The King In Yellow
by
Robert W. Chambers
Part 3 out of 5
I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow and
whose hearts are pure gold.
Far afield a woman cried, "I have killed him I loved!" and from a jar she
poured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose
hearts are pure gold.
Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while from
within the fresh blood bubbled to the brim.
"I have killed him I loved!" she cried. "The world's athirst; now let it
drink!" She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon the
flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.
DESTINY
I came to the bridge which few may pass.
"Pass!" cried the keeper, but I laughed, saying, "There is time;" and he
smiled and shut the gates.
To the bridge which few may pass came young and old. All were refused.
Idly I stood and counted them, until, wearied of their noise and
lamentations, I came again to the bridge which few may pass.
Those in the throng about the gates shrieked out, "He comes too late!"
But I laughed, saying, "There is time."
"Pass!" cried the keeper as I entered; then smiled and shut the gates.
THE THRONG
There, where the throng was thickest in the street, I stood with Pierrot.
All eyes were turned on me.
"What are they laughing at?" I asked, but he grinned, dusting the chalk
from my black cloak. "I cannot see; it must be something droll, perhaps
an honest thief!"
All eyes were turned on me.
"He has robbed you of your purse!" they laughed.
"My purse!" I cried; "Pierrot--help! it is a thief!"
They laughed: "He has robbed you of your purse!"
Then Truth stepped out, holding a mirror. "If he is an honest thief,"
cried Truth, "Pierrot shall find him with this mirror!" but he only
grinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak.
"You see," he said, "Truth is an honest thief, she brings you back your
mirror."
All eyes were turned on me.
"Arrest Truth!" I cried, forgetting it was not a mirror but a purse I
lost, standing with Pierrot, there, where the throng was thickest in the
street.
THE JESTER
"Was she fair?" I asked, but he only chuckled, listening to the bells
jingling on his cap.
"Stabbed," he tittered. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril,
the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after
year, through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for
her!"
"Stabbed," he tittered, listening to the bells jingling on his cap.
"Was she fair?" I asked, but he only snarled, muttering to the bells
jingling on his cap.
"She kissed him at the gate," he tittered, "but in the hall his brother's
welcome touched his heart"
"Was she fair?" I asked.
"Stabbed," he chuckled. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril,
the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after year
through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!"
"She kissed him at the gate, but in the hall his brother's welcome
touched his heart."
"Was she fair?" I asked; but he only snarled, listening to the bells
jingling in his cap.
THE GREEN ROOM
The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror.
"If to be fair is to be beautiful," he said, "who can compare with me in
my white mask?"
"Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked of Death beside me.
"Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still."
"You are very beautiful," sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face
from the mirror.
THE LOVE TEST
"If it is true that you love," said Love, "then wait no longer. Give her
these jewels which would dishonour her and so dishonour you in loving
one dishonoured. If it is true that you love," said Love, "then wait no
longer."
I took the jewels and went to her, but she trod upon them, sobbing:
"Teach me to wait--I love you!"
"Then wait, if it is true," said Love.
THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS
"Ferme tes yeux a demi,
Croise tes bras sur ton sein,
Et de ton coeur endormi
Chasse a jamais tout dessein."
"Je chante la nature,
Les etoiles du soir, les larmes du matin,
Les couchers de soleil a l'horizon lointain,
Le ciel qui parle au coeur d'existence future!"
I
The animal paused on the threshold, interrogative alert, ready for flight
if necessary. Severn laid down his palette, and held out a hand of
welcome. The cat remained motionless, her yellow eyes fastened upon
Severn.
"Puss," he said, in his low, pleasant voice, "come in."
The tip of her thin tail twitched uncertainly.
"Come in," he said again.
Apparently she found his voice reassuring, for she slowly settled upon all
fours, her eyes still fastened upon him, her tail tucked under her gaunt
flanks.
He rose from his easel smiling. She eyed him quietly, and when he walked
toward her she watched him bend above her without a wince; her eyes
followed his hand until it touched her head. Then she uttered a ragged
mew.
It had long been Severn's custom to converse with animals, probably
because he lived so much alone; and now he said, "What's the matter,
puss?"
Her timid eyes sought his.
"I understand," he said gently, "you shall have it at once."
Then moving quietly about he busied himself with the duties of a host,
rinsed a saucer, filled it with the rest of the milk from the bottle on
the window-sill, and kneeling down, crumbled a roll into the hollow of his
hand.
The creature rose and crept toward the saucer.
With the handle of a palette-knife he stirred the crumbs and milk together
and stepped back as she thrust her nose into the mess. He watched her in
silence. From time to time the saucer clinked upon the tiled floor as she
reached for a morsel on the rim; and at last the bread was all gone, and
her purple tongue travelled over every unlicked spot until the saucer
shone like polished marble. Then she sat up, and coolly turning her back
to him, began her ablutions.
"Keep it up," said Severn, much interested, "you need it."
She flattened one ear, but neither turned nor interrupted her toilet. As
the grime was slowly removed Severn observed that nature had intended her
for a white cat. Her fur had disappeared in patches, from disease or the
chances of war, her tail was bony and her spine sharp. But what charms she
had were becoming apparent under vigorous licking, and he waited until she
had finished before re-opening the conversation. When at last she closed
her eyes and folded her forepaws under her breast, he began again very
gently: "Puss, tell me your troubles."
At the sound of his voice she broke into a harsh rumbling which he
recognized as an attempt to purr. He bent over to rub her cheek and she
mewed again, an amiable inquiring little mew, to which he replied,
"Certainly, you are greatly improved, and when you recover your plumage
you will be a gorgeous bird." Much flattered, she stood up and marched
around and around his legs, pushing her head between them and making
pleased remarks, to which he responded with grave politeness.
"Now, what sent you here," he said--"here into the Street of the Four
Winds, and up five flights to the very door where you would be welcome?
What was it that prevented your meditated flight when I turned from my
canvas to encounter your yellow eyes? Are you a Latin Quarter cat as I am
a Latin Quarter man? And why do you wear a rose-coloured flowered garter
buckled about your neck?" The cat had climbed into his lap, and now sat
purring as he passed his hand over her thin coat.
"Excuse me," he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with her
purring, "if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on this
rose-coloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver
clasp. For the clasp is silver; I can see the mint mark on the edge, as is
prescribed by the law of the French Republic. Now, why is this garter
woven of rose silk and delicately embroidered,--why is this silken garter
with its silver clasp about your famished throat? Am I indiscreet when I
inquire if its owner is your owner? Is she some aged dame living in memory
of youthful vanities, fond, doting on you, decorating you with her
intimate personal attire? The circumference of the garter would suggest
this, for your neck is thin, and the garter fits you. But then again I
notice--I notice most things--that the garter is capable of being much
enlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which I count five, are
proof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, as
though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems to
argue a well-rounded form."
The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside.
He murmured on: "Why should your mistress decorate you with an article
most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did she
come to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it the
caprice of a moment,--when you, before you had lost your pristine
plumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her good-morning? Of
course, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her
shoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring: 'Good-day, my lady.' Oh, it
is very easy to understand," he yawned, resting his head on the back of
the chair. The cat still purred, tightening and relaxing her padded claws
over his knee.
"Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautiful--your
mistress," he murmured drowsily, "and her hair is heavy as burnished
gold. I could paint her,--not on canvas--for I should need shades and
tones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow.
I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such
colours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skies
untroubled by a cloud--the skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses from
the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snow-drifts from mountains
which tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;--oh, much higher than our
moon here,--the crystal moons of dreamland. She is--very--beautiful, your
mistress."
The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped.
The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, her
paws relaxed and limp.
II
"It is fortunate," said Severn, sitting up and stretching, "that we have
tided over the dinner hour, for I have nothing to offer you for supper but
what may be purchased with one silver franc."
The cat on his knee rose, arched her back, yawned, and looked up at him.
"What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you prefer
beef? Of course,--and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for the
wines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from the
wood," with a motion toward the bucket in the sink.
He put on his hat and left the room. The cat followed to the door, and
after he had closed it behind him, she settled down, smelling at the
cracks, and cocking one ear at every creak from the crazy old building.
The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious, for a moment
doubtful, and her ears flattened in nervous expectation. Presently she
rose with a jerk of her tail and started on a noiseless tour of the
studio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, hastily retreating to the
table, which she presently mounted, and having satisfied her curiosity
concerning a roll of red modelling wax, returned to the door and sat down
with her eyes on the crack over the threshold Then she lifted her voice in
a thin plaint.
When Severn returned he looked grave, but the cat, joyous and
demonstrative, marched around him, rubbing her gaunt body against his
legs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring until
her voice mounted to a squeal.
He placed a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and with
a penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which had
served for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on the hearth.
The cat crouched before it, purring and lapping at the same time.
He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her busy with
the shredded meat, and when he had finished, and had filled and emptied a
cup of water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, taking her into his
lap, where she at once curled up and began her toilet. He began to speak
again, touching her caressingly at times by way of emphasis.
"Cat, I have found out where your mistress lives. It is not very far
away;--it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing which
I had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he is
almost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I bought
your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you with
needless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shall
not believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they say
she is hare-brained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor,
who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me to-night for the first
time, although we have always bowed to each other. He said she was very
good and very beautiful. He has only seen her once, and does not know her
name. I thanked him;--I don't know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabane
said, 'Into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all
things evil.' The sculptor looked confused, but when he went out with his
rolls, he said to me, 'I am sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she is
beautiful.'"
The cat had finished her toilet, and now, springing softly to the floor,
went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping the
garter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said: "There is
a name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a pretty
name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman's name, Elven is the name of a town.
In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds,
names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. I
know the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate
was unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that
name was Sylvia?"
He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched
before the closed door.
"The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear
rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers."
The cat mewed.
"Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not
my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness
and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these
names are very pleasant to me."
He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to the
stairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the little
sculptor's den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up the
worm-eaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he had
stood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it opened
and he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat
sprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. The
silence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a table
and on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, then
looked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery.
Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of dead
fires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, from which the
bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He
lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was
faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a
_canape_ and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap of
lace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders' meshes, long, crumpled
gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed
shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a
silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains
from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes
met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over
hair heavy as gold.
She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a
child's; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle
flickered in his hand.
At last he whispered: "Sylvia, it is I."
Again he said, "It is I."
Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through
the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and
relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the
Four Winds.
THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL
"Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by and by:
Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky."
The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little
remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the
window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over
her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and
bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it
rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of
lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the
threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as
the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped,
and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes were
fixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the
city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far
beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance
like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again,
receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter
piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the
slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp
and metallic--the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare
sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as
with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort.
In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding
clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut by
the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quays
and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized the
avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrow
streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky.
Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering the
pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the window-panes
and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearly
failed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised her
head, brushing the curls from her eyes.
"Jack?"
"Dearest?"
"Don't forget to clean your palette."
He said, "All right," and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floor
in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but the
firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of the
palette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colour-box. On the
lid was carved,
J. TRENT.
Ecole des Beaux Arts.
1870.
This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag.
The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars and
diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze
again in fern-like traceries.
A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind the
stove.
"Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?"
The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove.
"He's whining," she continued nervously, "and if it isn't because he's
hungry it is because--"
Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated.
"Oh, Jack," she cried, "another--" but her voice was drowned in the scream
of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead.
"That is the nearest yet," she murmured.
"Oh, no," he answered cheerfully, "it probably fell way over by
Montmartre," and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated
unconcern, "They wouldn't take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter;
anyway they haven't a battery that can hurt it."
After a while she spoke up brightly: "Jack, dear, when are you going to
take me to see Monsieur West's statues?"
"I will bet," he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to the
window beside her, "that Colette has been here to-day."
"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, "Oh, it's too
bad!--really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything! And I
warn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette--"
From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the sky,
passing above them with long-drawn screech which left the windows singing.
"That," he blurted out, "was too near for comfort."
They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily: "Go on, Sylvia,
and wither poor West;" but she only sighed, "Oh, dear, I can never seem to
get used to the shells."
He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her.
Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished frock
after them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down into her
lap.
"Don't go out to-night, Jack."
He kissed her uplifted face; "You know I must; don't make it hard for me."
"But when I hear the shells and--and know you are out in the city--"
"But they all fall in Montmartre--"
"They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struck
the Quai d'Orsay--"
"Mere accident--"
"Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!"
"And who will there be to get dinner?"
She rose and flung herself on the bed.
"Oh, I can't get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not to
be late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! I--I--cannot help it, and
you must be patient with me, dear."
He said, "It is as safe there as it is in our own house."
She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted it
and had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in silence.
After a moment he said: "Now, Sylvia, remember my courage is sustained by
yours. Come, I must go!" She did not move, and he repeated: "I must go."
Then she stepped back and he thought she was going to speak and waited,
but she only looked at him, and, a little impatiently, he kissed her
again, saying: "Don't worry, dearest."
When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street a
woman hobbled out of the house-keeper's lodge waving a letter and calling:
"Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur Fallowby!"
He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it:
"Dear Jack,
"I believe Braith is dead broke and I'm sure Fallowby is. Braith swears he
isn't, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your own conclusions.
I've got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I will let you fellows
in.
"Yours faithfully,
"West.
"P.S.--Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord! There is
something rotten there,--or it may be he's only a miser.
"P.P.S.--I'm more desperately in love than ever, but I'm sure she does not
care a straw for me."
"All right," said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; "but tell me, how
is Papa Cottard?"
The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the
lodge.
"Pere Cottard!" he cried cheerily, "how goes the wound to-day?"
He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lying
among the tumbled sheets.
"Better?" smiled Trent.
"Better," repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, "Have you any
news, Monsieur Jack?"
"I haven't been out to-day. I will bring you any rumour I may hear, though
goodness knows I've got enough of rumours," he muttered to himself. Then
aloud: "Cheer up; you're looking better."
"And the sortie?"
"Oh, the sortie, that's for this week. General Trochu sent orders last
night."
"It will be terrible."
"It will be sickening," thought Trent as he went not into the street and
turned the corner toward the rue de Seine; "slaughter, slaughter, phew!
I'm glad I'm not going."
The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered military
capes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad gamin hovered
over the sewer-hole on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope around his
waist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat, still warm and
bleeding.
"There's another in there," he yelled at Trent; "I hit him but he got
away."
Trent crossed the street and asked: "How much?"
"Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that's what they give at the St.
Germain Market."
A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with the
palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent.
"Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but," and here he swore
vilely, "the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now over
by the new hospital. I'll let you have this for seven francs; I can sell
it for ten in the Isle St. Louis."
"You lie," said Trent, "and let me tell you that if you try to swindle
anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and your
rats."
He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then he
tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it into
his mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he crouched,
motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forward
he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fierce
grey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the sewer.
"Suppose Braith should come to that," he thought; "poor little chap;" and
hurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered the
third house to the left.
"Monsieur is at home," quavered the old concierge.
Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the corner
and the iron basin and pitcher on the floor.
West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned Trent
to enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked up,
laughed, and shook hands.
"Any news?"
The perfunctory question was answered as usual by: "Nothing but the
cannon."
Trent sat down on the bed.
"Where on earth did you get that?" he demanded, pointing to a
half-finished chicken nestling in a wash-basin.
West grinned.
"Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it."
Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, "Oh, it's one of West's
exploits," but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the story
himself.
"You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a '_type_'
here, a fat banker, German-American variety. You know the species, I see.
Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, judging
it to be a favourable opportunity, I called on him.
"The villain lives in comfort;--fires, my boy!--fires in the ante-rooms!
The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and card up, leaving me
standing in the hallway, which I did not like, so I entered the first room
I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet on a table by the fire.
Down comes Buttons, very insolent. No, oh, no, his master, 'is not at
home, and in fact is too busy to receive letters of introduction just now;
the siege, and many business difficulties--'
"I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss my
card on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species of
Prussian pig, march out with the honours of war."
Trent shook his head.
"I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my own
conclusions," continued West. "Now about this chicken, half of it is for
Braith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will help me
eat my part because I'm not hungry."
"Neither am I," began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched faces
before him, shook his head saying, "What nonsense! You know I'm never
hungry!"
West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith's portion, but not
eating any himself, said good-night, and hurried away to number 470 rue
Serpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after Sedan, and
Heaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for the siege
came hard on the poor.
"That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she's in love with
West," said Trent. Then walking over to the bed: "See here, old man, no
dodging, you know, how much have you left?"
The other hesitated and flushed.
"Come, old chap," insisted Trent.
Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friend
with a simplicity that touched him.
"Seven sons," he counted; "you make me tired! Why on earth don't you come
to me? I take it d----d ill, Braith! How many times must I go over the same
thing and explain to you that because I have money it is my duty to share
it, and your duty and the duty of every American to share it with me? You
can't get a cent, the city's blockaded, and the American Minister has his
hands full with all the German riff-raff and deuce knows what! Why don't
you act sensibly?"
"I--I will, Trent, but it's an obligation that perhaps I can never even in
part repay, I'm poor and--"
"Of course you'll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent for
security. When you are rich and famous--"
"Don't, Trent--"
"All right, only no more monkey business."
He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again under
the mattress smiled at Braith.
"How old are you?" he demanded.
"Sixteen."
Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder. "I'm twenty-two, and
I have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned. You'll do
as I say until you're twenty-one."
"The siege will be over then, I hope," said Braith, trying to laugh, but
the prayer in their hearts: "How long, O Lord, how long!" was answered by
the swift scream of a shell soaring among the storm-clouds of that
December night.
II
West, standing in the doorway of a house in the rue Serpentine, was
speaking angrily. He said he didn't care whether Hartman liked it or not;
he was telling him, not arguing with him.
"You call yourself an American!" he sneered; "Berlin and hell are full of
that kind of American. You come loafing about Colette with your pockets
stuffed with white bread and beef, and a bottle of wine at thirty francs
and you can't really afford to give a dollar to the American Ambulance and
Public Assistance, which Braith does, and he's half starved!"
Hartman retreated to the curbstone, but West followed him, his face like a
thunder-cloud. "Don't you dare to call yourself a countryman of mine," he
growled,--"no,--nor an artist either! Artists don't worm themselves into
the service of the Public Defence where they do nothing but feed like rats
on the people's food! And I'll tell you now," he continued dropping his
voice, for Hartman had started as though stung, "you might better keep
away from that Alsatian Brasserie and the smug-faced thieves who haunt it.
You know what they do with suspects!"
"You lie, you hound!" screamed Hartman, and flung the bottle in his hand
straight at West's face. West had him by the throat in a second, and
forcing him against the dead wall shook him wickedly.
"Now you listen to me," he muttered, through his clenched teeth. "You are
already a suspect and--I swear--I believe you are a paid spy! It isn't my
business to detect such vermin, and I don't intend to denounce you, but
understand this! Colette don't like you and I can't stand you, and if I
catch you in this street again I'll make it somewhat unpleasant. Get out,
you sleek Prussian!"
Hartman had managed to drag a knife from his pocket, but West tore it from
him and hurled him into the gutter. A gamin who had seen this burst into a
peal of laughter, which rattled harshly in the silent street. Then
everywhere windows were raised and rows of haggard faces appeared
demanding to know why people should laugh in the starving city.
"Is it a victory?" murmured one.
"Look at that," cried West as Hartman picked himself up from the pavement,
"look! you miser! look at those faces!" But Hartman gave _him_ a look
which he never forgot, and walked away without a word. Trent, who suddenly
appeared at the corner, glanced curiously at West, who merely nodded
toward his door saying, "Come in; Fallowby's upstairs."
"What are you doing with that knife?" demanded Fallowby, as he and Trent
entered the studio.
West looked at his wounded hand, which still clutched the knife, but
saying, "Cut myself by accident," tossed it into a corner and washed the
blood from his fingers.
Fallowby, fat and lazy, watched him without comment, but Trent, half
divining how things had turned, walked over to Fallowby smiling.
"I've a bone to pick with you!" he said.
"Where is it? I'm hungry," replied Fallowby with affected eagerness, but
Trent, frowning, told him to listen.
"How much did I advance you a week ago?"
"Three hundred and eighty francs," replied the other, with a squirm of
contrition.
"Where is it?"
Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cut
short by Trent.
"I know; you blew it in;--you always blow it in. I don't care a rap what
you did before the siege: I know you are rich and have a right to dispose
of your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, it
is none of my business. But _now_ it is my business, as I have to supply
the funds until you get some more, which you won't until the siege is
ended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won't see it
thrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me,
but that isn't the question; and, anyway, it's the opinion of your
friends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinence
from fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this famine-cursed
city of skeletons!"
"I _am_ rather stout," he admitted.
"Is it true you are out of money?" demanded Trent.
"Yes, I am," sighed the other.
"That roast sucking pig on the rue St. Honore,--is it there yet?"
continued Trent.
"Wh--at?" stammered the feeble one.
"Ah--I thought so! I caught you in ecstasy before that sucking pig at
least a dozen times!"
Then laughing, he presented Fallowby with a roll of twenty franc pieces
saying: "If these go for luxuries you must live on your own flesh," and
went over to aid West, who sat beside the wash-basin binding up his hand.
West suffered him to tie the knot, and then said: "You remember,
yesterday, when I left you and Braith to take the chicken to Colette."
"Chicken! Good heavens!" moaned Fallowby.
"Chicken," repeated West, enjoying Fallowby's grief;--"I--that is, I must
explain that things are changed. Colette and I--are to be married--"
"What--what about the chicken?" groaned Fallowby.
"Shut up!" laughed Trent, and slipping his arm through West's, walked to
the stairway.
"The poor little thing," said West, "just think, not a splinter of
firewood for a week and wouldn't tell me because she thought I needed
it for my clay figure. Whew! When I heard it I smashed that smirking
clay nymph to pieces, and the rest can freeze and be hanged!" After a
moment he added timidly: "Won't you call on your way down and say _bon
soir_? It's No. 17."
"Yes," said Trent, and he went out softly closing the door behind.
He stopped on the third landing, lighted a match, scanned the numbers over
the row of dingy doors, and knocked at No. 17.
"C'est toi Georges?" The door opened.
"Oh, pardon, Monsieur Jack, I thought it was Monsieur West," then blushing
furiously, "Oh, I see you have heard! Oh, thank you so much for your
wishes, and I'm sure we love each other very much,--and I'm dying to see
Sylvia and tell her and--"
"And what?" laughed Trent.
"I am very happy," she sighed.
"He's pure gold," returned Trent, and then gaily: "I want you and George
to come and dine with us to-night. It's a little treat,--you see to-morrow
is Sylvia's _fete_. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorne, and
the Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged not
to bring anybody but himself."
The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages to
Sylvia, and he said good-night.
He started up the street, walking swiftly, for it was bitter cold, and
cutting across the rue de la Lune he entered the rue de Seine. The early
winter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear and
myriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had become
furious--a steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated by
the heavy shocks from Mont Valerien.
The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and
now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the
horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like a
bonfire.
"Good news!" a man shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if by
magic the streets were filled with people,--shivering, chattering people
with shrunken eyes.
"Jacques!" cried one. "The Army of the Loire!"
"Eh! _mon vieux_, it has come then at last! I told thee! I told thee!
To-morrow--to-night--who knows?"
"Is it true? Is it a sortie?"
Some one said: "Oh, God--a sortie--and my son?" Another cried: "To the
Seine? They say one can see the signals of the Army of the Loire from the
Pont Neuf."
There was a child standing near Trent who kept repeating: "Mamma, Mamma,
then to-morrow we may eat white bread?" and beside him, an old man
swaying, stumbling, his shrivelled hands crushed to his breast, muttering
as if insane.
"Could it be true? Who has heard the news? The shoemaker on the rue de
Buci had it from a Mobile who had heard a Franctireur repeat it to a
captain of the National Guard."
Trent followed the throng surging through the rue de Seine to the river.
Rocket after rocket clove the sky, and now, from Montmartre, the cannon
clanged, and the batteries on Montparnasse joined in with a crash. The
bridge was packed with people.
Trent asked: "Who has seen the signals of the Army of the Loire?"
"We are waiting for them," was the reply.
He looked toward the north. Suddenly the huge silhouette of the Arc de
Triomphe sprang into black relief against the flash of a cannon. The boom
of the gun rolled along the quay and the old bridge vibrated.
Again over by the Point du Jour a flash and heavy explosion shook the
bridge, and then the whole eastern bastion of the fortifications blazed
and crackled, sending a red flame into the sky.
"Has any one seen the signals yet?" he asked again.
"We are waiting," was the reply.
"Yes, waiting," murmured a man behind him, "waiting, sick, starved,
freezing, but waiting. Is it a sortie? They go gladly. Is it to starve?
They starve. They have no time to think of surrender. Are they
heroes,--these Parisians? Answer me, Trent!"
The American Ambulance surgeon turned about and scanned the parapets of
the bridge.
"Any news, Doctor," asked Trent mechanically.
"News?" said the doctor; "I don't know any;--I haven't time to know any.
What are these people after?"
"They say that the Army of the Loire has signalled Mont Valerien."
"Poor devils." The doctor glanced about him for an instant, and then: "I'm
so harried and worried that I don't know what to do. After the last sortie
we had the work of fifty ambulances on our poor little corps. To-morrow
there's another sortie, and I wish you fellows could come over to
headquarters. We may need volunteers. How is madame?" he added abruptly.
"Well," replied Trent, "but she seems to grow more nervous every day. I
ought to be with her now."
"Take care of her," said the doctor, then with a sharp look at the people:
"I can't stop now--goodnight!" and he hurried away muttering, "Poor
devils!"
Trent leaned over the parapet and blinked at the black river surging
through the arches. Dark objects, carried swiftly on the breast of the
current, struck with a grinding tearing noise against the stone piers,
spun around for an instant, and hurried away into the darkness. The ice
from the Marne.
As he stood staring into the water, a hand was laid on his shoulder.
"Hello, Southwark!" he cried, turning around; "this is a queer place for
you!"
"Trent, I have something to tell you. Don't stay here,--don't believe in
the Army of the Loire:" and the _attache_ of the American Legation slipped
his arm through Trent's and drew him toward the Louvre.
"Then it's another lie!" said Trent bitterly.
"Worse--we know at the Legation--I can't speak of it. But that's not what
I have to say. Something happened this afternoon. The Alsatian Brasserie
was visited and an American named Hartman has been arrested. Do you know
him?"
"I know a German who calls himself an American;--his name is Hartman."
"Well, he was arrested about two hours ago. They mean to shoot him."
"What!"
"Of course we at the Legation can't allow them to shoot him off-hand, but
the evidence seems conclusive."
"Is he a spy?"
"Well, the papers seized in his rooms are pretty damning proofs, and
besides he was caught, they say, swindling the Public Food Committee. He
drew rations for fifty, how, I don't know. He claims to be an American
artist here, and we have been obliged to take notice of it at the
Legation. It's a nasty affair."
"To cheat the people at such a time is worse than robbing the poor-box,"
cried Trent angrily. "Let them shoot him!"
"He's an American citizen."
"Yes, oh yes," said the other with bitterness. "American citizenship is a
precious privilege when every goggle-eyed German--" His anger choked him.
Southwark shook hands with him warmly. "It can't be helped, we must own
the carrion. I am afraid you may be called upon to identify him as an
American artist," he said with a ghost of a smile on his deep-lined face;
and walked away through the Cours la Reine.
Trent swore silently for a moment and then drew out his watch. Seven
o'clock. "Sylvia will be anxious," he thought, and hurried back to the
river. The crowd still huddled shivering on the bridge, a sombre pitiful
congregation, peering out into the night for the signals of the Army of
the Loire: and their hearts beat time to the pounding of the guns, their
eyes lighted with each flash from the bastions, and hope rose with the
drifting rockets.
A black cloud hung over the fortifications. From horizon to horizon the
cannon smoke stretched in wavering bands, now capping the spires and domes
with cloud, now blowing in streamers and shreds along the streets, now
descending from the housetops, enveloping quays, bridges, and river, in a
sulphurous mist. And through the smoke pall the lightning of the cannon
played, while from time to time a rift above showed a fathomless black
vault set with stars.
He turned again into the rue de Seine, that sad abandoned street, with its
rows of closed shutters and desolate ranks of unlighted lamps. He was a
little nervous and wished once or twice for a revolver, but the slinking
forms which passed him in the darkness were too weak with hunger to be
dangerous, he thought, and he passed on unmolested to his doorway. But
there somebody sprang at his throat. Over and over the icy pavement he
rolled with his assailant, tearing at the noose about his neck, and then
with a wrench sprang to his feet.
"Get up," he cried to the other.
Slowly and with great deliberation, a small gamin picked himself out of
the gutter and surveyed Trent with disgust.
"That's a nice clean trick," said Trent; "a whelp of your age! You'll
finish against a dead wall! Give me that cord!"
The urchin handed him the noose without a word.
Trent struck a match and looked at his assailant. It was the rat-killer of
the day before.
"H'm! I thought so," he muttered.
"Tiens, c'est toi?" said the gamin tranquilly.
The impudence, the overpowering audacity of the ragamuffin took Trent's
breath away.
"Do you know, you young strangler," he gasped, "that they shoot thieves of
your age?"
The child turned a passionless face to Trent. "Shoot, then."
That was too much, and he turned on his heel and entered his hotel.
Groping up the unlighted stairway, he at last reached his own landing and
felt about in the darkness for the door. From his studio came the sound of
voices, West's hearty laugh and Fallowby's chuckle, and at last he found
the knob and, pushing back the door, stood a moment confused by the light.
"Hello, Jack!" cried West, "you're a pleasant creature, inviting people to
dine and letting them wait. Here's Fallowby weeping with hunger--"
"Shut up," observed the latter, "perhaps he's been out to buy a turkey."
"He's been out garroting, look at his noose!" laughed Guernalec.
"So now we know where you get your cash!" added West; "vive le coup du
Pere Francois!"
Trent shook hands with everybody and laughed at Sylvia's pale face.
"I didn't mean to be late; I stopped on the bridge a moment to watch the
bombardment. Were you anxious, Sylvia?"
She smiled and murmured, "Oh, no!" but her hand dropped into his and
tightened convulsively.
"To the table!" shouted Fallowby, and uttered a joyous whoop.
"Take it easy," observed Thorne, with a remnant of manners; "you are not
the host, you know."
Marie Guernalec, who had been chattering with Colette, jumped up and took
Thorne's arm and Monsieur Guernalec drew Odile's arm through his.
Trent, bowing gravely, offered his own arm to Colette, West took in
Sylvia, and Fallowby hovered anxiously in the rear.
"You march around the table three times singing the Marseillaise,"
explained Sylvia, "and Monsieur Fallowby pounds on the table and beats
time."
Fallowby suggested that they could sing after dinner, but his protest was
drowned in the ringing chorus--
"Aux armes!
Formez vos bataillons!"
Around the room they marched singing,
"Marchons! Marchons!"
with all their might, while Fallowby with very bad grace, hammered on the
table, consoling himself a little with the hope that the exercise would
increase his appetite. Hercules, the black and tan, fled under the bed,
from which retreat he yapped and whined until dragged out by Guernalec and
placed in Odile's lap.
"And now," said Trent gravely, when everybody was seated, "listen!" and he
read the menu.
Beef Soup a la Siege de Paris.
Fish.
Sardines a la pere Lachaise.
(White Wine).
Roti (Red Wine).
Fresh Beef a la sortie.
Vegetables.
Canned Beans a la chasse-pot,
Canned Peas Gravelotte,
Potatoes Irlandaises,
Miscellaneous.
Cold Corned Beef a la Thieis,
Stewed Prunes a la Garibaldi.
Dessert.
Dried prunes--White bread,
Currant Jelly,
Tea--Cafe,
Liqueurs,
Pipes and Cigarettes.
Fallowby applauded frantically, and Sylvia served the soup.
"Isn't it delicious?" sighed Odile.
Marie Guernalec sipped her soup in rapture.
"Not at all like horse, and I don't care what they say, horse doesn't
taste like beef," whispered Colette to West. Fallowby, who had finished,
began to caress his chin and eye the tureen.
"Have some more, old chap?" inquired Trent.
"Monsieur Fallowby cannot have any more," announced Sylvia; "I am saving
this for the concierge." Fallowby transferred his eyes to the fish.
The sardines, hot from the grille, were a great success. While the others
were eating Sylvia ran downstairs with the soup for the old concierge and
her husband, and when she hurried back, flushed and breathless, and had
slipped into her chair with a happy smile at Trent, that young man arose,
and silence fell over the table. For an instant he looked at Sylvia and
thought he had never seen her so beautiful.
"You all know," he began, "that to-day is my wife's nineteenth birthday--"
Fallowby, bubbling with enthusiasm, waved his glass in circles about his
head to the terror of Odile and Colette, his neighbours, and Thorne, West
and Guernalec refilled their glasses three times before the storm of
applause which the toast of Sylvia had provoked, subsided.
Three times the glasses were filled and emptied to Sylvia, and again to
Trent, who protested.
"This is irregular," he cried, "the next toast is to the twin Republics,
France and America?"
"To the Republics! To the Republics!" they cried, and the toast was drunk
amid shouts of "Vive a France! Vive l'Amerique! Vive la Nation!"
Then Trent, with a smile at West, offered the toast, "To a Happy Pair!"
and everybody understood, and Sylvia leaned over and kissed Colette, while
Trent bowed to West.
The beef was eaten in comparative calm, but when it was finished and a
portion of it set aside for the old people below, Trent cried: "Drink to
Paris! May she rise from her ruins and crush the invader!" and the cheers
rang out, drowning for a moment the monotonous thunder of the Prussian
guns.
Pipes and cigarettes were lighted, and Trent listened an instant to the
animated chatter around him, broken by ripples of laughter from the girls
or the mellow chuckle of Fallowby. Then he turned to West.
"There is going to be a sortie to-night," he said. "I saw the American
Ambulance surgeon just before I came in and he asked me to speak to you
fellows. Any aid we can give him will not come amiss."
Then dropping his voice and speaking in English, "As for me, I shall go
out with the ambulance to-morrow morning. There is of course no danger,
but it's just as well to keep it from Sylvia."
West nodded. Thorne and Guernalec, who had heard, broke in and offered
assistance, and Fallowby volunteered with a groan.
"All right," said Trent rapidly,--"no more now, but meet me at Ambulance
headquarters to-morrow morning at eight."
Sylvia and Colette, who were becoming uneasy at the conversation in
English, now demanded to know what they were talking about.
"What does a sculptor usually talk about?" cried West, with a laugh.
Odile glanced reproachfully at Thorne, her _fiance_.
"You are not French, you know, and it is none of your business, this war,"
said Odile with much dignity.
Thorne looked meek, but West assumed an air of outraged virtue.
"It seems," he said to Fallowby, "that a fellow cannot discuss the
beauties of Greek sculpture in his mother tongue, without being openly
suspected."
Colette placed her hand over his mouth and turning to Sylvia, murmured,
"They are horridly untruthful, these men."
"I believe the word for ambulance is the same in both languages," said
Marie Guernalec saucily; "Sylvia, don't trust Monsieur Trent."
"Jack," whispered Sylvia, "promise me--"
A knock at the studio door interrupted her.
"Come in!" cried Fallowby, but Trent sprang up, and opening the door,
looked out. Then with a hasty excuse to the rest, he stepped into the
hall-way and closed the door.
When he returned he was grumbling.
"What is it, Jack?" cried West.
"What is it?" repeated Trent savagely; "I'll tell you what it is. I have
received a dispatch from the American Minister to go at once and identify
and claim, as a fellow-countryman and a brother artist, a rascally thief
and a German spy!"
"Don't go," suggested Fallowby.
"If I don't they'll shoot him at once."
"Let them," growled Thorne.
"Do you fellows know who it is?"
"Hartman!" shouted West, inspired.
Sylvia sprang up deathly white, but Odile slipped her arm around her and
supported her to a chair, saying calmly, "Sylvia has fainted,--it's the
hot room,--bring some water."
Trent brought it at once.
Sylvia opened her eyes, and after a moment rose, and supported by Marie
Guernalec and Trent, passed into the bedroom.
It was the signal for breaking up, and everybody came and shook hands with
Trent, saying they hoped Sylvia would sleep it off and that it would be
nothing.
When Marie Guernalec took leave of him, she avoided his eyes, but he spoke
to her cordially and thanked her for her aid.
"Anything I can do, Jack?" inquired West, lingering, and then hurried
downstairs to catch up with the rest.
Trent leaned over the banisters, listening to their footsteps and chatter,
and then the lower door banged and the house was silent. He lingered,
staring down into the blackness, biting his lips; then with an impatient
movement, "I am crazy!" he muttered, and lighting a candle, went into the
bedroom. Sylvia was lying on the bed. He bent over her, smoothing the
curly hair on her forehead.
"Are you better, dear Sylvia?"
She did not answer, but raised her eyes to his. For an instant he met her
gaze, but what he read there sent a chill to his heart and he sat down
covering his face with his hands.
At last she spoke in a voice, changed and strained,--a voice which he had
never heard, and he dropped his hands and listened, bolt upright in his
chair.
"Jack, it has come at last. I have feared it and trembled,--ah! how often
have I lain awake at night with this on my heart and prayed that I might
die before you should ever know of it! For I love you, Jack, and if you go
away I cannot live. I have deceived you;--it happened before I knew you,
but since that first day when you found me weeping in the Luxembourg and
spoke to me, Jack, I have been faithful to you in every thought and deed.
I loved you from the first, and did not dare to tell you this--fearing
that you would go away; and since then my love has grown--grown--and oh! I
suffered!--but I dared not tell you. And now you know, but you do not know
the worst. For him--now--what do I care? He was cruel--oh, so cruel!"
She hid her face in her arms.
"Must I go on? Must I tell you--can you not imagine, oh! Jack--"
He did not stir; his eyes seemed dead.
"I--I was so young, I knew nothing, and he said--said that he loved me--"
Trent rose and struck the candle with his clenched fist, and the room was
dark.
The bells of St. Sulpice tolled the hour, and she started up, speaking
with feverish haste,--"I must finish! When you told me you loved
me--you--you asked me nothing; but then, even then, it was too late, and
_that other life_ which binds me to him, must stand for ever between you
and me! For there _is another_ whom he has claimed, and is good to. He
must not die,--they cannot shoot him, for that _other's_ sake!"
Trent sat motionless, but his thoughts ran on in an interminable whirl.
Sylvia, little Sylvia, who shared with him his student life,--who bore
with him the dreary desolation of the siege without complaint,--this
slender blue-eyed girl whom he was so quietly fond of, whom he teased or
caressed as the whim suited, who sometimes made him the least bit
impatient with her passionate devotion to him,--could this be the same
Sylvia who lay weeping there in the darkness?
Then he clinched his teeth. "Let him die! Let him die!"--but then,--for
Sylvia's sake, and,--for that _other's_ sake,--Yes, he would go,--he
_must_ go,--his duty was plain before him. But Sylvia,--he could not be
what he had been to her, and yet a vague terror seized him, now all was
said. Trembling, he struck a light.
She lay there, her curly hair tumbled about her face, her small white
hands pressed to her breast.
He could not leave her, and he could not stay. He never knew before that
he loved her. She had been a mere comrade, this girl wife of his. Ah! he
loved her now with all his heart and soul, and he knew it, only when it
was too late. Too late? Why? Then he thought of that _other_ one, binding
her, linking her forever to the creature, who stood in danger of his life.
With an oath he sprang to the door, but the door would not open,--or was
it that he pressed it back,--locked it,--and flung himself on his knees
beside the bed, knowing that he dared not for his life's sake leave what
was his all in life.
III
It was four in the morning when he came out of the Prison of the Condemned
with the Secretary of the American Legation. A knot of people had gathered
around the American Minister's carriage, which stood in front of the
prison, the horses stamping and pawing in the icy street, the coachman
huddled on the box, wrapped in furs. Southwark helped the Secretary into
the carriage, and shook hands with Trent, thanking him for coming.
"How the scoundrel did stare," he said; "your evidence was worse than a
kick, but it saved his skin for the moment at least,--and prevented
complications."
The Secretary sighed. "We have done our part. Now let them prove him a spy
and we wash our hands of him. Jump in, Captain! Come along, Trent!"
"I have a word to say to Captain Southwark, I won't detain him," said
Trent hastily, and dropping his voice, "Southwark, help _me_ now. You know
the story from the blackguard. You know the--the child is at his rooms.
Get it, and take it to my own apartment, and if he is shot, I will provide
a home for it."
"I understand," said the Captain gravely.
"Will you do this at once?"
"At once," he replied.
Their hands met in a warm clasp, and then Captain Southwark climbed into
the carriage, motioning Trent to follow; but he shook his head saying,
"Good-bye!" and the carriage rolled away.
He watched the carriage to the end of the street, then started toward his
own quarter, but after a step or two hesitated, stopped, and finally
turned away in the opposite direction. Something--perhaps it was the sight
of the prisoner he had so recently confronted nauseated him. He felt the
need of solitude and quiet to collect his thoughts. The events of the
evening had shaken him terribly, but he would walk it off, forget, bury
everything, and then go back to Sylvia. He started on swiftly, and for a
time the bitter thoughts seemed to fade, but when he paused at last,
breathless, under the Arc de Triomphe, the bitterness and the wretchedness
of the whole thing--yes, of his whole misspent life came back with a pang.
Then the face of the prisoner, stamped with the horrible grimace of fear,
grew in the shadows before his eyes.
Sick at heart he wandered up and down under the great Arc, striving to
occupy his mind, peering up at the sculptured cornices to read the names
of the heroes and battles which he knew were engraved there, but always
the ashen face of Hartman followed him, grinning with terror!--or was it
terror?--was it not triumph?--At the thought he leaped like a man who
feels a knife at his throat, but after a savage tramp around the square,
came back again and sat down to battle with his misery.
The air was cold, but his cheeks were burning with angry shame. Shame?
Why? Was it because he had married a girl whom chance had made a mother?
_Did_ he love her? Was this miserable bohemian existence, then, his end
and aim in life? He turned his eyes upon the secrets of his heart, and
read an evil story,--the story of the past, and he covered his face for
shame, while, keeping time to the dull pain throbbing in his head, his
heart beat out the story for the future. Shame and disgrace.
Roused at last from a lethargy which had begun to numb the bitterness of
his thoughts, he raised his head and looked about. A sudden fog had
settled in the streets; the arches of the Arc were choked with it. He
would go home. A great horror of being alone seized him. _But he was not
alone._ The fog was peopled with phantoms. All around him in the mist they
moved, drifting through the arches in lengthening lines, and vanished,
while from the fog others rose up, swept past and were engulfed. He was
not alone, for even at his side they crowded, touched him, swarmed before
him, beside him, behind him, pressed him back, seized, and bore him with
them through the mist. Down a dim avenue, through lanes and alleys white
with fog, they moved, and if they spoke their voices were dull as the
vapour which shrouded them. At last in front, a bank of masonry and earth
cut by a massive iron barred gate towered up in the fog. Slowly and more
slowly they glided, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. Then all
movement ceased. A sudden breeze stirred the fog. It wavered and eddied.
Objects became more distinct. A pallor crept above the horizon, touching
the edges of the watery clouds, and drew dull sparks from a thousand
bayonets. Bayonets--they were everywhere, cleaving the fog or flowing
beneath it in rivers of steel. High on the wall of masonry and earth a
great gun loomed, and around it figures moved in silhouettes. Below, a
broad torrent of bayonets swept through the iron barred gateway, out into
the shadowy plain. It became lighter. Faces grew more distinct among the
marching masses and he recognized one.
"You, Philippe!"
The figure turned its head.
Trent cried, "Is there room for me?" but the other only waved his arm in a
vague adieu and was gone with the rest. Presently the cavalry began to
pass, squadron on squadron, crowding out into the darkness; then many
cannon, then an ambulance, then again the endless lines of bayonets.
Beside him a cuirassier sat on his steaming horse, and in front, among a
group of mounted officers he saw a general, with the astrakan collar of
his dolman turned up about his bloodless face.
Some women were weeping near him and one was struggling to force a loaf of
black bread into a soldier's haversack. The soldier tried to aid her, but
the sack was fastened, and his rifle bothered him, so Trent held it, while
the woman unbuttoned the sack and forced in the bread, now all wet with
her tears. The rifle was not heavy. Trent found it wonderfully manageable.
Was the bayonet sharp? He tried it. Then a sudden longing, a fierce,
imperative desire took possession of him.
"_Chouette!_" cried a gamin, clinging to the barred gate, "_encore toi mon
vieux_?"
Trent looked up, and the rat-killer laughed in his face. But when the
soldier had taken the rifle again, and thanking him, ran hard to catch his
battalion, he plunged into the throng about the gateway.
"Are you going?" he cried to a marine who sat in the gutter bandaging his
foot.
"Yes."
Then a girl--a mere child--caught him by the hand and led him into the
cafe which faced the gate. The room was crowded with soldiers, some, white
and silent, sitting on the floor, others groaning on the leather-covered
settees. The air was sour and suffocating.
"Choose!" said the girl with a little gesture of pity; "they can't go!"
In a heap of clothing on the floor he found a capote and kepi.
She helped him buckle his knapsack, cartridge-box, and belt, and showed
him how to load the chasse-pot rifle, holding it on her knees.
When he thanked her she started to her feet.
"You are a foreigner!"
"American," he said, moving toward the door, but the child barred his way.
"I am a Bretonne. My father is up there with the cannon of the marine. He
will shoot you if you are a spy."
They faced each other for a moment. Then sighing, he bent over and kissed
the child. "Pray for France, little one," he murmured, and she repeated
with a pale smile: "For France and you, beau Monsieur."
He ran across the street and through the gateway. Once outside, he edged
into line and shouldered his way along the road. A corporal passed, looked
at him, repassed, and finally called an officer. "You belong to the 60th,"
growled the corporal looking at the number on his kepi.
"We have no use for Franc-tireurs," added the officer, catching sight of
his black trousers.
"I wish to volunteer in place of a comrade," said Trent, and the officer
shrugged his shoulders and passed on.
Nobody paid much attention to him, one or two merely glancing at his
trousers. The road was deep with slush and mud-ploughed and torn by wheels
and hoofs. A soldier in front of him wrenched his foot in an icy rut and
dragged himself to the edge of the embankment groaning. The plain on
either side of them was grey with melting snow. Here and there behind
dismantled hedge-rows stood wagons, bearing white flags with red crosses.
Sometimes the driver was a priest in rusty hat and gown, sometimes a
crippled Mobile. Once they passed a wagon driven by a Sister of Charity.
Silent empty houses with great rents in their walls, and every window
blank, huddled along the road. Further on, within the zone of danger,
nothing of human habitation remained except here and there a pile of
frozen bricks or a blackened cellar choked with snow.
For some time Trent had been annoyed by the man behind him, who kept
treading on his heels. Convinced at last that it was intentional, he
turned to remonstrate and found himself face to face with a fellow-student
from the Beaux Arts. Trent stared.
"I thought you were in the hospital!"
The other shook his head, pointing to his bandaged jaw.
"I see, you can't speak. Can I do anything?"
The wounded man rummaged in his haversack and produced a crust of black
bread.
"He can't eat it, his jaw is smashed, and he wants you to chew it for
him," said the soldier next to him.
Trent took the crust, and grinding it in his teeth morsel by morsel,
passed it back to the starving man.
From time to time mounted orderlies sped to the front, covering them with
slush. It was a chilly, silent march through sodden meadows wreathed in
fog. Along the railroad embankment across the ditch, another column moved
parallel to their own. Trent watched it, a sombre mass, now distinct, now
vague, now blotted out in a puff of fog. Once for half-an-hour he lost it,
but when again it came into view, he noticed a thin line detach itself
from the flank, and, bellying in the middle, swing rapidly to the west. At
the same moment a prolonged crackling broke out in the fog in front. Other
lines began to slough off from the column, swinging east and west, and the
crackling became continuous. A battery passed at full gallop, and he drew
back with his comrades to give it way. It went into action a little to the
right of his battalion, and as the shot from the first rifled piece boomed
through the mist, the cannon from the fortifications opened with a mighty
roar. An officer galloped by shouting something which Trent did not catch,
but he saw the ranks in front suddenly part company with his own, and
disappear in the twilight. More officers rode up and stood beside him
peering into the fog. Away in front the crackling had become one prolonged
crash. It was dreary waiting. Trent chewed some bread for the man behind,
who tried to swallow it, and after a while shook his head, motioning Trent
to eat the rest himself. A corporal offered him a little brandy and he
drank it, but when he turned around to return the flask, the corporal was
lying on the ground. Alarmed, he looked at the soldier next to him, who
shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak, but something struck
him and he rolled over and over into the ditch below. At that moment the
horse of one of the officers gave a bound and backed into the battalion,
lashing out with his heels. One man was ridden down; another was kicked in
the chest and hurled through the ranks. The officer sank his spurs into
the horse and forced him to the front again, where he stood trembling. The
cannonade seemed to draw nearer. A staff-officer, riding slowly up and
down the battalion suddenly collapsed in his saddle and clung to his
horse's mane. One of his boots dangled, crimsoned and dripping, from the
stirrup. Then out of the mist in front men came running. The roads, the
fields, the ditches were full of them, and many of them fell. For an
instant he imagined he saw horsemen riding about like ghosts in the
vapours beyond, and a man behind him cursed horribly, declaring he too had
seen them, and that they were Uhlans; but the battalion stood inactive,
and the mist fell again over the meadows.
The colonel sat heavily upon his horse, his bullet-shaped head buried in
the astrakan collar of his dolman, his fat legs sticking straight out in
the stirrups.
The buglers clustered about him with bugles poised, and behind him a
staff-officer in a pale blue jacket smoked a cigarette and chatted with a
captain of hussars. From the road in front came the sound of furious
galloping and an orderly reined up beside the colonel, who motioned him to
the rear without turning his head. Then on the left a confused murmur
arose which ended in a shout. A hussar passed like the wind, followed by
another and another, and then squadron after squadron whirled by them into
the sheeted mists. At that instant the colonel reared in his saddle, the
bugles clanged, and the whole battalion scrambled down the embankment,
over the ditch and started across the soggy meadow. Almost at once Trent
lost his cap. Something snatched it from his head, he thought it was a
tree branch. A good many of his comrades rolled over in the slush and ice,
and he imagined that they had slipped. One pitched right across his path
and he stopped to help him up, but the man screamed when he touched him
and an officer shouted, "Forward! Forward!" so he ran on again. It was a
long jog through the mist, and he was often obliged to shift his rifle.
When at last they lay panting behind the railroad embankment, he looked
about him. He had felt the need of action, of a desperate physical
struggle, of killing and crushing. He had been seized with a desire to
fling himself among masses and tear right and left. He longed to fire, to
use the thin sharp bayonet on his chassepot. He had not expected this. He
wished to become exhausted, to struggle and cut until incapable of lifting
his arm. Then he had intended to go home. He heard a man say that half the
battalion had gone down in the charge, and he saw another examining a
corpse under the embankment. The body, still warm, was clothed in a
strange uniform, but even when he noticed the spiked helmet lying a few
inches further away, he did not realize what had happened.
The colonel sat on his horse a few feet to the left, his eyes sparkling
under the crimson kepi. Trent heard him reply to an officer: "I can hold
it, but another charge, and I won't have enough men left to sound a
bugle."
"Were the Prussians here?" Trent asked of a soldier who sat wiping the
blood trickling from his hair.
"Yes. The hussars cleaned them out. We caught their cross fire."
"We are supporting a battery on the embankment," said another.
Then the battalion crawled over the embankment and moved along the lines
of twisted rails. Trent rolled up his trousers and tucked them into his
woollen socks: but they halted again, and some of the men sat down on the
dismantled railroad track. Trent looked for his wounded comrade from the
Beaux Arts. He was standing in his place, very pale. The cannonade had
become terrific. For a moment the mist lifted. He caught a glimpse of the
first battalion motionless on the railroad track in front, of regiments on
either flank, and then, as the fog settled again, the drums beat and the
music of the bugles began away on the extreme left. A restless movement
passed among the troops, the colonel threw up his arm, the drums rolled,
and the battalion moved off through the fog. They were near the front now
for the battalion was firing as it advanced. Ambulances galloped along the
base of the embankment to the rear, and the hussars passed and repassed
like phantoms. They were in the front at last, for all about them was
movement and turmoil, while from the fog, close at hand, came cries and
groans and crashing volleys. Shells fell everywhere, bursting along the
embankment, splashing them with frozen slush. Trent was frightened. He
began to dread the unknown, which lay there crackling and flaming in
obscurity. The shock of the cannon sickened him. He could even see the fog
light up with a dull orange as the thunder shook the earth. It was near,
he felt certain, for the colonel shouted "Forward!" and the first
battalion was hastening into it. He felt its breath, he trembled, but
hurried on. A fearful discharge in front terrified him. Somewhere in the
fog men were cheering, and the colonel's horse, streaming with blood
plunged about in the smoke.
Another blast and shock, right in his face, almost stunned him, and he
faltered. All the men to the right were down. His head swam; the fog and
smoke stupefied him. He put out his hand for a support and caught
something. It was the wheel of a gun-carriage, and a man sprang from
behind it, aiming a blow at his head with a rammer, but stumbled back
shrieking with a bayonet through his neck, and Trent knew that he had
killed. Mechanically he stooped to pick up his rifle, but the bayonet was
still in the man, who lay, beating with red hands against the sod. It
sickened him and he leaned on the cannon. Men were fighting all around him
now, and the air was foul with smoke and sweat. Somebody seized him from
behind and another in front, but others in turn seized them or struck them
solid blows. The click! click! click! of bayonets infuriated him, and he
grasped the rammer and struck out blindly until it was shivered to pieces.
A man threw his arm around his neck and bore him to the ground, but he
throttled him and raised himself on his knees. He saw a comrade seize the
cannon, and fall across it with his skull crushed in; he saw the colonel
tumble clean out of his saddle into the mud; then consciousness fled.
When he came to himself, he was lying on the embankment among the twisted
rails. On every side huddled men who cried out and cursed and fled away
into the fog, and he staggered to his feet and followed them. Once he
stopped to help a comrade with a bandaged jaw, who could not speak but
clung to his arm for a time and then fell dead in the freezing mire; and
again he aided another, who groaned: "Trent, c'est moi--Philippe," until a
sudden volley in the midst relieved him of his charge.
An icy wind swept down from the heights, cutting the fog into shreds. For
an instant, with an evil leer the sun peered through the naked woods of
Vincennes, sank like a blood-clot in the battery smoke, lower, lower, into
the blood-soaked plain.
IV
When midnight sounded from the belfry of St. Sulpice the gates of Paris
were still choked with fragments of what had once been an army.
They entered with the night, a sullen horde, spattered with slime, faint
with hunger and exhaustion. There was little disorder at first, and the
throng at the gates parted silently as the troops tramped along the
freezing streets. Confusion came as the hours passed. Swiftly and more
swiftly, crowding squadron after squadron and battery on battery, horses
plunging and caissons jolting, the remnants from the front surged through
the gates, a chaos of cavalry and artillery struggling for the right of
way. Close upon them stumbled the infantry; here a skeleton of a regiment
marching with a desperate attempt at order, there a riotous mob of Mobiles
crushing their way to the streets, then a turmoil of horsemen, cannon,
troops without, officers, officers without men, then again a line of
ambulances, the wheels groaning under their heavy loads.
Dumb with misery the crowd looked on.
All through the day the ambulances had been arriving, and all day long the
ragged throng whimpered and shivered by the barriers. At noon the crowd
was increased ten-fold, filling the squares about the gates, and swarming
over the inner fortifications.
At four o'clock in the afternoon the German batteries suddenly wreathed
themselves in smoke, and the shells fell fast on Montparnasse. At twenty
minutes after four two projectiles struck a house in the rue de Bac, and a
moment later the first shell fell in the Latin Quarter.
Braith was painting in bed when West came in very much scared.
"I wish you would come down; our house has been knocked into a cocked hat,
and I'm afraid that some of the pillagers may take it into their heads to
pay us a visit to-night."
Braith jumped out of bed and bundled himself into a garment which had once
been an overcoat.
"Anybody hurt?" he inquired, struggling with a sleeve full of dilapidated
lining.
"No. Colette is barricaded in the cellar, and the concierge ran away to
the fortifications. There will be a rough gang there if the bombardment
keeps up. You might help us--"
"Of course," said Braith; but it was not until they had reached the rue
Serpente and had turned in the passage which led to West's cellar, that
the latter cried: "Have you seen Jack Trent, to-day?"
"No," replied Braith, looking troubled, "he was not at Ambulance
Headquarters."
"He stayed to take care of Sylvia, I suppose."
A bomb came crashing through the roof of a house at the end of the alley
and burst in the basement, showering the street with slate and plaster. A
second struck a chimney and plunged into the garden, followed by an
avalanche of bricks, and another exploded with a deafening report in the
next street.
They hurried along the passage to the steps which led to the cellar. Here
again Braith stopped.
"Don't you think I had better run up to see if Jack and Sylvia are well
entrenched? I can get back before dark."
"No. Go in and find Colette, and I'll go."
"No, no, let me go, there's no danger."
"I know it," replied West calmly; and, dragging Braith into the alley,
pointed to the cellar steps. The iron door was barred.
"Colette! Colette!" he called. The door swung inward, and the girl sprang
up the stairs to meet them. At that instant, Braith, glancing behind him,
gave a startled cry, and pushing the two before him into the cellar,
jumped down after them and slammed the iron door. A few seconds later a
heavy jar from the outside shook the hinges.
"They are here," muttered West, very pale.
"That door," observed Colette calmly, "will hold for ever."
Braith examined the low iron structure, now trembling with the blows
rained on it from without. West glanced anxiously at Colette, who
displayed no agitation, and this comforted him.
"I don't believe they will spend much time here," said Braith; "they only
rummage in cellars for spirits, I imagine."
"Unless they hear that valuables are buried there."
"But surely nothing is buried here?" exclaimed Braith uneasily.
"Unfortunately there is," growled West. "That miserly landlord of mine--"
A crash from the outside, followed by a yell, cut him short; then blow
after blow shook the doors, until there came a sharp snap, a clinking of
metal and a triangular bit of iron fell inwards, leaving a hole through
which struggled a ray of light.
Instantly West knelt, and shoving his revolver through the aperture fired
every cartridge. For a moment the alley resounded with the racket of the
revolver, then absolute silence followed.
Presently a single questioning blow fell upon the door, and a moment later
another and another, and then a sudden crack zigzagged across the iron
plate.
"Here," said West, seizing Colette by the wrist, "you follow me, Braith!"
and he ran swiftly toward a circular spot of light at the further end of
the cellar. The spot of light came from a barred man-hole above. West
motioned Braith to mount on his shoulders.
"Push it over. You _must_!"
With little effort Braith lifted the barred cover, scrambled out on his
stomach, and easily raised Colette from West's shoulders.
"Quick, old chap!" cried the latter.
Braith twisted his legs around a fence-chain and leaned down again. The
cellar was flooded with a yellow light, and the air reeked with the stench
of petroleum torches. The iron door still held, but a whole plate of metal
was gone, and now as they looked a figure came creeping through, holding a
torch.
"Quick!" whispered Braith. "Jump!" and West hung dangling until Colette
grasped him by the collar, and he was dragged out. Then her nerves gave
way and she wept hysterically, but West threw his arm around her and led
her across the gardens into the next street, where Braith, after replacing
the man-hole cover and piling some stone slabs from the wall over it,
rejoined them. It was almost dark. They hurried through the street, now
only lighted by burning buildings, or the swift glare of the shells. They
gave wide berth to the fires, but at a distance saw the flitting forms of
pillagers among the _debris_. Sometimes they passed a female fury crazed
with drink shrieking anathemas upon the world, or some slouching lout
whose blackened face and hands betrayed his share in the work of
destruction. At last they reached the Seine and passed the bridge, and
then Braith said: "I must go back. I am not sure of Jack and Sylvia." As
he spoke, he made way for a crowd which came trampling across the bridge,
and along the river wall by the d'Orsay barracks. In the midst of it West
caught the measured tread of a platoon. A lantern passed, a file of
bayonets, then another lantern which glimmered on a deathly face behind,
and Colette gasped, "Hartman!" and he was gone. They peered fearfully
across the embankment, holding their breath. There was a shuffle of feet
on the quay, and the gate of the barracks slammed. A lantern shone for a
moment at the postern, the crowd pressed to the grille, then came the
clang of the volley from the stone parade.
One by one the petroleum torches flared up along the embankment, and now
the whole square was in motion. Down from the Champs Elysees and across
the Place de la Concorde straggled the fragments of the battle, a company
here, and a mob there. They poured in from every street followed by women
and children, and a great murmur, borne on the icy wind, swept through the
Arc de Triomphe and down the dark avenue,--"Perdus! perdus!"
A ragged end of a battalion was pressing past, the spectre of
annihilation. West groaned. Then a figure sprang from the shadowy ranks
and called West's name, and when he saw it was Trent he cried out. Trent
seized him, white with terror.
"Sylvia?"
West stared speechless, but Colette moaned, "Oh, Sylvia! Sylvia!--and they
are shelling the Quarter!"
"Trent!" shouted Braith; but he was gone, and they could not overtake
them.
The bombardment ceased as Trent crossed the Boulevard St. Germain, but the
entrance to the rue de Seine was blocked by a heap of smoking bricks.
Everywhere the shells had torn great holes in the pavement. The cafe was a
wreck of splinters and glass, the book-store tottered, ripped from roof to
basement, and the little bakery, long since closed, bulged outward above a
mass of slate and tin.
He climbed over the steaming bricks and hurried into the rue de Tournon.
On the corner a fire blazed, lighting up his own street, and on the bank
wall, beneath a shattered gas lamp, a child was writing with a bit of
cinder.
"HERE FELL THE FIRST SHELL."
The letters stared him in the face. The rat-killer finished and stepped
back to view his work, but catching sight of Trent's bayonet, screamed and
fled, and as Trent staggered across the shattered street, from holes and
crannies in the ruins fierce women fled from their work of pillage,
cursing him.
At first he could not find his house, for the tears blinded him, but he
felt along the wall and reached the door. A lantern burned in the
concierge's lodge and the old man lay dead beside it. Faint with fright he
leaned a moment on his rifle, then, snatching the lantern, sprang up the
stairs. He tried to call, but his tongue hardly moved. On the second floor
he saw plaster on the stairway, and on the third the floor was torn and
the concierge lay in a pool of blood across the landing. The next floor
was his, _theirs_. The door hung from its hinges, the walls gaped. He
crept in and sank down by the bed, and there two arms were flung around
his neck, and a tear-stained face sought his own.
"Sylvia!"
"O Jack! Jack! Jack!"
From the tumbled pillow beside them a child wailed.
"They brought it; it is mine," she sobbed.
"Ours," he whispered, with his arms around them both.
Then from the stairs below came Braith's anxious voice.
"Trent! Is all well?"
THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS
"Et tout les jours passes dans la tristesse
Nous sont comptes comme des jours heureux!"
I
The street is not fashionable, neither is it shabby. It is a pariah among
streets--a street without a Quarter. It is generally understood to lie
outside the pale of the aristocratic Avenue de l'Observatoire. The
students of the Montparnasse Quarter consider it swell and will have none
of it. The Latin Quarter, from the Luxembourg, its northern frontier,
sneers at its respectability and regards with disfavour the correctly
costumed students who haunt it. Few strangers go into it. At times,
however, the Latin Quarter students use it as a thoroughfare between the
rue de Rennes and the Bullier, but except for that and the weekly
afternoon visits of parents and guardians to the Convent near the rue
Vavin, the street of Our Lady of the Fields is as quiet as a Passy
boulevard. Perhaps the most respectable portion lies between the rue de la
Grande Chaumiere and the rue Vavin, at least this was the conclusion
arrived at by the Reverend Joel Byram, as he rambled through it with
Hastings in charge. To Hastings the street looked pleasant in the bright
June weather, and he had begun to hope for its selection when the Reverend
Byram shied violently at the cross on the Convent opposite.
"Jesuits," he muttered.
"Well," said Hastings wearily, "I imagine we won't find anything better.
You say yourself that vice is triumphant in Paris, and it seems to me that
in every street we find Jesuits or something worse."
After a moment he repeated, "Or something worse, which of course I would
not notice except for your kindness in warning me."
Dr. Byram sucked in his lips and looked about him. He was impressed by the
evident respectability of the surroundings. Then frowning at the Convent
he took Hastings' arm and shuffled across the street to an iron gateway
which bore the number 201 _bis_ painted in white on a blue ground. Below
this was a notice printed in English:
1. For Porter please oppress once.
2. For Servant please oppress twice.
3. For Parlour please oppress thrice.
Hastings touched the electric button three times, and they were ushered
through the garden and into the parlour by a trim maid. The dining-room
door, just beyond, was open, and from the table in plain view a stout
woman hastily arose and came toward them. Hastings caught a glimpse of a
young man with a big head and several snuffy old gentlemen at breakfast,
before the door closed and the stout woman waddled into the room, bringing
with her an aroma of coffee and a black poodle."
"It ees a plaisir to you receive!" she cried. "Monsieur is Anglish? No?
Americain? Off course. My pension it ees for Americains surtout. Here all
spik Angleesh, c'est a dire, ze personnel; ze sairvants do spik, plus ou
moins, a little. I am happy to have you comme pensionnaires--"
"Madame," began Dr. Byram, but was cut short again.
"Ah, yess, I know, ah! mon Dieu! you do not spik Frainch but you have come
to lairne! My husband does spik Frainch wiss ze pensionnaires. We have at
ze moment a family Americaine who learn of my husband Frainch--"
Here the poodle growled at Dr. Byram and was promptly cuffed by his
mistress.
"Veux tu!" she cried, with a slap, "veux tu! Oh! le vilain, oh! le
vilain!"
"Mais, madame," said Hastings, smiling, "il n'a pas l'air tres feroce."
The poodle fled, and his mistress cried, "Ah, ze accent charming! He does
spik already Frainch like a Parisien young gentleman!"
Then Dr. Byram managed to get in a word or two and gathered more or less
information with regard to prices.
"It ees a pension serieux; my clientele ees of ze best, indeed a pension
de famille where one ees at 'ome."
Then they went upstairs to examine Hastings' future quarters, test the
bed-springs and arrange for the weekly towel allowance. Dr. Byram appeared
satisfied.
Madame Marotte accompanied them to the door and rang for the maid, but as
Hastings stepped out into the gravel walk, his guide and mentor paused a
moment and fixed Madame with his watery eyes.
Back to Full Books
|