Caves have always had the most extraordinary, magical fascination for me. When I was a child, I believed that if I could only go into one I should be allowed to find fairyland; and even in an ordinary, every-day cellar I was never quite without hope. The smell of a cellar suggested the most cool, delightful, shadowy mysteries to me, at that time, and does still.
It was as if the ghostly hand that had been pulling me back, begging me not to leave Les Baux, led me gently but insistently through the doorway of the rock house.
It was not yet dark inside. I tiptoed my way through some rough bits of debris, to the back of the big room, crudely cut out of stone. There were shelves where the dwellers had set lights or stored provisions, and there was nothing else to see except a square hole in the floor, below which a staircase had been hewn. A glimmer of light came up to me, gray as a bat's wing, and I knew that there must be some opening for ventilation below.
I felt that I would give anything to go down those rough stone stairs, only half way down, perhaps; just far enough to see what lay underneath. It was as if Taven herself had called me, saying: "Come, I have something to show you."
I put a foot on the first step, then the other foot wanted a chance to touch the next step, and so on, each demandingits own turn in fairness. I had gone down eight steps, counting each one, when I heard a faint rustling noise. I stopped, my heart giving a jump, like a bird in a cage.
There were no windows in the underground room, which was much smaller and less regular in shape than the one above, but a faint twilight seemed to rain down into it in streaks, like spears of rain, and I guessed that holes had been made in the rock to give light and ventilation. Something alive was down there, moving. I was frightened; I hardly dared to look. And I had a nightmare feeling of being struck dumb and motionless. I tried to turn and run up the stairs but I had to look, and the gray filtering light struck into a pair of eyes.
They were great black eyes, sunken into the face of an old woman. She stood in a corner, and it occurred to me that she had perhaps run there, as much afraid of me as I was of her. No eyes were ever like those, I thought, except the eyes of a gipsy.
"What are you doing?" I stammered, in French, hardly expecting her to understand and answer me; but she replied in an old, cracked voice that sounded hollow and unreal in the cavern.
"I have been asleep," she said. "I am waiting for my sons. We are in Les Baux on business. I thought, when I heard you, it was my boys coming to fetch me. I can't go till they are here, because I have dropped my rosary with a silver crucifix down below, and the way is too steep for me. They must get it."
"Do they know you are here?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she returned. "They will come at six. We shall perhaps have our supper and sleep in this house to-night. Then we will go away in the morning."
"It is only a little after five now," I told her. "You frightened me at first."
She cackled a laugh. "I am nothing to be afraid of," she chuckled. "I am very old. Besides, there is no harm in me. If you have the time, I could tell your fortune."
"I'm afraid I haven't time," I said, though I was tempted. To have one's fortune told in a cavern under a rock house where Romans had lived, told by a real, live gipsy who looked as if she might be a lineal descendant from Taven, and who was probably fresh from worshipping at the tomb of Sarah! It would be an experience. No girl I knew, not even Pam herself, who is always having adventures, could ever have had one as good as this. If only I need not miss it!
"It would take no more than five minutes," she pleaded in her queer French, which was barely understandable, and evidently not the tongue in which she was most at home.
"Well, then," I said, hastily calculating that it was no more than ten minutes since Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel left me, and that the water for their punch couldn't possibly have begun to boil yet. "Well, then, perhaps I might have five minutes' fortune, if it doesn't cost too much; but I'm very poor—poorer than you, maybe."
"That cannot be, for then you would have less than nothing," said the old woman, cackling again. "But it is your company I like to have, more than your money. I have been waiting here a long time, and I am dull. No fortune can be expected to come true, however, unless the teller's hand be crossed with silver, otherwise I might give it you for nothing. But a two-franc piece—"
"I think I have as much as that," I cut her short, as she paused on the hint; and deciding not to ask her, as I felt inclined, to come to the upper room lest we should be interrupted, I went down the remaining five or sixhigh steps, and got out my purse under a long, straight rod of gray light.
There were only a few francs left, but I would have beggared myself to buy this adventure, and thought it cheap at the price she named. I found a two-franc piece—a bright new one, worthy of its destiny—and looking up as I shut my purse, I saw the old woman's eyes fixed on me, and sharp as gimlets. Used to the dusk now, I could see her dark face distinctly, and so like a hungry crow did she look that I was startled. But it was only for a second that I felt a little uncomfortable. She was so old and weak, I was so young and strong, that even if she were an evil creature who wanted to do me harm, I could shake her off and run away as easily as a bird could escape from a tied cat.
"Make a cross with the silver piece on my palm," she said.
I did as she told me, and it was a dark and dirty palm, in the hollow of which seemed to lie a tiny pool of shadow. Her eyes darted to the bracelet-watch as my wrist slipped out of the protecting sleeve, and I drew back my hand quickly. She plucked the coin from my fingers, and then told me to give her my left hand.
"You can't see the lines," I said. "It's too dark."
"I see with my night eyes," she answered, as a witch might have answered. "And I feel. I have the quick touch of the blind. I can feel the pores in a flower-petal."
Impressed, I let her hold my hand in one of her lean claws while she lightly passed the spread fingers of the other down the length of mine from the tips to the joiningwith the palm, and then along the palm itself, up and down and across. It was like having a feather drawn over my hand.
"You have foreign blood in your veins," she said. "You are not all French. But you have the charm of the Latin girl. You can make men love you. You make them love you whether you wish or not, and whethertheywish or not. Sometimes that is a great trouble to you. You are anxious now, for many reasons. One of the reasons is a man, but there is more than one who loves you. You make one of them unhappy, and yourself unhappy, too. The man you ought to love is young and handsome, and dark—very dark. Do not think ever of marrying a fair man. You are on a journey now. Something very unexpected will happen to you at the end—something to do with a man, and something to do with a woman. Be careful then, for your future happiness may depend on your actions in a moment of surprise. You are not rich, but you have a lucky hand. You could find things hidden if you set yourself to look for them."
"Hidden treasure?" I asked, laughingly, and venturing to break in because she was speaking slowly now, as if she had come to the end of her string of prophecies.
"Perhaps. Yes. If you looked for the hidden treasure here, you might be the one to find it after all these hundreds of years. Who knows? These things happen to the lucky ones."
"Well, if I believed that I'd been born for such luck, I'd try to come back some day, and have a look," I said. "I should begin in this house, I think."
"It is never so lucky to return for things as to try and get them at the right time," the old woman pronounced. "If you would like to wait till my sons come—"
"No, I wouldn't," I said. "I must go now."
"If you would at least do me a favour, for the good fortune I have told you so cheap," she begged. "I, who in my day have had as much as two louis from great ladies who would know their fortune!"
"What is the favour?" I asked.
"Oh, it is next to nothing. Only to go down to the foot of the stairs in the cellar below this, and pick up my rosary, which I dropped, and which I know is lying there."
"It's too dark," I said. "I couldn't see to find it—and you said your sons were coming soon."
"Not soon enough, for when you are gone, and I am alone, I should like to pray at the time of vespers. And it is not so dark as you think. Besides, this will be the test of the fortune I have just told you. If it's true that you have the lucky hand for finding you will put it on the rosary in an instant. That will be a sign you can find anything. Unless you are afraid, mademoiselle—"
"Of course I'm not afraid," I said, for I always have been ashamed of my fear of the dark, and have forced myself to fight against it. "If the rosary is at the foot of the staircase I'll try and get it for you, but I won't go any farther."
Her corner was close by the opening where more steps were cut into the rock. I could see the bottom, I thought, and started down quickly, because I was in a hurry to come back and be on my way home—to the Aigle.
Six, seven steps, and then—crash! down I came on my hands and knees.
Oh, how it hurt! And how it made my head ring! Fireworks went off before my eyes, and I felt stupid, inclined to lie still. But suddenly the idea flashed into my brain, like lightning darting among dark clouds, that the old woman had made me do this thing on purpose. She had played me a trick—and if she had, she must have some bad reason for doing it. Those two sons of hers! I scrambled up, shocked and jarred by the fall, my hands and knees smarting as if they were skinned.
"I've fallen down," I cried. "Do you hear?"
No answer.
I called again. It was as still as a grave up above. It seemed to me that it could not be so unnaturally, so inhumanly still, if there were a living, breathing creature there. I was sure now that the horrible old thing had known what would happen, had wanted it to happen, and had gone hobbling away to fetch her wicked gipsy sons. How she had looked at my poor little purse! How she had looked at Pamela's watch!
I saw now how it was that I had been so stupid. The dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar. The lower steps had been hewn away—perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. Maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. Anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stonenot far off, which had once been the end of the rocky stairway. It was lucky that I hadn't struck my forehead against it in falling—the only bit of luck which the fortune-teller had brought me!
As it was, I was not seriously hurt. Perhaps I had torn my dress, and I should certainly have to buy a new pair of gloves, whether I could afford them or not; otherwise I didn't think I should suffer, except for a few black-and-blue patches. But how was I to get out of this dark hole? That was the question. I was too hot with anger against the sly old fox of a woman, who had pretended that she wanted to say her prayers, to feel the chill of fear; but I couldn't help understanding that she had got me into this trap with the object of annexing my watch and purse or anything else of value. Perhaps the gipsy sons would rob me first, and then murder me, rather than I should live to tell; but if they meant to do that they would have to come and be at it soon, or I should be missed and sought.
This last fancy really did turn me cold, and the nice hot anger which had kept me warm began to ooze out at my fingers and toes. I thought of my brave new brother, who would fight ten gipsy men to save me if he only knew; and then I wanted to cry.
But that would be the silliest thing I could do. Soon they would begin to look for me (oh, how furious Lady Turnour would be that I should dare keep her waiting, and at the fuss about a servant!) and if I screamed at the top of my voice maybe some one would hear.
I took a long breath, and gave vent to a blood-curdling shriek which would have made the fortune of an actresson the stage. Odd! I couldn't help thinking of that at the time. One thinks of queer things at the most inappropriate moments.
It was a glorious howl, but the rock walls seemed to catch it as a battledore catches a shuttlecock, and send it bounding back to me. I knew then that a cry from those depths would not carry far; and the fear at my heart gave a sharp, rat-like bite.
If I could scramble up! I thought; and promptly tried.
It looked almost easy; but for me it was impossible. A very tall woman might have done it, perhaps, but I have only five foot four in my Frenchiest French heels; and the broken-off place was higher than my waist. With good hand-hold I might have dragged myself up, but the steps above did not come at the right height to give me leverage; and always, though I tried again and again, till my cut hands bled, I couldn't climb up. And how silly it seemed, the whole thing! I was just like a young fly that had come buzzing and bumbling round an ugly old spider's web, too foolish to know that it was a web. And even now how lightly the fly's feet were entangled! A spring, and I should be out of prison.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!And the little less, and what worlds away!"
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!And the little less, and what worlds away!"
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"
The words came and spoke themselves in my ears, as if they were determined to make me cry.
I was desperately frightened and homesick—homesick even for Lady Turnour. I should have felt like kissing the hem of her dress if I could only have seen her now—and I wasn't able to smile when I thought what a rage she'd be in if I did it. She would have mesent off to an insane asylum: but even that would be much gayer and more homelike than an underground cellar in the Ghost City of Les Baux.
Dear old Sir Samuel, with his nice red face! I almost loved him. The car seemed like a long-lost aunt. And as for the chauffeur, my brother—I found that I dared not think of him. As in my imagination I saw his eyes, his good dark eyes, clear as a brook, and the lines his brown face took when he thought intently, the tears began running down my cheeks.
"Oh, Jack—Jack, come and help me!" I called.
That comes ofthinkingpeople's Christian names. They will pop out of your mouth when you least expect it. But it mattered little enough now, except that the sound of the name and the echo of it fluttering back to me made my tears feel boiling hot—hotter than the punch which the Turnours must have finished by this time.
"Jack! Jack!" I called again.
Then I heard a stone rattle up above, somewhere, and a sick horror rushed over me, because of the gipsy men coming back with their wicked old mother.
It was only a very dark gray in the cellar, to my unaccustomed eyes, but suddenly it turned black, with purple edges. I knew then I was going to faint, because I've done it once or twice before, and things always began by being black with purple edges.
"For heaven's sake, wake up—tell me you're not hurt!" a familiar voice was saying in my ear, or I was dreaming it. And because it was such a good dream I was afraid to break it by waking to some horror, so I kept my eyes shut, hoping and hoping for it to come again.
In an instant, it did come. "Child—little girl—wake up! Can't you speak to me?"
His hand, holding mine, was warm and extraordinarily comforting. Suddenly I felt so happy and so perfectly safe that I was paid for everything. My head was on somebody's arm, and I knew very well now who the somebody was. He was real, and not a dream. I sighed cozily and opened my eyes. His face was quite close to mine.
"Thank God!" he said. "Are you all right?"
"Now you're here," I answered. "I thought they were coming to kill me."
"Who?" he asked, quite fiercely.
"An old gipsy woman and her sons."
"Those people!" he exclaimed. "Why, it was they who told me you were in this place. If it hadn't been for them I shouldn't have found you so soon—though Iwouldhave found you. The wretches! What made you think—"
"The old woman was in the room above," I said, "waiting for her sons; and she begged me to look down here for a rosary she dropped. She must have known the bottom steps were gone. Shewantedme to fall; and though I called, she didn't answer, because she'd probably hobbled off to find her sons and bring them back to rob me. I haven't hurt myself much, but when I found I couldn't climb up I was so frightened! I thought no one would ever come—except those horrible gipsies. And when I heard a sound above I was sure they were here. I felt sick and strange, and I suppose I must have fainted."
"I heard you call, just as I got into the upper room. Then, though I answered, everything was still. Jove! I had some bad minutes! But you're sure you're all right now?"
"Sure," I answered, sitting up. "Did I call you 'Jack'? If I did, it was only because one can't shriek 'Mister,' and anyway you told me to."
"Now Iknowyou're all right, or you wouldn't bother about conventionalities. I wish I had some brandy for you—"
"I wouldn't take it if you had."
"That sounds like you. That's encouraging! Are you strong enough to let me get you up into the light and air?"
"Quite!" I replied briskly, letting him help me to my feet. "But how are we to get up?"
"I'll show you. It will be easy."
"Let's look first for the wicked old creature's rosary. If it isn't here, it's certain she's a fraud."
"I should think it's certain without looking. I'd like to put the old serpent in prison."
"I wouldn't care to trouble, now I'm safe. And anyway, how could we prove she meant her sons to rob me, since they hadn't begun the act, and so couldn't be caught in it?"
"She didn't know you had a man to look after you. When the guide and I came this way, searching, we met a gipsy woman with two awful brutes, and asked if they'd seen a young lady in a gray coat. They were all three on their way here, as you thought; but when they saw us close to this house, of course, they dared not carry out their plan, and the old woman made the best of a bad business. No doubt they're as far off by this time as they could get. It might be difficult to prove anything, but I'd like to try."
"Iwouldn't," I said. "But let's look for that rosary. Have you any matches?"
"Plenty." He took out a match-case, and held a wax vesta for me to peer about in the neighbourhood of the broken stairway.
"Here's something glittering!" I exclaimed, just as I had been about to give up the search in vain. "She said there was a silver crucifix."
I slipped my fingers into a crack where the rock had been split in breaking off the lower steps. A small, bright thing was there, almost buried in débris, but I could not get my fingers in deep enough to dislodge it. Impatiently I pulled out a hat-pin, and worked until I had unearthed—not the rosary, but a silver coin.
"Somebody else has been down here, dropping money," I said, handing the piece up for Mr. Dane to examine.
"Then it was a long time ago," he replied, "for the coin has the head of Louis XIII. on it."
"Oh, then she was right!" I cried. "Icanfind lost treasure. I'm going to look for more. I believe that piece must have fallen out of a hole I've found here, which goes back ever so far into the rock. I can get my arm in nearly to the elbow."
"Whowas 'right'?" my brother wanted to know.
"The gipsy. She told my fortune. That was why I didn't refuse to look for her rosary."
"I should have thought a child would have known better," he remarked, scornfully; and his tone hurt my sensitiveness the more because his voice had been so anxious and his words so kind when I was fainting. He had called me "child" and "little girl." I remembered well, and the words had been saying themselves over in my mind ever since. I rather thought that they betrayed a secret—that perhaps he had been getting to care for me a little. That idea pleased me, because he had been abrupt sometimes, and I hadn't known what to make of him. Every girl owes it to herself to understand a man thoroughly—at least, as much of his character and feelings as may concern her. Besides, it is not soothing to one's vanity to try—well, yes, I may as well confess that!—totryand please a man, yet to know you've failed after days of association so constant and intimate that hours are equal to the same number of months in an ordinary acquaintance. Now, after thinking I'd made the discovery that hereally had found me attractive, it was a shock to be spoken to in this way.
"Oh, youarecross!" I exclaimed, still poking about in the hole under the stairway.
"I'm not cross," he said, "but if I were, you'd deserve it, because you know you've been foolish. And if you don't know, you ought to, so that you may be wiser next time. The idea of a sensible young woman chumming up in a lonely cave, with a dirty old gipsy certain to be a thief, if not worse, letting her tell fortunes, and then falling into a trap like this. I wouldn't have believed it of you!"
"I think you're perfectly horrid," said I. "I wish you had let the guide find me. He would have done it just as well, and been much more polite."
"Doubtless he would have been more polite, but he isn't as young, and might have had trouble in getting you out. There! that's my last match, and you mustn't waste any more time looking for treasure which you won't find."
"Which Ihavefound!" I announced. "I've got something more—away at the back of the hole. Not that you deserve to see it!"
However, I held up my hand in its torn, bloodstained glove, with two silver pieces displayed on the palm.
"A child's hidey-hole, I suppose," he said without showing as much interest as the occasion warranted. "Otherwise there would be something more valuable. A young servant of the Grimaldis, perhaps; these coins are all of the same period—of no great value as antiques, I'm afraid."
"They're of value to me," I retorted. "They'll bring me luck." I would of course have given him one, if he hadn't been so disagreeable; but now I felt that he shouldn't have anything of mine if he were starving.
"You are very superstitious, among other childlike qualities," he replied, laughing. Sothatwas what he thought of me, andthatwas why he had called me "child"! It was all spoiled now, from the beginning; and the guide might as well have found me, as I had said, withoutquitemeaning it at the time.
"If you don't like lucky things, you can throw away my St. Christopher," I said, coldly. "You must have thought it very silly."
"I thought it extremely kind of you to give it, and I've no intention of throwing it away, or parting with it," said he. "Now, are you ready?"
"Yes," I snapped.
In an instant he had me by the waist between two hands which felt strong as steel buckles, and swung me up like a feather on to the first step of the broken stairs. Then, in another second, he was at my side, supporting me to the top without a word, except a muttered "Don't be childish!" when I would have pushed away his arm.
Strange to say, I forgot Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel until we saw the guide, to whom long ago Mr. Dane had called up a reassuring"Tout va bien!" Then, suddenly, the awful truth sprang into my mind. All this time they had been waiting for me! What would they say? What would they do?
In my horror, I even forgot my righteous anger with the chauffeur. "Oh!" I gasped. "The Turnours!"
Then Mr. Dane spoke kindly again. "Don't worry," he said. "It's all right. They've gone on."
"In the car?" I cried.
"No. Sir Samuel can't drive the car. And as Lady Turnour thought she had a chill, rather than wait for me to find you they took a carriage which was here, and drove down to St. Remy. They'll go on by rail to Avignon, and—"
"There must have been a dreadful row!" I groaned.
"Not at all. You're not to worry. Lady Turnour behaved like a cad, as usual, but what can you expect? Sir Samuel did the best he could. He would have liked to wait, but if he'd insisted she would have had hysterics."
"How came there to be a carriage here?" I asked the guide.
"The gentleman paid three young men who had driven up in it a good sum to get it for himself," he explained, "and they are walking down. They are of Germany."
"Was it a long time?" I went on. "Oh, itmusthave been. It's nearly dark now, except for the moonlight."
"It is perhaps an hour altogether since mademoiselle separated herself from the others," the guide admitted. "But they have been gone for more than half that time. They did not delay long, after the little dispute with monsieur about the car."
"Oh, there was a dispute!" I caught him up, wheeling upon the chauffeur. "Youmusttell me."
"It was nothing much," he said, still very kindly, "and it was her ladyship's fault, of course. If you were plain and elderly she'd have more patience; but as it is, you've seen how quick she is to scold; so, of course, shewas angry when she'd finished her grog and you didn't turn up."
"What did she say," I asked.
He laughed. "She was quite irrelevant."
"I must know!"
"Well, she seemed to lay most of the blame on the colour of your hair and eyelashes."
"She said—"
"What could be expected of a girl that dyed her hair yellow and her eyelashes black?"
"Horridwoman! You don't believe I do, do you?"
"I must say it hadn't occurred to me to think of it."
Then I remembered how angry I was with him, and didn't pursue that subject, but turned again to the other. However, I made a mental note that there was one more thing to punish him for when I got the chance.
"What else did she say?"
"She began to turn purple when Sir Samuel would have defended you, and said she wouldn't stand your taking such liberties. That it was monstrous, and a few other things, to be kept freezing on mountains by one's domestics, and that she should be ill if she waited. Sir Samuel persuaded her to give you fifteen minutes' grace, but after that she was determined to start. Of course, she didn't know that an accident had happened. She thought you were simply dawdling, and wanted Sir Samuel to arrange for you to drive down with the newly arrived German tourists. Sir Samuel and I objected to this, and later it was settled for the Turnours to do what her ladyship planned for you, without the company of the tourists. Lady Turnour resentslèse-majesté."
"It's a miracle she consented to leave the car," I said.
"She couldn't use it without a chauffeur, and naturally I refused to go without knowing what had happened to you."
"You refused!" I stammered.
"Of course. That was where the row came in. We had a few words, and eventually I was deputed to look you up."
"Deputed!" I echoed, desperately. "They never 'deputed' you to do it, I'm sure."
"They jolly well couldn't help themselves. You can't make a man drive a car if he won't. So they went off in the Germans' carriage, and the Germans were enchanted."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, so miserable now that anger leaked out of my heart like water through a sieve. "It's all my fault. Did they discharge you?"
"I didn't give them the chance. After a few little things her ladyship said, I felt rather hot in the collar, and discharged myself. That is, I gave them notice that I would go as soon as they could get another chauffeur. It would have been bad form to leave them in the lurch, without anyone, on tour."
The tears came to my eyes, and I was thinking so little about myself that I let them roll down without bothering to wipe them away. "Do, do forgive me," I implored. "But you never can, of course. All through my foolishness you're out of an engagement. And you depended upon it, I know, from what you said."
"There's nothing to forgive, my dear little sister,"he said. "It's you who must forgive me, if I've distressed you by telling the story in a clumsy way. It wasn't your fault. I couldn't stand that bounderess's cruel tongue, so I have myself to blame, if anyone. And it's sure to turn out right in the end."
"You refused to drive their car because you would stay behind and find me—"
"Any decent chap would do that—even a chauffeur." He spoke lightly to comfort me. "Besides, I wanted to stop. You're the only sister I ever had."
"You must hate me," I moaned.
"I don't. Please don't cry. I shall faint if you do."
I was obliged to laugh a little through my tears.
"Come," he said, gently. "Let me take you down. Just a word with the guide about those gipsies, and—"
"Oh, leave the wretched gipsies alone!" I begged. "Who cares, now? If you say anything, they may call us as witnesses at St. Remy or some town where we don't want to stop. Let them go."
"I suppose we might as well," he said, "for we can't prove anything worth proving. Come, then." He slipped some money into the guide's hand, and thanked him for his courtesy and kindness. But another pang shot through my remorseful heart. More money spent by this man for me, when he had so little, and had lost the engagement which, though unworthy his rank in life, was the only present means he had of earning a livelihood. I came, obeying in forlorn silence, and could not answer when he tried to cheer me up as we walked down to the Hotel Monte Carlo. There stood the Aigle in charge of a youth from the inn, and there wasmore money to be paid to him. I wanted to give it, but saw that if I insisted Mr. Dane would be vexed.
He suggested putting me inside, as the air was now very cold, with the chill that falls after sunset; but I refused. "I want to sit by you!" I implored, and he said no more. With the glass cage behind us empty, and the great acetylene lamps alight, the Aigle turned and flew down the hill.
For some time we did not speak, but my thoughts moved more quickly than the beating of the engine. At last I said meekly, "Of course, I may as well consider myself discharged, too. And even if I weren't, I should go."
"I've been thinking about that," Mr. Dane answered. "It was the first thought that came into my head when the row began. It isn't likely she'll want you to leave, because she won't like getting on without a maid. I think, in the circumstances, unless she is brutal, you'd better stay with her till your friends can receive you. Someonemustcome forward and help you now."
"I wouldn't ask anyone but Pamela, who's gone to America," I protested. "Besides, I can't stand Lady Turnour after what's happened—with you gone."
(As I said this, I remembered again how I had dreaded to associate with the chauffeur, and planned to avoid him. It was rather funny, as it had turned out; but somehow I didn't feel like laughing.)
"Of courseyouwon't mind," I went on. "It's different for a man. If you were left and I going, it wouldn't matter, because you'd have the car. But I've nothing—except Lady Turnour's 'transformation.' Luckily, she won't want me to stop."
"I think she will," he said, "because your only faultwas in having an accident. You weren't impudent, as she thinks I was in refusing to drive the car. Also in letting her see that I thought her willingness to leave a young girl in a place like this, alone for hours (she did propose to let me drive back for you) was the most brutal thing I'd ever heard of."
"Oh, how good you were, to sacrifice yourself like that for me!" I exclaimed.
"It wasn't entirely for you," he said. "One owes some things to oneself. But when we get to Avignon, and it's settled between you and Lady Turnour, promise to let me know what you mean to do and give me a chance to advise you."
I promised. But I was so melancholy as to the future and so ashamed of myself for the trouble brought upon my only friend, that his efforts to cheer me were hopeless as an attempt to let off wet fireworks. Mine were soaked; and instead of admiring the moonlight, which soon flooded the wild landscape, it made me the more dismal.
The drive by day had seemed short, but now it was long, for I was in haste to begin the expected battle.
"Courage! and be wise," said Mr. Dane, as he helped me out of the car in front of the Hotel de l'Europe. "I shall bring up your dinner again—it's no use saying you don't want anything—and we'll exchange news."
When lions have to be faced, my theory is that the best thing is to open the cage door and walk in boldly, not crawl in on your knees, saying: "Please don't eat me."
I expected Lady Turnour to have a fine appetite for any martyrs lying about loose, but to my surprise a faint"Come in!" answered my dauntless knock, and I beheld her prostrate in bed.
She said that I had nearly killed her, and that she would probably not be able to move for a week; but the story of my adventures with the gipsy interested her somewhat, and she brightened when she heard of the old coins found in a hole in the rock. There was not a word about sending me away, and I suspected that a scene with Sir Samuel had crushed the lady. Even a worm will turn, and Sir Samuel may be one of those mild men who, when once roused, are capable of surprising those who know them best. Quite meekly she desired that I would show her the coins, and having seen them, she said that she would buy them off me. Not that they were of any intrinsic value, but they might be "lucky," and she would give me a sovereign for the three.
Then an idea came and whispered in my ear. I thanked Lady Turnour politely, but said I thought I had better keep the coins and show them to an antiquary. They might be more valuable than we supposed, and I should need all the money, as well as all the luck possible, now that I was leaving her ladyship's service.
"Leaving!" she echoed. "But as you had an accident I've made up my mind to excuse you this time, and not discharge you as I intended. You don't know your business too well, but any maid is better than no maid on a tour like this, as Sir Samuel pointed out to me."
"But, begging your ladyship's pardon," I ventured, "I understand that the chauffeur is to go because he stopped at Les Baux to look for me. As he very likelysaved my life, I couldn't be so ungrateful as to stay on in my situation when he is losing his for my sake."
"What nonsense!" snapped her ladyship. "As if that had anything to do with you, and if it has, itoughtn't. Besides, if he will apologize, he can stop. Sir Samuel says so."
"He doesn't seem to think he was in the wrong, my lady," said I. "As your ladyship will probably be at Avignon some time before finding another chauffeur, it will be easy to look for a maid at the same time."
"Be here some time!" she cried. "I won't! We want to get on to a château where my stepson's visiting."
"I should be delighted to offer your ladyship two of the lucky coins for nothing," said I, my impertinence wrapped in honey, "if she would persuade Sir Samuel toaskthe chauffeur to stay."
"Why, that's just what Sir Samuel wants to do, if I would hear of it!" The words popped out before she had stopped to think.
"It might be too late after this evening," I suggested. "The chauffeur will perhaps take steps at once to secure some other engagement; and I fear that a good man is always in great demand. I hope that your ladyship will kindly understand that it would be nothing tome, if he hadn't got into trouble for my sake."
"You can leave the coins, and call Sir Samuel, who is in his room next door," remarked Lady Turnour with dignity. "I will talk with him."
The greedy creature was delighted to have the coins without paying for them, and delighted with the excuse to do what she would have liked to do without an excuse,if obstinacy had not forbidden. I kept one coin for my own luck; I called Sir Samuel, who was sulking in his den, was dismissed with an order for her ladyship's dinner, which she would have in bed, and told to return with the menu.
A few minutes later, coming back, I met Mr. Jack Dane in the corridor.
"Have you seen Sir Samuel yet?" I inquired.
"No. He's sent for me, and I'm on my way to him now."
"He's going to ask you to stay," I said.
"I think you're mistaken there," replied the chauffeur. "The old boy himself has a strong sense of justice, and would like to make everything all right, no doubt, but his wife would give him no peace if he did."
"If he does, though, what shall you do?" I inquired anxiously.
Mr. Dane looked into space. "I think I'd better go in any case."
"Why?"
If he'd been a woman, I think he would have answered "Because," but being a man he reflected a few seconds, and said he thought it would be better for him in the end.
"Do you want to go?" I asked, drearily.
"No. But I ought to want to."
"Please stay," I begged. "Please—brother."
"Sir Samuel mayn't ask me; and you wouldn't have me crawl to him?"
"But if he does ask you."
"I'll stay," he said.
Impulsively, I held out my hand. He took it, and pressed it so hard that it hurt, then dropped it suddenly. His manner is certainly very odd sometimes. I suppose he doesn't want me to flatter myself that I am of any importance in his scheme of existence. But he needn't worry. He has shown me very plainly that he is one of those typical, unsusceptible Englishmen French writers put in their books, men with hearts whose every compartment is warranted love-tight.
Lady Turnour opened her heart and her wardrobe and gave me a blouse the first thing in the morning, which act of generosity was the more remarkable as morning is not her best time. I have found that it is the early maid who catches the first snub, which otherwise might fall innocuously upon a husband. The blouse was one which I had heard her ladyship say she hated; but then her idea of true charity, combined, as it should be, with economy, is always to give to the poor what you wouldn't be found dead in yourself, because it is more blessed to give than to receive badly made things. On the same principle I immediately passed the gift on to a chambermaid of the hotel, who perhaps in her turn dropped it a grade lower in the social scale, and so it may go on forever, blouse without end; but all that is apart from the point. The important part of the transaction was the token that the dead past was to bury its dead; and possibly Sir Samuel timidly offered a waistcoat or a pair of boots to the chauffeur.
Instead of lying in bed, as Lady Turnour had threatened to do for a week, she was up earlier than usual, as well as ever she had been, and not more than half as disagreeable. Although the sky looked as if it might burst into tears at any moment, and although Orange has nothing but historic remains and historicrecords to show, she was ready to start, almost cheerfully, at ten o'clock.
I was allowed to be of the party, laden with mackintoshes for my master and mistress; and I didn't admire the triumphal arch at Orange nearly as much as I had admired the smaller and older one at St. Remy. But Lady Turnour admired it far more, and was so nice to Sir Samuel that he thought itthearch of the world. They put their heads together over the same volume of Baedeker, which was an exquisite pleasure to the poor man, and he was so pathetic I could have cried into his footsteps, as he read (pronouncing almost everything wrong) about the building of the Arch of Tiberius. "Why, that's just like a sweet little statuette I used to have standing on a table in my drawing-room window!" exclaimed Lady Turnour, looking up at the beautiful Winged Victory. "You might think it was a copy!"
Although the histories say Orange wasn't very important in Roman days, it has taken revenge by letting everything not Roman fall into decay, except, of course, its memories of the family through which William the Silent of Holland became William of Orange. The house of the first William of Orange, the hero of song who rode back wounded from Roncesvalles to his waiting wife, is gone now, save for a wall and a buttress or two on a lonely hill of the old town; yet the arch, which was old when his château was begun, still towers dark yellow as tarnished Etruscan gold against the sky; and the Roman theatre is the grandest out of Italy. Lady Turnour could not see why the Comédie Française should produce plays there, even once a year, when they could doit so much more comfortably at any modern theatre in the provinces if theymusttravel; and as to the gathering of the Felibres, she didn't even know what Felibres were, nor did she care, as she was unlikely to meet any in society. She would have proposed going on somewhere else, as there was so "little to see in Orange," but that rain came sweeping down, cold from the east, when I had followed the pair a quarter of a mile from the motor. They fled into their mackintoshes as a hermit-crab flees into his borrowed shell, and I was the only one the worse for wear when we reached the car. I didn't much mind the wetting, but it was rather nice to be fussed over by a brother, and forced into a coat of his, whether I liked or not. "The quality" must have seen me in it, through the glass, but Lady Turnour ignored the sight. Altogether, everything was agreeable, and the thunder-storm of last night, in clearing, had turned us into quite a happy family party.
It rained all day, and I sat in my room before a blazing fire of olive wood which a dear old waiter, exactly like a confidential servant of a pope, bestowed upon me out of sheer Provençal good nature. As he's been in the hotel for thirty years, he is a privileged person, and can do what he likes.
Lady Turnour gave me a pile of stockings to look over, lest Satan should find some more ornamental use for my idle hands; so I asked Mr. Dane for his socks too; and pretended that I should consider it a slight upon my skill if he refused.
That was our last night at Avignon, and early in the morning I packed for Arles, where we would sleep.But on the way we stopped at Tarascon, so splendid with its memories of Du Guesclin, and the towers of King René's great château reflected in a water-mirror, that no Tartarin could be blamed if he were born with a boasting spirit. And there are other things in Tarascon for its Tartarins to be proud of, besides the noble old castle where King René used to spend his springs and summers when he was tired of living in state at Aix. There is the church of Saint Martha, and the beautiful Hotel de Ville, and—almost best of all for its quaintness, though far from beautiful—the great Tarasque lurking in a dark and secret lair.
We couldn't go into the château, but perhaps it was better to see it only from the outside, and remember it always in a crystal picture, framed with the turquoise of the sky. Besides, not going in gave us more time for Beaucaire, just across the river—Beaucaire of the Fair; Beaucaire of sweet Nicolete and her faithful lover Aucassin.
I know a song about Nicolete of the white feet and hair of yellow gold, and I sang it below my breath, sitting beside my brother Jack, as we crossed the bridge. Although I sang so softly, he heard, and turned to me for an instant. "Youcansing!" he said.
"You don't like singing," I suggested.
"Only better than most things—that's all."
"Yet you didn't want me to sing the other night."
"That was because your hair was down. I couldn't stand both together."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you? All the better. Never mind tryingto guess. Let's think about the fair. Wouldn't you have liked to come here in the days when it was one of the greatest shows in all France?"
"I couldn't have come in a motor then."
"You're getting to be an enthusiast. You'll have to marry a millionaire with at least a forty-horse-power car."
"I happen to be running away from one now, in a sixty-horse-power car. But I don't want to think of him in this romantic country. The idea of Corn Plasters, near the garden where Nicolete's little feet tripped among the daisies by moonlight, is too appalling."
"Up on the hill are the towers of the castle where Aucassin was in prison for his love of Nicolete," said the chauffeur. "If only I can induce them to go there, and walk in the garden on the battlements! It's beautiful, full of great perfumed Provençal roses, and quantities of fleur-de-lys growing wild under pine trees and peering out of formal yew hedges. You never saw anything quite like it. Oh, I must manage the thing somehow."
"I think you could, in their present mood," said I. "They're quite properly honey-moony since the storm, which was a blessing in disguise. They'll go up, and feel romantic and young; but as for me—"
"You'll go up, andbethe things they can only feel. I should like to go with you there—" he broke off, looking wistful.
"Oh, do get some one to guard the car, and come," I begged him. "You've seen it all before?"
"Yes."
"You look as if the place had sentimental memories for you."
He smiled. "There is a sentiment attaching to it. Someday I may tell you—" he stopped again. "No, I don't think I'll do that."
Suddenly the thought of the garden was spoiled for me. I imagined that, in happier days, he must have walked there with a girl he loved. Perhaps he loved her still, only misfortune had come to him, and they could not marry. In that case, I'd been misjudging him, maybe. His bluntnesses and abruptnesses and coldnesses didn't mean that the compartments were "love-tight," as I'd fancied, but that they were already full to overflowing.
He did induce the Turnours to see the garden on the old battlements, and he did find a suitable watch-dog for the car in order to be my companion. And he was less self-conscious and happier in his manner than he had been since the first day or two of our acquaintance. Also the garden, starred with spring flowers, was even more lovely than I had expected. I ought to have enjoyed every moment there; but—it is never pleasant to be with a man when you think he is wishing that you were another girl.
"Was she pretty?" I couldn't resist asking.
For an instant he looked bewildered; then he understood. "Very," he replied, smiling. "About the prettiest girl I ever saw. The description of Nicolete would fit her very well. 'The clear face, delicately fine,' and all that. But I don't let my mind dwell much on girls in these days, when I can help it, as you can well imagine."
"And when you can't help it?" I wanted to know.
"Oh, when I can't help it, I feel like a bear with a sore head, and no honey in my hollow tree."
So that is why he is so disagreeable, sometimes! He is thinking of the girl of the battlemented garden at Beaucaire. I shall try and find out all about her; but I don't know that I shall feel better satisfied when I have.
The garden on the battlements at Beaucaire seemed to bring out all that's best in Lady Turnour, and she was—for her—quite radiant when we arrived at Arles. Not that it was much credit to her to be radiant, when the road had been perfect, and the car had behaved like an angel, as usual; but small favours from small natures are thankfully received; and just as it is a blight upon the spirits of the whole party when her ladyship frowns, so do we cheer up and hope for better things when she smiles.
As we were to spend the night at Arles, and arrived at the quaint, delightful Hôtel du Forum before lunch, even the working classes (meaning my alleged brother and myself) could afford that pleasant, leisured feeling which is the right of those more highly placed.
The moment we arrived I knew that I was going to fall in love with Arles, and I hurried to get the unpacking done, so that I might be free to make its acquaintance. Lady Turnour, still in her garden mood, told me to do as I liked till time to dress her for dinner, but to mind and have no more accidents, as all her frocks hooked at the back.
I am getting to be quite a skilled lady's-maid now, and am not sure it ought not to be my permanentmétier,though I do like to think I was born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. I unpacked my master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. In a twinkling everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as if it were growing wings as I flew off to my luncheon. The whole afternoon free, and the saints only knew what nice, unexpected adventures might happen! Cousin Catherine used to say, not meaning to be complimentary, that I "attracted adventures as some people seem to attract microbes," and I could almost hear them buzzing round my head as I ran down-stairs.
There, waiting for me as if he were an incarnate adventure, was the chauffeur, who appeared to be quite excited. "You must have a peep into the dining-room," he said. "The door's open. You can look in without being noticed, and see the walls, which are painted with pictures from Mistral's works. Also there's something else of interest, but I won't tell you what it is. I want to see if you can discover it for yourself."
I peeped, and found the pictures charming. After following them with my eyes all round the green walls which they decorate effectively, my gaze lit upon a man sitting at one of the small tables. He was with two or three friends who hung upon the words which he accompanied by the most graceful, spirited, yet unconscious gestures. Old he may have been as years go, but the fireof eternal youth was in his vivid dark eyes, and his smile, which had in it the tenderness of great experience, of long years lived in sympathy and love for mankind. His head was very noble; and its shape, and the way he had of carrying it, would alone have shown that he was Someone.
"Who is that man?" I whispered to Jack Dane. "That one who is so different from all the others."
"Can't you guess?" he asked.
"Not Mistral?"
"Yes. It's one of his days here. He'll be in the museum after lunch. I'll take you there, and if he sees that you're interested in things, he'll talk to you."
"Oh, how glorious!" I breathed, quite awed at the prospect. "But if he should find out that we're only lady's-maid and chauffeur?"
"Do you think it would matter to himwhowe were—a great genius like that? He wouldn't care if we were beggars, if we had souls and brains and hearts."
"Well, we have gotsomeof those things," I said. "Do let's hurry, and get to the museum before our betters. They can always be counted upon to spend an hour and a half at lunch if there's a good excuse, such as there's sure to be in this place, famous for rich Provençal cooking. Whereas Monsieur Mistral looks as if he would grudge more than half an hour on an occupation so prosaic as eating."
"Nothing could be prosaic to him," said Mr. Dane. "And that's the secret of life, isn't it? I think you have it, too, and I'm trying to take daily lessons from you.By the time we part I hope I shan't be quite such a sulky, discontented brute as I am now."
"By the time we part!" The words gave me a queer, horrid little prick, with just that nasty ache that comes when you jab a hatpin into your head instead of into your hat, and have got to pull it out again. I have grown so used to being constantly with him, and having him look after me and order me about in his dictatorial but curiously nice way, that I suppose I shall rather miss him for a week or two when this odd association of ours comes to an end.
It is strange how one ancient town can differ utterly from its neighbour, and what an extraordinary, unforgettable individuality each can have.
The whole effect of Avignon is mediæval. In Arles your mind flies back at once to Rome, and then pushes away from Rome to find Greece. All among the red, pink, and yellow houses, huddled picturesquely together round the great arena, you see Rome in the carved columns and dark piles of brick built into mediæval walls. The glow and colour of the shops and houses seem only to intensify the grimness and grayness of that Roman background, the immense wall of the arena. Greece you see in the eyes of the beautiful, stately women, young and old, in their classic features, and the moulding of their noble figures. (No wonder Epistemon urged his giant to let the beautiful girls of Arles alone!) You feel Greece, too, in the soft charm of the atmosphere, the dreamy blue of the sky, and the sunshine, which is not quite garish golden, not quite pale silver; a special sky and special sunshine, which seem to belong to Arlesalone, enclosing the city in a dream of vanished days. The very gaiety which must have sparkled there for happy Greek youths and maidens gives a strange, fascinating sadness to it now, as if one felt the weight of Roman rule which came and dimmed the sunlight.
It was delightful to walk the streets, to look at the lovely women in their becoming head-dresses, and to stare into the windows of curiosity shops. But there was the danger of committinglèse-majestéby running into the arms of the bride and groom at the museum, so "my brother" hurried me along faster than I liked, until the fascination of the museum had enthralled me; then I thanked him, for Mistral was there, for the moment all alone.
Mr. Dane hadn't told me that they had met before, but Monsieur Mistral greeted him at once as an acquaintance, smiling one of his illuminating smiles. He even remembered certain treasures of the museum which the chauffeur—in unchauffeur days—had liked best. These were pointed out and their interest explained to me, best of all to my romantic, Latin side being the "Cabelladuro d'Or," the lovely golden hair of the dead Beauty of Les Baux, that enchanted princess whose magic sleep was so rudely broken. We all talked together of the exquisite Venus of Arles, agreeing that it was wicked to have transplanted her to the Louvre; and Mistral's eyes rested upon me with something like interest for a moment as I said that I had seen and loved her there. I felt flattered and happy, forgetting that I was only a servant, who ought scarcely to have dared speak in the presence of this great genius.
"She seems to understand something of the charm of Provence, which makes our country different from any other in the world, does she not?" the poet said at last to my companion. "She would enjoy an August fête at Arles. Some day you ought to bring her."
Mr. Dane did not answer or look at me; and I was thankful for that, because I was being silly enough to blush. It was too easy so see what Monsieur Mistral thought!
"Why didn't you tell me you knew him already?" I asked, when we had reluctantly left the museum (which might be invaded by the Philistines at any minute) and were on our way to the famous Church of St. Trophime. That we meant to see first, saving the theatre for sunset.
"Oh," answered the chauffeur evasively, "I wasn't at all sure he'd remember me. He has so many admirers, and sees so many people."
"I have a sort of idea that your last visit to this part of the world was paiden prince, all the same!" I was impertinent enough to say.
He laughed. "Well, it was rather different from this one, anyhow," he admitted. "A little while ago it made me pretty sick to compare the past with the present, but I don't feel like that now."
"Why have you changed?" I asked.
"Partly the influence of your cheerful mind."
"Thank you. And the other part?"
"Another influence, even more powerful."
"I should like to know what it is, so that I might try to come under it, too, if it's beneficent," that ever-lively curiosity of mine prompted me to say.
"I am inclined to think it is not beneficent," he answered, smiling mysteriously. "Anyhow, I'm not going to tell you what it is."
"You never do tell me anything about yourself," I exclaimed crossly, "whereas I've given you my whole history, almost from the day I cut my first tooth, up to that when I—adopted my first brother."
"Or had him thrust upon you," he amended. "You see, you've nothing to reproach yourself with in your past, so you can talk of it without bitterness. I can't—yet. Only to think of some things makes me feel venomous, and though I really believe I'm improving in the sunbath of your example, which I have every day, the cure isn't complete yet. Until I am able to talk of a certain person without wanting to sprinkle my conversation with curses, I mean to be silent. But I owe it to you that I don'twantto curse her any more. A short time ago it gave me actual pleasure."
So it is to a woman he owes his misfortunes! As Alice said in Wonderland, it grows "mysteriouser and mysteriouser." Also it grows more romantic, when one puts two and two together; and I have always been great at that. The "sentimental association" of the battlement garden plus the inspiration to evil language, equal (in my fancy) one fair, faithless lady, once loved, now hated. I hate her, too, whatever she did, and I should like to box her ears. I hope she'squiteold, and married, and that she makes up her complexion, and everything else which causes men to tire of their first loves sooner or later. Not that it is anything to me, personally; but one owes a little loyalty to one's friends.
The porch and cloisters of St. Trophime's were too perfectly beautiful to be marred by a mood; but my brother Jack's mysteriously wicked sweetheart would keep coming in between me and the wonderful carvings in the most disturbing way. Some women never know when they are wanted! But I did my best to make Mr. Dane forget her by taking an intelligent interest in everything, especially the things he cared for most, though once, in an absent-minded instant, I did unfortunately say: "I don't admire that type of girl," when we were talking about a sculptured saint; and although he looked surprised I thought it too complicated to try and explain.
The afternoon light was burnishing the ancient stone carvings to copper when we left the cloisters of St. Trophime, took one last look at the porch, and turned toward the amphitheatre. We were right to have waited, for the vast circle was golden in the sunset, like a heavy bracelet, dropped by Atlas one day, when he stretched a weary arm; and the beautiful fragments of coloured marbles, which the Greeks loved and Christians destroyed, were the jewels of that great bracelet. The place was so pathetically beautiful in the dying day that a soft sadness pressed upon me like a hand on my forehead, and echoes of the long-dead past, when Greek Arles was a harbour of commerce by sea and river, or when it was Roman Arelate, rich and cruel, rang in my ears as we wandered through the cells of prisoners, the dens of lions, and the rooms of gladiators, where the young "men about town" used to pat their favourites on oiled backs, or make their bets on ivory tablets.
"If we were here by moonlight, we should see ghosts,"I said. "Come, let us go before it grows any darker or sadder. The shadows seem to move. I think there's a lion crouching in that black corner."
"He won't hurt you, sister Una," said my brother Jack. "There's one thing you must see here before I take you home—back to the hotel, I mean; and that is the Saracen Tower, as they call it."
So we went into the Saracen Tower, and high up on the wall I saw the presentment of a hand.
"That is the Hand of Fatima," explained the guide, who had been following rather than conducting us, because the chauffeur knew almost as much about the amphitheatre as he did. "You should touch it, mademoiselle, for luck. All the young ladies like to do that here; and the young men also, for that matter."
Instantly my brother lifted me up, so that I might touch the hand; and then I would not be content unless he touched it too.
I had dinner in the couriers' room that evening, with my brother, when I had dressed Lady Turnour for hers. We were rather late, and had the room to ourselves, for the crowd which had collected there at luncheon time had vanished by train or motor. There was a nice old waiter, who was frankly interested in us, recognizing perhaps that, as a maid and chauffeur, we were out of the beaten track. He wanted to know if we had done any sight-seeing in Arles, and seemed to take it as a personal compliment that we had.
"Mademoiselle touched the Hand of Fatima, of course?" he asked, letting a trickle of sauce spill out of a sauce-boat in his friendly eagerness for my answer.
"Oh, yes, I saw to it that she did that," replied Mr. Dane, with conscious virtue in the achievement.
"It is for luck, isn't it?" I said, to make conversation.
"And more especially for love," came the unexpected answer.
"For love!" I exclaimed.
"But yes," chuckled the old man. "If a young girl puts her hand on the Hand of Fatima at Arles, that hand puts love into hers. Her fate is sealed within the month, so it is said."
"Nonsense!" remarked Mr. Dane, "I never heard that silly story before." And he went on eating his dinner with extraordinary nonchalance and an unusual, almost abnormal, appetite.