mademoiselle, she has lived for the sake of others.”

“That is not living at all,” retorted Isabelle.

“Do you think so? For my part, I believe that she has lived more than you will ever live, if you were to exist for a hundred years.”

“Oh, indeed! I defy anyone to live at a higher pressure than I do.”

“You get excitement, but that’s not the same thing. Of what effort are you capable?” And then, cutting his lecture short, the young man asked with a laugh: “Are you even capable of a love match?”

“Certainly not! You mean, I suppose, one without money? Thank you for nothing. Fancy vegetating mournfully on dry bread and cotton dresses!” As she spoke, her lovely teeth looked sharp and greedy.

“Come, cheer up,” said Jean, “and show me your hand.”

She held out her fine ungloved hand. He pretended to examine it carefully.

“I see that you will marry a man forty years of age, ugly, and a millionaire. But, after the marriage, he will show his real disposition, sordid avarice. One is always punished in the same way in which one has sinned.”

The grave sententious tone in which he uttered his nonsense amused the whole carriage.

When the conversation had again become general, Isabelle, restored once more to calm, murmured gaily to her vis-à-vis:

“So much the worse for the miser! I shall be untrue to him.”

“With me, do you mean?” asked Jean, smiling.

“Perhaps with you. Yes, certainly with you!”

And again bursting into laughter, she showed her white teeth, as sound as a puppy’s, while she stared boldly at the young man who appealed so much to her taste.

Alice, abashed by the boldness of the conversation, blushed for her companion. Then wrapping herself in her own thoughts, she fell half asleep and dreamed of the love-match which Isabelle despised, but in connection with which certain lately-seen features dimly presented themselves to her imagination.

Madame Dulaurens, preoccupied about the success of her At Homes during the season, remarked to her son, who was repeating to her some fantastic Madagascar names; “He seems to be quite a hero. We must certainly invite him.”

And her husband, resuming the thread of a long and peaceful conversation, agreed with Madame Orlandi.

“Above all things, calm must be preserved. That is the secret of life.”

CHAPTER II
BROTHER AND SISTER

In the friendship between brother and sister there is a frank and simple sweetness that makes it a sentiment apart from all others. In its nature it is free from the violent outbursts of love and those passionate transports which are too intoxicating to be lasting. It is distinguished, however, from ordinary friendship between persons of the same sex, by the element of modest discretion and tenderness introduced into it by the woman. What makes it still more singular is the marvellous ability of the two parties to such a friendship to think and to feel alike, this springing from a common origin and a childhood spent together. The two can then understand a half-uttered word, can call back memories at the same moment, can live again together the days of old and inhale again the perfume of the past. Even love itself lacks this quality and may well envy its possession.

Seated in two basket-chairs in the garden of Le Maupas, Marcel and Paule Guibert, with no waste of useless confidences, realised the joy of discovering that during their separation life had ripened and molded their souls alike even though a great distance had separated them. They thought otherwise than in former days, but they still thought together.

“I am so happy here,” said the young man, “that I want to do nothing all day long.”

Marcel was tired and needed rest. In spite of his robust health, he showed some traces of his life in the colonies. He still had attacks of fever, though they grew rarer and rarer. He looked to the health-bringing air of Savoy to put new life into him.

It was one of those calm summer afternoons in the country, when it seems that one can almost feel the vibration of the sunshine. Not a breath of air fanned their faces. Only in the tree-tops a lazy breeze stirred the delicate leaves of the lime-trees, which trembled and showed by turn the dark green of their upper and the pale green of their lower surfaces.

On the rustic table, its round top cut from a single slate, were scattered papers and letters. Paule set herself to open the mail to which her brother paid so little heed.

“More articles about you,” she cried, “in the Clarion des Alpes and La Savoie Républicaine. Do you want to read them?”

“No, please not,” begged the captain.

“Some invitations,” Paule went on. “The men of your year are giving a dinner in your honor. A season-ticket for the Aix-les-Bains Casino. Another for the Villa des Fleurs. The Baroness de Vittoz is at home on Tuesdays.”

“What is all this to me? I want to see nobody, absolutely nobody.”

“You have become fashionable! You must play your part. They are disposing of your liberty. That’s one way of sharing in your laurels.”

“Let’s agree not to talk about it, Paule dear.”

“But everyone is talking about it. Glory is the rage to-day. Some day soon the Dulaurenses will call upon us, and other people too whom we have not seen since the story of our ruin got about.”

Her smooth forehead, overshadowed by dark hair, still wore the furrow which testified to the bitterness of that time of trial.

Marcel said nothing. He let himself be carried away by the multitudinous memories connected with the land which was his forefathers’. In his mind’s eye he could see the shadows of the past springing up from the ground about him and hovering round him like a flock of birds. Only the members of large families can know the happy exaltation of spirit which has its birth in an environment that is fresh, gay, and frank. This blessing, which changes childhood with a stroke of the wand into fairyland and is able to shed its sweetness throughout middle life right down to old age, is the reward of those who have had the courage to live and to perpetuate life. So Marcel now smiled upon another tiny Marcel, whom he could see distinctly scampering over the neighboring fields with a merry little troop of brothers and sisters. Then began with Paule the series of “Do you remembers.” He plunged back into the far away years when the soul is still wrapped in mystery, and finally he said:

“Do you remember.... But no, you were not born then. We were lying on the grass. They were our first holidays, I think. Father used to tell us about the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” and we straightway translated the stories into action. I was in turn Hector and the cunning Ulysses. But at that time I preferred Hector, for he is generous and of that tragic courage which impresses a child’s mind. Since then reading Homer has been to me like visiting a friend. Who can tell whether or not I owe to these influences my taste for adventure?”

“But you are not thinking of going back?” enquired Paule anxiously. “Mother has aged greatly. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, she is a little bent now, and her cheeks are sometimes pale. You are watching over her for us. You are our security, Paule, the comfort of all the rest of us, who are scattered over the world.”

The girl did not reply. Marcel regretted his remark, for he felt its selfishness. Of all Dr. Guibert’s children Paule had suffered most directly from the blow of the financial disaster which had crushed the whole family through the misfortunes of an uncle. She had lost her dowry and thereby many a chance of marriage. Her brothers depended on her devotion to cherish their mother’s old age, as if she must always forget her own life and feel in vain the tender beating of her young heart.

Marcel gazed at her a long time. With affectionate admiration he regarded her graceful figure, so supple and so full of the promise of future strength; the pure tint of her complexion, accentuated by the black of her dress; her deep, sombre eyes, so sweet withal, the eyes of a woman who has tasted life and knows it, without fearing it; he saw the whole charming picture of a maiden both proud and virtuous. Why should she not inspire love?

He noticed the dark hair overhanging her troubled brow, and sought to make her smile.

“I love that black hair of yours,” he said. “I have never seen any so black. How proudly you carry the weight of it. Do you remember, when you were little and wore it down your back, there was so much of it that the peasant women coming back from market used to stop to look at you and say, ‘What a shame to put a false plait upon the poor child!’ And your nurse was very angry, ‘A false plait, is it! Come and pull it and you’ll see if it comes off in your hands.’ So they actually tested the genuineness of your hair, and you wept because you were too beautiful!”

Slowly, leaning on the iron balustrade and setting each foot in turn on every step, Madame Guibert was coming down to her children. As an autumn flower blooms in a deserted garden, so a feeble smile had lighted up her face since Marcel’s arrival. He came now to meet her and set her chair in a sheltered spot.

“Are you comfortable, Mother?” he asked. The smile on the old face deepened.

“My dear big boy, you are so like him.”

Marcel’s face grew grave. “It is eighteen months now since he passed on,” he said. “I shall never forget that night at Ambato! I wandered round the camp. I called to him. I called to you all. I felt death coming to me....”

There was a sorrowful silence for a moment, and then Madame Guibert spoke again.

“Eighteen months! Is it possible? ... Yet I have lived through them, thanks to Paule. While the breath of life is in me, I shall thank God for giving me such a husband, such sons and daughters.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and began the painful recital for which her son was waiting.

“Your Uncle Marc’s misfortune was the beginning of all our sorrows. We were too happy, Marcel. Your father was the embodiment of strength, self-reliance, and hard work. After the most wearying days he always came home happy. And you all succeeded in your careers.”

“Some were jealous of you,” said Paule.

“It is better to be envied than pitied,” added her brother, who was as proud as she.

“Your uncle’s bank at Annecy prospered, until a confidential clerk absconded with title deeds and deposits, and Marc, unable to bear the temporary storm aroused by this flight, and stunned by the shock, committed suicide. God grant that he has been permitted to repent! Your father left directly. He understood the situation. All was paid, both capital and interest—but we had to sacrifice the greater part of our fortune. However, we were able to save Le Maupas, which belongs to the family.”

“Le Maupas is to all of us the living picture of our childhood days,” said Marcel.

Madame Guibert continued, “Before disposing of his fortune your father asked the consent of all of you.”

“Yes, I remember. It was at the beginning of the campaign. But father’s conduct seemed to me an excess of punctiliousness. These money matters are quite strange and indifferent to me.”

“Paule was consulted, too.”

“There was our name,” said Paule, “and our honor.”

“Your marriage portion was involved, my child.... After his brother’s tragic end,” the mother went on, “your father was so affected that he never recovered his gaiety. But his energy and capacity for work were doubled. When the epidemic broke out at Cognin he did not take sufficient care of himself. He was the last to be attacked by the disease, and at a time when he was exhausted and worn out. From the first he knew that he was lost, but he never admitted it. I understood at the last. He studied the progress of his illness himself. One day he said to me, ‘Don’t be unhappy, God will help you.’ ‘He will help us,’ I said. He made no reply. He thought of his death fearlessly. He died in our arms, conscious to the last.”

“Only I was not there,” said Marcel.

“There at the bedside were Étienne, just back from Tonkin, François, Paule, and Étienne’s fiancée, too, Louise Saudet.”

“Where was Marguerite?”

“She could not come,” answered Madame Guibert sadly, but with no bitterness in her voice. “They would not allow her. She belongs to God. We have not seen her since she entered the convent.”

All three were silent, lost in memories. The thought of death was in their hearts, but all about them the world of living things vibrated in the sunshine. A leaf already shrivelled, forerunner of autumn, dropped from a branch and floated slowly down through the warm air. Paule pointed a finger at it, calling her brother’s attention. To Marcel, plunged in sorrowful reflection, it seemed a symbol.

“It has lived to the summer. Others go in the springtime,” he said.

He was thinking of the premature end of his sister Thérèse, and of death which had threatened him more than once. But soon he shook oil this gloomy foreboding. “Short or long,” he exclaimed, “life must be lived with full courage. That was father’s way. His memory comforts me; it doesn’t dishearten me.”

“And Étienne left soon after for Tonkin again?” he continued.

“Yes,” said Madame Guibert. “You remember his first trip with the Lyons Exploration Company’s mission? He was struck by the wealth of the mines and the soil there, and told us also of the wild beauty of the country. He has settled with his wife at Along Bay. Isn’t that the name, Paule?”

The girl assented, and her mother went on:

“He is in charge of the coal-mines there. At the same time he is quite a farmer, and is growing rice and tomatoes. François has gone out to him, and also your cousin Charles, Marc’s son. They are doing well, with the blessing of God. Étienne helps us to live.”

“Was his wife quite willing to go?”

“Louise is as brave as she is quiet. They sailed eight days after their wedding. They have a boy now. I have never seen him, but yet I love him.”

“When Louise was married,” Paule added, “there was quite an outcry at Chambéry. All the women pitied her mother. ‘How can you let your daughter go?’ they asked, and they accused her of an unpardonable lack of affection. Madame Saudet saw that Louise was happy, and that was enough for her. The others only thought about themselves and their own peace of mind. As M. Dulaurens says, ‘calm is the all-important thing.’”

A name casually introduced into a conversation often seems to attract the person mentioned. Such chance coincidences have passed into a proverb. A carriage at this moment was passing through the open gate into the chestnut avenue, and Paule recognised the Dulaurens livery.

“They had quite given us up,” observed Madame Guibert, turning very red. Brave as she was in her attitude towards life, she was timid towards society.

“It is on account of our hero,” said Paule with a mocking glance at her brother.

But they all rose and went to meet the visitors. The carriage had already emerged from the avenue and was crushing the gravel of the courtyard. Madame Dulaurens was the first to get out and began at once with an allusion to the Captain. She greeted Madame Guibert and said:

“How proud you must be to have such a son!”

Madame Dulaurens was by birth a De Vélincourt and never forgot the fact. On the strength of this she looked upon all her actions as great condescensions, and even deigned to bestow a kind of benevolent patronage on those meritorious exploits which it should be the privilege of the aristocracy to perform; or, if not, the aristocracy could at least claim the credit for them, by applauding them enthusiastically.

Hidden behind his wife, M. Dulaurens was bowing with unnecessary frequency. He was dressed in grey from head to foot. Instinctively he had found the right protective coloring for himself. He lived in a state of timid admiration of the woman who, despite his lowly origin, on account of his great fortune, had married him, and who gave him to understand on every possible occasion the extent of her sacrifice. This marriage, the foundation alike of his self-respect and his political opinions, had endowed him with a deep respect for the nobility, of whom the type to him was his wife’s handsome person, stately and massive, commanding of feature, imperious and with a voice both authoritative and disagreeable. Alice stepped out last. She was wearing a pale blue dress, the delicate shade of which suited her very well. She came forward with a languid grace, which suggested that with her beauty frail health was combined. Marcel had eyes henceforward for no one but the girl. There was no pleasure expressed in his replies to the compliments heaped upon him, against which indeed his modesty and his soldierly sense of honor revolted.

There was no doubt that this visit was paid to him, and that he was the aim and object of it. Although she treated Madame Guibert and Paule with politeness and even with kindness—with a haughty and condescending kindness which did not deceive the daughter, who was more acute, or better versed in the ways of the world, than her mother—still it was to Marcel that Madame Dulaurens, née de Vélincourt, kept turning, as if she desired to capture for herself his new-born celebrity and bear him away in the carriage with her.

Finally she spoke out quite frankly: “Well, young man, you have been home several days and you are never seen anywhere. One would think you were in hiding. That is not like you, as the enemy well knows.”

“The enemy” was a conveniently vague name for the distant tribes whose complicated names she could not trouble to keep in her memory.

M. Dulaurens, who had a sincere admiration for action and courage in other people, hastened to emphasize his wife’s allusion. “Yes, it was a hard campaign,” he said. “The Government’s lack of foresight.... You had few calm moments.”

Paule with difficulty suppressed a hearty laugh as she heard the fatal adjective. So often was the word “calm” on M. Dulaurens’s lips that he had been nicknamed Sir Calm by those who tried to find a single phrase to express both his aristocratic pretensions and his love of peace.

“All our friends wish to make your acquaintance,” his wife continued. “Please make my house your own, if you care to come.” And then, as though suddenly noticing Paule’s presence, she added, “With your sister, of course.”

They would put up with the sister for the sake of entertaining the brother. The slight pause had shown how the case stood. It was Paule who replied:

“Thank you very much, Madame Dulaurens, but we are still in mourning.”

“Oh, only half-mourning! It is eighteen months now.” She turned again to the Captain. “We are going on Sunday to the Battle of Flowers at Aix. Do come with us. It will be an excuse for an excursion. And in the evening we are to dine at the Club with a few friends, quite a small party. You will meet some comrades there—Count de Marthenay, who is in the dragoons, and Lieutenant Berlier, your friend, is he not? You have heard that they are talking of his marriage with Isabelle Orlandi, the beauty.”

She gave out the falsehood, which she had invented on the spur of the moment, for the purpose of wounding the proud Paule who dared to cross her wishes. Woman can see, it is hard to say how, by some method of divination of which both the desire to please and the desire to injure make her mistress, those affinities which cause the hearts, souls, and bodies of men and women to seek and find one another. How excellent a plan it is, for instance, to make a dinner-party go off well by placing the guests according to one’s ideas of their sympathies—the very way, perhaps to bring those sympathies into being. Again, the evil-speaking that there is in the world bears witness to remarkable intuition and marvellous powers of analysis. In the majority of cases the libel rests on no positive evidence, and yet there is all the appearance of truth. The persons concerned are sketched with a natural touch, cruelly of course, but always with due regard to probability.

Madame Dulaurens gained nothing tangible by the exercise of her inventive faculty, for the young girl gave no sign; whether it was because she had learnt self-restraint so early or because the news was really indifferent to her.

“Then we can count on you?” she demanded, pretending to be waiting for the answer from Marcel’s own lips.

Alice glanced at the young officer with her eyes pale as the Savoy skies; while Paule also had her eye on him, but her look was serious. He understood perfectly that Madame Dulaurens was trying to separate him from his sister; and, listening to the guidance of that family loyalty which Dr. Guibert had instilled into each of his children, he refused the invitation.

“Thank you, Madame, but my homecoming has revived so many recent sorrows that I do not wish to leave Le Maupas.”

There was a flash of joy in the dark eyes, while long quivering lashes veiled the downcast blue ones.

“He is in need of rest,” put in Madame Guibert.

Alice was looking over the graveled courtyard. She spoke now with a slight blush.

“It was your father who cured me. Once you used to come to La Chênaie very often. Paule was my dearest friend. You must not give us up.”

When at last she raised her pale blue eyes she met Marcel’s glance and smiled. Then she blushed again, for her color was influenced by the secret workings of her heart.

“They shall certainly call upon you, Mademoiselle Dulaurens,” said Madame Guibert, rather surprised at Paule’s silence.

“Mademoiselle Dulaurens! You used to call me Alice!”

“A long time ago,” said the old lady. “You were a little girl then.”

“Am I not so now? At least, not very big,” Alice replied.

Madame Dulaurens could ill support the failure of her schemes. She was thinking about the fame of her At Homes. With the help of this hero from Madagascar she would have been able to crush her rival, the Baroness de Vittoz, who had captured a gouty explorer engaged in a course of the waters at Aix. She had satisfied herself of the truth of Jean Berber’s words. Young Captain Guibert’s career, she found, had been most brilliant. His resolution and bravery were greatly responsible for the success of the expedition. Honorable mention for gallantry, the Legion of Honour, another stripe, all bore witness to his deserts. He was a lion to be proud of. And celebrity of this kind was more alluring to the militant Madame Dulaurens than that of literary men or scientists. Besides, was not a spur wanted to encourage the languid pretensions of the Count de Marthenay to Alice’s hand?

“I cannot accept a refusal,” she said, as she gave the signal for departure. “We shall expect you at Aix on Sunday.” And then, returning mechanically to her opening remark to Madame Guibert, she said to her, in honeyed tones which were a very inapt expression of her soul, “Madame, every mother envies you your son.”

Alice was particularly gracious to Paule as she said good-bye. But Paule did not unbend. When the carriage had driven away Marcel stood looking across the deserted courtyard. So lost in thought was he that he did not notice his sister gazing at him with an expression of mingled sadness and affection.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked.

He turned round and gave a rather melancholy smile, as though aware of his own weakness. “We must go and see them, mustn’t we?” he said.

He was surprised at the effect of his question, for Paule’s face clouded and her eyes were veiled. “So you already find us insufficient for you?” she murmured.

She mastered herself quickly and added determinedly. “I at least shall not go. I was not asked.”

“Yes, you were,” said Marcel.

“Yes, as an afterthought, and Madame Dulaurens made me feel that.”

“My darling Paule, you know that I shall not go without you.”

“Well, then, don’t let us go, will you? Let us stay here. Mother and I love you so much. We are so happy to have you with us and to look after you. Stay with us! The house has been silent as the grave so long, but you have brought the sunshine back to it.”

Madame Guibert joined in, “Marcel, stay with us.”

Marcel’s brow darkened. He did not care to feel that he was deprived of freedom even by his nearest and dearest, and above all he was very much out of sympathy with himself. He had come home quite determined to shut himself up at Le Maupas, to plunge himself in the fragrance of his native air and the memories of those whom he had lost, and also to restore a little happiness to his mother and sister—and now it had taken but one visit from a mere girl to upset all his ideas and to shatter his pride and his strength of will.

The gentle pleading of mother and sister left him silent. But Paule could not bear to see her brother sad for long. “Marcel,” she said, “you must go to La Chênaie. But I cannot go with you. I have nothing to wear.”

Marcel’s reply came too quickly and betrayed the vehemence of his desire.

“I will buy you some clothes, dear. I have saved some money.”

“But you have helped so often,” asserted Madame Guibert, with a loving glance at her son, whose close presence she did not even yet seem to realise.

Late in the evening, while Madame Guibert was slowly making her invariable round to see that the house was safely locked up, Paule, sitting in the drawing-room with Marcel saw him lost in thought again. She went up to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Are you dreaming of the fair Alice?” she asked.

So kind was her tone that he could only smile, as he denied his weakness. But immediately afterwards he admitted the truth, adding, “She certainly is fair, isn’t she? Is she a friend of yours?”

“We were at the Sacred Heart Convent together. She is the same age as I, perhaps a little younger. At the Convent she was like a little sister in her affection for me. She is sweet, gentle, and timid, and likes to be led rather than to lead.”

“A very good thing in a woman,” said Marcel approvingly.

He had no hesitancy in admitting the superiority of his own sex.

Paule stroked her brother’s forehead with her soft hand.

“Alice is not the right wife for you,” she said.

“I never thought of marrying her,” was his brusque answer.

But his sister did not abandon her purpose. “She is deficient in courage,” she said. “And besides we are not in the same set.”

“Not in the same set! Because the Dulaurenses have more money than we have? In France, thank God, it is not yet the case that wealth determines social position.”

Paule was sorry she had provoked this outburst. “That is not what I meant to say,” she explained. “The people we are speaking of have a totally different outlook on life. They make a show and cannot distinguish between worthless things and those of importance. I don’t know how to make it clear to you, but I did not wish to make you cross.”

“Are you going to preach to me about the ways of the world?” asked her brother. “Before you have even seen it you pretend to judge it!”

Paule was hurt by the tone of his voice and turned away. Pouring out all the pent-up bitterness of her heart, she cried: “Do you think I cannot see behind the outward smile and the lie on the lips? These people hate us and would like to treat us with contempt. They run after you—you only—just to flatter their own vanity, and they want to have nothing to do with mother and me; we are only two poor women. But Alice is intended for Count de Marthenay, not for you!”

Even without its closing sentence this indignant speech would have had its effect. What Paule told him now bluntly, Marcel had already gathered, though not in so clear a fashion. His pride and the affection which he had for his mother and sister would have been a check upon him. But the end of Paule’s speech blotted out all that went before. The very thought of this drawing-room soldier, who had come so unexpectedly across his path, held up to him as a rival sure of victory over him, roused all his instincts as a fighter and a conqueror. He was jealous before he was even in love.

CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS

“Here they come, here they come!” shouted Jean Berlier, pointing to the end of the race-course.

The course at Marlioz is less than two miles from Aix-les-Bains, on the road to Chambéry. The view from the stands, which occupy one of the slopes facing Mont Revard is fine and picturesque. Beyond a foreground of green fields, separated by screens of poplar-trees, the eyes light suddenly on the craggy escarpments of the mountain-chain, resembling some old fortress. By day there is little grace or beauty in the scene, but at eventide the setting sun lends to it a wonderful attractiveness.

“Here they come,” repeated Isabelle Orlandi, clapping her hands.

The flower-decked carriages had indeed reached the edge of the green sward, ready to file past the stands filled with a brilliant crowd. The spectators stamped enthusiastically and, swarming about like a lot of mad people or a hive of bees, tore flowers from the baskets of the passing vendors, spread their ammunition in front of them, and preluded the coming battle with the excited and useless shouts of soldiers on the point of assault. Under the light of a cloudless sky the fairy-like procession advanced, radiant in the sunshine. From afar all that was to be seen of it was a succession of bright patches and at intervals the rapid flashes reflected from the polished harness of the horses and the dazzling carriage-wheels as they caught the sun’s rays. It grew bigger and bigger, and outlined against the golden horizon, it brought to mind in its splendor and richness the procession of the Magi painted by some Venetian artist who adored color.

The Dulaurens family and their party filled the first row of the grand stand, Jean Berlier next to Isabelle, Marcel Guibert between Madame Dulaurens and Alice. Paule had refused to come with her brother, who sat quite silent, thinking of the sad faces of the women at home and regretting the peace and sweetness of Le Maupas, while beginning to experience the first humiliating inner symptoms of love.

The band began to play dance music, and to the strains of its light rhythm, almost drowned by laughter and shouting, the battle opened. Late arrivals, hurrying across the race course eager to take part in the fun, were mingled in a distracted mass of gay parasols and dresses on the lawn.

It was at the little ones that the first bouquets were thrown, gently tossed by delicate hands. The children opened the flowery procession like harbingers of spring, delicious buds of humanity. Rosy babies with bare arms, riding donkeys which carried them triumphantly in big red baskets; small sailor boys proudly wielding their pasteboard oars in long canoes decked with reeds, drawn by Arab horses whose tails and flowing manes served as angry waves; tiny girls dressed in pink, peeping out from green nests like wonderful birds; all this little company, guarded by an escort of careful nurses, was mad with applause and sunshine, with music and gaiety. It was like the youthful Bacchus in his triumph.

Slowly the carriages following them came up one after another and took their part in the gentle strife. They bore the very grace of the earth, the beauty of women and the scent of flowers. The soul of the plundered gardens still pervaded these moving flower-beds. English dog-carts, tilburies, victorias, phaetons, landaus, all were smothered in flowers of a thousand hues—heavy moon-daisies, purple as an autumn sunset; while marguerites, the lover’s fortune-teller; gladioles with their red bells merrily a-ring; cyclamens the color of the lees of wine, the rare and precious jewels of Mont Revard’s crown; hydrangeas with their pink and pale blue globes; orchids of varying hue, splendid in their triumphant leaflessness, or still more glorious in a setting of exotic palm-branches or of red forest-heather, whose tiny branches are so slender and sensitive that the heat of the day is sufficient to stir them.

Half outstretched among these sumptuous spoils of the ransacked gardens, the young women of the procession smiled in quiet confidence. They relied on the pleasure stirred by their irreproachable forms to complete their own success in the contest against the beautiful blossoms of mother earth. For they knew full well that they themselves were the sovereign flowers, more seductive and intoxicating than all others, since they could supplement the still unconscious grace of nature with the harmony of motion and the wonder of the intelligent mind. On the splendid, supple stem of a woman’s perfect form, is not the face set as though it were the divine calyx of beauty?

The enthusiasm of the crowd made no distinction between the charm of earth and the charm of woman. The incessant stream of flying bouquets was a link between the occupants of the stands and the beauties of the procession, who bent before the tributes paid to them and, amid the perfume that invaded earth and air alike, made their wondrous progress over a carpet of flowers, under a rain of flowers. The popular excitement grew still greater as the spectators saw the Allegory of Summer approaching. On a chariot with golden wheels drawn by white horses, ears of wheat were bound in sheaves whose gold was enhanced by the red and blue of the poppies and cornflowers, the rubies and sapphires of the fields. Young girls, whose flowing robes were the color of straw, whose unbound hair streamed in fair waves, veritable types of the supple maidens of Botticelli’s Primavera, symbolised, like the ripe grain itself, prosperity and happiness.

“Bravo!” cried the crowd, designating this golden car to the jury for the first prize. Isabelle Orlandi and Jean Berlier emptied their baskets with joyful gaiety. The girl was wearing a white dress, and her bodice, half covered by a bolero, was trimmed with pleated satin of the color of mother-of-pearl. Pleasure intoxicated her, and her flushed brown cheeks betrayed her quickened pulses. The two young people reserved their hardest shots for the arrival of a few ancient crones who were not afraid to dishonor this procession of youth by their presence. They are to be met with at all fashionable promenades at Nice, at Monte Carlo, at Aix. In fact, they are apparently the same at all these functions. They try to forget or to cheat death, and their very faces adjure us to make the best of life or remind us of the threats of time. One of them was at last hit, and kept on her hat and head-dress with difficulty under the shocks of the missiles. Isabelle and Jean could no longer restrain their laughter.

Beside Alice Dulaurens, whose mauve dress trimmed with white lace enhanced her ethereal grace, Marcel felt his will weakening and his melancholy disappearing. A cloud of colors and scents surrounded and enervated him. He could see nothing but flowers on the path of his future life. At intervals, however, a strange vision would come back to his memory, some vivid landscape of his childhood, or some dark valley in the Colonies, and he regretted these pictures of his old enthusiasms which he tried in vain to keep fresh. But why seek to bring back the past when the present had so many charms? He gazed, not without that sadness which accompanies a growing desire, at the dazzling white neck of the girl as she bent forward to get a better view of the course of her awkwardly thrown bouquet and he could not but admire the bloom of her pale skin.

Alice turned to her companion, whose silence troubled her, and one look from her blue eyes was purification to the young man’s thoughts. With her little ungloved hand she pointed to the basket which was rapidly emptying itself.

“Here are some flowers,” she cried. “Aren’t you going to throw any?”

She blushed as she uttered these simple words, and her extreme shyness made her look the lovelier.

The allegorical chariot of Summer passed on, and, following a carriage covered with vervain and roses, came the regimental break of the dragoons quartered at Chambéry, artistically decorated with brilliant sunflowers and big bunches of jonquils. Among the officers in uniform the only one standing was Lieutenant de Marthenay, whose elegance was of the rather cumbersome kind which evidences the passing of youth. He carried a bouquet of rare and lovely orchids. It was very evident that he was looking for someone on the stands. When he saw Mademoiselle Dulaurens, he smiled, bowed, and made as if he would throw the bouquet to her. This bold impertinence, drawing the public gaze upon the young girl, vexed Marcel Guibert, who dived into Alice’s basket and with a very efficacious zeal was the first to begin the fight with his rival. His aim was well-calculated, but not so the strength. He struck the Dragoon full in the face, thereby extinguishing the bright smile. De Marthenay, taken aback, let the precious orchids fall on the ground where they were picked up at once by a watchful collector of flowers.

Furious at this, he swept the stand with his glance, only to see Isabelle Orlandi, who was clapping her hands and crying:

“Well hit! Three cheers for the Tirailleurs!”

Jean Berlier backed her up, amused at her exuberant spirits. De Marthenay, however, paid no attention to their raillery. At last he noticed Marcel Guibert’s strong, contemptuous face a little behind Alice. But while his anger and malice grew stronger and stronger, the Dragoon’s chariot passed on.

At every turn which brought him in front of the Dulaurens party, he saw Alice, forgetful of the battle, talking to his rival; she seemed a changed, absorbed, and less retiring Alice. And, every time, Isabelle and her admirer took a spiteful joy in interrupting his observations by incessantly bombarding him. They had the advantage of the position, and they kept at it all the afternoon.

In the meantime an unexpected carriage had appeared in the procession. Entirely decorated with scarlet, copper red, and orange cannas, flame-like in shape and color, Clément Dulaurens’ motor puffed past snorting and panting. In the brilliant daylight it looked like a raging fire.

It was the first motor car allowed to take part in the show, and it was by no means welcome. Its abominable smell overwhelmed the scent of the flowers, and the horrible noise which accompanied its quivering progress brought down upon it the wrath of the crowd, in spite of indignant protests from some lovers of the sport.

Shouts of “Poisonous monster!” “Go to the ‘devil’” were heard.

“Fire! fire!” cried others at this wizard of the flaming flowers.

In the face of all this outcry, the young man did not try to force public favor. He was clever enough to leave the procession and on reaching the deserted race-course he let his swift obedient machine go. Across the lawn he went at full speed in his flaming car like a dazzling rocket and disappeared in the direction of the sun, but not too soon to hear the far-off cheers which at last greeted the matchless power of the machine and its meteor-like beauty.

Either from satiety or fatigue the battle was dying down. In vain the flower-sellers offered their flowers at a reduction. Cradled on their donkeys, the happy babies were the only ones who took much interest in the show. Foreseeing that people would soon be tired of it the jury began to distribute the prizes.

The sun was already setting on the Marlioz plain. Delicate shades of pink, violet, gold, and mauve were dusted over the horizon like some impalpable powder. And as the sun set, keeping to themselves all its vanishing glory the rocks of Mount Revard spread themselves with a robe of brilliant red, under which they seemed to quiver with joy as in a bath of light. As he was leaving the stand after Alice, Marcel stopped to admire this rapturous display of nature; the girl turned round to call him and wondered at the joy in his face. He had felt in himself a similar exaltation of all his vital forces.

The Dulaurens and their guests got into the coach awaiting them on the road and drove back to Aix-les-Bains.

On the evening of the Battle of Flowers it is the custom to dine in the open air, either at the Club or at the Villa, weather permitting. The restaurants encroach upon the gardens and on the well-worn lawns; Rows of little tables are set out, where lamps with many colored shades shine among the trees like scintillating glow-worms.

Armand de Marthenay, who had been asked to dine with the Dulaurenses, joined the party in the big hall of the Club. They had reserved one of the favorite and most sheltered tables, at the end of the terrace, for Alice was sensitive to cold and at nights a fresh breeze blew from the mountains. The cavalry lieutenant was in a bad humor. He could not swallow his discomfiture of the afternoon. As soon as he saw Marcel Guibert he came up to him rashly and remarked:

“You fail to distinguish, my dear sir, between war and play.”

Marcel drew himself up to his full height. Much taller than de Marthenay, he looked down on him contemptuously and said, “You fail to distinguish between respect and mere gallantry.”

Hearing the sound of this dialogue and fearing a scene, Madame Dulaurens came up to them. The title of one and the fame of the other were equally in her mind, and it suited her vanity to have the two officers in the party.

De Marthenay, unable to complain of the words addressed to him, tried to find an excuse for a quarrel, when Isabelle Orlandi came up like a whirl-wind and saved the compromising situation.

“Come here, Jean, quickly. Here is the dragoon.”

And with the unchecked caprice of a spoilt child she added quickly, “Show me your face!”

“But, Mademoiselle Orlandi—” protested the lieutenant, growing pale.

“Just for a minute, only just for a minute.”

She pretended to examine his face and said, as though she were presenting him to the public, “It’s simply wonderful! There’s not a mark.”

“What do you want of me?” stammered de Marthenay.

The young girl burst out laughing and went on making fun of him.

“You can’t deny it! These colonials can shoot splendidly—You beat them in a cotillion! But in war! Hardly!”

“I don’t understand you—”

“Oh, yes you do! You understand me perfectly. M. Guibert here has beaten you! We applaud him because, as you know, he is our hero. Now you are anything but a hero. When your uniform gets wet you talk about it for a week! Besides, when one really wants to fight, one doesn’t go into the cavalry!”

Now for a man to extricate himself wittily from the embarrassment caused by a pretty woman’s jokes is no easy matter, and Lieutenant de Marthenay was far from being witty. He attacked Marcel Guibert once more.

“The ladies are your protection, sir!”

But Isabelle Orlandi did not let him go. It was she who answered:

“Oh! he needs no protection to advance him.”

Madame Dulaurens intervened at last:

“Come, Isabelle, you are not considerate.”

The girl lifted her arms heavenwards with a comical gesture:

“One must not strike an officer of the Dragoons,” she said. “Even with flowers.”

It was a joy to her to humiliate this young man. Before life humbled her—and she was quite determined to sacrifice everything, including love itself, to her luxurious ideas—she gave herself up entirely to the joy of being beautiful, coquettish, and daring.

Clément Dulaurens, arriving at this point, turned the conversation completely by questioning Marcel about the Malagasy names which afforded him so much amusement.

“Captain, do tell me, is Antanimbarindra Tsoksoraka a real name? Or is it just a journalist’s invention?”

“Not at all. It is a village.”

“And Ramazombazaha?”

“He was the chief of the Hovas at the beginning of the war. Our men to simplify matters called him Ramasse ton bazar.”

“There you see,” said Clément, “I’m the only one able to talk about the Madagascar expedition with you in technical terms. And I know some even more complicated names than these.”

During the whole scene Alice had kept nervously silent.

They sat down to dinner, and soon the little skirmish was forgotten in the general merriment which followed a day spent in the open air and in physical exercise.

Isabelle, less aggressive now, amused everybody including even her enemy. Alice, seated between Marcel and Armand de Marthenay, tried to make herself agreeable to both of them, though showing as usual considerable reserve. When they left the table she forgot the bouquet of cyclamen, which she had worn in her belt in the afternoon. Marcel promptly seized it. The girl noticed this.

“Will you give it to me?” he asked, but his voice was scarcely that of a suppliant. However, he added, “You thought so little of it that you left it behind and the flowers are quite faded already.”

She did not answer, but she smiled and blushed. In her smile he read her preference.

Marcel left first, to get back to Le Maupas early and not to cause his mother needless worry. The night was so lovely that, getting out at the station at Chambéry about 10 o’clock, he thought he would walk home. It was but two miles of a flat country along an avenue of plane-trees and up a little wooded hill.

He walked quickly, inhaling from time to time the still fresh scent of the cyclamens. As he neared Le Maupas in the twofold darkness of the night and the trees he could see just a few stars, which shone through the leaves, their brightness augmented by the dark dome of the heavens. Greedily he breathed the fresh, balmy air. He inflated his chest and felt a new thrill through his whole being.

Was he in love? He did not know yet. But the sight of a young girl had been enough to revive all his youthful fire.

A memory suddenly came to him. He felt that he was transported back to Algiers some years ago. It was one of those never-to-be-forgotten nights of the East, with their dark skies, their warm, soft breezes. Alone on horseback he was riding slowly through the bush, when suddenly his horse stopped. Round him he could see only the silhouettes of a few stunted shrubs. Neither pats nor spurs had any effect; the animal refused to move and his body trembled. Was there some living thing in the shadow beside them? In the dead silence of the dark and deserted plain some invisible presence made itself felt. But even in the face of this mysterious peril, from which there was no escape, he did not feel afraid. On the contrary, he felt conscious of all his strength and energy.

With a violent effort he forced his horse forward until it galloped away into the darkness. And he never knew if the animal had shuddered at some imaginary fear or if they really had passed within reach of death....

Why should this memory come back to him at this hour? He lived through the same strange feelings of that night of long ago. As then, he guessed at an unknown danger; he could not tell if it were a future of joy or of sorrow that was awaiting him. But he felt all his power now as he did then. He put his hand to his breast, inhaled deep breaths of the soft, fragrant night air, and drew himself up to his full height; then intoxicated with hope and pride he began to run.

When he stopped, the inexplicable sense of danger which had visited him had not vanished; it was alive within him.

In the wood the soft night sighed sadly.... And later Marcel had reason to remember this hour when he had run through the shadows towards something intoxicating and to be feared—which was love.

CHAPTER IV
A MORNING AT LA CHÊNAIE

“I’ve come to take away your children,” said Jean Berlier to Madame Guibert after he had shaken hands with her.

“Don’t take them from me, please,” she answered softly. And she smiled her delicate sweet smile. The young man had surprised her seated under the chestnut trees at work, near the front of the old house. She had put on her spectacles to see the stitches of her needlework. Soon she called to Marcel and Paule, who were walking about in the garden at a little distance. And when they were coming down the weed-grown path she inquired almost timidly:

“Are you going to La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Jean, “for a game of croquet or tennis.”

Then, as if he regretted his words, he added:

“If you like, Madame, I will say no more about it.”

“Oh, no. Marcel needs diversion and exercise—he has been used to an active life. And my little Paule has lived too long with her old mother.”

She never gives a thought to herself and her loneliness.

Madame Guibert always welcomed Jean almost maternally. When quite a little child he had played at Le Maupas as one of her own. He was the only son of a barrister, who was the glory of the Chambéry bar. An orphan at an early age, Jean had been brought up by rather an eccentric, original old uncle, brother to the boy’s mother, who forgot everybody, even his nephew, in his devotion to his garden. This M. Loigny lived near the town, on the Cognin road, in a little house smothered in roses. He cultivated his garden and edited a guide to the names of roses. Thus every minute of his life was taken up, and he never quite knew how long it was when Jean was away on duty in the Algerian Tirailleurs. When he came home every eighteen months on leave, his uncle immediately told him all about his latest discoveries in the rose family, thereby thinking he was giving him proofs of the greatest affection!

When Marcel and Paule appeared in the Avenue, Jean told them that they were expected at La Chênaie.

“And too,” he said to Marcel, “you owe Madame Dulaurens a call after the Battle of Flowers, don’t you? This is a good opportunity of paying it and getting a game of croquet at the same time.”

“That is true,” agreed the captain.

“You will come with us, Mademoiselle Paule?” asked Jean Berlier.

But Paule refused, saying she was in bad humor. Marcel looked at her sadly, and Jean regarded her with sympathetic curiosity. He remembered having played long ago in this same courtyard with a child of overflowing spirits, brighter and jollier than any boy. He now found in her place a young woman, reserved and proud, even in the company of playfellows. And yet he could not refrain from admiring her tall, graceful figure, slight but strong, and her dark eyes from which the light seemed to flash. He would like to have met on the old terms of friendship with his little Paule. In the presence of this cold and beautiful Paule he felt an awkwardness and a vague anxiety that he dared not analyse.

“Jean,” said Madame Guibert suddenly, “I want to scold you.”

“No, please, don’t scold me,” said the young man, putting on the grimace of a naughty child.

He was proverbially good-tempered, and the sight of him was enough to brighten the faces of all who knew him.

“We are your oldest friends, and yet Mademoiselle Dulaurens was the first to tell us about the most important event in your life!”

“What most important event?” said Jean, in pretended astonishment.

Paule got up and walked towards the house as if she had some very important duty there.

“Your marriage,” said Madame Guibert.

“My marriage! To whom, in heaven’s name?”

“To Mademoiselle Isabelle Orlandi.”

Madame Guibert, who always meant what she said, had believed the tale of Madame Dulaurens. But Jean Berlier began to laugh.

“Oh, she was talking of my little flirtation! But I’m sure you don’t know the meaning of the English word flirtation.”

Paule went slowly up the steps. She had laid her hand upon her breast as if she were breathing with difficulty and then she quickened her step. Passing before the drawing-room mirror she stopped, surprised at her own beauty. The friendly daylight showed her a more charming face than she had expected to see. She smiled sadly at her image and her smile meant to say, “What is the good of being beautiful if you have no dowry? What is the good of having all this tenderness and devotion burning in an empty heart like a lamp in a deserted sanctuary.” At the same time she felt an involuntary consolation at the sight of her unavailing charm.

Jean’s face wore the serious air of a scientist explaining a problem.

“Flirtation means the love one makes to girls one doesn’t marry,” said he.

“In French we call that conter fleurette,” said Madame Guibert. “You are wrong, Jean. I am an old woman, so listen to me. The game is never an equal one. Girls always expect to find a husband. You deceive their lawful hopes, and you amuse yourself with them at the cost of their peace of mind and their better feelings.”

The young man listened to this little sermon with a respectful smile.

“I love to hear you talk like that,” he said. “But I see that the modern girl is a stranger to you.”

“To me too,” said Marcel. “Do you often go to La Chênaie?”

“Yes, I am too active to spend all my days at Villa Rose. My uncle is always afraid that I shall walk on his flower beds. He lives in a constant state of alarm, and sighs with relief when he sees the last of me. But the household at La Chênaie is so interesting.”

“Really?” said Marcel, trying rather ineffectively not to appear interested.

“It affords a thousand different ways of killing time—which is the enemy it is most in dread of—and in spite of it all it does sometimes experience what it is to have nothing to do. Madame Dulaurens bustles about, sends out her invitations, writes menus or accounts of her At Homes for the society papers. M. Dulaurens, the ceremonious and punctilious, arranges his library, which nobody is ever allowed to disturb, greets his wife’s guests, agrees with his wife’s slightest word and by his attitude of adoration constantly begs forgiveness of this thoroughly aristocratic person for his plebeian origin. Young Clément runs over dogs in his car. Happily he has done nothing worse until the present time.”

“And Alice?” Madame Guibert asked innocently.

The young man’s answer was full of tact.

“Mademoiselle Alice is waiting for something to happen. It cannot fail to be pleasant for her.”

“But do you see only the Dulaurenses at La Chênaie?” said Marcel.

“They have their guests too. There is Madame Orlandi, for instance. Madame Orlandi has come back to the town of her birth to mourn her lost beauty rather than her husband. She lived in Florence when she was young and lovely. When her youth departed she retired from society and from Italy. The loss of her fortune made that necessary. She has had all the mirrors taken away from her rooms; they are all in her daughter’s room, it is said. She has none but young and pretty maids and is covered with jewels as thick as a reliquary. She spends the day in taking out and putting back these witnesses of her former triumphs. However, she manages to find time to look after an awful pug called Pistache, of which she is much fonder than of her daughter.”

“And now we have come to the point,” said Marcel, “after a long way round!”

“Mademoiselle Isabelle is charming. She knows that she owes it to her beauty to marry a millionaire. She will not fail to do that. Her mother and I are both encouraging her.”

“Oh dear!” cried Madame Guibert, who had stopped her work.

“She needs no encouragement,” continued the young man. “These Italians are very practical. And then Mademoiselle De Songeon, whose thin, aristocratic, old-maid’s face is for ever to be seen at La Chênaie, is not the least curious of the lot.”

“I know her,” interrupted Madame Guibert. “She is a saint. She looks after all kinds of charitable works and spends a precious life in religious meetings and going on pilgrimages.”

“Say rather in being president and making trips,” suggested Jean. “She has a love of wandering about and of ruling over others. She gives her orders and keeps on the move, and pretends to be religiously employed when in reality she uses religion as a means of gratifying her twofold passion. The story goes that she extorts money from her debtors like a Jew so that she may pay her duties to God in the most fashionable sanctuaries.”

Madame Guibert tried to stop him.

“My dear Jean,” she cried, “what are you talking about? You will make us believe that you are very unkind.”

“It is only unkind gossip,” said the young man. “Forgive me, I spoke too freely, as I should to my family if I had one.”

And hastening to cover the regret he expressed in his last words, he added:

“Here I feel happy. I came here as a little child. But please don’t talk to me of Mademoiselle de Songeon. A saint, indeed, is she? Oh, no! Now you, Madame Guibert, are one.”

Madame Guibert, in spite of her age, could never hear herself praised without blushing. Her courage was only of the inward kind. She protested:

“Jean, what are you saying? God has spoilt me. That’s all.”

The young man looked with surprise at this elderly woman in mourning, her face withered with sorrow, her eyes constantly filled with tears, who, nevertheless, could thank God for her trials. She noticed his expression.

“Yes, God overwhelmed me with blessings before taking them from me. And now, if I tremble for my children scattered all over the world, for him—” she pointed to Marcel—“who has been through so many dangers, how can I help being proud of their courage and their work? Is not their life my life?”

Jean was moved; he rose and took Madame Guibert’s hand, and kissed it respectfully.

“You are a saint, I told you you were. When I see you I grow better and I no longer want to scatter my life to the four winds, I want to imitate your sons. But I have no mother.”

He saw Paule coming down the steps. She had her hat on and on her face was an expression of new life.

“Oh, Mademoiselle Paule, you have made up your mind?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is so fine, and Marcel is cross when I stay at home.”

She kissed her mother and left for La Chênaie with the two young men, with whose long steps she could hardly keep pace.

The gate of La Chênaie is reached by the uphill road from Chaloux, which rises above the town of Cognin. An avenue of plane-trees leads across the park to the villa, which is spacious and trim and has a view extending as far as the Lake of Bourget, surrounded by mountains which throw their heavy shadows upon its waters. On this side, lawns without a tree, laid out as a tennis court and a croquet green, leave the view unobstructed, while behind the house a wood of venerable oak trees offers shelter in the summer.

The Dulaurenses were noted for making their guests comfortable and for leaving them at liberty to amuse themselves. When Paule arrived with her brother and Jean, they had just finished a game of croquet and a circle was grouped around Isabelle Orlandi, who was talking in a low voice and waving her hands.

“And his name is Landeau,” she was just saying.

“Whose name?” asked Jean, as he joined the group of listeners.

“My fiancé’s.”

And the girl burst into a harsh, discordant laugh—almost a shriek. She gave her hand to the young man.

“How do you do, Jean?”

She called him by his Christian name, on the pretext of having met him once when he was quite a small boy.

“Here is a red mallet. Let us stop this game. Nobody is interested in it now. Let us begin again. I shall take you on my side.”

She rearranged the game as she wished and appeared for a minute to be very absorbed in it. Jean’s ball came to the rescue of hers, which with a skilful shot she had sent flying into the grass, far away from the hoops. They made the best use of this privacy for which they had been wishing.

“Yes,” she said, and he noticed her pallor as she spoke—“I have to tell you of my coming marriage to a Lyons manufacturer. A business marriage!”

“My congratulations.”

“Thank you. He has several millions and some prosperous factories. He has promised my lawyer to make a good settlement. After that, you understand, it matters very little that he is ugly, in the forties, and burdened with a ridiculous name.”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t that so?”

They were recalled and scolded for delaying. In vain their partners tried to revive their interest. It was entirely their fault that their side lost the game.

Going back to the drawing-room for refreshments, they managed to precede the many groups slowly making their way up the lawn and went round the villa. Thus they arrived last. As they were walking Isabelle suddenly asked her companion:

“Jean, can you understand that one might marry with love in one’s heart?”

“Love for one’s husband, do you mean?”

“You are joking.”

He was indeed joking, not wishing to understand. But, as at the very moment he was looking at an ugly slug dragging itself over a rose in the courtyard, he felt very tenderly and regretfully for Isabelle’s sacrificed beauty.

“Better to love before than after,” was all he could say in the end.

“Oh, if you love before you love after, too.”

He turned the conversation, for he was struggling against his feelings. Never had he experienced such a passion for that masterful profile, those bold eyes, those red and sensual lips, those brilliant teeth, all that abounding youthful grace.

“Am I not a wizard? I foretold your marriage that evening in the railway carriage.”

“Yes, my mother has often told me, ‘My dear, after a week all men are the same—fortune and youth are both fleeting things, but the first alone can bestow a prize upon the second.’”

“Your mother is a wise woman,” said Jean.

“Everybody is so in Italy. Poetry is only a matter of language with them.”

Suddenly, with that naturalness which was her greatest charm and which led her into the most unexpected outbursts, she began to cry. And, as he stood bewildered and not knowing how to show his concern, she asked him:

“Why don’t you marry me?”

Confused as he was, he answered, nevertheless, quickly enough.

“I could not take you with me to Africa.”

“You could go in for business. You would make a lot of money. M. Landeau would help you.” At the thought of the curious rôle that she was giving M. Landeau she laughed heartily which completely won the young man. As they threaded the avenue of plane-trees she took advantage of the deep shadow of a tree to offer her cheek.

“Kiss me to console me!”

Jean was still thrilling at the contact with the fresh young cheek when Isabelle renewed her attack.

“What a pity!” she said. “Why aren’t you a millionaire?”

“That is what I should like to know,” sighed Jean.

Madame Dulaurens pointed to the vanishing figure of the girl after Jean and Isabelle had outdistanced the first group whom she was leading to the drawing-room.

“Instead of blaming her, I quite approve of what she has done. This marriage shows her great strength of character. After all, she has no fortune.”

The chorus of rich friends quite agreed with this remark. Encouraged, she continued, after throwing a careful glance behind her:

“Look at Paule Guibert, on the other hand. She wouldn’t marry M. Landeau. Not a penny, and such a deadly creature! How can you expect her ever to marry?”

“Still,” said one lady, “her father sacrificed all his property to save his brother. It was splendid.”

“To save the name of Guibert? It would have been better if he had saved his money. Who remembers anything about it now?”

“Forgetfulness is quicker than death,” remarked a sententious male guest.

Madame Dulaurens went on: “Poor Paule was much admired by Lieutenant Sinard at a costume ball I gave a few years ago—before the doctor’s death. He was very serious about it. But he came in for three hundred thousand francs. Of course, after that, he had quite different ideas.”

“Oh, well, of course,” chimed in the chorus of the faithful, “he could never again think of her.”

A few steps behind, Madame Orlandi made her way slowly under her heavy burden of flesh. The critical eye of Mademoiselle de Songeon was upon her as she panted out her confused account of the benefits of the new situation.

“My daughter had great difficulty in making up her mind. But M. Landeau is a man of principles—and, what is not to be despised, of large fortune.”

The “principles” were introduced to placate the lady president, who asked, “Has he given up work?”

“Oh, no, he still works. He is a director. He commands thousands of workmen—a real general!”

“But,” the old maid muttered dryly, “in my time, no one in our set would have married a business man.”

Jean Berlier and Isabelle, having completed their tour of the villa, came out from behind the shrubbery. The young man took great pleasure in baiting Mademoiselle de Songeon, and the last sentence immediately provoked his intervention.

“That is all changed now, Mademoiselle. It is the misfortune of the age. Formerly nobility meant doing nothing, nowadays, it is the result of labor, which is a moral obligation rather than a physical necessity. The world is upside down; it is the bad people who don’t work now.”

But the Honorary President of the White Cross of Savoy, of the Bread Club of St. Anthony, and patroness of several workshops, stared at him haughtily and answered somewhat acidly:

“Those who have kept pigs on earth will keep them in heaven too.”

“Is that from the Gospel?” asked the mocking Jean.

Alice meanwhile had remained behind with Paule and Marcel Guibert. Her step was rather weary, and the young man asked her if she were tired.

“Here is a bench,” he said. “Do rest awhile.”

“No, thank you. I am all right. Let us go in.”

There was a touch of the imaginary invalid in her charming smile, as she added:

“It is the burden of these long summer days. Don’t you think they are very depressing?”

Marcel was astonished.

“I have never given it a thought,” he said. “I love the sun as the bringer of life. And I love long days, for they seem to lengthen our time on earth.”

Paule was silent and absent-minded, her eyes turned toward the house. She recognised a visitor who was ringing at the big gate.

“It is Monsieur de Marthenay,” she said.

Alice’s clear eyes clouded over and the color vanished from her cheeks. She sat down on the seat which she had just refused and invited Paule to do the same.

“Stay here with me, dear, please.”

And turning to Marcel gracefully, she said:

“There is no room for you. But I’m sure that you aren’t tired.”

“No, indeed,” he replied. Then, after a pause, “Do you know that absurd Arab proverb, ‘It is better to be seated than to stand, better to lie down than to sit, and better to be dead than to lie down?’”

“I did not know it, but I like it,” said Alice.

A profound depression, as unaccountable as a child’s despair, was visible in her sweet young face. She bent toward the silent Paule.

“I envy you, Paule. You are so strong and splendid. I am so weak. If you only knew how weak I am! I have no strength at all.”

And with her lovely sad eyes she fixed Marcel as if speaking to him and asking for his help. Why did she pity herself so? And why did she shrink from M. de Marthenay?

“At your age,” Marcel said, “how can one disbelieve in happiness?”

Instead of these commonplace words he thirsted to give her the comfort of his own strength. And Paule, a prey at this moment to doubt and bitterness, still kept silence in disdainful astonishment at being envied by this friend whose life had been spared so much and who could arrange her fate according to her own will.

The sun had gone down behind Mount Lépine. But before their eyes the evening sky was glorious in a golden veil whose reflection fell languidly on the waters of Lake Bourget. Le Revard and the Mont du Chat, whose summits still shone in the light, tried desperately to catch the last of the day of which their lofty heights had given them so large a share. And the plain stretched out in a haze of blue and pink, which spread over all things like a fall of flower-petals and effaced all distinctions of shape and space.

“Look,” said Paule at last, pointing to the skyline.

The two girls rose at once to catch the effect of the sunset on the lake to better advantage. Marcel had eyes for Alice only, in her white robe, looking like a tall, graceful lily, her pure profile outlined against the gold of the sky like the haloed angels of the pious Quatrocentist painters. She turned slowly towards him, her long lashes quivering over her dazzled eyes, and smiled at him gently as she said:

“I can look no longer. The sun hurts my eyes.”

Paule thought of the time when she and her brothers loved to stare at the sun itself without lowering their eyelids. But Marcel, stirred in spite of himself by the sight of so fragile a beauty, felt his heart beat furiously, and was full of those longings for sacrifice which accompany the dawn of love.

“Alice,” came the voice of Madame Dulaurens, “you must not stay out in the cold air.”

A little later Marcel and Paule left. They got back to Le Maupas by a path half hidden under the grass which borders the Forezan ravine and crosses a wood of beech and birch before joining the Vimines road. Through the foliage an occasional glimpse could be caught of a pink and mauve sky, a sky of happy omen. And yet the brother and sister were silent, lost in their own thoughts.

“You weren’t bored, Paule, were you?” asked Marcel at last.

“I? No, I went to La Chênaie to please you. Are you pleased?”

He did not answer at once. Without looking at Paule, whose sadness he had not noticed owing to his own absorption, he began to tell his secret in the darkness of the woods.

“If I asked her to marry me, what would you say?”

Paule had expected this confidence, and yet she trembled. Her dark eyes were fixed on the path, strewn now with the dark leaves of other years, and bathed in the violet evening light. She answered almost harshly:

“Her parents will refuse.”

“Why?” asked he, and love gave place for a moment to pride.

“Because you haven’t a title.”

“But neither have they. And besides, what does that matter nowadays?”

“Oh, their set retains its prejudices.”

“But if she wishes it herself?”

“She has no will of her own.”

“And if she loves me?”

“She will cry,” said Paule.

It was her own despair, which nobody must know, which she must crush in silence and mystery, that made her give these cruel answers. Marcel, his sensitive feelings hurt, lengthened his steps as he climbed the hill and drew himself up as straight as a young oak-tree. But Paule at last, choking down all thought of self, hastened to catch up with him and took his hand in hers. She spoke in a voice quivering with emotion.

“Listen, Marcel, I spoke hastily just now. I was in bad humor. Forgive me, I was wrong. Yes, I know that I was wrong. I saw to-day that she liked you. And her mother lavishes favors and kindnesses upon you.”

Marcel listened to her, but his face was still melancholy.

Paule went on. “You see, since father died there have been so many changes that my character has become embittered, no doubt. I cannot bear people who belittle everything we admire and make fun of all our enthusiasms. You saw that Isabelle Orlandi? But if Alice became your wife, how quickly she would change! She is so good, so sweet and gentle. And then she is so lovely.”

“Yes,” he agreed sadly. “She is lovely.”

It grew darker in the woods. The slim trunks of the birches and beeches mingled with the blackness of their foliage. But beyond the trees the brother and sister emerged again into the lingering summer twilight which refused to give place to night.

As they came in sight of Le Maupas, Marcel stopped short.

“No, you are not wrong. But speak to Alice. Explain to her my past, my future, all that is my pride—my only fortune. I would carry her off to Algiers, which is an enchanted town.”

She understood and, looking tenderly at her brother, said:

“Ah, if you love her, that’s different. I will do as you wish.”

“Speak to her to-morrow,” he insisted. “We are going to breakfast at La Chênaie with Mademoiselle Orlandi’s fiancé.”

“To-morrow? So soon?” was all she said. The invitation had not been given to her personally. But she gave no thought to this discourtesy, and added:

“Wouldn’t it be better to speak to her parents?”

“No,” he answered decidedly, “I don’t want our mother to run the risk of taking a useless step.”

And as they passed through the gate she murmured:

“I want you to be happy!”

He smiled, but not at all confidently.

“Don’t say anything to Mother yet. She doesn’t like that set. Neither do I.” Still he had to admit his weakness at the end.

“But I do love her!” he concluded.

CHAPTER V
ALICE’S SECRET

A plebeian husband and a woman of the aristocracy have not yet come to be regarded in French provincial life as making a good match. They are called “half bloods,” and they cannot make any pretensions to race. They are the object of ridicule when the husband allows the wife to dwell incessantly on her origin, in order to conceal the humbleness of his own, and even to have her maiden name added on her visiting cards.

M. Dulaurens had learnt through his home life to appreciate the force of aristocratic prejudice. His newly acquired royalism was extreme and uncompromising. All titles dazzled him, even those distributed by the cynical republic of San Marino in return for cash; but even to these latter, in his humility, he did not dare to aspire. This deferential attitude did not entirely console Madame Dulaurens for having married beneath her; but at least she could thus gratify her taste for ruling.

Even as she ruled her husband and her household, so too she ruled her children, and more especially Alice. She belonged to that order of mothers who confuse their own happiness with that of their daughters, and are quite sincere in thinking that they are working for the latter when in reality they are working only for the former. Her maternal affection was of the absorbing character of passion itself and satisfied the lack in her life which marriage had been unable to supply. That morning she was carefully mapping out the future of Alice, to whom she had, just as a matter of form, submitted M. de Marthenay’s proposal. But above all she was taken up with the luncheon party which she was giving in honor of Isabelle Orlandi’s engagement. She got up abruptly from her armchair every now and then to give some order. In the process she forgot to notice Alice or to obtain her consent. She was like one of those conquerors who cannot conceive of any obstacle to their plans. Her treatment, indeed, of the eminently serious subject was somewhat free and easy—for she had long had it in mind, and looked upon it already as one of those family compacts which are natural and, so to speak, inevitable.

Coming back for the third time from the kitchen, which she did deign to visit, she enumerated all the advantages of this match. “His is a very old and perfectly genuine title. Good connections. Not much money certainly, but our aristocrats are not shop-keepers. And Armand is very good-looking.”

There was a knock at the door, and the frightened butler came in with uplifted hands.

“Madame, I am sorry to have to tell Madame that the ice cream is not hardening in the freezer!”

“Put more ice and some more salt into it then,” said Madame Dulaurens shortly, continuing as soon as the door was shut:

“And then, my dear girl, I shall be able to keep you near me. You know, I absolutely insisted on that. I made that an essential condition of your acceptance. Armand has promised me never to leave Chambéry. If some day he is appointed to another place, he would give up his post and that would settle it. He has agreed to that, so we shall never be separated.” She was prepared to give way to tears at this juncture, when there was another knock.

“Come in,” she said impatiently.

It was the gardener bringing in flowers for the table, to receive her compliments.

“Alice, do look at these carnations,” said Madame Dulaurens Hurriedly, “and the jessamine and roses. They are very nice, Pierre, thank you.”

At last she glanced at her daughter. Alice’s silence surprised her. The girl was deathly pale and kept her eyes cast to the ground. When she raised them she met her mother’s gaze and, unable to bear it any longer, burst into tears. Madame Dulaurens took her in her arms.

“Dearest, what is the matter?” she said.

“I don’t know. Why do you want to marry me off so soon? I am quite happy. Keep me here still, mother darling.”

Madame Dulaurens stroked the girl’s head and her cheeks as she used to do when Alice was a child.

“But I am not going to lose you, my sweet. Have I not explained that you are not going to leave me?” she added with a smile, though still rather anxiously:

“Think what a lovely Countess of Marthenay you will make, dear! And don’t you like the Count?”

“Oh, I don’t know!”

It was her frightened way of refusing, Madame Dulaurens had a presentiment of it.

“We will fix the wedding for any day you choose,” said she.

At this sentence, which gave a very present reality to the dreaded event, Alice shuddered and in a heartrending voice entreated:

“No, no, I can’t do it. Oh, mother, mother!”

Madame Dulaurens was stupefied by this simultaneous blow at her affection and her will. But woman of the world as she was, she thought the time for an explanation badly chosen.

“Dear heart, be calm. I quite understand your feelings. It will all be arranged. It is just lunch-time, and our friends are arriving. Dry your tears quickly, do, dear. Trust in your mother.”

Alice had succeeded in regaining her calm when a servant announced that Madame and Mademoiselle Orlandi were in the drawing-room.

As she went down first to receive her visitors, Madame Dulaurens reflected. She was not unduly disturbed by Alice’s strange refusal, seeing in it only one of those girlish whims which spring up so easily and as quickly die again. But she felt she knew the cause and blamed herself.

“It was I who brought Captain Guibert here,” she thought. “It is all my fault. And what an absurd idea to ask him here to lunch to-day!”

In her anger against the young man, in whom she already saw the obstacle to her plans, she was not far from considering herself his benefactress and accusing him therefore of ingratitude, because she attached no little importance to her invitations as a passport to celebrity for her guests.

After lunch, Madame Dulaurens was unable to repress a certain new disquiet. Looking for Alice, as she kept doing constantly, she saw her through the drawing-room window, going towards the oakwood on Paule Guibert’s arm.

All the time she was entertaining Madame Orlandi and Mademoiselle de Songeon with her smiles and graces she was saying to herself:

“I am quite certain she is being influenced by that wheedling little creature, who is trying to get her for her own brother.”

And turning to the Captain, who was talking to M. Dulaurens and M. Landeau, she noticed that his eyes were following the two girls.

“I wasn’t wrong,” she said to herself. “The danger is there.”

Little used to reflection and impatient of every discussion which could lessen her authority, she never asked herself whether she could trust Alice’s future to this honourable man; whether, indeed, it was not her duty to do so, should her child’s love have involuntarily been given to him. She quite understood, without admitting it to herself, that a comparison could only be unfavorable to M. de Marthenay, who had already been mixed up in a disgraceful liaison and whose military career was without glory or promise. Instinctively she put from her the thought of any possible rivalry which could at the last moment disturb an arrangement to which she had irrevocably made up her mind, an arrangement which flattered at once her insufferable conceit and her still more overbearing motherly pride. As she chose for her daughter what she would have chosen for herself, she was in no doubt as to the wisdom of her choice and her own disinterestedness.

In the meantime Isabelle Orlandi, stopping Jean Berlier as he was going up to join the group of men, whispered:

“What do you think of him?”

“Of whom?”

“M. Landeau.”

“I don’t think one way or the other,” Jean replied.

“He doesn’t talk much, but he says all he thinks.”

She laughed, showing her white teeth, which reflected the light, and for the second time Jean found her laugh ring false. He thought of the songs one hears at night in the country, sung by a belated pedestrian frightened at the solitude.

Silent and motionless, M. Landeau devoured his fiancée with his eyes. It was very evident that he felt for her one of those passions that increases instead of lessening with the decline of youth, when it suddenly attacks a heart which has until then been a stranger to love. He was already a middle-aged man, and his clumsy, squarely-built figure lacked distinction. He was little used to society and was easily disconcerted by the light and airy graces which are its very life and soul. The dashing elegance of Jean Berlier, who was only twenty-five, accentuated still more by contrast his own age and clumsiness. From afar he gazed at Isabelle, splendid and beautiful in her white dress, like an idol whom he dared not approach. And she seemed oblivious of everything, even of the unpleasing presence of her millionaire slave.

Through the oak-branches, the sun’s rays filtered on the soil of the wood which was covered with a brown carpet of the leaves of past years.

The two girls walked slowly along the path arm in arm. They passed from sunshine to shade, and from shadow to sunshine again. Amid the shelter of the old straight-limbed trees they felt the peace all about them. Alice of the golden locks was dressed in pink. Paule’s dark hair and mourning dress brought out the paleness of her skin. The fine weather made them both happy, and almost unconsciously they renewed their friendship of the convent days and from time to time they stopped to smile at each other.

Meanwhile neither noticed the other’s excitement. Each had a great secret. Alice, who thought herself very brave since the scene of the morning, was burning to be worthy of her friend’s confidence. Paule, stirred to the depths of her nature, was thinking about the brother whose affection she was about to reveal.

“Paule,” said Alice, “do you remember our talks at the Sacred Heart?”

“I seldom think about them now,” replied Paule.

“One day we were talking about marriage. Raymonde Ortaire, in the class above us, was always discussing the subject. She said, ‘I shall never marry anybody but a rich aristocrat.’ Then we all told in turn what our ideal was. I could only whisper, ‘I don’t know!’ And you, Paule, I see you now with your dark eyes—your lovely dark eyes which shine most at night or in trouble. You said, as if you despised all our ideas, ‘To marry is to love and nothing else.’ Raymonde laughed, but we felt like slapping her!”

“You too?” said Paule, with affectionate irony.

“Certainly, I too. Does that surprise you? If you had heard me this morning you would not be at all astonished.”

A little flush in Alice’s pure cheeks gave her animation which heightened her charm, and her walk seemed less languid and weary than usual. Paule, who loved the sweetness of her features though she thought them weak, was surprised at this new spirit and immediately felt that it was a good omen for her mission.

“This morning?” she repeated questioningly.

“This very morning,” said Alice solemnly, “I refused to marry.”

She said no more, so that she might enjoy the effect of this. It is always pleasant for a girl to give someone to understand that she has refused suitors. A more delicate thought made her add:

“You promise to keep the secret? I shall not even tell you his name.”

Paule, who had guessed it already, smiled rather uneasily. Quivering with excitement, she waited for explanations. Already she trembled for him who had sent her on his errand.

“Would it be indiscreet if I asked why you refused?”

Alice stopped. A golden ray, which shot through the leaves, fell directly on her fair hair. Her supple form bent forward a little and she cried, radiant as a spring flower.

“To marry means to love and nothing else!”

“You don’t love anyone then?”

“No.”

“Nobody?” persisted Paule.

“Nobody.”

But the girl blushed. Was it at her own words, whose boldness shocked her natural reserve, or from a sudden fear that she had distorted the truth?

Paule came to her and put her arm round the slender waist. Then clasping her quite close in the quiet shelter of the wood she murmured quickly, almost timidly, astonished at herself for daring to say what she did:

“Don’t you know that Marcel loves you? He has given you all his heart. Will you consent to be his wife, Alice? He hopes for no happiness except from you alone.”

They were both equally affected and both dropped their eyes to the dead leaves which lay at their feet. At the same moment they both looked up again, blushed, and with a graceful movement embraced each other, and burst into tears.

Paule recovered herself first. She looked with new eyes at this exquisite being leaning on her shoulder, who without uttering a word had become her sister. Alice, meanwhile, a prey to delicious emotion, feared its force and thirsted to feel it always at her heart, accused herself for giving way to it and readily gave way. This first encounter with love made her see into the secret corners of her soul, still so unformed and child-like. Her heart unfolded like some rose-bud, which in the evening seems still closed and next morning one finds with its opening calyx wet with dew.

“You will say ‘Yes’?” asked Paule softly. And in a voice as thin as a breath of air Alice at last whispered, “Yes.”

Hand in hand they continued their walk, one listening to the happiness singing within her and the other forgetful of self, and tasting in all its fulness this joy which was not for her.

“You are my sister,” said Paule, “and I love you. Marcel deserves to be happy. He has been so kind to us, I cannot tell you how kind. After my father’s death we lived through some dreadful times. But my brother, though so far away, helped us, with all his strength and resources.”

Alice listened to this praise with conflicting emotions. Paule’s words brought an element of awkwardness into the conversation. Alice thought nothing of money and did not know its importance. But she could not imagine a love story without an appropriate setting. Ignorant of life, she had conceived a wrong idea of the relative importance of vital matters. And how indeed could she have met it in all its truth?

These were but dim and fleeting impressions. Alice did not regret that she had said “Yes.” Marcel loved her, and dear Paule at her side spoke so kindly to her. Feeling the need, however, of reinforcing her courage, she questioned her friend about the future.

“What must we do now?”

“My mother will come to La Chênaie to ask for your hand. You must prepare your mother and father. Your mother adores you and surely wants only to make you happy. And M. Dulaurens will willingly listen to your mother.”

The oak-trees which sheltered the two girls at this moment were so thick of foliage that no light could penetrate them. Alice had become suddenly thoughtful and awoke from her glowing love-dream to that reality whose approach she instinctively dreaded.

“Should I have to go away with ... Marcel?” she asked.

When she was a child she had always called him by his Christian name. Now she scarce dared pronounce the two syllables which seemed to burn her lips.

“Of course, when you are his wife,” said Paule, astonished.

“Yes, yes, of course. But shall we go very far?”

“To Algiers.”

“Oh, that is so far away. My mother will never give her consent.”

Her beautiful eyes were troubled. She already saw her happiness taking flight.

“Perhaps he would give up Algiers for the time being to please you. But don’t spoil his career, Alice. I think it is always dangerous to do that, and Marcel’s is so promising.”

“Oh, you know, Paule dear, I am not a heroine. I shall never be a Guibert. But he has been brave enough, has he not?”

Paule could hardly keep from laughing.

“You can never be too brave,” she said. “We who have no outside life, Alice, who have to stay at home, can at least help our brothers, our husbands, our sons, by our strong and understanding love. We must show our preference for those men who are brave and of some use in the world.”

“I have never thought about these things,” said Alice.

“And yet you love Marcel?”

“If he ceased to be useful to his country I should love him just as well,” Alice replied.

“Ah,” said Paule softly, as if talking to herself. “For my part, I should never dare to spoil my husband’s career.”

Her companion scarcely heard. She was following her own train of thought.

“Since he loves me, could he not stay with me, near his mother and my family? We should be so happy! Our fortune would be quite enough for both of us.”

“He would not accept that,” answered Paule. And forgetting her mission of peace in an access of pride, she answered contemptuously:

“So you would not go with him?”

Alice noticed the scorn and answered somewhat angrily:

“Of course, I would go with him everywhere. For I love him, as you know. I am quite ready. But ...” She hesitated for a moment, and then she murmured mournfully:

“There is my mother.”

“Your mother loves you and wishes for your happiness above everything.”

“No doubt. But she wishes that I should enjoy it near her, so that she can enjoy it too. Isn’t that only natural?”

Paule thought of her own mother, who had borne so many separations and who had never turned her children from their path. She was silent and her dark eyes sparkled no more. Alice took her hand, and then releasing it she began to cry.

“Paule, I’m afraid, I’m so afraid. But I love you so.”

It was to Marcel that these passionate words were addressed—through the medium of Paule. The latter soothed the timid girl as she might a little sister of her own.

“Someone is coming,” she said suddenly, hearing a noise among the leaves. “Take care.”

“Will they see that I have been crying?”

“No, hardly. Don’t rub your eyes.” And in a low voice she murmured, “Be brave. You promise me that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Dear little sister!”

Alice smiled, comforted by this sweet name.

At the bend of the path appeared Isabelle Orlandi, accompanied by Jean Berlier. She was talking with an almost feverish animation.

“Look,” she said to the two girls as they joined her—and she showed her left hand, on which a ruby and an emerald glistened.

“Two engagement rings!” she said.

“Two engagement rings?” repeated Alice, amused.

“Yes, M. Landeau is very generous. If you could only see my jewels! They will fill a big box. I had to choose an ornament, and as I hesitated between the best of them my very kind fiancé, with a magnificent gesture, simply said, ‘Keep the lot!’ So I kept them all to please Mamma. And look at this lorgnette with its handle encrusted with precious stones.”

“But your eyes are quite good,” said Jean.

Isabelle acknowledged the compliment with a curtsey.

“That doesn’t matter. It’s smart to use one,” she said.

As she was dilating on her good fortune, Madame Dulaurens, escorted by Captain Guibert and M. Landeau appeared.

Uneasy at her daughter’s long absence she had proposed to her two guests a stroll in the oakwood. She breathed more freely when she was with Alice. But she noticed her heightened color, however, and traces of trouble in her face.

“It is high time,” she thought, “to get rid of our hero.”

Behind her Marcel, too, was studying the girl. He was looking at her with the eagerness of love which dares not hope too much. But he quickly lowered his eyes. And when he raised them again they were full of the peace of love wherein doubt and fear do not linger. Madame Orlandi and Mademoiselle De Songeon, led by M. Dulaurens, joined the group. Through the plane-tree avenue they accompanied Paule and Marcel, who were about to take their leave.

In front of the open gate on the other side of the Chaloux road, before a humble cottage, a swarm of children were playing in the sun. With tangled hair, shining healthy faces, and bare feet, they shouted now with joy and now with anger, when suddenly their mother came out on the doorstep. She was a peasant woman, of faded appearance, whose figure indicated approaching motherhood.

“They are very poor,” explained Madame Dulaurens, looking at them, “and they are always expecting more children. They have seven already, and just look!”

“Seven children! How awful!” said Mademoiselle de Songeon, turning away in disgust.

“It is tempting Providence,” added Madame Dulaurens. And Mademoiselle Orlandi twittered:

“How pretty they would look painted! But in actual life they are dirty and a nuisance.”

“Those who want them can’t have them,” muttered the peasant woman, who had overheard this. And she picked up the youngest child and pressed it to her bosom.

Isabelle laughed a hard laugh and said to her fiancé, looking him straight in the face:

“Well, you know, I don’t want any children!”

M. Landeau smiled joylessly. An awkward pause followed this sally so artless and yet so cynical. Only Madame Orlandi was amused.

“Oh, Isabelle, you terrible child!” she said.

Alice kissed Paule as she said good-bye, and Marcel was lost in admiration of the languid beauty which accompanied her every movement and gave her an unsubstantial, airy grace. In his love was mingled a desire to protect her. He would have given all his strength to this lovely child, whose frailty inspired him with an almost religious emotion.

Alone with her brother on the road, Paule was kissing the children, who had stopped their game under the gaze of those whose hostility they had divined.

“Poor little creatures!” she said with an indignant flash of the eye. “They don’t love you in these days!”

The peasant woman was flattered and smiled at the girl. “There is a crowd of them and they grow like weeds!”

“God is good and the earth is big,” said Marcel, who remembered his father’s joy when he saw beautiful children.

“Yes, Monsieur Guibert. My mother had twelve. I have three brothers in Paris and four in America. They are far away, but they are still living.”

Never having left her native place, she easily confused distances. Paule pointed to the group of chubby mites, who had begun to laugh again.

“They will be able to keep you later on!”

“In the meantime they eat whole potfuls of soup. My husband toils for them all day long, and we live from hand to mouth.”

“Have you no land?”

“Not enough to keep a rabbit on!”

Putting a coin into the smallest child’s hand, money she had saved to buy a pair of gloves, she said:

“Good-bye, be brave.”

When they had reached Montcharvin woods Paule stopped and smiled at her brother.

“Don’t you want to hear my news? Did you speak to her?”

“No, I understood. She accepts, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she refused Monsieur de Marthenay this morning. It is a secret. She loves you. She is charming, and you will have strength enough for both.”

He did not answer. And brother and sister exchanged no more confidences for they felt the same shyness about their hidden feelings. As they arrived at the gate Marcel spoke to Paule again.

“We must let mother know,” he said. “You tell her, dear, since you are playing Providence to me to-day.”

“Very well,” answered Paule. “I will tell her presently.”

Later in the evening, Madame Guibert, having heard her daughter’s news, was silent for a long time.

“Is this happiness for us?” she murmured at last.

“She is very nice,” said Paule.

And the old lady added, “May she make him happy! I would rather have had her not so rich and with more strength of character. But since he loves her, we must love her too. Let us pray for them.”

She never thought for a moment that her son might be refused.

CHAPTER VI
MONSIEUR AND MADAME DULAURENS

Every morning Alice Dulaurens said to herself that she would spend the day inducing her parents to give their consent to this marriage of which the thought alone filled her with happiness; and every evening, having said nothing, she waited for the next day. But she soon had to make up her mind, for her friend Paule informed her of the date on which the definite offer was to be made.

On the eve of Madame Guibert’s visit she had still said nothing. Feeling anxious, she was late in going to sleep and got up very early, thinking to gain time. The hours sped rapidly, and her love-stricken heart trembled. She watched first her father and then her mother, in order to get one aside to listen to her request, and like all timid people she never found the right moment.

“Mamma is alone in her room,” she thought. She ran there but came out quickly, for her mother was busy writing.

“It will be better to come back presently,” she said to herself.

With some color in her cheeks she started at once to look for her father.

“Papa is going round the garden,” she said. But he was talking to the gardener. Thus she found a hundred weak reasons for keeping back her confidence. At last she made up her mind to speak after lunch.

“That is the time when one feels best disposed,” she assured herself, to find an excuse for her cowardice.

Unhappily for her plans, Madame Orlandi came to lunch. On the stroke of twelve she arrived, carrying her pug Pistache, which she never left behind her, and she began her mild and friendly Italian prattle.

“I am not putting you out? You are so kind. I hate lunching by myself. Isabelle and the maid have gone to Lyons to see about her trousseau, you know. A wedding makes such a fuss. My poor head is splitting.”

“What a good idea to come to us,” said the extremely bored Madame Dulaurens. And M. Dulaurens gravely agreed:

“The preparations for a wedding are certainly very disturbing to the peace of the house. But it is in keeping with social usage that this ceremony should remain in our memories if only on account of all the trouble it gives us.”

“You don’t mind the darling lunching with us?” said Madame Orlandi, pointing to the pug as they entered the dining-room.

“Certainly—we should never be cruel enough to separate you!”

Madame Orlandi seated Pistache at her side and at once made him the object of conversation.

“Yesterday my dear little pet had a sad time. We went to see M. Loigny, uncle of that dear Jean Berlier who is such a good friend to my daughter. He lives near Chambéry in a villa, all covered with roses. His house is a scented bower. He has great taste, this old man, but very little politeness. He lives in his garden quite forgetful of mankind and manners. Pistache destroyed a young rose-tree, and the flower-maniac threw him out of the door. I departed in a most dignified way leaving my daughter behind, M. Jean being kind enough to escort her home in the evening, when he made profuse apologies.”

“Is M. Landeau away?” said Madame Dulaurens, rather shocked at the way in which Madame Orlandi interpreted her maternal duties.

Quite unmoved, the Italian Countess answered:

“M. Landeau is away. He is doing splendid business at present. My girl will scarcely see him before the day the contract is signed. He is not exactly beautiful to look upon. Isabelle is very artistic. But she will get used to him. You can get used to everything, except being no longer beautiful after you have once been so.”

Regrets for her lost youth made her sigh. She lowered her face, smothered with violet powder,—that face which for a long time she had not dared to gaze upon in the mirror. When the butler offered her a dish of choice fruits, she looked at it with a gasp and, turning to Madame Dulaurens, asked:

“Are there no sweets?”

“No,” answered Madame Dulaurens, rather surprised.

“How tiresome!”

Madame Dulaurens, now really astonished at her behavior, remarked:

“You didn’t tell us, dear friend, that we were to have the pleasure of your society to-day.”

“Oh,” said the Italian, not in the least disconcerted, “I am very easily pleased and I understand your ways. But it is Pistache. He won’t understand. Every day he has his three courses and a sweet. He will think that I have punished him, and he hasn’t deserved it.”

Madame Dulaurens was quite out of patience, but she had a white of egg beaten with some sugar, which was offered to the idol. As they rose from table the little dog, under the influence of his greed, insisted on staying behind, in spite of the frantic calls of his mistress. He paid for it, however. The butler saw him, and having made sure that the coast was clear and the company all gone, with a well-directed kick sent him flying to the other end of the dining-room. Pistache gave vent to a dull growl, but was not at all astonished. All he knew of life consisted of extremes, and he travelled philosophically from kisses to kicks, from the drawing-room to the pantry.

Immediately after lunch M. Dulaurens, assuming a busy and important air, which imparted a comical cast to his placid face, bowed to the ladies and departed to his workroom, where one of his tenants was waiting. It was a question of rent in arrears. The tenant naturally claimed a deduction. Labor was dear, money tight, and the harvests had been bad.

“Bad!” cried M. Dulaurens with that hardness which he appeared to keep for his tenants and tradesmen, and which redeemed him in his own eyes from the weakness which he displayed toward his wife.

“Bad! But what about all last year’s wine? What have you done with it? There were barrels and barrels of it. You haven’t sold it?”

“Oh, Sir, you can’t think that. It would only have fetched a poor price. It was a disgrace. We preferred to drink it ourselves.”

M. Dulaurens, forgetting his peaceful instincts when his interests were concerned, was going to fly into a rage, when his eyes fell on a work lying on his table between a society novel and a book on heraldry. It was Nicole’s handbook: “The Methods of Peace among Mankind.” He had bought it cheap on account of its title and had contented himself with the reading of that alone, which was sympathetic to the natural tranquillity of his disposition. Calming himself, he sent the peasant away with many kind words, but without the slightest concession.

“Landlords are really to be pitied,” he protested. “They do not know what to do. My friend M. Timoléon Mestrallet himself has great difficulty in getting out of debt.”

M. Mestrallet was an old miser in the neighborhood, who spent his holidays in complaining of the bad times and the difficulty he had in making ends meet. But he never said anything about the enormous sums he saved every year.

As the tenant was going away, inwardly reproaching himself for having gained nothing by the interview, Alice came into the room. She carried a cup of coffee made as her father liked it. She counted on the favorable effect the fragrant beverage would have on her father, who was inordinately fond of it and accepted the cup now with an angelic smile of pleasure. While he was taking little satisfied sips, she sat down, then got up, and could not remain still. Confused and frightened, she trembled violently as she forced out these simple words:

“Father, you are going to have a visitor presently.”

“Well, my dear, your mother is in the drawing-room. And who is it?”

“Madame Guibert,” replied a choking voice, which should have revealed the young girl’s secret to Monsieur Dulaurens, if the latter had not a long time ago abdicated his privileges as head of the family and neglected the knowledge of his own children.

“Madame Guibert? She never goes to see anyone since she became a widow. It is an honor that we shall appreciate.”

And drawing up his little figure to show his appreciation, he said, with a great air of superiority:

“She is not very used to society, but she is a good woman, and her sons have succeeded very well.”

Alice thought his praise rather inadequate and murmured, “Her husband saved my life, Father. You remember when I had typhoid fever?”

“Yes, yes,” he said quickly. He also remembered that the doctor’s bill might not have been settled, and he did not wish to go into the matter very deeply. Could Madame Guibert be coming to claim this old debt? But surely not, she would not be so impertinent—especially now, when her son and daughter were so kindly received at La Chênaie. She would be unwilling to spoil such good social relations by the intrusion of business. Why then this visit, for which Alice had been prepared beforehand?

“Did she tell you she was coming?” he asked.

“Yes, Papa.” And then in a very low voice she spoke again. “Madame Guibert is coming on my account.”

M. Dulaurens, who was taking short steps up and down the room for the sake of his digestion (for this room with its ever closed bookcases was particularly useful to him for this health-giving exercise), stopped suddenly and seemed to realise at last that something unusual was going on in his house.

“On your account?” he repeated uneasily.

With the brusque quickness of the irresolute, Alice at once burnt her boats:

“Father, don’t you wish me to be happy?” she asked.

“Certainly, certainly! We wish it above all things.” And already he saw all sorts of difficulties to disturb his peaceful existence in the future and even his digestion at the present time. However, he loved his pretty Alice, whose gentleness harmonised with his own character, and he would even have adored and spoilt her, had he not been restrained by the fear of his wife and the vain desire to imitate in her absence her authoritative ways. Distracted between so many feelings, whose complexity frightened him and hardened his usually benign face, he demanded an explanation.

“You talk to me about Madame Guibert and then about your happiness. I don’t understand.”

Alice hesitated no longer, and her nervousness itself prevented her from guessing her father’s thoughts.

“She is going to ask for my hand on behalf of her son.”

“The captain?”

“Yes.”

She went on more falteringly, the whole force of her love summed up in the poor little hope which her words expressed:

“Father, I beg you, you must consent and persuade Mamma.”

But for the closing phrase M. Dulaurens would have been touched. He took in things in detail, and the last words always made most impression on his mind.

“Persuade Mamma!” he cried. “It is always your mother,” he said sharply, and began once more his walk up and down.

He made sure that the door was closed, stopped to listen, and then, encouraged by the silence and sure of their privacy, he let himself go boldly:

“Your mother! Don’t you know, my dear, that my consent is of far more importance? The law demands that. And this law is just. There must be one supreme authority in a household, and this authority is vested in the head of the family, the Paterfamilias!”

He threw a rapid glance at the mirror to study his own omnipotent appearance. He seemed to have forgotten the serious subject of the interview, which the trembling Alice feared to recall to him. Must she again pronounce the burning name of Marcel Guibert?

But coming down to earth again M. Dulaurens spared her at least this new exhibition of courage, as he repeated word for word a sentence of his wife’s:

“This young man is a hero. Heroism makes him one of us!”

By which his wife had meant, that one might safely receive Marcel Guibert in a drawing-room so distinguished as that of La Chênaie!

Not wishing to commit himself, he hastened to raise several objections:

“But you wish for a life of calm, I suppose, my dear Alice. You don’t want a husband who goes about conquering the world. You have a tranquil and peaceful nature. Will Marcel remain at Chambéry?”

“Father,” said the girl, remembering Paule’s lesson of heroism, “a wife must help her husband and not hamper his career.”

“His career? Well, he can follow that near us. Chambéry is a garrison that is very much sought after. He can exchange—nothing is easier—and we have influence with the War Office. Or he might resign. But then he has no money.”

Alice was silent, and her father, coming nearer, saw her tears. His heart was stirred, and the real foundation of his nature was laid bare, a nature which snobbishness and the habit of dependence had overlap. He gently stroked his daughter’s face with his hand.

“Don’t cry, darling. I want you to be happy.”

But all his hankerings after self-assertion fled at once like birds before the beater; for the door opened and Madame Dulaurens, having at last gotten rid of Madame Orlandi and growing uneasy about Alice’s prolonged absence, entered the study in her turn. The little imperious air which had adorned M. Dulaurens’s face for his daughter’s benefit was no more, and his final tenderness had gone. Instinctively he assumed the modest attitude which suits a clerk in the presence of his chief. Robbed of all conjugal courage and only wishing to avoid a family scene, he fled with a well-turned phrase:

“I leave our daughter to you, my dear. She wants to get married and will tell you all about it.”

Turning to Alice, he added:

“Here is your mother. Arrange matters with her. Whatever she does is well done.” And with these words he effaced himself, above everything anxious to be at peace with all the world.

Madame Dulaurens had not replied to her husband’s speech. For the first time in her life she was jealous of him. Was he not mixing himself up with Alice’s confidences? She loved her daughter with a selfish and absorbing love, and by the continual encroachments of her power as a mother had, little by little, extinguished (without noticing it herself) the personality of this delicate, shrinking girl, already by nature too indolent and overprone to unquestioning submission. She enjoyed her daughter’s beauty as if it were her own possession, and treated this young life precisely as though she had but a helpless new-born infant to deal with. It was impossible for a guileless, affectionate disposition not to recognise such unfaltering devotion and not to be affected by it. Alice strove by her obedience to please her domineering mother, whose eyes she felt incessantly upon her; but this watchful regard was paralysing her with fear.

As the door closed on her husband Madame Dulaurens, glorying in the impression she had made and already on her guard against the danger which she guessed, came up to the girl and, putting her arms round her, sat beside her on the chair.

“My little Countess de Marthenay,” she whispered in her ear as she kissed her.

But the girl was still silent, and her tears began to flow.

“You want to marry, don’t you? And you confided in your father. Nothing could please me better. We shall never be parted. Armand has promised me that.” Still unwilling to doubt the realisation of her plans, after a pause, she continued:

“He will get on. If he cannot get the position he wants he will resign. Your fortune will be sufficient to live on without his working, and, besides, in society one always has something to do.”

Alice’s tears and persistent silence at last warned her mother that the trouble she feared was a reality.

“I was mistaken then, dearest child? You refuse to be his wife? You don’t care for him?”

Yes, that was it. Alice made an affirmative gesture and Madame Dulaurens knew with absolute certainty that her daughter’s heart was given to Marcel Guibert. She was mistress enough of herself to hide her discomfiture, and she even began at once to think out a way of avoiding an event which she considered without hesitation or reflection to be a great catastrophe. So much was she guided by her unrestrained prejudices and preconceptions, and by a maternal passion whose selfishness was incapable of sacrifice.

“You don’t want to marry yet, dearest,” she murmured softly. “Is it because you want to stay with me? But I want you so much to be happy that I cannot agree to keep you—although I shall feel the separation bitterly—so long as I know that you are happy, and can see with my own eyes daily that my darling is contented. But you don’t answer. It isn’t that, then? Have you given way to your feelings without my permission? Can you have defied me to that extent?”

The rebuke, which had only the effect of redoubling Alice’s tears, escaped Madame Dulaurens in an unguarded moment. Now her diplomacy returned to her. She stopped short, and when she began again it was in a coaxing voice.

“Am I not your best friend and confidante? Have you any secrets from me? Dearest, I have not deserved this. If you don’t love M. de Marthenay, if you love someone else, you must tell me. And we will arrange your future together.” A new hope filled the girl’s heart and at last she sighed out:

“Yes, Mamma.”

“And who is it?” asked Madame Dulaurens, kissing her. “Who has stolen my darling’s heart? Your lips are quite near my ear. Tell me his name.”

She knew the name quite well, yet she wanted to hear it from the trembling mouth. Alice could not resist this gentleness. She dried her eyes and managed to say, with one of those quivers of the whole body which follow a violent fit of sobbing:

“Madame Guibert is coming presently.... She wants to speak about me ... for her son.”

“For the captain?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my dearest! How you hurt me!”

And she left her daughter and seated herself in a chair close by. She hid her face in her hands and sat motionless, in a most despairing attitude. Alice, drying her own tears, tried to console her.

“Why have I hurt you, Mother dear?”

Madame Dulaurens lifted her head slowly and with an expression of the deepest sorrow replied:

“Because I see quite well that you are going to leave me. M. Guibert will take you far away from us—into some wretched little town in France, or even to Algiers. He might even want to take you with him on some expedition. Love will not keep these conquering heroes back for very long from glory and danger. How could you love him? You are so gentle and so home-loving.”

Standing beside her mother, her eyes guiltily lowered to the ground, Alice murmured:

“Oh, Mamma, I don’t know. Perhaps because I am weak ... and he is strong.”

With her chin in her hand and without looking at the girl Madame Dulaurens went on as if she were seeking an explanation for herself.

“I can understand his wanting to marry you. The Guiberts have been all but ruined since the Doctor made himself the savior of that banker at Annecy. They say that there was no bankruptcy, that everything was paid up. But one never knows. That suicide and failure were very curious. And then that expedition to Madagascar! Oh, I agree that the Captain distinguished himself, there is no doubt about that, and I made him feel it clearly enough. And he has every reason to be thankful to me. Instead of that he proposes to take my daughter away from me. That expedition into an unhealthy country was terrible. All our soldiers got the fever there. Yes, all of them, my dear. I would not want you to marry an invalid. It is my duty to see to that. Oh, I only want you to be happy. You see, dear, young girls like you know nothing of life. They have young loving hearts only too ready to admire heroism and courage, and then they confuse admiration with love. It is not the same thing, my dear Alice. You will find it out for yourself some day. I only hope you will not find it out too late!”

With a few short, cutting sentences she destroyed the happiness of which Alice had seemed so sure. Little by little, the girl had drawn back into the window. Half hidden in its recess, she began to cry again, quietly wringing her hands in despair.

Seated upright in her armchair, Madame Dulaurens coldly renewed the attack:

“Now I really thought that M. de Marthenay pleased you. He is very attractive, isn’t he? A good name, a fine figure, and fortune. He is a cavalryman, and rides divinely. He dances perfectly. I chose him in preference to anybody else. And you were going to stay with us. We were to have our part in your happiness, and you want to take this away from us altogether.”

“Mamma!” cried Alice reproachfully.

“Children are horribly ungrateful,” continued her mother. “You, of whom I took so much care in your delicate childhood and during your typhoid fever, now you are already thinking of leaving me!”

Attempting to conceal the selfishness of this complaint, she added:

“If only I were sure that your happiness is there! But not to be able to look after your health; to live in daily fear that you might be ill, so far away—in some garrison where there was no doctor; to be always afraid for the peace and comfort of your home, which I should never see; not to be there to welcome your babies, if God sends you any ... that will be my sad life hereafter.”

Alice, deeply touched by this show of tenderness and motherly devotion, held out her arms.

“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “I will never leave you. I will stay with you.”

This half-victory was so quickly won that Madame Dulaurens, thinking it sufficient, insisted no further on her plans and did not pronounce Armand de Marthenay’s name again.

“Little Alice, my darling little Alice, I have won you back to me,” she said, pressing the girl to her heart. “I love you so. You don’t know how much I love you. I think I love you too much. I want you to be happy.”

These words came naturally to her lips at the very moment when she was breaking her daughter’s heart. But Alice, leaning on the motherly shoulder, saw through the open window a woman in heavy mourning, coming down the avenue towards the house. Slow and bent, Madame Guibert was coming confidently to ask her hand for Marcel. At this sight the girl shuddered and released herself from her mother’s embrace.

“She has no warning of what is coming,” she thought. “It is too late. Poor, poor woman!”

Madame Dulaurens, astonished and made uneasy again by her daughter’s face, was thinking, “Can she be on the point of changing her mind a second time?”

Alice had left the window to avoid the painful sight.

“How she will suffer! I won’t do it! I won’t!” she said to herself, a prey to despair and dragging herself from one chair to another.

Pity dominated her, even in the ruin of her shattered dream of love. To retard the inevitable blow hanging over this poor woman, already so bowed down under the burden of fate, she did not even remind her mother from whom the fatal refusal ought to come. She kept her near her with idle words. No doubt her father would procrastinate, would decline to give any definite reply. Like all weak people, who were content with the smallest successes, she wished only to spare Madame Guibert too sudden a blow, and would not admit to herself that she felt already incapable of saving her, though she had been the first to weep over it and must weep over it for the rest of her life.

After several minutes of anxious expectation Madame Guibert was announced in the drawing-room.

“I will go to her,” said Madame Dulaurens, and, kissing the daughter whom she was sacrificing, she went out of the room. Scarcely was the door shut when Alice, her heart beating wildly, sprang forward and with trembling hands tried in vain to open it.

“Mamma,” she cried through the partition, “I love him, I love him! Say yes, I beg of you.”

She opened the door at last. But the corridor was empty. Madame Dulaurens had gone. She had heard that last heartrending cry. Accustomed to treating the girl as a child who must be governed, she attached no importance to this. Calmly, without compunction, fully persuaded that she was acting as a tender and devoted mother, she went down to receive Madame Guibert and when she entered the drawing-room, she had already prepared the polite and amiable formula of her refusal.

Seeing herself deserted, Alice was crushed. She stood motionless and panting, trembling in every limb, ready to sink to the ground. All at once she pulled herself together, ran hurriedly down the staircase, and finding a gate to the park open, fled far away from the house. She ran to hide her pain in the shadow of the oaks—the same oaks under which she had heard from Paule’s lips the avowal of Marcel’s love. She sat down on the dead leaves. She would have liked to lie upon the gentle earth, to lie there forever, lifeless and forgotten.

It was here, in this spot full of mystery, that she had felt the first consciousness of her youth. Here her eyes had first wakened to the loveliness of nature. Here she had suddenly understood the joy of life. To her it seemed the very shrine of that fair existence which came to its close so soon. She had no courage left, and her only thought was of death.

She never knew how long she was in the wood. There she wept her heart out, telling herself she would be faithful to her lover’s memory, and that if she could not belong to him she would belong to no one. But she did not tell herself that this promise in itself was a renunciation. So she stood self-condemned, incapable of that active love which strives and triumphs.

CHAPTER VII
THE PROPOSAL

With her slow and lingering step Madame Guibert came up the avenue of plane-trees. For this visit of ceremony she was dressed in her newest black dress, and Paule with the greatest care had done her hair and arranged the folds of the widow’s veil.

“You look splendid now,” her son and daughter assured her, as she was getting into the carriage before the steps at Le Maupas. In spite of his mother’s protestations, Marcel had ordered a smart Victoria for her instead of Trélaz’s old carriage.

Nodding and smiling at her children with great tenderness, she drove away in all confidence, like a messenger of peace and happiness. But she discovered the way was very short and the strange horse very fast. It was her wish to get out at the gate of the Avenue at La Chênaie, so that the unusual luxury of her carriage might not be noticed. It gave her a kind of awkward feeling, it seemed a lie to her honest soul.

“You can put me down here,” she said to the coachman. “I will walk the rest of the way.” She went along the avenue leaning on her black parasol. Her heart was beating furiously. In spite of her bravery in facing life, she was still very shy, and society terrified her. In her natural honesty and uprightness, she understood very little about the polite phrases and forms which so cleverly hide the selfish or wicked trend of the speaker’s thoughts—or the utter lack of them. Then, too, she had an exaggerated idea of her own awkwardness and found another cause of anxiety in that; not at all on her own account, but on her son’s, for the sake of whose happiness she still, despite her old age, desired to please.

But then, did she not know full well in advance the result of her undertaking? Could anyone hesitate joyfully to accept the offer of her dear Marcel, whose whole life proclaimed his worth? It was not merely because she was his mother. Love didn’t blind her in the least when she saw and admired the physical seductiveness of his tall, graceful figure, upright as a sapling; of his proudly carried head, his fine, strong features, and above all his eyes, whose glance could chill or warm according as they gazed sternly or kindly—greenish eyes, but large in size, full of fire and astonishingly direct in their expression. What she knew of him she imagined, poor mother, ever other woman must be able to read in his face; the energy which met difficulties with dignity, almost with disdain; that generous and active kindliness of heart; that commanding quality of voice and gesture which told of an ardent spirit and a vigorous mind, the character of a born leader. Certainly he was not one of the insipid, stupid race who conceal their dry, selfish, hard souls under a worldly polish and a uniform correctness of manner. She who consented to share his lot, to suffer and to dare with him, would have no dull, commonplace existence. He would enlarge her mind, expand her feelings, and bring to maturity the flower of her soul, whose complete unfoldment is the most beautiful thing in human life.

And then had not Madame Dulaurens been told by her daughter of the proposed visit and that her request had already been granted? So Madame Guibert came with mingled confidence and apprehension to the Dulaurens’ villa. The walk tired her, she was growing stout, and the seriousness of the occasion contributed its share to her fatigue. She respected Marcel’s choice though it was not hers, and she was ready to forget her own wishes and bow to his. She was prepared to give her whole-hearted assistance in the new life which was in store for him, and cherished the thought that within a few minutes she would be welcoming another daughter to her home and her affections.

Before ringing she stopped, to quiet the beatings of her heart and to take breath. She did not raise her eyes to the window where the desperate and heart-broken Alice was crying her eyes out.

Madame Guibert was received by M. Dulaurens in the drawing-room and she saw a happy omen in this. The little insignificant man could not be expected to make much impression on her, and the meeting with him gave her a little more time to recover herself. After a few polite words which he tried to amplify as much as possible, Madame Guibert found herself unable to keep back the object of her visit any longer and said:

“You have guessed why I came to a Chênaie, Monsieur Dulaurens?” And she smiled sweetly, with that pretty, fresh smile that she had kept to old age and which was the reflection of a soul that had remained pure and unsullied.

“No, Madame Guibert, I am quite in the dark concerning it. We are greatly flattered, I assure you, by your visit. I only regret that Madame Dulaurens is not here.”

Greatly worried, and afraid to assume any disturbing responsibility, the unhappy man could not rest. He pulled the bell quickly and when the maid answered it he asked:

“Have you told Madame?”

“I am looking for her, Sir. Madame is not in her room. Madame is perhaps with Mademoiselle in Monsieur’s room.”

“Perhaps so. Go and tell her.”

And turning to Madame Guibert, trying to gain time, he said:

“It is tiresome, very tiresome, but, as you see, they are looking for her, they have gone to tell her. She will not be long. I am very sorry to keep you waiting.”

“What I have to say, Monsieur, interests you quite as much as Madame Dulaurens,” said Madame Guibert, who was so full of her mission that she did not think of noticing her questioner’s little tricks. The terrified M. Dulaurens had sat down, but he at once got up again. Was he going to be left alone to answer this most embarrassing question? Would they make him receive the first shock in this way? No, it was impossible; his wife would have to be present at the interview.

“I assure you she is coming,” he cried hurriedly. “Please wait a minute, Madame, I beg you. Madame Dulaurens would be so sorry to miss your call. And you could certainly explain things better to her. That is quite clear, quite clear.”

As he multiplied his words he rang the bell again and, quite unable to stand the strain any longer, went to the door and half opened it.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” he said.

As he put his head into the corridor Madame Guibert raised her eyes and surprised him in this frightened and pitiful attitude. A crushed man is still more to be pitied than a fool. Madame Guibert felt ashamed for him and thought:

“It will certainly be much better to wait for Madame Dulaurens. What I could say to him would matter very little.”

A slight misgiving began to lessen her confidence. She mentally compared her poor companion with her own husband whom no circumstance could have deprived of his composure, his clear-sightedness, his firmness.

“What a difference!” she reflected sorrowfully, for she was quite incapable of overbearing pride. She did not think of herself, who had made such splendid, fearless men and women of her sons and daughters.

While M. Dulaurens was persistently enquiring after her health she was looking affectionately at a portrait of Alice as a child.

“She has scarcely changed at all,” she said. “Dear little Alice, so pretty and gentle. How we shall love her! She is so frail and delicate, but she will grow stronger. We will surround her with love and care. We will make a hardy flower of this hothouse blossom. And perhaps she will keep him near us better than I could. I am so old now, and every year these separations become more and more cruel.”

She did not disguise from herself her womanly weakness.

At last Madame Dulaurens burst in like a whirl-wind. She flew to her husband’s assistance. Fearing that by now he might have blundered and said, something stupid, she had come downstairs as quickly as she could. The severity of her rule did not suffice to reassure her, for she scarcely suspected the despotism of it.

In many flattering words she excused herself to Madame Guibert for keeping her waiting. The latter, at the sight of her, had already lost almost all of her modest confidence. What could she expect of a favorable nature from this still beautiful and elegant woman, whose high-pitched voice, so patronising and hard, whose affected politeness scarcely hid the pride and dryness of her soul. At once she felt the difference in their points of view concerning the serious things of life. An abyss separated them, which only youth and love, in their madness, could think of bridging over. She had a secret conviction that all which weighed so heavily on her heart was going to be held as naught, and that all her devotion, her energy, and her toil, the true mark of aristocracy in the human race, would presently be matched against those worldly pretensions of which she thought nothing at Le Maupas and of which she discovered suddenly the disturbing reality. Feeling the weakness of her age and poverty, she implored God’s help.

In the meantime Madame Dulaurens continued to shower compliments and attentions on her visitor and got ready to profit by the shyness which she suspected to find. As she heaped up praise on large families, Madame Guibert saw her opportunity to introduce her request.

“How good you are, Madame, to say so! Yes, my sons have worked splendidly. And I have come to see you about one of them—about Marcel.”

She had no doubt that she gave her to understand that she would never have come to see her without good cause. She praised Alice with tender affection. Her heart inspired her here. “Marcel could not see her without loving her. He remembered that as a child she had said to him in their games, ‘I am so happy with you—I want to stay with you.’ He has requested me to ask you for your dear child’s hand. He promises to make her happy and as to his happiness, you will have assured it for ever.”

Madame Dulaurens, who generally had so much to say, was silent, thinking she would thus increase Madame Guibert’s embarrassment. And M. Dulaurens watched her in order to imitate her. Somewhat disturbed by this silence, Marcel’s mother continued softly:

“You know that we have no money. My son did not think at all about this, because he loves her. My husband left his children more honor than money. But, although so young, Marcel has a brilliant record, which gives assurance of his future.”

And she added in a tone full of dignity, “That is a fortune in itself!”

“We feel exceedingly flattered,” said M. Dulaurens at last. He had been struggling between the fear of wounding good Madame Guibert and that of annoying his wife.

With a look, the latter silenced him. What had he to do with it?

“Certainly we are extremely honored,” she replied with calculated slowness. “The honor takes us by surprise. We were not at all prepared for it.”

“Alice did not tell you anything about it then? ... or are you trifling with me?” asked Madame Guibert in great surprise.

“Your family has not very much to boast of,” went on Madame Dulaurens quietly. “We know, Madame, that Monsieur Guibert ruined himself to save his brother at Annecy. Unhappily he was unable to save him from suicide and ... liquidation of his affairs.”

The word “liquidation” thus pronounced meant bankruptcy; and Madame Guibert could not fail to understand the malice in these words. She had come with a message of love and peace, and was received like an enemy. The injustice brought the blood to her face, and her clear, gentle eyes were troubled. From this point, without being able to explain the feeling to herself, she felt the game was lost. However, she continued:

“Oh, there was no liquidation. All the creditors were paid principal and interest. There can be no possible doubt about that. We have as good a reputation at Annecy as at Chambéry.”

She thought of her husband’s splendid courage and her little Paule’s lost dowry. In what had all these sacrifices ended? And was money to be henceforth the only thing that could command respect and esteem?

But her sufferings were not yet at an end. Madame Dulaurens, with that ease which society life supplies, went on boldly, with a smile on her lips:

“Captain Guibert has had a magnificent career. Decorated so young! You know that nobody appreciates his worth more than I. How you must have suffered through this long, long Madagascar campaign! We thought of you so often and pitied and envied you at the same time. And tell me, has he quite gotten over the effects of those dreadful fevers which take so long to cure?”

The cup was full. Madame Guibert could not answer. If she had tried to speak she would have Burst into tears. They had touched the sacred place in her heart, her children. To sacrifice your fortune to save the honor of your name, to give your sons for your country, to expose them to death, only to hear wicked, lying allusions, discrediting disinterestedness and heroism, and to have to accept them in the face of that coterie which is called society!

But Madame Dulaurens went on savagely defending her own and giving her unhappy defenceless victim one wound after another.

“I cannot tell you anything definite, Madame, one way or the other. I will faithfully submit your offer to my daughter and let you know her answer soon. It is the fashion nowadays to consult young girls about their inclinations. But I foresee that the prospect of a separation cannot fail to frighten the dear child, for she has been accustomed to be near me, near us. We have never left each other. I admire your strength of mind. One of your girls is a nun in Paris, is she not? Two of your sons are in Tonkin. Captain Guibert is going back to Algiers. How brave you are, and what an example to all those mothers who love their children too much!”

“And so you think I love them less than those other mothers do,” Madame Guibert would have liked to answer. “Every time they left me my heart was torn, yet I bore them as I could, all those heartrending good-byes, and I said nothing, fearing to weaken them who were leaving me to go abroad and fill a wider sphere, or to hamper them by keeping them beside me. I have always encouraged them to use all the talents that God gave them. And what you do not know, Madame, is that separation, far from lessening a mother’s and a son’s love, purifies and ennobles it. It takes away their natural selfishness and invests them with that immortal beauty of sacrifice, in which joy and devotion are mingled.”

But her lips remained speechless. Later she remembered all the minutest details of this scene, only to be intensely humiliated by it and even to see in it, in her religious feeling, the punishment of the too great pride that she had in the number and qualities of her children.

Madame Dulaurens had not stopped talking long.

“Alice is hesitating by nature,” she continued. “She is still so young—a mere child! There were other offers before yours. This is a confidence, of course. They have this advantage that they would not take our daughter from us. It is a great point in Alice’s eyes. Nobility, fortune, all are there. If the Captain would only consent not to leave Chambéry, to resign when necessary, to live near us, near you too! Is he not surfeited with fame?”

Madame Guibert got up and said simply.

“I do not know, Madame. I thank you.”

She thanked her enemy for having tormented her needlessly! Never had she felt so weak and so helpless. Madame Dulaurens, as she went to the door with her, felt sorry for her and, satisfied with her victory, overwhelmed her with congratulations on her health, on her children who had formed a little France out in Tonkin, on Paule who was so beautiful and distinguished, who did not come often enough to see Alice. She was going to keep her daughter, so she could afford to be generous. On the doorstep she seemed to be parting with her best friend with the best grace in the world. Behind her trotted M. Dulaurens, bowing like a little automaton.

Left alone again, Madame Guibert went down the long plane avenue. She breathed freely, as if she had just escaped a great danger. That woman had been unkind and hard to her. How instinctively she had known what would wound her pride and delicacy of feeling. How she had fastened upon her brother-in-law’s misfortune, which had made so great a demand upon Dr. Guibert’s strength of will and presence of mind and which had brought about the financial ruin of the family; upon the weariness of that colonial expedition, over which Marcel’s splendid health had triumphed. What a sinister interpretation she had put on these events which were her glory! And yet she herself had brought the olive-branch and had spoken gently. Life, her life of humble, daily devotion, had not taught her that maternal love contracts the heart more often than it widens it, otherwise she would have understood that it was this warped feeling which had made Madame Dulaurens defend in every way her threatened happiness, the happiness which she mistook in all good faith for that of her daughter.

But solitude was not long much comfort to her. Must she not go back to Le Maupas to tell her son the sad news? The thought of the pain which she could not spare him, of which she brought the tidings, brought to her eyes the tears which she had so long tried to keep back. The sun’s rays crossed the tops of the thick trees, as slowly wended his course towards the mountain. For the first time in her life it hurt her to return to her old home, where she knew they were awaiting her confidently and impatiently.

With a tired step, which now dragged more than ever, she made her slow and hopeless way back. She felt the weight of that one day more than the weight of her sixty years. As she walked she reproached herself that she had not been, as she called it, equal to her task. Why had she not been able to find more persuasive words to plead Marcel’s cause? She had been with people accustomed to society compliments. Why had she not taken their ways into account and flattered their vanity? Such concessions and amiabilities were the means of accomplishing one’s end. Was not her son the very person of all in the world whose achievements supplied the excuse for boasting; and could not his bravery have been changed for the occasion into the current coin of display and ostentation? Would it have been lessened in any way by such use of it? Marcel was good-looking, prepossessing, almost famous. He had a courtesy of manner which lent distinction to his gestures. What would she not have given for the possession of those advantages? But no, she was only a poor woman, incapable of flattery in such a serious matter. And then she experienced, in talking of herself and her children, that feeling of shyness which affects all refined natures. Strong, at home, she lost this strength as soon as she crossed the threshold. Thus in the face of injustice she had no resource but tears. Yet how many times had she hidden herself, that her tears might not be seen, on occasions of parting, for a time or forever! Was she now going to shed tears publicly in face of those who had hurt her? Without doubt God had tried her to punish her too great pride. This explanation satisfied her faith. She mourned it, but without complaint, and in her loneliness felt a sharp joy in dwelling on her humility and weakness.

“My husband!” she thought. “Since he went I have been useless. He was my joy and my strength—everything would have happened so differently if he had lived. My God! have You forsaken me? I promised myself to take his place as well as I could, and I see clearly now that I am unable.”

She abandoned herself to despair. Her distress and weariness increased. Reaching the end of the Avenue, she asked herself if she had the strength to continue on her way. She was out of breath, and had to stop.

“I must not be ill at their house,” she said. This was her only desire, and to realise it she made a supreme call upon her strength. She dragged herself to the gate, reached it at last, and outside the grounds sat down, exhausted, on a heap of stones. There she gave herself up to her misery and began to cry again, without even noticing a little group of children, who came up to her, curious. As she raised her bent head they all flew like a flock of frightened sparrows. One of them knocking at the door of the neighboring house called:

“Mamma, Mamma! There is an old lady out here, and she is ill.” The door opened immediately and the peasant woman appeared, carrying her youngest babe.

“Poor lady! Why, it is Madame Guibert. What is the matter? A pain? They come on without warning. I won’t have it said that I left you in trouble. Your husband saved this child from typhoid.” She pointed to a little chubby maid who was laughing. Coming nearer, she saw the tears running down the weary face and guessed that it was nothing physical. Out of respect she asked no questions, but continued:

“He would not take anything, the good man. He loved the poor, and above all the children of the poor. He was always laughing. My babies were not afraid of him, they would have eaten off his plate. ‘This is what brave men and women are made of,’ he would say. ‘I have some of them at home, you know!’ It is true, Madame Guibert, that we have a lot of them. But it is just the same, having a lot. You love them all the same. At least one wouldn’t like to lose any of them.”

By kind words she comforted Madame Guibert, who thought:

“My husband saved Alice Dulaurens too. At La Chênaie they did not honor him any the more for that, and they don’t even remember it. The poor forget less quickly.”

“Look at me chattering away without helping you,” continued the woman. “Come inside; have a little glass of something, it will do you good. It warms the heart. Come in and rest for a minute.”

Madame Guibert got up, taking the hand which the woman held out to her.

“Thank you, Fanchon, thank you. I don’t want anything. There, I am all right again, you see. It was only a passing faintness. Your children are lovely. May God keep you, Fanchon! I don’t want to refuse you, but they are waiting for me at home. My daughter is very easily worried.”

“I would like to help you, Madame. One of these days I will bring you a dozen fresh eggs. Don’t say no, it will give me so much pleasure! Come along, children. If it had not been for the Doctor there would have been one less. My lot wouldn’t have been complete.”

“You are kind, Fanchon. Good-bye.”

At last she was able to continue on her way to Le Maupas. She walked slowly, stopping now and then to wipe her damp forehead, sickened at the thought of the news she had to bring. She did not know how long it took to go from Cognin up the hill which crosses the oakwood, but it must have been very long, for she arrived there as the sun was touching Mount Lépine and darting its shafts against the shield of leaves. A hundred times she felt she would never get back. Under the trees, however, she was grateful for the coolness of the shade and home seemed nearer. Like a wounded animal that measures its safety by the distance from its burrow, she made a last effort.

Marcel, leaning against the gate, was looking down the road. He saw his poor mother coming painfully up the road, her face crimson, her back bent, a picture of old age. He ran to her and when he came up, she burst into sobs. “My boy, my dear boy!” she gasped.

He had to support her, and he asked simply:

“Why did you not keep the carriage? You are tired. You are hot, Mother dear, it is not wise of you. Lean on my arm. We will go slowly.”

He helped her till she was seated in the drawing-room, wrapped in a shawl that Paule brought. Not another word had been spoken, and already everything had been told. With lowering brows and hard eyes Marcel was silent. He had understood at the first look, and although the blow was unexpected he was too proud to complain. He asked for no explanation.

His mother wiped her face, on which tears and perspiration were mingled. Trembling she murmured:—

“Don’t regret anything. It is not worth while.”

“Why?” asked Paule surprised.

“They don’t want to separate themselves from their daughter. They think they love her all the more because of that.”

“And Alice?” asked Marcel’s sister.

“I did not see her. She is hiding. Or they are hiding her. Her parents had not been told about my visit. They were astonished. You would have had to promise them to stay at Chambéry, to resign, if necessary. I understood that a Marthenay would suit them better.”

Marcel’s eyes flashed, but all he said was “Oh!”

Madame Guibert began to tell about the humiliating way she had been questioned. But, made ungrateful by the pain which he felt and refused to admit, Marcel did not leave her time to do so.

“You did not understand how to talk to them! I’m sure of that. You don’t like them and you let them see it. You hate society and you ignore it.”

He had assumed his disdainful, haughty manner. Pride had opened the wound. The mother answered softly, but with deep sadness in her voice:

“Your father never reproached me for that. However, I deserve it, I daresay. But I am too old to change, and these people treated me without consideration.”

Marcel, sullen and ashamed of himself, went out without saying anything to lessen the harshness of his words.

Paule during this scene had stood motionless and very pale. Now she threw herself into her mother’s arms and kissed her passionately:

“Mother, don’t cry. Oh, how I despise them! And Marcel is so unjust. It was hateful what he said just now!”

Her eyes shone with sombre fire. Madame Guibert kept back her tears and said:

“No, Paule, you must not despise anyone. And be patient with your brother. Don’t you see that he is suffering? Go look for him.”

CHAPTER VIII
THE CONSPIRATORS

In the garden at Le Maupas, where the roses were fading in the shadow of the yellowing chestnut boughs, Marcel and Jean Berlier were poring over a map of Africa spread out on the slate table.

“Here is the road we must take,” said the Captain, and he showed a series of little red crosses marked out on the Sahara desert.

With boyish enthusiasm Jean asked: “Then the expedition is really decided on this time?”

“Yes, it will take two years, as far as we can judge in advance about so long and dangerous a journey. I saw Commandant Jamy in Paris, and he introduced me to M. Moureau. It is arranged that we shall both take part in the mission with a couple of hundred Tirailleurs. It is being carefully organised. The Minister of War is interested in it. But I am afraid that we shall not go before next year.”

Marcel talked long, in a grave, distinct voice, about the reason, the aim, and the preparation for the little expedition which was being prepared to take the place of that which had ended so tragically under Colonel Flathers. He explained clearly, almost eloquently, so completely had he mastered his subject. He waxed enthusiastic over it. Nothing seemed to interest him now except this bold journey into the heart of Africa. He supplemented his words with expressive gestures as he dwelt on the theme of these vast unknown lands, mysterious and unfathomable as the ocean.

In listening to him Jean’s face took on an attentive and manly expression. This young man of supple movements, of delicate and handsome features, who smiled and joked unceasingly, who pleased women, and whom one would have pictured at first sight as completely in his element in a drawing-room flirting and making himself agreeable, revealed under the influence of a serious interest his really strong and virile character. Knowing him better, his friend Marcel Guibert had never judged him differently, and when he heard him spoken of as the lady’s man of the garrison, he was astonished and contented himself with answering, “You don’t know him.”

Madame Guibert now appeared on the steps.

“Not a word,” said the Captain, quickly putting his fingers to his lips.

“She knows nothing?” whispered Jean.

“No, she will know only too soon.”

Madame Guibert looked at the garden, but did not see the two young men. Thinking herself alone, she removed her spectacles which she had put on to do some fancy work, took out her handkerchief and passed it slowly over her eyes. Tired, she leaned on the wooden balustrade, which was covered with a sad mantle of withered branches of jasmine and wistaria. She let her eyes rest on the familiar landscape in mournful reverie.

The fading evening dyed the delicate sky with lilac and rose. The air was soft, but its freshness announced the advent of autumn. The countryside was smiling with the melancholy charm of a dying person who still hopes to live. It showed its bare fields and its stripped vines, with an air resembling that of a prodigal who has given away everything and still wishes to give more. All that was of any use was gone, only beauty was left. The woods but half hid their mysteries now, and their green and gold foliage seemed scarcely able to bear up against the rays of the sun. Round the walls of the house a few overblown roses let their heavy petals fall in the light wind. But at the top of a meadow on the hill, standing out blackly against the clear sky, two oxen majestically drew the plough which prepared for the coming harvests. In the peaceful decay of nature came the promise of new youth.

A chestnut falling at his feet made Marcel shiver. All at once he understood the sadness of the beauty to whose entrancing grace he had been yielding himself. He smelt the autumn and the dying day. And as he looked at her, above all others dear to him, his mother, leaning on the balcony and gathering together in her mind all her flock of scattered children, he realised the strength of his filial affection and felt at the same time that superstitious, piercing dread inspired in us at times by the insecurity of the lives of those we love. Jean saw his friend’s face become clouded and he pointed out to him the plough patiently fertilising the ground, as if thereby bidding him trust in Providence.

Slowly Madame Guibert went into the house.

“Poor dear mother,” thought Marcel. “How often I have made you anxious about me. And you will be anxious again. This map lying before me, silent and indifferent, holds the secret of future terrors for you! For the mother’s milk you have given me, for the soul that your soul has transmitted to me, for my childhood and youth, may you be blessed! I love you. But, if I must go, forgive me....”

A young girl’s fair face rose up in his memory. After the refusal he had seen nothing of Alice Dulaurens. Several times he had leaped over the little barrier separating the tall trees of La Chênaie from the Chaloux road. There, under that ancient shade, he had boldly waited for her. Knowing that she loved him, he wanted above all things to speak to her, to exchange a promise with her. The glory he was going forth to seek and her patient waiting would give her to him. But, either by chance or because she was watched, she did not come.

Was he to go thus? In a few days his leave, for an extension of which he had refused to ask, would be up and he must go to Oran, where Jean Berlier, who had been gazetted to the first regiment of Tirailleurs, was to precede him. A hundred impossible ideas crowded into his mind, and he chafed against his slavery as a young horse champs its bit.

While he was thinking how he could manage to see the girl whom he considered his fiancée with all the obstinate perseverance of a man of action, his friend, Jean, got up.

“I want to say good-bye to your mother before I go,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” replied Marcel, also rising.

And suddenly making up his mind to speak, he added, almost in a whisper:

“Listen; I must see Mademoiselle Dulaurens. You can help me. Will you?”

The two men were united by a strong friendship. The one had thrown into the relationship the tender indulgence of an elder brother, the other the warm admiration of a younger one. Both gave to it the dignity which distinguishes brotherly love. By degrees they had drawn from it an incentive to nobler feelings. It gave them also that peace which is born of mutual trust and similarity of nature and tastes. But they did not confide much in each other. Therefore Jean was surprised to hear his friend tell his secret, though he had long since guessed it. A discreet observer, he had uneasily followed the domestic drama which was being played at La Chênaie, and had been a witness to Madame Dulaurens’s desperate efforts to champion the cause of Armand de Marthenay as a suitor for her daughter’s hand. Knowing Marcel’s concentrated strength and pride, he was more interested in this passion whose violent despair frightened him, than in the slight diversion that his own love affairs gave him. He knew what this wild desire to take part in the Sahara expedition meant, this feverish need for activity, this new ambition which had suddenly stirred his friend. But Marcel never betrayed himself. There must, therefore, be some weighty reason to make him decide to speak, and that was why this question alarmed his friend.

Hiding his thoughts, Jean asked:

“Can’t you go to La Chênaie? There is nothing simpler.”

Marcel turned on him an eager, penetrating look.

“You know very well that I cannot,” he said. After a moment’s silence he continued:

“Nevertheless,—I must see her.”

“To elope with her?” said Jean with his subtle smile, as if he were trying for the last time to turn the affair into a joke. But he received only a disdainful answer.

“Look at her well and you won’t talk that way. I must see her before leaving for perhaps many years. Her happiness and mine are both at stake. If it were only a question of time, I could go away without looking back, taking my sorrow with me. She wants to be sure of the future, she wants to know that it belongs to her securely. She can be my wife, if she wishes it. I only ask her to have the courage to wait.”

“That is the hardest thing,” said Jean, who had no illusions about Alice’s character.

“It is the easiest.”

“Yes, for you, who are used to dangers and obstacles. But for her?”

“But if she loves me?” asked Marcel simply, and in so quiet a tone that no suspicion of conceit could be read into his words.

“Ah,” murmured Jean, thinking: “She does not understand the meaning of love. Isabelle Orlandi is marrying her Monsieur Landeau because she loves luxury. Alice Dulaurens is going to marry Monsieur de Marthenay because she is weak and because her mother wants a titled son-in-law under her thumb. Young girls nowadays have no strong affection and nobody to teach them.”

But he did not dare to think aloud. He read on his friend’s broad and intelligent forehead, in his ardent eyes, the patent signs of his love.

“Then you must absolutely have this interview?”

“Absolutely.”

Jean made no further objections. As he was thinking of a plan, Marcel began:

“You are an intimate friend of the Dulaurens family. It would be very simple for you to say a word for me to Mademoiselle Dulaurens. I would not ask you to do that for me if there were anything wrong about it. I would have asked my sister to go, if Paule could go back to La Chênaie—after the refusal.”

He had to swallow his pride in saying this. Raising his head, he went on with a disdainful air.

“This refusal is unjust. Her parents have no right to use their authority just to satisfy their prejudice and selfishness, and to break their daughter’s heart for their own vanity. Nobody has more reverence for their authority than I, when it is exercised wisely and justly. Paule saw her friend at church. She could not speak to her, but she noticed that she was looking pale, languid, and despairing. I must speak to her. There is no treachery in it, no loss of respect for her. You must realise this before answering me.”

“Very well,” said Jean. And after reflecting a second or two he added:

“I repeat your words. Think of her face, her innocent eyes. She would not meet you.”

Marcel was thoughtful for a few moments.

“You are right,” he agreed. “Let us think no more about it I will go away without seeing her again.”

He made no other complaint, but the simplicity of his words touched his friend’s heart and although he thought it would certainly be better for him to go away without seeing her, he knew Marcel was so unhappy that he tried to think of some way to help him.

“Look here,” he said. “Leave it to me, I will tell you at the proper time, and you shall see her again.”

“How will you manage it?” asked Marcel rather uneasily.

“She shall meet you without having been told. It will be your business to keep her.”

Tired of discussing a serious topic so long, Jean assumed a lighter tone.

“Heavens, it will serve them right! De Marthenay irritates me, and the Dulaurenses are such awful snobs! It isn’t perhaps quite the correct thing, but it is just, and I am delighted to be able to pay them back.” Already he was thinking of a plan which would be simple and easy to carry out.

“You wanted to see my mother?” said Marcel. “Let us go back to the house.”

The two went up the steps and found Madame Guibert and Paule working by the light of the dying day. The former’s face brightened as the door opened on her son; but the girl’s gaze was fixed on the little flannel she was embroidering for her faraway nephew.

“I have come to say good-bye,” said Jean.

“Are you not going to wait for your friend? Must you leave so soon?” Madame Guibert asked him, with real regret, for she loved his buoyant youth and his delightful gaiety and did not fail to distinguish between the real Jean and his reputation. She was grateful to him for distracting Marcel better than she knew how or dared to do; for she could only watch like a mourner her son’s heavy grief, half afraid of his gloomy pride.

“I sail for Marseilles in three days, Madame. My leave is up three days earlier than Marcel’s.”

At last Paule raised her head. Jean, who was staring at her, could read a reproach in her dark eyes. But it is always possible to be dubious about a look. There are quick, fugitive expressions, whose interpretation is mysterious, and we prefer to refuse to understand them if they do not fall in with our views or may cause us uneasiness. This girl with the serious face and well-balanced carriage, whose somewhat severe grace hinted at a reserve of passion, at once attracted and disconcerted Jean. He had looked forward to hearing her speak kindly to him, and her reticence paralysed him. Her approval and regard would have raised and strengthened him, but he knew that to be worthy of it he would have to undertake something great, and to feel great emotions, yet he was afraid of what he inwardly called “living on the heights.” Above all things he avoided thinking about the ambiguous impression which she made upon him. How many lives pass away misunderstood, without a realisation of the secret of those affinities which might have modified them, and of which even the conjectured strength arouses alarm in the majority of mankind.

Madame Guibert accompanied the young man as far as the courtyard. At the foot of the steps she said quickly in a low voice, as he stood near her:

“Look after him this winter, Jean. I ask you to do this for me.”

He glanced gently at the old lady. Her confidence touched him.

“I promise you I shall. To me he is like an elder brother.”

And turning round he saw and admired on the veranda steps the graceful, clearly-cut silhouette of Paule in her mourning clothes. But she was looking straight ahead of her and the roses of the autumn sky were fading away over the hill....

That evening Jean Berlier dined at La Chênaie. They expected Isabelle Orlandi who was quite at home there. Never had she flirted more audaciously or shown more disregard for the proprieties than she did now on the eve of her wedding. At this time, M. Landeau, profiting by a rise in the markets and discovering tactfully the modern method of winning hearts, made love from afar by piling up a great deal of money, the use of which his fiancée was enjoying in anticipation. His letters contained short but significant allusions to his financial success, whose potency as a love-charm he cleverly understood.

That evening Isabelle disappeared with the young soldier to a sofa hidden by a thick group of palms and ferns. To give her parties an air of gaiety and brightness, Madame Dulaurens tolerated these intimacies when they did not go too far.

Jean needed a feminine accomplice to realise his plan, which was simplicity itself. His idea was to get Alice to go at a certain time to a little oakwood, where she would suddenly meet Marcel Guibert coming along the Chaloux road. But he could not himself ask the girl to go for a walk in the lovely freshness of the woods. He needed an ally whose discretion could be relied upon.

“Here is one perhaps,” he thought, looking at Isabelle. “But is she to be trusted?”

As he had very little choice, he decided to risk it.

“What do you think of the dragoon?” he asked his fair companion, indicating the Viscount de Marthenay, whom they could see through the greenery, showing off his paces before Madame Dulaurens, while the unhappy Alice, bending over an illustrated book, leaves of which she was forgetting to turn, tried not to see him.

Isabelle laughed.

“The dragoon? He is Alice’s de Marthenay. Every girl has her own.”

“Will you help me to score against him?”

“I certainly will. It will remind us of the Battle of Flowers.”

“Well, come here to-morrow—about four o’clock. I shall be here.”

“If you will be here, it goes without saying that I shall come,” said Isabelle.

“You must tell your fair young friend, whose cheeks have been so pale: ‘You must go out and get some fresh country air. You have been shut up too long.’”

“I will tell my fair friend that she must go and get the fresh air, etc.,” repeated Isabelle.

“And we shall take her to the oakwood.”

“To the oakwood we shall take her.”

“At a sign from me you will leave her.”

“Is this a song?”

“We shall leave her alone. And if you should see or understand anything, you swear you will keep it secret?”

“But I don’t understand!”

“That is just what I want.”

“Do tell me, at least, what shall I see?”

“Daughter of Eve! Can you keep a secret?”

“If you tell it to me, yes.”

“It is a secret which is not mine. If you tell it you will betray me,” said Jean.

With her lovely dark eyes full of passion, she looked intently at him.

“Jean,” she said, “my dear Jean, I am not worth much and you think even less of me. To please you I would face any danger ... and even Mrs. Grundy!”

“Above all Mrs. Grundy, if you will.”

“But I do mean it. Ah, if you wished it, I would go to the end of the world with you!”

“Without luxuries?” he asked, giving a sceptical smile.

And with a nervous laugh, which showed all her white teeth, she answered:

“As naked as a babe!”

They both shivered at their own reckless talk.

He was filled with sadness at the sight of this lovely form, whose beauties he could so well imagine; while she, just about to enter the married state as one might throw oneself over a precipice, felt a kind of voluptuous faintness at thus treading on the brink.

He was silent, but in his tense features she read her own power. She even dared to take his hand and said, in Italian to hide her boldness, “Io vi amo.”

And Jean forgot about Marcel and the rendez-vous. But his nature was really refined, loyal, and almost reserved, despite her influence upon it because of her expressed admiration for him and her own fascinating allurements. And so, in love as he was for the moment, he did not say the words that Isabelle was hoping to hear.

“So you would give up Monsieur Landeau for me?” were his words.

She thought him rather dense, and concluded hastily that his impertinences were only external and his boldness mere bravado. But he pleased her the more for that. She herself retained in that passionate heart of hers a certain childishness, which was touched to sympathy by the unexpected virtue which she found in him. But she promised herself to play a much more important part in the drama. Soon recovering from her surprise, she answered:

“I should give up nothing at all. Why should that middle-aged man stand in our way?” And again she laughed, an ambiguous laugh. He understood, and in spite of himself he blushed—which annoyed her.

Behind the plants they saw Alice get up. The girl crossed the drawing-room wide-eyed, as though she were walking in her sleep. She was wearing a white linen dress, which suited her fair beauty. Isabelle took in the details of the toilette like an inventory. Made cruel by her inspection, she murmured: “That stuff was expensive and the cut is perfect. Could you offer me anything like that after the ceremony?”

He came back to realities and blamed himself inwardly at having shown such stupidity.

“On my pay?” he asked.

“What do you think? I adore glitter.”

“All that glitters is not gold.”

“That’s true. There are such things as diamonds and precious stones!”

Rather scornfully he agreed:

“Yes, everyone turns away from life and tries to forget it. Your mother has her dog, my uncle his roses and you—your dresses. Love comes afterwards, as best it can.”

“At last, Jean, you are learning wisdom!”

With a lightened heart he took up the subject of his plan again.

“Then you will keep the secret that you will guess to-morrow?” he asked.

“If I tell it, I consent to love Monsieur Landeau.”

“Will you be serious?”

“I am speaking very seriously. My fiancé is the most serious thing in the world. Well, listen, if I tell your secret it means that I no longer like you.”

“Ah, no, because that might happen any minute!”

“You ungrateful wretch!” said Isabelle. She pointed to him, as though showing him to an imaginary gallery:

“He is as handsome as Apollo and does not know it.”

She raised her hand.

“I swear it. There, are you satisfied? Do speak!”

He still hesitated, then made up his mind.

“My friend, Marcel Guibert, has something to tell Alice Dulaurens. He is going to wait for her to-morrow in the oakwood.”

“Ah,” said Isabelle, deeply interested. “But they don’t want us for that.”

“Wait a minute. Alice knows nothing about it. If she knew, she wouldn’t go.”

“Stupid creature! But you are quite right. Nothing about her astonishes me any more. She is capable of anything foolish.”

“Say rather, of anything timid. She has a beautiful timid soul.”

“I should rather say she is careful. But she is rich. She can choose her own husband. In these days that is a rare luxury. How could she help liking Captain Guibert better than that stupid, arrogant de Marthenay? I like him very much, almost as much as I like you. Only he makes me afraid. I always think he is going to scold me.”

“Don’t you deserve it?”

“I do deserve it. Scold me if you like, but not too much! The dragoon is very stupid. And when a man is that, he is unbearable.”

Madame Dulaurens was hovering round now and came up to their little retreat, thinking that this tête-à-tête had lasted quite long enough.

“Alice is not with you?” she asked.

“She has just gone out of the drawing-room, Madame Dulaurens. There she is, coming back.”

When she had left them Jean said quickly, to put an end to the conversation.

“Madame Dulaurens does not want to be separated from her daughter. You understand?”

“Ah,” said Isabelle. “So poor Alice is to marry Monsieur de Marthenay. She has no more will-power than a hen in a shower of rain.” And with a sudden quaint outburst she added:

“Long live forbidden loves! What will you give me as a reward for my help?”

“Ask and you shall receive!”

She looked slyly at him as if to provoke him.

“A kiss from your lips, dear Sir.”

His innocence was routed. He retorted at once:

“On yours, fair lady.”

It was her turn to blush. They both laughed, with that slight embarrassment which accompanies the thought of coming pleasure, and leaving their hiding-place they mixed with the general company.

CHAPTER IX
THE FAREWELL

The next day everything passed off as arranged. Isabelle Orlandi and Jean Berlier took Alice Dulaurens to the park, as far as the oakwood where Marcel had been instructed to wait for her. At the bend of the path they left them face to face, while they continued their walk under the trees, glorious in their autumn dress.

The terrified Alice put her hand on her heart. Her first thought was to fly, but her legs were weak and her breath was gone.

“Stay, do stay,” said Marcel in a grave, pleading voice, which she did not know. “Forgive my boldness. I am going away to Algiers and I wasn’t brave enough to leave without seeing you once again.”

“Ah,” she said, pale and trembling. “What will my mother say?”

Her mother was only her second thought, but he imagined it her first and frowned jealously. However, he went on with the same tender assurance.

“Alice, I have come to tell you that I love you. Paule told me that you loved me. Is it true? I want to hear it from your own lips.”

He saw her tremble and put her two hands to her throat as if she were choking. Her cheeks were colorless and her eyes looked down unseeing on the dead leaves which strewed the path. The oak-branches swayed in the wind with a mournful clash. A pink glow in the sky, appearing through the straight columns of the ancient trees, announced the end of the day.

Her voice was like an infinitely tender plaint as she murmured, “I cannot tell you.”

It was her avowal, the only one she thought permissible.

Touched to the heart, Marcel looked with new eyes on this frightened child, who, only a few feet away from him, a white shawl round her shoulders, stood out like a ghost under the dome of trees. Her long lashes drooped over her blue eyes. Behind her through the branches he saw the setting sun like a huge conflagration, the dark trunks of the oak-trees outlined against it. And the shades of the leaves were glowing and sinister, like gold and blood.

“Alice,” he said again, “if you love me as I love you, promise you will be my wife.”

At last she looked up in the young man’s proud face and understood How much he had gone through for her, and her eyes were wet.

“I cannot ... Marcel ... My parents....” he could say no more—her tears spoke for her. He came nearer and took her hand. She did not draw it away.

In a firm, compelling voice he continued:

“Don’t be unhappy, Alice. You will gain their consent. Be brave and strong enough to wait; time will help us. I only ask you to be patient. I shall do great things for you. I am setting out on an expedition to Africa. I shall win you, my beloved.”

In alarm she begged him not to go, her fears betraying her love.

“No, no, I won’t let you, I won’t let you risk your life. Ah, if you—loved me, you would not go.”

“I am going because I love you, Alice.”

“You don’t know me,” she cried. “I am afraid—I am afraid of everything. I am a poor little wretch. Oh, my head is so heavy!”

She laid her free hand first on her forehead and then on her bosom.

“My heart is so heavy,” she murmured in a low voice.

“Alice,” he said passionately, “don’t be afraid. I love you, I will protect you.”

And bending down he touched with his lips the little trembling hand that he had kept in his own. His kiss thrilled her. She sighed.

“Let us go back. This is not right.”

“Not right when I love you so much? Am I not your betrothed?”

“It is not right,” she repeated.

They looked at each other closely.

The evening sky was fading. A blue mist quivered over the park, under the trees and across the lawns. It was the hour of mystery, when everything is saddened by the fear of death. Daylight still lingered, but a delicate, wasted daylight, languorous in its grace. And the path which disappeared into the wood became in turn violet and rose-color.

In the young girl’s eyes he saw the reflection of the setting sun. All the melancholy of dying nature was held in this living mirror.

Never had he felt so clearly the weakness of his loved one. Never had she felt the chaste desire to cling to his strength as she did now. And yet, as he drew her to him and bent to kiss her, she gently pushed him away and whispered for the third time, “Oh, no, it is not right.” This trembling chastity, which disguised her affection so little, filled him with a feeling of deep respect.

“Alice,” he said again, “you must swear you will be my wife.”

But she answered as she had answered before:

“I cannot do it. It is my parents’ wish....”

Astonished at being unable to get more out of the interview which he had so ardently desired, and which meant so much for their future, Marcel went on firmly, certain of her love and confident that he could convince her:

“Alice, Alice, I am going away—perhaps for several years. But what are two or three years when one loves? If you love, it is forever. I want to take your promise away with me. It will be my safeguard and my strength. Alice, I love you more than my life. Or rather I should say that I cannot live without you—obstacles are nothing when you love. Swear that you will keep your heart for me, when I am gone, and this little hand that you have given me, which lies so icy-cold in mine.”

She stood speechless and confused before him. Her life had passed without initiative. She did not know if she had any will. Even her love had taken possession of her imperceptibly and hurt her by its violence, for it seemed to her excessive and forbidden.

With infinite compassion he looked at her, so pale and weak, his only thought to protect her against the attacks of fate. But as she still kept silence, he became insistent:

“Alice, I love you. The day is ending, you must go home. This autumn air is cold. Will you let me go without a word, without a grain of hope?”

It was the thrilling hour when all nature gathers herself together before mingling with the shadows, before sinking into death. The last rays of the setting sun still lit up Alice’s pure face and golden hair. And her white shawl made a light spot among the trees.

She still stood silent and motionless. She foresaw both the impossibility of the struggle with her mother and the equal impossibility of marriage with M. de Marthenay. She did not know how much we can shape our destiny when we dare to grasp it with a firm hand. Love was opening all the great gateways of life to her, and she was terrified. What had she done to God that her choice should depend on herself alone? Why could she not follow a smooth and easy path? Thus paralysed with fear she could make no choice.

Why did he not talk about his grief? She was so agitated that she would have been moved to pity and would have given her promise. If he had tried to draw her to him as he had already done, she would not have refused him. She would at last have laid her head on his brave heart.

But he wanted her as a free gift. He waited and as this wait was prolonged he looked more and more pityingly at the poor child whose love was so wavering. Neither shame, nor shyness, nor natural reserve could explain her silence. Their case was too grave that she should hesitate to speak out if she wished to. The obstacles which separated them were only the barriers of vanity and selfishness, not difficult to overcome. She loved, but still she said nothing. He recognised that their paths were not the same. He drew himself up to his full height in disdainful pity. He was able, however, to master his pride sufficiently to say gently to her:

“No, Alice, don’t promise me anything. I give you back the word that you gave Paule for me. You haven’t the strength to love.”

In a firm, even voice he added, as he let her little, cold, unresisting hand fall:

“Good-bye, Mademoiselle Dulaurens, we shall never meet again.”

She saw him disappear down the path where the shadows of the dying day were beginning to fade. He did not turn back. He was already out of sight and yet she still looked after him. The woods were quivering in the evening breeze.

A leaf fell from a tree and in its flight it touched Alice’s hair. At this foreboding of winter she felt death round her—within her.

Like two gay dancing phantoms Isabelle and Jean appeared under the oaks. They found her rooted to the spot where Marcel had left her. When they were about to speak to her, she fled without a word and ran towards the house to hide her misery. It did not occur to her to tell her trouble to Jean Berlier, who could still have saved her from disaster. She reached her room, hid her face in her hands, and wept. But even in her grief she did not think of struggling and gave herself up to the fate that she felt to be inevitable.

After Alice’s flight, Isabelle and Jean looked at each other astonished. “I don’t understand it,” he cried. “I understand quite well,” answered she. “Here’s another who is afraid. We are all alike nowadays. We want money and no risks. I know only one girl who would go to the ends of the world for love, in a dress that cost twopence.”

“Who is that?”

“Paule Guibert.”

Before the words had passed her lips he had suddenly seen a vision of Paule in her mourning dress. Isabelle felt instinctively what was passing in his mind. Jealously she came nearer and in her most seductive voice said:

“What about my commission? Have you forgotten it?”

She offered her lips. He remembered, and as the colors of the dying day mingled he gave her the promised commission under the trees.

Marcel never looked back till he arrived at the ascent to Le Maupas. There he turned round and saw La Chênaie lying in the shadow, while the mountains were still splendid in the light. A long, fleecy cloud trailed half way up their sides like a torn scarf. From the dying sun they caught a tint of rose so fine and delicate that it brought to the mind’s eye a goddess of the Alps half hidden amid gauze and muslin.

He gave himself the cruel satisfaction of waiting till the shadows, falling on the mountain tops, had destroyed this airy fantasy and blotted out these delicate colors. In the sadness of surrounding nature he seemed to breathe more freely. Quickly he crossed the half-stripped wood, through whose trunks patches of fiery red sky could be seen. Round him the owls, those sinister birds of night and autumn, began to call to each other with their mournful screams, like the agonising shrieks of victims, which strike terror into the hearts of belated travellers.

He found his sister at the gate. Feeling anxious about him, she had come to meet him. Paule knew at a glance the result of the interview.

“Oh,” was all she said.

In a word he told her.

“We are not of the same race,” he said.

She took his arm and was bending forward to kiss him when she stopped.

“Listen,” she said.

“Owls! The wood is full of them, Marcel. Let us go away. They make me shudder. The peasants say they are a sign of death.”

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

CHAPTER X
MARCEL’S DEPARTURE

A family meal before a departure reminds us in its sadness of the first meal we have together after the final disappearance of an habitual guest. If no one is missing as yet, still joy has fled. Everyone tries vainly to brighten it, and of this touching, fruitless effort is born a deeper sadness.

Thus the dining-room at Le Maupas, in spite of the October sun which shone into it, was silent and mournful. Marcel was going away at nightfall in Trélaz’s carriage to catch the six o’clock train at the station. When the conversation languished nobody thought of taking it up again. With a few unimportant words, spoken without enthusiasm, it would falter back to life, only to die out once more. Marie, the old servant, had prepared Marcel’s favorite dishes. Carrying them back to the kitchen almost untouched, she murmured in a cross voice which expressed her own sorrow:

“It isn’t right—it isn’t right. They want to starve themselves to death!”

After lunch, Marcel went out with his sister.

“I want to see our old walks again,” he said.

Through the vineyards on the hill they climbed up to the chestnut-trees at Vimines, under the shade of which grows thick moss where as children they used to gather mushrooms. From the border of the woods they looked out on Lake Bourget in its mountain basin. To appreciate its wild beauty at its best one must see it in the evening.

“Now let’s go and see the waterfall,” said Marcel.

He wanted to assure himself, as it were, before leaving, of the existence of all those quiet and lonely places which had helped to form his character. From Vimines, whose pointed steeple commands the hill, one comes down through the vineyards and orchards to the waterfall at Coux by a zig-zag path from which are to be seen several very fine views. Opposite lies a chaos of mountains, boldly scaled by rows of pines; on the left, the Nivolet with rocky peaks bathed in a bluish light; on the right, the openings of the valley of the Echelles and La Chartreuse. Marcel stopped short when he saw, between two golden-leaved beeches which framed a picture of savage loveliness, the long waterfall, slender and white, which fell a hundred feet and shone again in a silvery dust in the sunshine. He smiled happily.

“It is beautiful in its lonely surroundings,” he said. “Don’t let us go down any further. We have still to go to the Montcharvin woods and the ravine of Forezan.”

These were some of the old possessions of Le Maupas, which had been given up when the crash came. Because they were nearer home and, from time immemorial, familiar sights to him, he loved them best. And now though they were sold, they had not lost their charm for him. The beauty of the earth is not to be bought and sold. It belongs to the discoverer who can understand it and enjoy it.

Le Forezan is a deep valley whose steep sides are covered with a ragged growth of brushwood. Here and there the sides are less abrupt, and it is possible to climb down to the stream which runs at the bottom. There, under a far-stretching arch of greenery, are peace, silence, and forgetfulness.

Marcel, who was walking ahead, turned back and saw that his sister was caught in the creepers which crossed the path. Before coming to help her he cried:

“How pretty you look in those bushes!”

“Come and help me instead of talking nonsense,” said Paule. But he did not hurry. The girl’s natural grace harmonised wonderfully with this fresh virgin landscape. He could not help admiring the suppleness of the movements she made to disentangle herself, and the bright flush of health that the exercise brought to her cheeks. When he came up to her, she was quite free from the snare which had held her. “Too late!” she cried.

“Bravo, Paule! You wouldn’t be afraid in Cochin-China or the Tonkin forests. You will see them some day. You belong to the same race as your brothers.”

“What, I?” she said, the fire in her eyes dying out. “I shall live and die at Le Maupas.”

They came back from the valley through the ash wood. These trees with their light trunks reared their heads proudly on high, wearing as a crown the mass of branches from which the autumn wind was tearing the leaves. Half stripped, they showed their shapeliness in all their youthful health and strength, and thousands of uplifted arms waved peacefully. Like naked hamadryads they betrayed the secret of their forms. The scanty leaves which still adorned them, were ruddy gold, almost as rich as the fallen ones which thickly carpeted the soil below. Evening came on and all the wood was bathed in a violet mist, which gave to it the mysterious aspect of a sacred grove.

Turned to the west on one side, on the other looking over meadows and vineyards, the farm of Montcharvin reflected in its windows the glow of the setting sun. This spacious house was built amid the ruins of an old castle, of which one dismantled tower and a Romanesque portico were all that remained. This portico, unprovided with a door and now quite useless, looked on to a roofless shed where old plough-shares were kept, and beyond, by reason of an abrupt descent, to a distant landscape which was framed in its arch. This arrangement called to mind the pictures of the old Italian masters, who, in order, doubtless, to sum up the multiform beauty of the world, used to supplement their human figures with a scene from nature, glimpsed between the columns of a palace or under the arches of a cloister.

Marcel and Paule skirted the old building and, following a screen of trees at the edge of a field which hid the deep valley of Forezan, they stopped in front of a fallen trunk, a natural bench which had been left there for years. Of one accord they sat down.

They saw the shades of evening falling over the land. They saw the path which they had followed and the dead leaves of the woods turning pink and violet. Two bullocks drawing a cart full of milk-cans passed in front of them, and, as they crossed a band of sunshine, a light haze could be plainly seen rising from their nostrils at every breath and mounting upwards. Peace filled the countryside, which was preparing for its winter rest with all the sadness of its shorn meadows and despoiled woods.

Marcel took his sister’s hand. Suddenly at his touch she burst into tears. They had too many sensations in their hearts at this moment of leave-taking. He was thinking of Alice and her weakness, Paule was thinking of him. For a moment he waited till the tears he had caused her to shed were dried.

“Listen,” he said at last. “You must watch over mother. I shall be away for a long time perhaps.”

Uneasily she felt a foreboding of some new misfortune, but immediately she mastered herself.

“You will come home next year from Algiers, won’t you?”

He looked at her tenderly. “I don’t know, Paule dear, I am taking part in an expedition which is preparing to cross the Sahara.”

“Oh,” she cried, “I was sure of it. You ask too much of our courage, Marcel. Mother is old and very worn. She feels our troubles as much as we do ourselves. We must make it easy for her.”

Looking at the peaceful fields, he thought how sweet it would be to stay near his mother and sister. But it was only a passing regret, and he went on:

“Are you not there, you, our sister of charity? I have to go far away. I must forget. Don’t talk about it now. The Moureau expedition is not yet ready. It won’t set out for a year, or more perhaps. I am telling you, because I have no secrets from you. Mother will know about it soon enough.”

“Will this expedition take long?” she asked simply.

“No one can say exactly. Probably eighteen months.”

She tried to master her sorrow, but overwhelmed she burst into tears.

“You don’t know how much Mother and I love you. Oh, if only we could have given our hearts to her who didn’t dare to assert her will, she at least might have been able to do what we cannot, to keep you here.”

He took her in his arms and pressed her to his heart. Sure of this love, whose strength gave him courage, he waited till her despair had passed. But he did not mention Alice. That name should never cross his lips again. He only made a contemptuous allusion to his love.

“Don’t let us speak of that, dear. Such a marriage would only have hampered me. A woman has no right to cramp her husband’s career. What is a love worth that is not strong enough to bear separation and sorrow and to make a sacrifice? You will stay with Mother. My destiny was to be a globe-trotter—worse luck!”

He felt his sister’s form grow stiff in his arms.

“I was not thinking of myself,” she said, and in this phrase lay a whole world of inward rebellion, which he divined and understood.

She had known sorrow too young, at an age when life was opening with all its charm, and since her father’s death she had experienced much base ingratitude and much insulting patronage to both her mother and herself. From these experiences, she had gained the strength of a stoic, but a bitter pride as well. She had already lost all hope for the future. She tried to forget herself, as she believed herself to be forgotten. The love for her mother and brother satisfied her passion for devotion. Uplifted by her dignity and her contempt for society, she did not seek to analyse the vague feelings which were surging in her ardent heart.

Marcel knew she had the same nature as he, little inclined to talk about self or to worry about her own affairs. He only tried to distract her and spoke with deep affection.

“Paule, don’t despair. One of these days you will be happy. You deserve it so much!”

But she turned the conversation:

“Your trip to Paris was about the expedition, wasn’t it? You never told me about it,” said Paule.

“I did not keep you in the dark long, Paule, not long. I had to fight against all kinds of intrigues and competition. At last I got permission, both for Jean Berlier and myself, to join the expedition.”

“Oh, so M. Berlier is going too?”

“Yes, and he will come back a captain and with the Legion of Honour. It will certainly develop him. The desert widens one’s heart and brain, as the sea does. You don’t think of love-making any more! But why have you left off calling him Jean?”

She made no reply. He looked at her, and then getting up said:

“Let us go back. It is growing dark. We must not leave Mother alone any longer.”

Madame Guibert was seated at the door, waiting for them. With her old hands she was knitting some woollen stockings for a farmer’s little girl. She had put on her spectacles to see her needles. She often lifted her eyes towards the avenue. This side of the house was covered with the five-leaved ivy whose scarlet color was deepened by the rays of the dying sun.

As soon as she saw Marcel and Paule she smiled at them. But as they were coming up the staircase she quickly took off her spectacles to wipe her eyes.

“At last!” she cried.

Her son kissed her.

“We stayed too long in the Montcharvin woods. But here we are, Mother. Are you not afraid of the cold? It is getting late to be out of doors.”

And as they went into the house, the young man turned to look at the neighboring meadows, the chestnut avenue, and the open gate. Knowing how things stood with his family, he was aware that they would have to think of selling Le Maupas, unless his brother Étienne made a fortune in Tonkin. Here he had spent his childhood, and formed his soul. From this country—now all pink and violet—his memories came back to him at his call. They came to him from all sides, like a flight of birds clearly defined in the setting sun. Marcel shut the door. In the drawing-room he went and sat beside his mother on a low seat, leaned on her shoulder, and took her hand.

“I am so comfortable here,” he said in a caressing voice which was a contrast to his determined face.

For the first time he noticed the hand that he was holding in his own, a poor, worn, rough hand with fingers swollen and ringless, which betrayed a life of toil and old age. Madame Guibert followed her son’s eyes—and understood.

“I was obliged to leave off wearing my wedding ring, it hurt me. I wore your father’s for a long time, but the gold grew so thin that one day it broke in two like glass.” And she added, as if talking to herself:

“It did not matter. Only our feelings matter. And even death cannot alter them.”

Marcel looked at the portrait of his mother that he knew so well. It represented a woman, pretty and slender, looking like a shy young girl, whose tiny, tapering fingers held a flower, in the quaint old-fashioned way. Then he bent down and put his lips to the withered hand.

In memory he saw again the old lady, worn out and humiliated, coming home from La Chênaie after the refusal, and he thought of the rough way he had received her. Then with the rather haughty grace which lent so much value to his words of love, he said:

“My dear Mother, I have sometimes spoken rudely to you.”

She drew her hand gently away and stroked his cheek, smiling a sad yet bright smile, which told the whole story of a soul purified by suffering.

“Be quiet,” she murmured, brokenly. “I forbid you to blame yourself. Every day I thank God for the children He has given me.”

They were silent. Minutes passed, swiftly, irrevocably.

The approaching separation drew nearer, and they enjoyed to the full the happiness of their last moments together.

Nothing brings two lives closer than having suffered in common. When would they ever be together again as they were now in the golden charm of autumn, facing the fading trees, whose dying beauty could be seen through the window? Of these three souls, two had the presentiment that these hours would never come back. Madame Guibert sought in vain her usual bravery in farewell moments. Marcel was thinking of the solitudes of Africa which sometimes keep those who visit them; but, ashamed of his weakness, he banished with cheery words of hope these dark forebodings which cast shadows over the little country drawing-room.

And now Farmer Trélaz came to tell them that the carriage was at the door. The luggage was stowed away in it—a lunch basket not being forgotten for the long journey to Marseilles.

It was quite dark before the ancient vehicle started.

At Chambéry Paule noticed Madame Dulaurens and her daughter under an arcade. She saw Alice grow deadly pale; but turning to her brother, she was surprised to see him quite unmoved. He seemed indifferent. She felt intuitively, however, that he, too, had seen her.

At the station the three had a long wait. They had the little waiting-room to themselves. Madame Guibert never tired of looking at the son who was about to leave her. Suddenly she said:

“You are more like your father than any of the others.”

“I have not his faith in life,” said Marcel. “I never saw him discouraged. Whenever he failed in anything, he used to lift his head and laugh and say, ‘As long as there’s life there’s hope.’”

“Since his death,” said the old lady, “I have lost all my courage.”

“He lives again in you, Mother. He still lives for us.”

“Through you too. And he is waiting for me.”

Marcel kissed her.

“No, Mother, you know we need you,” he said.

They were no longer alone, and a short time after, at the porter’s call they went out on the platform. There they saw in the darkness the two headlights of the express flash as it sped on towards them. The moment of farewell had come. Never had Madame Guibert shown so much emotion. Again and again she cried, “My son, my dear son,” while she embraced him. He smiled to reassure her.

Her last words were a prayer:

“May God bless you and keep you!”

All bent and bowed to the earth which was drawing her towards it, she went back on Paule’s arm to Trélaz’s carriage.

“Don’t be unhappy, Mother dear,” said Paule, comforting her. “It is only for a year. You used to be so much braver.”

All the time she herself was in torture because of the secret that had been entrusted to her.

On the way home they were silent. During the evening at Le Maupas Madame Guibert suddenly burst into tears.

“I am so afraid I shall never see him again,” she murmured, when she could give voice to her grief.

“But he is running no risks,” Paule assured her, surprised and alarmed at this strange presentiment of a danger of which she alone was aware.

“I don’t know. I am as sad as I was the year your father died.”

With a great effort she managed to control herself so as not to frighten her daughter. Then, taking the hand of her last child with that gracious gentleness which remained to her from her youth, she said to Paule, thinking of the many separations in the past, some for a long time and others for ever:

“Dear little girl, you are the last flower of my deserted garden.”

PART II

CHAPTER I
THIRTEEN AT TABLE

“We might perhaps go in to dinner,” M. Dulaurens timidly ventured to suggest.

Upon the look which his wife threw at him he left the immediate neighborhood of the fireplace, where some enormous oak-logs were burning, and modestly seated himself at the side. Turning to her guests, Madame Dulaurens smiled and showed them a calendar with the date February 25th inscribed thereon in huge letters. Mademoiselle de Songeon, old and dried-up, drew nearer and seemed to take a special interest in the flight of time. In reality her only thought was to get possession of the corner near the fire. She had just come back from Rome. In winter she paid attention only to the southern shrines; and to accomplish this last pilgrimage she had had to seize hastily the cattle of a farmer whose rent was in arrears. While warming her large feet she considered the calendar.

“But it says the twenty-fifth of February, 1898!” she exclaimed after reading it, “and we are now at the twenty-fifth of February, 1901. You are exactly three years behind the time!”

All the ladies except Alice got up to confirm this. The calendar was passed from hand to hand. Madame Orlandi, who was holding Pistache to her heart—an old, fat, bald Pistache, whose heavy eyelids fell over bleary eyes—cried out astonished and proud of her own penetration.

“Oh, I know! You have kept it at the date of your daughter’s wedding. To-day is the third anniversary. How clever and delicate your motherly love is! You are so sympathetic, dear Madame Dulaurens. I too love to keep souvenirs.”

“I’ll wager you don’t remember the date of my wedding, Mamma,” said Isabelle, now Madame Landeau.

“Oh, you dreadful Isabelle! You’re always ready with a jest,” said her mother.

And, with diplomacy which lacked subtlety, the Italian countess bent over her pug and covered him with caresses.

Seeing all her guests busy, Madame Dulaurens threw a hasty glance at the clock and saw that it was a quarter to eight. Dinner was ordered for seven, and in the provinces punctuality is strictly observed.

“My dear little countess, did you see anything of Clément this afternoon?” she asked her daughter, who sat silent and absent-minded.

“No, Mamma,” answered Alice, in a low voice.

Four or five months after Marcel Guibert’s departure, the despairing Alice, crushed and submissive, had married, at her clever mother’s bidding, Count Armand de Marthenay, then Lieutenant of the 4th Dragoons at Chambéry. For the third time they were celebrating her “happiness.” Her maidenly languor and supple slenderness had changed to depression and leanness. Her limpid eyes and the drooping corners of her mouth told of profound and habitual sorrow. Without losing their refinement her features had altered. Through a greater prominence of the cheek-bones, a more pronounced thinness of the nose, a fading of color in the cheeks, the old expression of youth and innocence had given place to a sad little air of fragile resignation. She bore the marks of a sorrow which filled her life and of which her husband was certainly quite aware. To be convinced of this, it was sufficient to look at the heavy, pimply visage behind her—the vacant face of a man prematurely worn out.

The house at Chambéry where the Dulaurenses lived in the winter reminded one in its massive structure and the pillars of its staircase of the showy palaces in Genoa the Magnificent. The drawing-room looked on to the Place Saint-Léger in the centre of the town. Ten lamps lighted up the vast room that evening, but were not sufficient to show off the fine old high-timbered ceiling.

Madame Dulaurens anxiously left her daughter, and drawing back the window-curtain looked out into the square, which she saw by the gas-jets flickering in the keen frosty air, was quite empty. She drew down the blind and looked at the party. They seem so interested in their talk that she decided to wait a few minutes longer.

“Madame Orlandi, who is always late, came too soon to-day,” she thought rather spitefully.

Round the fireplace the women were listening to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who was describing the catacombs at Rome with the devotion of a catechumen. Madame Orlandi, artlessly devoid of morality and unskilled at suitable comparisons, said she preferred the ruins at Pompeii, because the pictures there were so diverting. Mesdames de Lavernay and d’Amberlard, mature and solemn women, had no opinion at all. Their aristocracy was very pleasing to Madame Dulaurens, who gladly advertised their origin. They were well-bred, and valued existence according to the number and the importance of the invitations that they managed to procure for themselves. Their husbands, a pair of practised parasites, had retained a distinguished air from the old royalist days. They had the right prejudices, were sincerely ignorant of modern life, and sought pleasure unceasingly. Baron d’Amberlard had high color and liked good living; the Marquis de Lavernay, still young in spite of his white hair, reserved his polite speeches concerning feminine beauty.

The latter had just come from the Court of Sessions and was giving a group of men his impressions of the jury.

“You condemn a thief and let a child-murderer go scot-free,” said M. Dulaurens. But the nervous little man hastened to add: “Please note that I am not criticising you.”

M. de Lavernay laughed unreservedly.

“Ah, my dear fellow, if we sentenced child-murderers we should never have any servants.”

“What a mania there is for having children!” cried M. d’Amberlard. “One’s family should be governed by the state of one’s finances. What do you think about it, M. Landeau?”

M. Landeau admitted that he had thought nothing about it. As a millionaire, he was always fighting terrible battles with labor so as to be able to pour a golden rain upon his wife and at last with a triumphant cheque to touch her proud heart. She played with him much in the same way a tamer does with the beast that roars, threatens, and arches its back. Under the pretext of filial duty towards Madame Orlandi (who did not care at all what she did) she had refused to follow him to Lyons; so twice a week he came to see her in the splendid villa he had built for her on the Cognin road. It was an overworked man with bent shoulders and pale face that she dragged with her into society. There, tamely growling, he admired Isabelle’s beauty and listened joylessly to her bell-like laughter, as she showed her white and shining teeth.

M. d’Amberlard, stifling a yawn, began to fidget.

“I’m afraid the dinner will be spoilt. It has been kept waiting too long,” he whispered to the Marquis de Lavernay, who made no answer but hastened to an empty seat beside Madame Landeau, where he was seen shaking his long horse-like head in his efforts to please.

Armand de Marthenay, motionless and silent up to now, overheard this and woke from the torpor into which he had sunk.

“It is all Clément’s fault. He must have had a smash up.”

He spoke so loudly that everybody heard and turned towards him. The long wait had become unbearable to all. The hands of the clock pointed to eight.

Again Madame Dulaurens tried to hide her anxiety. “Clément,” she said, “is very careful. But these cars are dangerous at night. One can so easily run into something in the dark.”

“Where did he go?” asked the women.

“That is just what is worrying me. He left for La Chênaie at five o’clock. It would hardly take him ten minutes, it is only two miles. And he hasn’t come back.”

Anxious as ever for peace, M. Dulaurens assured them that nothing had ever happened to Clément.

“Not to Clément,” Marthenay sarcastically put in. “He is a young devil! He is always running over something,—hens and dogs, and the other day it was an old woman.”

“We paid her,” said Madame Dulaurens indignantly. “And paid her very well indeed.”

“She is limping about on your money.”

M. de Lavernay gallantly, and without any suspicion of irony, explained to his hostess that there were unfortunate creatures who were in the habit of throwing themselves in front of motor cars, so as to make money out of the owners. All except Mademoiselle de Songeon, who hated progress, were in favor of this fashionable sport and were busy defending it when Clément entered, looking very jolly and with a red face, his fur coat covered with frost which shone in the light.

Madame Dulaurens rushed up to him and scolded him well instead of satisfying her desire to kiss him. Since her daughter’s marriage she had insisted on playing a much larger part in her son’s life. He made no attempt to excuse himself, but laughed, melting like an icicle all the time.

“Oh, well, we got stuck at Cognin. Such a bad business!”

M. d’Amberlard tossed his head furiously.

“A nice business indeed,” he said. “Dinner kept waiting! He is talking very coolly about it, the young scoundrel.” He was still raging inwardly when Madame Dulaurens took his arm to go in to dinner. Clément made as though to offer his to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who stared at him scornfully and ordered him to go and dry himself.

“You are quite right, Mademoiselle de Songeon,” he replied philosophically. “But you aren’t very kind! I shall go and dry myself and change too.”

He disappeared, returning in his dinner-jacket as they were serving the filet of beef with mushrooms. With all the coolness of the rising generation, he asked loudly for soup and fish and made no attempt to make up for his delay.

As the courses succeeded one another harmoniously, the guests’ pleasure grew and the conversation became general. Clément, having satisfied his appetite, was burning to take part in it and attract the attention of the table. He watched his opportunity and called across the room: “I have some great news for you.”

“What is it?” they cried on all sides.

“I heard it at Cognin. I had it from my chauffeur, who heard it from the schoolmaster.”

“Cognin news,” said Isabelle ironically. “It will interest the whole of France!”

“At the news I bring you

Your lovely eyes will weep,”

Clément hummed to the air of “Malbrough.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed everybody.

“You may laugh, Madame, but my news will interest the whole of France.”

“Then tell us what it is,” cried several voices at once.

Every eye was on the young man. He enjoyed the momentary superiority which his possession of news gave him. Holding the whole table at his mercy he had succeeded in gaining his ends. They were now serving truffled galantine “des gourmets” as it was called, the glory of a Toulouse specialist. In front of each guest costly orchids of various hues blossomed in a tall Murano vase. It was Alice’s idea to have this decoration, which she had read of in a society paper.

“Well?” said Madame Dulaurens, speaking in the name of all.

Clément could contain himself no longer. He had had time enough to appreciate his own tactlessness, but with the utmost coolness he said: “Well, Commander Guibert is dead!”

This news, dropped like a bombshell in the middle of a gay dinner-party, all but perfect in its arrangements, amid the warmth, the lights, the charming flowers, the dazzling jewels, the lovely dresses, and the general cheerfulness, seemed almost an impropriety. It would be only the unmannerly Clément, coarsened by sport, who could be guilty of such a blunder. Why, the very introduction of the subject of death seemed to imply that the pleasures of the evening were not everlasting; and does not the whole art of enjoying the present consist in supposing it will last forever? And then if it had only been the death of some unknown person, they could have passed it over! But Commander Guibert could not be so quickly disposed of; the common knowledge of his origin, his personality, and his brilliant career prevented his name from dropping out of the conversation. Stupefaction reigned at the table.

Isabelle was the first to speak, and it was to cast doubts on the truth of the story.

“But it is not possible! Last year we might have believed you. He was taking part in the Moureau Expedition to Africa. He was travelling in unknown and dangerous countries. But he came back safe and sound, and famous as well. Now he is commander and an officer of the Legion of Honour at thirty-two. He is our great man. You are all jealous of him, so you think you will just get rid of him.”

She spoke with animation, turning from right to left in her chair, as if inviting all the guests to witness her anger. On Clément’s unhappy remark she had looked at Alice and saw the blood leave her cheeks as though she were dying. This mortal pallor extended even to her hands, which shook nervously, hardly distinguishable from the white cloth. Isabelle had immediately turned the attention on herself with her hasty words.

Clément made a slight gesture.

“No, he is dead. I admire him as much as you do, but he is dead.” And he repeated this word, which should never be spoken in a dining-room.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake do be quiet,” murmured Madame Orlandi, who had just noticed that they were thirteen at table, counting twice over in the hope that she was mistaken. Solemnly Mademoiselle de Songeon exclaimed: “May God rest his soul in peace.”

“Did he die in France?” asked M. Dulaurens. “The Expedition came back a month or two ago.”

M. d’Amberlard, quite unmoved, was enjoying a truffle that he kept on his plate so as to reserve its taste to the last, and M. de Lavernay kept his eyes fixed on Isabelle’s corsage as she bent forward.

M. de Marthenay put down his glass, which he kept emptying constantly.

“I met the Commander,” he said, “scarcely three weeks ago. He was getting out at the station. I went up to him but he seemed not to know me.”

“Probably because he didn’t want to,” Isabelle could not refrain from remarking. She hated Alice’s husband, who made persistent love to her when he had lost at cards and had nothing else to do. And to prevent any more allusions she added: “No doubt he has a contempt for officers who have resigned.”

M. de Marthenay had left the army the year before.

“He had a contempt, you mean,” said Clément cruelly. He would not allow them to rob him of his dead, and when he had reconquered the general attention he gave a few details.

“My brother-in-law is quite right,” he said. “Commander Guibert did come back to Savoy last month. He stayed two days with his mother and sister at Le Maupas and then returned to his barracks at Timmimun, in Southern Algiers.”

“At the entrance to Touât,” explained the ex-dragoon, who since he left the army was exceeding keen about all military questions. “But General Lervières passed Timmimun to-day, so the Berbers and the Doui-Menia must have attacked him from the rear.”

Young Dulaurens stuck his monocle in his eye and stared impertinently at Marthenay.

“Armand,” said he, “I don’t recognise you. Have you gone in for strategy?”

With another look at her friend’s bloodless face, Isabelle made a fresh interruption.

“I do not understand. He had scarcely returned from crossing the Sahara, a trip which lasted eighteen months or two years, I don’t quite remember which. After these expeditions one generally has a long leave. Then he evidently took no rest? He went back at once to this expedition? Because, if he is dead, he must have been killed in battle.”

Raising his eyebrows, Clément let his eyeglass fall.

“When a man is a hero he is not one by halves. He asked for this post on account of the danger.”

M. de Lavernay, bending towards his neighbor, whispered in her ear:

“I like to see you get excited. Your cheeks color and your eyes flash.”

But it was not at either her cheeks or her eyes that he was looking. The impatient Isabelle cut him short with that sharpness which marriage had not cured.

“Do be quiet, you old sinner!” she cried.

Alice had taken up her bouquet of orchids and was smelling it, half hiding her paleness. At last Isabelle, giving full vent to the uneasiness which had tortured her for the last few minutes, said,

“And Captain Berlier? He was coming back from the Sahara too. He belonged to the same regiment as Commander Guibert. Had he gone with him to Timmimun?”

Did Clément Dulaurens guess her anxiety from the tone of her voice? Too often had he suffered from her sarcastic remarks not to take a cruel pleasure in tormenting her a little now.

“Yes, that is true,” he said. “Jean Berlier must have been there as well.”

“Now what do you know exactly?” demanded Isabelle imperiously.

“Tell us what you heard,” put in Madame Dulaurens. Annoyed at the course of the conversation, she had given up all hope of diverting it and was resigned to hearing the whole story.

“Well, here you are! While they were mending my car at Cognin I went into the Café National. There were only the mayor, the schoolmaster, and three or four municipal councillors there. When they saw me they looked at me mysteriously. ‘Hallo,’ I said to them, ‘are you holding a meeting?’ ‘No, we are just chatting,’ the mayor said. And that was as far as we got.”

“And then?”

“That was all that concerned me. I went out, and sent my chauffeur to have a drink in his turn. He is very thick with the schoolmaster. They are both anarchists.”

“Anarchists!” repeated Mademoiselle de Songeon wrathfully.

“Certainly. Everybody is nowadays. It is the fashion. My chauffeur came back. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘They have had a wire from the Minister about Commander Guibert’s death in Africa.’ ‘Are you sure? I said. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘He was killed by savages defending a town called Timou—Timmimun?—that’s it. Then of course they had to tell his people the news. They were very puzzled how to do it. At last they sent a policeman.’”

“A policeman?” said M. Dulaurens, a stickler for legalities. “But the mayor should have taken the fatal telegram in person.”

“The Guiberts are conservatives,” said M. de Lavernay. “These republicans will not trouble themselves in such cases.”

“But the Guiberts are not interested in politics.”

“The grandfather was a councillor, of conservative views, and the father was mayor of Cognin. That is quite enough.”

Madame Dulaurens was trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who was separated from her by a candelabrum. Alice’s orchids were drooping under the warm rain of her tears. In the general confusion no one had seen her cry.

“How did he die?” questioned one of the ladies.

“At the head of his men—after the victory—with a bullet in his forehead. I quote the telegram that my man read.”

“Did he receive the last sacrament?” asked Mademoiselle de Songeon shaking her grey head.

The ever-correct M. Dulaurens summed up the affair. “He is a great loss to his country.”

“Yes,” added his wife, in a noble impulse of eloquence. “We will honor his glorious memory. We will get up a memorial service whose magnificence shall astonish all Chambéry. It is the duty of our class to show France how genuine merit must be recognised and rewarded, at a time when mediocrity has taken possession of the country, when envious equality drags it down to the lowest level.” She had read this last sentence that very morning in a leading article of the Gaulois.

Alice, surprised to hear all this, thought in her sorrow, “Why then, did she refuse to let me give myself to him?” And Isabelle was silent, thinking of Jean Berlier, whose fate was still unknown.

Madame Orlandi, forgetting Pistache for a minute, noticed how abstracted her daughter was. She looked at her with loving admiration and praised herself for the depth of her maternal affection. In an outburst in which the thought of self did not swallow up all pity she expressed her concern for Madame Guibert.

“Does his mother know?” she asked. And she stopped confusedly, as though she felt herself guilty of a scandal. All eyes turned to Clément Dulaurens. The young man answered in a free and easy way, the bad taste of which was due rather to his youth than to any lack of feeling.

“She must know all by now. As I was coming home I met her driving back to Le Maupas in her old cart. She was passing under a gas lamp; I recognised her quite well, I had to go slowly on account of my damaged car.”

These words brought a dreadful feeling of actuality into the company. It seemed as if the cold outside air had suddenly frozen this comfortable dining-room.

Instinctively M. d’Amberlard, who was completely bored, examined the windows to see if they were open. A shudder passed through the assembly, all of whom were haunted by the same vision: the picture of an old woman, already heavily tried by life’s sorrows, going home through the snow, contented and unsuspecting, to that home where news of death awaited her.

This inevitable catastrophe which was about to take place—which was perhaps taking place at this very moment—came home to them all even more than the glorious faraway death of Commander Guibert on African soil.

A sob from Alice broke the oppressive silence. In a frightened voice Isabelle murmured: “She knows by now.”

The mothers all broke down unreservedly, and Madame Dulaurens promptly resolved to comfort and console the poor woman in an early visit.

With all these solemn faces round him, Clément, who loved gaiety at table, at last recognised his thoughtlessness and admitted to himself, “Now I’ve done it!” His father, a slave to punctilio, without paying any attention to the rest of the conversation, returned to the discussion of an accessory point which he had not sufficiently developed.

“The mayor of Cognin should have gone to them and broken the news delicately, instead of just rudely sending a policeman,” he stated.

Profiting by the interposition of this enlightening remark, M. d’Amberlard thought it time to unburden himself of a protest which he had been keeping back with difficulty for some time.

“All our regrets can make no change,” he said, “and we might as well talk about something more cheerful. When I was in Paris I always used to ask if a play ended happily before I took seats for it. A party, like a comedy, should avoid all gloomy subjects.”

The Marquis de Lavernay quite agreed with this, and so death was forgotten. Champagne filled the gilded glasses. Flowers spread their perfume over the table which was laden with baskets of preserved fruits. The jewels of the women sparkled in the lights. It was a pleasure to recover the former luxurious and comfortable atmosphere which the unhappy news had disturbed. Alice and Isabelle were left alone in their distress.

The guests all drank the health of the young de Marthenay couple, whose wedding anniversary was being celebrated, and a move was made to the drawing-room. Alice, unable to bear it any longer, rushed to her mother’s room. In the darkness she gave way to her grief. She had been able to smile bravely during the toast they had drunk in her honor, with its allusion to her “enviable happiness.” Her happiness! She had looked in vain for it both in the present and in the past, and how could she expect it in the future? With the clear sight which the great shocks of destiny give us when we expect the bitterness of life to crush us, she lived again despairingly through the last years of her life. In a rapid succession of vivid pictures she saw her sad days pass before her eyes.

She had not wished to marry Armand de Marthenay: it was so constantly forced upon her that at last she had yielded. She came down the aisle of the church in her wedding dress on the arm of the husband she had not chosen. And since then? Could she look back upon one hour of joy, that deep, pure joy that her childish soul had imagined? The first days of her married life had been deadened by a kind of merciful stupor, like a fog which hides the desolation of a blasted plain. She forgot to feel she had a heart. Her husband still retained the good humor of a man with something to do. He rode, he fulfilled his military duties, he received his friends, he got up parties. She allowed herself to be occupied by her new household duties and by the many society calls. Instead of the husband of her dreams, she had a companion proud of her fortune and her pretty face, a man without much delicacy of feeling and with no great intelligence, not even clever, but possessed of a good digestion and an idiotic fatuity which enabled him to admire himself unceasingly all his life. When her little girl was born she thought she had at last found the oblivion for which at times she still sought.

From this tolerable time in her existence her thoughts travelled on to the present, which was always with her. After a series of unforeseen incidents, the regiment stationed at Chambéry had been designated for a distant Eastern garrison. M. de Marthenay tried to exchange, but it was impossible. He had either to go away and leave Savoy, or to spoil his career. At the prospect of this departure Madame Dulaurens had shown such violent grief that the young wife was foolish enough to remind her husband of the solemn promise he had made her when they became engaged. As a man of honor the dragoon sacrificed himself. In twenty-four hours he had resigned. He then gave way to his idle instincts, which a soldier’s life had kept in check. And from that time he went steadily from bad to worse.

He began by becoming a constant habitué of the cafés. In summer he was a member of the Club at Aix-le-Bains and of the Villa des Fleurs. He began to play baccarat and won. While his wife was slowly recovering after their child’s birth he was engaged in low adventures, and reports were spread about concerning him by the visitors to these watering-places. One day Alice learned of his base unfaithfulness. She had kept her innocence after her marriage and learnt the cruel fact of unfaithfulness before she well knew what unfaithfulness meant. She rebelled against it, but instead of finding the repentance which she expected and could have pardoned, she received only this humiliating answer:

“You wanted me to resign the service and I resigned. You have only yourself to blame if I try to make up for the loss of my career in my own way. A man must have something to do. I sacrificed the object of my life for your sake. What have you given up in return?”

Overwhelmed at his reproaches she retired into herself from that time and wrapped herself in a mournful silence. She was not resigned, but she followed the bent of her passive nature.

Losses at cards soured M. de Marthenay’s character. After the season, idle and unsettled, he began to drink. His wife saw him try to captivate her friend Isabelle before her very eyes, and was so discouraged that she noted his failure with indifference. Thus she was obliged to follow the only too rapid phases of his fall, of which she was perhaps indirectly the cause. She could not shut her eyes to it, yet felt the impossibility of saving him.

Thinking over all the details of her miserable past, Alice felt astonished that she suffered so much. She had grown accustomed to living amid such thoughts. Their dull monotony was now familiar to her. But to-day a new sorrow had come to reinforce their bitterness. Fresh melancholy pictures rose up in her memory as if to remind her of the part she had played in her own destiny. She remembered the day when Paule Guibert in the oakwood had stirred her heart with an unknown desire. She saw once more the vivid light of the setting sun through the trees and heaven descending upon her transfigured soul, saw Marcel’s tall figure bending down to her with his words of love. And then ... then she saw him lying dead in a distant, sun-scorched land, a bullet through his head, pale and terrible, his reproachful eyes fixed upon her. Oh, those eyes of agony! How well she knew their look! They had gazed on her like that when she had kept that obstinate silence—that wicked silence which had ruined their happiness. Now in this dark room she vainly hid her face so as not to see them. “Marcel, forgive me!” Distracted and trembling, her love made supplication to him. “Don’t look at me like that! I did not know. I was a child. That is my excuse. Yes, I was a coward, I was afraid to strive for you, to fight for my love. I was afraid to wait, to love, to suffer, to live. But God has punished me—oh, how cruelly! Close your eyes and forgive me....”

Frightened at the sound of her own voice, she laid her hand on her bosom. She was choking as on the day her child was born. At last in her broken heart rose up the knowledge of life in all its strength and dignity. Her soul had won its freedom, and she loved Marcel as he had loved her, nobly and proudly. For her sake, to seek forgetfulness, he had travelled over Africa and met glory and death. Perhaps, as he fell, he had recalled her face. That she might have been his last thought, though that thought might be but disdainful, was now her most ardent prayer. Comparing her existence with the one she had thrust from her she regretted not being a hero’s widow instead of sharing the dull life of a man incapable of inspiring or feeling love.

The door opened and Madame Dulaurens, anxious at her daughter’s long absence, called in the darkness.

“Alice, are you there? Answer me.”

“Yes, what do you want?”

Madame Dulaurens was surprised at the unexpected hardness of tone. She went back to the lighted corridor and returned with a lamp. She found her daughter lying motionless and white, and recognised traces of tears on her hastily dried cheeks. She sat down beside her at once and tried to take her in her arms. But Alice shrank from her embrace. All the mother in Madame Dulaurens was aroused, and she winced with pain.

“Dearest,” she said, “you are suffering. Tell me your trouble. I am your mother. What the matter to-night?”

Although her masterful nature was irritated by this rebellion, she understood that now she must not put pressure on her child. She covered her with kisses and overwhelmed her with kind words, but it was all in vain.

“What is the matter with you to-night?” she repeated.

“Nothing,” said Alice in a firm voice, which her mother did not recognise.

In the face of such profundity of sorrow Madame Dulaurens hesitated, not knowing which to ask of the two questions that burned her lips.

“Is it about your husband?” she asked at last.

She had guessed that Commander Guibert’s death had something to do with these tears. But she did not dare to allude to the secret which she had once treated so lightly.

“Yes,” whispered Alice, weakening again. And they both accepted this lie, by which they were spared the reproach which no passing of time could wipe away. Both were thinking of Marcel Guibert and they talked about Armand de Marthenay.

Alice began to complain of her joyless life.

“We were wrong to ask him to resign.”

“Oh, my dearest,” said her mother, “how you hurt me! So you would have agreed to desert me?”

“Was it better that my husband should desert me?”

“I should have died,” exclaimed Madame Dulaurens energetically, “if you had had to go. You will never know how I love you and how I want to make you happy!”

She spoke in entirely good faith. Deceived by her daughter’s words, she had regained the serenity which the memory of death had almost destroyed. Taught by her own experience, she was not in the least surprised at the disillusionment of Armand’s neglected wife. Was it not the lot of most women? And had she not, what so many women lacked, the consolation of a warm motherly heart to fly to?

But Alice saw another mother, who at this hour was draining her cup of sorrow, a poor old woman by whose side she longed to be, where she would have been if she had listened to the dictates of her heart. Like all weaklings who revolt, she went beyond the bounds and did not stop short of injustice to her own mother.

They looked at each other. Madame Dulaurens understood at last and felt a deep anguish. A gulf yawned between her and her daughter. There had suddenly and relentlessly been revealed to both of them the difference of their two natures, the one imperious and under the sway of worldly prejudices, the other shrinking, docile, and under no sway but that of the heart.

When they went back to the drawing-room a few minutes later, calm, and leaning on each other’s arms, nobody could have suspected the domestic drama which had just parted them asunder.

Isabelle was leading the conversation, talking loudly, making jokes, and showing her white teeth. And from time to time she looked at her surroundings, at her husband, at her admirers, M. de Marthenay, M. de Lavernay, and particularly at Clément Dulaurens, with eyes full of hatred and scorn. She detested them all, because they could not tell her that Jean Berlier was still alive.

She saw that Alice had been crying and envied her the reality of her sorrow. When the time for departure came, as her friend went to the hall to help her on with her furs, she took advantage of their being alone to throw her arms round her neck, and at last giving way to the grief which she had choked back all the evening she whispered a few wild words, which were understood at once.

“My poor Alice! What cowards we have been! Oh, why can we not be allowed to mourn for our dead this evening? Our lives belonged to them, and we denied it. Let us weep for them and for our dull existence which might have been so bright!”

“Yes,” said Alice, “sorrow itself is more to be desired than the fate that is ours.”

CHAPTER II
THE POLICEMAN’S MESSAGE

The discussion at the Café National at Cognin had been long and animated. When the telegram from the Minister of War had been brought to the town-hall, the municipal schoolmaster was on the doorstep dismissing his pupils. He took the envelope from the hands of the messenger, who was puffing out his cheeks to make his importance felt.

“Official and post free! For the Mayor.”

“Give it to me,” said the schoolmaster cautiously. And he immediately tore open the envelope, to show the messenger who was the real head of the community. He read the words twice aloud, with the Minister’s name at the bottom:

“The Mayor, Cognin, near Chambéry. Inform Guibert family immediately decease of Commander Guibert while defending Timmimun, Algiers. Shot through forehead after repulsing assault.”

He did not grasp it the first time he read it because, taking everything to himself as most people do, he expected to discover something of a personal nature in this government communication, perhaps the exemption of his son, who had just drawn his lot and was trying to escape military service. His disappointment prevailed over his pity.

After having told his wife and his deputy about the news, he put on his hat and ran over to the Café National, kept by Mayor Simon himself. The latter was the successor to the post to Dr. Guibert, who had been excluded from the Corporation a short time before his death, the very year that he had gratuitously attended almost all the population when attacked by typhoid fever. He was a country lawyer, an intemperate boaster, who drank with all his customers and treated his bar as a political committee-room. Ignorant and incapable, but genial-hearted, he left all his duties to the schoolmaster, who was filled with false teachings and who dazzled him by his socialistic and anti-militarist theories which he culled from pernicious propagandist pamphlets. In public he treated him condescendingly, but he obeyed him humbly at the town-hall.

“Well, Master,” he cried as he saw him come in, “you have forgotten your ferule!”

Proud of knowing this rare word, he used it on every occasion to poke fun at his assistant.

“There is some news,” said Maillard mysteriously gliding up to the counter. And the Mayor and his assistant gravely shook their heads in concert. It was important that they should impress two honest customers who sat at the end of the room, with their whips slung over their shoulders, sipping absinthe before going out again into the bitter cold of the clear winter evening.

After informing himself of the contents of the telegram, the Mayor shook his red head.

“It must be done. These Guiberts are people of importance. I’ll put on my frock-coat and go up to Le Maupas.”

He had been in the militia during the campaign of 1870 but his regiment never reached the front. From that terrible year he had learned the fear of war and a respect for courage. Flattered at having received an official telegram, he also felt pride in the heroism of his fellow-townsman abroad. He called his daughters to tell them the secret that the schoolmaster’s wife had already told everybody.

While he was strutting about, the ferret-faced Maillard looked at him and cackled.

“Let’s drink a glass of something,” said the Mayor. “Nothing can be done well without a drink. I shall have time. One always arrives early enough when carrying a message of death. But what do you find to laugh at, you imp of ill omen?”

“I was wondering, Mr. Mayor, if we were republicans or not. The Minister treats you like a dog, you the head of the community. ‘Inform the Guibert family!’ Hurry up and do it. For whom is all this fuss? For a lot of reactionaries, who defied you at the town-hall. They are not so particular when there’s only a man of the people concerned.”

“He was a commander,” observed the hotelkeeper, who could not forget his respect for rank.

“Isn’t a soldier’s blood worth as much as an officer’s?” retorted the schoolmaster in a professorial tone. “I suppose that the equality which is proclaimed on all our public buildings is a lie then? Everything is for the gold lace? The others are just food for powder! It was well worth while having the revolution only to re-establish caste a hundred years later!”

It is imperfect education that is responsible for these bitter, envious, aspiring beings, who find it hard to tolerate superiority of any kind. Before his weak boasting Mayor, the little ill-natured man gave free scope to his hatred of the authorities, a hatred which was increased by the coming entry of his son into military service.

Simon’s face grew red. It was a sign that his brain was working.

“No,” he said, “I can’t get out of it. It is an order.”

“Only the Minister of the Interior can give you orders. You aren’t amenable to military law.”

“But, good God! Madame Guibert will have to be told.”

“I don’t deny it. Only it isn’t necessary that you should put yourself out about it. A Mayor is not at everybody’s beck and call. When a Mayor bestirs himself it is the State which acts. You send a deputy, or even a councillor, where enemies of the Republic are concerned. Devil take it! One is either a republican or one isn’t, Mr. Mayor!”

“Mélanie, fetch us a pint!” cried the Mayor, torn between his natural duty and his duty as a republican which was being instilled into him. “And send the boy to look for Randon, Pitet, and Détraz.”

These three were the most influential councillors in the place. Pitet, with his red, freckled face, which gained him the nickname of Pitet le Rouge, was the first to arrive.

“I heard the news at the Fountain,” he declared as he came in. “I can’t do anything. What do you want of me?”

He always spoke in a coarse, aggressive tone. He had been a tenant at Le Maupas, and suddenly had to leave his farm. Nobody ever understood why he was sent away from an estate where the tenants and servants “took root,” as was currently said. In reality it was on account of a theft, about which Dr. Guibert had never told anyone. Till the doctor’s death Pitet had kept quiet. When he was quite certain he could do so with impunity, he raised his head and played a vigorous part in all the elections. He began by making money out of politics and ended by getting dignity—which people were the less ready to refuse him because he needed it so much. The whole community was afraid of him, and everyone knows the power of fear over the peasants. He turned the scale at once in favor of the schoolmaster Maillard. The Mayor could not put himself out for the “aristocrats.”

“The Mayor must put himself at the service of everybody,” said Simon, whose face shone like a burning log. “And, besides, a man’s death isn’t a matter of politics.”

Pitet the Red would not hear of it.

“There you are! You must bow and scrape to the nobility and the church! Then you will say it isn’t a matter of politics. Your daughters go to Mass, Mr. Mayor. Take care, it won’t be forgotten.”

“But I don’t go to their church! Our deputy knows that,” cried Simon.

“You don’t go to Cognin, but you go to Bissy.”

Bissy was the neighboring parish. While the Mayor was defending himself, Randon and Détraz entered the room.

“Now, Mélanie, two pints of wine, one red and one white. And see that it’s good stuff!”

The newcomers asked together: “He’s dead then?”

“The whole place knows about it!” cried Simon, raising his arms to heaven. “We must hurry up or Madame Guibert will hear of it.”

Randon, old and broken down, had to thank the size of his estate for the electors’ regard. He was an honest man, but as shy and nervous as a hare. He gave a timid vote for the Mayor’s visit in person. As to Détraz, the boorish and vulgar, he admitted at once that he took no interest whatever in the question.

“Two against two; it’s a tie,” shouted Pitet the Red, exultantly, throwing all his long-cherished rancor into the argument.

In a weak voice Randon muttered that the schoolmaster had no say in the matter and that the Mayor’s voice was the important one. But nobody listened to his prudent words. The Mayor was derided for the lukewarmness of his democratic opinions and was at last reduced to silence.

“Now then, you’re the oldest, you must go,” said Pitet to Randon.

“Oh, no, not I!” cried the latter, terrified. And he kept on repeating “Not I!” as if the message of death threatened his own life. He was thinking of his own peace of mind above all things.

“Well then, you, Détraz.”

“It isn’t my business.”

“Then I shall go,” said the Mayor, taking on an offensive manner.

Randon expressed a mild approval.

They both remembered how Dr. Guibert had attended and saved their children. They strove hard to reconcile their opinions and their prospects of re-election.

Furious at this reverse which followed his victory, and also excited by the wine he had drunk, Pitet shouted: “Haven’t you been told that it is too much honor? Can’t you hear? I tell you, don’t argue!”

“What?” exclaimed the Mayor, purple in the face.

The schoolmaster interrupted in honeyed tones:

“The logical thing is to give the message to the police. They carry the Mayor’s orders in the town. A policeman can take the telegram and explain that the Mayor has sent him in person.”

“That, of course, is the only right way,” said Pitet approvingly.

No sooner said than done. Faroux, the policeman, was sent for, and the schoolmaster gave him the Mayor’s instructions with the telegram. A few more glasses were drunk and the party broke up.

Old Randon, who was waiting for his cart, was left alone in Simon’s bar. For a few minutes the two men found nothing more to say. They were thinking of the effect of the message, which they had forgotten in their discussion.

“We are cowards,” the Mayor admitted at last, and the councillor heartily agreed.

As a matter of fact, they were no more cowardly than the average man. They simply represented the attitude of honest men confronted by bullies.

After a long silence—for a countryman moves in the world of ideas at the pace of a plough-ox among the furrows—old Randon suggested: “Do you think we ought to go up to Le Maupas together?”

“I was thinking about it,” rejoined the Mayor. And they encouraged each other with all kinds of good reasons.

“Nobody will see us.”

“It is dark.”

“We will go up privately, as fellow citizens.”

“Just in ordinary clothes, unofficially.”

“The doctor saved my little one.”

“And my two daughters. Mélanie, my hat!”

They got up very firmly. They felt proud of their resolution. They wrapped themselves up in their capes and went out, the old man going in front like a youngster. They got as far as the end of the village, when in the road they met the schoolmaster, who was walking along smoking a cigar. Maillard grinned as he recognised them.

“What, going for a walk?” he asked.

“No,” said the stammering Mayor, “I am seeing Randon home.”

“But he lives on the Chaloux road!”

The councillor explained matters.

“I am going as far as the Favres grocery near here with an order. It is for my wife.”

“I will go with you. I am just taking the air before supper.”

Neither the Mayor nor Randon dared to confess their plan. They returned to Cognin very humbly on either side of the schoolmaster, who held forth at length and announced the coming golden age of brotherhood.

* * * * *

“I shall be back in the evening,” Madame Guibert had said to her daughter, as she got into Trélaz’s carriage. She was going to Chambéry on family business. With the help of Étienne and François, who had been lucky in their enterprises at Tonkin, and with Marcel’s aid during the Sahara Expedition they had been able to keep Le Maupas.

At sunset Paule came out for the first time to lean on the balustrade. She listened for the sound of the approaching carriage coming up the slope, but she listened in the quiet evening air in vain. As the frost was very sharp she ran to get a shawl, wrapped herself in it, and waited.

The snow-covered land grew rosy in the evening light. A kind of virginal purity was over it. The vine-branches and the hedges were covered with a fine lacework of hoarfrost, which shone in the dying fires of day. The bare woods had no more secrets, and the branches with their thousand twigs stood out in the clear air like blades of grass.

Paule, who clung to this little place with every fibre of her being, loved the fairy-like winter effects. The cold made her shiver. As she crossed the threshold, a raven flew croaking across the horizon. Its wings made a black spot against the pale sky.

“Bird of misfortune!” murmured the girl carelessly, without reading any ill omen in it. Was it not the time for ravens? They hover over the bare fields, near the houses, trying to find a scanty sustenance.

She put two logs in the drawing-room grate, built up the fire carefully, and placed a kettle on the logs. Then she went to find a glass, a spoon, the sugar and the bottle of rum, which she arrayed on a little table near the fireplace. “Mother will be cold when she gets back,” she thought during these preparations. “It is freezing to-night and she will be dreadfully cold in that open cart of Trélaz’s. A good fire and a hot drink will do her good. Poor Mother!”

She sat down beside the lamp and tried to read a book she had begun. But this occupation could not hold her attention. She looked at the clock. It was past six.

Uneasily she took up the shawl which she had left on a chair, and went back to the veranda. Night had fallen. The stars were trembling in the sky, as if they were cold. Although the moon was still invisible, the horizon was not dark. It seemed as if a faint light was rising from below, as if the white earth illumined the sky. Down in the depths of the valley Paule saw the lamps of Chambéry shining. She looked searchingly at the wood with its bare oak-trees, through which the carriage must come, she watched for the light of the moving lamps, and listened for the slightest sounds that the breeze carried to her. For a moment the clatter of a mill deceived her. A shrill scream which broke the silence made her shudder,—it was so like a cry of despair. When she had recovered from her fright, she recognised the siren of a neighboring factory. For a long time she remained leaning on the balustrade, listening and receptive of every impression.

Marie, the old servant who had lived with the family through good and bad fortune, came to look for her and scolded her.

“Now isn’t it madness to stay outside in this cold? Will you come in, Miss Paule? You won’t bring Madame home any quicker by taking cold yourself!”

Paule obeyed, making no reply. But she went no further than the kitchen, so that she might be ready to run out at once. Hearing the gate open, she rushed out and found herself face to face with a peasant from Vimines, who on account of his poverty was ironically nicknamed Baron.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in her disappointment, as the poor creature walked unceremoniously into the kitchen.

“Good evening, everybody! I’ve just looked in as I passed, to get warm.”

From time to time he did a day’s work at Le Maupas. He was an idle good-for-nothing, whom Dr. Guibert had helped. He often came to the door and asked for work, though really only to get a drink.

“Good evening, Baron. You did not meet my mother on the road?”

“No, Miss, I saw nobody.”

Seated near the stove with his felt hat crushed in his hand, he looked at the girl and the servant with a cunning eye. Paule left them and began gazing out once more into the night. The moon was illuminating the scene with her silvery beams, but her light revealed only the emptiness of the road.

In the kitchen the rustic was saying to Marie: “So you haven’t heard anything?”

“About what?” asked the servant, putting her pan on the fire.

“About the news, bless you!”

“What news, you old chatterbox? What are you keeping to yourself?”

Distrustful, he had thought that they were hiding it from him. At last he understood that at Le Maupas they were still ignorant of what all Cognin already knew. As he passed in front of the hospitable house, he had yielded to his curiosity to see the effect of the bad news. But he would not tell anything, not he! Everybody has his own job to do. He quickly drained his glass of red wine, refused a second, and got up to leave.

“Well, Baron, what about your news? Are you going to take it on to Vimines?”

“That’s just it,” said he, winking his wicked eye.

“So you won’t tell us about it?”

“Oh, you will know it soon enough.”

“It’s all cry and no wool with you, you old humbug!”

On the threshold the rustic turned round and delivered himself of a platitude with a sarcastic smile: “Live and learn! Well, well, what will the old woman do?”

His feet falling lightly in the snow he passed behind Paule, who was still leaning on the veranda rail.

“Good evening, miss. Bear up! You never know who’s alive or who’s dead.”

The girl started again, more at this voice heard unexpectedly behind her back than at the words, whose meaning she did not understand. She came back to the kitchen with a vague fear mingled with her uneasiness.

“Make us some nice soup, Marie, and very hot. It is freezing hard.” And cheered by the cosy hearth she added, “That Baron almost frightened me.”

The servant snorted. “A good-for-nothing like that, with a long tongue! I don’t want to see him round here any more. Your father was a good Samaritan when he picked up that fish. And he has the evil eye. We must take care. If the soup is burned, it will be all his fault. I don’t know what story he had heard in the town, but he had a long face and was watching us as a cat watches a rat.”

The girl went back to the drawing-room to stir the fire. Now she was alone, she no longer felt her accustomed courage. Her heart was beating loudly in her breast. She tried to comfort herself and did not succeed.

“Trélaz’s horse goes so slowly. That business at the lawyer’s always lasts so much longer than one thinks it will....”

She could no longer keep down her anxiety, which increased every minute. Even prayer could not calm her. As she was on her knees, she heard the drawing-room door open.

“Is Mamma there?” she cried as she rose from her knees. It was old Marie who appeared at the door.

“No, Miss Paule. It is a man who wants to speak to the mistress.”

“Who is he?”

“He says he is a policeman and has been sent by the Mayor.”

“A policeman! What does he want with us?”

As her mind recalled all the bad omens of that evening, the girl trembled while she gave the order for the man to be shown in. But she controlled herself and received the Mayor’s messenger with the greatest outward calm.

Faroux, the policeman, was one of those silent, stolid countrymen who give themselves up entirely to their work without ever thinking about it. But in the presence of Paule Guibert it was impossible for him not to understand at last the importance of his mission. As he came along the road he had not given a thought to it. So many people approach thus absent-mindedly the most sacred and most serious tasks.

Standing before him the girl said:

“My mother is not at home. But could I not take her place?”

He stood there silent and stupid, and the pause increased Paule’s secret fear. He stammered at last:

“Mademoiselle Guibert, I have come to ... to ... tell you ...”

In his face, as the lamp shone on it, she read so much confusion and trouble that she gave way to her darkest presentiments. With a few quick words she aroused the poor, frightened man from his stupor.

“Speak, oh, do speak! Has there been an accident? My mother ... on the road....” She could not finish the sentence.

“No,” said the man, “I did not meet the lady.” And he relapsed into silence.

“Well, why did you come? If you have anything to say, say it. Do be quick!”

Straight and proud, she spoke in the commanding voice which she knew how to take upon occasion, like Marcel. The stiffness of her bearing quite confused the policeman, who drew the telegram from his pocket and with his big trembling hand held it out to the girl. He tried to take it back again, but the blue paper was already in Paule’s hand. Before she had even opened it, she thought of her brother. She glanced over it, said “Ah,” crushed up the telegram, and turned deadly pale. But with a supreme effort she remained standing and did not cry. She could not show her weakness to this man, whom she thought unfeeling, but she had to lean on the table. This movement and her pallor were her only admissions of weakness.

A fearful silence enveloped them. At last she was able to say without trembling: “It is all right. You may go. I thank you.”

As he was stepping out she remembered the laws of rural hospitality and added:

“Tell Marie to give you something to drink, please.”

But the policeman rushed through the kitchen and fled as if he had murdered someone.

“Oh, my God!” cried Paule when no one could hear her. She dragged herself towards the fireplace, held on to it for a minute with her two hands, tried to stand, but had to drop into an armchair. Her body shook from head to foot. She held her hand before her dry, staring eyes to keep away the horrible vision before them. She saw there before her on the carpet her brother lying dead, his shattered forehead with the lifeblood flowing from it. That grave face of his, so melancholy and so proud, which had been the more so ever since Alice’s refusal,—she saw it now, sightless, motionless and icy-cold, still in death and beautiful! “Marcel, Marcel,” she called softly, and hid her face in her hands. The tears refused to come to her relief. Her adored brother, the pride of her life, was dead. Dead, she repeated ten, twenty times before she could understand the horror of it. Dead, the hero of Andriba, the conqueror of Rabah and the desert! At thirty-two, this life of courage, of gallantry and self-sacrifice, had been cut off. Oh, how little he had cared for life. For a long time he had despised it. Had not the meeting with a shy little girl taken away his joy in it? And Paule distractedly racked her memory for the pictures in which she had read the signs of coming fate. There was that hesitating smile which she had surprised on his lips the first night that he confessed his secret to her. There was that movement of indifference as he listened to the mournful warnings of the owls after his last interview with Alice. And there was again that strange, quiet, almost disinterested discussion of his future, as they sat there on the tree-trunk at the edge of the Montcharvin wood, on the day of his departure from France. For years, since that evening at La Chênaie, he had carried death in his eyes. He had never again mentioned Alice’s name, never spoken of his love. But he had lived on without any faith in life.... And in that dear face that her ardent love called up in her memory, Paule saw a deep serenity, unchangeable, eternal. Then she gave a great cry and knelt down, weeping.

“Yes,” she thought, “you are at peace at last. Our love was not sufficient for you. We loved you too much, Marcel. You do not know how I loved you. I cannot speak: but my heart was full of you. Why was I not chosen in your place? Of what use am I?”

A new fear, which she would not admit to herself in this terrible hour, completed the distraction of her mind. Marcel was not alone at Timmimun....

All at once she started up.

“And Mother! Mother is coming home!” She had forgotten her. And, thanking God who had allowed her to break to her mother this supreme sorrow, she mourned no longer for him who was sleeping his last sleep, dead on the day of victory, in a conquered land; but instead for her who was quietly coming home along the dark roads, travelling all unsuspicious towards the precipice. Might not this last blow crush the frail old life, overwhelmed already with its many trials?

Paule vainly searched her mind for help. She felt the sadness of a cemetery round her. What deaths and separations there had been— Her sister Thérèse dead at twelve; her father struck down in his vigor; her sister Marguerite in a convent; Étienne and François in the Colonies. She was left alone—and how very much alone—to help her mother to bear this too heavy cross. But as she must do it, she would be brave and uphold the poor tottering woman with all her strength.

She dried her eyes and bathed her face.

“Not now, not all at once,” she repeated, thinking of her mother. “She must have time to warm herself, to rest. I will tell her to-night that he is ill. She did not sleep at all last night, she must sleep at least to-night. To-morrow her heart will be broken. Suffering is easier to bear in the day-time than in the horrors of night, so like the grave. I will not tell her to-night.” And she put her mother’s cup of bitterness away from her. From the far country where he lay she seemed to hear her big brother calling to her—his soul at peace—“Spare her this evening. She has suffered so much already.”

She heard a footstep and hastened to hide, the telegram which had brought with it death.

Marie entered the room.

“Madame is coming. I hear the wheels in the avenue.”

CHAPTER III
NIOBE

“Good evening, Mamma.” Paule called her Mamma when she wished to show her child’s love the most.

Madame Guibert came in, stooping a little, wrapped in an old and well-worn fur cloak. The lamp-shade prevented her noticing how pale her daughter was as she kissed her. She came nearer to the fire.

“Oh, how good it is to be at home again! And how one loves these old houses! Do you remember, Paule, how sad we were when we thought we should have to leave Le Maupas?” She warmed her wrinkled hands at the flames. Paule came up behind her and took off her bonnet.

“Keep your cloak on, Mother dear, for a few minutes. You were very cold, weren’t you?”

Madame Guibert turned to look at her daughter. She smiled at her, and the smile under her grey hair, on a face whose cheeks were still young, whose blue eyes were trusting and clear, was as sweet as the last roses of the year, which still bloom under the snow.

“Dear child, to look at you warms me more than do these logs that you have put on the fire for me.”

The girl knelt down to take the kettle off the fire.

“You are going to have some boiling hot grog.”

As she got up, her mother had time to notice in the light how pale she was.

“But you are the one who should be looked after, Paule. You are quite white. You are ill, and you never told me.”

The old lady got up at once.

“Oh, it isn’t serious, Mother dear. You must not worry. Perhaps I took a slight chill waiting for you on the balcony. I will go to bed directly after supper.” And to calm the motherly fears she had the courage to repeat laughingly: “It is nothing at all, Mother, I assure you.” She was thinking that the dining-room lamp would show her face too clearly and suggested: “Suppose we have our supper here before the fire! This room is more comfortable.”

“But the table is laid already.”

“It can soon be changed. You will see.”

“Very well, dear. You are icy cold. And in Trélaz’s open carriage one is exposed to the worst of the weather.”

As her daughter went out, after having poured out a few spoonfuls of rum into the glass, she added:

“Tell Marie to take down one or two bottles of wine to Trélaz. He deserves them.”

According to the old Savoy custom, the farmer’s family lived in the basement of the house.

Paule had just finished clearing the table in the dining-room when the servant came back with a terrified face.

“Miss Paule, poor Miss Paule! What is this I hear?”

The girl looked her full in the face.

“M. Marcel!” continued Marie.

“Oh!” cried Paule in a hoarse voice, “be quiet! We will tell my mother to-morrow. It is soon enough.”

Old Marie checked her tears.

“It was Baron who told them downstairs. They knew about it in the village. Madame must not be told. It would give her such a shock! She must be prepared.” And admiring her young mistress’s strength, she said: “You are brave, that you are! You are like him!”

With an unsteady hand she waited at the table, her red eyes hidden by her spectacles.

“Marie is following my example,” said Madame Guibert. “She is ageing.” And she tried in vain to brighten the conversation.

“You have eaten nothing, Paule. You are ill. Do go to bed. I will warm it for you and make you some tea. It is my turn to look after you.”

“No, thank you. I really don’t want anything. Marie will give me a hot bottle. And you must go to bed early too. Good night, Mamma, dear little Mamma!”

She kissed her mother passionately and went into her room. She was quite exhausted and her courage was gone. She tore off her clothes, unfastened her long hair with a single movement, blew out her candle, and winding herself in her blankets gave way madly to the grief which she had kept back so long. In the darkness her mood changed by turns from despair to revolt, from revolt to resignation and at last to submission and deep pity.

She mourned for her brother, for her mother, and for herself. Turned to the wall and lost in her misery, her face hidden in her handkerchief, she forgot that time was passing and did not hear her mother come to bed.

Madame Guibert slept in the next room. She opened the door gently so as not to awaken her daughter, and yet to be able to hear her in the night if she were not well. Then, as she did every night before undressing, she knelt on her prie-Dieu and said her prayers. As she did every night, she gathered together her dear dead ones and the lying scattered all over the world to beg for them God’s loving care. More particularly she prayed over Paule’s uncertain future and Marcel’s sorrow-stricken heart. A slight deafness and the absorption of her thoughts cut her off from all around her. When she was in bed, she seemed to hear a faint sigh. She listened in vain and reassured herself.

“Paule is asleep,” she thought. “She was pale this evening. Dear little girl. May God keep her and give her happiness! ... Old Marie must have taken cold as well. She had such red eyes and shaking hands. I told her to drink some tea to-night with a little rum in it. It is the rum she likes best!”

Suddenly she sat up. This time she was not mistaken. That stifled sob came from Paule’s bedroom. And listening attentively she made out at last the sound of weeping and despair. Her bosom wrung with a horrible fear, she got out of bed. She was no longer uneasy about her daughter’s health. She understood now this sadness that had made itself felt at Le Maupas all the evening. A calamity had come upon the home, a calamity that they all knew about except herself, something that was terrible, since they had kept it from her. She guessed at the dim and dread presence of her old acquaintance, Death. Whom had it claimed from her now, whom had it struck? ... While she was walking bare-footed, feeling her way in the darkness, she counted the absent ones—Marguerite, Étienne, François, Marcel. Marcel—it was Marcel!

She passed through the half-open door, touched Paule’s bed, and bending towards her she called:

“Paule, tell me, what is the matter?”

She dared ask no more.

The girl, suddenly roused in a paroxysm of sorrow, gave a cry of distress which told her secret: “Mamma!”

“It is Marcel, is it not?” said Madame Guibert breathlessly. “You have bad news about Marcel!”

“Mother, Mother,” murmured Paule.

“He is ill, very ill?”

“Yes, Mother dear, he is ill.” And Paule, half raising herself in bed, put her arms round her mother’s neck. Gently but firmly Madame Guibert pushed her away.

“He is dead?”

“Oh!” cried the girl. “Wait till to-morrow, Mother. We shall have news. Be strong, Mother. We don’t know.”

“You have had something, a letter, a telegram. Show them to me. I must see them.”

“Mother dearest, do not torture yourself so,” entreated Paule in broken tones which were in themselves an admission.

“He is dead! He is dead!” cried Madame Guibert. Her voice was like a funeral dirge. Seated on the edge of the bed, icy cold, she felt hope and life fly from her rent heart. Vainly she turned towards God, her supreme comfort in times of sorrow. Her tearlessness was more terrible than her weeping. She moaned aloud:

“Oh, this time it is too much. I cannot bear it! No, I am not resigned. O God! I have always bowed to Your will. With my soul crushed I blessed You. Now my strength is waning. I am only a poor weak old woman, and I have suffered already more than was needed to try me. I can bear no more—I cannot—Marcel, my Marcel!”

“Mother, Mother!” repeated Paule, as she strained her to her heart.

She felt her mother shiver as she stood there motionless in the darkness, like a tree uprooted in the night. Then she got up, struck a match, and with her arms around the unhappy broken woman she led her into her room. There she wanted to help her into bed. But her mother, who till then had allowed herself to be cared for unresisting, drew herself up.

“No, no, I want to stand,” she said.

Paule had to dress her quickly before dressing herself. Then she took her into the drawing-room, where she succeeded in reviving the fire, which was almost out. She made a big blaze and put the kettle again on the logs. Silent and desolate she walked up and down the room.

She had placed her mother near the fire in an armchair, a blanket over her knees. Stricken to the inmost depths of a mother’s heart, Madame Guibert sat without a movement, without a gesture, without a tear, in a state of prostration more alarming than loud despair. She complained no more—nor did she pray, she looked straight ahead, seeing nothing and making no sound. Crushed by fate, she seemed completely numbed. She could no longer feel her wounded heart beating in her breast. She let herself sink into the abyss of her misery like a drowning man in a fathomless sea.

Patiently Paule waited till the pent-up tears should at last break this dreadful silence, as a stream bursts the dam that is barring its way. But the silence and immobility continued. She came up to her Mother and vainly tried to make her drink some tea. She knelt in front of her, took her hands, and cried:

“Mamma, Mamma, speak to me of Marcel. Speak to me, I beg of you!”

She received no reply. She began to be afraid. She felt herself in a solitude of death.

“Mamma, am I not your daughter, your last child, your little Paule?” she sobbed in despair.

Madame Guibert seemed to wake from her lethargy. She saw the sorrowful face turned up towards her in anguish. A long shiver shook her body. She was conquered, she held out her arms to her daughter, and leaning against her she wept. It was she who in her weakness begged for help.

For a long time the two women remained thus, mingling their tears and their grief, knowing the sad sweetness of loving each other in suffering.

When the mother was able to speak, it was to thank the Almighty.

“Paule, my dear Paule, what did I say a few minutes ago? God is good. He might afflict me still more. He gave you to me in my distress to help me. And I refused to bow myself before Him. O God, Thy Will is cruel, and yet may Thy Name be praised!”

Finding her courage again she asked to see the fatal telegram. She read it through several times and discussed it with Paule.

“He is indeed dead.... But he is living again ... he is with God.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “He died a conqueror—He was shot in the forehead.”

They were silent. They both saw Marcel’s beautiful forehead covered with blood, that high forehead which was the temple of such proud thoughts.

As she lowered her eyes towards Paule Madame Guibert was filled with pity for her.

“Go and rest, dear. To-morrow you will need all your strength—to help me.”

“Oh, no,” said Paule, “I shall not leave you.”

“Then will you pray? Let us pray for him.” And the two women sank on their knees.

For a long time they called down divine blessings on their beloved dead. Paule was quite worn out and had to sit down while her mother, sustained by superhuman will, continued to pray. The tears ran down her cheeks; she no longer tried to keep them back.

“My God,” she begged, “accept the offering of our sorrow and misery. When You died on the Cross Your Mother was with You. I was not near my son. Give me strength to bear this trial. Not for me, my God, but for the duty which remains for me to fulfil, for my sons, for her, too, whom You have not spared. She is very young to have so much suffering. I am inured to sorrow; but protect her, be merciful....”

As she turned towards Paule she saw her pale face, which had fallen back in the low chair. The girl, for all her courage, had fallen asleep in the midst of her tears. Her swollen eyelids were still wet. Madame Guibert rose and went to sit beside her. Raising the dear head tenderly, she placed it on her knees. The beautiful black hair streamed round her peaceful face and accentuated its whiteness. Thus the tired girl rested, watched over by her mother.

The latter gazed fixedly at these motionless features, but saw them not. She saw her son down there outstretched upon the sand, his forehead pierced. He seemed even taller than he had been in the pride of life. Softly she called to him in a low voice:

“My son, my darling son! Now you are at rest. You have been a good son and a brave man. There was nothing in your heart that was not noble. You can see us, can you not? You see us trembling and broken. Protect us from on high, protect Paule. I am already on my way to the grave, to join you and your father. The earth is waiting for me—I feel it, and you are calling me. I shall soon be with you for ever.” And as she thought of her own death she uttered this cry in her heart: “Oh, my God, who will be left to close my eyes if thus Thou takest them all away from me?”

She touched Paule’s body as it pressed against her. She enfolded her in her arms, and holding her jealously, lifting up her wet eyes, but not stirring, she continued to pray like a marble Niobe entreating Fate to spare her last child.

The first lights of dawn appeared. Then morning came, one of those winter days whose cold light makes the snow shiver. The old woman was still praying. From God she drew unconquerable strength. Singled out by sorrow, she must drain the cup of bitterness to its very dregs.

When Paule awoke she saw her mother, pale and frozen, smiling faintly at her. She could not get her to rest nor even to take any food. More stooped than ever and ten years older, Madame Guibert sat down at her desk and began to write in a firm hand to her absent daughter and sons that they might take their own share in the recent sorrow.

CHAPTER IV
THE PAGEANTRY OF DEATH

The chief occupation of the Mayor of Cognin in the morning was to read his paper. With the exception of the workmen from the neighboring factories, who came in the early morning to the inn and stood at the bar to drink their small glass of white wine by the wavering light of a candle, he saw few customers till mid-day. Seated astride a chair, his back to the fire, he provided himself for the day with the political news in the Lyons Republican and Le Progrès. Thus after luncheon he was able to retail to the electors both wine and news.

When on the morning of February 26th he unfolded the papers, he was horrified to see this great headline across the page:

“Victory at Timmimun. Death of Commander Guibert.” It had never occurred to him that the death of a fellow-townsman of his could cause such a stir. With a red face, and vaguely uneasy about his own responsibility, he began to read slowly the grim official story that the journalist had adorned with several pompous phrases.

“The War Office has forwarded to us a telegram announcing a victory in the Touât region, at Timmimun. We would herald it with joy as a fresh triumph of our army, had it not cost us a precious life, that of the conqueror himself, Commander Guibert. Our political preoccupations must not be permitted to distract our attention from the spectacle of these far-off struggles, where French blood is being shed so heroically. It was in the spring of last year that, after the taking of In Salah and the occupation of the Gourara district by the column under Colonel Ménestrel, a little garrison was stationed in this southern village. Not far away from this place, the sanguinary battles of Sahela and El Metarfa were fought, where the second battalion of the Saharan Rifles repulsed the marauding Berabers and Doui-Menias and where Captain Jacques and Lieutenant Depardieu met their glorious death. When last winter General Lervières, chief-in-command in Algiers, was ordered to occupy the Gourara country by force and to proceed to establish himself in the Touât, he left at Timmimun camp a garrison of one hundred fifty men, amply provisioned, under Commander Guibert, assisted by Captain Berlier.

“Commander Guibert, who had just returned to France with the Moureau-Jamy expedition insisted on rejoining his battalion in the extreme south. In spite of the two years which were consumed in crossing Africa, he refused leave and hastened to his post. On the night of the 17-18th of February last, a party of Berabers, estimated to be about one thousand strong, succeeded in approaching Timmimun. The terror inspired by this tribe is such and their mobility so great that they can cross an immense stretch of country without the native regiments having the slightest knowledge of their movements. At daybreak or even before dawn, they opened their attack on the camp.

“A sentry, firing half a dozen shots as he fell back, gave the alarm. The Berabers jumping over the tumbledown walls penetrated to the inner court. In the meantime the garrison assembled in haste under the orders of their chief and soon the Berabers were put to flight, leaving three hundred dead on the ground. But our losses were cruel. Ten were dead, including the officer in command, a commissariat officer, and a sergeant, and more than thirty wounded. Commander Guibert was killed at the end of the skirmish by a bullet passing through his forehead just as the Berabers were fleeing in disorder. Commander Guibert was the youngest chief of battalion in our entire French Army. Captain at twenty-eight and decorated with the Legion of Honour for his brilliant services in the Madagascan campaign, especially at the battle of Andriba, he had taken part in the Moureau expedition, which had just crossed the Sahara. The victor of Rabah, he had been made commander and officer of the Legion of Honour on his return. He was only thirty-two. Born in the town of Cognin near Chambéry (Savoy), he belonged to one of the most respected families of our neighborhood. Called to the highest military destinies, he leaves a glorious memory behind. Savoy is proud of him and cannot fail to honor his memory worthily.”

“Great Heavens!” cried the Mayor as he finished reading this. He verified the name of the paper, fearing he might have lighted on some wretched opposition rag.

The Conservative Nouvelliste and the Radical-Socialist Progrès, which he just skimmed, gave exactly the same account; the first adding several criticisms on the carelessness of the intelligence department in Algiers, the second accompanying it with some humanitarian remarks on the uselessness of colonial expeditions. But all, whatever their political opinions might be, united in honoring the worth of Commander Guibert, praised his splendid career, and deplored his loss.

“That confounded schoolmaster!” cried the Mayor of Cognin.

He took up his hat and was going out. On the doorstep he stopped short. An officer on horseback in full uniform, wearing gold epaulettes, stopped in front of the Café National.

“Can you direct me to Madame Guibert’s house, please?”

A few countryfolk, drawn by curiosity, grouped themselves round the rider.

“Keep along the high road as far as the Vimines road. Then follow the path through the oakwood. After the wood turn to the left and that is Le Maupas.”

“Thank you,” said the officer, and he was already giving rein to his horse when the Mayor called out:

“You are going to visit the lady like that?”

The aide-de-camp glared scornfully at this red-faced individual, and spurring his horse replied between his teeth, “Naturally.”

“Good,” answered the innkeeper, to please the women who were listening to him. And he grew scarlet.

He had no appetite for his meal, and before putting into effect the plan that was maturing in his mind, he sent his daughters to look for assistance. As he was drinking a glass of brandy to encourage himself, he saw through the window a landau and pair driving up to the town hall. A few moments later he was called by a message from the prefect. Quickly putting on the frock-coat which served for all ceremonious occasions he rushed across to the municipal building. One of the doors of the carriage opened. He saw a black uniform with silver lace and he heard these haughty words uttered by a beardless youth (for the date of the elections was still some time away):

“Are you the Mayor of Cognin?”

Hat in hand, Simon answered “Yes, sir.”

“I represent the prefect. I am on my way to Madame Guibert, to whom I carry the condolences of the government on the occasion of the heroic death of the Commander. You have carefully broken the news to her, I think, as the official telegram ordered you. You managed the whole affair tactfully, I suppose?”

“Yes, Monsieur Deputy-Prefect,” stammered the Mayor, ashamed and trembling.

“I am a councillor of the Prefecture. I wish you to do your duty by being present at the memorial service with all your councillors. The government of the Republic knows how to honor its loyal servants.”

Simon stammered his assent.

“That is all, Monsieur Mayor. I shall not require you any more.” And the young messenger from the prefecture, proud of his own important rôle and the dignity with which he filled it, departed behind his two horses, with the haughty, weary air of an old general who has just reviewed his brigade.

Randon and Détraz, at the summons of the Mayor, sped over to the inn together. The whole village already knew what was happening at Le Maupas.

“We are in for it!” cried Détraz furiously on his arrival. The day before, during all the discussion, he had not opened his lips.

“I told you so,” remarked old Randon, who insisted on reminding them of his sagacity.

“And so did I,” said the Mayor, not to be outdone. “It is the fault of the schoolmaster and of Pitet.”

Détraz, who had no idea of politeness, said rude things about the Mayor.

“So you,” he said, “are not the master here then. What do you do at the town hall? Why, you are as limp as a rag. The schoolmaster leads you by the nose, like the smallest boy in his class.”

“I!” roared Simon. “I let myself be led by the nose! Just come and see if the schoolmaster is master or not!”

Followed by his two councillors, the Mayor still gesticulating, burst into the municipal school. Before Maillard, the sly and wheedling, however, he felt all his zeal grow cold. But Détraz had already pushed himself to the front.

“Aha!” he cried, “you have made a nice mess of it, you dirty, shameless wretch! Here are the prefect and the general sending deputations. And the corporation in the dead man’s town sends a policeman, just as if it was serving a writ. With your devil of a brain you’ll have a fine score to pay!” And he spat on the ground as a sign of contempt.

“I am not answerable to you for anything,” murmured the schoolmaster with a dignified air.

“Yes, you are. And what about you, Mayor? Have you nothing to say?”

In his rage he had no respect for anyone. Simon was obliged to intervene.

“You gave us bad advice, Mr. Professor,” he said.

“That’s certain,” added Randon.

“You need not have asked my advice.”

“Who asked your advice?” retorted Détraz, in a fresh access of fury. “You mixed yourself up in our affairs only to bring them to ruin, you poisonous ruffian. That’s what you are, a poisonous ruffian!” So pleased was he with the expression that he repeated it.

Randon took him by the arm and tried to calm him and lead him away. But it is the way of the ignorant—as it is of women—to introduce irrelevant arguments into a quarrel. Détraz wheeled round again on the schoolmaster to shout:

“Besides, you steal the public money!”

“I steal?” protested Maillard.

“Yes, you exact private fees for the right of cutting firewood, for receiving affidavits, for everything, in fact. We’ll see the last of you, or I’ll have your skin.” In his rage, he showed the instinctive hatred of the primitive nature for knowledge and of the taxpayer for the official.

The two enemies fell upon each other. The Mayor held Maillard back and Randon restrained his colleague.

“Listen to me,” begged the old man, “listen to me.”

There was a pause while he made a suggestion, which met with the approval of both the Mayor and Détraz and brought the discussion to an end.

“To make up for what you have done, Maillard, you must take your pupils to the memorial service.”

And the Mayor, anxious to take the credit of the victory to himself, added:

“And you must hoist the flag on the town hall at once, at half mast.”

He departed with an important air, still escorted by his two councillors.

“Now,” said Randon, “let us go up to Le Maupas.”

Simon applauded heartily.

“Yes, yes,” he cried. “The General sent an officer and the prefect a young gentleman with silver lace on his trousers. The Mayor will be represented in person with two members of the council, as it should be. That will impress them.”

As they passed through the village they noticed Pitet, the Red, in a field. He was looking very humble, and avoided their eyes. Détraz called out to him, without managing to attract his attention.

“He is a coward,” said the Mayor, full of courage himself.

“We know what we know,” said Randon mysteriously.

“Yes, we know,” Détraz put in, with greater frankness. “If it hadn’t been for the Doctor, he would have been in prison, and now he foams with rage against him. We must certainly get rid of him at the town hall.”

The snow reflected the cold sunshine. The white mountain glittered in the raw daylight. Under the pale sky the outlines of all things were mingled in one uniform and immaculate whiteness.

The prefectoral landau was returning to Chambéry when it met the improvised delegation from Cognin. With an important air the Mayor made a sign to the coachman to stop. Hat in hand, he approached the door, which was opened immediately.

“Mr. Councillor, we have a favor to ask of you.”

“What is it?” replied the young man brusquely. Not having been received at Le Maupas he came back in a bad temper. The general’s aide-de-camp had been introduced to Madame Guibert.

“All the fathers of families here complain of the schoolmaster—without exception—”

“Why?”

“He teaches badly, he thrashes the pupils, he hatches plots against the country.”

The young man assumed a thoughtful air and with the gesture of a minister dismissing an audience he replied briefly, “I will see to it.”

Continuing his walk the Mayor rubbed his hands together and said to his supporters: “I’ve cooked Maillard’s goose for him.”

In the course of the next few days the leading newspapers gave the story of Timmimun in full detail and, without regard to their political views, paid homage to Commander Guibert, whose short career had touched all hearts. The press of Savoy went further still, and, not content with eulogies, vied with one another in the prominence which they gave to his portrait and his biography. In their solitude at Le Maupas the two crushed women received the innumerable testimonies of sympathy which came to them from all parts of France, from the State, from Marcel’s brother officers, known and unknown. They leaned on each other so as to be able to bear their sorrow, and found no consolation but in prayer and in their mutual affection. Only the visits of Madame Saudet, the mother of Madame Étienne Guibert were of any comfort. She understood what to say to those who have suffered separations.

In a swift revolution of sympathy, the world of society, which had not heeded the Guiberts in their honorable ruin, decided to fall in with public opinion. Madame Dulaurens could not stay quiet on this occasion. She induced Mademoiselle de Songeon, Honorary President of the White Cross of Savoy, to take the initiative in organising a funeral service, which was to be celebrated with great ceremony in Chambéry Cathedral. The idea was to monopolize the dead hero and to call attention to his origin in the most befitting manner. The authorities were to be invited to the ceremony. Their presence would enhance the prestige of it, whereas their absence could only embitter the campaign of the Opposition Press. So there was no doubt what would happen.

When everything was prepared, the collections made, the invitations sent out, Mademoiselle de Songeon and Madame Dulaurens were officially delegated to go to Le Maupas to ask the family’s permission. Madame de Marthenay accompanied her mother. She wished to present her condolences to Madame Guibert and to Paule, and had not dared to make the journey alone.

It was the beginning of March. The snow was melting in the desolate, muddy fields and in the sunken roads. Under the lowering sky, surrounded by black, bare trees swaying sadly to and fro, the old country house wore a melancholy and abandoned air.

“I should hate to be buried alive here all the year round,” said Madame Dulaurens to Mademoiselle de Songeon as the carriage drove up the deserted avenue.

“The Church is too far away,” answered the pious old maid.

She did not think that God is everywhere. In spite of her age, she persisted in travelling to meet Him in specially comfortable places.

Old Marie, seeing the carriage, did not refuse to allow the ladies to enter, despite her strict orders. She ran to announce the visitors as fast as her legs could carry her.

“I ordered you not to receive anyone,” said Madame Guibert sadly. And turning to Paule she said: “I have no longer the courage to face people. Why does Madame Dulaurens come to disturb our sorrow? We have nothing in common. What does she want?”

“Mother dear, I don’t know,” said Paule, and she rose to depart.

“You will help me to receive her?”

“No, Mother, I don’t want to meet her.”

Madame Guibert looked at her daughter, whose pale and quivering but decided face clearly showed her thoughts.

“Paule,” she entreated, “do not desert me. I am so shy and awkward, you know. The evil that people do is more quickly forgotten than the good. If she reminded me of the past I should not know what to answer. Stay with me, Paule.”

The girl hesitated no more and made a sign to the servant to show the ladies in.

“I will stay,” she said.

Mademoiselle de Songeon, little versed in diplomacy, allowed Madame Dulaurens to speak first.

“You have been cruelly afflicted,” began that lady, going towards Madame Guibert, who was obliged to lean against the fireplace in order to rise from her chair.

Then she shook hands with Paule, whose unfriendly eyes she felt firmly upon her. She would have preferred her not to be there.

“Yes,” said Marcel’s mother. “God is testing us.”

Thus at once she gave the interview a religious and serious tone. Mademoiselle de Songeon tossed her head and looked upward, as if she alone had the necessary authority to call upon the divine intervention.

“What a consolation you have in your sorrow,” went on Madame Dulaurens. “These unanimous testimonies to the Commander’s heroism, this consensus of sympathy and regret.... In these democratic days merit is no longer sufficiently honored. It is sometimes death alone which gives to it its true reward, and in face of this irreparable loss one reproaches oneself bitterly for having known it too late.”

The mention of her son touched Madame Guibert’s heart at once. “She is excusing herself now for having sent Marcel away,” she thought. “She knows now what a mistake she made and regrets it. But Madame de Marthenay ought not to have come. Her presence is painful to us.”

She looked at the speaker, and her candid glance lighted up her wasted face as a ray of sunlight illumines the leafless woods in winter. Paule was on her guard. She was quite aware, however, that Madame Dulaurens was entirely unconscious of offence.

The latter, after a short pause, explained the reason of her visit.

“It must seem quite natural to you, therefore, that we should want to pay homage to this beloved memory. The whole of Savoy shares your grief, but specially the élite of the country, to which the Commander belonged, both because of his family and his splendid personal worth.”

She took breath, and finding that she was speaking well, she glanced rapidly at her audience. Mademoiselle de Songeon showed her entire agreement by nodding her long head. Alice, absorbed in her thoughts and attentively listening, was looking at the grief-stricken faces of Madame Guibert and the friend of her girlhood. Her sorrow oppressed her so much that she laid her hands on her breast. Suppressed sobs were almost choking her. She would like to have opened her heart to these poor women but she did not dare. She tried to take Paule’s fingers gently in her own; she was sitting quite near her. But the girl drew her hand away firmly. She had forgotten nothing.

Again Madame Dulaurens’s high pitched voice made itself heard in the silence of the drawing-room.

“The patronesses of the White Cross of Savoy, in fact all the ladies of that society, have unanimously agreed to ask for the celebration of a funeral service at Chambéry. The Archbishop will officiate. He has promised us; we have the word of the vicar-general. More than fifty priests will be present. The prefect and the military authorities will be invited, and we have no doubt that they will be represented. It will be worthy, you may be sure, of the illustrious dead, in its ceremony and grandeur.”

Madame Guibert had listened without interrupting, and she answered simply:

“I thank you very much and I beg you to thank these ladies from me for their good intentions. We celebrated a service at Cognin according to our means. Our friends came in spite of the cold and the long distances. The general commanding here came in person. A great many officers would like to have accompanied him. We do not wish to have any other outward demonstrations. But I thank you.”

“Yes, Madame. I understand your feelings. Families do not willingly bear the intrusion of strangers in their mourning. But this is a special case. The death of Commander Guibert is a public misfortune. France is wounded by the death of your son. His life and his death do honor to Savoy. You cannot wonder that Savoy should publicly show him her great gratitude. The family resources are necessarily limited. Let us act. Do not deprive us of this pleasure.” ... And checking the inappropriate word as she uttered it, she corrected herself: “This melancholy pleasure, I would say, which is given us by intercession for the dead. Services and priests are prayers in themselves. Can so excellent Christians as you refuse those that we offer up for you? Have you the heart to prevent our sharing your sorrow with you?”

“The Church approves of ceremony and worship,” said Mademoiselle de Songeon, whose religion was luxurious and aristocratic.

Alice had noticed an enlarged photograph of Marcel, and at this moment saw only the man whom she had loved so unworthily.

Madame Guibert still hesitated, not about her answer, but about the words of the answer, which she wished to make as polite and delicate as she could. Madame Dulaurens had come to offer to supplement the simple funeral services at Cognin, devoid of all ostentation and parade, with a ceremony far less humble, one brilliant indeed and worldly. Wealth was visiting poverty and desiring to extend its patronage to it. Paule understood well, and indignantly glanced at her mother with those dark eyes of flashing light. But Madame Guibert had seen in this offer only respect for the memory of her son, and although she was resolved to negative any idea of a proceeding which she considered useless, she tried to avoid words which might cause the slightest offence.

Fearing her mother’s shyness and misled by her hesitation, the girl forestalled her boldly:

“We are much touched, Madame Dulaurens, by your offer. We value it as it should be valued and we regret having to decline this honor. My brother’s memory has received suitable recognition. We do not wish any more public testimony than what we have already received. God does not measure His blessings by the magnitude of the ceremonies.”

As if she attached no importance whatever to Paule’s declaration, Madame Dulaurens made as though to turn towards Madame Guibert. The latter quite comprehended and felt herself bound to say:

“Yes, Paule is right, Madame Dulaurens.”

Mademoiselle de Songeon indignantly lifted her eyes heavenwards, while the mistress of La Chênaie, little used to rebuffs, returned to the attack.

“I cannot understand your refusal. In our sympathy for your mourning, we only wished to explain ourselves in the most natural way. These ladies, Mademoiselle de Songeon, the Marquise de Lavernay, the Baroness d’Amberlard, shared my opinion. I represent them now—and the Archbishop promised to help us.”

She hoped to make a great impression on the poor lady by these aristocratic references. She did not, could not know, to what degree of indifference life had brought Madame Guibert with regard to the people and things of the world.

Paule saw how worried her mother was. She immediately took the offensive, in order to finish the interview.

“The service at Cognin was announced at Chambéry. All our friends were there. Some came from far away. Some came whom we did not even know and who shared our grief. But I was told, Madame Dulaurens, that your pew was empty, and I could not believe it.” After this attack she added: “If my elder brother, who is the head of the family, thinks other honors are indispensable he will let us know. We will conform to his wishes. My mother and he are the only ones who have anything to say in the matter.”

Seeing how useless her insistence was, Madame Dulaurens rose to go.

“I regret,” she said, “that there should have been this misunderstanding, which we have not been able to smooth over. I did not expect this welcome. But I see that your daughter has entire influence over you.”

“We are in complete agreement,” said the old woman, getting up with difficulty in her turn. She approved of her daughter’s decision, but she wished that the same things might have been said a little less imperiously. She was afraid that the visitors at Le Maupas were offended and she was unhappy about it. A slight color flushed her pale cheeks. As she was going to the door with Mademoiselle de Songeon and Madame Dulaurens, her color did not escape the eye of the latter. Madame Dulaurens was looking far revenge; she thought she had found it and with a cruel irony she uttered these words:

“Good-bye, Madame Guibert. How well you are looking! It is wonderful! We are surprised and happy to see it.”

Tears mounted to Madame Guibert’s eyes. She was still too sensitive to injustice. Aged, bent, broken down, she would have wrung pity from anyone but a baffled woman of the world. Gently she murmured, while the blood left her cheeks:

“May God preserve my health! My task is not finished.” She was thinking of Paule, whose uncertain fate caused her anxiety and attached her still to life. Instinctively she turned round to look at her. But the drawing-room door was shut. She felt compelled to conduct the ladies to their carriage. They got in and asked for Madame de Marthenay, who had stayed behind.

“I will tell her,” said Madame Guibert, climbing the stairs with difficulty.

Alice, left alone with Paule, had at last allowed her tears to flow.

“Paule, my dear Paule, won’t you let me kiss you? I have cried so much. If you only knew! I have felt such sorrow since ... since he is gone— Ah, you cannot know!”

Paule, standing speechless and bewildered, gazed wonderingly at this elegant young woman with the innocent, beautiful features, who was imploring her now. She thought of the past.

“What is the good of it?” she said. And, although she had noticed Alice’s hollow eyes and white face, she added between her teeth: “Are you not a little to blame for our unhappiness?”

To her the refusal of this weak, clinging, childish creature was responsible for that familiar anticipation of death which she had so often, after the interview at La Chênaie, caught in Marcel’s speech and in his casual talk. She who now stood before her weeping, had formerly not a single word to send to her brother to give him joy in life and the inspiration of confidence even in the midst of danger. Had she been indifferent, she would not have been guilty; it was her cowardice which had triumphed over her love.

But Alice sobbed: “Oh, I am unhappier than you.” Her despair was so evidently real that Paule was touched and took her old friend into her arms. As of old in joy, so now the two women mingled their tears in sorrow.

“I loved him,” Alice said in a low voice.

“Why did you not want him?”

“Ah, that is the sorrow of my life.” And breaking down completely, she added in choking accents: “You can cry freely. But I must look happy, and I have death in my soul.... Paule dearest, may God keep you from ever suffering as I do. And it is my fault, Paule. Oh, I would rather be his widow to-day.”

And Paule now understood the secret that was suffocating her friend. Judging by appearances, she had thought her happy. The gossip of the town never reached Le Maupas. Now she saw suddenly how immediate and how lasting was the punishment of the fear of living.

Alice was leaning on Paule’s shoulder as if begging for her help. In spite of the marten cape which covered her, she was shaking from head to foot. The girl kissed her and lifting her sweet, tear-stained face said:

“Poor Alice, how I pity you! Be brave. One has to be. You must forget about it. Think of your child. Make a stronger woman of her.”

“I loved him,” she answered faintly.

Madame Guibert came back and, seeing the two embracing each other, she understood the reason of their emotion.

“Your mother is waiting for you, Madame.” She tried to find something else to say, and murmured: “I thank you for your visit.”

Feeling that she was pardoned, Alice took her hand and touched it with her lips. She dried her eyes, looked once more at Marcel’s photograph ... and fled.

The carriage swept down the bare avenue and passed through the old gate. Madame Dulaurens, uneasy over her daughter’s stay, was gazing at her anxiously, affectionately, jealously. She avoided remarking on Madame Guibert’s refusal and Paule’s attitude, and when they came out of the oakwood she laid her hand on Alice’s arm as she sat facing her.

“You see how sensible your mother is,” she said to her in a low voice. Mademoiselle de Songeon was looking out on the melancholy landscape on the other side.

The young wife looked enquiringly at her.

“Why, of course,” said the mother. “If I had let you marry Commander Guibert you would have been a widow now.”

Alice said nothing. In terror she searched the secret places of her soul and asked herself if as a widow she could not have been less miserable. The sorrow which comes to us from fate is deeper but less depressing than that whose source is ourselves, our weakness, our fear of living. Having broken our hearts, the former sorrow purifies and strengthens them. The other wears us out uselessly and crushes us slowly with its petty wounds.

Had she chosen the better part? ... To mourn the death of the heroic husband she would have chosen seemed to her above all a sweeter lot than to weep for the degradation of the companion with whom she must share her whole life.

CHAPTER V
JEAN

What would not those who have been stricken by the grief of some faraway disaster give to hear about their loved one from some witness of the fatal scene, to learn the details of the tragedy, known to them only through the bare outlines of the official despatch—even though these details should open their wounds afresh and make their tears flow once more? They think themselves happy in their very misery, if they can but know the exact truth, if death’s mysterious horror can be banished, which tortures their hearts by day and haunts their pillows by night.

Several months have elapsed since the battle of Timmimun. Of the two mourners at Le Maupas, one has grown a little more bent and her smile, already, so rare and faint has vanished for ever. The other has remained upright and proud, but heedless of her youth has resigned herself bitterly and hopelessly to the flight of time. Wrapped in silence and solitude, they never go into the town and cross only the humblest thresholds, where their presence is always welcome.

And when the postman’s step crushes the gravel in the courtyard, they still tremble. That worthy man, so full of his own importance, will not keep them in suspense and according to the postmarks he cries “A letter from Paris,” “From Tonkin,” “From Algiers.”

“Thank you, Ravet. Go to Marie. She is waiting to give you a glass of wine.”

Their correspondence is now the only joy of the household. It is more frequent than it used to be. From afar Madame Guibert’s children try to shower their love upon her. Letters come from Jean Berlier in Africa. They are full of Marcel and his glorious death. In the last one Jean has told them of his return to Savoy at the end of May.

At Le Maupas anxious eyes look down the deserted avenue, where now the chestnuts are proudly bearing their white candles. The young man coming slowly up the wooded hill that leads to the old house is no longer Isabelle Orlandi’s gay cavalier, though he has still kept his slim, lithe figure and his distinguished, confident bearing. But his brown face wears a more manly expression; his eyes have a surer and more discriminating glance. Leaving behind his careless youth, he has grown into a man who thinks and who knows what he wants.

He arrived only the evening before. This morning he left Rose Villa and all along the road he has been breathing his native air, like one newly awakened. On the chilly earth, decked with mauve and lilac mists—like a maiden slowly opening her eyes and stirring aside the gauzy curtains of her bed—he catches the fresh beauty of spring and that joy of life which begins with the dawn.

His eyes dwell admiringly on the delicate green of the trees and fields, the individual glory of the month of May, and he feels a happiness in the tender, new-born leaves budding on the hedges. To the left his glance searches for those three steeples, on which the tent of the sky seems to hang over the countryside: Belle-Combette, almost hidden in greenery; Montagnol, proud and grey, scarcely distinguishable from the walls of Pas-de-la-Fosse; and sweet Saint-Cassin, resting, like an old man seeking the shade, in a forest of chestnut trees. The scarps of the neighboring mountains lose their rugged shape in the morning light, and Nature under the clear sky smiles all over and trustfully displays her grace and charm, wherein may be read the promise of fruit and harvest.

Jean turned round and saw from afar a sheet of pearl and gold, which was Lake Bourget, its sleeping waters bathed in sunshine. At the kiss of the beams the waters shivered voluptuously. The young man continued on his way. Standing out against the Chaloux hills, La Chênaie was welcoming the fresh air through its open windows. Pleasant memories came back to Jean of the time when he was twenty-five; of Isabelle’s red lips, expert alike in speech and kisses. He thought over his life and reached a conclusion which surprised him.

“I have seen neither her nor Savoy for four years—or nearly that. It seems very much longer to me. I was a boy then, playing at life.”

But the girl of long ago did not remain in his memory. As he passed into the oakwood he stopped and looked again. The arch of the trees bordering the road narrowed and framed the landscape. He recognised in the hues and outlines of the plains and mountains that mixture of precision and of softness which gives the Savoyard country its unique character. A shepherd girl’s voice rose to him. She was singing some old love couplets:

“Up there on the mountain
There is a meadow;
The partridge and the quail
Go there to sing.
I took my cross-bow,
Thither I went;
Thinking to kill four,
I missed them all.”

The few uncertain notes could not rob this strained voice of its clear tone, limpid as the waters of a stream.

At the bend of the road some sheep appeared, then the shepherdess, standing out like shadows against the light trelliswork of branches. She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen, to whom health and strength gave a rustic beauty.

“’Tis the heart of my love

That I have wounded.

Love, my sweet love,

Have I hurt you?”

She passed by Jean, who was listening smilingly to her song.

“Good morning, Monsieur Jean,” said she with a bow.

“Do you know me?” he asked in surprise.

“Why, of course! I am the daughter of Trélaz, the farmer at Le Maupas.”

“Jeannette?”

“At your service.”

“But you were about the size of a boot then! And now you are taller than ripe corn.”

Nothing makes us so conscious of the flight of time as the growth of children whom we see but now and then. The flattered girl began to laugh, and although her teeth were badly cared for yet her joy was contagious. As she passed on, she repeated the last verse.

“’Tis the heart of my love

That I have wounded.

Love, my sweet love,

Have I hurt you?”

And the wind carried the dying words to the young man, still standing motionless at the foot of the oak trees.

“Just a little, scarcely that,

But I shall die of it!

A kiss from your lips

Would heal me quite!”

Jean’s eyes swept over the scene before him—the trees with their new leaves, the meadows with their waving grasses, the girl full of the wine of youth. He breathed in the scent of the earth and the morning woods. And in his native air he tasted the love of life.

It was only since he had learnt how transitory it is that he had enjoyed the beauty of nature in its fulness. Young people do not understand the value of existence as they run heedlessly after pleasure, frivolity, distraction and all that hastens, while it hides, the flight of time. It is danger, passion, love’s melancholy, the sight of death; it is the deep sorrows which bring them to a sudden halt before life’s unmasked face, as when at the bottom of a garden path one suddenly comes upon a cold marble statue under the branches. How can he who would ignore the night feel with the same ecstasy as we the glory of the daylight that must go and of the shapes that the darkness must swallow?

Jean had reached the zenith of his youth, and was wiser. Another and a deeper sky, another country, sterile and bare, had developed and perfected his understanding. Above all, new and tragic emotions had struck at his heart with a terrible force, like that of the sculptor’s chisel which causes the useless chips to fly from the stone which is to grow into a statue. Inspired by gratitude for the lessons which he had learnt, he connected his full, passionate appreciation of this spring morning with that crimson dawn on which he had seen his friend die. In the death of the leader after victory, in the pierced forehead behind which the brain so lately lived, in the heart now cold which had been the home of love, in the face of all that strength and courage, shattered like a tree in its vigor; in all these things was manifest the frailty of human life, by contrast with which the light of day shines the brighter. With Marcel’s face on the ground before him—beautiful in its serene, grave stillness, in its calm, touching repose, never to be forgotten amid the surrounding scene—he had felt alike the wish to live fully and without fear and the desire to deny the everlasting presence of death.

The old gate at Le Maupas was open as of old. Jean went up the chestnut avenue, breathing in the scent of the blossoms. He knew that in a few minutes the tears would flow again, sad but salutary too. At the crunching of the gravel in the courtyard, an old woman who was seated on the steps, working with slow hands in the cool morning air, arose. Her eyes sought the visitor. She saw who it was.

“Is that you, Jean? How I have waited for you!”

At the first glance, he took in the marks of her sufferings. She was more bent, and her hair was whiter. But he recognized with surprise on her thin face an expression of peace which he had seen before.

“Madame Guibert!” he cried.

He sped up the steps and, bending forward with his natural grace, kissed her. Madame Guibert vainly tried to keep back her tears and murmured Marcel’s name.

“Come in,” she said at last. “We shall be able to speak of him better in the drawing-room.”

She led the way with lagging steps. Then she opened a door and called:

“Paule! Here is Jean Berlier!”

“I arrived late last night,” he explained. “And I have come to you this morning. I was so anxious to see you again.”

“You are good to us. I knew you would come at once. We have been looking for you for some days.”

Paule came in and clasped Jean’s hand. Her lovely black hair made her pale skin seem paler. Her dark eyes had lost their fire. Straighter and still prouder than she used to be, she cherished her broken heart in no humility. Full as he was of his sad story, Jean had time to read with surprise in the serious young face and in the stiff attitude of the body a lack of interest in life. Paule, also surprised, noticed the change in the young man. With the passage of time he had grown more sure, more resolute, more like Marcel.

In the little country drawing-room, through whose closed venetians a ray of sunlight filtered, the hero who died for his country rose up from the African soil where he had lain to come back to his own people, recalled to life by the words of the narrator. He came back young, tall, thin, and muscular, his head borne high, his tone imperious, gifted with that physical superiority, that aptitude for command, that self-imposed calmness which are the outward signs of a leader of men.

Jean looked at his photograph placed on the closed piano and crowned with a wreath of roses. He spoke of him as Marcel would have wished to be spoken of—simply and nobly. He had that rare gift of choosing the right word, which paints the truth with no undue softening, with no undue emphasis. His voice, though sweet and caressing in its sympathy with pain, still revealed the strength of the man beneath. It banished all weakness and despair. It encouraged and comforted and even found a solace in death. The two women, who wept on his arrival, kept their tears under control as they listened to him.

He had not actually seen his friend fall. The day was beginning to dawn when, suddenly awakened by hearing the shots fired, he got up to summon his men. In spite of information received as to the safe condition of affairs, the little troop at Timmimun always slept completely dressed. As Berlier hastened to the point of danger, the Commander was attacking the Berabers, who had already gained a footing in the camp.

“The sergeant who was at his side told me about his death. I was directing our defence on the left. He attacked them in front. Having routed them, he went in pursuit. He stood out a black silhouette against the first brightness of the dawn. The sergeant pointed out a little sandridge. There perhaps they were still hiding. As he stepped forward he put his hand to his head, stood still for an instant, and fell in a heap.”

Madame Guibert hid her face in her hands and the tears gushed to Paule’s eyes, hard as she tried to master herself.

“He did not stir,” continued the Captain. “He did not suffer. Death struck him full in the forehead. And he was thinking of his country, and of you.”

“And of God, too—was he not?” murmured the stricken mother.

“Yes, of God too. I had to take command in his place. But his victory was complete. When I was able to come back to him they had carried him a few paces away, under a palm-tree. I bent over him in vain. Our Surgeon-Major looked sadly at me. He had already examined him. Our life together had made us like brothers. I loved him as you did. There I mourned him as you did, on your behalf. And I saw what you had not the sorry joy of seeing—the serenity that was his in death. It gave his face a look of everlasting peace. When I see him again in my memory I have only good and noble thoughts. You must know this, so that his memory may be the sweeter to you.”

Jean was silent. Then he began again.

“The evening before he had gone with me to my tent, before making his last round. It was a clear, starry night. We often talked about Savoy. He spoke to me about you and Mademoiselle Paule. He had seen you lately. He had no presentiment to sadden him, but he never had any fear of death. In the pocket of his tunic I found this letter, which I have brought you. It lay against his heart during its last beats.”

Madame Guibert recognised her own handwriting. She raised her face, full of a mother’s anguish. When she could speak she asked:

“He now rests in the peace of God. Jean, tell me, where have they buried him?”

“In front of Timmimun, Madame. As he is the highest in rank, his tomb is placed between that of the commissariat officer’s on the right and the sergeant’s on the left. They were both killed in the same engagement. The men are buried at their feet.”

Paule interrupted:

“We have asked about the necessary steps for removing him to Chambéry. He will rest in our family vault near my father and my little sister Thérèse.”

Jean looked at the girl. He knew they were not well off. In gentle accents, persuasive and yet commanding, he tried to dissuade them from this costly and useless plan.

“Why do you insist on this return? The place of his death tells of the victory won. He is resting in his triumph. What tomb could be more fitting? How could he wish for a nobler monument?”

“He will soon be forgotten there.”

“You are wrong, Mademoiselle Paule. Every grave has its inscription. They are carefully looked after. As long as we keep a garrison at Timmimun, they will be honored. His bears his name, his rank, the two dates April 25th 1868 and February 19th 1901, and these three glorious words which sum up his career—‘Madagascar, Sahara, Timmimun.’ You must remember that they still honor in Algiers the tombs of those who were killed at the time of the conquest.”

Madame Guibert sighed, and Paule after a moment’s reflection, during which Jean was able to study her face more at leisure, spoke again, as faithful as Antigone.

“We should love to feel that my brother was near us, to be able to kneel on the stones which cover him.”

“Have you not always his memory with you? What remains of Marcel is but his earthly husk.”

“Ah, yes!” agreed Madame Guibert. She was thinking of his immortal soul.

Marcel’s sister yielded. But Jean saw the tears running down her cheeks.

“He was our pride—and my life,” she sighed; and in a lower voice she added: “He knew that long ago.”

“God willed it so,” said his mother. “We do not understand His plans. He seems so cruel sometimes that we are tempted to rebel. But His goodness is infinite.”

Jean, much affected, took her wrinkled, trembling hand in his own and, with the same respect which Marcel used to show, he kissed it reverently. He stood up and, facing the two women as they gazed at him, paid a last tribute to the dead, not without hope that he might help Paule, less resigned and more discouraged than her mother.

“His short life was complete. By his will power and his courage he has set us an example. Far from pitying him, should we not envy him? We must honor the dead, but we must have faith in life!”

Paule turned on Jean those dark eyes of hers, into which the light was coming back. A new strength seemed to flow to her from him. Could this be the frivolous young officer who used to flirt with girls of the lighter kind? In her memory of him she had cherished a contemptuous kindness for him, which perhaps concealed an unavowed vexation at his conduct. In her pride she had thought herself strong. She was now discovering that, if she wished to be worthy of her own esteem and Jean’s, she must pluck relentlessly from her heart all that bitterness and rebellion wherewith it abounded as the woods in winter with dead leaves.

“You are not leaving us already?” asked Madame Guibert timidly.

Jean, to console her, spoke to her of all the ties which still united her to life. They talked about her other children; about her daughter Marguerite, the nun in Paris, the nurse of the sick; of her sons making a new France in far-off lands.

“How many children has Étienne?” he asked.

“He expects the third. I don’t know them, and yet I love them. Oh, I cherish them as the last joys that God has given me. They are called Maurice and Françoise. Did you know that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jean with a smile.

“Those are my husband’s name and mine. They are the blessing of our race. They are going to call the new one Marcel.”

“And if it is a girl?”

“Still Marcelle. Here is the photograph of the two elder ones.” Already she regarded as living the child that was to come.

“Aren’t they lovely?” said Paule, coming nearer to look at her nephew and niece.

“Yes, the little girl is very like you. She has your dark eyes.”

“She will be much prettier.”

“I don’t think so,” answered the young man, giving back the portrait to Madame Guibert. And he added with that beautiful smile which gave his face such a youthful look: “Are you not pretty enough? You are hard to please!”

Paule blushed, against her will, and her new color changed her as a sunbeam changes a raindrop. In her despair she had lost even the pleasure of her beauty, and now it came back to her again with joy.

Jean, seeing that they were both diverted for a moment from their sorrows, continued to question them:

“It is in Along Bay, near Hanoi, that they have settled, isn’t it?”

“They are not there now,” answered Madame Guibert. “They are living on a fine island. But Paule will explain better than I can. I get so confused with all those foreign names.”

“Oh, no, Mother, you don’t really,” cried the girl. She went on, quickly:

“Étienne has bought up the island of Kébao, opposite the Bay of Along. It belonged to a company that was badly managed and went bankrupt. It contains important mines and its soil is fertile. The mines, the material and the ground were all sold at auction, at a very low price. My brothers manage the mines and the rice-fields, and are making a splendid thing out of some plantations of a tree called Japanese lilac, which is used for building. Their labor is not sufficient for all the work there is to be done. They are looking in vain for help from France. Nobody here wants to go abroad. But still the country is healthy and picturesque, and they feel sure of success.”

She had spoken clearly and simply. Jean was delighted.

“There is no future in France—I am going out to join them.”

“And what about your career?” said Madame Guibert, as he rose to say good-bye.

“I am not so passionately fond of it as Marcel was. There is too much wasted time, and forgotten effort.”

They went out on the veranda in front of the house, buried under honeysuckle, roses, and clematis, and they leant over the balcony. This morning at the end of May was a feast for the eyes that rested on it. The air was clear and limpid. A bluish haze, sure presage of the continuance of fine weather, softly outlined the dim mountains. Over yonder the little steeple of Saint-Cassin tapered in the shadow of the chestnuts. Nearer, the fields wore that glory of fresh green which is seen only in springtime. The corn rising from the ground quivered in the passing breeze. The trees in the orchards had already shaken off the white and pink snow of their short-lived blossoms, and every branch was smiling with leaf-buds. Two lime-trees in the corner of the courtyard spread their scent abroad and the chestnuts of the avenue illumined the dark mass of their foliage with white candles.

From the balcony they could hear the eternal song of new life, and could appreciate the never-failing promise which the fruitful earth makes to toiling man.

Before them and around was the youth of the year, the symbol of the duration of life. They gazed and were silent. They were all thinking of Marcel and this too lovely day filled them with sadness.

Bent and weary, her heart obsessed by memories, Madame Guibert left it to Paule to accompany the Captain to the gate. She watched them disappear, thinking tenderly of what might be. She commended Paule’s future to God and went back to ponder in solitude over the sorrowful story she had heard.

Paule and Jean had said good-bye at the end of the avenue. The young man paused to follow the tall, graceful figure gliding through the trees. At the same moment the girl, too, turned round. She blushed at the coincidence and bravely came back that no awkwardness might remain.

“Jean,” she murmured with emotion, “I have never thanked you enough for my brother, who was a little yours too, nor for my mother, to whom your letters and your visit have done so much good. You have been good to us. I could not tell you before, so I came back.”

The emotion which stirred her made her more tender, more human.

“Oh, no,” said the young man. “Do not thank me. Was I not Marcel’s friend?—and our fathers loved each other.”

They stood face to face, not finding words. They felt a certain shyness, which they wished by turns to banish and to prolong. Jean could see against Paule’s cheek the long lashes shading the downcast eyes.

“Listen,” he said at last. “In Marcel’s tunic there was something beside your mother’s last letter—This photograph was found too. I thought I would give it back to you—yourself.”

He gave her a faded photograph, in which she recognised a path in the garden of Le Maupas and on it two little girls of ten or twelve—one fair, the other dark; one sitting quiet, gazing with eyes astonished at the world, the other caught in a lively pose. They were Alice and herself.

“Oh!” she said. And in a dull voice she asked: “Did he never speak of her to you?”

“No, never.”

She let the picture fall dully on the gravel of the path. Unable to contain herself any longer, she wept helplessly.

Jean took her hand.

“I often thought,” said he, “out there in Africa, how stupid fate was. Why did I not die in his place? Nobody would have wept for me.”

What could she answer? Her dark eyes shone with a sudden light. She picked up the photograph before he had time to bend down.

“Thank you, Jean. Come and see us again soon. It would be a charity.”

He looked at her a moment and then departed. She went back slowly through the garden. Her eyes wandered over the flowers. She picked a rose and for the first time in the year felt a little joy at its scent. She thought of her brother’s death in an unexpected way and repeated Jean’s words, of whose lesson she felt the full force: “We must honor the dead but we must also have faith in life.”

Do those words not sum up the incitement to live well which the example of all heroes gives us? They were great in that they did not bargain over their deeds, that in their careers, whether short or long, were manifest the marks of souls free from all fear and weakness. So Paule found consolation and comfort in that very thing which was the source of her heart’s disorder. She swore to herself, as she smelt the flower, that henceforward she would bear the burden of her days bravely, without bitterness, without revolt. Her despised youth would not be useless if she spent herself in willing sacrifice. And when she rejoined her mother she greeted her with an embrace of protection for the old age confided to her care. It was as though she sealed with a kiss the promise of her new-born courage.

CHAPTER VI
ISABELLE

In the middle of the front tier of boxes at the Club Theatre at Aix-les-Bains Madame de Marthenay and Madame Landeau displayed their beauty, one shyly, the other with the utmost composure, to the eyes and opera-glasses of the audience. They were a good foil for each other. Isabelle wore a soft silk dress, of buttercup yellow, whose V-shaped opening revealed the curve of her breast; and round her slender neck, to set off its whiteness, was a black velvet ribbon in which flashed a diamond of extraordinary coloring. The gentle Alice was dressed in black lace, without a jewel. She had chosen this sombre color the better to efface herself, but it suited her fair complexion admirably.

Behind the women were seated Count de Marthenay, M. Landeau, and Captain Jean Berlier. That evening Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris” was being sung. As the first swelling notes of the orchestra called for silence and attention throughout the house, the ex-lieutenant of dragoons silently opened the door and glided out of the box. He made at once for the gaming room. His wife turned round a moment later and noticed his flight. Alone in her sorrow, she was mourning as she saw Marcel’s friend once more; mourning for what might have been and was not. Isabelle was radiant. She was experiencing the joyous sensations of the cat who has made sure of her prey and gloatingly prolongs her anticipations, imagining she felt the breath of the young man behind her on her neck, just below her dark hair. M. Landeau was divided between desire for this beautiful, cruel creature and anxiety to run off to the reading-room to see the latest reports from the Stock Exchange, the scene of his unending battles.

Jean alone was listening to the divine simplicity of the music, as gracious as the lines of a Greek temple. Iphigenia was addressing to the chaste goddess her touching prayer for the boon of death in her exile on the savage coasts of Tauris. The singer, in the youthful glory of her body draped in harmonious folds of white, in the majesty of her attitude, in the purity of her face, recalled, though with the added grace of living flesh, those ancient marbles whose motionless charm appeals so strongly to all souls that love beauty and whose empire grows the greater by their defiance of the flight of ages. Only half aware of the inspiration of the art to which they were listening, the audience applauded enthusiastically.

Isabelle, leaning back, saw with surprise the joy in Jean’s eyes. His glance passed over her and was centred on the stage. She addressed a question to him in a low voice to compel him to draw nearer to her and to inhale the perfume of her body.

After the first act Madame de Marthenay wished to ask Jean to take her to the gambling-room and to call her husband. She burned to put a question to him. Yet she dared not and was obliged to take M. Landeau’s arm. Favoured by this double departure Isabelle signed to Jean to sit down beside her.

“Do you know,” said she, “that I have mourned your death?”

“My death? That was rather premature.”

“They announced Commander Guibert’s. You were with him at Timmimun. Could I guess whether you had shared his fate or not?”

“These lovely eyes have really wept for me?”

“For a whole evening.”

“They shine so bright that they ought to dry up all tears!”

“They are so happy to see you again, Jean.”

She certainly was doing her best to devour him with them. At once she re-established that atmosphere of guilty pleasure that had existed between them before. Seeing that his hand was bare she took off her gloves and laid her own, heavily be-ringed, on her old friend’s.

“You love jewels,” said he, looking at this slender white hand with its pink nails.

“Yes,” she answered. “I think I am wearing all the treasures of the world in miniature.”

He smiled sceptically.

“The world is too huge for you to hold in your hand.”

“Look at the green of this emerald, Jean.”

“I prefer the green of the meadows.”

“And the bright blue of this sapphire.”

“It will not compare with the blue of the sky.”

“Look at these rubies.”

“I prefer blood.”

“And these pearls.”

“I would rather see tears.”

“Well, be content—for I shed them for you.”

Amused with their sentimental sword-play they exchanged smiles as two fencers exchange salutes. Isabelle inhaled life greedily as if it were a bouquet of tuberoses. Her bosom rose and fell under her bodice of soft silk, which gave a hint of the firm contours. Jean could follow the fine blue veins which ran over the white skin and lost themselves under the silk. He pictured through the cunning draperies that faultless body, fit pendant to her head with the queenly profile, crowned by jet black hair. He had only to stoop to pluck this human flower, this rare orchid in the flesh. In the stem which bent towards him, in the unfolding of the petals, in the quivering from head to foot as before the warm evening breeze, he saw her offer of herself. Why should he not pluck? Did he not know the value of beauty, the value of youth, which enhances joy so much? But had he not known this he would not have worn that expression of fervent melancholy in the presence of joy.

“How long I have been waiting for you!” she cried in a different voice, in which the accent of desire was plain to his ears.

“You were really waiting for me?”

He could scarcely misunderstand her when she replied:

“I am still waiting for you.”

The orchestra was playing the prelude to the second act. Madame de Marthenay came back into the box with M. de Lavernay, to whom M. Landeau had given up his place. The latter, to get away from this serious music, which differed so much from light opera, and to direct in peace from the reading-room his dealings on the Stock Exchange, dispatched to his wife a second admirer, whom he destined in his mind to be a check on the other. By her coldness to him, which he refused like so many husbands to attribute to his own shortcomings, Isabelle infatuated him and made sure of her dominion. She had the art of mastering this coarse, full-blooded adorer, who growled to show himself off, like a wild animal before his tamer. He satisfied all her fancies, all her whims, inspired as much by his own vanity as by the passion to which he surrendered himself so whole-heartedly. And if he hated her flirtations, he paid no more attention to them than one would pay to the tiresome noise of bells on a show horse’s neck.

The old story of Iphigenia unfolded itself slowly. But Jean was beyond the musician’s power. Before him, between the black velvet ribbon and the dress, he saw Isabelle’s fair flesh and imagined the silky softness of it. Half turned towards him, she showed her face in profile. He followed the proud, slightly curved line of her nose, and stopped to dwell on those red lips, those lonely lips of an Eastern slave. Had she not said: “I am still waiting for you?” What was he waiting for? Had the countless seductions of life suddenly lost their charm for him, summed up for him as they were in this lovely woman, as a drop of scent in a Persian bottle contains the attar of a thousand roses? Had the African sun frozen his blood instead of infusing fire into it? Young and free, how could he use his youth and freedom in a better way? The head of whose every movement his thoughts were so filled turned, and now that the profile was lost to him, his glance had to content itself with the heavy mass of her hair, with the neck and the line of her shoulders, so sensuous in their appeal. Giddy, he closed his eyes for a moment and swore in a passionate fury that he would bring to fruition the mad desire which overwhelmed him.

At this moment of his abandonment he was swept by the chords of a deep and sustained harmony, which even in the stress of the sorrow which they were depicting never lost their grave serenity. His overstrung nerves were all a-quiver. His soul, its sensitiveness increased tenfold by the expectation of pleasure, drank in the divine music as a dried-up flower drinks in the dew.

On the stage Orestes and Pylades were disputing as to who should have the joy of dying for the other. They had reached the dark shores of Tauris. The idol of the barbarians had demanded the sacrifice of one of them. The high priestess, none other than the unhappy Iphigenia, had indicated Pylades, and Orestes claimed the pain for himself—a quarrel whose pathos can never grow old, where friendship, inspired by the intoxication of generosity, surpasses love itself in its transports.

Jean strove to shut out the troubling influence of those sounds which were so at war with the turmoil of his senses. But his deadened will-power could not defend him long. He loved life in all its manifestations of beauty too much not to understand and admire such perfect art, whose holy inspiration tore from the heart, as one tears up weeds from a garden, all evil desires, all hatreds and light thoughts.

He was no longer absorbed by the exclusive worship of a woman. A wild longing to live several lives at one and the same time seized upon him. Voluptuous and heroic thoughts came and went quickly, and gained the mastery over him in turn. Swiftly his mind reviewed his experiences of the past. He lived again through his friendship with Marcel, and that crossing of the desert, where perhaps, in solitude and danger, in intense hardship and struggle, he had learnt the supreme lesson as he realised the meaning of courage and unfaltering will. And the thought of the brother brought him to that of the sister. From the beginning of the evening he had put thoughts of Paule away from him. A few minutes ago he had succeeded in forgetting her entirely. Why had she come into his mind now, and why had this exalted music so untoward an effect? He tried to banish her image rudely, though not without regret.

“Oh,” he thought, “if only she were as lovely as Isabelle.”

And again his eyes followed the line of the neck and shoulders whose almost luminous surface magnetised him. He gave no thought to the injustice and impropriety of the comparison. And yet he admitted with a secret joy:

“She has finer hair. Those black waves of hers must reach to her knees.”

Isabelle turned to smile at him.

“She has finer eyes,” he said to himself again. But those eyes of which he thought looked reproachfully at him and he clearly interpreted their expression.

“Why do you treat me with so little respect?” the faraway Paule seemed to murmur. “Have I tried to lead you on by flirting with you as she does? Have I ever forgotten my dignity or modesty in your presence? If you do not love me, leave me in my lonely peace. Do not degrade my pure youth by making a mere pleasure of my memory. But if you do love me,—yes, if you love me,—why do you not find strength in your love to resist temptations which, for all you know, may ruin the whole course of your life. Come to me unfettered and proud. May I never read degradation in your eyes! I do not know if I am the more beautiful, but I love you, with a love that this woman can never know....”

Jean Berlier was no longer one of those men who go through life with blinders on their eyes, unable to see the broad fields of man’s daily labor which border the narrow path of their own passions. Once he had looked only to his own immediate desires. Now he saw his life fully and saw it whole, and from its source and its development he read the presage of its future. Thus considered, love took on a new aspect. In the place of mere gratification of the senses he put the charm of minds that think together and that inward strength which springs from peace at heart and the quiet life of home; in the place of the brief, violent transports of passion, he put the instinct of the continuity of the race.

Since his return to Savoy three weeks ago, Jean had often gone to Le Maupas. He did not go there solely to comfort two poor sorrowing women. Paule attracted him immensely—by her pride, by her serious depth of feeling, by the youth which he knew her to be holding in check. He noticed with surprise at each of his visits, that this reserved, sensible girl, had a bright, lively spirit, ready to taste joy without timidity as she had tasted sorrow without flinching. With that touching trait of lovers, who try to magnify their love by imagining its extension back into the past, he connected with his present fascination little memories of long ago, of the times when he played with a laughing child Pauline. Forgetful of his own forgetfulness, he imagined an ancient fondness which had survived from childhood. But, still more, with instinctive clearness of vision he felt that his future achievement and the rounding of his life, so that it would not be spent in vain, would depend on her, and on no one else. So he loved her as a man loves at thirty, confidently and tenderly. Her gracious influence filled his heart with a new peace.

Isabelle Orlandi’s passion had thrown itself meantime across his path. Since her marriage for money she had dedicated to her former admirer all the unsatisfied ardor of her senses, all the fury of her tortured heart. She had been much more faithful to her friend Jean than to M. Landeau. She had waited for his return. When she saw him again she was even more fascinated by his serious and thoughtful face than she had been before by his careless good temper, and she promised herself she would wait no longer. For his benefit she displayed the full fascination of her loveliness.

In the box at the theatre, she had indeed triumphed for a few wild moments, though she did not know it. During the whole of the act she had doubted her power to charm because of the hesitations of this Adonis whose spoken words were so ambiguous. When the curtain went down, her only wish was to take up the interrupted conversation again.

Devoured by anxiety she turned round immediately and leaning over with practised art, so as to display all the beauties of her throat and bosom, asked:

“What were you thinking of? I felt you were not listening to the music.”

Jean smiled and said frankly:

“I was thinking about two charming women.”

“That is one too many.”

With arrow-like glances she tried to pierce the impenetrable mask. M. de Lavernay was keeping his eyes on the pair, while mixing up all his classical knowledge in his conversation with Madame de Marthenay. Isabelle grew impatient and, eager to make sure of her happiness, rose from her seat.

“It is stifling here. Will you take me into the hall, Captain Berlier?”

With a stare she passed by her discomfited guardian and went out on Jean’s arm. In the promenade and on the steps of the big staircase she leant on his arm with all the weight of her languishing body. As he remained silent, waiting for her to speak, she asked him with a timidity which had come over her all unforeseen:

“Am I no longer beautiful, Jean? Tell me.”

“Look round you, Madame, and judge for yourself.”

Certainly the pair provoked the glances of the well-dressed crowd which was streaming out of the auditorium into the big hall. And the eyes of the demi-mondaines who passed Madame Landeau fastened on her dress as though to estimate its price and its cut and to guess how her beauty would look when stripped of it.

She gave her escort a light tap across his fingers.

“You, you, I mean. You are the only person here who has any interest for me.”

“What about the old gentleman in the box?”

“He does my shopping for me!”

Strengthened by the thought of Paule, he strove to elude his temptress, whose soft arm he felt—not without a flutter of the heart—hang so heavily on his. Her burning, eager face under its mantling blush wore a look of discouragement.

“Do you remember, Jean, the wood at La Chênaie?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, remembering that it was there that Marcel’s fate had been settled.

“I should love to go back there with you. Did you like me better when I was a young girl? Be candid.”

“You are more beautiful now and yet different. I always see your husband behind you.”

She turned round.

“Your jokes are in bad taste, Jean,” she murmured after having made sure of M. Landeau’s absence.

“You are afraid of him,” she added.

“Oh, no, I am not.”

“You don’t like him?”

“No.”

“So that, before you would consent to—flirt, it would be necessary for him to please you?”

He began to laugh. “Exactly,” he said.

“That is very strange.”

“You are his wife.”

She laughed in her turn, and half hiding her face behind her fan she replied:

“So little—and so badly.”

“But quite enough.”

She imitated the little plaintive voice of children caught in the act.

“I won’t do it again.”

He looked long at her. He noticed the quivering movement of her eyelids, the yearning of her whole body for him. Why should he resist any longer the appeal of pleasure when it came to him in such lovely guise?

“Isabelle,” he whispered softly.

She gazed at him in her turn and radiantly slipped her soft hand into his.

“Jean, dear Jean,” she cried. For an instant they both had a foretaste of happiness. Then the bell rang to announce the next act. Full of their joy, they slowly returned to the hall of the theatre, without speaking. At the head of the marble staircase they stopped to take breath. Upon the balcony they stood alone above the gay crowd of spectators hurrying back, but they did not see them.

“Do you know, Jean, you made me tremble. I thought it was true what they told me.”

Vaguely uneasy and already tortured at heart, he repeated:

“What they told you?”

“Yes, that you were in love with Paule Guibert.”

He let fall the arm that was leaning on his and asked in a changed voice:

“Who told you that?”

Pale and speechless she uttered an inarticulate sound, as if she saw the ruined fragments of her happiness lying at her feet.

She was beaten by the magic of a single name and that name, in a mad aberration, she must needs have uttered herself! It was enough to see Jean’s face to understand the extent of her defeat, and in a rage at the shattering of her dream she made her error worse.

“That haughty little creature knew how to fascinate you, with her airs of a foreign princess. I had my doubts about her. She has been arranging this affair for a long time, I wager. She is mad, like all old maids in search of a husband. Go to her. She will know how to manage you!”

Restored as he was to his right mind by his temptress herself, Jean looked at her sadly because of her grace, mercifully because of her passionate heart. And it was in a gentle voice that he answered her insults.

“Isabelle, forgive me. It lay with you in those old days to share my life. And you saw this evening how weak I was and how powerful you were. It is not worthy of you to speak as you did. In the name of our dead love, Isabelle, be generous.”

With all the thoughtfulness of lovers, he asked for a woman’s sympathy while telling her he loved her no longer.

But she protested no further. The heaving of her bosom revealed her inward distress, she accepted defeat and abandoned herself to it. Her failure had found her unprepared. Too long she had anticipated the joy of victory. Her girlish flirtation had changed into a deep, sensual passion, more prone to the extremes of hope and despair than skilled in the subtleties of sentimental diplomacy.

They were alone on the balcony. The crowd had passed into the theatre, where Iphigenia, the priestess, veiled in red draperies, was making ready to perform the blood-sacrifice.

Isabelle looked down on the foyer, whose size seemed immeasurably enlarged by its emptiness. She put her two hands to her throat as if she were choking and at last lifted her eyes towards Jean, who was looking sadly at the distress on her lovely face. She was suffering so intensely that no base or wicked thoughts stirred him any longer.

“Jean,” she sighed in a faint, hardly audible voice, “you are right. No woman is more worthy of your love. You will be happy, and I shall be most unhappy.”

She could say no more, but bending down took the young man’s hand and pressed it to her lips. He felt a tear upon it, and as she drew herself up he saw that her face was streaming. But she had already partially recovered herself and she smiled faintly.

“Are those pearls, Jean?”

“Your tears are a thousand times more precious.”

Taking her in his arms, he kissed her eyes. After this indiscreet farewell embrace they both felt faint. How many couples have been bound together for ever by as few moments of weakness! But a door opening suddenly saved them, and they went back to their box.

“I have wasted my whole life,” said Isabelle, while the attendant came up, key in hand.

All the rest of the evening, with a strange oblivion of her powers, she felt wretched. She hated her clothes and her jewels, and exalted the magnificent poverty of true love above them all. For the rest of the evening, Jean, for all his victory, felt weaker and more humiliated than if he had lost. Yet he was enchanted at the sight of this beauty that he would never possess. His desire still smouldered ere it died away for ever. Before resolutely treading the narrow path of his destiny, he turned again to look at pleasure, not without a touch of sadness.

At the exit, he helped Isabelle to put on the white silk cloak which covered the brilliant bareness of her neck and shoulders. Not till then was he able to rejoice that he had remained his own master and turn his thoughts freely to the pure, proud maiden who claimed the allegiance of his heart, at once so strong and so weak.

Madame de Marthenay had scarcely said a word to Jean Berlier. He thought she was taken up with her husband, who according to public report was losing heavily at the Club and at the Villa des Fleurs and besides was making himself conspicuous with one of those many startling demi-mondaines who infest Aix-les-Bains. She endured her sad life uncomplainingly, her submissive soul resigned beforehand to the worst. What did her fortune and the unfaithfulness of an unworthy husband matter to her? She had no hopes of any joy to come. Her over-refined and sensitive nature could not console itself with worldly pleasures for her deserted home and the emptiness of her heart. Her little girl alone kept her from despair. On her she lavished an excessive affection, heedless of the ills which she thereby laid up for her in the future.

But that evening the sight of Jean had brought back to her with a bitter pang the scene in the wood at La Chênaie, when she had not had the strength to grasp her happiness, though it would have cost her but a slight effort and a promise that she would wait patiently. She wanted to question the young man about Marcel Guibert’s last days. The questions never passed her lips. Would she not betray her duty if she asked them? By the scruples of her conscience she heaped a new burden on her widowed heart.

Thus she never knew that Marcel was carrying, when he died, the picture of a child with candid eyes, who was the cause of his proud scorn of death.

CHAPTER VII
PAULE’S SECRET

Jean was putting M. Loigny into a victoria which he had fetched for him in the town. The old gentleman was wearing a frock-coat, a silk stock wound several times round his neck in the old-fashioned way, pearl-grey gloves, and carrying a stick with a silver knob.

“I feel so strange in this get-up,” he complained, thinking regretfully of his gardening-clothes. And he gave several orders about his rose bushes as if he were setting out on a long journey.

Jean tried to reassure him.

“Above all things,” he said finally, “do not forget what you are going for.”

“As if I should!” the little man retorted energetically. “Even if my loveliest flowers should fade in my absence I will satisfy you.”

M. Loigny was going to Le Maupas to ask Madame Guibert for her daughter’s hand on behalf of his nephew. When the carriage had disappeared round the road, Jean, impatient and agitated, instead of going back to Rose Villa, had slowly followed the same road. Thus he would perhaps meet his ambassador returning and perhaps would have time in the evening to go up himself to the house and speak alone to her who was to be his bride. He gazed questioningly at the sun, which was slowly sinking towards Mount Lépine.

“These July days are the longest of all,” he said to himself, looking for encouragement in his project.

After the evening at Aix the young man had searched his heart. He loved Paule for her courage and pride; and also for that mysterious attraction exercised on us by the features of the face, the color of the eyes, the mass of the hair, the carriage of the body, the matchless grace of a woman in whom we foresee the promise of a secure and happy future for ourselves—or at least a delicious torment of our soul. He could feel within him the approval of all his ancestry in the past, whose noble traditions he meant to carry on successfully. This sensible young girl with the eyes of flame inspired a tender love in his heart; above all she incited him to seek the true end of human existence, which is not to set up one’s own welfare as one’s object, but, striving valiantly and unselfishly, to make oneself the link between the generations past and those to come. Where could he find a worthier companion, a stronger and a surer one who could give better counsel? Paule had grown like a plant whose roots drew their nourishment from fertile soil. Her family was the guarantee of her virtue. It had only needed a little sunshine for her to attain her full development. Would not love bring her warmth and light? And what joy to see her grow and blossom and to feel oneself a little the cause of it, to give back to her the lost days of a cruelly harassed youth, fled almost before she had time to note their flight.

Paule would love him, she loved him already perhaps. Had he not noticed more than one slight indication of her secret feelings, in spite of her reserve and dignity—a blush on her cheek, a hurried fluttering of her eyelids, and above all the unconscious softness of that pure, loyal, sincere glance as it rested on him. Then, as he dipped back into his memories, he seemed to recall a coolness which she had long ago shown toward Isabelle Orlandi. Isabelle Orlandi! He had not seen her again, he would never see her any more. He was still full of a superstitious dread of her, and he put away from him the too beautiful vision which humiliated him cruelly as it reminded him of his own weakness. Loved by Paule Guibert, on the contrary, he felt himself strong enough to conquer all obstacles. For this is the true test of real love, that it exalts all our faculties, and gives us confidence in ourselves.

The decision which his heart reached was sustained by other considerations. Married love does not cut the lover off from the outer social world, but, through the very difficulties which it encounters, brings with it an understanding of life in general. It is the safeguard of this life, in contradistinction to the love of mere passion, which threatens it with oblivion, and ruin. The Guiberts were not well off, and his own fortune was reduced to very little. No doubt it would be not without regret that he would leave the service. He loved this self-sacrificing and honorable profession, and the stern discipline which imposes itself on the will. The brilliant career he had carved out for himself so early gave him the right to count on the future. He did not, however, feel that irresistible vocation which forces young men to travel along one road, all others for them leading but to distaste and dissatisfaction. That had been the case with Marcel, for instance. But Jean was not tempted to reject the suggestion which the necessities of his existence, as it must be in the future, made to him. He was able to plan out his life without trouble. In the course of his visits to Le Maupas, the affairs of Étienne and François Guibert in Tonkin were often discussed. In all their letters the two young men told of the prosperity of their undertakings and complained of not being able to extend them for want of the necessary help. In vain, they said, they had appealed to old school friends. They all preferred routine work to independence, mediocrity to risk. But Jean, as he grew to know his heart more surely, thought the more deliberately: “If I hand in my resignation, I—we—shall go out to join them.” The call of the colonies attracted him by the very energy and activity which it necessitates. He had always had a love of mother earth. Distant peasant ancestors drew him to the soil. If, out there, he should feel homesick for France and the Army, could he not gain strength in the love of that new France, which he would be helping to build, in the manly joy that there is in the patient conquest, day by day, of a soil to which water and fertility must be slowly brought? Would he not gain it, above all, from the love of his wife? She, he was certain, would not fear to leave the country with him and to share his life of struggle and adventure. The blood of Dr. Guibert, so indifferent to danger, the blood of that mother who was sustained in trials by an unconquerable faith, ran in the veins of this girl whom he loved.

With the selfishness of lovers, Jean forgot one person in the calculation of his future, or rather he was thoughtlessly planning to deprive this person of her sole support, of the sole sweetness of her joyless days.

In Madame Guibert’s heroism he discovered new reasons for confidence in Paule, worthy of such a mother; and he did not see that he was going to ask the greatest sacrifice of all from this poor woman, to take from Niobe her last child, the only one left her by the gods, the one she might still clasp distractedly to her bosom.

Along the road to Le Maupas Jean walked towards his happiness, while the lovely summer evening was shedding its light over the glad world.

Old Marie ushered M. Loigny into the drawing-room and went to look for her mistress, muttering on her way,

“What does the old man want of us with his frock-coat and tall hat?”

But M. Loigny paid no attention to the servant whom his fashionable disguise stirred to such wrath.

He had just stopped short before a bowl of roses which bloomed in the middle of the table. Bending over them he examined them so closely that it seemed as if he were sniffing at them, and all at once he began to show signs of great stupefaction. Madame Guibert found him in this curious state. He scarcely bowed to her, and leading her up to the flowers he cried:

“Do you see that?”

“Yes,” said she, surprised.

“How did you get it?”

“I don’t know, Monsieur Loigny.”

“It is quite impossible that you shouldn’t know. Come, tell me!”

And then, less brutally, the eccentric little man added:

“I beg of you, Madame; it is very serious.”

Madame Guibert politely racked her memory.

“My son Étienne brought us home some rose-cuttings—they found a good soil at Le Maupas. These are their flowers. They are lovely, but they have no scent.”

“Certainly, they have no scent. But I don’t mind about that. And where had your son Étienne come from?”

“From Tonkin, Monsieur, from the Bay of Along, which produces flowers and fruit in abundance.”

“Ah! a Chinese rose! That is it. I thought it must be. And you don’t know its name, of course. Nobody knows the names of flowers in France.”

Madame Guibert excused herself smilingly, and the flower-maniac continued:

“They teach music to young girls, so that they may bore their fathers to death, and later their husbands, with sonatas. But they neglect to teach them botany. And in botany, Madame, should be recognised the crown of the earth, the grace of the home, the peace of the human spirit! I find a happy philosophy in it. To repair this gap in instruction I am making a catalogue of all the names of roses. We must know where to stop. Nature is too vast for us. But these names are, for the most part, deplorably vulgar!”

“Really, Monsieur,” said the poor lady at random, thinking of something else and yet humoring his fancy.

“Deplorable, I repeat. The prettiest are women’s names. They do not remind us of the complicated and delightful art of the garden, nor of the diversity of the vegetable kingdom with its thousand forms and colors, nor of our various shades of feeling—though to these it would have been in good taste to have made suitable allusion. They are inanimate names, like those of geography or chemistry.”

“I don’t understand anything about it,” admitted Madame Guibert, “but I love flowers.”

But the old enthusiast would not stop.

“We have not the inventive mind, Madame. And we have forgotten how to be astonished, how to be moved before the never-ending miracles of nature. We have settled down in the universe as though it were a dining-room. Familiarity and practical considerations have blunted our feelings. Yet the universe is really delicate, ever-changing, and delightful. Ah, Madame, believe me, we are far from equalling the Chinese gardeners.”

“The Chinese gardeners?” she repeated.

“Yes, the Chinese gardeners. Do you know what names they give their flowers.”

“How should I know, Monsieur?”

“Names which sum up the manifold beauty of the earth. Here are some of them:—‘Water sleeping in the moonlight.’ ‘The sun in the forest.’ ‘The maiden’s first desire,’ and this, which I trust you will appreciate, ‘The young girl showing her bosom.’”

Indulgent, but astonished, Madame Guibert smiled at this harmless folly and tried to check its outpourings.

“Won’t you give me some news of Jean? We have not seen him for several days. He is deserting us.” She foresaw the object of this unexpected visit. M. Loigny, disdaining all society, lived in his garden, which he cultivated exclusively himself, liking the world of plants better than that of men. Only a very important event could make him go out of his way, and this could only be an offer of marriage. And she thought of the absent Paule with emotion. She would find happiness awaiting her when she got back.

But this strange rose-lover was in no hurry to do this errand. He had at last succeeded in pulling the rose that had captivated him from its vase.

“Jean is quite well, Madame,” he replied carelessly, and then went on: “Yes, this kind is, so to speak, unknown in France. I will put it in my catalogue. Will you allow me, Madame, to carry away this specimen?”

“Please do, Monsieur,” acquiesced Madame Guibert, courteously. She was afraid she had been mistaken and was trembling for her hopes.

“A thousand thanks, Madame. I must fly to see about it before it fades.”

On the threshold the old man stopped and in a mysterious voice, which made the poor lady start, said:

“I have a secret to tell you. I have managed to grow a new rose by skilful grafting. You shall see it. It has no name yet. I am going to give it your daughter’s. My nephew will be delighted. It shall be called Madame Paule Berlier!”

And without having revealed his errand, otherwise than in this odd way, he vanished, still holding the flower in his hands and gazing at it.

Madame Guibert as she watched him disappear in the distance could not repress a smile.

“The poor man! He has forgotten all for his rose.”

Jean on his way to meet M. Loigny had arrived at the oakwood which lines the road to Vimines hill. He heard the noise of grinding wheels held back by the brake and soon he saw the carriage through the branches. Impatiently he hurried on in spite of the hill.

“Well, Uncle?” he cried.

M. Loigny lifted his flower in the air with a triumphant gesture which reassured the young man.

“Look here! A rose that I haven’t got in my collection!”

“What’s that to me?” said Jean brusquely. “Will she have me or not?”

The old man let fall the stalk that he held so carefully, put his hands to his head, and cried,

“Good heavens, I must be mad, I am dangerously mad. I forgot all about your offer!”

Jean looked at him pityingly. “So you forgot!” he said.

“But I am going back,” said M. Loigny, sitting up straight.

“No, I will go myself. Go back to your flowers, Uncle.”

And he went on his way to Le Maupas.

The old man followed him with his eye as far as the turn in the road. Then he wiped his face, made a sign to the coachman to continue, and for the first time went home to Rose Villa without any feeling of pleasure.

Jean discovered Madame Guibert in the garden at Le Maupas. She smiled when she saw him, sweetly and shyly. And he felt his heart lighten.

“Good afternoon, Jean. Your uncle has just been to see me. Did you know it?”

“Yes, Madame, he came with a message that he forgot to give you. For him that is nothing.”

“Oh, don’t be hard on him!”

And with a timid grace she took the young man’s hand in hers.

“Be easy in your mind. I am acquainted with the language of flowers!”

They sat down by the stone table under the trees. Jean kissed her hand. They understood each other already.

“So you know that I love her?” asked Jean with emotion. Then in a firmer voice he added:

“How could I help loving her, Madame?”

“She is worthy of it,” answered Paule’s mother, who was thinking of the new future.

“I think I have always loved her. Only I did not know my mind. When one is too young, one cannot clearly distinguish the plan of one’s life. And I shall love her for ever.”

“Yes,” she answered gravely. “Before binding oneself with eternal vows one must be sure of oneself. And I have confidence in you.”

“I see Marcel’s courage and his pride once more in Paule,” said Jean. “I shall bless my fate if it has reserved her affection for me.”

“It is God whom you must bless, Jean. Our strength comes from Him only. Yes, Paule is a darling child. Although I am her mother, I may say that with pride. I shall give her to you joyfully. Have I not always considered you as my son? And were you not like a brother to Marcel?”

“Oh, Madame Guibert, your words are so sweet to me. But she? ...”

“Don’t be afraid about her, Jean. She will accept you, I think. But you must ask her yourself. You have reflected well, have you not, about your future home? We are not rich, as you know. My son Étienne and I are willing to give to Paule, if she will be your wife, the rents of the Maupas estate. It does not bring in much since the vineyards were separated from it. We cannot do more.”

She was giving up everything and made excuses for doing no more.

“I do not wish it, Madame,” said Jean.

“Let me finish what I have to say. I am anxious to retire. I need very little to live on. Étienne, being able to do it, gives me an allowance which, in spite of all I can say, he will not make smaller. You must think of your future prospects, Jean.”

“Oh, Madame Guibert, what treasure can be compared to Paule’s heart? But do not think I should ever consent to accept your more than generous offer. I have already thought about our material future. Étienne needs help in Tonkin. In all his letters he keeps asking for a partner to develop the enterprises which are too great for him alone. Well, I have offered him my help. Out in Algiers I used to interest myself in everything concerning the soil. I will go to Tonkin. I wrote to him last month.”

“And you will take your wife out there?”

At this moment Jean’s attention was turned to the steps, where Paule had just appeared, so he did not see two tears gush from Madame Guibert’s eyes. When he looked at her she was already prepared for the new sacrifice which life asked of her, and it was in a firm voice that she said:

“May God bless your plans! Here is my girl, Jean. She has known loneliness and sorrow too long. She needs happiness. How happy she will be with your love! She will feel her youth, which she had forgotten. Jean, you may tell her that you love her.”

Then she added in lower tones—for Paule was coming nearer—and he did not hear her words:

“I give you my last, my dearest child.”

Tall and erect, Paule came across the courtyard and joined them under the shadow of the chestnuts. Her black dress made her look a little formal as she greeted the young man. He had risen and gone to meet her. A slight flush heightened her color, while her dark eyes lighted up. She kissed her mother:

“I have just come from the farm. We shall have the butter and eggs to-morrow.”

Madame Guibert gazed at them both with motherly eyes. She rose from the basket-chair where she had been sitting.

“I am going in to see about dinner. You will excuse me, Jean. How lovely it is this evening. You have not been out all day, Paule. You should have a walk together before the sun sets. Go as far as the Montcharvin wood and come back. Come back soon, my children!”

She could not resist calling them her children. She watched them go down the chestnut avenue side by side with rapid steps.

“How tall she is!” she said to herself. “He is only half a head taller than she. And he is very tall. A fine couple!”

They disappeared behind the trees. Slowly and with a heavy heart the old lady went in to her house, and as she prepared herself for this last sacrifice she repeated to herself:

“My darling little Paule, and I have lost her! May you be happy. You have deserved it for your dear care of me. Be happy—it is all I ask of God.”

Above the Vimines road, a path cut off by a screen of poplars from Forezan’s steep slopes skirts the fields and leads to Montcharvin farm. Paule and Jean followed it, the girl walking in front.

“Let us go as far as the ash-wood,” she said. “We shall be able to see the sunset reflected on the mountains through the trees.”

He stopped. “No, let us stay here, will you not?” And he pointed to the old felled tree-trunk which served as a bench. She had never sat there since her last walk with Marcel. Thinking of this, she hesitated. She had no idea what Jean had to say to her. Little accustomed to thinking of her own affairs and resigned to her destiny as a penniless girl, she never gave love or marriage a thought. She believed she had stifled forever the feelings which had once caused her so much suffering, and kept jealous watch over the heart for which no one asked. She consented to sit down. For a moment they were silent, side by side.

The sun had disappeared behind the nearby mountains. Round them they were conscious of the peace of evening falling over the land, like a holy presence. At their feet the ripe cornfields waved gently. Further away the trees in the wood gathered their leaves together and sought calm repose. On the horizon the cliffs of Mount Revard, still touched by the sunlight, shone with bright pinks and violets. The happy omen in this peace of nature increased Jean’s emotion. He looked at the girl beside him and was happy at the thought of what he was about to say to her.

She remembered with painful clearness the words which Marcel had spoken to her on this same tree-trunk on the evening before he left for Africa.

“Paule,” she could hear in the voice that was for ever hushed, “do not be anxious, you will be happy some day.” Since Jean’s return she accepted her life bravely and without bitterness. She felt a kind of stoical happiness which satisfied her after so many blows. Was that the happiness Marcel had meant? In this peaceful hour, the vague longing for joy of another kind rose up in her. Still, she did not know that the time had come.

Jean made up his mind to speak.

“I have been speaking to your mother, Paule, of my plans for the future,” he said.

She looked at him.

“Your leave is up already? You are going away again soon?”

“I am not going back to the regiment.”

In her surprise she waited for his explanation.

“I am going to resign.”

“You, Jean! Oh, that is a mistake. You are not thirty yet, you have the Legion of Honor and you are giving up your career! What would Marcel have thought?”

“Marcel would have agreed with me—because I shall serve France in another way, which will not be less useful. From being a soldier I shall become a colonist. I have written to your brother Étienne, who finds his work at Tonkin too much for him. I am going to join him.”

“Oh,” she said. “How glad they will be out there! They know what good friends you and Marcel were. You will tell them about him as you have told us. You will see my nephew and my niece. You will know them before I do.”

The shadows were falling over the plain and began to climb the mountain slopes. Over Lake Bourget far away, hung a violet haze, mingling itself by degrees in the pink and gold of the sky. Evening was enveloping still nature like a blessing.

Jean rose and stood before the girl.

“Your brothers would be much happier if they knew my other plan.” And lowering his eyes to the ground, he added more gently:

“It is a plan infinitely dear to me. Your mother knows what it is.”

He looked at her and saw with surprise that she suspected nothing. He admired this forgetfulness of self, and gravely, with deep tenderness, brought out the decisive words at last:

“Paule, I love you. Will you be my wife and go out there with me?”

She rose in her turn, unable to speak and deathly pale. Her heaving bosom showed the tumult of her heart.

He continued: “I love you, Paule. Did you not know it? Did you not guess it? When I came back from Algiers I found you so brave—and so beautiful. Oh, don’t say no! During the crossing of the Sahara, I remember, Marcel often told me, when we were talking about Savoy, that you were your mother’s comfort. Whenever I was looking for something to stir up my energy, some picture to cheer me and arouse my courage, I thought of you. I know I have always loved you, since the time we were children, when I laughed at your long black hair. My happiness lies in your hands, Paule. Will you not give it to me?”

She made no reply. She was so pale that it seemed as if the blood had left her veins. He took her hand, which she did not withdraw. He waited, confident and calm, his heart swelling with hope.

She gazed at the peaceful countryside unseeingly. The summits of Mount Revard ceased to reflect the sunset glow. All nature was wrapped in the shadow which precedes sleep.

Was not this the happiness that Marcel had predicted for her, on this very spot, during a similar sunset?

As she continued silent, Jean was racked with intolerable anguish. In an altered voice he repeated for the third time.

“Paule, I love you. Why do you not speak? Answer me, I beg you.”

Gently the girl released her hand.

“No, no, I cannot,” she said.

Sobs choked her voice, and she fled towards the house.

Then he felt the night fall even upon his heart. He hated the life he had once adored and envied Marcel dead on the African sands, Marcel wrapped in infinite peace.

CHAPTER VIII
MADAME GUIBERT

On the veranda Madame Guibert was waiting for the return of “her children.” Her arms were crossed on the iron balustrade; hidden in one of her hands she held a rosary, the beads of which she told while her lips murmured the Ave Maria. A peace as deep as that which had fallen over the land now reigned over her tear-stained face.

She saw Paule come back sobbing distractedly and tried in vain to stop her.

“Paule, what is the matter? Tell me,” she called. But the girl passed her without a word and fled to her room.

Madame Guibert turned to follow her. Then she changed her mind, threw a shawl round her shoulders, and descended the steps. With trembling feet, summoning all her strength, she went up the avenue and posted herself near the open gate which looked on to the road.

“He cannot have passed yet,” she thought. “Paule came back so quickly.”

By the light of the setting sun she scanned the deserted road. All round her she heard nothing but the never-ceasing, strident sound of the crickets and the occasional flutter of a heavy chestnut-leaf blown down by the wind. After a few minutes of suspense, she saw the young man’s shadow on the path which skirts the Montcharvin meadows. He walked along with his head bowed, and his body stooping listlessly. As he came nearer she read easily the expression of sadness in his face. So absorbed was he in his sorrow that he did not notice her standing to his right beside the stone column. As he passed her, she called to him:

“Jean!”

Surprised to hear his own name he turned round and saw the old lady smiling sweetly at him. He took off his hat and came up to her.

“I am so unhappy,” he said simply, as if he were telling his troubles to his own mother. Madame Guibert held out her hand to him.

“Jean, give me your arm. Let us go in, night is coming on and it is getting cold.”

He gave her his arm, answering in dull accents: “Madame Guibert, you know that I must not come in any more. But I will take you back as far as the door.”

The golden splashes of twilight sought to blend with the thick trunks of the chestnuts. Daylight was fighting obstinately with darkness. Slowly and silently the pair walked over the gravel of the avenue. At the foot of the steps, as he was going to bid her good-bye she said:

“Come in with me. I want to talk to you. Paule is not in the drawing-room.”

He tried to resist, then gave way indifferently and followed Madame Guibert. He was like a condemned man, who does not believe in the chaplain’s consolations and yet listens to him.

When he had shut the door she turned to him and taking his two hands looked at him steadily with her clear eyes.

“She has refused to be your wife?”

“She ran away in tears.”

“Jean, my dear Jean, you did not understand.”

Her affectionate words soothed his pain, but also had the effect of softening his resolution, and he was ready to burst into tears.

“I am sure she does not love me,” he said. “I love her so much.”

She let go his hands and leaned against the table, seeming to collect her thoughts. What she was making up her mind to say was so serious. Could she answer for her daughter’s heart? Was she indeed sure that she herself quite understood? She looked at the young man whom she wished to have for her son, and remembered how loyal and brave he had been in the past. Above all she thought of Paule’s loving nature and her life in the days to come. Reassured, she smiled at Jean and spoke at last.

“You are quite wrong, Jean. Paule loves you.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no, Madame, do not trouble yourself to find explanations. Let me go away.”

“Do you think mothers can no longer guess their daughter’s secrets?”

She paused and then spoke out her thoughts.

“Paule loves you. Did you not understand that she was sacrificing herself for me?”

“For you?” he repeated. “How so?”

He looked attentively at Madame Guibert. His youth rebelled at the thought of defeat and already he was full of a new hope. Still she was not surprised that he had not guessed her meaning. She answered almost apologetically:

“Did you not tell her that you were leaving for Tonkin?”

“Yes, I did.”

“She did not want to go away from me, Jean. And that is why she left you in tears. But she loves you. Did not her tears tell you that?”

At last his own selfishness was clear to him, and he stood stupidly before the woman whose existence he had forgotten. He had been preparing to leave her in loneliness and yet a few minutes ago she had said nothing when he had asked her for the gift of her last child.

Madame Guibert repeated, as he maintained his silence: “She did not wish to leave me all alone.” And with a faint smile she added, “Does that surprise you, Jean?”

He was still silent, trying to master the feeling that was overwhelming him. The old lady went on in her gentle, resolute voice:

“She was wrong, Jean. She loved me before she loved you. She loves you best to-day and does not yet know it. She has been my joy and my strength. You will see later what her devotion can be. She has devoted herself to me to the verge of sacrificing herself. But I do not wish it. God does not wish it.”

She saw that the young man was almost in tears and she took his hand again.

“She is looking back, and in life we must look forward. Fathers and mothers must live for their children, not the other way. It is the natural law. It is the divine will. Do not mourn, Jean. She will be your wife. I am going to send her to you. But you must promise me you will cherish and protect her always and make her happy. My little Paule deserves it so much.”

Jean could not keep back his tears any longer. And these were sacred tears, stirred at the sight of such a miracle of abnegation. His deep and respectful admiration embraced both mother and daughter, so worthy of one another in their forgetfulness of their own happiness. And he himself, blinded by his love, had not guessed that this love, cruel as the gods of old, demanded a great sacrifice, an offering of atonement in the sorrow of the noblest of hearts!

With an impulsive movement he bent over the hand which he held in his and placed his lips on it.

“I should like to kneel to you,” he murmured. “May you be blessed above all women!”

“Oh, what are you saying, Jean?”

He continued: “But I cannot accept your sacrifice. We will stay in France near you. Paule shall never leave you.”

Madame Guibert had already left him. She went to the end of the drawing-room, opened a door, and turning round on the threshold as she went out said, “Wait here for me.”

She crossed her own room and entered her daughter’s noiselessly. Through the open window the dying light of day came in, with the perfume of the garden, and was reflected with the trees in the mirror. In the afterglow, she saw Paule, sitting huddled up at the foot of her bed, crying her heart out for her lost happiness. She had lost it of her own free will, and not through weakness; but could she not see it now from afar, like the promised land which she should never enter? She plunged herself into the flood of that love which none had known or could ever know, that joyous love of old which she had thought suppressed for ever and which she now felt welling forth again to her sorrow—plunged herself so deep that she seemed almost to taste the savor of death upon her lips. She was awakened from her misery by her mother’s kiss upon her hair.

“Paule,” said Madame Guibert, “why are you crying? You must be brave in your happiness, as you have been in your trials.”

The girl had already risen and under cover of the growing darkness, which partly hid the signs of her sorrow, she began at once to defend herself.

“You don’t know what happened, Mother. I do not love him. Only ... his offer was so unexpected, so strange, that I was a little startled. It is the first time, Mother, you know.... But I don’t love him, I assure you.... I cannot do more than I have done.”

Her mother was looking at her with infinite love, as if she were measuring the extent of this devotion which would not confess itself and persisted in denial, even to despair.

“Come with me, Paule,” she said at last. “Jean has not told you everything—Or you left too soon. He did not have time to tell you, dear, that when you go I am going with you.”

As flowers after a heavy shower sparkle in the sunlight which changes their rain-drops to precious stones, so now this tearful face lighted up. Paule threw her arms round her mother’s neck. If Madame Guibert had any doubts about Paule’s secret, this quick change would have enlightened her.

“Mother, is that true? How happy we shall be out there! ... I love you.”

Madame Guibert smiled, fully aware that these three immortal words were not meant for her.

“I knew it well,” she murmured softly, fondling her daughter’s cheek as she used to do when she was but a tiny child. Moved to tears she was thinking of the blossoming of this happiness to which, by a providential chance, she had been allowed to contribute, and under her breath she thanked God, who had answered her prayer.

Shyly and without looking at her mother, Paule asked: “Has he gone?”

“He is here.”

The girl blushed, but the darkness hid her. The golden lights were already fading from the mirror.

“Let us go and find him,” said Madame Guibert.

She lead Paule by the hand into the drawing-room.

“Jean,” she said, “here is your wife!”

She joined their hands. But they did not look at each other yet. A similar emotion filled their hearts. Jean was the first to raise his eyes. The tears Paule had shed, if they lessened the beauty of her features, took away the pride of her expression and in its place brought a humbler, more touching look. He loved her all the more for her womanly weakness.

“I may be certain of my happiness?” were his first words.

With a sigh she answered, “Oh, yes....”

“Paule, I love you,” he said.

She repeated after him in a voice that was scarcely audible: “I love you, Jean.”

She looked at him in her turn and they smiled at each other. But immediately her eyes went to her mother, and, the joy of her heart confirmed, she said:

“Mother is going to Tonkin with us. We will all be together out there except my sister Marguerite, the nun.”

Now Jean understood the last argument Madame Guibert had used to test her daughter’s heart. And although he had doubts about this journey and instinctively suspected the generous falsehood, he pretended to rejoice with the two women.

“My children, my dear children,” Madame Guibert cried. “God has given us great happiness. May His blessing be upon you, upon your new home, upon your family! Jean, kiss your bride.”

The young man’s lips touched a cheek that was still wet. Thus their first kiss was mingled with sadness, as if to symbolize their union for life, in sorrow and in joy.

Madame Guibert had gone to the end of the drawing-room, and was looking at Marcel’s photograph; but at this late hour it was more in memory than in the portrait that she could see her son’s features. Jean and Paule came up to her.

“How happy Marcel would be,” said the young man. “I think now he knew my heart before I did myself.”

And the girl was thinking of her brother’s words: “Don’t be anxious, you will be happy some day.” Could he, who bore the fatal sign upon his brow and walked towards death with a sure step, have read the future then, with eyes that saw into another world? Was it his detachment from this life that enabled him to understand the affinity of souls and the secret of destinies? Paule’s sisterly devotion was glad to have Marcel associated with her own love.

The glowing struggle of the daylight with the dusk was over. Day was dead.

“I must go,” murmured Jean to his fiancée. And immediately she felt sad. Already all her thoughts were with her future husband and this first separation was a cause of grief.

“It is very late,” Madame Guibert broke in. “Stay with us, Jean. You must dine with us—you are not hard to please. Afterwards you can go back to Rose Villa.”

He hesitated a minute.

“I cannot,” he said. “My uncle would be anxious. I was rude to him just now on the road and I don’t wish to cause him fresh annoyance.”

He told Paule of M. Loigny’s unaccomplished official mission.

“Come back with him to-morrow for luncheon, then,” continued Madame Guibert. “Tell him that the garden will play its part in the fête. We shall have our loveliest flowers on the table. They will entertain him. Then we will all go and celebrate your engagement at the village church.”

As Jean left Le Maupas he found darkness in the oakwood. Joyfully and in no haste he descended the wooded hillside, as though it were the plain straight path of his well-ordered life in the days to come; the same hillside that Marcel had once mounted running, with the fire of love in his heart and the savor of danger upon his dry lips.

That night Paule was late in getting to sleep. She welcomed love with a steadfast heart, and with a serious feeling that made her resolution the firmer, not the weaker. She had climbed the hill of her youth, fighting difficulties, both physical and moral, as the hardy mountain-sheep struggle upward through the bushes which tear their fleeces on the way. Now it seemed to her that she was walking over a plain and that her bare feet were treading the soft grass. The sky before her was full of light. And what did it matter to her if she still had to climb? Would she not hereafter have a stronger arm to lean upon? And did she not feel in herself a new courage?

But Paule had been asleep a long time when her mother was still watching and praying.

“My God,” the poor woman murmured, “for the first time in my life I have told a lie. Forgive me. These two children had to be brought together. They were made for each other. Should not their happiness go before mine? I am too old to follow them. I cannot leave my dead. The earth is calling to me and Thou will soon summon me. Here I will await the hour that Thou hast fixed. But grant me strength, Oh my God, to bear this last separation calmly. I had grown accustomed to Paule’s care and Thou remindest me, in taking away my only earthly joy, that we cannot attach ourselves for ever to this world’s goods. In leaving me she will take away the heart which Thou hast filled, before breaking it. I offer Thee my sorrows beforehand, so that Thou mayst shower the most abundant blessings on my sons, including Jean, and on my daughters, on the living and the dead.”

She prayed a long time. At last she found peace in resignation, and her tardy slumbers were tranquil.

CHAPTER IX
THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES

On the road to Rose Villa Jean breathed in the air of the loveliest of summer nights and tasted that joy which life gives when love comes to make it straight and whole, not to disturb and torture.

Jean reached his uncle’s house before he knew where he was.

“Already!” he cried. And he smiled as he noticed that all the windows of the little house were lighted up. “Is he having a party? That would be an unusual sight.”

He opened the gate and went up the little rose-bordered path which led in a straight line to the front door. Mechanically he stretched out his hand, as he often did, towards the slim bushes and in the darkness his fingers tried to gather a flower at haphazard; but they found only the leaves and the thorns.

“Some thief,” he thought, “has climbed the fence and stolen my uncle’s treasures! What a blow for the poor man!”

The door was still ajar. Jean pushed it open. It seemed as if he were walking in a field of roses. The invisible garden, under shadow of night, had apparently invaded the hall. Flowers lay in heaps, and the electric light of the ante-room revealed, on a green background of leaves, variegated patches of color—here in sharp contrast, there in insensible gradations of hue. Red roses, crimson red, poppy-red, carmine, nasturtium, flame-colored, copper, red of the dawn; white roses, dead-white, pure white, creamy white; roses of tender pink, peach-colored, bright pink; roses of pale yellow, straw-colored, canary-colored, nankin yellow, lemon yellow, sulphur, orange; all mingled their scents together.

Jean went forward stupefied. The doors of the dining-room and drawing-room, which communicated with each other and could be thrown into a single room, stood wide open and their thresholds strewn with flowering branches revealed the onward progress of the invading hordes. But after three or four steps, the young man stopped short. A voice penetrated distinctly to his ears. It was giving forth, with the monotonous regularity of a chamberlain, announcing the guests, the names of women, and at every name it sounded as if a branch were falling on the ground or as if silken stuffs were rustling.

“Madame Laurette de Messimy! Madame Jean Sisley! The Countess of Panisse! The Duchess of Edinburgh! The Duchess of Auerstädt! The Marquise de Vivens! Madame Hippolyte Jamain! Madame de Watteville! Mademoiselle Anne-Marie Cote! ...”

With a catch at his heart Jean thought, “Uncle has gone mad while I was away!”

The quiet voice seemed now to be chanting some profane litany.

“Beauty of Europe! Inconstant Beauty! Star of Lyons! Gloire de Dijon! Firefly! Grace Darling! Snowball! Golden Dream! Miniature! Surprise! Pearl of the Gardens! Streaky Pearl! Perfection of Pleasure! ...”

The young man’s face brightened with a smile; but he stood where he was.

“Fanchette, let us go into the drawing-room,” said the voice. “There are still some more.”

After a pause the names began again. But the women’s names no longer reached Jean’s ears so sharp and clear; they were accompanied by short descriptions of toilettes, rather like the accounts in fashion papers, and then by flattering appreciations addressed indiscriminately to princesses, great ladies, or beauties of the people.

“The Duchess of Morny, in pale pink, backed with silver! Viscountess Folkestone, in bright pink with salmon lights! Mademoiselle Thérèse Levet, in cherry pink! Mademoiselle Eugénie Verdier, in bright pink with white lights, and Mademoiselle Marie Perrin, in beautiful pale silvery pink!”

After this gracious group of bright robed young women, the speaker’s enthusiasm waxed warmer.

“Mademoiselle Adelina Viviand-Morel, your hue is indefinable. Your apricot, shading to canary, turns to straw yellow streaked with flesh colour! Anne-Marie de Montravel, you are certainly tiny, but your simple toilette is of the purest white. Mademoiselle Augustine Guinoiseau, your whiteness, satiny and faintly pink fascinates me. You are tall and well made, the flower of all France! Innocence Pirola, I love your slim grace and your rosy tint. Madame Ernest Calvat, there is a sweet fullness about you and your dress is a charming vivid China pink. Yet I prefer that tender rose hue, suffused with white, of the Baroness Rothschild, tall and very lovely, but without scent.”

Jean stifled a laugh when, with a brusque change of tone, the voice commanded:

“Now we must make haste, Fanchette. My nephew will be back soon.”

“And what about dinner?” asked the maid. “What time will you have it to-night? Or are you doing to dine on scents?”

M. Loigny’s voice, imperious and angry, was heard through the room.

“I tell you, girl, that I despise your dinner! Let us get on!”

The interrupted litany began again calmly.

“Madame Olga Marix, you are of medium height and the white of your robe is almost the color of living flesh. Countess of Murinais, I love you above all for your delicate pallor, for your foam-like, fragile beauty. Your grace is not of the lasting kind. You have not the charming precocity of Madame Sancy de Parabère, nor her amiable opulence, nor the lovely brightness of her vivid pink, but you are a type of discreet elegance and distinction.”

Now at last Jean could contain himself no longer, and at the risk of breaking the spell he bent forward to look at the favorite. He saw M. Loigny with pruning shears in one hand, while in the other hand he lifted the perfect flower, the white rose which he loved and praised the most. Kneeling on the floor, Fanchette was grouping the countless stalks which her master threw to her after gazing at them fondly, classing them by their families, and calling them by their names. The armchairs, the table, the carpet, all the country drawing-room was hidden under the roses. It seemed as though they had fallen from the ceiling in a scented rain, an odorous avalanche. And through the open bay window the young man saw in the dining-room huge bouquets standing in a row, with dashes of red-purple in them that looked like wounds. These strangely decorated rooms were the death-chamber of the revived garden.

“There are only three or four princesses left,” said the rose-lover, somewhat regretfully, to calm his angry servant. And quickly he went over them.

“Princess Beatrice, tall and nonchalant, in bright pink; Princess Marie, whose pink is like the cheek of a shy maiden; Princess Louise, who may be compared to some fresh face with its brilliant coloring toned down by a clumsy powderpuff.”

“Why has he ruined his garden?” Jean uneasily asked himself.

Through the windows he looked out into the night, and fancied he could hear in the wind which idly stirred the branches, the plaint of the mutilated rose-bushes.

At last M. Loigny noticed his nephew and his face assumed at once an expression of contrition and timidity.

“Here is every one of my roses,” was all that he said.

The young man was thinking: “He is not even interested in my engagement.” But happiness made him tolerant and he even wished to flatter his uncle’s innocent whim.

“Why did you gather them this evening?” he asked.

The agitated old man pursued the line of his own thoughts.

“Not one was spared, and my whole garden is there. The finest have women’s names, but the Chinese gardeners show the most poetical imaginations in naming the many colored beauties of the earth.”

“I heard you a few moments ago,” went on Jean pleasantly, “and I supposed you were talking to a crowd of charming shadows.”

“About a hundred and fifty,” said his uncle.

“It is a goodly number.”

“What is it compared with the incessantly increasing number of the various kinds of roses? There are several thousands of them. And one forgets all those that our grandfathers cultivated, of which one can find only in old books and among some rare specimens in old gardens. In our day too, Jean, new roses make their appearance every year from the hands of their clever growers. Look on the ground and you will see represented by choice specimens the roses of Bengal and China, the Miss Lawrence varieties, the many-flowered roses, whose trails are suited to borders and baskets, the roses of Provence, the moss-rose, the tea rose, the noisette, in whose delicate coloring the note of yellow is predominant. Cold-hating plants these Tea and Noisette roses! We have to protect them against the severities of winter, but they reward us for our trouble by flowering abundantly.”

Once started on his hobby, like a dog running round a cornfield, he rushed about, sniffing the air, gesticulating and heedlessly threatening all the knick-knacks of the drawing-room with sudden ruin. All at once he walked up to a little desk, opened a drawer and drew out a volume, which he brandished in the air as he came back toward his nephew.

“Lecoq’s ‘Cultivation of Vegetables,’” he murmured. “A weighty work, admirable, inimitable!”

He turned over the pages, and smiling happily began to read this passage in a loud voice:

“Whatever the size of a bed, however small may be the corner of ground at an amateur’s disposal, whatever useful knowledge he may gain, whatever curious experiments he may make, and whatever joy he may attain when by artificial cultivation he succeeds in enriching his garden, his friends, even his country, with some new creation which owes its existence to his care and intelligence.” He looked at his nephew over his book, and then finished the quotation: “Everyone may act in his own sphere, in his own corner, may be silent if he is not successful (which is rare), and may justly boast if something remarkable comes to crown his efforts.”

As if he had equalled Napoleon or Cæsar in the gratification of his ambition, M. Loigny murmured sadly as he closed the learned work:

“Yes, I have dreamed of emulating the rose-grower Gonod or Louis Scipio Cochet. I, too, have created a rose! She is lying there with all the rest. I wanted to call her the ‘Souvenir of Loigny the Rosarist’ so that by means of her sweet scent and delicate coloring my name might be transmitted through the ages to all garden-lovers. I, even I, have aspired to glory.”

“That is splendid. Show her to me,” said Jean. “Then let us have dinner, for I am dying of hunger.”

“Now that is what I call sense,” muttered Fanchette.

The hands of the clock stood at nine.

“Go to your stove, my girl,” the old man ordered with dignity. He was already on all fours on the floor, looking for his masterpiece in the heap of roses. Without getting up he handed a magnificent flower to his nephew.

“She will not bear my name—but yours. This very evening I have christened her Paule Berlier.”

“She is beautiful,” said Jean. But he was thinking of his fiancée. Then he added: “I thank you, Uncle, for your poetic homage.”

The old man was still on his knees. He stretched out his two hands with an expansive gesture and softly repeated, “Here are all my roses!”

“But why this massacre?” Jean asked for the second time. “I am sure you must have decapitated all your plants.”

“All, Jean, without exception.”

“Why this slaughter? Won’t you tell me?”

M. Loigny was contemplating the mass of cut flowers with the radiant smile of a Christian virgin led to martyrdom. He got up with difficulty and answered:

“Here are all my roses. They are for you.”

“For me?” asked Jean, surprised.

“For you, so that you may give them to your fiancée.”

“You have despoiled your garden for my fiancée? Oh, how kind you are!” said Jean. As he embraced his uncle, he noticed that the old man’s eyes were full of tears.

“But why? They are your flowers. You should not have sacrificed them for me.”

With an affection that Jean had never known in him, M. Loigny put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and said gently to him:

“Yes, Jean, it was necessary. I am not crying for my roses, but for myself. They are not, they should never have been anything but a diversion instead of occupying all my time. Can you forgive me, Jean?”

“Forgive you?”

“Yes, I had positively forgotten life. I was afraid of its sorrows and troubles, and I took refuge in my garden. Many people commit the same cowardice, in another way. They are wrong, like me. Just now on the road, at the sight of your astonished face, I suddenly understood the harm I had done. For the sake of a rose, for a wicked autumn-flowering China rose, dark red turning to purple, I had lost sight of your happiness, your love, and my own duty. But all my flowers are there. When I came in I fell upon my rose bushes with this weapon.” He still had the pruning shears in his left hand, instrument of his atoning sacrifice.

Jean tried to interpose.

“But you loved flowers....”

“No, no,” said the old man. “Don’t attempt to make excuses for me. Your father and mother are dead, Jean. It was my business to replace them as well as I could. Everyone has his obligations. If it is not towards his family, it is towards his neighbor. While I was watering my plants, you were growing up in my house, and I never even noticed it I am only too happy to give you these roses for her whom you have chosen. My life is changed from now on. I have thought more in a few hours than during the last twenty years. In the future, Jean, count on me. I want to help your young household. I have spent my little fortune vainly on my rose-bushes instead of thinking of your welfare.”

“We won’t think about that,” broke in the young man, now overwhelmed with emotion.

“On the contrary, we will think about it,” said his uncle. “Late in the day I am going to be of some use. The autumn roses are often the finest.”

Jean took him in his arms.

“I love you, my dear uncle.”

“To-morrow you will take those bouquets to Le Maupas.”

“We will divide them in two lots, if you agree,” said Jean. “We will put one on my parents’ grave and we will offer the other to Paule.”

“Yes,” agreed the old man, and repeated without knowing it the very words of the younger when he came back from Africa. “We must honor the dead but have faith in life.”

Thus the rose-lover found peace of mind in the ruin of his garden.

CHAPTER X
NIOBE’S LAST CHILD

On a dark morning in December a few women slipped like shadows through the snow which deadened their footsteps, to Saint-Real and Metropole Streets, which lead to the Cathedral at Chambéry. As one entered the church the half-open door showed the flickering rays of the lamp running along the dark arches. Toward this trembling lamp they hurried, in spite of the cold and the darkness, as though they had come to beg light and warmth from it. Humble housewives, shop-girls, workwomen, servants, they rose early before their work and hastened to the first Mass as though to some secret meeting-place. They came one by one, sometimes recognizing one another in the porch. Already filled with respect for the sanctity of the place, they spoke in low voices. They all joined together in a group constantly growing more and more compact in one of the side chapels, where two candles, which a choir boy was lighting, showed the place of the holy sacrifice. Walking slowly and carefully on account of the frost on the pavement, Madame Guibert allowed herself to be outdistanced by some of the more active women. Nevertheless she was one of the first to enter. She had never forgotten her old habit, always to be ahead of time. She knelt a little to the side and isolated herself in prayer. She had great need of divine help, and begged for it with her whole soul. That very day she was to know the bitterness of being alone. The moment had come for Niobe to give up her youngest child, the one whom she held in her arms and which till now the gods had spared to her. Paule and her husband would leave Chambéry at three o’clock on their journey to Tonkin to rejoin their brothers on the island of Kébao.

The marriage had been celebrated at Cognin in the first days of September. Then the young couple had gone to seek solitude among unknown faces in that other part of Savoy, whose matchless beauty is a miracle of softness, sweetness, and grace—the green plain of Chablais, fringed by the blue waters of Lake Leman and bounded by mountains with their lazy curves wooded to the summit, and further off outlined by rugged peaks which raise their barren whiteness to the blue of the sky and in the evening seem like flagstaffs that reflect on their banners the light of the setting sun. Autumn above all gives this enchanted country its fullest power to stir the emotions. With its blending, dying harmonies it tempers the excessive gaiety which summer lavishes on it; it changes the ringing laughter of water and meadow, plain, and mountain, to that smile of pleasure which knows itself short-lived and yet wishes to rejoice.

Paule and Jean witnessed this autumnal magic. They saw the trees in the woods adorn themselves with a thousand splendid fleeting tints, and the vines which slope down to the shore dress themselves in gold. Their hearts learned the better to appreciate the lesson, already familiar to them, of the insecurity of love when it makes itself its sole end, and, taking the time of a kiss for the time of day, fails to build upon the only sure foundation—a life lived in sympathetic accord and consecrated to the continuity of the race.

They came back to Le Maupas when the vines had been gathered and the meadows harvested, when the brilliance of the sun, the softness of the air, and the grace of the earth increased in proportion to the barrenness round about and strove to detach man from self-centred thoughts. Paule kept very near her mother, as if to forget the threat of the future. And the future cast its shadow upon the present hour which saw mother and daughter reunited. Madame Guibert had been obliged to tell Paule of her wish to stay in Savoy. Jean then generously offered to give up his plans. Monsieur Loigny, his nature decidedly changed, wanted to help his nephew, and at the price of numerous headaches (for he had lost the habit of office work) tried to take stock of the little fortune which he had looked after so badly between two grafts of a rose-bush. He perceived too late that the garden is a bad speculation. Jean’s character and capabilities, Paule’s energy, the financial position of both families, all made them look to the Colonies for the establishment of their new home. Furthermore Étienne multiplied his appeals to them. He told of the prosperity of his business and was already prepared to guarantee their ultimate success. He begged his sister to bring their mother with her, that in her happy old age she might receive the homage of their filial devotion. Gently but obstinately Madame Guibert had refused.

“I am too old,” she said to Jean and Paule when they insisted. “How should I, who have never gone further than from Cognin to Chambéry and from Chambéry to Cognin, bear such a long journey? I should only be in the way. You will all come home to me in your turn. You will tell me about my grandchildren whom I do not know and whom I love, as I loved my own children before they were born.”

She smiled, so that no one might think of noticing her tears. But she reflected in her heart: “I feel that God is calling me. Now, now at last, my task is finished. I am nearer the dead than the living. When I am alone I will visit my husband more often and my little Thérèse, who are waiting for me in the cemetery. The memory of Marcel, who rests in Africa, will fill my heart. I will make only one journey more, and that will be to find my own again. Those left on earth have no more need of me. From afar I shall pray for them here, and then from above. I can do no more....”

Paule set her wits to work to give her mother daily proof of her love. For so many years she had eaten the bread of sorrow with her. The young wife was inclined to blame herself for her married joy on the eve of this separation, and Madame Guibert had to encourage her to be happy.

“I know what you are thinking about,” said Jean when he saw his wife’s sadness.

“I love you,” she replied. “I love you more than anyone in the whole world, but she ...”

Jean kissed her as he went on: “I am not jealous, Paule, and I understand your trouble so well....”

He had himself arranged for Madame Guibert’s life after their departure. He had installed her for the winter, in spite of her protests, in a little home in the Rue Saint-Real at Chambéry. There she would be less alone than at Le Maupus and would be in welcome proximity to the church.

“I do not wish to be a source of expense,” murmured the poor old lady.

But Étienne in Tonkin had quite agreed with his brother-in-law. And the neighborhood of the Cathedral led to the success of their plan. As the days went on, however, Paule felt her courage weaken while that of Madame Guibert increased. The latter was quite transfigured, and on her forehead with its deep wrinkles, in her clear eyes, on her pale cheeks, the radiancy of her soul shone forth. In the evening she talked to her two children about their future and poured into their hearts her own confidence in God, that confidence which cheerfully leaves to Providence the outcome of one’s own firmness, courage, and virtue.

This teaching, illustrated by her own noble example, they never forgot. Clinging to one another like travelers threatened by a storm, all three tasted the brief happiness of being together and at length sadly reached the morning of their separation. But Jean and Paule were still sleeping when Madame Guibert drew near to God, to find the supreme strength she would presently need.

Suffering souls, who seek in prayer forgetfulness and calm, love to frequent chapels at the hour when day is dying. Under the arches, where the light falling from the windows loses itself, they have a vague consciousness of a mysterious and peaceful presence. One may guess at the state of these stricken beings from the slow murmur of their lips, still more from their weary, hopeless attitudes as they kneel on the softest spots they can find for their knees. But the poor women who go to early Mass have more need of courage than of calm. Before their labors they seek strength and patience in the presence of Him who suffered all human sorrows without a murmur. Hardened by daily work, they do not appreciate a merely comfortable religion, but throw themselves into the faith as into refreshing water, from which they emerge with new life and spirit.

The altar bell had announced the beginning of the holy sacrifice. At one end an aged priest with bent head slowly recited the prayers, to which a sleepy little clerk made the responses.

Madame Guibert had chosen a dark corner, a little to one side, and was absorbed in her meditations. Her black dress and the widow’s veil that she still wore made her hardly distinguishable from the shadows. She ran over in memory the last days of her life and without difficulty found in them reason to bless and to thank her God. Had He not granted her what she had so long prayed for, in her own misery—the happiness of her daughter? Paule, her little Paule, not only the best beloved of all her children, but the most loving, and the support of her sad old age—how often had she called down divine blessings upon her, whom the family sorrows had most intimately touched. Doubtless in bestowing them, God would tear her heart. But since this was the necessary price, how could she have the cowardice to murmur against His beneficent Will or to hate the loneliness which was coming upon her that night?

“No, no,” she said in her prayer. “I will not pity myself, as we are so often tempted to do to excuse our weakness. My God, Thou wilt aid me in my need. I will be firm to-night. They shall not see me cry. I could not go with them. Thou hast warned me of my failing strength, and my work is done. My children will carry it on better than I could. I thank Thee for having in Thy goodness allowed me to see my daughter’s happiness. I entrust her to Thy protection during this long journey with her husband who has become my son.” All shaken with emotion she added: “I entrust to Thee, my God, yet another life, dark and uncertain, that of a little babe still to come, whom my hands will never receive in this world. Grant him health, intelligence, a firm spirit, and submission to Thy holy law. Grant him a long life in order that he may be able to serve Thee better. May he be strong and brave in well-doing, may he fear neither laughter nor tears, may he love work, and may he be to his mother what she has been to me.”

Some time before the happy Paule had told her of her dearest hope, which was confirmed as time went on. Her marriage was already blest. A new source of love and devotion had welled up in her.

When Madame Guibert lifted her head which she had hidden in her hands, she noticed that the priest was leaving the altar and she reproached herself.

“I have not heard Mass.” But she immediately felt reassured, for in her prayer she had found the peace she sought.

From here, from there, from chair and bench, one by one the congregation rose and went to the door. They were going to their daily work with quiet hearts and bodies prepared. In her turn Madame Guibert left the church. Outside day was scarcely breaking over the snow on the roofs and streets—that sad winter’s day which would see her come back from the station alone.

She turned the key in the lock and on tip-toe crossed the passage full of trunks to go to the kitchen noiselessly. Old Marie was already preparing breakfast.

“Monsieur has just gone out to engage the omnibus,” she explained.

“Without any breakfast?” asked Madame Guibert, thoughtful as ever.

“He did not wish any. He just said he would not wait.”

“And Madame?”

“Madame who? Oh yes, Mademoiselle Paule! I cannot get used to calling her Madame. It’s funny, isn’t it? Mademoiselle is still asleep. There I go again, the same mistake. When one is old, one is good for nothing.”

“It can’t be helped, my poor Marie, we are both old.”

But both of them, paying little heed to what they were saying, were thinking of the parting to come. The servant, taking off her spectacles, passed her rough hand over her eyes. With her shaking fingers Madame Guibert tried to make Paule’s chocolate for the last time. She made it the way she knew her girl liked it. Then she listened at the door, knocked softly, went in, and found Paule in tears.

“Mother, mother! Tell me that I must go. I have not the strength myself to say it.”

Madame Guibert put the steaming cup on the bedside table, then she laid her wrinkled hand on her daughter’s forehead.

“Dear little one,” she said, “I wanted to wait on you myself this morning, and I ordered these rolls that you like so much.” She bent over her and in a low voice, as she kissed her, murmured: “Be brave, Paule. It is God’s wish. Your husband’s love assures me that you will be happy. And do not be alarmed about me.”

But their tears still flowed. Jean came back and saw the two women locked in each other’s arms. He thought that Paule was trying to comfort her mother.

“We will come back, Mother,” he said. “We will come back, I swear it. Next year you will have Étienne and his wife and in two years you will see us.”

But when Madame Guibert turned to him, he saw with surprise that she was not crying and that the consolations came from her, not Paule.

“In two years,” she thought, “where shall I be?” But she answered gravely: “Jean, love your wife dearly. When you are far from me, that thought will be my strength. God is so good and watches over us. We shall be more closely united than ever when we are separated. Our thoughts and our hearts will be one. Distance is nothing when one is sure of love.”

With a solemnity that came quite naturally to her and affected her voice quite unconsciously, she went on: “You must love each other. Don’t make of your love a source of weakness. Gather from it and your mutual confidence more resolution, more courage in life. Look ahead of you. When you look behind you, towards our dead and towards me, may it not be to find discouragement there, but to understand your own youth better, and all that God expects from it.”

Jean and his wife had taken her hands and were listening to her without interruption.

“Yes,” she continued, as if she were unfolding the future, “look before you, towards your work, towards the family that will come after you. Give your sons and daughters brave souls and make them look ahead in their turn, with eyes in which your past will have shaped their outlook.”

They were both weeping, while she remained peaceful and calm.

“My blessing is on you,” she concluded. “On you, my little Paule, for your loving daughterly goodness to me and your devotion to your brothers. On you, Jean, for the friendship you have shown to Marcel and for all the happiness that I see in your eyes, in spite of the tears.”

Her firmness did not break down till the moment of departure. She cheered her tearful daughter in the name of the little one whom the young wife carried under her heart. But Paule could not resign herself. She kept on kissing her, hastened to speak again, and sometimes turned towards her husband to say to him: “I love you, dear, all the same; you know that.”

Madame Guibert insisted on going to the station with them. There they found several friends, who had come to say good-bye. M. Loigny was ill and had not been able to come out on account of the cold and the damp roads, but his Fanchette brought for his niece some hothouse flowers. Some distance away Madame de Marthenay, looking quite thin in spite of her furs and very pale, was watching a favorable moment to kiss Paule. The latter noticed her and came up to her. After a second’s hesitation the two women threw themselves into each other’s arms.

“Still unhappy?” Paule asked gently, reading the sorrow in her old friend’s face.

“Still. But what of you, Paule?”

They both turned to Madame Guibert. Very quickly Madame Berlier murmured: “Do you want to do me a great kindness, Alice? Go to see Mother often, look after her a little, and write to me about her health.”

“I promise you I will,” said Alice with deep emotion as they parted. Soon after Madame Guibert was left alone with her daughter and her son-in-law. As before, her last words at the moment of separation were a prayer: “May God keep you!” But when the train had carried them out of sight she touched her forehead and felt that it was icy-cold.

“It was time, my God,” she thought. “I had no more strength left.” She was forced to sit down in the third class waiting-room. The passengers who came and went, occupied with their luggage and their tickets, did not even notice the poor old woman in mourning who sat sobbing there. She had become a humble weak creature again. But she had had the strength to hide her suffering from her children.

Alone in the railway carriage with his beloved, Jean pressed her to his breast. She had quite broken down and her head leaned against the heart which beat for her only. He said nothing to her, knowing the uselessness of words. He gently stroked her cheek and from time to time bent down to kiss the eyes whose tears he could not stop. When she raised her head a little he comforted her by saying: “We will come back, Paule.” She shook her head, doubtful of this return, or because she did not yet wish to be consoled.

“I love you, Jean,” she sighed, and began to weep afresh.

Then he spoke to her of her mother.

“Paule, she is setting us a splendid example of heroism and self-sacrifice. May we never forget it! And if later on, in many years to come, we have occasion to imitate her may her memory still be present with us. Oh, may the child who is coming to us be like her!”

Paule was listening to him more calmly, and he added: “May God protect both our child and her whom we have left behind with a broken heart!”

“Yes, I will pray,” she said. “It was God who gave my mother the resignation that she tried to implant in me.”

In her young life, she had known many hours of anguish and mourning; but she had never known a more painful one than this. She thought she tasted the bitterness of death, yet in reality her life was stirring to its inmost depths. Her love was purified, all unknown to her, in that divine flame of maternal sacrifice of which she was more and more to appreciate the value.

As the railway passed in front of the oak wood which is neighbor to Le Maupas, Jean and Paule looked at the familiar landscape through the window. The tree-branches bore snowflakes for leaves, their whiteness tinted by the setting sun. On the vine-row hung a lacework of frost.

Here it was, and here alone, that Paule had learned to know life, death, and love. She thought of the proud, passionate, young girl, whose boast was the care with which she watched over her mother.

“Kiss me,” she cried to her husband. “I have so much need of love to be able to go away from here!”

Jean took her in his arms. And the kiss they gave each other spread a sacred thrill through their veins; for to that union of their body and soul they added the filial devotion of the past and that mysterious hope for the future which made their lives so much fuller and gave an immortal meaning to their love.

CHAPTER XI
PEACE

Madame Guibert rose with difficulty from the bench on which she had seated herself to weep. She saw a few strangers passing hurriedly and wished to hide her sorrow.

“I cannot stay here any longer,” she thought When she stood up she had to hold on to the wall and she wondered if she would have the strength to reach the house.

She felt her age and her weakness hanging like heavy weights on her shoulders. She remembered the day when she dragged herself through the endless chestnut avenue at La Chênaie. On the threshold of the station she thought anxiously of the long road home. But accustomed as she was to spend nothing on herself she did not dream of hiring one of the cabs in the Square.

She set out slowly, leaning on the umbrella which served her as a stick and putting her feet down carefully so as not to slip on the snow. The hardships of her journey made her forget her sorrow, but when she stopped a moment she whispered gently the name of Paule—of Paule who would never, never be her help again. Her mind was following the two dear ones who were carrying away with them all her happiness.

“They have reached the waterfall at Coux now.... O God!”

As she was crossing the bridge over the muddy waters of the Leysse she stopped and leaned on the parapet to take breath. At that moment she heard someone call. “Madame Guibert,” said the voice, “will you allow me to come with you?” It was Madame de Marthenay, who had watched her from the station, hesitating between the wish to help her, according to the promise she had made to Paule, and the fear of breaking in upon her absorbing sorrow. Seeing her now in distress, she came forward.

Madame Guibert was so tired that she took the arm offered to her. In her sorrow she hardly spoke during the walk home. Alice, with tactful delicacy, tried to console her in talking of the joy her children would have when they saw her again. On the doorstep Paule’s mother thanked her gratefully.

“But I am going to help you upstairs,” Madame de Marthenay insisted.

“You are very kind. Thank you very much.” And when they were at the head of the stairs she added: “Come in for a minute. You must rest a little. I leaned very heavily on your arm along the road.” The poor weary eyes in their appeal laid bare the tragedy of the desolate home.

“I shall be very glad,” said Alice, moved to deep sympathy as she followed the old lady into a bedroom, changed by means of a screen into a little sitting-room by day. Marie the maid, still overwhelmed by “Mademoiselle’s” departure, brought in a telegram.

“Here is a message,” she said, with a hostile glance at the elegant Madame de Marthenay.

With difficulty, and shaking all over, Madame Guibert tore open the envelope. She could never open one of those little blue papers without trembling for they might have a message of death in them. But her face cleared immediately. As she read, Alice was looking round her mechanically at the simple and modest, almost conventional, furniture. Her eyes fell on the enlarged photograph of Marcel. She went up to it. The Commander wore his disdainful, impassive air in the picture, which dated from his return from the Sahara.

Madame Guibert turned round and saw her contemplating her son’s photograph. She regretted having brought her into the room. But as she went up to her, Alice looked at her and burst into tears.

“What is the matter?” asked Madame Guibert.

“Oh! Madame, Madame!” cried the young woman, and she sobbed out her secret to Marcel’s mother. “I loved him! If only you knew how I loved him!”

In profound pity, Madame Guibert gazed on the woman who had given her son his distaste for life. She knew from Paule that at the time of Marcel’s death the photograph of a little girl had been found in the breast-pocket of his tunic. Of a “little girl” indeed! How true it was that he had set his affections on a child.

“Poor little one,” she said, stroking Alice’s cheek as she sat drooping in a chair. In face of this sorrow waiting to be consoled, she forgot her own misery and immediately recovered her presence of mind and her courage.

“Alice, my dear, calm yourself,” she repeated. But Madame de Marthenay still sobbed. She finished with those words which she had uttered already, the words which summed up her distress: “Why am I not his widow? I should be less miserable.”

“But you did not wish to be his wife,” Madame Guibert murmured gently.

“Oh yes, I did, for I loved him. It was my people.” She did not accuse her mother only. But the old lady shook her head and in a lower voice she said, quite close to her ear, as she continued to stroke her cheek: “Poor little girl—you did not know how to love.”

Alice attempted to protest.

“No,” repeated Madame Guibert, “you did not know how to love. When you give your heart it is for ever. And love gives you strength and patience and endurance. Your mother was seeking your happiness, dear, but she was seeking it in her own way. She thought she was acting right when she turned you from my son. Don’t blame her, only blame yourself. There was no doubt that Madame Dulaurens would have yielded in the long run, to a real affection, because she loved you and would have seen the object of your love to be worthy of her approval.” She did not notice that she had drawn away her hand, and under the influence of the past she reiterated: “No, you did not want to be Marcel’s wife.”

Alice was quite crushed and could only whisper, “I love him still.” Distractedly she clung to her fruitless love.

In a firmer voice Madame Guibert went on: “You were afraid of life. Your parents were afraid for you. Life, Alice, does not mean just amusement and worldly excitement. To live means to feel one’s soul, all one’s soul. It means to love, to love with all one’s strength, always, to the end, and even to the point of sacrifice. You must not fear either suffering or great joy or great sorrow. They reveal our higher nature. We must take from the fleeting days the happiness that endures. The girl who marries comes to share in work and danger, not just to seek greater ease or more frivolous pleasures. In her very devotion she will find more delight. You do not know this.”

Alice, encouraged, thought as she listened attentively, “Nobody ever talked to me like this before.”

“Even now,” went on Madame Guibert, “even in this hour when my heart is broken, I can only thank God who has heaped His blessing on me. It surprises you, my dear, that I can talk of my happiness to you to-day. It is true nevertheless. I am happy. If God asked me to begin my life all over again, I would do so. And yet, I have seen the dearest faces cold and still, and I have known the cruellest form of death for a mother—that which strikes her child far away. But through my husband, through my sons and daughters, I realised all my heart and what may come upon us by the divine goodness. My life has been quite full, since it was mixed with theirs. Now I am no longer alone. My beloved dead keep me company and the living do not desert me. Look at this telegram I have had from Étienne. He knows that Paule has left me to-day and he is comforting me in the name of them all. I had need of it!”

“Madame!” whispered Alice, kissing her hand.

“Yes, my dear, I have loved my life, I have loved life itself. And I can die, even alone, even if strange hands close my eyes. God has made my lot a very beautiful one and death will find me obedient and resigned.” Her clear eyes shone with a holy ecstasy.

Alice, her heart at peace, looked at her respectfully and admiringly.

“Go on talking to me,” she begged as Madame Guibert was silent.

The latter looked at her long and tenderly, then again stroking her cheek, she said:

“My child, you must promise me something.”

“Oh, Madame, I will promise you anything you like.”

“Try not to think about Marcel. You have no more right to. Accept your new life, as it is, without any regrets. God expects you to be brave enough to give up all your old dreams. You were wrong to make your husband change his career. Work is the true nobility of life. Help him to find some work, and atone for your mistake.”

“He has deserted me, Madame Guibert.”

“Idleness was perhaps the reason for that. Try to forgive him. Put your heart into your advice. Let him look after his estate, or interest himself in the affairs of the town. You will see that all is for the best. You may still be happy. Your daughter will help you. Is a woman ever to be pitied who has a child? Prepare this young life to be virtuous and strong. Love her, not for yourself but for herself. And God’s peace will rest on you.”

“Oh, if you would only have me here sometimes and talk to me,” said Alice eagerly, “I think I should take heart once more.” She never seemed to think that her presence might recall a painful memory to Madame Guibert. But it was only for a moment that the latter hesitated.

“Come here whenever you want me,” she answered simply.

When Madame de Marthenay had gone, Madame Guibert took Marcel’s photograph and placed it beside her bed, behind the screen.

“He will be nearer to me,” she thought. “And Alice will not see him again. She must not see his face if she is to do her duty bravely.”

Then she knelt and prayed:

“My God, Thou who art my strength, help me. I have now given up to Thee all that I have loved. I have nothing left to offer Thee but my sorrow. Accept it, and protect all my dear ones—the dead who rest and the living who are at work....”

When she rose to help Marie lay her modest table, her face glowed with a serene peace—the peace of those who wait fearlessly for death after having met life bravely.

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Table of Contents

- THE FEAR OF LIVING
- CONTENTS
- FOREWORD
- PREFACE
- THE FEAR OF LIVING
- THE FEAR OF LIVING
- PART I
- CHAPTER I MARCEL’S HOMECOMING
- CHAPTER II BROTHER AND SISTER
- CHAPTER III THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS
- CHAPTER IV A MORNING AT LA CHÊNAIE
- CHAPTER V ALICE’S SECRET
- CHAPTER VI MONSIEUR AND MADAME DULAURENS
- CHAPTER VII THE PROPOSAL
- CHAPTER VIII THE CONSPIRATORS
- CHAPTER IX THE FAREWELL
- CHAPTER X MARCEL’S DEPARTURE
- PART II
- CHAPTER I THIRTEEN AT TABLE
- CHAPTER II THE POLICEMAN’S MESSAGE
- CHAPTER III NIOBE
- CHAPTER IV THE PAGEANTRY OF DEATH
- CHAPTER V JEAN
- CHAPTER VI ISABELLE
- CHAPTER VII PAULE’S SECRET
- CHAPTER VIII MADAME GUIBERT
- CHAPTER IX THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES
- CHAPTER X NIOBE’S LAST CHILD
- CHAPTER XI PEACE
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE