Madame Bathilde Chalumeau, her black cotton frock tucked up round her plump figure over her scarlet-flannel petticoat, was dusting the windows of her shop in the Rue Dessous l'Arche.
It was only six o'clock and the air as yet was cool, but the trees leaning over the wall of Avocat Millot's garden opposite were grey with dust and parched with the heat of an exceptionally warm September.
Madame Chalumeau, who was standing on a chair energetically flopping her feather-brush over the panes of her double shop-front, sighed as she looked up at the brilliant sky. "It is to be a heat of the devil," she thought.
Next door to her,chezBouillard, nothing was stirring. Poor Désiré, being a widower, was apt to oversleep himself, and it was bad for his trade. Even now a small child in a black smock stood at his door, waiting to fill his carafe with the black wine that had stained its sides to such a beautiful violet hue.
"Bonjour, Christophe——"
"Bonjour, madame."
"You want wine?"
"Oui, madame."
"Then wait a moment and I will get it for thee."
Good Madame Chalumeau climbed down from her chair with a generous display of fat, black woollen legs and unpinned her skirt.
"Bon!M. Bouillard sleeps the fat morning, but I can get in, and you will get a beating if you keep your excellent father waiting."
Taking the carafe, she passed under the archway that separated her house from her neighbour's, and, her broad figure actually touching the wall on either side, went to Bouillard's side-door and entered the house.
When she came out, the carafe full, Bouillard himself, fat and rosy with sleep, was standing in his shop door. "Madame Bathilde, good day to you! So you have again saved me from a commercial loss!" Désiré Bouillard had a witty way with him, his far shrewder neighbour thought—had thought for years.
And then, quite without consciousness or amusement, they enacted the little comedy that had been played by them every morning since poor Madame Bouillard died.
"And your morning coffee, M. Bouillard?"
"Tiens, mon café! Hélas non, Madame Bathilde, I am but this moment awake—what time is it?"
Just inside the door of Madame Chalumeau's shop, Au Gout Parisien, hung a clock.
"It is ten minutes to seven."
"Eh, bien, au revoir, Madame Bathilde—I must go and set things going in my small household. Alas, poor Joséphine!"
Madame Chalumeau shook her head with great gravity.
"A great loss, M. Bouillard; an irreparable loss. But—my coffee is nearly ready. Will you not let me give you a cup? There are also an Auvergnat" (a double twist of well-made bread) "and a Bourdon sent me by my cousin, Madame Decomplet, of the Rue d'Argentan——"
And ten minutes later the two gossips, as the pleasant old phrase runs, were seated in Madame Chalumeau's little sitting-room behind her shop, breakfasting together.
Monsieur Bouillard's Joséphine had been dead for seven long years, and in her life she had tormented the good man full sore; even as the Church invariably defers canonisation until long after the death of the saint, so Désiré's appreciation of his wife's splendour of character was a post-mortem tribute to be accepted without a murmur by all the faithful.
"I recall to myself every morning, Madame Bathilde," he began, removing a large blob of honey from the dimple in his pink chin, "how that angel used to arise and prepare herself for her day's work. And of an economy! Charcoal did for her four times what it will for me. And times are hard!"
Bathilde sighed sympathetically. "My faith, yes; she was a wonderful manager,pauvre ange. The milk is at your elbow, M. Désiré——"
Outside in her tiny garden a bee boomed somnolently among the red and yellow flowers, and somewhere near at hand a church bell jerked its unmusical summons to prayer.
Madame Chalumeau's face, glossy and red-and-white like a Norman apple, wore an expression of anxious expectation. Moreover, she had put on a narrow lace collar and pinned it with a coral brooch. It was the fifth of the month.
M. Désiré ate his way through the generously laid meal with comfort and deliberation, his small blue eyes, deeply embedded in pink flesh, twinkling with ease.
As the clock struck half-past seven he laid his knife down and wiped his beardless mouth.
"Bathilde," he said, "you are very kind to a poor afflicted mourner."
"Ah—Désiré!"
She was a woman of much sense, and she did not try to be coy.
"My heart, as you know, lies in the grave with my poor Joséphine——"
"But of course, my dear friend——"
"But—man is not fit to live all alone. And I am convinced that if I could ask her, that angel would——" He paused and looked approvingly round the tidy, comfortable little room.
"Yes—Désiré? She would——"
"I think she would—wish me to do the best I can for myself. And that, of course—I mean to say I imagine——"
Poor Bathilde's hopes died suddenly.
"She was always so generous-minded," she murmured, folding her plump hands.
He rose and walked to the shop door.
"Anything new to show me,chèreMadame Chalumeau?" he asked briskly.
"Yes; some coloured tablecloths, very pretty, at one franc seventy-five—and—some other things. But, Désiré, you were saying about living alone—that you thought Joséphine would be glad——"
"I did not say she would be glad, Madame Chalumeau. My wife was nevergladabout anything. I said—in fact, I may as well be quite frank," he continued, turning to her, "I am a lonely man, and I am—greatly attracted to you, dear friend. But as I have told you before, I—I cannot quite make up my mind as to whether I should be happier if I married you."
"I could make you very comfortable, Désiré, and I, too, am lonely. Besides, your accounts are very confused, and I could save you much money in that way."
A shrewd woman, this, but greatly mistaken in her methods. A useless, lazy, coquettish woman would have married the man years before, but poor Bathilde's very frankness was her undoing.
"Yes, yes," he returned impatiently, "I know all that, and my affection for you is great. But as to marriage—I cannot yet make up my mind. And in the meantime I must leave you, dear friend, for it is late. A thousand thanks for the delicious breakfast——" and he was gone.
The tragedy of M. Bouillard's indecision was very real to Madame Chalumeau, but it was also one to which the good woman was thoroughly accustomed. For over three years M. Bouillard had twice yearly, on the fifth of March and the fifth of September, tried to bring himself to make up his mind, but he had always failed, and after his attempts things had continued as before.
Every morning he breakfasted with her, every Sunday and Feast-day he accompanied her to Mass, and occasionally he took her to drink a glass of Hydromel at the Café du Musée. He was a prosperous man in a small way, and considered attractive by the widows and elderly maidens of Falaise; but no one dreamed of disputing Madame Chalumeau's sway over his heart. In time, Falaise thought, the two excellent people would become one. But time is long.
So Bathilde, that fifth of September, felt a little sad as she worked in her neat little shop. And so it is that Love is a troublesome little vagabond, who ought to have his wings clipped and his bow broken.
There were few customers, for although her wools and silks were of excellent quality, and her baby-linen most practical, the Rue Dessous l'Arche is, after all, not the Rue d'Argentin. A little girl with a bandage round her face came and bought six needles, and a Young Person, whom Madame Chalumeau did not approve, spent several moments selecting a pair of red stockings. Otherwise the shopkeeper's solitude remained undisturbed until towards noon, when the door opened and a short, brown-faced man, carrying a long whip, came in with a good deal of noise, and waked her as she dozed over her knitting.
"Bonjour, Thildette! Frightened you, did I?"
"Oh, Colibris, it is you! And what brings you? You will breakfast with me? But I am glad to see you, dear brother? How is Marie?"
"Tà, tà, tà, tà!" laughed M. Colibris, who looked like nothing in the world less than he looked like a humming-bird, "so many questions, my excellent Thildette! Yes, I will breakfast—a cheese omelet, my dear, and a glass of cider—and Marie is as well as one could expect. Ah, these children, these children! It is a boy, of course. A boy with fists as big as his head."
Madame Chalumeau had risen, and had led her guest through the sitting-room into her immaculate kitchen.
"And you have seen papa and maman?" she asked.
"Yes, I come from there. Papa is much pleased that it is a boy. His eleventh great-grandson! One would think," continued the good man garrulously, "that it was his own son. Maman is looking much better,pas?"
"Mama is quite wonderful. But amazing! And the preparations are something splendid. I suppose this new boy will contribute his share to the wedding ring for maman?"
"But certainly. It is lucky there are no more of us men to contribute, or we should have had to have the ring studded with diamonds. A fine sight it will be, Bathilde. Think of papa and mama married at St. Gervais by the same curé that married them fifty years ago! And twenty grandchildren, to say nothing of their seven children, and counting this boy of my Marie's, sixteen great-grandchildren. Falaise has certainly much to be proud of."
Madame Chalumeau flopped her omelet again, slid it to a platter and set a carafe of cider on the table.
"Là!Now eat, Colibris, and tell me more. How is Louis? And Henriette?"
"All well, all well," returned her brother-in-law, who was apparently full of the quality, the name of which is so often abused by English people,joie-de-vivre. "Henriette has new upper teeth, and looks ten years younger. Louis is as usual very silent, but otherwise is well. I am curious to see Victor. It was a misfortune, my being away when he was here last. He must have been greatly disappointed. He has always been very fond of me, you will remember. Even as boys, we had much in common."
Madame Chalumeau's eyes twinkled as she nodded. Colibris' harmless vanity always amused her.
"Yes, yes, I know. He inquired very particularly for you. A great man, Victor."
"Yes, yes. I remember once when we were boys a man came who felt the skull and read the character. He said to Victor, 'You have great talent, my little one,' and to me he said, 'You are going to be a very great man, Colibris.' But I did not care to develop my talents. I was always very modest and domestic. The curé at home always says, 'Now, Jacques Colibris—there'sa man who is a model husband and father.'" He drank a deep draught of cider.
"They arrive to-morrow," interpolated Madame Chalumeau hastily, with a hunted expression, "Victor and Félicité and Théodore. Also Théo'sfiancée, an English girl. I have a letter from Victor—I will read it to you."
Taking the letter from her pocket, and ruthlessly interrupting his remarks on the English as viewed by himself, she began to read:
"My dear Sister—On Tuesday we shall arrive, I, my wife, our boy, and hisfiancée, Lady Brigit Mead. She is a very beautiful and charming young lady, and I am sure you will all admire her. Félicité, who is very wise, fears that she, Lady Brigit, may not care for Falaise, for she is, my dear sister, the daughter of a Count. But I, who am even wiser, know that she will. Dear Falaise, to me always the most beautiful town in the world, who could help loving thee? Now, my good Bathilde, I wish you to go to Berton of the Chevreuil d'Or and engage rooms for Lady Brigit. Two rooms, one without a bed, for asalon. Tell him they must be very nice, and you, I know, will see that they are clean. We, of course, will lodge in the Rue Victor Hugo with the old people. My affectionate salutations to you all, my dear sister, from your devoted brother,Victor."
"My dear Sister—On Tuesday we shall arrive, I, my wife, our boy, and hisfiancée, Lady Brigit Mead. She is a very beautiful and charming young lady, and I am sure you will all admire her. Félicité, who is very wise, fears that she, Lady Brigit, may not care for Falaise, for she is, my dear sister, the daughter of a Count. But I, who am even wiser, know that she will. Dear Falaise, to me always the most beautiful town in the world, who could help loving thee? Now, my good Bathilde, I wish you to go to Berton of the Chevreuil d'Or and engage rooms for Lady Brigit. Two rooms, one without a bed, for asalon. Tell him they must be very nice, and you, I know, will see that they are clean. We, of course, will lodge in the Rue Victor Hugo with the old people. My affectionate salutations to you all, my dear sister, from your devoted brother,
Victor."
"He is a charming personality, isn't he, Colibris?" asked Madame Chalumeau, folding the letter and beaming with satisfaction. "I am curious to see this lady. The daughter of a Count,fichtre! And very beautiful. That must please Victor; he has an eye for beauty."
"Yes, yes," returned Jacques Colibris absently, filling his glass with cider, "it is an excellent thing. I, too, have it, the eye for beauty. Only the other day, looking at the new blue wash I have put on the walls, old Madame Thibaut was saying——"
"What an eye for beauty you have!" cut short Madame Chalumeau ruthlessly. "Well, Jacques, I must now make myself presentable and go to the Rue d'Argentin. Berton will no doubt be very proud to have a lady in his inn—although many English people stop there. It is curious," she added, putting her plate on his and carrying them to a distant table, "what an interestces Anglaistake in le Conquérant. As an enemy, one who conquered their country, one would think they would dislike his memory, but they do not. Very generous of them, I always think."
Joyselle's party arrived at Falaise the next evening, and leaving Brigit at the inn in the Rue d'Argentin, the others drove on to old M. Joyselle's house in the Rue Victor Hugo.
Brigit was very tired and glad to rest, for the day's journey had been long, and Joyselle's interest in her interest in his country had taken the form of a restless desire to have her see everything possible from both sides of the compartment. For hours, therefore, she had been springing from one window to another, admiring everything to which he pointed, in a mad attempt to satisfy his pride inici-bas.
Her coming at all had been entirely his idea, and her faint refusals he had laughed to scorn, easily enlisting Théo, and, with a trifle more difficulty, his wife, to his cause.
"Of course you will go with us," he had cried, beaming with joy and tossing Papillon nearly to the ceiling as some outlet for his feelings, "and it will be glorious; and think of the ecstasy of my old people and the rest!"
"Remember, Victor—they are simple people," Félicité had ventured, but he had laughed again.
"And so is she! They are peasants, and she is a great lady.Ça se comprend.But extremes meet, and Brigit has none of the British middle-class snobbism. It is well that she should see the people from whom we come. She shall go with us."
And she had come.
Things had gone very well of late, and as she lay on her narrow bed resting and waiting for Théo to fetch her, she reviewed the events that had occurred since her great quarrel with Victor, and drew a deep breath of satisfaction at the state of affairs.
She and Joyselle, both of them remembering the horror of the quarrel, had been exceptionally gentle to each other, and as so often happens when a situation is apparently unbearable, it had suddenly become quite smooth and pleasant. Restraining himself from demonstrativeness, Joyselle had been able to keep his emotions well in hand, and the tacit avoidance oftêtes-à-têtehad also proved most helpful.
Félicité's innocent interpretation of their feelings had gone far, too, towards quieting those feelings almost to her conception of them. There were times, Brigit had seen, not without amusement, when Victor had nearly felt for her the paternal solicitude his wife believed him to feel, and even though she smiled at this susceptibility to impression in him, the girl more than once caught herself semi-unconsciously playing therôleof youthful hero-worshipper cast for her by the older woman.
The position should have been untenable, but it was not. As yet no remorse had come to Brigit regarding Félicité, although she frequently experienced a pang of self-loathing on meeting Théo's honest and trusting eyes. Her upbringing had been such that she really believed herself to be as yet quite guiltless of anything more than an almost inevitable deceit, and even when she did regret the deceit, the thought that she was going to marry Théo gave her instant comfort, as though she were contemplating some noble act of atonement.
"Victor is very good now," she thought, turning her flat, hard pillow, "and I am much less nervous and irritable. Things always do straighten themselves out, I suppose—for those who know how to wait. Mere waiting does no good, it's the knowing how that counts. And I think we are learning now. If only Théo would fall in love with someone else. The minute he becomes unhappy or even impatient Victor will grow paternal, and that is horrible. Théo seems happy enough now——"
Her room was small and high, with orange-coloured stencillings on a grey ground, and thin, dangerously movable strips of carpet on the slippery floor. The curtains were of blue flannel and thoroughly unbeautiful.
The sitting-room was exactly like the bedroom, except that its stencilling was bright green and that it had no bed. There was in each room a big bunch of dahlias of gorgeous hues—offerings from Madame Chalumeau.
Yellow Dog Papillon, who had been left with Brigit to keep her company, lay on one of the rugs and snapped rudely at flies. It was very warm, and the tea had proved quite undrinkable. Brigit thought that she did not greatly care for the Chevreuil d'Or.
Then eight o'clock struck and she rose and rang for hot water. The "maid," who was incidentally a grandmother, wore a blue skirt and a red blouse and smiled cheerfully and toothlessly.
"Yes, yes, mademoiselle,de l'eau chaude. I have brought it!Je connais ma clientèle, moi." With a proud smile she set down a jug about as large as a milk-jug for two coffee-drinkers, and withdrew.
Smiling to herself, Brigit dressed and then went into her sitting-room, and opening a window looked down into the street.
It is a most important thoroughfare, this Rue d'Argentin; the Rue de la Paix de Falaise.
Leaning out the window and looking to her left Brigit beheld the Place St. Gervais, with its fountain, its market-place, now of course empty, and its church steps, on which beggars sleep by day. Opposite her was acafé, at present enlivened by the dashing presence of two foot-soldiers and an old man playing dominoes with himself.
Above the houses the sky was pale and clear, and from a garden off to the right at the end of the street came a cooing of wood-pigeons.
Two little boys in black blouses came running up the street, their sabots clacking against the rough cobbles. Someone was playing a mandolin, and at the foot of the street, near the bridge, a girl in a pink apron was flirting with a youth with curly red hair.
People stood by their shop doors, the men smoking small clay pipes, the women usually with a child or two at their skirts. A quiet scene, dull and homely, this birthplace of the Conqueror, and at this humble end of the great street rather pathetic in its aspect of simple relaxation.
Suddenly a little ripple of excited interest touched the groups in the street. The two soldiers rose and stared hard to their left; M. Perret of the Pharmacie Normale came out at a quick call from his wife, and stood, pestle in hand, as she struggled with a maddening knot in the strings of her black apron.
Brigit, leaning out still further, laughed aloud.
"Victor," she said under her breath. "Oh,lookat him! You old sabreur!"
Joyselle, a great purple flower in his coat, came swinging down the street, bowing right and left, his grey felt hat in his gloved hand. He looked amazingly young and amazingly handsome, and there was no mistaking the fact that, great man though he undoubtedly was, he was hugely enjoying the homage of his townspeople.
When he reached the Pharmacie Normale he paused, and shaking hands politely with Madame Perret, he met M. Perret with open arms, and the little apothecary, bounding at him, was caught and kissed on either cheek.
"Ce cherAnatole!" Brigit heard him exclaim, "and how art thou, old one?"
Perret, greatly delighted, skipped about in rapture, inquiring in a high piping voice for Félicité and the boy, and asking many questions for which he waited for no answer.
Then there was a lady from the shop,Au Bonheur des chers Petits, to be greeted very cordially, and the old domino-player, who, Brigit learned, was a cousin.
There was something very charming in the simplicity of Joyselle's pleasure in seeing his boyhood's friends, and something almost ludicrous in his perfectly obvious joy in their homage.
Looking down at him in his oft-interrupted progress, Brigit told herself that things must turn out all right. "He is so good-natured and generous and strong," she reflected, with glad shifting of all responsibility, "he will surely find some way out."
When at last she heard his light, regular footfall coming down the passage she rose and went to meet him.
"So the Conquering Hero has come," she teased. "I have been watching your advance down the street. Such a strut!"
"Did I strut? I daresay. They are my own people and I love their affection. Also, as you say, it pleases my vanity.Hélas, my dear, I am very vain."
She put on her hat and took up her gloves.
"I thought Théo was coming for me, Glorieux."
His face changed. "No, my dear love. It ismytown, this. Here I was born, here I lived as a child. I must show it to you."
Taking her hand he laid it on his arm with a gentle little pat and led her proudly downstairs.
Opposite No. 6 Rue Victor Hugo is a long black wall, and in the middle of this wall an old-fashioned gas lantern was glowing red when Joyselle and Brigit arrived.
The moon had risen, and mingling with the red of the gas made that part of the narrow street almost as light as if it had been high noon.
"There is the house, ma Brigitte," murmured Joyselle, pressing her hand close to his side. When she had left the inn arm-in-arm with him, she had felt as though they must look perilously like a German bride and groom, but there was in his old-fashioned bearing as he guided her through the streets a kind of chivalrous courtesy that she liked, and she began to feel like a princess being presented to his people by her lord.
"There is their house. I gave it to them twenty-five years ago. It is their palace, their country-place, their world, to my old people."
Through a half-door in the opposite wall the girl could just catch a glimpse of the left side of the house. It was hung with trumpet flowers.
Beyond, a clearly defined square of moonlight showed her a smooth patch of lawn, beyond which the side of a creeper-clad arbour blocked the view.
"The dinner is to be in the garden; they are to sit in the arbour, and there will be many narrow tables all over the lawn, which is rather large behind the house. They are very much interested in it; all of us will be there, and our children, and—theirs. I am old, ma Brigitte——"
His voice fell sadly as this idea occurred to him, and she pressed his arm and smiled up at him, her face ruddy in the gaslight.
"You are young, my man; you will never grow old. And you will play at the dinner? And you will play to me? I always know when you play to me."
"Yes, for it is always. You are good to me now,bien-aimée."
His gentleness was wonderfully appealing, as it always was to her. The long respite from nerve-racking misunderstandings had allowed her to see more clearly the real beauty of his faulty character, and a wave of compunction came over her as she thought how little she, with her bad qualities of jealousy, selfishness and cruelty, deserved this beautiful love.
For she fully understood that only a deep, real love could so vanquish the lower part of his nature as to let the nobler triumph as it had of late.
"I adore you, my great man," she said, very low, and their eyes met.
Then they crossed the street and he, leaning over the closed half of the door in the wall, opened it and they went in.
It was nine o'clock, and the old people had had their supper. Brigit who had, thinking of their great age, rather expected to find them more or less mummy-like, sitting in comfortable chairs tended by a middle-aged relation, was somewhat amused to find them squabbling fiercely over a game of dominoes, each with a glass of cider at hand.
"Mon père—la voici," announced Joyselle, with a kind of simple pomposity eminently fitted to the occasion.
Old Joyselle finished his act of adding a domino to the long line before him and then looked up. He was a rather small, bent old man, with quantities of rough, curly grey hair and a petulant expression.
"Ugh!" he said rudely.
"Shake hands with him, Brigit," suggested Victor pulling his moustache to suppress a smile. Brigit held out her hand.
"I am very glad to meet you," she said in French.
The old man stared. Then he smiled, showing one snow-white tooth. "Tu parles," he murmured. Then he went back to his game.
The old woman, more polite, had risen, and was waiting her turn. She was very tall and had a heavy moustache.
"They told me you were beautiful," she began courteously, whereupon the old man interrupted, repeating her words but, by a change in emphasis, casting derisive doubts on whoever "they" might be. "Theytoldme you werebeautiful."
Brigit burst out laughing, and leaning forward smiled at the speaker.
"Well—am I not beautiful?" she asked with an infectious chuckle of sincere amusement.
But old Joyselle was a man of character, apparently, and not to be beguiled.
"Belle? Non, non. Pas ça. Mais—Victor,petit, surely you can't be going to marry a real lady?"
Joyselle flushed, and she knew his flush had to do only with his father's lapse of memory, not his reference to her ladyhood.
"Not I,mon père. I married Félicité, you know, It is our boy who is going to marry this—ugly lady."
His father shook his head. "Not ugly,mon fils." he declared solemnly, "not ugly. Onlyplain."
This time Brigit did not laugh. Something in the old man's half-vacant face touched her. He was Victor's father; he had held, as a little baby, the man she loved; he had worked for him and helped to make him what he was. Laying her hand on his, she smiled down at him.
"You are quite right," she said gently, "only plain. Will you show me how to play dominoes?"
"He can't," retorted Madame Joyselle, eagerly, "he has forgotten, and, besides, he cheats."
Joyselle walked to the window, his shoulders shaking, and before the old man could retort, Théo came into the room carrying a lacquered tin tray with a jug of cider and some glasses on it.
"Ah, you have come?Grand-père, grand-mère, what do you think of myfiancée?"
But Brigit drew him away and sat down on the ingeniously uncomfortable sofa with him.
"Fighting again, are they? Poor old dears, it really is quite dreadful. You see, grandfather used to be a fearful tyrant, though he is so little, and grandmother was deathly afraid of him until his health began to fail. So now she is getting even with him. They adore each other, however. Isn't the house quaint? Have you seen the garden?"
She shook her head. "No, show it to me."
Leaving the room they crossed to the oilclothed passage and went into the dining-room, a small apartment enlivened by an oleograph of Leo XIII., and some gay chromos.
The windows opened to the ground, and opening one the young people went out into the moonlight. Brigit was feeling very happy, and therefore very kind. When Théo put his arm round her and drew her to him she did not protest.
"Brigitte," he whispered, "I do so love you."
"Dear Théo——" Suddenly she remembered that other moonlight night, nearly a year before, when she had accepted him. She recalled the look of the beautiful old house, the sound of Tommy at the pianola, the splashing of the fountain, the sun-dial at which, in his boyish grief, he had knelt.
And she had accepted his love, not because she loved him but because she hated her home and because, besides being sufficiently rich to satisfy her needs, he was nice and straight and kind. She had taken everything he had, and what had she given him? Nothing.
In the moonlight she saw as if with new eyes that he had changed. The young contours of his cheek were less round, his eyes had a deeper expression. He had suffered, and he had not complained.
"Théo," she said suddenly, smitten with pity, "I—have been horrid to you. I—I am so frightfully selfish. Will you forgive me?"
His eyes glistened as he looked at her.
"Forgive you? You angel!"
"No, no. Ihavebeen horrid. But—I will be nicer. And—you are so good to me."
He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly:
"Brigitte—you are never horrid. But—if you do not—care for me at all—will you tell me now?"
She was abashed and then shivered. Here was the chance she had longed for. He would, she knew, give her up without a word if she asked him to; and she had also learned to know that whatever Joyselle might have done in like case a few months before, he would not refuse to see her now if she told him that she and Théo had agreed to separate.
Here was freedom to go her own way, unrebuked by her own conscience or the conscience of the man she loved.
Théo had turned away and stood with folded arms, awaiting her answer.
And she let her chance go by, for she could not bear to say the words that should hurt him, and in the quiet night under the shadow of the old house, it seemed to her that, after all, her happiness lay in this boy's hands. Not the wild rapture she had once or twice felt with Joyselle, but the kind of happiness that builds homes, and—she wanted a home.
Inexplicably tangled with her feelings for Théo, too, was that anything binding her to him bound her to his father. They were more than father and son, these two, they belonged together.
"I—do care for you," she said quietly. "I am not in love with you, but I will marry you."
As he turned and held out his arms to her, Joyselle appeared at the end of the lawn. Brigit did not see him, and going slowly to her lover allowed him to embrace her.
"Ma Brigitte,mon ange—I—how can I thank you. Ah, what I have felt these last five months! I have thought—oh, many things, of late."
His voice shook and was good to hear in its sincere emotion. For the moment in her new-born wish to be good to him she felt that she had done the wise thing, and was happy. He was good, and she would marry him and—life would go on for ever, as it had been the last few weeks.
Joyselle, standing quite still in the shadow, watched them for a moment. Then he turned and went back into the house.
The morning of the eighth of September dawned that year very gloriously, and Brigit Mead saw it dawn. Théo had begged her the evening before to go with him to the castle to see the sunrise, and pleased by the originality of the idea, she had accepted.
So while the sweet summer night still held sway over the pleasant Norman land, the two climbed the steep street leading to the gates under the ivy-grown bastions.
"Theconcièrgealways goes with visitors," the young man explained as they passed the little house and began mounting. "But father was at school with him, so I got a permit to go up alone."
"Is your father all right to-day, I wonder? Or will he be?" returned Brigit thoughtfully. "I never knew him to have a headache before."
"No more did I," answered Théo, running his words together as he did when he had been speaking much French. "He looked very seedy yesterday, but last night Tante Bathilde went in to see him while you and I were walking, and she said he was better."
They had reached the grassy ramparts and turned to the right. Night was now melting into day, only the great Tower of Talbot (who alas! never was in Falaise in his life) stood out against a faintly moonlit sky. And glancing over his right shoulder at the mantling west, Théo hurried Brigit past the Breach of Henri IV., with its crown of lilac trees, up the steep causeway to the Tower itself. "We must climb to see the sun, dearest," he said, "let us make haste. I am glad to be with you while you for the first time see it come up over the edge." He was very happy and looked rather splendid in his triumphant youth. Brigit smiled at him.
"I like your town," she answered, "and I like this view of it."
Through the little dungeon they ran and up the narrow crumbling stairs, laughing or crying out as they slipped or lost their breath, racing with the sun; a very remarkable thing for Brigit Mead to be doing, as she fully appreciated. And then, at the top, high in the splendid air, the town in its greenery looking like half a dozen eggs in a green nest, asleep below them.
And then, for the race was theirs, they watched the sun creep up until he set the east on fire.
Brigit, her hat off, her eyes bravely set to the east, stood motionless, and Théo, after saluting the risen king, drew back so that he got her profile against the sky and watched it.
She wore a short grey skirt and a grey silk shirt; there was about her not one touch of colour except for a beautiful pink the unwonted climbing had brought to her cheeks. Théo realised how great a mistake most women make in obliterating by bright tints the natural colours of their eyes and skins.
"You are so wonderful," he said suddenly.
She started, for there was in his tone something that vaguely disquieted her. It was like his father's voice, and like his father's when he was impatient and superficially stirred.
"A wonderful person, am I not?" she laughed, picking up her hat and putting it on, dashing a great cruel-looking hat-pin apparently straight through her brain. "I am also a hungry person, Théo. Are we to have food? I suppose no one will be awake for hours!"
It was indeed too early to hope for coffee, so they amused themselves by wandering up and down the stairs, throwing burning paper down the famous oubliette, and crossing perilously narrow ledges hand-in-hand.
"So William was born in this horrid little room? I don't believe it!"
"On le dit.And down there—see? by the tan-yards, Arlette was washing clothes when Robert the Devil saw her and fell in love with her."
"Remarkably fine eyesight he must have had to see enough to fall in love with!"
"Exactly. But that is the story. My mother's father was a tanner down there somewhere. He was fairly well-to-do for his position, and father was considered most audacious for aspiring to her hand!"
He laughed tenderly. "My dear old father! I am so proud of him, dear love, I can't express it at all."
"I know."
"And I am proud ofpetite mère, too. She was so brave and patient always, and he has led her a sad life at times. They were desperately poor, for her father left most of his money to his other daughter, who married Jacques Colibris. You must see my Uncle Jacques, he is quite delightful—and father was a gambler—and so on. I can myself remember one morning when he came in and told her he had lost two hundred pounds, and that was a fortune then."
"She told me about those times," answered Brigit, slowly. "She is very dear and good."
They were now going slowly down towards the town. It was five o'clock, and theconcièrge'schildren were scampering about, uncombed, as they passed the cottage.
"We'll go to the Musée and knock up old Malaumain," declared Théo suddenly. "He won't mind, and she will give us a gooddéjeuner. I could eat a horse."
"And I a carriage! But why go to a museum for breakfast?"
"It is acafé—old Malaumain is a collector."
"Of what?"
"Of everything. From bird's eggs to souvenirs of Guillaume, whom he adores. The house is supposed to have been at one time lived in by the Conqueror, and old Malaumain has made busts of him, and pictures, and all kinds of things. He will talk to you aboutl'Entente cordialeand the crossing of the two races, and the Friendly Hand, until you muzzle him. He is a dear old chap, and his wife is a very excellent cook. I used to run away when I was a little kid visitinggrand-mère, and go and beg her for sandcakes with the Conqueror's head done on top in sugar!"
Madame Malaumain, contrary to expectation, appeared at an upper window at the first knock, came down in a neat whitepeignoir, and after a quick stare at Théo held out her hand.
"C'est le petit Joyselle," she said cordially, "avec sa future?"
"Yes—but if you don't give us breakfast, she will die, and then where shall I be?" he answered, laughing. "How is M. Malaumain?"
"He is well, thank you, M. Théo. He has made many more interesting discoveries about the Conqueror. He is very superior, M. Malaumain," she added, turning to Brigit. "He was in service with many great people, so he is never shy, as I am."
Chatting cheerfully, she set a small iron-table outside the door for them, and then looking thoughtfully at them and murmuring, "Coffee, boiled eggs, fresh bread and honey," disappeared, leaving them alone in the slowly awakening Palace St. Gervais.
"What time is the Mass?" asked Brigit, as a tall cart clattered up to the fountain and a brisk middle-aged woman climbed down from it and began setting up her stand for the day's market.
"At ten. I hopegrand-pèrewill behave well. I sometimes think he is more mischievous than—than silly, poor old man. The curé who married them called yesterday and congratulated him, whereupongrand-pèrelooked up and remarked that he didn't mind being married again, but that most men got a new wife the second time! Poor old M. Cléry almost died."
"And what didgrand-mèresay?" asked Brigit.
"Nothing. Just looked at him.Petite mèresaid it was a dreadful scene, butgrand-pèrewas much pleased with himself, and chuckled all day."
"I rather suspect his—sincerity, too, since I saw him trying to make Papillon eat a domino. Oh, what's that?"
Up the street came a small procession; two brown-faced little boys, one of them ringing a bell, followed by a priest in a well-washed and darned white garment.
Théo rose and took off his hat. "It is the Viaticum," he said simply, crossing himself.
The town was waking now; everywhere shop shutters were being taken down and people in sabots clattered about, while a steady stream of high carts, each with a big-boned horse between its shafts, drew up near the fountain and deposited their owners in the market-place.
"A little later on in the year the apples make a splendid colour-effect," commented Théo, breaking off to add in surprise, "Why, here is father!"
It was indeed Joyselle hurrying towards them, a soft hat jammed down over his eyes, so that he did not see them till his son accosted him.
"Father!"
"Théo!"
"Is anything wrong?" asked the young man rising.
Joyselle shook his head with a frown. "Wrong? What should be wrong?" he returned harshly.
"But you look——"
"Hungry, probably.Bonjour, Brigitte. Yes, Iamhungry. I have been walking for hours, and I am perished with hunger."
"Will you join us? Madame Malaumain is getting us some coffee——"
Théo obviously expected a refusal to this invitation, but Joyselle accepted it without hesitation, and drawing up a chair, sat down.
"Where have you two been?" he asked.
While Théo gave him a description of their walk, Brigit watched the violinist.
He had pushed back his hat and from under it his hair hung in curly disorder over his brow. He was very pale and his eyes were circled by violet rings. He looked very ill indeed, but Brigit knew that it was no physical pain that was tormenting him.
"Very pleasant," he murmured to his son with a visible effort, "delightful." Madame Malaumain arriving with a tablecloth announced the cheerful fact that the water was boiling, recognised him with delight, and told him in all innocence that he as well as she had grown no younger since their last meeting.
"M. Malaumain will be delighted to see you," she added; "it is not often that he meets one as cultivated as himself."
Joyselle bowed gravely. "Can you give me some coffee, too, Madame Malaumain?" he asked. "I am very—hungry."
But when the coffee and eggs arrived, he did not eat; instead, he sat moodily playing with his spoon and staring at the tablecloth.
Brigit's appetite had fled, and she was most uneasy as she watched him, for she did not dare risk an explosion by putting the smallest question to him.
Something was very wrong, and she was alarmed. Suddenly, as a clock struck half-past six, he rose. "Au revoir, my children," he said, "I must get back home. Théo will call for you at ten minutes to ten, Brigitte, my—my daughter!"
And he was gone, leaving Théo staring after him.
"What can be the matter?" the young man mused. "He looks very bad, doesn't he? It is too early for letters to have come. He can't——" He paused and a quick smile stirred his moustache and showed his white teeth.
"Can't what?" queried Brigit, vaguely annoyed by his smile.
"He can't have fallen in love——"
"Of course he can't!"
"No. But only because he hasn't seen anyone since the night before last. He is amazing about his love-affairs, dear, in and out before you can get your breath, and always madly sincere!"
"I know, 'He always cares for the time,'" she quoted softly, pushing away her cup. "Let's go, Théo, I want to get a sleep before we go to church."
He was surprised by the irritation in her voice, but rose obediently, and after disappearing for a moment to pay Madame Malaumain, led her back to the inn.
"I will come for you at ten to ten then—darling," he said, trying to coax her back into the humour of the earlier hours. But he failed, and she nodded gravely, not even trying to conceal her change of mood. "I shall be ready," she answered, "Good-bye."
The church of St. Gervais was packed with the majority of a crowd that extended well out down the broad steps and into the square, as the old bells rang a carillon for the old couple who, as a young man and a young woman, had been married under them fifty years ago.
In the carriage that was bringing the bridal pair to the churchGrand-pèreJoyselle was behaving very badly indeed. Carefully dressed by his daughter, Madame Chalumeau, gloves on his ancient hands, a new top hat on his ancient head, his ancient brain was busily plotting and executing all kinds of small pranks, and his unfortunate old bride had nearly burst into tears at a strong nip he had given her arm with his still muscular fingers.
"Now, father, please be good," pleaded Madame Chalumeau, to whom, together with Victor, belonged the uncomfortable honour of conducting the wayward groom to the altar. "You know you promised you would."
"How can you call me father, woman? Me a young lad on his way to be married!" The old man laughed shrilly, and producing an apple from his pocket began to eat it as best he could with his one tooth.
"Andwhereare your teeth?" cried the overwrought Madame Chalumeau. "You promised to wear them. Mother, why don't you scold him."
"Because he likes being scolded, that's why," snapped the bride, jerking her bonnet over one ear. "He's been as bad as a devil all the morning."
Joyselle, who had not been listening, caught this phrase.
"Mother," he said gently, taking her hand, "don't be cross, dear. He is—forgetful, but try to remember the day you married him. You loved him,"—he winced, as if hurt by his own words, but went on in the same voice,—"and God has been good in—in allowing you to spend fifty years together."
The old woman nodded. "I know, my son. I can remember. It—rained and spoiled my cap, but I didn't care. We walked in a long procession and he wore a green coat that the old M. le Comte gave him."
"Yes, mother dear," put in the mistaken Madame Chalumeau, "and you promised to love him always—even when he was—cross."
Madame Joyselle sniffed. "People promise a lot, but fifty years is more than any woman expects," she answered, with considerable venom.
Joyselle sighed. "Perhaps, my dear Bathilde; you would not mind not interrupting me again? Yes—think of the green coat. And that you did not mind about your cap. Your life has been very useful,ma mère, and you have devoted children to love you and care for you."
"Look at the crowd," cried out the old man suddenly. "It must be a funeral!"
"Father!" Madame Chalumeau crossed herself with fingers that fairly trembled with haste. "Howcanyou? When it is your own wedding."
As the carriage stopped Victor leaned forward and laid his hand on his father's.
"Father—this is a splendid and—and most happy day for all of us. There are nearly fifty of us—your descendants and their wives and husbands, and we are veryproudof you. Will you give my mother your arm and follow Bathilde and me up the steps?"
Old Joyselle skipped with great agility from the carriage, and with a grand imitation of his son's manner followed that son into the church.
Brigit, standing near Félicité near the altar, felt her eyes fill with tears as the little group appeared. There was something infinitely touching in the sight of the ancient couple coming back to the altar to renew their vows after fifty years.
The priest's voice was very weak, but it carried well under the arched roof, and when the rings—the one for the bride bought by her male, the one for the groom by his female descendants—were blessed and exchanged, many people were frankly weeping.
Joyselle had not joined his wife and son, but stood opposite them, in front of a group of relations from the country, his fine figure in its perfect clothes contrasting strongly with them.
He was paler than Brigit had ever seen him, and his eyes, bent to the ground for the most part, even more deeply circled than they had been at thecaféa few hours before.
The priest droned on; a baby cried, causing the bridegroom to dart a furious glance in its direction; one of the country cousins blew his nose with simple-hearted zest; the old couple who had been kneeling were assisted to their feet. "In nomine Patris, et Filii——"
Brigit bowed her head with the rest, and then as she raised it, met Joyselle's miserable eyes; miserable, accusing, despairing eyes.
The ceremony was over. Old Joyselle gave his arm once more to his wife, and between two lines of buzzing admirers conducted her to the carriage, followed by his famous son, the rest of the family crowding after.
"Pathetic, wasn't it?" asked Théo. "I was so afraidgrand-pèrewould not behave, but he is rather in awe of father. Did you see my uncles, Antoine and Guillaume? Come,petite mère, let's go on. Our carriage is waiting at the inn, to save time."
Brigit followed obediently, but her mind was in a whirl. What could be the matter with Victor?
The garden in the Rue Victor Hugo was full of long narrow tables covered with snowy cloths and as white china. In the pitiless noonday sun the display dazzled the eyes. In the middle of every table was a high vase of yellow flowers, and at intervals down each stood china bowls heaped with apples and grapes.
A carafe of cider stood at every plate, for Normans are thirsty and their heads strong.
Brigit stood in an upper window looking down as the crowd assorted itself and settled down on the benches by the tables. In a few moments Théo would fetch her and conduct her to the arbour where twelve people were to be seated; at present he was bustling about making himself agreeable to everybody, laughing with those few children who, being over twelve, were present, helping the old or unwieldly to dispose of themselves comfortably, darting to and fro, looking strangely out of place among the good people with whom he felt so thoroughly at home.
In the arbour, Brigit knew, were already assembled the bridal couple, Victor and Félicité, Antoine and Guillaume, and the wife of Guillaume, Madame Chalumeau, the ancient curé and M. Thibaut, the Mayor. She and Théo were to complete the dozen. For some reason the girl dreaded the feast. She had been unable to speak to Victor as yet, and since their eyes had met in the church she had been unable to shake off a haunting feeling of fear that had come to her at that moment. Something was impending.
And the sultry heat seemed to make matters worse. Down in the garden the guests were now all seated, and scraps of their conversation reached her as she leaned in the window.
"A magnificent dinner, I am told," M. Perret, the apothecary, was saying in his high voice like that of a grass-hopper chirping in the heat. "Thildette Chalumeau told me: Pot au feu, veal cooked in a casserole in its own juice, rabbits stewed in wine, gigot rôti, pâtisserie—and many other things. Yvonne Gaude is cooking it, but Thildette prepared most of the things with her own hands——"
"—And what is a poor man to think when a cow dies like that, from no reason whatever," murmured one of the humblest of the country cousins. "M. le curé can say what he likes about there being no witches!"
"Have you seen thefutureofle petit deVictor? They call her beautiful, I am told, in England, but——"
"Victor is growing old, Maître Leboeuf. He looked quite old in church——"
"No,ma chère, positively only eighteen fifty, and as good as new! I always liked plush, too——"
Brigit listened absently. What could be the matter with Victor? And why had he not come to her for only one minute before the long ordeal of the dinner began?
Then the door opened and Théo, beaming with a sense of duty artistically fulfilled, came in. "They are all as happy as possible," he laughed; "the pot au feu is a thing of the past, and they are beginning on the veal. Come, my Brigit, you must be hungry."
Without answering, she accompanied him downstairs, and they threaded their way to the arbour.
"You are to sit here, Brigit, between grandfather and me," explained Théo, stopping opposite his father, who was listening to something Madame Guillaume was telling him.
Grandfather Joyselle, whose impish spirit had subsided, was busy with some minced veal, and shot a rather grudging look at his new neighbour. "Don't touch my glass, will you?" he said, "It's got flies in it, and I love to see 'em drown."
Théo laughed. "Some wine,grand-mère?"
The old woman shook her head. "No, thank you," she answered civilly. "I will teach you dominoes, mademoiselle."
Brigit thanked her and began her dinner.
"Listen to Jacques tell about how he converted a retrograde priest back to holiness by his great eloquence," laughed Antoine Joyselle, who was an old and soured edition of his famous brother. "Gascon!"
Madame Chalumeau, whose eyes were fixed on M. Bouillard as he sat far down one of the tables, dropped her knife to the ground, and disappearing under the table in search of it, gave her head a terrible thump, and emerged scarlet and agonised.
"Someone ought to propose a toast!" suggested Théo, "I suppose M. Thibaut, father?"
Victor nodded absently. "Yes, or M. le curé."
"How do you feel to-day—Master?" asked Brigit, suddenly, forcing him to look at her.
His eyes as her gaze met his were so profoundly tragic that she shuddered, and he did not answer.
"I think I might eat more if I had my teeth," observed the bridegroom, "and I hear there is to be rabbit."
"Hush, father! youknowyou can't eat with your teeth. You are to havemincedrabbit, with plenty of gravy." Madame Chalumeau, whose bright blue dress was very tight and warm, wiped her face on her handkerchief.
Brigit looked round in despair. It was horrible; the heat, the smell of food, the clatter of knives and forks.
For a long time she heard nothing, and then found that M. Thibaut the Mayor was trying to persuade Victor to play. "It would be very pleasant," urged the good man, with evident pride in his own tact, "and the young people might dance."
Joyselle burst out laughing. "Yes, I will play—for the young people to dance. That is what fiddlers are for," he answered.
M. Thibaut bowed. "It will be very pleasant," he repeated.
Félicité rose quietly and went to the kitchen for a moment, coming back with a plate of minced rabbit for her father-in-law. "Voilà, papa," she said gently, and the old man stopped poking at the flies in his cider with his fork and began to eat.
Suddenly, in his evident agony, Joyselle again looked at Brigit, and all her misery of suspense and curiosity flew to her eyes. "What is it?" they asked him. "Why are you tortured, and why are you torturing me who love you?"
He looked long at her, and then seeing her sympathetic suffering and her passion of wounded love, his face cleared, and for the first time that day he looked like himself.
He began talking, and in a few moments was making everyone at the table roar with laughter.
Brigit, though deeply relieved, was more puzzled than ever. "I want to talk to you after dinner," she said, leaning towards him, and he bowed. "I, too, have things to say to you, my dear," he answered, and they were both wildly happy.
Then the Mayor rose, and in short and stereotyped phrase drank to the health of the bride and groom.
The bridegroom had fallen asleep and was not wakened, but the bride bowed with some dignity.
"M. le curé—will you say a few words?" asked Victor courteously.
The old priest rose in obedience to the summons, and murmured a kind of blessing on the two he had joined together in his own youth. He remembered them both very well as they had been in that day; far better than he could in the days of their middle age. Now their three lives were nearly over: "We are all very old," he faltered, fumbling at his snuff-box, "very old——"
Someone outside thought he had finished and began to clap. He sat down abashed, and took snuff to hide his confusion. Yes, they were all very old.
The meal ended at length with coffee, calvados, a local liqueur, and cheese.
"You are tired, my daughter?" asked Félicité, as Brigit frowned with impatience.
"Yes,petite mère."
Félicité, who for the last half hour had been fanning the sleeping bridegroom to keep off the flies, sighed.
"It is very warm. Why not go? They will clear the table and dance on the grass, I think."
Everyone left the arbour except her and the old man, and Brigit, feeling that Joyselle was close on her heels, went into the house and into the sitting-room.
Joyselle closed the door, and, to her surprise, turned the key. Then he faced her.
"Brigit," he said, clearing his throat, "do you love me?"
"Love you?" she faltered. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that for thirty-six hours I have doubted you, and that I have been——" He broke off short, his vivid face intensely expressive.
"But why? Thirty-six hours? That means that—but I did not even see you yesterday!"
He stood, his arms hanging by his sides, looking at her without a word. Then, when the pause had grown unbearable, he returned slowly: "The night before last I saw you with Théo—on the lawn."
A painful blush burnt her face, and, unwontedly abashed, she turned away. It seemed to her almost monstrous that Joyselle should have witnessed the little scene in the moonlight.
"You—you saw him kiss me?" she faltered.
"Yes. But that was not the worst. He held open his arms to you, and—you went to him as if—as if you were giving yourself to him."
"I was, Victor. Surely you understand. He is so good, Théo—so very good. And I have promised to marry him, and he has been patient, and I have treated him horribly. The longer I know him the better—I like him. Surely you can't mind that?"
Joyselle did not raise his hand. He was, she saw with a curious sensation of detachment, undergoing a severe struggle.
"Mind? I—the situation is—horrible," he began, after a pause. "God knows I love my son, and I should hate you if you hurt him——"
"I know that," she interrupted quickly, and he looked up.
"Perhaps that is why——"
"Why? No. Ah, Victor, you know that I love you. You must know that. And yet I have promised to marry him. What are we to do?"
Through the open windows came the sounds of laughter and loud talk, and someone was playing snatches of a waltz on a violin.
Brigit, feeling that things outside her own control had hastened an inevitable crisis, stood waiting with the immobility of one consciously in the hands of Fate.
At last Joyselle came to her and took her in his arms. "Tell me that you love me," he whispered, "and then—I can bear anything."
His unexpected resignation came, as so often is the case, rather as a shock to her. It was true that she had of late, during the reign of peace that had followed the last quarrel, been unusually happy, and that the thought of marrying Théo had become more bearable than she would have believed possible; the future had taken on an aspect of happy family life with Joyselle and Félicité, in which Théo's part had been pleasantly subordinate; more or less, although her mind had not formulated it, that of a brother.
Yet now Joyselle's resigned attitude did not please her.
"Then—you don't mind my marrying—another man?" she retorted quickly, instinctively using words that would hurt him.
He wiped his forehead, which was covered with small drops of perspiration.
"Don't mind! But,ma chérie, you must not torture me. The situation as it now is, is absolutely impossible. You don't understand. I love my son, God knows! Yet I am not made of stone, and before the love paternal He created the love of man for woman. I believe, as He hears me, that you were meant for me; that you are my woman, and I your man; that you were meant for me and I for you. But—I was born too soon or you too late. I cannot, must not, have you, without outraging certain laws which must be respected. The only thing, then, is to bow to these laws. I belong to a generation older than yours, and before I knew that you existed my boy had chosen—and won—you. So you must be his. We have dreamed, my Brigit, through the last few months, and now we must awaken. You must marry Théo, and he will take you away for a few months, and when you come back as his—wife, I shall—Iwillhave learned to love you in the only way I can love you without shame—as my daughter."
It is curious, but strictly according to the laws of the feminine logic, that as he made this speech, haltingly, painfully, but with resolution in every word of it, Brigit's mind should slowly change to a feeling of resentment.
She herself had made up her mind to marry Théo, and she had seen plainly that this was fitting and wise; yet Joyselle's acceptance of these facts stirred her to rebellion, and once more she protested against his voicing of her own determination. "You are quite right," she said coldly; "it is only a pity that we did not see all this before!"
And in his turn he winced.
"We have been very mad," she continued, her old barbaric love of seeing him suffer returning. Then in her own pain: "But from this moment on I shall do my part, as you suggest. No doubt in a month's time we shall both be laughing at our little tragic comedy."
He did not answer, but his brown face slowly changed colour and he closed his eyes for a second.
"No doubt. As for me—there is no fool like an old fool, they say. However, we have come to our senses in time—thank God!" The last two words came with a sharp, spasmodic sound, and when he had said them he took from his pocket the silver box, with Marie-Rose engraved on it, and taking from it paper and tobacco, began to roll a cigarette.
Brigit was dumfounded as well as deeply hurt. His strength filled her with terror. That he could bow to Fate, she had not expected, and forgetting, as women do, that men's training from early boyhood teaches them, as nothing ever teaches women, the trick of momentary self-control, a wild doubt of his love flashed through her and took her breath away.
"You are angry," she ventured, hoping, though subconsciously and without cruelty, to break down his resolution. But he smiled sadly, for he was sincere.
"No, my dear, I am not angry. I am sad, because I love you—as yet—far more than I should, but—from this moment on I shall bend all my strength to the conquering of that love. You must help me. You will know how, for women always know. Now—will you shake hands with me and bid God bless me? It is to be a hard struggle for me, but I will win, for my will is strong, and the cause is good—Is that you, Théo?"
"Yes, father." Théo was trying the door. "Anything wrong?" he added.
Joyselle turned the key. "No," he said quietly as his son entered, "but we were tired of the good company. I will go now, my dear. Stay and talk to yourfiancée."