Later in the afternoon I came out of the smoking room on the upper deck for a breath of fresh air. To my surprise I had hardly started for a turn among the rafts and lifeboats when I perceived the slender figure of Mademoiselle Duvernoy standing by the rail. I wentto her. One glance, and I knew that her mood had been melancholy.
“If you are going to indulge in the mopes—you know what the mopes are—the blues—I refuse to leave you alone.”
“But, Monsieur Littledale, I don’t see—” she began, drawing herself up.
“What business it is of mine?” I said, smiling. “No, no, you can intimidate me at other times—you do that, you know—but not now, when I feel that you are sad, and—please don’t go away,” I said hurriedly, as she began to draw her cape about her. “I want to talk to you.”
“But in France we don’t talk alone with young men,” she protested, yet I noticed that she lingered.
“You are not in France, now, and we are not alone,” I said, indicating a group of children who were playing on the opposite deck.
She glanced in the direction of my gesture.
“Please, I do want to talk to you.”
Her look came to my eyes, the first time that her glance had met mine openly, and in the look was gravity, friendliness, and a shade of uncertainty. Then she looked away, hesitating.
“It is a new country and a new life you are going to, Mademoiselle,” I said quickly, “and if our ways seem freer, you will find at the bottom that you can always count on one thing,—the friendship and protection of our men.”
“You have been very kind to me, Mr. Littledale,” she said solemnly.
“I did not mean that.”
She did not turn her glance from the horizon, but her head nodded twice, and a rare smile touched the corners of her lips.
For the last days the air had been growing clearer, vibrant with the vitality of younger skies: skies that had not been drenched in the suffering of many multitudes. In the west, the sun was falling below the green-blue horizon that wavered in sharp outline; a magnificent sweep of golden reds was spreading across the cloud-strewn skies; colors of hope and exaltation, colors of action. I, who had walked in doubts, felt the boundless youth and opportunity which came streaming towards me from the world of the future.
“It has been a privilege to meet you,” I said warmly. “I wish I could talk over—so many things with you.”
“Yes, I feel what is in your mind: you are torn between two ideas—”
“Two? Twenty! I listen to every one; to Magnus, who sometimes convinces me; to Brinsmade, whom I want to believe; to twenty different points of view I pick up in the smoking room. I want to see my way clear as an American, to something that stands out and thrills me as the one word ‘France’ thrills you. I want to have some beautiful ideal of my country to live for, and I can’t yet see what we stand for. I’ve lost all the smug, complacent ideas I had, and I don’t see anything else clearly.”
“I have felt that,” she said, in her simple way, unconscious of the intimacy into which we were drifting. “Yes, I have felt that often as I watched your face when you were listening to Mr. Magnus and Mr. Brinsmade.”
“They debate what’s going to happen to America in a hundred years! What interests me is what’s going to happen now.”
“Do you believe you will get into the war?”
“I hope so, from the bottom of my heart.”
“It will be a great awakening. We in France needed the war, too. You see only what is glorious in us now.You don’t know what went before. The heart of the people was pure in the great, beautiful fields of France, and that saved us. But we had begun to lose faith; we even said that we were decadent, that our day had passed. We were led by false leaders who talked to the people of their ‘rights,’ not of their duties. And these ‘rights,’—what were they? To do as they pleased, to seek to make life easier. They were breaking down the faith of the people, the faith in the family, with their right to live each for himself; the faith in France, with their internationalism; and their faith in God, which is at the bottom of it all.”
“Yes, so you said.”
“You do not believe?” she said, turning to me.
“I hope,” I said, after a moment’s pause.
“That may be enough for you, for you have traditions, traditions founded in faith. But is that enough for the people?”
“Magnus says it is just what keeps them from progressing.”
“How does he say that?”
“He says that the Church is a superstition worked in the interests of property. When the Church tells them that the reward will come in another life, it blinds them to what they can accomplish in this if they would organize and act.”
“Mr. Magnus is honest and logical, because he does not believe,” she said, to my surprise. “Those who are not honest with themselves are those who try to stand halfway.”
“But how would you answer him?” I said, troubled.
“By his own argument. If there is no future life, and therefore no faith, why should we not do anything we please—steal, murder; why should we abide by any law?”
“But he would supplant that by devotion to the Common State,” I said, rather awkwardly.
“Isn’t that just what the Prussians are doing, with all their pretensions of calling on God? Isn’t that why we hate the Prussian idea and resent it, because it has no faith, either in the sacredness of one’s word or in the feelings of humanity? Isn’t it founded on the idea of force, and isn’t that what would result from any State formed on agnosticism? Force, and only force, would prevail.”
“But would it?”
“Hasn’t it? Take our own Revolution: what happened? Didn’t it produce worse tyrants, men of force,—Marat, Robespierre? And what killed the Revolution? The attempt to destroy faith, in the abolishing of religion. You see, you are questioning yourself as though faith were only a spiritual speculation. It is much more than that, Mr. Littledale: it is the beginning and end of all political organization. Don’t you see?”
“When you speak, it is easy to be convinced,” I said, yielding to the honesty in her eyes and the impassioned ring of her voice.
The discussion had carried her out of herself. The stiff preciseness had gone. Her words, warm and glowing, thrilled me. It was not that she convinced me of what she said but that she convinced me of herself. I felt the woman in her, swept by generous impulses, glowing with a beautiful ideal,—a great nature, with so much need to give. She checked herself.
“Pardon. I am perhaps speaking too frankly.”
“No, no, you could never do that.”
I waited her pleasure, wishing to speak but finding no words, afraid of the interruption which might come.
“I wonder what you were like before? I cannot see you in your home. But I feel you have changed.”
She said it without looking at me, hardly aware that she had spoken her thoughts aloud.
“Yes, great changes—so great that it is hard to look back and understand myself. The first night there on the deck—you remember—I could not sleep, and I kept going back over what I had been. You, too; I felt you were awake, feverishly awake. Was I right?” She nodded, but without looking at me. “I rebelled at going back! Oh, that’s what war does for you. Whether you hate it or love it, it ends by creating about you a new life and the other becomes something incredible, something you wish to forget, something you don’t wish to interfere with your liberty of action. For, Mademoiselle, the thing that’s hard at first is to build up for yourself a new life that will satisfy, a new philosophy; a new code of morals,—something to die with, not to live by. All that is so different from the other thing that I have seen men at my side who loved their homes shrink from opening a letter. For when you have prepared yourself to die it is hard to remember how you have lived. That was what I was rebelling against,—the thought of going back, taking up life again, only to have to go through all the mental pain of readjustment.”
“You are going back?” she said, turning to me in surprise.
“I am on a furlough only.”
“I didn’t know—I did not realize.”
“You ask if there have not been great changes in my life? Many, so that I wonder what is coming. Up to the present, my life has been without meaning, and I have only just realized it. It’s the change—the contrast: the coming back has opened my eyes. It’s been drifting—just drifting—nothing else. I don’t suppose I had an idea that was really my own or that I had thought out. Was it my fault, or the education they gave me? Idon’t know. I went through school and college, with a nice collection of hand-picked acquaintances, wafted gently from one exclusive club to another. In the course of things I would have married in my own set a charming, irreproachable girl—a spoiled child, with entirely too much money—and settled down to the weary task of warding off boredom. Why I didn’t do it, I don’t know. A curious, rebellious pride, perhaps. I went abroad, to Paris, two years. Well, I came through that! I do not see them clearly yet or their relation to my life. They may have been necessary: time only will tell. I only know that the mobilization was like an escape into pure air. The rest? Just an acceptance of a thing that can’t be changed,—a happiness in finding some purpose.”
“Monsieur, all this has made you what you are,” she said, directly. “I did feel much of this. I felt this restlessness in you. And I think I know what you are going to do. You have qualities of the heart that will make you see clearly in the end; the qualities of the heart are sounder, truer than the qualities of the mind; make no mistake. Will you tell me about her? The young girl?”
“May I?” We had drawn a little together and stood looking over the rail at the tumbling swirl below. “After all, why not?” I added, hesitating.
“Monsieur, sometimes it is easier to speak of the deep things in our hearts to some one we meet just for a moment and never see again, when each is true of heart and understands.” She turned and a smile touched her lips,—a smile of dignity and friendliness. “I should not ask it if I did not think, if I did not feel very strongly, that I might help you to see a little clearer. She loves you, does she not?”
I did not realize then how strange the conversation was, nor the sudden intimacy that drew us together.
“It is easy to tell you anything, Mademoiselle,” I said,smiling back into her eyes. “But the situation is not just what you think. Do you believe in marriage without love?”
“I believe—we are taught to believe—that love should follow marriage,” she said, hesitating. “And if both are loyal—”
“That is your tradition; it is not ours. And you—is it always possible for you to control your hearts?”
“We are taught that such love can only mean tragedy and unhappiness,” she answered, staring away from me.
“Mademoiselle, it is Mr. Brinsmade’s daughter.” She looked up at this, startled. “We have grown up together. She is charming. I admire and respect her. Once, I thought it was a little more than that. But—but I do not love her. Let me tell you all. It would mean everything to me—power, opportunity, a big life—and Mr. Brinsmade would like it.” Then I told her of our conversation, as best I could remember. “And now, to be honest, I think—I believe that she cares for me and—yet I do not love her.”
“Your pride is very strong,” she said solemnly.
“I suppose it is.”
She considered a long moment before she began to speak.
“Monsieur, I feel, no matter what you may think to-day, your happiness lies there. The question of money is what makes it difficult to you, but it is a question that should not come into it at all. Mr. Brinsmade is right. Money is opportunity, to be utilized or to be thrown away. He is a man with big ideas, a man who goes forward, and you will go forward with him. I do feel I understand your nature more than you do yourself, perhaps. You need stability in life, a home, and a woman who loves you. A woman who is true, loyal and loves you, you will love in the end, believe me.”
“Mademoiselle, do you believe that you can make yourself love?”
“There are many kinds of love, Monsieur Littledale: loves that destroy us and wreck our lives; loves that pass; loves that we must fight down to be true to ourselves; but there is another love which is calm and security, which comes from mutual respect, the love that comes with sharing life together loyally; and that love will come later to you, for you have the qualities of the heart that count.”
“To some, to some brought up in different traditions, perhaps,” I said rebelliously. “But with myself—no.”
“Wait, the young girl is a woman, a charming woman now, and all the advantages are in her hands.”
“It is of course what I should do,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. Then, all at once, the incongruity of it struck me, and I broke into a laugh. “After all, there is one thing we forget.”
“What is that?”
“That all such things are quite unimportant: in a few months’ time I go back. It is not a time to be making such decisions.”
“You will come through safely, Monsieur Littledale,” she said, in a tone of deep conviction. “I know it. I feel it. I have strange intuitions sometimes. I see storm and trouble ahead but I see the end in happiness for you.” She could not have realized the gentleness which came into her voice. I knew that the secret of her change of manner was the introduction of a third. Was I altogether honest in permitting a serious discussion, for no thought of such a marriage was then in my mind. I watched her face eagerly, wondering at the gentle womanliness that came out of its hidden cell,—all unconsciousness and simplicity.
“And your mother—what is she like?” she said.
“Mother? Why, I don’t know how to describe her,” I said, in some perplexity. “I don’t know whether you’d understand. Mother goes in for public things—very strong on woman suffrage, charities, uplift, and pacifism. She’s a terrific worker. She has terrific convictions—terrific! The Governor’s a trump; a sort of country gentleman. He’s written quite a bit; he has convictions, too: other convictions. There’s six of us; all with convictions—separate convictions. Oh, we’d amuse you. A typical American family.”
She shook her head.
“That seems so strange; but don’t your families stand together?”
“Well, there’s one thing unites us,” I said, with a laugh. “We agree on our right to disagree.”
She frowned in some perplexity.
“I don’t think I understand a home like that.”
“It isn’t like your French idea of home. We are all tremendously devoted to each other but the thing you mean—the family tradition—the standing for one definite idea—that doesn’t exist.”
“Are you a happy race, I wonder?”
The question surprised me.
“I had never thought of that. I should say we are—yes—and yet—I don’t know: perhaps we are not. We are a nation of individualists, full of driving energy and ambition. We all want something we haven’t got. I’m afraid it’s rather a material ambition, usually. I’d like to believe it makes for the greatness of the country,—this restlessness, this discontent, this wanting to push up: but perhaps we do sacrifice a good deal to it. I haven’t thought over that much.”
“I think that what makes my nation truly great is that we are the happiest people in the world.”
“I don’t think I quite understand you.”
“Everything is so well ordered with us,” she said, and her voice softened as she spoke of loved things. “Just as our beautiful land is so well ordered: the fields so well laid out, the trees so well disciplined, the little, red-topped villages so clean and so prosperous, so in harmony. Just so in our family life: it is so well ordered. We have real grandmothers and real grandchildren, and our fathers are real heads of the family. I don’t think a Frenchwoman would want to have a husband who didn’t have authority, to whom she didn’t look up. And our mothers—you can never know the affection, the deference, the respect that surrounds them.”
“Yes, I know that: it’s a rare and beautiful thing.”
“We have such pride in what the family has stood for. We live as one, we surround the family life with so many quaint little customs. There is much beauty and simplicity in it, for we are willing to be happy as our grandfathers have been happy; and that happiness is not selfish; it means many, many sacrifices often, but that makes it true happiness because we cannot be happy unless we keep our pride in our ideals.” She stopped. “I don’t know if you understand me, but I think we study how to live more than you do. And, because we French are so happy together, we can give everything to keep that happiness undefiled and pass it down to our children.”
“Tell me of yourself—of your life,” I said, strangely moved.
She drew back, as though she had been unaware of a listener. The change was so instantaneous that it startled me.
“But—Monsieur—certain things I cannot discuss—”
“Yet you asked me the same questions, didn’t you?”
“I? But I—”
She was thrown into confusion—at loss for an answer—and, all at once, her face went red.
“I only want you to understand, Mademoiselle,” I said, with kindness, “that it seemed a natural thing. It was not an impertinence. I could never be impertinent to you.”
“You make me feel—” She hesitated again. “I am sorry—I didn’t realize. But you made me talk. It were better I should not; I knew I should not.”
“For heaven’s sake, why not?”
“I do not want to hurt you, Monsieur Littledale. You have been so kind, so generous; but you make me do things I don’t want to do,—things that are against my traditions, for I am traveling alone, unprotected—”
“Mademoiselle Duvernoy, I shall consider it a great privilege to be your friend now and hereafter.”
“That cannot be; it is not possible; it is not right. We go different ways in the world.”
“I don’t believe that—”
“We go different ways,” she repeated firmly. “If you will be generous, you will not ask any more—please.”
She ended so low that it came to me in a whisper.
“I can be generous, but not to that point,” I said obstinately. “I want another answer.”
“Monsieur Littledale, we are just chance acquaintances,” she said, bringing her hands together in impulsive entreaty. “There is no reason—”
“I do not believe we are what you say. It was something more than that which brought me to your side that first night here.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned to me, with startled eyes.
“The feeling that made me know you were in—in danger.”
“In danger!”
“In danger, Mademoiselle. I felt it so strongly that it sent me to you, and I did not dare leave you alone.”
I had no sooner said it than I realized how profoundly and fatally I had erred. The woman who faced me I had never seen before.
“Monsieur, you do not know me. I am not of a race of cowards. I do not take a coward’s way out of life.”
I looked at her, without power to answer,—amazed and baffled by the swift succession of emotions which had culminated in this erect and scornful pride. My eyes dropped before the look.
“Mademoiselle,” I said, at last. “I have offended you, I have offended you, when my only thought, from the moment I met you, has been to offer you all my friendship and deference. I am profoundly and miserably sorry.”
I left her and went down the deck to the farther rail. There was no resentment towards her,—only a weak, sinking misery that I should have wounded her. My ears were filled with the sound of her gentleness. I remembered only the hurt pride in her eyes. I saw her face in the mists of the twilight, her deep eyes looking gravely out at me.
“Good God! How could she think I would say or do word or deed to hurt her!” I said to myself, again and again.
“Monsieur Littledale?”
Unperceived, she had come to me. She was there, waiting at my side.
“Monsieur Littledale, I am sorry, too.”
Her hands were clasped before her, and the eyes that looked to me in compassion and forgiveness were blurred. I put out my hands blindly, but she had fled. I stood there, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, my heart pounding within me.
It was then I knew that I loved her.