Chapter III

At Saint-Graal André was waiting to lunch with him.

'When we were children,' Paul wrote in a letter to Mrs Winchfield, 'André, our gardener's son, and I were as intimate as brothers, he being the only companion of my sex and age the neighbourhood afforded. But now, after a separation of twenty years, André, who has become our curé, insists upon treating me with distance. He won't waive the fact that I am the lord of the manor, and calls me relentlessly Monsieur. I've done everything to entice him to unbend, but his backbone is of granite. From the merriest of mischief-loving youngsters, he has hardened into the solemnest of square-toes, with _such_ a long upper-lip, and manners as stiff as the stuff of his awful best cassock, which he always buckles on prior to paying me a visit. Whatever is a poor young man to do? At our first meeting, after my arrival, I fell upon his neck, and thee-and-thou'd him, as of old time; he repulsed me with a _vous_ italicised. At last I demanded reason. "Why _will_ you treat me with this inexorable respect? What have I done to deserve it? What can I do to forfeit it?" _Il devint cramoisi_ (in the traditional phrase) and stared.--This is what it is to come back to the home of your infancy.'

André, in his awful best cassock, was waiting on the terrace. It was on the terrace that Paul had ordered luncheon to be served. The terrace at Saint-Graal is a very jolly place. It stretches the whole length of the southern façade of the house, and is generously broad. It is paved with great lozenge-shaped slabs of marble, stained in delicate pinks and greys with lichens; and a marble balustrade borders it, overgrown, the columns half uprooted and twisted from the perpendicular, by an aged wistaria-vine, with a trunk as stout as a tree's. Seated there, one can look off over miles of richly-timbered country, dotted with white-walled villages, and traversed by the Nive and the Adour, to the wry masses of the Pyrenees, purple curtains hiding Spain.

Here, under an awning, the table was set, gay with white linen and glistening glass and silver, a centrepiece of flowers and jugs of red and yellow wine. The wistaria was in blossom, a world of colour and fragrance, shaken at odd moments by the swift dartings of innumerable lizards. The sun shone hot and clear; the still air, as you touched it, felt like velvet.

'Oh, what a heavenly place, what a heavenly day,' cried Paul; 'it only needs a woman.' And then, meeting André's eye, he caught himself up, with a gesture of contrition. 'I beg a thousand pardons. I forgot your cloth. If you,' he added, 'would only forget it too, what larks we might have together. _Allons, à table_.'

And they sat down.

If Paul had sincerely wished to forfeit André's respect, he could scarcely have employed more efficacious means to do so, than his speech and conduct throughout the meal that followed. You know how flippant, how 'fly-away,' he can be when the mood seizes him, how wholeheartedly he can play the fool. To-day he really behaved outrageously; and, since the priest maintained a straight countenance, I think the wonder is that he didn't excommunicate him.

'I remember you were a teetotaller, André, when you were young,' his host began, pushing a decanter towards him.

'That, monsieur, was because my mother wished it, and my father was a drunkard,' André answered bluntly. 'Since my father's death, I have taken wine in moderation.' He filled his glass.

'I remember once I cooked some chestnuts over a spirit-stove, and you refused to touch them, on the ground that they were alcoholic.'

'That would have been from a confusion of thought,' the curé explained, with never a smile.

But it was better to err on the side of scrupulosity than on that of self-indulgence.'

'Ah, that depends. That depends on whether the pleasure you got from your renunciation equalled that you might have got from the chestnuts.'

'You're preaching pure Paganism.'

'Oh, I'm not denying I'm a Pagan--in my amateurish way. Let me give you some asparagus. Do you think a man can be saved who smokes cigarettes between the courses?'

'Saved?' questioned André. 'What have cigarettes to do with a man's salvation?'

'It's a habit I learned in Russia. I feared it might relate itself in some way to the Schism.' And he lit a cigarette. 'I'm always a rigid Catholic when I'm in France.'

'And when you're in England?'

'Oh, one goes in for local colour, for picturesqueness, don't you know. The Church of England's charmingly overgrown with ivy. And besides, they're going to disestablish it. One must make the most of it while it lasts. Tell me--why can you never get decent _brioches_ except in Catholic countries?'

'Is that a fact?'

'I swear it.'

'It's very singular,' said André.

'It's only one of the many odd things a fellow learns from travel.--Hush! Wait a moment.'

He rose hastily, and made a dash with his hand at the tail of a lizard, that was hanging temptingly out from a bunch of wistaria leaves. But the lizard was too quick for him. With a whisk, it had disappeared. He sank back into his chair, sighing. 'It's always like that. They'll never keep still long enough to let me catch them. What's the use of a university education and a cosmopolitan culture, if you can't catch lizards? Do you think they have eyes in the backs of their heads?'

André stared.

'Oh, I see. You think I'm frivolous,' Paul said plaintively. 'But you ought to have seen me an hour or two ago.'

André's eyes asked, 'Why?'

'Oh, I was plunged in all the most appropriate emotions--shedding floods of tears over my lost childhood and my misspent youth. Don't you like to have a good cry now and then? Oh, I don't mean literal tears, of course; only spiritual ones. For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. I walked over to Granjolaye.'

André looked surprise. 'To Granjolaye? Have you--were you--'

He hesitated, but Paul understood. 'Have you heard from her? Were you invited?' 'Oh, dear, no,' he answered. 'No such luck. Not to the Château, only to the gates--the East Gate.' (The principal entrance to the home park of Granjolaye is the South Gate, which opens upon the Route Départementale.) 'I stood respectfully outside, and looked through the grating of the grille. I walked through the forest, by the Sentier des Contrebandiers.'

'Ah,' said André.

'And on my way what do you suppose I met?'

'A--a viper,' responded André. 'The hot weather is bringing them out. I killed two in my garden yesterday.'

'Oh, you cruel thing! What did you want to kill the poor young creatures for? And then to boast of it!--But no, not a viper. A lady.'

'A lady?'

'Yes--a real lady; she wore gloves. She was riding. I hope you won't think I'm asking impertinent questions, but I wonder if you can tell me who she is.'

'A lady riding in the Sentier des Contrebandiers?' André repeated incredulously.

'She looked like one. Of course I may have been deceived. I didn't hear her speak. Do you think she was a cook?'

'I didn't know any one ever rode in the Sentier des Contrebandiers.'

'Oh, for that, I give you my word of honour. A lady--or say a female--in a black riding-habit; dark hair and eyes; very pale, with red lips and things. Oh, I'm not trying to impose upon you. It was about half a mile this side of where the path skirts the road.'

'You might stop in the Sentier des Contrebandiers from January to December and not meet a soul,' said André.

'Ah, I see. There's no convincing you. Sceptic! And yet, twenty years ago, you'd have been pretty sure to meet a certain couple of small boys there, wouldn't you?'

'_Si fait_,' assented André. 'We went there a good deal. But we were privileged. The only boys in this country now are peasants' children, and they have no leisure for wandering in the wood. When they're not at school, they're working in the fields. As for their elders, the path is rough and circuitous; the high road's smoother and shorter, no matter where you're bound. Since our time, I doubt if twenty people have passed that way.'

'That argues ill for people's taste. The place is lovely. Underfoot, it's quite overgrown with mosses; and the branches interlace overhead. Where the sun filters through, you get adorable effects of light and shadow. It's fearfully romantic; perfect for making love in, and that sort of thing. Oh, if all the women hereabouts hadn't such hawk-like noses! You see, the Duke of Wellington was here in 1814.--No? He wasn't? I thought I'd read he was.--Ah, well, he was just over the border. But my lady of this morning hadn't a hawk-like nose. I can't quite remember what style of nose she did have, but it wasn't hawk-like. I say, frankly, as between old friends, have you any notion who she was?'

'What kind of horse had she?'

'Ah, there!' cried Paul, with a despairing gesture. 'You've touched my vulnerable point. I never shall have any memory for horses. I think it was black--no, brown--no, grey--no, green. Oh, what am I saying? I can't remember. Do--do you make it an essential?'

'She might have been from Bayonne.'

'Who rides from Bayonne? Fancy a Bayonnaise on a horse! They're all busy in their shops.'

'You forget the military. She may have been the wife of an officer.'

'Oh, horror! Do you really think so? Then she must have been frowsy and provincial, after all; and I thought her so smart and distinguished-looking and everything.'

'Or perhaps an Englishwoman from Biarritz. They sometimes ride out as far as this.'

'Dear André, if she were English, I should have known it at a glance--and there the matter would have rested. I have at least a practised eye for English women. I haven't lived half my life in England without learning something.'

'Well, there are none but English at Biarritz at this season.'

'She was never English. Don't try to bully _me_. Besides, she evidently knew the country. Otherwise, how could she have found the Sentier des Contrebandiers?--She wasn't from Granjolaye?'

'There's no one at Granjolaye save the Queen herself.'

'Deceiver! Manuela told me last night. She has her little Court, her maids-of-honour. I think my _inconnue_ looked like a maid-of-honour.'

'She has her aunt, old Mademoiselle Henriette, and a couple of German women, countesses or baronesses or something, with unpronounceable names.'

'I can't believe she's German. Still, I suppose there are _some_ Christian Germans. Perhaps....'

'They're both middle-aged. Past fifty, I should think.'

'Oh.--Ah, well, that disposes of them. But how do you know her Majesty hasn't a friend, a guest, staying with her?'

'It's possible, but most unlikely, seeing the close retirement in which she lives. She's never once gone beyond her garden, since she came back there, three, four, years ago; nor received any visitors. _Personne_--not the Bishop of Bayonne nor the Sous-Préfet, not even _feu_ Monsieur le Comte, though they all called, as a matter of civility. She has her private chaplain. If a guest had arrived at Granjolaye, the whole country would know it and talk of it.'

'Oh, I see what you're trying to insinuate,' cried Paul. 'You're trying to insinuate that she came from Château Yroulte.' That was the next nearest country-house.

'Nothing of the sort,' said André. 'Château Yroulte has been shut up and uninhabited these two years--ever since the death of old Monsieur Raoul. It was bought by a Spanish Jew; but he's never lived in it and never let it.'

'Well, then, where _did_ she come from? Not out of the Fourth Dimension? Who _was_ she? Not a wraith, an apparition? Why _will_ you entertain such weird conjectures?'

'She must have come from Bayonne. An officer's wife, beyond a doubt.'

'Oh, you're perfectly remorseless,' sighed Paul, and changed the subject. But he was unconvinced. Officers' wives, in garrison-towns like Bayonne, had, in his experience, always been, as he expressed it, frowsy and provincial.